If your plot feels flat, STUDY it! Your story might be lacking...
Stakes - What would happen if the protagonist failed? Would it really be such a bad thing if it happened?
Thematic relevance - Do the events of the story speak to a greater emotional or moral message? Is the conflict resolved in a way that befits the theme?
Urgency - How much time does the protagonist have to complete their goal? Are there multiple factors complicating the situation?
Drive - What motivates the protagonist? Are they an active player in the story, or are they repeatedly getting pushed around by external forces? Could you swap them out for a different character with no impact on the plot? On the flip side, do the other characters have sensible motivations of their own?
Yield - Is there foreshadowing? Do the protagonist's choices have unforeseen consequences down the road? Do they use knowledge or clues from the beginning, to help them in the end? Do they learn things about the other characters that weren't immediately obvious?
Hooray for another year participating in Invisobang!
This year I had the opportunity to work with my lovely author ASJ, who not only had a killer story involving some of my favorite villains in the show, but sat with me and watched as I slowly clawed my way through this title card piece. I'm very excited to share the story once it's up, so I'll be sure to update this post with the story link when available.
You can check out Asj's AO3 account here where they'll post the fic
Also as a bonus treat, here's a look at the piece without the added text bubbles, as well as a couple concept sketches of Freakshow I did during development:
The hypothetical college trio series includes many hard hitting episodes, including this one where Vlad's in drag and has to seduce a short, sleazy human trafficking ringleader while Jack and Maddie play cards in the casino and distract the bodyguards.
This has been sitting in my drafts forever and I probably won't finish it any time soon (i wanted to adapt most of it into a longer comic) so here's a summary of the ensuing shenanigans and gags:
I love the idea that a series about Jack, Maddie and Vlad would feature a lot of stories about organized crime with a ghostly twist, so this is a reflection of that.
The trio plus Agents K and O set up a trap within a ritzy Vegas casino. Vlad, disguised as the silver vixen bait, is thoroughly incensed by his humiliating role but also ironically looks like enough of an effortless knock-out in a slinky black dress that the ruse seems to work on Petri. (Earlier, Vlad exclaimed to Maddie that only "an idiot" would fall for this disguise, followed immediately by Jack not recognizing him and wondering "who the broad in black is", only proving Vlad's point.)
The height difference between Petri and Vlad is so ridiculous that Vlad (who is wearing high heels) doesn't even initially notice when Petri approaches him to hit on him.
Another silly angle that makes Vlad a comically tailor-made fit for the role of Petri's seducer is the fact that Petri is a wine and cheese snob and prefers his women to be "cultured" in that regard. Vlad can't be out-snobbed on either front, so it nearly turns into a pissing contest of who's enjoyed the more exotic and expensive pairing.
Petri asks the 6'3 silver haired goddess sitting next to him if her hair is naturally silver, and Vlad stays in character to say yes, but it was caused by a great deal of stress brought on by her "oafish buffoon of an ex-husband" which prompts Agents K and O to tell Vlad to stick to the script through Vlad's bugged earring, and Jack in the other earring to express surprise that he didn't know his best buddy was married and why didn't he tell him?!
(A vein pulses in Vlad's temple, but he maintains a nostalgic expression for Petri's sake while he discreetly reaches up and mercilessly crushes his earring between his fingertips with an electronic crunch. Agent O turns to Agent K in the hotel suite they're monitoring the mission from. "Heels destroyed his comm." "...This is the last time we work with civilians.")
At some point, an increasingly smarmy Petri places his hand on Vlad's leg, and an uncomfortable Vlad's instinctive reflex is, unfortunately, to choke him.
While all of this is taking place, Jack and Maddie are playing the tables alongside Petri's lieutenants. The idea is that when Vlad lures Petri to the suite where Agents O & K will apprehend him, they will safely subdue the henchmen.
Vlad does manage to get Petri into the hotel room, but things immediately go off the rails at that point. Agents K and O have been incapacitated off screen, and Petri reveals he suspected that this was all a set up from the beginning, so he took the liberty of removing the dangerous element from the equation. Meanwhile, Jack and Maddie have their hands full as subduing the henchmen goes poorly and it turns out a large portion of the casino customers seem to be currently overshadowed. A massive fight breaks out.
