VSMP Monster College AU

general random notes:

in general, everyone has a fully unique eye design (eye shape + eyelashes configuration + aegyosal or not, everyone in the MonCo cast has double lids). as you can see I don't draw in aegyosal or double lid crease on sketches. normally I don't even draw in the smaller eyelashes in the sketch, only the "eyeliner wing" part of the outline, but I decided to do so here just to show there are differences. expected, considering i tend to be obsessed with eyes.

when it comes to face shapes, it's a lot more rigidly baked into how i remember proportions when i need to consistently redraw a character over and over again. it's pretty much just round/pointed/squared shape combined with 0.5/0.75/1 line for how long the jaw area is.

i always draw noses the same from this head-on angle. I remember trying to put the mouths and noses at different heights when I first drew the 4 Roommates for the Pyro propaganda page, but it looked kinda cursed. welp, that's how simplified and stylized artstyles work ig. some things you just can't fit more detail into.

i legitimately have like 4 variations for eyebrows (straight, arched, soft curve, tiny "half drawn" eyebrows). i'm trying to utilize "less eyelid space (distance between top of eye and eyebrow) reads more masculine, more eyelid space reads more feminine" but at the same time it gets a bit wonky sometimes because i'm also trying to avoid creating weirdly small forehead, since I make the hair take up so much space. (i just like drawing super voluminous anime style hair and find more realistic hair kind of flat and boring.)

I do realize I drew the hair pretty much identically for every character that had wavy side parted bangs. Owen is meant to have tighter curls but it just doesn't really show since I habitually draw the same amount of curvature into squiggly lines. otherwise though everyone has a unique hairstyle for the faceblind (since hairstyle is more consistent between fanartists).

specific notes per character!

first time drawing Cam. erred on the side of generic because genuinely my "source" for him in this AU is a Harpy Express stream, which I've combined with a bunch of headcanon and mental gymnastics around how the hell I get Scott with his backstory to make sense in this AU since he needs to like. not be too evil? basically a character created of "well then that would be the case" through aforementioned backstory mental gymnastics. lowkey generic is still unique in this cast since most of the other characters fall on the side of unique. i like how his hair turned out here. his hair would've grown longer upon reaching stage 3 but he's long since cut it shorter and kept it that way. i tried to make him more of a "bright/innocent-looking" take on "eternal youth" while Scott is more like. stuck in the edgy & party phase. i sometimes want to draw characters played by the same CC with the same face & body template across series kind of like how characters played by the same actor will always look like them, even though that's probably not going to be a good idea for Block People played by Generic White People (for the most part). that is: i like this design but i fear when i get to drawing for BFSMP, Cam and Nom are going to look very similar.

first time drawing Ren as well. quite a lot of this is just building off what i've seen in how others draw him. there's not a lot here that's a unique decision. also it's a coincidence that Ren and Pearl are the only two with 1 full line of space for the jaw. like Pyro, he would be subject to "interpreting Minecraft skin literally" and have a very long (waist length) ponytail.

Cherri's the first repeat. I tried to keep her consistent with the last time I drew her (Pyro propaganda page). I like this design for her. the eye design is... coming along though. it looked a bit weird the first time I drew it, I think it looks less cursed this time, and I'll get used to it eventually. for the most part this is just a copy of her last portrait. with less effort in it as well, at least when it came to the hair. the sidebangs don't match as neatly.

I've drawn v!Scott quite a few times by now so I think I'm settling into a stable design I like for him. although admittedly I don't like this design as much for transferring to other Scott Smajor characters. like this is a design created early in my VSMP fixation solely based on the vibes and characterization from VSMP. fully leaning into "edgy manipulative unbothered diva" and also subject to a lot of me projecting any other vaguely adjacent fixation (like XLOV. he has like Rui's eye shape now.) like i do like this design in terms of it's unique and cool. and he has the most unique eye shape from the MonCo cast (some of the others have similar eye shapes with different eyelash configuration, his is fully no resemblance to anyone else). this design is great for v!Scott it's just like. i feel i might want to make something more "cutesy" for say bf!Scott. though also i should challenge myself to be versatile with the faces i've set, especially when the people who inspire them are versatile people who can pull off contrasting concepts.

ok Shelby might have the most unique eye shape as well since she has the super tall anime eyes. but that also could probably be considered early installment weirdness? since she was the first VSMP character I drew a design reference for and I didn't know how stylized I wanted to draw at that time. I draw most of the others with a "bishonen" sort of vibe (androgynous, "elegant pretty") and then Shelby is more classic shojo girl with the tall eyes and tall mouth. Shelby's very much meant to look all cutesy and innocent. with just a headshot, this leaves out the most annoying part of drawing her: the massive quantity of hair and her body proportions. her super long curly sidebangs are just a bit hard to clean up when lining, though her ridiculously long and poofy hair is also a fun character design element. joy and whimsy yallz. anyhow i tend to struggle with normal proportions? Shelby's meant to be very short and by default I tend to draw tall and lanky "cryptid proportions". like literally just vertically elongated to be somewhat uncanny. drawing characters meant to be short or even just average/normal makes them look kinda squashed to me mentally even though I know that's how people are supposed to look. consequence of too much callmespice probably.

Drift's face is pretty much just Ryujin, since the first time I drew her was on the Mr. Vampire redraw (I traced her from Ryujin there first then did her design reference). Definitely fits how she's meant to be more tomboy-looking. her sidebangs are more tightly curled than the rest of her hair, as they're specifically curled to be ringlets while the rest of it is natural wavy. MonCo Drift has glasses instead of a monocle to fit the modern setting and doesn't tie her hair. it's just a shoulder length bob instead of a low bun.

Apo is also more-or-less a copy of her last portrait. I've been pretty consistent with Apo's face. her outer eye corner is meant to be more rounded, which sets her apart from many other characters with a similar eye shape. the upper and outer parts of her eye outline should flow as a smooth curve instead of being two parts meeting with a corner. MonCo Apo's demon horns are the only consistent trait of her appearance that can't be altered by shapeshifting, although she tends to not change how her face looks so others can recognize her more easily.

ok Legs is the most generic of them all. I don't really enjoy drawing his character mainly because super short hair is out of my comfort zone. like yes I should learn how to draw a wider variety of characters. that's just a good thing for artists. unfortunately i have a specific type of character design i fixtate on and will spend all of my time drawing instead. ...he just ended up as simple basic guy. which again, is unique in this AU just because of how unusual everyone else is.

first time drawing Louis (or any Luanne character) but I think he turned out very cutesy, which is fitting for his characterization as 'innocent angel Owen is yearning for". he has a unique eye shape as well. big "puppy eyes". he's very soft and round. gentle looking. his hair is meant to be in one big braid at the back, about mid-chest length. I think he'd usually pull the braid over his shoulder so it hangs in front of him.

Pearl is also quite heavily based on how I've seen other people draw her. as well as a bit of CC!Pearl's facial structure (and a lot of stylization). and her official art. the official art should hold a lot of weight in terms of "canon references", and it usually does for me, with a couple exception cases like v!Scott where I've really made up my mind on how I want the character to look. I feel Pearl's braided sidebangs act as her main identifier. she also has a hair flower, though it's not super obvious in this sketch with all of the other things going on.

Elle is based off Marm! so her eye and eyebrow shape is based on how I would draw Marm. I also gave her long curled sidebangs to make her looks a bit more like Marm, though I kept her side-parted bangs and ponytail from her animatic appearance. in hindsight, Elle should be Musi if I had to assign her a CC counterpart, since she is voiced by Musi in Not Right, but it's too late. so yeah MonCo Elle is Marm but lesbian.

Avid's design is basically me combining various wildly different influences at random. his eye shape is my attempt at how I would stylize CC!Avid's eye shape. but also he's Chaeryeong in the Mr. Vampire redraw so he needs to look a little bit like her, hence having a longer, more oval face shape. his hair is very much shonen anime protagonist vibes with it being spiky and messy, though i kept the style of bangs from his official art.

Maddy is sort of based on vibes from old memories of KSMP and PEAK streams with Pyro and/or other POW-adjacent creators. and one specific v!Maddy fanart. so yeah she's supposed to to be the most classically elegant put together one of the 4 Roommates. MonCo Maddy is also supposed to be like... probably the third or fourth eldest of the cast? super long lived fae. keep in mind Pyro has been a cryptid aka in supernatural stasis for ~200 years. she's supposed to be like several centuries older than him, used to watching mortal humans go, finally finding a supernatural companion who she won't rapidly outlast. Maddy's hair is meant to be in a half-up ponytail in the back, and the flowers are on clips instead of a headband. She doesn't preserve the flowers like Cleo does, because her nature magic will keep them alive so long as they are near her.

