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tobyisave · 6 months

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Orange Peels on Fire: aka Townsend lore

because someone asked: here's a big dump of stuff about the story Townsend is from, i.e. the narrator of Choker!

Major TW for suicide/hanging, and obviously OCD.

Also, heads up that it's a really silly, REALLY emo story about ghost hunting lol.

Townsend is the deuteragonist of a (really extremely unfinished) story I had, that was provisionally called Orange Peels on Fire (opof). I started working on it when I was watching a lot of Demon Slayer, and it was basically my attempt to create a cast of shounen anime characters who were all girls but look exactly like the typical shounen anime protagonists. (I mention Demon Slayer because I took a LOT of inspiration from that - at times I described it to people as a shitty lesbian Vietnamese Demon Slayer knockoff... wow it's like it was made for me!!!)

A lot of lore is super wishy-washy because I did like the OG concept art in 2021, then I just kinda fucked around until 2022 when I revamped it for a screenwriting class. I don't really consider either version more canon, but I did a lot more work on the screenwriting version so I'll just describe that :P

Setting

It's set in post-apocalyptic US (either Virginia or like California but I couldn't commit because I've never seen California). A lot of the human population is gone - old civilization is being reclaimed by nature and the surplus oxygen means that there are also giant bugs now who take a lot of the niches previously held by mammals (like mice, dogs, deer etc). The oxygen is also how I campily explain away people being able to do epic anime jumps and stuff lmao. This, plus global warming, also means that the middle of North America now has a sort of tropical climate.

The part that actually matters is everyone in the US lives in tiny villages created out of suburban neighborhoods, and they're constantly having Ghost and Monster Problems of some nature because society has forgotten how to properly bury the dead --- and also because that apocalyptic event 100-or-so years ago caused so many ghosts to be created.

Phượng Lê

The protagonist is Phượng Lê, an 18 year old girl who can see ghosts. She's a triplet, with a living brother (Thanh) and a stillborn sister (the titular Cam / "Orange") who she's always seen as just a normal sister because she's a ghost that lives with them.

(All three of these characters are from a depressing realistic fiction short story I wrote, which I personally consider to be their "true" versions, but I imported them into this because I thought it'd be stupid and funny to turn a story like that into a shounen anime lol)

This is what Phượng looks like! (modern on left, old on right)

She's struggled with depression her whole life, partially because everyone thinks she's a sad and delusional pyromaniac for acting like she has a living sister (whose bones she keeps in a box) and for burning stuff to send it to her. Because of that she puts a LOT of stock in Cam's happiness because keeping Cam's ghost kind of cost her everything (including her parents abandoning them etc).

Cam's remains get stolen one day and long story short, Phượng and Thanh end up traveling around the country trying to solve ghost problems, scooby-doo style, in pursuit of the person who stole them. There's like a different category of ghost every time, based on Vietnamese folklore. (And if you're wondering, Cam's bones are valuable because stillborn baby remains can be used for evil magic, which is of course what the evil people in this story want to do).

That finally brings us to...

Townsend! (aka May Hoàng)

Townsend has pretty different lore between 2021 and 2022, but again I'm going with the latter because I've spent more time on that.

In the story:

She's a self-proclaimed "evil ghost" who haunts a tree at the edge of town. Phuong comes to her to ask if she's seen Cam; Townsend is surprised to meet a human who's friendly to ghosts.

She lightly antagonizes P & Th (in what is later revealed to be an attempted suicide-by-cop type thing) and runs away from them a few times before finally deciding to join their team. (In some versions she has to pretend to be human to deceive Irene, the secretly evil lady helping P & Th out).

Originally I had her birth name as Townsend - in the most recent iteration, this is a nickname Phượng gives her through this miscommunication:

She's the only member of the team who can actually, you know, touch ghosts? (Except when Phuong goes all danny phantom on their asses but I don't need to get into that).

