Welcome to the blog for Things That Bleed, a crossover fic of Danny Phantom, Alex Rider and SCP Foundation. This fic project is a collaborative effort between creators @artistfingers, @ghostly-cabbage, and @kkachis. Full credits can be found here.
This fic is uploaded and available to read on AO3! We also have a supplemental fic with the Foundation's SCP articles, which will include content not yet featured in the fic. This can be read here!
📕 LIST OF TAGS
#admin: For administrative posts.
#art: For all art on this blog.
#official art: For in-story illustrations.
#sketches: For sketches of cut content, early concepts, and doodles that didn't make it into the final draft.
#fin art, #kkachi art, #abriel art, #fae art, #wano art: For indicating the illustrator(s) of a piece.
#fanart: For any fanart we receive!
#asks, #submissions: For all answered asks and received submissions.
#fin, #kei, #kkachi: For indicating which author wrote or reblogged and tagged a post.
#updates: For all update posts.
#TTB update spoilers: For all latest update posts, within a week of posting.
#wips: For sneak peeks of work-in-progress material.
#things that meme: For memes. Crunchy, spicy TT🅱️emes.
your fic compelled me to watch alex rider and it was simply beyond my control that every time yassen appeared on screen i was forced to shout out yaaasseeennn!!! greatly enriching the experience.
the DP mashup makes SO MUCH sense now
the DP mashup makes INCREDIBLE sense when you pair it with AR season one. the uncanny horror vibes are off the charts and you want us to NOT cross it over with our blorbo of all time? please
Oh my God ttb is posting again this is the only thing I am going to think about. I'm buying my ticket I'm already in my seat the movie theater employees are asking me to leave
we have too much fun shit planned that we want to write and get to :)
So I'm not really sure how these askbox things tend to go, but I shall give it a try! First of all, I wanted to thank you three for writing this story. I've been having a rough couple weeks and going back to read fics like this one always brings me comfort.
As for the question(s), I was curious about how you guys frame your mindset to match the character's when writing their perspective. Like, what are the things you keep in mind for each character when it comes to the things they do and say? What are the traits that you think are the most important/most defining for those characters when writing them? And how do you stay in character when you do?
I know every writer has their own vision of how a character should act; were your visions for those characters different between each of you at first? How were they resolved?
Sorry, getting ahead of myself. I know as a reader we can infer things for ourselves, but I've always admired the way other writers get into that headspace for their characters, and was always curious about what you guys specifically thought about when it came to writing this story and the way things played out. I think its amazing that a story could be written by three people and be as incredible and cohesive as this fic. Things That Bleed will always hold a special place in my heart 💜
hey omg specky thank you so much for this awesome ask! we're really glad to hear that our fic gives you comfort in trying times.
between the three of us, we honestly for the most part are in accord with each other about how the story should proceed and how the characters should act! i think that's one of the really serendipitous things about this collaboration: that three people can have so much consensus about the story we're telling together. of course, we do have our creative disagreements and diverging ideas, but many of these are hashed out in our discord channel prior to our cursors touching the document. sometimes we're not sure about something and we bring it up with the others to discuss.
more under the cut! it got a bit long, also some mild spoilers for older chapters of TTB:
kkachi: i would say that for me, what i'm focusing on is how i can best bring out their character arc. for all three characters, it fundamentally boils down to having lost and learning to love again. their basic character arc is the same, which keeps them glued together narratively. how they respond to this fundamental arc, and the specific quirks to how they react, makes them different characters and POVs
i'll use yassen as an example. yassen would not be an interesting character to write if he was just doing regular assassin-y things in his scorpia era. he's interesting to write because of the tension between the calcified amoral armour he wears against the beating heart inside.
take the B&B up until the climax in chapter 11, for example. many people have pointed out that the violence of his response seemed disproportionate. this was on purpose! yassen's hammer is Murder and every target looks like a nail. that was the only hammer he has been allowed to use for over two decades. avoidance and then violence, in that order, are the only things that he knows will work.
then, sticking to the survival mechanisms he knows, in the throes of anomaly-induced panic, he shoots danny in the throat.
his actions and POV in that moment of pure fear reveal so much about him as a character: that he cares enormously for alex, that he cannot abide by the violence that was and continues to be done unto alex by the agencies vying for his free will, that he is grieving and has probably never reconciled that grief, and that faced with something scary, his answer is always the gun. even when it's not a good idea.
then there's, of course, the perceptual filters. danny is so fun for this one, obviously, but understanding each character's unique outlook on the world tells you so much. it tells you what details to prioritize in a description (facial expressions? smells? darkness? pressure points? vantage points? identifiable features?). it tells you how to write those descriptions (is fear bright? cold? creeping? does it remind you of a memory? can you taste it? do you try your best to ignore it?). this sews itself neatly to the bones of the plot skeleton and makes something very, very fun and meaty to chew on.
Kei response: Hi speck! Thank you so much for sending this amazing ask! Like kkachi said, a big part of writing them, and any character for that matter, is having the context. Their histories dictate so much of how they act and react to things. The more you can know about a character, the better you can write them.
For me personally, something I do actually is focus on their mannerisms and body language! Thinking about how they visually hold themselves or move through a space really helps me get into their shoes and write how they interact with the world they're in and each other.