M also falls into the category of "characters outside what i am used to drawing". I will probably never draw him again. I will probably almost never draw MythicalSausage characters in general. I just do not understand how to draw facial hair. he looks mildly cursed in this drawing and i don't know how to fix it. also i don't draw vampires with pointed ears. i just don't. but the MonCo AU fae (Maddy and M) have pointed ears.

Cleo's the only one who I've consistently kept asymmetrical sidebangs for. I managed to find a not cursed or unbalanced feeling way to draw it for her, though I have not quantified that to apply it to other characters. MonCo AU Cleo has her flowers but not her stage 3 crown. she's also the only feminine character to have only the "eyeliner wing" part on her eye outline and no upper lashes on the outer corner.

Owen is a balance I've had to find between "soft" and "scary". because like yeah on one hand his Minecraft skin is impossible to take seriously. but also he was one of the main villains and general edgy dramatic guy. he's majorly chilled out in this AU but still not particularly nice. he's got big eyes but also a thin face and sharp facial structure. I tried to do a "how would I stylize CC!Owen's eye shape" but i feel i went a good deal of course and just went. big eyes. with an attempt to figure out how to draw hooded eyes in my artstyle so it kinda fits his facial structure a bit more. somehow this resulted in him and Avid having the most similar eye shapes (upper semicircle arc, flatter lower line), with the difference between Avid having the highest part of the arc in the middle of each eye and Owen having the highest part closer to the inner corner instead of halfway. parallels ig. also Owen would sometimes have thin braids mixed into his hair from when Louis decides he wants to attempt to style it (because Owen himself will not). I've always drawn v!Owen with a half-up ponytail, even though it's probably more effort than the character would put in.

MonCo Pyro is essentially a recolour of stage 3 Pyro to keep his blue eyes and dark hair but also have his unique black sclerae. which actually means that he's the only character to have only an upper line defined for their eyes. I actually had to do a bit reverse engineering when I drew human v!Pyro to make his eyes make sense in my artstyle without the black sclerae. anyhow MonCo Pyro is kinda a combination of the things I like about each v!Pyro skin. also this drawing made me realize how similar Pyro and Abolish's hairstyles are in this AU. like they have the same bangs and super similar sidebangs with the difference being that I have to draw Abolish's sidebangs very narrow to not hide his earrings. sure MonCo Pyro has very long hair but I've drawn Abolish with his hair tied back a couple times recently and from the front it's really just very similar.

Abolish's defining feature really is just going to be the split-toned hair. It just stands out so much. His hairstyle is another variant of "wolf cut" meaning it tends to look similar to Apo even when it doesn't happen to look similar to Pyro on pure shapes/lineart. I've been drawing Abolish a lot lately, so I've found a consistent design for his face that fits his character's balance of soft and sharp. I'm trying to hold back from projecting on him too much, I know he's played by a white CC, but there definitely is some amount of projecting in how my subconscious wants to design him. which I'm putting under the fine and fair joy and whimsy category since i feel there are still fanartists out there who project significantly harder than me.

I feel my design for Martyn is stuck in a slightly cursed spot since the first time I drew him was in crimus vapris, where his portrait was kinda cursed since it was facing to the viewer's right, which is harder for me to draw as a right-handed person. i alleviated it somewhat by drawing it flipped but it still looked a bit iffy. that portrait is also the origin of v!Martyn having super upturned tsurime eyes. i felt he has the spunky anime protagonist vibes to him ok? he just has so much energy. all-around chaotic guy. i want his hair to be spiky but at the same time not too long, so with his headband, it looks a bit more toned down than what's going on with Avid. but like even though I feel the super upturned eyes don't really fit Martyn's character I don't know what I'd change it to that would fit better. so this is how it is.

woohoo that's all of the yaps!

yapping about MonCo AU lore!

yes, the Ruby Manor dorms are irregular in size. the largest room by occupancy is the 4 person room, which is shared by Maddy, Pyro, Apo, and Cherri. there's also one 3 person room, shared by Avid, Elle, and Drift. there are a couple pairs: Cleo & Pearl, Louis & Owen, Scott & Shelby. Everyone else has no roommate, although Legs has a 2-bed room with a spare bed (that is lowkey treated like a hospital bed).

M calls the 4 person room the "double dating roommates". all 4 of them have asked him to please stop saying that. he has not stopped saying it. to be fair, the 4 of them do hang out a lot and sometimes it does feel like a "double dating" situation.

I did not realize that in the MonCo AU, Pyro has longer hair than the 3 feminine characters he rooms with until I drew these references. it's probably a consequence of directly translating the proportions from the Event V!Pyro skin- most other fanarts I've seen using the ponytail hairstyle tend to make it more reasonable looking and not a literal waist-length ponytail.

Shelby still definitely has the longest hair of the MonCo cast though. which is also a consequence of forcing the proportions to be as close to the Minecraft skin as I can- mid-thigh-length curls is a bit ridiculous on a non-Minecraft character base, but alas. my need for "accuracy".

when it comes to relationships, Shelby and Pyro are still friends in the MonCo AU. Shelby didn't seek them out initially and Pyro generally does not initiate interactions, but after a bit they start to interact and get along well.

honestly, having Maddy and Cherri around in this AU means that Pyro and Apo are just generally having a better time. no Scott manipulation shenanigans, as it’d just get insta-blocked by those two the moment they notice any negative effects on their roommate. ...Majorscythe as a relationship basically doesn't exist in this AU because there's simply no logical basis for Scott and Pyro to interact with each other.

Pyro and Apo are still considered "Truffle's Parents". Truffle is one of the pigs in the animal collection the Monster College keeps for classes related to animal care & agriculture. Students can volunteer to take care of one of the animals for a couple extra merits to their house. (Merits are basically points for the year-long running competition between the houses/manor-dorms.) Truffle lives in the animal barn, and Pyro and Apo visit frequently (at least multiple times a day between both of them for feeding and cleaning and everything else necessary).

Dorito exists in the MonCo AU. They're a rat Pyro found in the basement cellar one day and decided to start feeding. He's trying to play it off as some sort of social experiment but basically he adopted one of the local rats for an emotional support pet that does live with him. Dorito has a little nest in his room and is like the world's most spoiled rat (since they also live with Maddy, a nature fae who can communicate with animals).

everyone thinks the 4 person room is going to have a "roommate divorce" at some point or experience issues since it's basically 2 established pairs thrown into one big room to live together. but surprisingly, there's actually minimal issues going on. Cherri made them all have a good long discussion on night 1 to resolve any potential issues that may arise.

to be fair, the 4 person room is also rarely all home. they don't have a ton of class overlap, so there's usually someone in class. Cherri is a fashion student with long studio hours, she's very frequently in the studio. similarly, Apo is also often doing studio work/modeling as an architecture student, or visiting Truffle. Pyro probably is in the room the least- he has Truffle care duty as well as a more academic/reading-writing course load that means he spends a lot of time at the library. Maddy is probably in the room the most- she has a somewhat reading-writing based course load but also isn't a library lurker, so she'll typically be doing homework in the dorm.

the main issue when it comes to the 4 person living together is of course the elephant in the room: fire girl and water boy. Cherri cannot touch water without being hurt, Pyro is constantly sopping wet and generates moisture. except most of this issue is bypassed when you consider how little they see each other despite being roommates. and when they are all together in one place, they've simply learned to always keep someone else between those two.

MonCo AU Pyro is often more comfortable underwater. after about 200 years as a cryptid, he's long gotten used to the drowning curse to the point they don't really notice it anymore. it's just their existence. it's normal now. he'll lurk at the bottom of the "lake" (large pond w. a bunch of weird stuff in it) if he feels like going somewhere others can't follow. he floods the bathtub to sleep in it so that his passive moisture curse doesn't wreck his surroundings. their roommates let them do this because he tends to come back to the dorm late at night (10-11pm or even later), and Maddy explained to them that it's not new.

so... MonCo AU Pyro is in general a lurker who... doesn't really understand social interaction. for those 200-ish years as a cryptid they had one person they regularly interacted with- Maddy. 3 roommates and Abolish and Shelby is enough for him. he's fine with just lurking somewhere alone to read or do something else peaceful/calming, that they tend not to notice their lack of interacting with others. and there are frequent times where he just doesn't want to interact with others or deal with the buzz of a populated area, so he goes to quiet places to lurk.

