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[ic] vampires, spell battles, and disney anime boys, oh my!

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[ic] vampires, spell battles, and disney anime boys, oh my! written Jul 27, 2024 18:54:54 GMT
phantom of the black parade
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Welcome to the town of Haven, a middling settlement located on an island just a few hours by ferry from Japan - and host to three of the most famous colleges for non-humans revered the world over. As vampires, mages, and familiars flock to the city once more in anticipation of the upcoming semester, so shall the halls of Cross University, Night Raven College, and Seven Voices Academy overflow with that which is to come...


Oh thank the heavens, you think to yourself, Kuro's finally given up on her Vampire Knight brainrot, except that the joke is on everyone, I have simply been biding my time-

I kid, I kid (okay, maybe I don't kid, but only to make fun of myself, because why am I like this), but also, in all seriousness.

For the past couple of weeks or so, I've been tinkering in the background with a modern fantasy crossover multifandom site that's primarily based in the combined worlds of Vampire Knight, Loveless, and Twisted Wonderland - aka a wider world setting where vampires and mages used to rule, before the vampires created the vampire hunters only to immediately lose control over them and the mages would sever themselves from their familiars only to then discover that doing so opened them up to the corruptive byproduct of using magic - but with the door left open for additional fandoms to potentially slot themselves in where they can make themselves fit (because sure, I would get a kick out of all of this stuff happening and meanwhile the entire plot of Yu-Gi-Oh! is going on in the background).

All three fandoms would be largely starting from a "clean slate" beginning, just so everyone isn't necessarily tied down to canon events and/or relationships they would want to play differently (I look specifically at Vampire Knight and Loveless as I say this, because we are leaving the canon problematic crap at the door for obvious reasons.) Canon and original characters would be allowed as well, both to expand out the site's extended universe and to give more people an opportunity to engage - since again, I don't care if someone's got, idk, a TWST canon doing their thing, a Loveless-based original character, a Yu-Gi-Oh! canon doing their thing, an adapted Genshin Impact canon doing Vampire Knight things, and then an original character doing basic city/town things.

I'm just... also doing this whole thing entirely alone. Both for building + staffing the site and for actually playing on it. And well. I guess I'm just scared that I'm about to be putting all this effort and enthusiasm into an idea that's entirely dead on arrival, whether it's me just not standing a chance from the start or ending up the only one still around in a month's time.

FFS Kuro, why can't you just do what the rest of us all do and either join a panfan or file off the serial numbers enough to pretend it's an OC, you think in despair, and I wheeze quietly, because look, I wish, but if no one else wants to give me a home for this, I guess I just gotta try to make it myself-


last edit on Jul 28, 2024 0:19:26 GMT by Kuroya

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[ic] vampires, spell battles, and disney anime boys, oh my! written Jul 31, 2024 2:52:02 GMT
phantom of the black parade
pronounsshe / her pronouns
4,385written posts
Kuroyaearned bits
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what do you want to know? my height, hobbies, quirks, the color of my underwear?



I'll... tentatively take the likes as interest? (I honestly never know how to take likes on interest checks since is it genuine interest in the pitch, is it just stating you think it'd be cool to see around but you aren't actually interested in the concept, is it just encouraging me to go out there and chase my dreams while you watch with popcorn, instructions unclear-)

Anyway! I had wanted to do a couple of species previews today but setting up the back end stuff took a little bit longer than I'd thought, so here's a tentative preview of the beta launch skin, with the option to make them bigger to click on them (don't worry - I do intend on eventually adding a thread tracker into the profile, I'm just not wanting to code it in right now when I wanna actually get the ball rolling soon). And for those of you who recognize the design, no you don't I appreciate your good taste.

I'll probably drop the species previews soon-ish, while I work on write-ups and tweaking some more backend things before opening it up to beta testing. I'll drop the discord at some point in that process too (since I also thought I'd have it done by now, then I figured out this morning I did the permissions all kinds of funky and I'll probably need to nuke them to redo them).

Feedback and questions are definitely appreciated since uh. I'm flying slightly less blind than I thought I was as an old friend hits me up but it's still a lot of me throwing stuff at the mental wall to see what sticks, so having some help with that process is always going to be welcome!


last edit on Jul 31, 2024 2:54:41 GMT by Kuroya

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[ic] vampires, spell battles, and disney anime boys, oh my! written Aug 3, 2024 3:36:21 GMT
phantom of the black parade
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Kuroyaearned bits
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what do you want to know? my height, hobbies, quirks, the color of my underwear?



Thought of by many as "beasts in human form", vampires are one of the oldest races in the world, with lineages tracing back thousands of years, beyond all but the oldest of mage families. Punished for their hubris in attempting to steal the power of others, vampires are cursed with the desire to drink the blood of others, only able to satisfy their thirst by tasting the lifeblood of the person they desire most.

Exceptionally beautiful, vampires are a largely nocturnal species, ruling the night at the hands of the pureblood "royalty" and aristocrat families whose vampiric heritage has not only granted them their vitality and longevity but also additional abilities beyond that of the average vampires. However, should anyone save another vampire be unlucky enough to be bitten by a pureblood, they will turn, giving up their humanity to become a vampire themselves, until they are slowly driven mad by their own bloodlust to complete their descent into Level E status, a death sentence that can only be prevented by taking the blood of their creator in turn...


I see the likes continuing to pile up and yet I still have absolutely no idea what they are going to mean but you know what, I'm going to keep going and do. My first species preview. Hoping and begging that this is a positive thing rather than me just excitedly info-dumping into the void-

Kuro, you ask with a soft sigh, are you still using ImgBB? to which I say, shush I'm working on it, okay, don't judge me for being lazy-


last edit on Aug 10, 2024 18:21:29 GMT by Kuroya

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[ic] vampires, spell battles, and disney anime boys, oh my! written Aug 10, 2024 15:48:37 GMT
phantom of the black parade
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what do you want to know? my height, hobbies, quirks, the color of my underwear?