Also, a key thing for me is just… how long you've spent writing a character. Like all things, you get better the more you do it, and I think the same is true with characters. My sweet spot is usually 20-30k words. Once I've written a character for that long, something about them just clicks and locks into my brain and it gets way easier for me to write from their perspective. (Funny enough! It's kinda why we started this fic in Danny's perspective iirc. I for sure had more experience, and therefore comfort, in writing from Danny's perspective as opposed to Alex or Yassen.)
On writing Danny: His POV is like. Two steps towards 3rd person omniscient with Danny as the filter
kkachi: it's so interesting writing him because sometimes he's still a teenage boy but sometimes it's so clear that he really did die in there and lost his humanity along the way
On writing Yassen: Yassen, more often than not is the perspective we struggle with the most. The way we approach writing him is based in literary fiction actually! We use a lot of narrative distance for him to have that sort of... Disconnected and pragmatic feeling to him. And we only close that distance for emotional effect when his mask cracks so to speak!
kkachi: yeah ^ one of the things we try to do is tell his emotional story in the actions and the omissions.
we hope this was an interesting response! let us know if you have any follow-up questions okay :] we're always happy to get asks!
I’ve been rereading Things That Bleed and its amazing every time I read it. My favorite crossover fic fr. I can’t wait to see how the scp agents continue to deal with these children (and their totally not dad assassin). I was wondering if we could get a little snippet of the next chapter 👉👈
presents you a littol snippet just from the very top of chapter 16 hehe
Focus on Alex.
Focus on Alex.
Danny stares blankly through the keening hunger.
Alex isn’t even strapped in properly, lying horizontal over the other two seats of the SUV. The engine roars in his ears, chaotic.
He fucked up. Almost fucked it all up. It was almost his fault. He needs to make it right.
Focus on Alex.
He sucks in another breath. It lands on his tongue. Holds it there. Blows it out. Dead air.
“You should sit up. Put on your seatbelt,” he says.
Alex twitches, and confusion rises from him momentarily—like he’s not sure Danny is talking to him. Like he isn’t confident where he is. But it settles, and Alex works up a smile.
“You sound like Yassen.”
“And a vehicular accident would be an asinine way to die,” Yassen adds tersely from the front seat.
you know when danny went to feed and alex and yassen went to look for him i was like oh no danny’s going to come back and think they left or some shit is going to go down outside and they’re not making it back to that cabin the same and then it was fine(ish) but so much worse /pos
ran out of characters and my chronic illness is kicking my ass so i’m out of words for today but gosh i’m so invested and hope y’all can continue having fun creating! hope my body keeps kicking long enough i can see where it all goes. regardless i’ve really enjoyed the ride so far! the military side got a little tricky cause i am dogshit with names without faces to go with them but Alex displaying ghostly traits has me so intrigued. Yassen is also so fun to read. Hardass pushover of all time
we have an incredible amount of fun working on TTB! don't worry, we're going to make sure that the military side stays comprehensible for people (we've heard the feedback that it was a lot of names, which is totally understandable). yassen is so fun to read and doubly fun to write. woe, midlife crisis be upon ye, old man
i rarely get new hyperfixations but omg this story grabbed me and refused to let go! it was like watching a fantastically paced thriller! i’ve uh barely slept for a few days because i just couldn’t stop reading!! i’m only familiar with DP and some SCP stuff (which is either right up my sci-fi horror alley or way too other scary/yay military) but oh this hit the ground running and kept pace! i love Danny’s secret haunting the narrative, keeping the tension high as shit escalates and escalates.
omg thank you anon i hope you got some sleep! i'm very glad you enjoy our sillay little actionhorrorfoundfamily story! (will respond to your other asks now as well)
Is Danny’s emotion sense based on his mouth or his core?
Like if he ate straight toothpaste would the flavor be so overpowering he couldn’t read any emotions, or would you have to wrap him in tinfoil or something ?
his sense isn't based on his literal mouth! the way we write it is more metaphorical, or almost like synesthesia—we're trying to make the reader experience that palpable sensation of emotions in the air when it's not really a normal human experience, so we have to rely on imagery.
we do think that if he was overstimulated enough in one sense, just like how regular human beings can't see as well if there's an auditory racket, he would have trouble perceiving that "emotion-sense". brains have limited processing power, and he's capable of being distracted like anyone else.
I love that Danny's first thought when he hears Alex comment about living long enough to have a rap sheet is "wow i'm so out of practice with talking to people"
I don't think any amount of social skills compares to the life experiences of both of them combined.
I have never shoplifted or used a crane or died(?) And i am older than them (i think).
Danny is really animal coded (The "deer in headlights" when the forest ranger walks into the gas station, when alex likens him to a feral cat when they're tailing the teens from the theater, and just generally how he isn't used to being a human anymore) and i am EATING IT UPPP.
I'm only partway into chapter 1, probably not gonna finish the whole thing before 15 comes out, but i was having thoughts and i wanted to share them
Pleeeaaasseee!! We are always so happy to hear your thoughts! :D This makes me so glad ahhhhhhh please we love when people tell us what they think!!! It feeds us hehehe also it's so fun when people comment or send asks and we can see what stands out to people in the story and in our writing and EEEEEEE I'm twirling my hair and kicking my feet!!
Also :) Danny is so animal to us. The creachure if you will... Please keep your thinking cap on next chapter and all chapters <3