"Abolish secret room" is one of those things on the spoiler list of "stuff to be revealed in chapters" that I'm not going to fully explain here. But basically Abolish lives in this "servant's quarters" hidden room in the walls of Ruby Manor. His room is on the first floor and has an exterior window, so everyone knows it exists, but no one has figured out how to get in. Except Pyro. This means that Abolish's room is basically the Firelocke hangout and one of Pyro's "avoiding people" spots. Abolish is extremely chill about Pyro randomly visiting, often just to read and not chat. Abolish basically thinks anyone who's found out how to get to his room has "earned" the right to visit whenever.

about the Fledglingz drawing: yes, I genuinely do headcanon Shelby and Pyro to have an extreme height gap. Shelby is the shortest of the Ruby Manor crew at barely 5'. Pyro is one of the tallest at about 6'0. (dear gods k-pop has infected the way i speak with how i pluralize duo names with a z)

randomly feeling like i need to restate this as a reminder, but: MonCo AU Pyro has dark hair still. I just only bothered to shade in the black half of Abolish's hair to make the split colouring sufficiently obvious.

other MonCo AU Pyro reminder for the Firelocke doodle: he's basically got his eyes closed. he doesn't have eyeballs so his eyelids can't physically "close" much, but instead the blue iris & pupil part will disappear to leave only an empty black socket. i am realizing how cursed it looks after having drawn it... but that was the original point. MonCo AU Pyro is supposed to be cursed and uncanny.

despite this being supposed to be a Pyro-centric page, Abolish's ribbed sweater was probably the most difficult to draw detail. I do not know how I thought that thing was supposed to be constructed. the lines probably don't make perfect sense, don't overthink it.

okay, other difficult to draw bit, simply because i'm a bit out of practice with it: the hollow eye outline/"white eyelashes" for Abolish's right eye. can y'all please also consider this Abolish propaganda at this point?

Fledglingz have winter fits. thank you User Nickcaver for introducing me to the lovely concept of fur collar for Pyro, I will be stealing it as I desire. the jacket structure is mildly inspired by a SKZ Felix stage outfit but with a capelet slapped on top to make it read more as Pyro in vibes. this coat is probably the nicest thing MonCo AU Pyro owns and the most "Scott approved" when it comes to them being seen hanging out with his roommate-who-he's-somewhat-possessive-of. and also it is up to you whether Shelby is wearing leggings or if she's pulling a "shorts hidden under long sweater" and flexing her vampiric resistance to cold. I'm leaning towards the second because I think it's funnier if "year round miniskirts/shorts" is Shelby's fashion sense.

recently decided to start drawing Pyro with a mole where CC!Pyro has one, on the right side of his face. Just a small “character variety” detail since I’m a bit obsessed with building sufficient character variety.

All fae have the ability to use their "fae magic", which creates hardlight objects such as barriers, to enforce any written contract another being has signed with them as long as the writing is intact & undamaged. Fae magic barriers are basically indestructible, although fae cannot use this ability unless granted permission through contracts. It's very finnicky and oftentimes the only way they can find out if they can use it for something is to try (and it usually fails).

There are other elements of fae. They have different abilities and different wing colors. I just haven't introduced any yet.

All fae have pointed ears like elves. The fae wings aren't very big, the fae fly through magic not physics. Additionally, the fae can disguise their wings with magic to blend in with humans when necessary.

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ZombieCleo

Despite being a zombie in this AU, Cleo looks relatively not dead. For the most part, they appear to be a green-skinned human.

This is because Cleo was a zombie thrall before being turned into a zombie. In this AU, zombie bites that don't kill turn the human victim into a thrall: someone who will reawaken as a zombie shortly after death by any cause so long as enough of their body is intact for reanimation. Cleo was enthralled early in her childhood by her mother, and the members of her mother's zombie horde made sure that she always had enough of the infection in her for her to one day join them. For many decades, enthrallment slowed their aging and she was able to blend into human society, which caused the horde to make her do any job that required interacting with humans. Which is mostly food acquisition. Eventually, they desired more personal freedom, so as the "reward" for her help, the horde set up a quick, painless-as-possible death for them to turn. As she was only dead for a few minutes, Cleo doesn't look decomposed. She has a stitched-up cut at the base of her neck where it connects to her shoulder on her left side, which is the wound the horde used to kill and turn her.

Other zombies may look more decomposed. This is because zombies can also reanimate any sufficiently intact corpse. The more-decomposed zombies may be more feral and animalistic if enough of their brain has decomposed.

Zombies crave any organ meat but can survive off anything. They're basically impossible to "poison". They don't die of hunger, just become feral if starved. Raw organ meat keeps those who still have the capability of regular sentience and thinking, like Cleo, satiated and resistant to decomposing.

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What the hell is going on with Pyro?

So Pyro is the one who looks partially dead and generally worse-for-wear most of the time. The afterlife was not kind to him.

Pyro is a cryptid. Cryptids are rare. Ghosts happen when a person dies with an "unfinished mission" that the Holy Spirits deem they require another life for. Cryptids happen when a person dies with "unresolved motivation" aka the Holy Spirits decide you need to think about what you're doing more. Ghosts are resurrected in prime condition, cryptids tend to end up stuck for eternity in whatever messed up state they died in. As a result, ghosts are basically the same in terms of abilities, but cryptids have unique abilities based on their original cause of death.

Pyro's original death in the MonCo AU is drowning himself out of guilt after a few weeks of being unable to convince everyone that he didn't murder Czeslaw. In the moments before dying, he regretted the choice of dying and "giving up", taking the truth with him, which leads to the "unresolved motivation" general criteria. Their main ability is a curse that puts others in his constant state of drowning when he touches them with all 5 fingers on one hand. It's a "curse that can't be turned off", so he often keeps his left hand in his pocket or behind his back to avoid accidents, as he can no longer activate the curse on his right hand because it's missing a finger, from when his silver ring burnt it off upon resurrection.

MonCo AU Pyro has greyish skin and appears to have black sclerae, but it's actually empty black eye sockets. He still has blue eyes, but the iris & pupil of his eyes appear to be made of light or magic, and when his eyes "close", the blue iris & pupil part disappear to leave only the empty socket, their eyelids don't close anymore without the eyeball underneath. He has dark hair, but it's a bit blue-tinged instead of being fully brown, in a waist-length ponytail similar to Event V!Pyro. They resurrected after being swept downriver for... who knows how long, at least several hours, probably a day or two. They're battered, but the scars have healed with time, although they'll never truly go away.

Because of the drowning thing, they're constantly sopping wet, and seem to generate moisture around themself. Their insides are waterlogged, which means his voice sounds a bit water-distorted all the time, and he coughs up water if he laughs too hard. This gets mentioned in the Snow Day chapter I'm currently writing, but due to waterlogged insides he avoids going out in subzero weather because with no body heat (undead), he can freeze from the inside out, which is very bad for obvious reasons.

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Some other things about everyone's monster traits.

Scott, Cam, Owen, Louis, and Shelby are stage 3 vampires. They follow VSMP rules when it comes to vampire lore.

Abolish is a literal half-vampire, he has the split-coloured hair like his epilogue appearance.

Pearl and Ren are werewolves. They have red streaks mixed into their hair. Hence, Pearl's hair resembles that of her stage 2 skin. Ren's red streaks are mixed in with the darker sections of his hair, they kind of blend in more with the darker brown, so it doesn't stand out as much for him, especially since the bleached streaks are higher contrast. Their eyes are also dark red (darker than the vampires). They have wolf ears in human form but no other supernatural traits.

Avid and Elle are demonic wraiths. Their demonic traits are identical. Keep in mind that in this AU, Avid never became a vampire, so his non-demon side has the colours of his human appearance: greyish brown hair, purple eye. Elle is based off Marm, so she has dark brown hair and her human eye is blue.

For the most part, remember that the characters will retain their human appearance for stuff like hair color and eye color.

Apo is a tiefling, they can shapeshift freely and change any trait about their appearance except for their red demon horns. This included magical perfect solution to gender transition. They simply maintain the consistent appearance we associate with Apo (dark red hair and eyes, light skin) out of convenience.

Cherri, for the most part, resembles CB!Cherri. Her left eye is an empty socket overflowing with pink fire, and fiery pink rivulets spread out from it both up to her hairline and down to her jawline. Although it looks like fire, it's only slightly warm and safe to touch. She can cover up the rivulets with foundation and the eye socket with an eyepatch when she needs to blend in with humans. MonCo AU Cherri is a literal incarnation of fire who takes damage from water.

Maddy has ginger hair, green eyes, and relatively light skin, for those who aren't familiar with her.

Martyn is the only one who looks completely like a normal human, although the ghosts also blend in very well.

And everyone is physically in their late teens to early twenties.

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How the characters dress!

In general: MonCo AU is set during the modern day, and therefore the characters have modern fashion.

Cam is a bit of a generic preppy rich kid. Private school vibes. Dresses tidy. His regular skin's outfit works for MonCo AU Cam. He's a vampire and doesn't need glasses but he always wears black frames with a gold glasses chain.