Despite this, and despite the fact that she constantly threatens to kill people*, she basically bursts into tears at the thought of enacting violence on people/ghosts, so she ends up just serving as their strategist **(as the only one who isn't kind of dumb lol).

* Her catch phrase is basically "Don't touch me, i'll kill you." This is really emo lol, but what you find out eventually is this is actually a warning and not a threat.

**Specifically, because Thanh is the only one with absolutely no ghost powers, he has to use weapons made by Phuong, and because Phuong is like the main character, Townsend and Thanh have to work together to strategize & fight in the background. That's a whole arc because Townsend is a coward who doesn't want to be in fights, and Thanh doesn't trust Townsend because she constantly threatens to kill him and Phuong. Fair, I guess.

Townsend's backstory:

She's supposed to be this fundamentally irrational character, who eventually becomes a love interest of Phượng (they're both lesbians) but still never brings herself to stop antagonizing her whenever they get too close. After months and months of working together, Phượng finally gets Townsend's backstory:

She was originally a 17-year-old girl named May Hoàng, who lived in a town next to Phượng's. She suffered from something that we would in modern times describe as OCD, but had since been forgotten by society because of the apocalypse (rip). Her family was Catholic, and they didn't think much of her earlier obsessions (except that she was being annoying), but when she confided in them about her newest obsession about dropping and strangling her baby brother, Meri, they confided in the church - and eventually all the townsfolk came to believe she was being influenced by the devil.

May's parents kept trying to work with her, but eventually she ran away to hang herself.* In some versions, instead of going through with that, she conveniently gets attacked by a hangman ghost (which is how I really loosely translated ma thần vòng) right before that, who strangles her and she still dies. Fun!

*This is what's described in the beginning of Choker. In the original version, she runs away on the back of a giant-giant american millipede, as depicted on the cover, and that becomes kind of a faithful steed that they can all ride around on later.

Either way, what she didn't realize (I guess because she's Catholic) is that if you hang yourself and nobody finds your body, you turn into a hangman ghost, and can only pass on if you strangle a living person to take your place.

So..... obviously that's not going to happen.

Phượng & Townsend

May died about a year before the story starts. She was kind of hoping Phượng could just exorcize her, but because it takes about 3 seconds to realize May isn't actually a threat, Phượng refuses to do that.

Instead they kind of fall in love (shipname Phuongsend if you're wondering lol), and they eventually figure out she's just mentally ill and reinvent ERT or something.

Meanwhile, because of both Cam and May, the whole team is looking for a way to turn ghosts back into living people. I never decided if they actually succeed, but honestly I don't think they ever will. May committed suicide and that's just not something you can undo.

As foils

They both care a lot about each other, but that's despite (or maybe because of?) some very conflicting values. There's a little undercurrent of each trying to change the other's morals.

Phượng's mother abandoned her and Thanh because of her obsession with her sister, Cam, who was stillborn and never even got a chance at life. She's only leaving home now to find that sister and maybe even bring her back to life.

From Phượng's perspective, May HAD a shot at life, and somehow thinks she has the right to get it back even after squandering it. May also loves her baby sibling to death, but her idea of protecting him was to run away forever --- and to Phuong, that's just about the worst thing you can do to someone you love.

They were both treated as heretics, but Phượng reacted by getting a superiority complex and starting to hate everyone, while May still thinks everyone is fundamentally good, except herself. Phượng is (technically) a younger sister and constantly pushes back against Thanh's overprotectiveness, something May sees as disrespectful and scary, as an older sister who spent years obsessing over Meri's safety. Finally, Phượng's violent tendencies/occasional anger issues are something May sees as a big moral problem.

