Will the unfolding of Nine's backstory continue in the future? I miss him, but at the same time understand that new ideas come along & take up more of your attention
// hi š¦
first of all so sorry iāve been absent here. like you said, iāve had a lot of other projects taking up my attention. with how demanding my stories are, i struggle a bit to tend to multiple at once, which is why american tradition has been at the forefront this past year. it can be very time consuming. art is also much more physically strenuous on me in recent years and unfortunately i canāt post once a day like i used to forever ago.
to answer your question though, continuing the story definitely isnāt out of the question for the future. nine is still here i promise and i love him dearly. itās all in my head and i hope one day i get to share the whole thing with you guys when killersnarl comes back to me. nothing is ever done forever.
HAI!!
I just needed to ask, erm.. what is the best way to portray Nine!? Like personality wise and other factors. I wanna write a fanfic about him :3
// so sorry for the late response !!! been super caught up with life n other stuff.
i actually have a whole page in my carrd for this since i figured it would be helpful ! you can read it here, under the āsee hereā link. if you need something more specific and in depth though, discord dms are always open !
sorry for the lack of nine stuff recently !!!! iām still here tho and drawing more than ever. iāve actually been working on stat related things (my other jeff the killer guy) and ive been posting a ton about it on other accounts ! so thatās what ive been busy with.
just wanted 2 let u guys know iām not dead and nine misses you all terribly (heās mad at me for not updating)
i just wanted to give u guys a little irl update !! iām doing good im officially graduating very soon. havenāt had much free time cause ive been busy with work and friends and such but thatās not surprising u guys know that. iāll still keep stuff coming on here whenever i get the chance tho !!!
i also wanted to let you guys know that little project iāve been hinting at is still in the works. itās gonna take a while but itās still being worked on in the midst of work and school and life things ^^ nine is always on the brain. here is evidence ā¬ļø
okokok as someone who is starting to collect facts to write a 9fic, i have a question
you've mentioned he sounds like corpsehusband a while back, if i remember correctly
would 9 do the iconic "whaddup baby" line if asked, for shits and giggles?
// yes cause tbh thatās just how he talks normally, he talks super casual no matter who heās talking too. only exception is his weird biblical monologues when heās being a freak
i have all this stuff linked in the carrd and i think ive posted this before, but i compiled some nine writing info for my friends a while back and i figured it could be useful to you guys if you havenāt seen it already :3 under the cut (thereās also my list of nine mannerisms i posted a little while ago, and i posted some notes on his accent if itās ever relevant lol)
i think part of the difficulty that comes with writing nine is due to his characteristic unpredictability. thatās why heās so fickle to deal with, as a character and as a person. his characterization is complex. even though heās unpredictable in behavior, thereās some things integral to his personality that can probably help figure out what heās going to do. the hard part is, to other people, heās an enigma.
something youāll find in nines behavior along the line is that itās contradictory. humans are contradictory. he doesnāt know what he wants.
heās very nice, i can say that. as long as youāre not a target, heās a sweetheart. heās nice even if heās terrorizing you, sometimes. if they know what he is, a lot of people will have a very hard time with his attitude. they seem to think itās all a ruse, a trap, but the truth is heās just being honest. he doesnāt care enough to be a dick. he doesnāt care about you enough to be rude to you. being mean takes energy away from him. itās much easier for him to be politely apathetic. itās in his nature to be kind to others, even in his own twisted way. he shows basic regards to everyone without being super enthusiastic.
part of that shows in how he treats employees in places, i think. he rarely ever causes trouble in stores, unless it happens to be a place of target practice. he always pays for things, leaves tips, heās not very partial to stealing. that being said, he definitely gets things for free a lot of the time. heās huge and scary.
nine is pretty chipper for someone who hates himself and his life and thinks heās a horrible person (he is). youāll barely ever catch him moping around. he only mopes when heās alone and even then he doesnāt do it much, he hates moping. heās in constant emotional (and physical) pain and he has been for so long to the point that comfort makes him uncomfortable. heās extremely comfortable in his suffering. he pushes away things he likes, people he likes, because heās not used to feeling that happiness, and he doesnāt want to feel that happiness.