Ren's style is based off both his VSMP outfit and his regular skin's outfit. A bit tacky, not the most particular. Likes suspender pants. Wears blue-tinted glasses like his regular skin. He was struggling with poverty before getting into the Monster College on emergency grant with Martyn, so his clothes are practical and from everyday, affordable brands.

Cherri's feminine yet practical. Knee-length skirts over pants, layered tops, tall socks and sneakers. Loves pink. Probably has "capsule wardrobe" tendencies: owns like 20 items of clothing total and mix-and-matches.

Scott's sense of style has been irreparably altered by punk trends. Leather jackets, ripped jeans, spiky accessories. But at the same time this is Scott Goldsmith, so he's also a luxury collector. His style is like Vivienne Westwood "luxury alt" vibes, more about experimenting with image than the subculture's original message. His epilogue outfit is the general vibe I'm using. modern "vampire goth" vibes, this guy instinctively ends up with the most stereotypical vampire look for the setting.

Shelby is very basic when left on her own. Hoodie + miniskirt is her go-to outfit. Values comfort. She was a serious shut-in before going to the Monster College, with her mother buying her some new clothes every now and then so her clothes didn't wear out. She did not care at all about trends. She probably didn't buy any clothes in general in the months between her mother's death and her going to college. But now her roommate is Scott, and she will go shopping with him for her whole “interact with people!” thing even though Scott often goes to high-end places where she can’t afford anything. He’ll buy her what she wants as a gift, though. Because he’s still got issues when it comes to comprehending emotions so his understanding of being nice to friends is to gift them expensive things. Also, Scott and Shelby share a closet- their room only has that one walk-in closet. Most of the stuff in there is Scott’s.

Drift is light academia and tomboyish. Puts in the effort to look tidy but not feminine. A pants, not skirts, person. The Motorcyclist Modern V!Drift hivemind headcanon applies to MonCo AU Drift. Honestly, for anyone with an epilogue look, that would work for the MonCo AU. (Although Shelby's outfit would be assumed to be something she got after Scott convinces her to care more about fashion.)

Apo is dark feminine. Definitely has a bit of influence from emo and other alt styles. Stripes, fishnets, layers. Likes chunky boots, as well as pieces that create the illusion of more layers such as a stacked skirt or combo shirt. DIY jewelry, would wear safety pins. Apo has issues with Scott since she's alt for the subculture and values the original message while he simply wants to look unique with no regard for the original message.

Legs is a practicality over appearances person. Always dresses semi-formal, he likes button-up collared shirts. Layers with vest and jacket as needed. golf guy vibes fashion sense. Probably has the generic “boring person” neutrals only color palette with some greens and blues here and there.

Louis is dark academia and honestly… has not changed his style much in the last 400 years. He’s the guy where once he finds something he likes he will cling to it. Definitely has a capsule wardrobe. And Owen’s “Louis really likes red” comment is canon to the MonCo AU. As in he doesn’t own anything that deviates from the red, white, black generic vampire color palette.

Pearl is very practical. Her fashion sense is similar to Pearl’s regular skins for stuff like Life Series/Hermitcraft. Zip-up hoodies, shorts, combat boots. Probably doesn’t wear skirts a lot. bold and dark winter palette.

Elle is the other “refuses to wear skirts/dresses” tomboy similar to Drift. Elle is very sporty, she prefers comfy athleisure type clothes. She tends towards dressing more casual. dark but muted autumn palette.

Avid is kinda basic and also would dress similarly to Elle. They don’t borrow each other’s clothes but you also would not notice the “style difference” between their clothing collections. He also probably lets Elle buy his clothes. do think he would have a brighter palette than Elle though, more spring or winter than her autumn. Honestly Avid is a guy whose thoughts are about building strange inventions and concocting explosive substances, not appearances. Shelby invited him, Elle, and Drift along once for a shopping trip with her and Scott, and let’s say Scott’s general opinion of him is Not Impressed.

Maddy is cottagecore yet practical. Like a trendy cottagecore mixed with athleisure elements. Pink and green colour scheme, warm yet muted summer palette. Likes ribbed knits. Cozy vibes. Sufficiently practical for an outdoorsy lifestyle- prior to the Monster College, she and Pyro lived out in the countryside away from humans, and she took care of most of the foraging/hunting and general “keeping them both functioning” stuff. she would wear a lacy dress with a leather corset belt on top, sporty cardigan, and hiking boots in one outfit.

Sausage has a “modern historical” style. Mixing period-influenced pieces with modern sensibilities and trends. Dark academia with a bit of historical whimsy. Darker yet muted autumn palette. Has no idea what the normal level of detail is- can go completely overboard but also can be very simple, depending on the day. His style is dictated by “idk, vibes”.

Cleo has an alt style. The regular Cleo skin’s outfit works for MonCo AU, and I imagine it to be representative of her typical fashion: black and white, patterns/textures, and varied pieces. Cleo likes flower and plant motifs.

Owen gets styled by Louis. Otherwise he would not take care of himself and wear generic black hoodie and sweatpants as much as possible. He still often wears generic black hoodie and sweatpants for comfort and practicality. Owen likes oversized clothes, particularly ones with long sleeves that can be used to whap people. Which is conveniently also any clothes that fit Louis. Owen and Louis actually have two separate closets in their room, but Owen acts like Louis’s stuff is communal stuff and Louis does not care.

Pyro... it's literally canon that V!Pyro mixes stripes and squares. This guy does not care about conventional "fashion guidelines/advice". he is doing his own thing and... it's also combining with the fact he's kind of isolated himself from human society for about 200 years to live in the middle of nowhere with one other person. he is generally knowledgeable enough about what happens to know what modern trends are like, but that does not mean he cares. especially when there's nothing they can do to change the fact that everyone's first impression of them is "sopping wet weirdo". dark academia vibes. has human V!Pyro's coat with the capelet. his coat is slightly too big and he likes to hide in it.

Abolish is very practical for the most part. Has a somewhat streetwear inspired casual style. Baggy jackets, cargo pants, lots of patches. His epilogue outfit works for MonCo AU Abolish. Lots of layering. Doesn't dress formal unless told to- the "butler suit" bit on Day One is because of Morcant being a slightly out-of-date elder vampire in this AU. In summer, rolled up sleeves and pants instead of a t-shirt or shorts.

Martyn is trying his best with making a good impression with new people. Trendy yet action-ready vibes. A bit simple, zip-up hoodie over tank top, sweatpants, and converse sneakers is something he would wear. He's trying to be cool. Unfortunately the guy he decided is his guide to the supernatural world (Ren) has never been able to care about that. He's holding onto the cane of the witch he defeated for his magic, and using it as his "wand" (with no idea that it's actually a mundane walking stick, but having something to focus his willpower does inadvertently help him get his magic to work as he intended). That is, he is often running around with the cane V!Martyn has, either holding it or with it strapped to his belt like a sword.

Did you expect anything less than a paragraph per character for a 19 person cast after asking a community fashion nerd.

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But that's all! Very glad that this AU is being appreciated. I do feel I should draw what I envision most of the Ruby Manor crew to look like, especially the more canon-deviating ones like Pyro. But alas, I have so many things I want to draw and an iPad with barely any storage for said drawings.

Shelby Grace

This is CC!Shelby's actual full name. It sounds nice and fits the vibe, so I decided to use it. I'm a "the less making stuff up, the better" type of person, I often will pull "story irrelevant" flavor details from the CCs where possible. While Avid and Elle being next to each other on the roll call was intentional, Shelby and Scott being consecutive on the roll call was more coincidence- a "oh that's cool" realization I had after ordering the roll call.

Drift Infinitie

I'm not that great at making up fantasy names honestly. I often have times where I just go "eh, spell a word a bit funny and it's fine".

William Legundo

Seems to be a common agreement among VSMP fans that V!Legs's last name is "Legundo", so I literally went "ok random generic first name" and picked the first one I could think of.

Pearl de la Lune

I really wanted a last name that referenced Luna, the Latin room that means "moon". I understand a bit of how French works (French is mandatory in Canadian public school), so I decided to use the French version. Definitely looks a bit funny because her "first name" is an English word but... shshs I don't think it will change if I used a different language since English isn't a Romance language.

Avid Mikosmos

Back to mispelling and mashing up words until I get something that sounds cool. I really wanted a magic-y root word that references his canon association with alchemy, so I used "cosmos" (Greek root for "space") as the root word and did a bit of mispelling. I wanted to give him an M last initial, and I intentionally wanted Avid and Elle to be next to each other on the roll call list.

"M" Henri Mythique

I figured as an author's pseudonym, V!Sausage's canon alias of "M" is probably his last initial. So I picked some variation of "Mythical" for his last name, and then a random generic first name. Since I used the French version for his last name, I decided to also switch his first name to the French version, so it's "Henri" not "Henry".

