I'm Here For You: Behind The Scenes
HEADS UP: This Behind The Scenes contains some low-context Grey's Anatomy and Silent Hill spoilers. Some body horror shows up in the images, too, because I reuse some images from IHFY for context and one of them contains the Deathtrap's damaged form.
Okay, it's been over a year since the end of I'm Here For You, it's about time to release some notes from behind the scenes. Mostly just the original ideas behind it, though I'll go a little bit into details on what changed with what did go down.
Okay, so, confession: IHFY is my Grey's Anatomy/Silent Hill Rixixi AU fanfiction.
Well, mostly the title is.
The title was directly caused by me noticing these two quotes lining up. I'm not going to bring up why that quote is in Grey's Anatomy in case any of you haven't seen it ant want to, but it's plot-significant and it kind of made me think that the Silent Hill quote might actually have the same implications. Of course, this isn't the only instance of "I'm here for you" in all of media (off the top of my head, it's in Animal Crossing, which immediately makes this a lot less eerie), but these are specifically two ghostly figures. It stuck with me.
IHFY did originally have Silent Hill influences, though, but it was kind of just as a nod and having fun with it. I realized that the Leyline was also a mysterious zone with fog, and the first Silent Hill's mumblers kind of look like Mymbers (which, coincidentally, Mymber is a corruption of mumbler. this isn't intentional but I love it), hence the Mymber guide Aihuu. (Speaking of Aihuu, their name is intended to be a deep breath.) It was originally going to be a short, one-chapter Halloween story with a prompt. Clearly, that didn't happen, and it became a long multi-chapter and multispecies journey with several prompts.
The original was going to be most of Chapter One. You would wake up with a Mymber on your chest, have no memory of how you got there, and adventure through the Leyline in an attempt to get out. You'd face a couple of dangers that you'd have to deal with in the prompt. The first two images were essentially the image I had in my head for the story.
By the time IHFY chapter one came out, however, it was already a big deal due to the B-NOMALY involvement, and it couldn't just be a single chapter event.
By the way, the second image in Chapter One lines up with the following image from the intermission, they were drawn over each other:
The Leyline cave and IHFY house were made in Minecraft to make sure they lined up properly for reference screenshots. This was also used to help with the Mymber House later. I have WIPs for non-event Mymber Houses in Minecraft somewhere as well.
Also, not sure if anyone noticed, but the following Chapter One image has the following Intermission image layered over it, it's the exact same image with the background faded in better:
The implication is that this is happening at the same time.
Anyways, as you maybe could have guessed, the Deathtrap wasn't originally a part of the plan. I needed a villain, and as is obvious, I love me some body horror, so the freakish pile of bodies being consumed by a plant was born. I genuinely don't remember my inspiration for it other than I swear it was made before I watched Human Centipede, it was not inspired by that, I'm not that weird. The true form of the Deathtrap was based in part off of the Coulers, to make them look like they're related or at least from the same planet. The sun head is because I just think things that eat the sun are neat.
Also the water scene with scouting ahead and seeing what the Deathtrap is doing is a reference to the water themes of Silent Hill 2.
The Death Elevator in Chapter 3 is a Grey's Anatomy reference.
I kind of remembered what the title was a reference to partway in to both chapters and went "oh haha yeah let's nudge at that a little". Genuinely.
Raids were going to be a thing before IHFY, but weren't going to be themed around Couloir mega/gigafauna until the Deathtrap was created. I do plan to make non-Couloir raids in the future, but for now, it's a theme, and it's fun to design plant beasts.
The Couloir-themed raids also might have pushed another plot ahead and I'm actually trying to figure out how to do it without doing a major event (do it through raids? through sub-events that launch when someone accidentally sets off something? etc? i dont know yet) because the next major event is scheduled for Nskanetis.
I'm not ready for Nskanetis's plot yet but you'll absolutely know when I am... I'm going to write most of it ahead of time and try to draw some of it ahead of time too to avoid getting stuck. See you in the Phoenix Shrine.