heās hypocritical about it too. he hates happiness and being unhappy makes him happy. sometimes heāll make himself happy on purpose just to make himself uncomfortable. itās a paradox.
he does take time to entertain himself sometimes, even though he hates admitting it. he usually doesnāt even realize itās making him happy, which is why he immediately stops what heās doing when it finally comes to him. heāll stick around with people if he can, people that he likes watching. he likes watching how people behave, making comments about it, irritating them about it. thatās just his way of making friends. tell him about your interests, life story, favorite memories. he loves hearing about other people because it means thereās less space for him to fill up about himself.
he doesnāt like talking about himself. if asked, heās usually pretty cryptic. he puts his whole life simply, more simple than it is. simple so you wonāt ask questions. simple so he doesnāt have to think about it too hard. some people would probably see this as being humble, and he is humble, humble to the point of hatred.
he hates himself very thoroughly but that doesnāt stop him from making jokes. heās a flirt, as everyone knows. very into teasing people about having crushes on him (which works, because they either do or they will.) people might take this as self confidence or arrogance, itās anything but. he just likes reactions.
i think a lot of people might see him as careless. and he is, at least a little bit. heās not careless as in sloppy, but careless as in nonchalant. heās extremely nonchalant. some people might even find it annoying. nothing spooks him, nothing worries him, nothing excites him. nothing you know about, at least, nothing youāll ever know about. heās always calm and casual, and he never wipes that lazy smile off his face.
nine likes feigning things. not because heās dishonest, but because he likes making jokes, he likes being entertaining. youāll never really scare him, but heāll give you a delayed gasp and hand over his heart just to irritate you. youāll never really make him angry, but heāll give you a sudden outburst if he thinks you need to be scared back into your place, and quickly laugh when you jump. it never seems like heās being serious. heās always joking, heās always lighthearted. youāll know when heās being serious.
something that was a LOT more apparent when he was an older teenager, he can be protective. heās very aware that most people are weaker than him, heās been aware of that for a while now, and heās learned to take advantage of that. when he was younger he was almost like a communal bodyguard. wherever he was, nine was the protector of whoever was there, and they all knew that. he used to equally see himself as a protector and a punisher, but now heās just a punisher. at least he thinks so. now protection is somewhat of a habit. heāll put himself between you and a stranger, block someone off with an arm, tell you to walk on the inside of him on the sidewalk, make you walk close in front of him in unfamiliar places.
tw for discussion of sexual assault, rape, and suicide. please take care while reading and read to the end if you can <3
natalie as a character in killersnarl is important to me. itās important to me how sheās seen, how sheās interpreted, because she represents a facet of myself. i need people to understand how natalie was not a fighter, she was not heroic, she was not aggressive, she was not violent. we may not know much about her or her narrative importance yet, but i do want you all to know this. natalie liked to lay down and die, thatās very important. itās important to me because it encompasses my experience with coping with sexual assault, something thatās plagued her life how it does mine. i was sexually assaulted november and december of 2022 by someone who i thought loved me. if you didnāt know, which many of you donāt, natalie is a survivor of assault, and thatās a leading character aspect for her and why she behaves the way she does. i wanted to reveal these things about her poetically and vaguely like i do with every other character, but it never really wants to come out right. i feel like thereās never really a correct way to write a survivor, if theyāre combative and aggressive youāre doing it wrong, if theyāre reclusive and compliant youāre doing it wrong too. while neither of these are actually wrong, i never really see any depth attributed to these experiences. itās a unique feeling, a very unique one that you will not understand until youāve experienced it yourself. itās not something you can feel through pure empathy, the tumultuous emotions and responses to what happened. natalie describes how i reacted to mine, the feelings i felt, and how i navigated life.
