I love TCATC sm what inspired you to make the au?? I love the TCATC boys
For the world itself it’s actually somewhat loosely based around the area in which I live in England, although unfortunately I don’t live in a mountain valley—
A lot of it is based off my own interests and odd experiences in life from how the characters interact to feeling watched while collecting bones in the middle of the woods. And the occult too.
Especially around winter we get some really thick fog and I love playing in it and observing the world through a lens in which you can’t quite see what’s lurking in it.
As for the pinstripes themselves I actually drew inspiration from a post that I believe was actually on tumblr a while back. It went something along the lines of “the uncanny valley effect is creepy because it means at some point in human evolution we had to be afraid of something that looked human but wasn’t”
I know realistically the uncanny valley effect likely comes from an instinct to stay away from sick humans and dead bodies that could potentially spread disease. But what if it wasn’t?
And that’s the first building block I actually had for the AU. An ancient species of cryptid that could possess and mimic the human form to lure prey trying to help their fellow human. They pull on heartstrings or bring out some desire through pretending to be people.
Of course there’s only three chapters of TCaTC thus far but it has somewhat been brought up. From the reader, grandchild of a cryptid hunter, having a stronger ability/innate instinct to search the expression and form of the “person” in the cafe to mentions of cave paintings that included pinstripe demons standing behind a human that doesn’t look right.
Holy yap but yeah you get me lol