my request for further information: how did takenaka get into journalism? is teru going the way of mogami? how did ritsu and shou meet? how did asagiri choose her profession?
also, non AU question, on the art side i'd love to hear any design notes you have about them
1. takenaka and mezato were on opposite fringes of the same friend group in middle school, but were the only two to go to a different high school than the rest, and a mutual desire for at least one familiar face led to them becoming closer friends over the next few years. mezato’s first job after school was as a junior reporter for the newspaper; takenaka’s was as a convenience store cashier. she got sick of listening to him complain about working retail and put his name in for a job at the paper, which he got. it isn’t his ultimate passion or anything like it is for mezato but she took him with her through promotion after promotion until they ended up where they are now: senior investigative journalist and her editor/assistant/interrogator
2. teru was a child star (or, well. teenage star) that had his own TV show called “super psychic tonight” which was sort of a supernatural variety show. there was a small cast of other espers that would host the show with him (the “super five”) and they would do like live exorcisms and visits to haunted locations and themed game show segments and stuff. it was moderately popular, but after about six years, the show went off-air. low ratings, maybe? complications behind the scenes? no one’s really sure. the super five have faded into relative obscurity along with the show, aside from a couple of tabloid appearances—a rigged gambling scandal here, a tangential connection to an arson case there—and teru himself seems to be trying to put whatever it is that happened behind him. last anyone’s checked, he owns some kind of boutique clothing store in seasoning city and does occasional consulting work for the local psychic agencies
3. they met about eight years ago, during the time ritsu tells everybody he was in law school, in some big city overseas somewhere. i’d say you’d have to ask them for specifics but their many varied answers never seem to match up so it’s probably a lost cause
4. asagiri was once the richest, most well-known and successful real estate mogul in the prefecture. the family business wouldn’t have been her first choice, but she hadn’t really had a choice in the matter, and she made it work for almost five years before the stress caught up to her. an unknown event catalyzed a complete nervous breakdown that led to her hospitalization and she burnt down almost all of her professional bridges in the process, so afterward she’d needed to start over from scratch, and she took it as a sign that she was meant for some other career path. her decision to counsel troubled children stems from a desire to give someone the help she wished she’d gotten when she was a troubled child herself, and maybe do some god damn good in the world for once in her fucking life
when i try to draw adult versions of kid characters (or vice versa) i don’t think “how would their style be different” but more “how would their style have evolved to fit more (or less) mature tastes.” and of course i also sometimes try to use it to reflect how they’ve changed in other ways as they’ve gotten older
so mezato gets a bit of a shorter, cleaner haircut as her amateur guerrilla journalism gets honed into real investigative skills. takenaka loses his severe middle part and spiky bangs as he learns to handle his powers and has less of a need for reflexive prickly unfriendliness. shigeo’s bangs have thinned out a little, exposing his eyebrows and thus his facial expressions, because as he gets older he’s coming out of his shell a little more. tome’s outfit is professional but still colorful and patterned, because even though she has a grown up job it doesn’t mean she has to be boring
some of them i think also maybe are not styled the way they want or don’t wear their favorite clothes. teru would rather be wearing much more colorful and patterned things, but he hasn’t lost the obsessive image-consciousness of a TV star. shou likes wearing bold colors, but now he’s grown up and has a serious job, so those colors get dark and muted, even though he’s added some jewelery to offset it. ritsu takes himself very seriously and wears oppressive clothes, tight ties, heavy suits and coats, but his hair’s still a mess that sticks up everywhere because he still has an intense, vindictive streak
if you look at actual pictures of people when they were kids and when they were adults it’s kind of crazy how many people still look surprisingly similar to how they did when they were kids, like style-wise and everything. so i hope i could capture that while still having them be like. believably different. lol
kianamaiart
jimmyeatworldofficial
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