Cleo Nightwish

Honestly you'll see that I have relatively little thought process here in general. When you have MCYT word names in the mix, there is nothing you can do to make the name-linguistics feel like a regular fantasy setting. So, "pick some random words that have the right vibe and mash them together" time. Cleo's root word was "Nightshade" to reference her wearing nightshade flowers in her hair, but I just rotated words for the second half until it sounded nice and unique because I have an OC for an original work named Nightshade and I loathe repeated names, it just messes with the associations in my head.

Owen Orangevine

I am one of the believers that originally, as a working-class outsider, V!Owen had no last name. He made one up sometime later, probably while living under-the-radar with Louis. His root word was "Orange" to reference the general motifs CC!Owen uses for his content. I fully did not intend for his name to rhyme or feel so similar to Louis's "last name". I even wanted to change it to something more "unique" for variety, but I just couldn't come up with anything better and didn't want to spend too long stressing about names.

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Non-Cast:

Cameron Bamford

Literally, I: google the full form of a shortened name and then make up a last name by mashing letters together until it sounds vaguely fitting for the setting.

Cherri Feuer

For Cherri's "last name", I went on google and searched "last name meaning fire" then scrolled those namelog websites until I found one that I liked. I picked one with a Germanic root so that it still sounds like the English word and feels "familiar" to the CC name.

Louis Lemonthyne

Since we often refer to MCYT with a "<real first name> <internet username" format, it makes for a very conveniently generated full name. Hence, Louis's "last name" is Luanne's username, Lemonthyne. It sounds fitting for the fantasy vibes. I'm using the headcanon that Louis's deadname is Luanne for MonCo AU, though I highly doubt it will ever be relevant since it's a relatively minute detail.

Elle Marmalone

I decided it'd be easiest to make every non-cast character still have a CC counterpart, so Elle's last name is a reference to Marma1ade, Avid's partner both IRL and on SBK. Giving Elle an M initial also makes it so I can have her and Avid next to each other on the roll call. I didn't want to just use a word, so I spelled it a bit funny and referenced the 1 in her username. Random fun fact, I often find myself reading Marm's username as "Marmaiade" instead of "MarmaLade" because I personally tend to use 1 in place of "i", not "L".

Magdalene Milkberry

Same general principle I used with Louis, "Maddy Milkberry" is literally her name with Milkberry being her last name. For the full form of her shortened first name, there's a lot of options. I picked a more "archaic"/out-of-fashion Germanic/Central Europe version to both fit how she's a long-lived fae older than most of the Ruby Manor crew, and to make it seem she and Pyro could be from the same area locationally- V!Pyro has an extremely German/Prussian name, and the other names in his backstory also point to a more Central/Eastern European place of origin.

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“And that is all! Take a look within your orientation scrolls, explore around campus, and settle into campus life over the next few days! Make sure to check into your dorms this morning, you’ll need to do roll call on mornings with no classes and at each evening. Meet your housemates- you’ll be working together to collect Merits for Spirit Day at the end of the end of term!” The peppy announcer onstage finished their speech, as dozens of scrolls in iridescent bubbles were tossed out into the crowd of students.

Shelby caught one as it popped on the horns of a tall dark blue demon standing in front of her. This guy was the reason she hadn’t been able to see any of what was going on in the orientation. 

Her feet were sore from standing for over an hour, as they zoned out and daydreamed about what her housemates would be like. She was going to make friends! And have a roommate! And it was all going to be so amazing! 

But for now, she figured she should go to her house, and sit down for a bit.

The students of each year at the Oakhurst College for the Magical and Supernatural- or Monster College- were split into five dorms. Each dorm had an old-timey manor house to them. Shelby had been assigned to “Ruby Manor” in her acceptance letter. 

They’d wondered if it was because they were a vampire- but that didn't make sense. This was supposed to be a place to foster collaboration between all types of creatures, and there were almost certainly more than five different species attending. 

“How do I read this thing?” She immediately noticed all of the text in her orientation scroll was sideways upon opening it. It was meant to be read vertically, in the direction it unrolled, but that was a rather awkward way of holding a scroll for a single person with two hands. 

“Oh- whoops-” She dropped the end of the scroll as she tried to roll it along, but to her surprise, it didn’t fall. “Of course it’s magic.” 

She tentatively took their other hand off the bottom, and the scroll floated idly in midair. With it behaving as if on an invisible stand, moving through different sections was intuitive and easy once more. The orientation scroll held a surprising amount of content for how thin it was, but it probably had the magic to appear smaller when rolled up as well. 

Shelby hadn’t encountered magic in nearly fifty years. Once upon a time, they were a regular teenager. Not exactly popular- a bit of a shrinking wallflower, in fact- but she was human and did human things. And then one day, a mysterious man offered them proof that vampires were real. She’d jumped at the opportunity- she’d known for certain all those years that the supernatural was real. After all, her father hunted werewolves… before he probably got eaten by one. So, she followed her new friend out to a country fishing resort, where he’d attacked her, turning her into the vampire she was now, and then vanished into the night. She’d never seen him again. Nor had she noticed any other signs of magic. 

For nearly fifty years, she’d hid in her house, not knowing what to do about her new magical abilities. They got enough flack for believing in Bigfoot and Santa, no one was going to believe them that vampires were real. Their mother carefully supplied her with raw meat and bloodbags from the clinic she worked at, but now, she had outlived her mother. In her last moments, she had promised to go out into the world and find a place for herself. And now she's done it. With a careful scouring of the internet, they’d found a hidden world of magic. She was going to school again and she was going to meet people who’d stick around with her for eternity! Certainly a big change from writing fanfiction that was read by exactly two other people. 

She was going to make friends again… when they got out of this crowd of people who all just wanted to go places and not talk to her. 

On the campus map in her orientation scroll, Ruby Manor looked a good distance from the main square where orientation had been held. Their best bet was going to be flying as a bat. But someone around her could trample her or one of the poor regular bats she’d summon upon transformation, so they still had to get out of the crowd. 

Shelby beelined to the nearest gap between the people, and made a run through the cracks to squeeze out while the path lasted, before suddenly running into a person. 

“Oh- sorry-” She squeaked out to a young man with bright red eyes and blue-tinged white hair. Her first nonviolent encounter with another vampire, and he looked greatly disappointed in her hubris. 

“Where did you come from?” He muttered in a dazed shock. 

“Hey, you alright?” Another vampire called from just behind him. The first vampire she’d met here and he already had a friend. 

“I’m fine, it’s nothing. Nevermind.” He spun on his heel, followed his buddy the last couple steps to the edge of the pavement, and then flew off in a swarm of bats. 

Shelby realized as she took off after them that she hadn’t asked for their names. But she’d probably get another chance soon. 

Scanning the rooftops to find their bearings, Shelby flew over the roads towards Jewel Street, where her year’s dorms were. Those other two vampires had zipped off without her while she traced over the paths below. Sure, the benefit of flying was that she could go anywhere, but it just felt safer to follow the roads. 

Five gothic Victorian manors stood in a row where Jewel Street swept around the outer edge of the campus. Red, green, white, blue, purple. Ruby, Emerald, Diamond, Sapphire, Amethyst. 

Shelby fluttered down to the doorstep of Ruby Manor. Through the big living room windows, she could see other students waiting inside, including the two vampires from earlier, who were picking up their bags from a pile of luggage. 

The door clicked open easily as she entered. As they turned to close it behind them, she was jumpscared by another pair of vampires. “Where did you come from!?” 

“Uh, the sky? Louis and I were literally following you as a bat?” The one in the lead replied aggressively. 

“Hey, no need to be so mean about it! I really didn’t notice you.” She stepped out of the way and scurried off to the luggage heap. She wasn’t weak, but this one had the kind of menacing aura that she’d rather not deal with. And also a friend. Seriously, was she the only person here who didn’t know anyone else?

She found her green and pink patchwork suitcase in a moment, picking it up from the edge of the pile. 

“Hey, have you seen a big white suitcase with a gold ribbon on the handle?” The other vampire at the luggage heap asked. It was the friend of the guy she’d run into earlier. His hair was more of a very light blonde, and he wore glasses- round black frames on a gold chain- when Shelby knew from personal experience that vampires never needed them. He didn’t seem to have any hard feelings for her. 

“It’s right here.” A man with unique split-coloured hair answered him, pulling out the described suitcase out from under a hairy brown blanket. His prim black suit and white gloves stood out among the other students’ more casual wear, yet matched the fancy old house. Shelby didn’t think the manor would come with a butler, but she supposed it fit. 

The other vampire left wordlessly with his bag, and the butler sighed. 

“Hey, thanks for helping.” She told him.

“That’s nice of you.” He sounded rather distant- he didn’t seem to want to talk. So, she wandered off to find a place for her bags. 

