Dusty curled up in his bed, his arms wrapped around his chest as he sniffled sadly from the earlier events. The only background noise in the massive bedroom was that of his guardian, Miah, cleaning up the mess that he had made in his habitat.
He wasn’t in trouble, and Miah wasn’t even mad at him. She had just moved his bed for him to her dresser and gently set him down on top of it. Her face was soft, but there was something heavy in her eyes, something that made her look like she was carrying a weight she couldn’t set down.
Part of Miah wanted to reach out and console him, to run her dark skinned finger along his back and give Dusty the comforting little pet that she was taught in guardian training. However, as Dusty had silently crawled into his bed and turned away from her, Miah knew it wouldn’t do any good. Sure, she thought, it’d probably feel good and relaxing, but the moment she stopped, he’d still need to sort through his emotions on his own. That’s all one really can do when they get the news that Miah had told Dusty.
No, for now, Miah knew that someone in his position, smallara victim or not, needed space. So, she let out a slow breath, running her hand through her sandy colored hair, and turned towards where his habitat sat. His clothes were all over the place inside, the tiny table she had purchased for him flipped over and one of the legs snapped off from a kick he gave it. The couple of chairs that went with it were smashed, too, and, much to Miahs sadness, the resized photo of her and Dusty when they had finally started getting used to each other that her mother took was ripped in half.
“Oh Dusty,” she sighed under her breath so he couldn’t hear, “Why do you have to be so expressive when you’re upset…”
With that, Miah began to grab the small items and reorganized them the best she could. She meticulously folded his shirts and pants for him and set them near the tiny dresser. Miah also leant closer to make sure none of the drawers Dusty had tried yanking from the tracks were broken, which luckily weren’t.
From there she removed the broken furniture and examined them as best she could.
“Gonna need to get a magnifying glass…” she said before setting it all down on the surface on which the habitat rested. “At least dad’s a total handyman…he probably has some super glue or something…”
As Miah continued working on his habitat, Dusty continued lying in bed, staring off into space as he ruminated on the last 30 minutes of his life. Miah and he were bonding, much better and faster than either of the two expected. Dusty was far more apprehensive then her, of course, but once he determined that Generitechs system for matching Guardians with Littles actually made an accurate pairing, Dusty had decided to drop his guard and see where things went with their new ‘partnership’.
From there, they were nearly inseparable, each relied on the other for certain things, and neither really felt like a burden to the other. Dusty let go of his reluctance fairly fast and accepted that Miah’s interests would also be his, and even found that some of them weren’t so bad, like watching trashy drama TV or listening to her talk about celebrity fashion or different ideas for makeup designs.
In return, Miah went out of her way to make sure he had some way to connect with hobbies of his own. She would go out of her way to watch skateboarding and snowboarding montages with him, as well as talk shop on football, dirtbikes, and even airsoft. Miah had even gone to the trouble of reaching out to Dusty’s mother, father, and sister to introduce herself and try to maintain open communication so that they could have some connection despite Dusty’s wishes.
Things had been going so well for both of them—especially Dusty. But when he and Miah spoke to his mother earlier, it shattered him completely.
Dusty’s father had been battling cancer for years, even before the Smallara outbreak. When they discovered that Dusty wasn’t immune like the rest of his family, it sent shockwaves through them all. Part of the shock came from how unexpected it was—no one thought any of them wouldn’t be immune. But even more than that, they knew the immense burden it would place on the family: caring for Dusty as a Little while also supporting his father through his illness.
It was a difficult choice, but Dusty ultimately decided that whenever he caught Smallara, he would enter the system. His mother, sister, and father fought against it vehemently, but Dusty wouldn’t hear it. He wanted to do what was right for his family, despite the sacrifice—the life, the independence, the control over his future—he knew he would be giving up.
Even more than that, Dusty couldn’t stand the thought of sitting helplessly, watching his father’s health deteriorate while his mother and sister struggled to provide them both with love and support. They had already been having a hard enough time with everything, it’d have broken Dusty’s spirit to have piled on and made things worse.