And.... that was a LOT. I'm not sure if I'll keep this post up honestly because there's still like a TINY chance I'll adapt this into something. But for now enjoy the lore dump :P

#hiiiii i put this on my personal by accident #rch #opof #my art #my posts

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tobyisave · 7 months

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the plot of "ethanol"

aka that Adamandi fanfiction I never finished last year (OTL) and companion to this drawing (x)! There were only a few pages (that I will never release) so instead here's what was going to happen, according to my old notes doc... it's mostly just Vincent angst I'm not gonna lie. I kinda stopped because I realized there was no plot at all and that's not how stories work

Also: I did not write adamandi. And it's been a *second* since I was Vincent. And cannot stress enough that even the finished parts of this are wildly unfinished. So make of this what you will kdlfdsjf

(tw for body horror, medical horror, suicide, self harm, others harm, vomit, you know the drill it's Adamandi)

CH1: "I love you, too"

Vincent wakes up in Hancock Infirmary, the medical center on Ardess campus. (It's incredibly sketchy that he's not in the local hospital instead -- especially since the Infirmary has been openly racist to him and Quincy before -- but evidently this is the best way to keep things under wraps.)

He has a traumatic brain injury (from fighting Beatrix), is probably a little drugged, and starts freaking out because he's in pain and everything looks super flat and fake...

But he sees his Phaethon award letter sitting on the nightstand and feels so relieved that he lets himself fall back asleep.

Later the doctor tells him "what happened" including a reference to Vincent’s suicide attempt and "stabbing his own eye" to which he's like my WHAT. He finally realizes he can only see out of one eye - he pokes his fingers into the "soft, swollen folds of meat" on his face (thanks past toby) and finds that the eye is completely gone.

Doc is like you might have amnesia? You also have a TBI. Also fill out this form to make sure you wont kill urself when we release you

Specifically, the form is like “How often in the past two weeks have you: Had trouble sleeping…. Had thoughts that you are a failure….. Wanted to hurt yourself….. Attempted suicide….” And because he only ticks the last one the final score is "1" and the doctor's like okay free to go! (this is totally anachronistic but i think its funny so it stays)

Doctor makes him call someone to help him get home.

For some reason he doesn’t want to call Quincy (he thinks bc he hurt Quincy really bad). He thinks over who else he could call – oh yes, that guy I’ve been hanging out with lately, Ambrose! Wait fuck…. For the first time he realizes that Ambrose is not here.

After phoning Quincy to pick him up (Q cries on the phone, V feels moved to but genuinely doesn't have the energy to cry or even say much - and they say I love you to each other, except its Weird and Uncomfortable this time), Vincent roots around in the medical waste bin and pockets his enucleated eye, which he's alarmed to find is bloody and kind of smashed to a pulp.

CH2: pretty peppermint green

(title from "asthma" by b/ulldog eyes)

Quincy shows up (btw they're they/them in this because I can) and Vincent remembers pretty much everything. They share a reluctant kiss --- after which Vincent is content to slip into the fantasy that things are back to normal --- and walk back to the dorm. It's lightly misting outside. On the way there, Vincent stops and kneels to vomit from his intense headache and nausea. Quincy tries to hold them/help them up after and it makes Vincent's heart race.

In Quincy's room, they lie in bed. Vincent is often the big spoon (lol) but he feels the eye in his front pocket squish against Quincy's back, so they switch for undisclosed reasons. Quincy keeps saying they're so glad Vincent is back and they love him so much. That strikes a terrible weird chord with Vincent, and he's just lying there and he can't see Quincy's face and he's practically pressed between them and the wall and he can't stop feeling like there's another guy in the room watching them both, and he's not sure if the knowledge that there isn't is comforting or scary, and he starts freaking out until he has to leave the room.

(Why that strikes a weird chord: Quincy kept dissing him until now, and now is lovebombing him? Is that because Vincent finally earned their respect academically or because Quincy is guilty or what? He can usually tell what Q's thinking but it's very opaque to him right now - either because of the TBI or because their history is so extreme. And what usually makes him feel calm and well - ie Quincy - is not working anymore).

Vincent goes downstairs and sleeps on the basement couch. He unlocks this memory -- or is it just an image he constructed to fill the gap? -- of Quincy holding him, the weapon still in their hands, those hands still bloody, their face twisted in a horrific expression he can't even describe.