Right now, there were ten of them waiting in the living room. Five vampires, her and two pairs who already knew each other. Then there were a pair of literal half-demons who looked to be siblings, a woman with light brown hair whom they were talking with, a man with buzzed hair reading his orientation scroll on his own, and the butler. 

The two half-demons seemed chatty, so she went up to them first. 

“Hey there! What’s your name?” The brunette woman asked, spotting them first. She appeared human for the most part, but one of her eyes was slightly lighter than the other. 

“I’m Shelby, who’re you?” 

“I’m Drift, nice to meet you-” She answered kindly, before the half-demon brother cut in, not having expected her to continue. 

“Cool! I’m Avid!” He was overflowing with energy, immediately recognizable as the kind of guy who’d talk for hours if engaged. 

“And I’m Elle.” The sister finished, much calmer yet still kind. 

“Nice to meet you all!” Shelby greeted warmly before jumping to her questions. “I don’t know anyone here… you two look so alike though, are you twins?” 

“Uh, close enough? I mean, Elle’s only a couple months older and we’ve known each other for like, forever, but we also aren’t blood-related. Though like, that doesn’t matter.” Avid immediately answered. When Shelby looked at them for more than a few seconds, she started to notice their differences, but initially, the matching one yellow eye, pitch-black patches, and one black horn stood out more than the fact Avid’s other eye was purple where Elle’s was blue. 

“So, you’re a vampire, right?” Elle checked. 

“Yeah, that’s right. I honestly wasn’t expecting to meet four other vampires right off the bat, when I’ve never seen another one in the fifty years since I was turned. And I guess we do all look kind of similar as well.” Shelby replied. 

“Still not identical, though.” Elle pointed out in response. 

“What makes you special, Drift? You seem like you’ll have an easy time blending in with humans.” Shelby passed the conversation along. 

“I’m a ghost. I was a detective before, but I guess I must’ve been getting too good, because one of my cases killed my old self. Still, I'm here to study law, because I just don’t want anything like that to keep happening unchecked.” She explained. 

“Cool, you’ve got your purpose all sorted out. I signed up for literature, because I like writing fanfic… I don’t know, you think I can get published?” 

“I’d be happy to read what you write.” Drift told Shelby. 

Suddenly, Avid jolted in his seat, and Elle pushed away from him, against Shelby. “Wait, what’s going on?” They tried to look over, but Elle was taller and blocked her line of sight. 

“Oh, it’s fine, it’s fine. I… just get a bit jumpy when people get too close.” Avid brushed it off, but he still sounded deeply shaken. “Everything’s fine.” He stated rather unconvincingly, part to himself. 

“The sofa is a bit cramped with four of us.” Drift noted. 

“I’ll get up, I have something to say to someone else anyway.” Shelby slid out from her spot and the others shuffled over to give Avid some space. 

“Deep breaths…” Elle reminded him. 

Shelby walked up to the blue-haired vampire, but made a mental note in her head to go back to Avid and Elle later. 

“Hey, yeah, I’m sorry about running into you… but what’s your name? We’re in the same house, we should actually get to know each other.” 

“Oh, I’m Scott.” He looked up from the paper he’d found, but still sounded rather disinterested in her.  “I found the attendance list, who’re you?” 

She scanned down the list, finding “Grace, Shelby” five rows down, right after “Goldsmith, Scott”. “I’m Shelby. We’re next to each other on the list!” 

“Hmm, neat.” He scanned over the people in the room as a tall woman with wolf ears strode in. “Well, there’s ten of us who’ve already got here and nineteen names on the list. We’ll wait a while before we fill this out.” 

They didn’t have to wait long before the crowd caught up and people started to pour in. A woman with red devil horns and her companion who had a mystical pink eye and lines of pink fire spreading out from it, a green-skinned woman with bright orange hair, a man with pale green fae wings, and another fae, a ginger-haired woman followed by a man with dripping, waterlogged clothes and hair. Shelby and Scott kept count. No one entered for a few more minutes, then a blonde man and another wolf-person came in after the crowd had passed. 

“We’re at eighteen, but it doesn’t look like there’s anyone else out there.” Scott commented. “You think we should just go now?” 

“I mean, sure, I don’t mind.” Shelby replied. “Don’t really have anywhere to go.” 

“I want to go check out the rooms and then go get food. They’ve got to have sorted out something nice here, after all this time.” Scott told her, then knocked on the nearby wall to get everyone’s attention. “Hey, I’ve got the attendance list. Let’s figure out everyone’s names, okay?”  

“...Oh, I know Cam’s here.” Scott skipped over the first name on the list- “Bamford, Cameron” and glazed over at his friend from earlier. “Hey Cam, say hi or something.” 

“Yeah, I’m Cam. I’ll be here to see what kinds of shenanigans Scott gets up to, life sometimes gets boring after over 1000 years together.” The blonde vampire waved lazily at the others. Shelby couldn’t decide whether he or Scott was the more annoyingly smug of the two. 

But wow, 1000 years was a long time to have known someone. And judging by the reactions of everyone else in the room, including the other two vampires, they were just as surprised as she was. They wondered if they would find a friend here who’d live out their immortal life with her for that long. 

“Anyway. Let’s move on.” Scott didn’t react to the surprised reactions. “...Dogmourne, Renhardt?” He read flatly. 

“‘Tis me, and you may call me Ren.” The wolf-man with streaked hair answered. He spoke with a strange and unrecognisable accent, which made the blonde man who’d arrived with him roll his eyes. 

“...Feuer, Cherri.” 

“Hello, I’m Cherri. I hope we all have a good time here!” The woman with the fiery pink eye greeted the group warmly. “We really should say something about what makes us magical though, because I have no idea what everyone’s thing is here. Anything we should be aware of? I’m a fire sprite- which means I can’t touch water.” 

“That makes sense.” Scott replied to her, then skipped over himself and Shelby on the list. “I’m Scott, this is Shelby. Cam and I, and Shelby, are vampires. And probably those two as well.” He motioned to Louis and his grumpy friend. “White hair and red eyes, most likely a vampire. Sunlight makes us sizzly but we’re not going to spontaneously combust, don’t worry about that. We can’t touch silver or holy objects though, that stuff’s nasty.”  His tone carried a connotation of “we wouldn’t be around for over 1000 years if we were that easy to accidentally kill, silly”. 

“...Infinitie, Drift.” 

“Hey everyone, nice to meet you all, I’m Drift!” She stood up from the sofa momentarily as she turned to wave at all of the people around her. “I’m a ghost, I don’t think we have any special weaknesses to watch out for.” 

“Kuna, Apo.” 

“Hi, I’m Apo.” Cherri’s companion introduced herself quietly. “I’m a tiefling… silver makes me a bit… sizzly, if that’s how you’d describe it, but really, I don’t think any of you will accidentally kill me.” 

“Legundo, William-”

“Just Legs, please.” The man who’d been reading on his own the whole time suddenly spoke up, overlapping Scott as he tried to cut him off before he finished reading out his name. “I’m also a ghost, and Drift’s right, we don’t have any magical weaknesses.”

“Lemonthyne, Louis.” 

“Hello, it’s nice meeting you. I’m Louis.” His voice sounded a little rough, yet still full of kind intentions. “Owen and I are also vampires, so you know what to watch out for.” 

“de la Lune, Pearl.”  

“Hi! I’m Pearl!” The other wolf-person waved from where she leant against the banisher of the main staircase. “I’m a werewolf, which means I have to watch out for the usual silver and stuff, and the light of the full moon makes me transform. Oh, and anything that’d be poisonous or a wolf or dog would be poisonous to me… I miss chocolate. Some of you have been around for ages, but I was only turned about a year ago. Ren, you’re also a werewolf, right?”

“That is correct, Miss Pearl.” Ren answered. Pearl seemed a little awkward with the sudden formality, but didn’t respond. 

“...Marmalone, Elle.”

“I’m Elle, or Marmarmarmarmarmarm, as Avid sometimes likes to call me. Please don’t think that’s necessary to get my attention.” She certainly took jabs at Avid like they were siblings. 

“But it’s fun!” Avid protested. 

“Well, now I know who Avid is.” Scott commented as he marked down “Mikosmos, Avid” right after Elle’s name. 

Cherri opened her mouth to talk, but Avid spoke first. “Wait, if you’re going to ask if we’re siblings, just to clarify, we’re not actually blood-related. We’ve been friends for a really long time but we aren’t literal siblings. It’s really just this uhh… magic thing… making us look kinda similar. And if you’re checking for anything that could accidentally hurt us, we don’t really know, for the most part. We get burned by silver, but there’s nothing else that’s cropped up in everyday life that’s hurt us.” 