It took a lot of back and forth, but eventually, his parents relented, though his sister wouldn’t, taking every time they spoke as a chance to try to convince him not to go through with it. Dusty hated making her upset, but he knew it was for the best. The loans for everything they’d need to take care of him would have just been too much to bear, and if something unexpected happened to his father, Dusty knew they would need the resources that tending for himself would take away. When it all came to pass and Dusty caught Smallara and shrank, he at least took solace in the fact that he was doing what he knew would keep his father taken care of for a much longer time.
That was until today.
It had started out as a normal day, Dusty sitting in his habitat while Miah went to school. Sure he found it boring, but after a mixture of begging and testing, Miah was finally convinced to leave her Television on the Generitube App so it would stream a playlist of Dusty’s various channels he used to be able to watch before becoming a little. When Miah came home from school, though, her facial expression was somber, as if expecting bad news.
That’s when she pulled out her phone and made a call. When it was answered, she put it on speaker, making sure it wouldn’t blow out Dusty’s eardrums, and set it down. It was Dusty’s mother, and when they greeted each other, he could tell something was really, really wrong.
As it turned out, Dusty’s father’s health had taken a turn for the worst recently. He wasn’t responding to the cancer treatments and, after exhausting all of their options, he was given an official prognosis of about 6 months at the most.
Dusty went quiet for a good moment, his mouth agape and eyes wide. He couldn’t believe it. When he last saw his dad, he seemed fine. A little skinny, sure, and a bandage on his face from where his tumor was bleeding from, but otherwise he was in good spirits, all things considered. Now, here he and his mother were, with Miah listening in, her own expression a mixture of sympathy and guilt at the news, discussing what happens next for the family, that his father was taking it better than expected, and assuring Dusty that they would work with Miah on some way for him to see his father again.
The call ended not too long after that, with the mother and son giving their best to each other, before Miah took the phone off speaker to talk with Dusty’s mom. It was during those conversations, when Dusty knew Miah was too busy to pay attention to him as she offered her guarantee to help Dusty visit with his family, when he finally lost it, and began trashing his habitat.
Dusty was in a blind, anguish induced rage as he trashed the table, kicked the chairs, through his clothes everywhere, all while sobbing inconsolably. Miah had turned and her eyes widened in shock as this was occurring, but she didn’t let his mother know what was going on; she simply finished the conversation as quickly as possible, before immediately taking the bed out of the habitat, swiftly followed by Dusty, and set them both gently down on the dresser.
Now, he lay there, lost in his sadness. He felt genuinely guilty for what he did to the habitat, but Dusty just couldn’t hold it in anymore. I had done so much, sacrificed so much, just to make sure his family would be okay and that his father could live the rest of his life as comfortably as possible, that the fact that it all amounted to not even a year in expectancy finally broke him down.
He wished he had been more selfish. He wanted to stay with his dad, to be with him the way he had been there for him as he grew up and to help take care of him the way he had. Now, though, it just seemed everything he had done just didn’t mean anything, and that even maybe he wasn’t a good enough son to begin with.
Dusty was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he failed to notice the shadow of Miah engulf him as she stood over his tiny form. She could only look at him and feel heartache. He wasn’t crying or making a sound, but his sadness was there, filling the space between them.
And it hurt. Not because she felt sorry for him, but because he was hurting, and she could feel it too, like an ache in her own chest. The one thing that Miah had realized that was never mentioned in guardian training was the way they would bond with their little. Maybe it was because it wasn’t the same kind of thing, or maybe it was that Generitech didn’t expect every guardian to bother with being emotionally available with their little, but one thing Miah knew for certain: once you let them in, a guardian can become just as attached to their little as their little can become attached to them.
With a gentle sigh, Miah reached out and gave Dusty a gentle stroke with her index finger down his back, feeling him shudder in surprise and relief at once.