CH3: 20 grams

(title - from "duck or ape" by roar - but references an old paper that claimed to experimentally calculate the weight of a soul by weighing a person before and after death - they were purportedly 20 grams lighter.)

In the morning, Vincent goes to his own dorm. His chair and desk and bedframe were all burned in the pyre, plus most of his paper and books, so there's just big square sun-stains everywhere and a lot of empty space.

He goes to his bottom shelf, where there's a few empty jars & cans & stolen lab glassware, and puts his old eye in an open beaker. There's a big jug of ethanol under his bed and he pours some in to preserve it. (This has been making the room smell awful by the way). The beaker goes on the shelf next to an array of other trophies (aka student organs) which he'd left as a sort of last display of genius that the world could find after he killed himself.

He goes to the mirror and is unnerved to realize that he's been fully bathed and his hair has been brushed out. He checks all the bruises on his body and tries to recount where he got each one - most are from previous murders and some are from the pyre. Even though he literally just got out of the hospital where he lost an eye, he looks a lot better than in the past few weeks just because he finally got some fucking sleep and idk they probably had him on an IV or something

After that he looks at his eye again with morbid fascination --- he's seen this exact wound on corpses before, but never seen it healing.

He considers taking out his surgery kit and trying to fix the eye. There's this question of if he could repair his damaged eye and see through it again, would he be able to see Quincy the same as he used to? His right eye never saw Quincy betray him. He wonders if Quincy burned themself again after last night - the first time he remembers that knowledge - and tears come even though he's still just standing there absently.

Anyway when he goes back to the shelf to look at his old eye, he frowns at how fucked up it is, and pulls down the bottle next to it instead. In the bottle are two blue eyes. He pulls one out in front of the mirror and presses it into his socket, which is rapidly filling with fluid; it overflows out of the socket as he pushes the eye in. This is agonizing because he's putting an eye covered in ethanol into an open wound.

He stands there looking at himself, still in his jacket, with one finger up to hold the eye in place, for like 10 straight minutes. He recounts all the unbelievable things he's done this year, the way people looked at him a bit differently as he started to get his act together. The way they looked each time he wound up the killing blow. Ambrose's eye still looks completely out of place on Vincent's face.

Everything else that happens!

Quincy & Beatrix

Beatrix was also going to be at the hospital for back up in CH2 apparently. so pretend that happened

Quincy finds out about the preserved eye (idk how lol) and confesses to Beatrix that it creeps them the fuck out. Beatrix assumes it's because it represents Quincy's guilt and tries to reassure them. That makes Quincy feel worse because to be honest they just thought it was disgusting and scary to see their lover's disembodied eye looking back at them from the bottom of a beaker.

Graduation

The three of them are planning on going together and walking through the Ardess Randolphitz graduation gate etc etc. Except all of them are kind of having a trauma reaction to the idea of going to graduation. Less so Quincy, because they missed the pyre graduation speech, but yeah. Nobody likes that.

Vincent thinks about skipping graduation but then checks his mailbox and realizes he failed two of his classes this semester. AN: In my notes it said this: the letter says he has to take an extra course to graduate - he literally cant afford that (used to have a scholarship but obviously broke the contract) so he can't graduate. His family is in China and he cant stomach the thought of explaining everything to them.

(Right before the Pyre scene he mailed a copy of the newspaper accusing him of murder to his family because he wanted his mom to see what he did (/pos??). Then he has this sudden realization that his mom has no idea who Vincent Aurelius Lin is. Not really that relevant to this fic, but I actually consider this canon to the show because I sat backstage and did it every night with the newspaper prop lmao)

Anyway I don't think the graduation logic checks out anymore, I mean he won the Phaethon so he kind of has to graduate lol. Oh well.

