[Hereafter] Chapter I: Cosmic Joke (Patreon)
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Everyone, please, please let me know your thoughts with this one. I'm incredibly uncertain whether or not to keep the idea of "Taylor Hebert and the Fujimaru twins save the world." It might seem like a bit of a copout, instead of just picking a gender for Ritsuka and being done with it, but there's a lot that I think I'd have to cut out if I pared it down to just one.
Thematically, Ritsuka as the naive idealist with a compassionate heart and Vlad III as the hard man who made his legend making hard, even cruel decisions work incredibly well as Taylor's foils, but adding a fraternal twin lets me inject some humor that might otherwise have no place, and I'm not sure whether it's worth it to keep the course or pare it down.
For reference, Ritsuka (m) would be a more serious character, closer to the guy in the Babylonia anime or First Order, while Rika/Ryuko (f) would be a bit sillier, because she's the only sane (wo)man left amidst a bunch of crazy people in frankly crazy situations.
I'm just not sure it's worth it to have her reactions to everything or to keep tighter to the themes at the cost of some levity.
In any case, I give you the first chapter of Hereafter, Cosmic Joke. It's much closer to a prologue, and things will truly start next chapter.