The GIW files assumed that Petri Fyer was a human, but Vlad had clocked almost immediately upon meeting him that he's actually a ghost overshadowing a human being. Petri Fyer is actually Petrifyer, a large, monstrous ghost that resembles a toad. He departs from his human host to confront Vlad. Petrifyer has a paralytic venom that stuns humans and renders them immobile, so he uses it on Vlad and gleefully tries to decide what he should do with all of them.
It becomes apparent that Petrifyer understood that the whole situation was a set up, but he totally missed the fact that Vlad wasn't who he said he was, and since the paralytic venom is only effective on human beings, Vlad manages to break out of the paralysis by forcing a transformation.
Petrifyer vs. Plasmius ensues, there's some back and forth where Petri is 1) shocked he got catfished, 2) shocked he got catfished by the half-ghost billionaire who tried and failed to take over the world during the global meteor incident, and 3) still very into Vlad despite literally everything that is going on. Vlad proceeds to cheerfully beat the stuffing out of him.
Jack and Maddie manage to husband-wife power couple their way through ALL of the ghost-guests, wrecking the casino in the process. By the time they make it to the hotel room for back up, Vlad is standing in the middle of a destroyed suite, red heels in hand, Agents K and O groaning on the floor, and the dastardly ghost/human duo restrained. Vlad shoots his friends a withering glare and tries to wipe his lipstick off with the back of his hand. It just smears.
Petri turns out to be a case of true possession (over shadowing being short-term and possession being long-term). The meek, unconfident, ordinary gas station employee, Patrick Fitz, is consensually allowing the sleazy toad-like ghost Petrifyer to use his body to navigate the human world and make them both rich.
Once in custody, Patrick and Petrifyer attempt to elicit sympathy from Vlad due to their similar positions and affinity for "ghost-human relations." Vlad just sneers at them and says he is so far out of their league in every possible way they might as well be on different planets.
The mission ends, Jack immediately forgets he signed a non-disclosure agreement, and Maddie practices her card game skills. (Afterward, Vlad offers Maddie a much more understanding apology for the way he used to treat her, and thanks her for not killing him at any point during those days.)
Honestly this was a lot of fun to make even though it took me 44 hours :')
Lots of experimentation happened in this one, but it all came out good! Edited my brushes, hand lettered the title, figured out the credits, did a different title card shading style, finally found the tagline font(Whatafont), etc. Plus it was interesting sticking an OC in!
All that aside, this is also a bit of an introduction for another DP OC of mine, Quinn. They're the villain of this fake ep of course. Quinn is 14 and very annoying(spoilers, they’re way lamer than the title card implies lmao). This kid is absolutely obsessed with love and romance, and will do anything to find it. They don’t exactly get that real life isn't like their romance movies though...
The episode itself is set far enough into Vlad's redemption in my AU that he's tolerable, sometimes even fun to be around. The plot has Vlad and Tucker teaming up and ending up as the protagonists who need to deal with Quinn. Cause, I mean, is it really a Vlad ep if he isn’t fighting a 14 year old?
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
After the events of D-Stabilized, Valerie can't seem to find the courage to face Vlad alone head-on, but she can still disrupt his plans from the inside and a certain ghostboy is more than eager to help! Their secret mission takes the unlikely pair deep into the Ghost Zone. Aside from the lingering distrust between them, things are going relatively well until Danny starts feeling mysteriously ill, leaving it up to Valerie to get them both home safely.
Absolutely amazing artwork for this fic by the multitalented @mary-mythos, who also happens to be my beta reader! This art commission is of Pandora (the ghost) from Chapter 5 of my fic.
Mary, thanks for "Yes, and"-ing all my wild ideas for reimagining this canon character into an OC! The way her BONES are visible through her ghost-skin still blows my mind!
This was my first-ever experience commissioning artwork, and it was such a delight!
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
After the events of D-Stabilized, Valerie can't seem to find the courage to face Vlad alone head-on, but she can still disrupt his plans from the inside and a certain ghostboy is more than eager to help! Their secret mission takes the unlikely pair deep into the Ghost Zone. Aside from the lingering distrust between them, things are going relatively well until Danny starts feeling mysteriously ill, leaving it up to Valerie to get them both home safely.
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