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drones-of-innocence · 8 months

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🎆 Sing for Absolution: behind the scenes 🎆

Part two, or the narrative background of the collab between @elitadream and I!

If you'd like to see the visual background where Elita goes over her artistic process for the panels, you can find that here!

As for the story itself, it's been mentioned a few times that the plot was an idea that has lived in my head for a long time. Usually when I have a scene in my head like this one, I try to work out a way to fit it into a larger story as a plot point. For example, in my fic What They Don't See, the entire story was born from a scene I imagined of Peach tending to a wounded Mario in a cramped apartment bathroom. In Man of War, most of that story stemmed from imagining Mario resisting the hypnotic influence of the Shadow Queen as she takes on Peach's appearance to manipulate him. They are often pieces that I can forge into something larger.

However, for this story, I didn't have any larger story to attach it to, as it seemed very detailed on its own. Moreso than the "pieces" that I normally imagine. So it seemed so silly that I hadn't yet found a reason to write it. I was lamenting this one day to Elita during one of our many brainstorming discussions, and asked if I could share this half-baked plot with her. I typed it out for the first time and shared it with her. This is what I originally wrote in a series of scrambling messages to her:

O~o~O

Basically one night everything is calm and peaceful in the MK, except Mario gets this weird feeling in his gut, like something is wrong and he can't shake it. He feels strongly that he NEEDS to go to the castle, even at this late hour, but he can't even explain to Luigi why he's got this feeling. He figures he'll just jog by and hopefully put his mind at ease when he sees that everything is quiet and fine. Only, the feeling gets stronger. He's worried about the Princess, he can't stop staring at her balcony or get himself to walk away. It's a visceral sense of danger; he's on edge, fists and jaw clenched, certain that something is wrong. And Mario is not a man to doubt his instincts.

But, he's kind of warring with himself because he needs to see Peach, but he knows the castle is asleep and Toadsworth would never allow him to visit, so his options are to walk away or to sneak into Peach's room. But at some point the instinct becomes too strong and he snaps. He has to get to her. He climbs up the castle wall and hops onto her balcony, keeping to the shadows and staying very quiet.

Peach is fast asleep. She has a luxurious and comfortable bed, and it puts his heart at ease to see her resting so peacefully despite the alarms in his head. He's horrified with himself because he knows this is very bad and creepy, but he literally can't leave. His instincts will not allow him to leave her now when she's apparently unharmed and snoozing, so cute all tucked in. He's never seen her without her hair done before.

Unknown to him, Bowser sent Kamek on a secret mission to kidnap the Princess. This is a stealth mission designed to go as smoothly as possible; instead of barging in and earning the wrath of the brothers, he'd send for her as she slept so Kamek could cast a spell on her to keep her asleep and quietly take her away to the Darklands. Then Kamek would remain as an imposter (as he's done in SMBW) and the Mario bros would (in Bowser's brain) not notice anything amiss.

So Kamek makes his way across the Kingdom, laughing to himself how simple and easy this invasion is. It'll be no trick at all to kidnap the Princess. It's a wonder they didn't conjure this plan before. He flies straight into the defenseless capital of Toad Town, and glides right through the balcony into her room. It's dark and soft and quiet. There, the vulnerable Princess lays under the light of the moon, having sweet dreams and completely unaware of what's about to happen. He raises his wand with a leer, only for a low voice to speak up.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

Kamek whips his head up, only for Mario to step into the light, anger burning in his eyes. He'd apparently been there for some time, sitting in a dark corner of the room watching over the Princess, and is not happy. This is literally worse than the worst case scenario he'd imagined. Mario's Firebrand activates, Kamek's wand lights up, and he attacks.

He'd known Mario to be a very aggressive and loud fighter, and he realizes that Mario is leaping at him and being very careful with how he lands and strikes so as to not make any noise. The Princess is still sleeping. Kamek's almost offended that Mario doesn't see him as a challenging enough adversary to go all out, so he starts to laugh and shout and deliberately aim for destruction. Mario snaps at him to keep quiet and lands a harsh blow, knocking him off his broom.

Kamek clatters to the ground, and Mario freezes, whipping his head up to check if the Princess has woken up. She lets out a long sigh and rolls over, undisturbed. Kamek takes the chance to leap up and tackle Mario to the ground, where they wrestle all over the floor.