Quincy & Vincent

Honestly... I didn't write a lot about what happens with them because one of the central concepts of the fic is that they break up! And unfortunately I seem to have stopped working on this around the time that Quincy reentered the story, so I have no idea what that actual arc was going to look like. Upon revisiting this story though, it's pretty obvious I was just using everyone else as a sounding board for Vincent angst anyway... so that kind of sucks lol

Room situation

Vincent... doesn't have a bed... so he sleeps in the basement of Stutton (?) again. Unlike the months leading up to the pyre where he was completely sleepless (aka restless and unable to stop mentally planning each of his murder schemes and the things he would say about what inspired them after it all came out), he falls asleep really easily now (...because of the TBI). Beatrix encounters him there and heres a quote from my google doc:

B: oh my god. don't tell me you lost your keys again

V: no. i just… dont have anywhere to go

B: … do you want my room key? like ill have to kick you out in the morning but me and portia are pulling an all nighter right now

V: thats not what i meant. (licks lips) beatrix im not graduating

(AN: damn.... where CAN he run........)

B brings V to news room where portia and her are working, planning to use portia as the emotional support dog. this works on portia's end but vincent is not very reactive.

Beatrix is renting a house for the summer and invites Lin to sleep on her couch (upon learning that he planned to squat or get back with Quincy to survive)

Summer: Bea's house

P: Bea, he's a murderer! You're going to let him live in your house? Alone?!

B: Harper, just.... look at him

*The most hollow dead eyed broken toy of a Vincent you've ever seen*

^^^^ this is like the establishing quote of the fic, just vincent looking like that is the whole concept actually. Obviously thats also what I tried to capture with the drawing too

While shes at work he gets very understimulated and he wants to Plot Evilly and hes really really frustrated that he cant (because that project is over and he can't focus)

he used to journal/stalk every day but "lately... i cant even remember whats been happening lately." he has headaches constantly and hasnt written in weeks

he starts chain smoking on her couch (AN: interesting choice sldjfsdkfjdsfls)

she gets back and is upset about this (the smell and he used like all of her cigs)

→ a) he realizes he cant really feel remorse over this (only intellectually he understands it and goes outside)

-> b) he's confused to see her refuse a cig from him. okay bea thats new what are you pulling here

in her office, bea (feeling like she has adopted a stray dog) chews gum while reading a terrified letter from quincy who is about to move

(AN maybe anachronistic that bea would try to quit smoking at this time?? im not sure.)

(Also - not sure if this ever came up explicitly, but in our production, Beatrix is the one who first offered Vincent the occasional smoke back in the day, and instead of ever buying any he mostly grubbed them off her (which you can maybe see at the beginning of little more in love). During the course of canon events he gets more addicted - and if i remember correctly, he also started going through withdrawal at some point, but I dont remember why he quit - I think because he stopped seeing Bea around so he kind of just stopped?? - if anything I guess it's symbolic of Bea kind of setting him up to murder and then disappearing from his life for months. The cigarettes weren't actually in the original script at all.)

vincent paces then goes to the drugstore

while hes there he uses the restroom to stare into his eye hole yada yada

(prior to going to restroom hes dubious about entering mens but its single stall anyway)

buys like a shit ton of cigarettes and pain medicine (which was probably like coke back then idk) and also candy

(cigs are for beatrix because he just wants to be loved…)

Phaethon did not give him any money at all by the way. Maybe this is the part where he should go huh I need a job even if I can't be a doctor

IDK where to put this but also - at some point Vincent finds a horrifying drawing of Quincy killing him, and Bea is like you obviously drew that look at it it's in your style. and he can't remember drawing it but not that he looks around he sees he's actually been drawing little pieces of it everywhere

Beatrix's apology

*giant overwrought Beatrix speech here*

V: (trying to be normal about it) i uh i did try to kill you

B: (also playing cool) yeah sure, so did my dad, join the club

V: sorry?