natalie lost her sense of self. she was stripped of her identity and personality and all the things she felt made her a person. when you see her, sheās always wearing this far away look on her face and her eyes are glazed over. she doesnāt express much emotion, or interest, or hobbies. natalie never says no but she never says yes either, she lets other people carry her throughout her life and decide what happens to her because she doesnāt feel like she has much of a say anymore. she doesnāt put much care into her appearance and sheās always dirty and her hair is always tangled. she lives in squalor because thereās no difference between clean and dirty to her anymore.
itās important to remember sexual assault survivors can still make lives for themselves, they can still be happy, they can still heal and move through the world with all their hopes and dreams. iām doing better now too, but i feel like itās easy to forget the people that hope and pride donāt come easily to, the people who are tired, the people who might just want to lay down for years and years under a warm blanket and just breathe. iām never going to forget the person that my experience made me become, and i wanted to immortalize that person in natalie. even in my infinite sadness and isolation, i was a person and i deserved to have someone look at me like one. i wasnāt a fighter and i always had my head down and i was so out of it and high strung people thought i was on something, but i was still a survivor. even when all iād do was lay in a bathtub and stare at the ceiling, when iād hide under my covers, when all i wore was baggy clothes and i hated seeing the outline of myself, i had people who came to me and they thanked me and they told me they loved me and they told me i was the strongest person theyād ever met because i was still living despite the misery.
natalie is me when id shower with the lights off, natalie is me when i couldnāt sleep in my own room because i was so afraid, natalie is me when i couldnāt look at dirty shoes without thinking of him, natalie is me when they wanted me drug tested because of how glazed over my eyes were from the countless nights of tears, natalie is me when i hugged one of his old best friends and he told me it happened to his older sister too and i was one of the strongest people he knew just like her. i made natalie because even nearly a year later, i still canāt sleep without waking up from nightmares every single night. natalie died because she couldnāt keep living, but she was still a survivor just like the countless amount of people who lost themselves to it the same way. natalie may not reflect your experiences and she may not be accurate to you, but please know shes a reflection of my own.
a girl came to me after i talked to the police, a girl who he did the same thing to. i didnāt like her much, i wasnāt sure if she liked me either, but she came to me. i knew she was the person who found out about what happened to me and told the police, which she never did for herself. part of me was angry at her for using my experience so i could be retraumatized and she could get some sort of justice through me, but i could never stay angry. i remember during a follow up i told the police that he did the same thing to another girl, and they asked if they needed to talk to her too. and i told them no, and i didnāt give them her name, because i wasnāt going to put her through the trauma of recounting the details like me. i was going to let her live through me even though it made me angry at first, i was going to let her use my assault to get some semblance of her own justice. we had nothing in common and our personalities didnāt match up and she told me she knew she wasnāt a nice person, but i told her it was okay, and we checked up on each other despite everything. i hope some of you can also live through me like she did.
its october of 2023 right now and i have an amazing life. it was hard and i thought id never see it through, but im alive and im well. the nightmares haven't let up and i still cant look at dirty shoes or long brown hair or purple lights or football games or tall people, but above all else im still here and i will be for a very very very long time. my heart goes out to everyone whos still living despite the pain and everyone who felt like they couldn't. all i can say is i want you all to stick around with me and feel the love i feel.
i thank all of you who send me countless messages every day, everyone whoās told me about how much my art helps them or describes emotions that arenāt well described. this blog is still about nine, as it always has been, but i hope you see the love and care and symbolism i put into all the characters, and how much they mean to me. i hope this whole storyline also means something to you as it does to me. i hope you put care into understanding the meanings and emotions behind these characters, and how much love i put into every number 1,3, 6, 7, 8, and 9, and any number that may come forward. you all mean a lot to me and you always have, and the love i get from all of you is what encourages me to keep making art about the things i do. i hope you stick around to hear more about trois and her importance to the story. it was hard to write this and im still not sure if i did it right, but remember you are all important to me.