Mario gets close to subduing him, but Kamek is smart and his wand happens to be close enough to shoot a spell directly into Mario's solar plexus, which stuns him briefly enough for Kamek to scramble toward the bed and start to rear back with his wand, aiming right for Peach.

At his shrill, victorious cry, Peach snaps awake only to see Mario tear Kamek away from her in a rage. She screams, Kamek screams louder, and Mario finally lets out a furious shout as he hurls Kamek into the wall with enough force to shake the room. When Kamek slumps against the wall in a daze, Mario grabs him by the front of his robe, yanks him close and growls "whatever you try to do to the Princess, I will do to you ten times worse."

Nodding rapidly, Kamek stumbles to his feet once Mario hurls him down again, and scrambles to get to his broom to fly away, only for the Royal Guard to burst in. They heard the noise and came as fast as they could. Peach yelps, she watches all of this with wide eyes, clutching her blanket to her chest. Mario instructs the Guard to take him prisoner, and they take him away to the dungeon.

The door shuts as Kamek is detained, and the room falls silent. Mario is breathing hard. Peach is, too, quivering on her bed.

He can hear her when her throat starts to get tight and every breath sounds like a tiny whimper. Mario looks at her, eyes wide, and Peach looks so frightened and helpless there. "M—Mario?" she calls for him softly, and he can't help but go to her.

He doesn't know how to explain himself, to apologize for why he's there, but suddenly she's in tears and reaching for him and Mario is forced to sit beside her as she buries her face in his chest, shaking. It breaks his heart to see her so upset. "Mario, I—I'm so scared," she says to him, and that's what causes him to finally give in and hold her.

In her gorgeous little room, on her soft bedsheets, her bed surrounded by sheer curtains, he feels so out of place in his overalls and having just worked up a sweat, heart still pounding from the fight. But he couldn't ever deny her. She needed comfort and she was asking him for it. He holds her fiercely, murmuring soothing words into her hair, and trying to help her shaking body go still. Her hands clutch at his shirt.

He holds her until she stops crying, and keeps holding her until she stops shivering. And he still keeps her close until she's composed again, her body more relaxed than tense. The moment he does try to extract himself, she gasps and holds him tighter. His heart aches because he wants nothing more than to hold her like this forever, but he knows it's not his place. He should walk away. He should apologize for his intrusion and leave her be, but she resists. Something protective and warm inside him roils when he tries to insist to himself that he needs to let her go.

"Stay with me," her plea comes in a small voice, smaller than he'd ever heard her before. He'd seen her command troops, allies, negotiate dicey political situations, but he'd never heard her sound so vulnerable. "Please, I don't want to be alone."

He can't deny her. He physically can't. He concedes with a soft hum and encourages her to lay down. She won't even let him leave the mattress to pull a chair beside her, so he sits on top of the sheets, holding her hand. It's very late. Luigi is going to be curious about what he did. But he can't leave her, especially not like this. Cold and shivering and frightened. She eventually asks for him to lay down so she can press closer to him, and despite how strange it feels to lay in her bed, he does.

He starts to get sleepy after enough time of staring at the high ceiling. His heart rate calms down, his body begins to relax. Right as he thinks she's already fallen asleep, she shifts to hold him a little tighter and whispers "Thank you." then, quieter, she adds. "I feel safe with you."

And Mario's affection for her only spirals deeper and deeper because there is literally nothing more this man wants in life than to be the reason that she is safe, that she feels safe. Her affection is spiralling too; he's so warm and his presence is so steady and certain. She's never felt more secure in her life, and she knows rationally this is improper, but somehow this is also the most right thing she's ever felt in her life. She wonders if Mario could possibly feel that, too.

O~o~O

At this point, I was simply trying to carry across an idea and write it out for the first time, as it had lived only in my head and absent day dreams for literal years. So you can imagine my shock when Elita sends me an entire storyboard (of 22 different sketches!!) that captures the plot!

(Here is the screenshot of me scribbling over her sketches while we were trying to figure out which shots to keep 🤭 I drew hearts on the panels that were my absolute favorites, and she mentioned the panel where Mario's glaring down at Kamek with the heart unintentionally gave them romantic tension 😂 Now that would be a plot twist!)