B: the point is, lin, you were having an episode, and instead of helping you see that i pretty much handed you a bat, spun you around a couple times, and sent you on your merry way

(shaky breath, beat- V feels weird about being described so passively)

Anecdote I wrote last year that I genuinely don't understand anymore OTL

Vincent likes to read possibly?

B: you can read?!

V: (swallows a lump… then sarcastically) oh yeah quincy finally taught me how

(^^^ realize they always bitch at each other by default - he wonders if she would be nicer if he was nicer but probably not)

^^^^^ the book sucks anyway shes like ok go to the bookstore CUE QUINCY

(“ok read your own fucking book” “i can’t” “why” “i burned them”)

AN: like QUINCY WOULD NOT FUCKING SAY THAT jdslkfjdsf who is that what's happening what's going ON

...I think it's Beatrix actually? idk man idk

but OMG im suddenly obsessed with the idea that this is all a bunch of absolutely insane buildup to an exes-to-lovers vincent coffee shop / quincy bookstore au dlskfjdslkfjdslkjfsjfjdsklfsdf

BONUS NOTES

V’s lack of empathy - i think he cant understand other peoples feelings very well? He definitely at the least has to imagine them through incidents in his own life to picture how they feel

People pleasing … & possibly its conflict with the above

Bring back suave vincent :( (AN: I failed)

Masculinity problems…?

Realization that all of his rapports (ie with ambrose and beatrix) are facetious and aggressive. And also baggage with quincy accidentally dissing him all the time. Who will be nice to him :(

Maybe this:

V: "i think i might be autistic"

B: "i dont think youre autistic i think youre a sociopath"

V: "i think i might be both"

^^^^ except thats also pretty anachronistic and kind of silly but i do what i want

ambrose ghost was a representation of his hyperfixation on murder (AN: absolutely insane take. what the fuck)

he probably gets lost in drawing now if he can stomach doing anything

accidental psychiatrist beatrix bc shes really good at cracking people open

themes:

breakup

realization that quincy didnt value him while he was innocent which fucked the relationship but V has trouble justifying it bc now he cant value himself

difficulty feeling remorse for what he did

→ realize you arent accountable for how you feel just for what you do

can you love someone without empathy? (yes)

(stems from asking if q was ever in danger of murder -- obviously not!)

realization that v is actually good at something (art)

Respectability politics - beatrix is trying to make girls/latinas look good. vincent is still in the headspace that hes inferior but starts to think about how frosh vinc would have felt about him now (AN i dont know what i meant by this ldjsf)

becoming ambrose was in a way his idea of proving himself in the world. being gnc and failing his classes was just bc he couldnt "do better"

RECURRING: pulls open his eyelids and tries to see into his brain through the hole

addiction (AN: thats it thats all i said its the word "addiction" sljdkfdslkf. I can only assume because for a while i had an interpretation of vincent as becoming an adrenaline junkie after his first murder - plus then bea got him addicted to cigs and murder)

other char breakthroughs

Bea - yo vincent actually did some fucked up shit

Quincy - living with yourself. realizing you can never reconcile with some people.

Portia - hold on… Bea actually did some fucked up shit...

(sorry this is MASSIVE i thought it would be like 7 bullets)

AND ON THAT NOTE.... Yeah that's what the fic was going to be about. Hope that was fun??? And shoutout to @ceaslesswatcherwhatistboyswag for asking about the abandoned fic and inadvertently prompting this whole post :P

Also. by god please do not take any of this as canon or word of god (except perhaps the newspaper thing...) i beg of you... these are just the post-show ramblings of a man newly deprived of the ability to spend 5 hours a week pretending to be a fruity little murderer. very fun diving back into that time to compile this though 🫀

#adamandi #adamandi musical #vincent aurelius lin #vincent lin #beatrix valeria campbell #beatrix campbell #quincy cynthius martin #quincy martin #ambrose isnt important enough to be tagged sorry #quincy is more of a quincy shaped hole in vincent than a guy in this too #my posts #writing

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