Born from the sundered bond between mages and their animal companions, familiars are one of the few races that are still capable of manipulating the magic inherent in the world (as opposed to using their own wellspring), their status proclaimed by the animal features many still bear so many generations after the severing. Bereft of the bonds that had once defined their very existence, they have since evolved to compensate for that loss by falling into one of two archetypes: the Fighter, capable of calling forth the magic of the world around them with the spoken word and crafting it with powerful metaphors, and the Sacrifice, capable of effortlessly absorbing the corruptive byproduct of long-term magical use as well as the punishments inflicted by warring Fighters.

For those lucky enough to bear the script of a "true name" upon their body, the paired Fighter and Sacrifice are said to be destined for greatness, gifted as they are to be reunited with the other half of their soul - but even the Blank familiars who lack a True Name may still find some measure of peace, blessed as they are with the freedom to choose their partner from among the named. (And if there are whispers, rumors of familiars without a name or designation, who fight as Zero, well, that's a secret best kept within the walls of Seven Voices Academy, among those who bear the title and the burden of the Septimal Moon...)


Got it, message received, do not just dump species lore directly into the previews, oof- I'll probably rework the vampire one to be more in line with what I just did for the familiars, lmao

I'm still chipping away at the lore write-ups and such, but a lot of the actual site setup is complete, so! Uh. If people want to hang around in the Discord to wait for when the alpha release is (aka account registration + app form access while I finish up the rest of the essentials), the server invite link can be found here!

And now, to melt into an anxious puddle because ho boy do I continue to be nervous about my dumb lil pet passion project crashing and burning-


last edit on Sept 2, 2024 14:42:59 GMT by Kuroya

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[ic] vampires, spell battles, and disney anime boys, oh my! written Aug 15, 2024 2:42:17 GMT
phantom of the black parade
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Kuroyaearned bits
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what do you want to know? my height, hobbies, quirks, the color of my underwear?



Once responsible for shaping the very world around them, mages are now a dying breed, the very lucky few to still bear the gift of being able to manipulate the magic inherent in the world after such abilities had become lost to humanity in the wake of their hubris and arrogance. Distinguished by their heightened magical ability both in power and in scope, they stand head and shoulders above their peers, even among the magical races, simply for their ability to manipulate magics greater than that innate to themselves - at the cost of generating Blot, a corruptive byproduct that can easily consume a mage with the negative emotion that sealed their fate so very long ago.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given that the distinguishing characteristic of a mage is that they are capable of wielding magics far beyond their natural abilities, a mage can come from any species, so long as they have born a single ancestor who could also wield the gift of magic. It is for this reason, among many others, that the halls of Night Raven College have long welcomed mages of any origin, to educate those who would shape the future - and prevent them from becoming consumed with the stain of Blot, as so many great mages were before them...


We're officially in alpha release now, so people can start making accounts + working on apps while I'm finishing up species lore (hopefully a project I can get done this weekend), so if you're interested in poking around at things before our official beta release (aka when I'm still tinkering on things but the site is functional enough for a wider release), you can join our discord here!


last edit on Sept 2, 2024 14:43:26 GMT by Kuroya

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[ic] vampires, spell battles, and disney anime boys, oh my! written Sept 2, 2024 15:42:17 GMT
phantom of the black parade
pronounsshe / her pronouns
4,385written posts
Kuroyaearned bits
offlinecurrently
Kuroya
Part of the Furniture
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what do you want to know? my height, hobbies, quirks, the color of my underwear?



First created as an act of desperate ingenuity during the height of the vampires' bloody war, hunters are some of the most dangerous creatures in the world, as befitting of a race whose origins lie in killing creatures far more powerful than they. Although they are just as bereft of innate magic as their original vampiric prey is, they are also immune to almost all forms of magic save their own, a gift that has permitted them to pursue quarry far mightier than themselves - and see themselves labeled as a threat to any and all nonhumans who think to threaten the fragile peace of those the hunters have sworn to protect.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, for such a dangerous life, the hunters have largely resisted most attempts of formal organization and instruction as many of the other races have come to favor in the modern day, instead opting to place their allegiance in a single Hunters' Association, which manages the information networks needed to coordinate hunters on their respective missions. Although many of the higher roles in the Hunters' Association are taken by those whose families have long since been hunters in turn, passing their gift down from parent to child, there are still some who can sense the call of the hunt strongly enough to be granted a taste of the unending chalice the Association so closely guards, so that they too might join their brothers and sisters in the hunt for those who seek to reignite a war whose bloody cost the world cannot hope to pay once again...


I know, I know, it's been a good long while since y'all have had an update - between life getting a little bit busy and me just struggling to actually finish all the lore write-ups (me? making lore info not look and read like a bunch of overwhelming word vomit? nearly impossible-) and also maybe struggling a little with the anxiety over the lack of interaction and the persistent drive-bys, I've just not had anything to actually report until this weekend!

And what an update today is! (I say, as if I'm not a whole day later than I was hoping originally-)

I'm gonna just finish up a few quick things and officially open up the site for open beta - meaning that we'll be functional and fully open to the public (and advertising), so we can test the waters before we do a full large-scale Official Launch (tm) with everything that would entail (read: a fully custom skin, extended lore webpage guidebook, a proactive system for integrating additional series, and any other major projects that would significantly hold the site in development hell when it's already such a niche passion project-)

So in short! Keep your eyes out, big things are going to be coming soon!


last edit on Sept 2, 2024 15:51:12 GMT by Kuroya

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