Behind the Scenes: Campus Companionship

•This story was co-written by myself and gbrn32e. Yes, that Gbrn32e. Shocking, right?

•The concept for the story came about way back in mid-February, when I reread Gbrn's A Visit Is Paid - From Dusk To Dawn, in which he introduced Dawn's sister Dusk. I myself had a few months prior introduced Sarah's sister Rebecca, and I offhandedly said the two should meet, being that their sisters are enemies. He was intrigued by the idea and suggested a roleplay where it happened.

•Our approach to writing was a bit different from a standard RP; we planned out the basic premise and most of the story ahead of time and we'd always decide which direction we wanted a scene to go before writing it. We could also dispute each other's ideas, suggest a rewrite or an alternative, and even write a conversation using the other's character if we wanted. I wrote Becky, Dean Caldwell and usually Kat and Vanessa. He wrote Dusk and sometimes Kat or Vanessa.

•The story took a while to get done with Gbrn's job and our other commitments coming but it was mostly finished two months ago in a more script-like format. There were a few scenes that needed adding and it needed tidying up but I held off on that for two months to write Darkest Before The Dawn once certain details of that were implemented into this. Once that was done, it fell to me to added the scenes Gbrn had no drive to write, clean it up and put it into a more readable format. I'd also like to thank godzillahomer for his help in proofreading and helping come up with Sarah and Rebecca's surname by suggesting Knight.

•The story was originally to be set roughly six months after Rebecac's debut, though Darkest's setting in the timeline I worked out lead to this changing to be set later on, closer to ten months on.

•Dusk's alias of June Evenings came before I wrote Lilith's alias of April Evenings as a nod to this story. Lilith's use of the phrase 'Mesmerizing Mammaries' was also a nod to this.

•Katherine's name flip-flopped between the K and C spelling but I settled on K because then her nickname would just be 'Cat'. She was created because I wanted a roommate for Becky.

•Vanessa was just going to be a minor character with no personality at first, much like Veronica, but we decided on a later scene and upped her role and characterisation, along with making her Veronica's sister. I believe we also named her before the release of Night of a Thousand Yutas, which also had a Vanessa.

•The scene of Vanessa confronting Dusk was one of the major hangups with the story. The original idea was for her to go to the dean and Dusk would be called to her office with a bunch of the school's directors present and the scene being recorded so Dusk couldn't use hypnosis. The scene was to include Rebecca running in to save Dusk but there was no realistic way Dusk could disprove the allegations and get off the hook. As such, I opted for a less professional scene so Vanessa could be dissuaded.

•The idea of Rebecca and Dusk becoming a couple was suggested a number of times during the writing - possibly as a joke - but I was against the idea as I didn't want a "they're lesbians lol" situation. But as we wrote the two becoming closer for the falling our to occur, it seemed more and more like them becoming a couple was the only way the story should go. I relented and I'm so glad I did because I feel that the story is much stronger for it.

•I don't recall if we initially decided to make Kat Diana's sister or just a neko first.

•For the sex part, I really wanted to focus on the emotion, rather than the lust. Luckily, Gbrn felt the same way and we wrote it as tastefully as we could.

•The heist was a scene I had to write alone. The problem was, I didn't much care for the scene itself so I asked Gbrn if it would be better to write it or just allude to it comedically. He chose the latter and here we are now.

•The cat named Paul came from real life. My mother and younger brother's cat had kittens and one of my brother's friends name two of them (why, I don't know). He called them Toast and Paul. I'm dead serious.

•The idea of the stone draining energy came about later when I realised Lilith was perhaps a bit too powerful. I intended to have her drain it but keep the stone just in case, but I'd already written its destruction and the image of the two lovers bringing the hammer down together was just too striking to not use.

•The original backstory before I fleshed it out in DBTD was that Lilith had been brainwashed to have Lucius' children. Now, I have no problem depicting rape as the horrible crime it is, but I didn't like the idea of Dusk and Dawn being children of rape, so I altered it. I wouldn't have been able to give such a subject the proper attention it deserves anyway.

•The idea for the brainwashing as part of Lilith's backstory was planned before DBTD but I left it out of that story because we felt that Lilith's sudden statement of never really loving Lucius was quite strong.

•On a lighter note, yes, that was indeed Lydia working in the café.

•The unfinished version from before clean-up can be found here.