there's no sign of the morning coming—

[immortalized]

𝔇𝔬 𝔶𝔬𝔲𝔯 𝔡𝔢𝔪𝔬𝔫𝔰, 𝔡𝔬 𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔶 𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔯 𝔩𝔢𝔱 𝔶𝔬𝔲 𝔤𝔬?
𝔚𝔥𝔢𝔫 𝔶𝔬𝔲'𝔳𝔢 𝔱𝔯𝔦𝔢𝔡, 𝔡𝔬 𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔶 𝔥𝔦𝔡𝔢, 𝔡𝔢𝔢𝔭 𝔦𝔫𝔰𝔦𝔡𝔢
ℑ𝔰 𝔦𝔱 𝔰𝔬𝔪𝔢𝔬𝔫𝔢 𝔱𝔥𝔞𝔱 𝔶𝔬𝔲 𝔨𝔫𝔬𝔴
𝔜𝔬𝔲'𝔯𝔢 𝔧𝔲𝔰𝔱 𝔞 𝔭𝔦𝔠𝔱𝔲𝔯𝔢, 𝔶𝔬𝔲'𝔯𝔢 𝔞𝔫 𝔦𝔪𝔞𝔤𝔢 𝔠𝔞𝔲𝔤𝔥𝔱 𝔦𝔫 𝔱𝔦𝔪𝔢
𝔚𝔢'𝔯𝔢 𝔞 𝔩𝔦𝔢, 𝔶𝔬𝔲 𝔞𝔫𝔡 ℑ
𝔚𝔢'𝔯𝔢 𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔴𝔦𝔱𝔥𝔬𝔲𝔱 𝔞 𝔯𝔥𝔶𝔪𝔢

Comments

[immortalized]

Psychological thriller. Ambrose's eyebrows lift with intrigue; such a genre is not an easy instrument to wield. One must be meticulous and clever, able to line up a mystery without fully obscuring it and ultimately remove it from its purpose. One also must know where to lance the audience exactly where their deepest nerves lie, they must be able to choose what to portray, how to frame it, and make their story compelling. It's a vague and intense direction to write into, possible to make confusing and therefore, uninteresting.

Rohan must have mastered the genre; there are small anecdotal placards remarking on the success and the focus of the serial story, how long it has been running for, how many issues it has been printed in. When Ambrose looks back at this artist, listening with absolute focus, his smile is...proud. The flourishing of celebration and acknowledgement is a pleasure to see for such a young man, seeing the combination of creativity and knife-edged precision. Rohan reminds him of the men who penned the scripts Ambrose was given to memorize, and the men that barked their adamant directions for they who stood elevated on the stage framed in blood-red velvet curtains. He has all the makings of a success. Rohan is as intelligent as he is passionate — it's glaringly obvious as a fact — and seems quite cerebral in the choice of his iconic artistry here.

"Perhaps all terror really happens in the mind — perception is the key. Threats, in all truth, are relative." What threatens one person may not be considered dangerous to the next. Even common, over-arching dangers are not thrilling to all living beings as an exclusive rule. It makes Ambrose curious to know what he portrays as thrilling; he imagines the imagery must be fantastic.

"Is this Pink Dark Boy inspired by someone in particular? Or is he only a vehicle for the audience to navigate your thrilling stories within?" Striding now towards something personal, and how can Ambrose not, when Rohan insists again that his works are rooted in a foundation of realism? Where, from him, is this character born from?

[mangakant]

"Yes. Yes, exactly. It happens in the mind. And if you know what to show it to trigger certain emotions...then you can tell a meaningful story." Rohan's voice grows a little more passionate, almost heated. He looks at his art, because he is, at least in flushed moments, proud of it. But he doesn't tend to linger over what he's already created; he doesn't feverishly revisit it except to keep storylines consistent but varied, to ensure pacing and style are recognizable.

Rohan doesn't bask in what he's already done, because he's too busy obsessively figuring out the next part. And it's that laser focus on what's next that has him paying more attention to Ambrose than to what they're talking about, what's right next to them.

As he speaks, he lets the sketch pad fall further from his chest, no longer clinging to it protectively. A half-feral energy spurs him past self-consciousness.

At the edge of the page, a familiar man dressed and decorated like a woman can be just glimpsed...

"The answer is yes, of course. You need a vehicle for the audience, but I've— pulled from a variety of sources to craft him." Some of which Rohan barely remembered until the events of this summer, just barely passed. Autumn's begun, Kira is dead. Reimi's been dead for fifteen years.

Rohan hadn't realized how much he had just-barely remembered of her until he'd gone back to writing his manga after speaking with her and the cemetery keeper. "The answer of who he comes from isn't nearly as interesting as what's done with him, though. The source isn't as important as the output." Spoken with no small degree of dismissiveness.

At his core...Rohan just doesn't know how to express any of the emotions he feels about his own work. He'd rather talk technique or drive or maybe even admit his feverish need to create, but not the softer core of what happens between those pages.