I was completely boggled that this particular idea captured her imagination, too. We quickly agreed to work on a collaboration after that, where I refined the plot, and she refined the storyboard. What followed was weeks of sharing development, screaming at each other in delight, and working very hard on our respective parts. What I estimated would be a light 3k fic built and built until I was at about 7k 😳And when I was done with that, Elita sent me back an entire doc of the story with her added feedback after every paragraph, kind of a play-by-play of her reaction to each moment of the story. It was so sweet and I'll have that doc saved forever 💖

(Here are two shots of the doc where she reacted to the text, the story in blue and her reactions in red. Fun fact: the line "could she know he only dreamed of her?" was paraphrased from the lyrics "I only dream of you, my beautiful," from the actual song Sing for Absolution! Also, the "spores alive!" line is a reference to a line used in Super Mario RPG 👀)

Elita and I had worked together before, but never quite like this where a project began with the intention of sharing it together. We've inspired each other a lot; from this silly little fic I wrote that she based a sketch off of, to this piece she did for New Year's that inspired me to write One Step Closer. She has told me before that she had been reading my stories as she got into the fandom, and to be honest it was this piece of hers that brought me back into it last year. So it was very much a given that we should definitely work on a project together!

That mutual inspiration really got to work in Sing for Absolution, too. While the plot was my idea, many of her ideas found their way naturally into the narrative as well. For example, she mentioned the Fire Flower in her background post. I was delighted that she allowed me to reference this piece of her lore from this Valentine's Day piece she made, and include this notion that the Fire Flower is responsive to the bond between Mario and Peach. Elita always brings a kind of wonderful, unexplainable magic with her ideas. Literally and visually! She also mentioned that she borrowed my concept of Peach's healing power, and gave it true form by illustrating it as this soft pink healing light.

Another point of our muses coming together was the Yoshi plush that we gave to Peach that she has with her in bed. We dicussed comfort objects, and how such a soft little detail adds so much character and vulnerability. I've mentioned this previously, but as soon as Elita suggested the object in question be specifically a Yoshi plush, I immediately agreed because of how she's portrayed Peach with Yoshis, and also because Kamek is the antagonist of Yoshi's Island so it gives him a reason to sneer at her.

The fight was such a fun sequence to work on. Referencing the Firebrand is one of my favorite things to do when I write Mario fighting, and Elita illustrating that takes it to another level entirely. Kamek's magic was another thing we discussed together; we somehow came to a similar visualization and ultimately combined ideas to create the stunning neon purple and green light that you can see in the sixth and seventh panels. Using words that evoke fire (smoldering, simmering, emberglow) is also something I did very purposefully in my planning to really execute Mario's powers and rage. It was that I think that partly inspired Elita to give Mario those glowing eyes, so that would be an example of a new concept that came out of this story 🔥

We decided to split the story into five parts to let the art and writing shine strongest together. On my own, I might have published the whole thing, and Elita might have had more parts if it were one of her sequences. We have diagrams and color coded text that we went back and forth on for a while to decide how to best let each other's work be most effective. I'm very pleased with how it turned out, and I may try writing short chapters in the future!

One other little detail that Elita left up to me was the name of the story. I almost never have an idea that doesn't already come with a name, so I really had to scramble to find one. As music always inspires me, songs are ordinarily my go-to. (You can find many examples of this in my stories already, One Step Closer and Man of War already being two) Originally, I was going to name it after a Keane song, but I decided to save that particular one for a different project, as the tone and lyrics were entirely too soft and sweet for the plot. Then, one day Sing for Absolution just came up on my playlist and I immediately knew it was the right fit. Any Muse fan would know right away based on my username alone that I'm a big fan 😂 I got to see them in concert shortly after I told Elita about the song and shared why I thought it fit. I could make a whole other post about how the plot fits with the song 🤭

Finally, it would not be truly a piece done by Elita or me if it didn't include all the Mareach fluff 💞 The tenderness was absolutely agonizing, and the reason that final chapter is the longest was 100% because both of us absolutely love to dwell on Mario and Peach's tender feelings for one another. Elita actually surprised me with the 2nd to last panel very recently! Across her storyboard and my original description of the plot, you can see what sort of things were altered and moved around, while new ones were also added in!

It was an incredible privilege to work on such a project with Elita. I know we'll put our heads together again in the future, and it makes me so happy that so many enjoyed what we came up with together!

#Sing for Absolution #My writing #Elita's art #Elitadream #Amazing art #Collaboration #Author and artist collab #100% one of the best things to come out of being involved with fandom #Is moments like this where creative energies combine haha #This was such a wonderful experience and I love the support we got #This is something we can both be truly proud of 💖

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