Whatever Cherri’s original question was, it was one he’d covered, as she didn’t speak up anymore, though she seemed a bit wary of how little Avid knew about his own magical nature. 

“...Milkberry, Magdalene.” 

“You can just call me Maddy, please.” The fae woman responded. “I’m a woodland fae, there’s nothing that’d... hurt… me. Some things may block my magic, but you won’t accidentally injure or kill me.” 

“Mythique, Henri-”

“It is I, MythicalSausage, or M for short-” The other fae spoke up, but Shelby couldn’t hold in her surprise. 

“The MythicalSausage? The author of In The Dark Of Night and so many other Twilight fanfics? Oh my god- you don’t know- I have to be your biggest fan-” The words just gushed out of her. She’d never imagined that they’d meet someone whose writing she’d looked up to so much signing up for the same classes as her, or that he’d be magical like them too. 

“Wow, really, that’s amazing! You write too? I’m sure we could be friends.” He was open and responded with equal enthusiasm. 

“I mean, your fics are some of the most popular ones on AO3…” She pointed out. 

“Hey, that’s great and all, but like, tone it down a bit until we’re done with the attendance, okay?” Scott cut in. 

“You know, you could help me write something so amazing… I haven’t met a vampire yet, you could totally revitalize that genre!” Sausage offered. “The fae don’t really have much story-worthy to offer.” 

“...Nightwish, Cleo.” 

“Okay, that’s me. Cleo the zombie.” The green-skinned woman stood just a little taller as she surveyed the room. “Don’t worry about accidents, you already know that silver is bad for anyone undead or unholy, and no, I won’t be immediately set on fire by sunlight. It just makes me… what are we calling it? Sizzly.” 

“Orangevine, Owen.” Scott waited for a response from him, with a smug smile. 

“Hi.” Owen glared back at him. “...Louis’s already said all there is to know about me.” 

“...von Pyroscythe, Jack.” 

“...Oh, my turn. I’m used to just Pyro.” Maddy’s waterlogged companion answered. “I don’t know why, but I’m trapped in a state of drowning. And whatever forces keep me around seem to be the same as the other undead, as silver has hurt me.” 

“Veylocke, Abolish.” 

“Hello.” The butler with the split-coloured hair answered in monotone. 

Scott let out a sigh of relief. “So we aren’t missing anyone after all.” 

“What- no- wait, what were you thinking? …No, I’m not your butler.” Abolish grumbled. 

“Well, you kind of looked the part.” Shelby told him. 

“Some misleading first-impressions advice… even the millenia old vampires here for their own amusement didn’t dress up.” He scanned over the others present for supporters, but it seemed that everyone else had just gone along with the assumption that he was staff, not a fellow student. “Just so you know, this… butler outfit wasn’t my idea.”

“...Woodhurst, Martyn.”

“Yeah, that’s me alright. I’m a witch, so I have all sorts of cool spells and no random weaknesses.” Ren’s companion answered confidently. At a glance- Martyn seemed indistinguishable from humans, natural blonde hair and blue eyes, nothing that marked him as obviously magical. But as he traced a quick circle in the air with his fingertip, sparks appeared in his hand. “Like this! Fireball-”

“Not this instant, Mr. Woodhurst, it would be unwise to set alight the manor so kindly offered to us, especially while we would all become entrapped within.” Ren cautioned, but it was too late. Orange and yellow flames gathered then flew out from his hand towards the other side of the room- and Apo and Cherri. 

Martyn’s eyes went wide with shock as his fireball shot away, but it didn’t even make it halfway across before being suddenly smothered. 

A splash sounded as the bubble of water Pyro had conjured onto a collision course with it hit the window instead.

“Why can’t we even get day one attendance done without nearly burning our house down!” Cherri complained. “You are so lucky I can put out fires as quickly as I can create them. Nice try Pyro, but you gotta act faster when it matters.” 

“Hey, don’t worry, I wasn’t going to actually let it hit anything! Stop acting like I don’t know what I’m doing!” Martyn retorted, pouting and glaring at her. 

“Calm down, ye both. Let us start on the right page, shall we?” Ren placed a hand on his shoulder and guided him to back down. “We are here to learn, together. And we have much learning to do.” His words carried a firm reminder, not spoken directly to the others present. Shelby had a feeling that this wasn’t the first time he’d seen something like this happen, and she found a quiet respect in her for his patience.  

“Well, we can go our separate ways now. I’ll get this attendance thing handed in. Don’t burn the house down while I’m gone.” Scott looked about done with the ragtag group of misfits he was going to be living with for the next four years, and it was only day one. He turned on his heel and swept outside, flying off as a bat to deliver the roll call sheet to the main office. 

Abolish started to run after Scott the moment he’d shapeshifted, but stopped himself by Shelby as the bat rapidly flew out of earshot. “Was this guy paying any attention during orientation? We’ve got that Bubble Mail system for quick deliveries.”  

Shelby herself had not paid enough attention to the orientation to know that there was some magical delivery system. So, they kept quiet. It felt a bit unfair for ratting someone out over something she’d also done.  

The group started to disperse from the living room, spreading out into different parts of the house to look for their rooms. 

Shelby spotted Avid, Elle, and Drift heading upstairs, so she chased after them, hoping one of them could be her roommate. They were nice enough in their first conversation earlier, even though Avid seemed to have something deeper going on with how jumpy he got. 

She caught up to them just as they opened a door in the hallway to the right of the stairs, which led to a 3-person room with a set of bunk beds and one regular single bed. 

“Hey, uhh, we’re open to it… but it really looks like everyone’s just going for the first room they reach, so… I don’t know if we can relocate.” Drift awkwardly answered. 

“Avid and I can stay here and you two can go look for any extra rooms.” Elle suggests. 

“No, it’s fine. I’m here to meet more people, and we don’t have to be roommates to be friends.” Shelby left them with the room they’d claimed. It was too early to lock onto who she had to be roommates with. If they were to stay true to their intent of getting out in the world, they should stay open-minded to living with different people. 

She found her way around the second floor, to two bedrooms which had not yet been claimed by anyone. It was the big master suite, and a room for two across from it. 

While the luxurious master suite with its king-size four poster bed was tempting, she was here to make friends and have a roommate. So, she took her luggage into the smaller room, and began to unpack. She set her laptop on the desk under the loft bed in the far side of the room, then climbed up to the loft with the pillows they’d brought. 

They were hanging string lights over their desk when the door clicked open. 

“Oh- hey-” Scott peeked in, but then turned back to talk to someone in the hall. “Cam, Shelby’s in the other room.”

She couldn’t hear Cam’s reply, but she could figure it out from Scott’s reaction. “Sure, you tell her to get out when she’s already moving in.” 

Scott stood back in the doorway as Cam entered as well. “Could you uh- please switch rooms? You can have the fancy big room. …Scott and I figured we’d be roommates with each other, if anyone, since we already get along.” 

“But isn’t the point of going to this college to meet new people and learn more about other walks of life?” They didn’t move away from the loft bed they’d claimed. “...Wait, you two are like the really old vampires who’re just here for fun or- whatever.  But like, I’m here to make friends! And I really want a roommate. I promise I’m nice. And the other room’s just across the hall. We all live in the same house. No one’s really getting split up or anything.” 

“Well then- dibs on the big room.” Cam told Scott as he turned to leave. 

“Not even rock paper scissors?” Scott called after him, which got him to stop. 

“Fine, but just once. Whoever wins first.” He immediately obliged, but that didn’t change anything for Shelby. They were getting a roommate, just one that didn’t want to be there. She hoped that whoever it was, they’d change their mind after they got to know her. 

Cam played rock. 

Scott played scissors. 

“And I win.” Cam concluded flippantly. “Your terms- well, she says she’s nice.” With that, he left, leaving Scott and Shelby in the room they’d now share. 

“...Don’t know if I’ll get used to living like this.” Scott commented offhandedly as he unpacked his suitcase. “I mean, it’s for the next- what, four years?  Anyway, it’s a big manor, but there’s more people living in it than there should be. I guess doubling up most of the rooms would be better than telling anyone they’ll be living in the servants quarters, no one’s listening to that no matter what the circumstances are nowadays. There’s a room barely bigger than this one with four beds.” 

“So there was a four person room? Where? Who’s in it?” They stopped taping lights to the loft’s edge for a moment. She could’ve shared a room with Drift, Avid, and Elle- if they’d gone in the right direction at first. 

“Yeah, over the living room, the place we were earlier doing the attendance. Door’s to the left from the second-floor landing. It’s Apo, Cherri, Maddy, and Pyro.” 

“Oh, cool. I went with Drift, Avid, and Elle at first, they found a three-bed room.” Shelby realized at that moment there was no reason to tell Scott that she’d originally hoped to share a room with them. “It’s going to be so fun getting to know each other and living together!”

“It feels like it’s going to be so claustrophobic with everyone trampling around. Like there’s a lot of guests around all the time. Might be hard to find space to wind down.” Scott worded it almost like a warning, like he found something wrong in their accommodations. And then it clicked for Shelby. 

“Wait… you must be used to living in a castle, right? Lots of space and not a lot of people around?” It all made sense to her. Scott had been turned long enough that he probably lived like the vampires in the stories- away from people in an abandoned castle in the woods. “Must’ve been nice, not being confined to a tiny apartment or worrying about getting spotted by humans.” 

“Not that recently. I had a castle, way back in like the Middle Ages, what you call it. Hasn’t been livable for the last two hundred years. Cam and I have had to adapt to the times. Right now, we have a penthouse in the city. Very spacious since it’s just the two of us and we don’t have any buddies we can invite, not without exposing our nature anyway. You really don’t have to be that isolated, humans don’t go out of their way to find out about the supernatural as much as you think. And the express elevator makes such a difference for dodging questions about why you need blood bags or a ton of raw meat. …I’m starting to get you like, don’t know anything. How long have you been turned? How have you lived?”

“You two have a penthouse? Can we stay roommates forever after this? Please, my mom and I lived in a one bedroom apartment where I had to sleep on the living room couch.” She could’ve not slept on the couch for the last few months since her mother’s death, but it felt wrong to sleep in her mother’s room. “Money does make such a difference, huh? …It’s been fifty years since I was turned by now, but that must be like no time to you. I just hid in my house all the time, writing fanfiction on the internet. So honestly, I don’t know anything about being a vampire. The guy who turned me left and I never found him again, you’re the first vampire I’ve met since.” 

“No wonder… you’re practically still a fledgling. Well, I’ll take care of you if your real sire won’t.” Scott seemed calmly resigned to showing her the ropes of vampirism. He walked up to her and held out a hand, as if waiting for a handshake. 

“What does that all mean?” The words of “sire” and “fledgling” were unfamiliar to Shelby, but she took Scott’s hand. His grip suddenly tightened, and it felt like her blood was being drained again, but through touch instead of a bite. 

Scott seemed distant for a moment, as if he was seeing some other scene instead of a quiet room where she stood in front of him, before he let go of her hand and answered. “Your vampiric sire is whoever turns you. You’re their fledgling. And the sire is responsible to show the fledgling what it means to be a vampire. You cannot just turn people willy-nilly, that’s how you create immortal problems.” 

“Okay, so some sort of vampiric honor code- I mean, it makes sense. It probably gets harder to hide the existence of vampires if there’s too many turnings. …What did you just do to me? It felt like being turned all over again.”

“I guess you would never figure out siphoning without meeting another vampire. This will be important for you to know: vampires can siphon blood from each other through touch. It’s easy to accidentally trigger. Be as careful as you need to about that. I won’t hold a grudge against you while you’re learning, but that’s not a guarantee with someone like… Owen, maybe. Vampires can gain access to the memories of others from their blood, I siphoned you to check what you already know. Which means, I knew I needed to tell you that because you’ve never drank directly from a human.”

“I wonder what Owen’s deal is, there’s got to be a reason why he’s all grumpy and snappish…” Shelby was sweet and upbeat before stopping in shock upon processing that Scott had practically read her mind. “So you just looked around in my memories? What else do you know about me?”

“No, it doesn’t quite work like that. I cannot go search in your mind for whatever I want to see. I only saw a few of the more important moments in your life, but from what I saw of your lifestyle and the fact I didn’t see a memory of you feeding from a human, it’s a logical conclusion.” He swiftly responded to dissuade their worries, appearing hurt that she had made the assumption that he had free access to her mind. But as he finished his explanation, he returned to his usual carefree demeanor and changed the topic. “As for Owen, I’ve got no clue what’s going on with him, I’ve never even seen him before today. Vampires are spread pretty thin after all, it’s easy to slip past a given network.” 

The conversation drifted off to more everyday topics as Shelby and Scott went back to setting up their room. As they finished, and Scott was about to leave once more, Shelby went up to him with one request. “Can I siphon from you? You’ve practically lived in a different world from me.” 

“...There’s some things you might not want to see, there’s some things you just can’t avoid when you’ve been around for as long as I have.” Scott immediately backed away, conflicted. He had secrets- terrible secrets. “Are you sure? You won’t like it. And it’s all long enough ago that it can’t come back to bite us.” 

“I’m not that easy to scare!” Shelby followed after him. “I’m a vampire, I’m used to blood and stuff-”

“Yeah, but you still had an easy time as a vampire! Stay at home, Mom brings you food, no fighting! No- no- room for bad choices.” He glanced out the open door, checking if there was anyone in the hallway. 

“What- what bad choices have you made? I’ll understand. I’m your roommate.” She kept the same few steps of distance between them, not expecting that he’d be so uncomfortable. “Just tell me and I won't tell anyone! Just tell me- and we can be still friends! It’ll be nicer than letting whatever horrible things you might’ve done take me by surprise.” 

“I guess you have to know. I hope you’ll be alright.” Scott shut the door and returned to his usual unbothered demeanor, having found some justification that things will work out in his head. He held out his hand for her once more, and this time Shelby gripped his wrist as tight as she could, like she was pinching in on the inner forearm vein. 

A guttural pain tore through her from the inside. She let go, but it was too late to stop her from seeing into the memories of a centuries-old vampire who’d certainly seen things she could never imagine. 

Her vision was so dark and blurry, full of indistinct shadows. She was surrounded by a claustrophobic darkness she hadn’t thought a vampire could experience- they could see in the dark, after all!  

And it really was claustrophobic. Cold stone walls all around her, before she suddenly felt something open right in front of her face. 

Bright red eyes peered out at her from the darkness. Fear shot through her and she tried to back away, but she was right up against the wall behind her. Wait. That wasn’t a wall. That was a floor, and they were lying down on their back. 

With nowhere to go, she lashed out at the figure in front of her. 

No- she didn’t, that was not a decision Shelby made. They’d never attack another vampire!

But she was so, so hungry. The starvation hurt like something was trying to tear out from inside her. And in an emergency, siphoning from another vampire would do. 

And that was the decision Scott made. 

“Have this, I knew you would need it.” The red eyes darted away and an opened glass bottle was placed into her outstretched hand. 

That voice is Cam, Shelby recognized as memory-Scott drank up the contents of the bottle. Her vision cleared up, the dark spots fading away to finally let her identify her surroundings. 

She had gotten up in a seated position, in their own coffin, which Cam had opened the lid of. They were in a large yet crumbling crypt, with cracking stone brick walls and a heavy layer of dust and rubble on the floor. Pillars reached up into arches high overhead, some with missing chunks that had fallen. Empty lanterns hung from the ceiling or sat in niches on the walls. An underground river flowed somewhere nearby- she could hear the rushing, and saw drips of water seeping through the right and back walls to form dirty puddles on the floor. They’d been afforded a luxurious burial, what had to be centuries ago, then ended up trapped and starving in their own coffin for all that time until Cam freed them. 

“They buried me in my own castle?” She called to the only other person in the room. It was so strange, talking outside her control, saying things she wouldn’t, hearing Scott’s voice come from herself. 

Talking hurt so much, it made the hunger well up again after being briefly quenched by the bottle of crimson. “You have another bottle?”

Cam opened another of the bottles of crimson hanging from his belt, and handed it to her. They drained it immediately. “...Really has been a while, hasn’t it?” 

“You need more? Are you okay?” Cam reached for the final bottle he had on him. Memory-Cam looked the same as the one Shelby had met, light blonde hair and orangish-red eyes, but he dressed somewhat differently. He was bundled up in a fur-lined black winter coat and a red plaid scarf, with the bottles harnessed to his belt and a bulky backpack that suggested he had gone adventuring far from civilization. 

“Anything would help right now.” Memory-Scott had answered as he drank the third bottle. 

“I figured. It’s been 600 years, after all.” 

“What have you been doing for the last 600 years?” 

“Trying to get you out! The Holy Spirits were making it awfully difficult. But I was never going to just leave you behind, so come along now.” 

Shelby didn’t realize she was back in her own body until current-day-Scott poked her in the ribs. “So, we’re never doing that again?” 

“Oh yeah- okay, going to be careful now.” They stood back up from where they’d apparently passed out on their dorm room’s floor, suddenly very grateful for Scott having closed the door earlier. “Not being myself is trippy, I don’t think I want to experience anyone else’s memories, even if they aren’t horrifying bad ones.” 

“Well, let’s go find the blood butcher and get you something. Nothing’s actually happened to you, but it’ll make you feel better.” He turned on his heel and led the way out.