“Okay little man,” she whispered, “We need to talk about this, so brace yourself, cause I’m picking you up now.”
And before Dusty could even react, Miah tenderly but firmly wrapped her fingers around his small form and lifted him off the bed, before walking to her own and sitting down with her back propped up on the headboard. Once she felt comfortable, she set Dusty down on her lap, who was looking at her, trying to look more stoic, but failing miserably.
“Miah I…I’m sorry for ruining the stuff you bought for me….” spoke Dusty with remorseful sadness in his eyes, “I..I can help fix them…and I can do some extra chores too…”
“Shh..don’t even sweat it Dusty,” softly spoke Miah, a warm smile on her face, “Some super glue and it’ll be fine. Plus, it just confirmed that I need to get you that little punching bag I teased you about. Remember, mister ‘I don’t throw hands when I’m mad’?”
Dusty let out a snort, running his hands on the side of his fade haircut before responding, “This…this wasn’t anger”
“I know, little dude, I know,” replied Miah, her own index finger ruffling his hair and eliciting a sigh of relaxation from Dusty.
“I just….it’s not fair, Miah.” he said so quietly that she could barely hear him, “It’s never some jerk or a murderer or something like that. It’s always the people we care about that get this…bullshit thrust on them.”
Wiping his eyes, Dusty continued, “My dad’s always been my hero, he’s still who I want to be when I grow up, and I’m almost an adult. When I first found out, it shattered me, but I couldn’t let him see that. I needed to be there for him…I was there for him.”
Tears were starting to flow more freely now, “Now…look at me. I’m a few inches tall on a good day. I made them let me go, give me up to make sure that he could be taken care of and…” he wheezed, “what was it all for?! His body not responding to the treatments anymore? His expected lifespan reduced to 6 months?! What kind of sick joke is this!”
Miah did her best to comfort Dusty as he spoke, tentatively stroking him, but in a way that wouldn’t stop him from talking. She needs to get him to let it out, to drop the walls just for a little bit. It would be painful, but grieving normally was.
“It seems cruel, Dusty. And in a lot of ways, it is,” whisper Miah, refraining from rubbing his back with her finger a little bit, “But that’s life. I hate saying that, too,” she scoffed, “but, shit dude, it’s the truth. Life is unpredictable, messy, and, sometimes, unfair and sad.”
Dusty let out a shaky sob as he looked up into Miah’s giant eyes. “I just miss everything already. He’s not gone but, well, part of me feels like he is and I miss it. I miss playing catch with him, when he’d stay home to watch me while my mom worked, when he’d put me in my car seat and ride his bike to the gas station so we could get candy or something, the times he would take me out to practice catching fly balls for baseball. I just, I miss it. I miss it so much”
Dusty paused to cry a little bit more, trying to take deep breaths. It was hard for him, he had never spoken to anyone about how deeply this was affecting him. Now here he was, with a giant girl he only met a couple of months ago after being classified as a pet. Despite his reservations of her, and her initial plans for him, she was all he had now. Dusty was fine with that to an extent, but he didn’t feel comfortable letting Miah see him like this, but if not her, then who?
After steadying himself, he wiped his eyes and let out a deep sigh. “I just don’t know, Miah. Who do I talk baseball with? Who do I quote movies with, or talk about funny comedians with? Who am I going to ask about classic rock, or make stupid jokes with? I’m not losing just my dad, I’m losing my best friend. I’m losing the one person I always felt got me and I don’t know what to do about it.”
Miah nodded along and listened, her heart torn in two at how much anguish Dusty was experiencing. She wished she had answers for him, that she knew what words would cheer him up, but she just didn’t. All she could do is listen, and do her best to empathize.
“Dusty,” she started, “Do you remember when I first got you? When I said, ‘Little man, you’re going to be such a good worker?’”
Sniffling, Dusty nodded silently.
Miah smiled as she continued, “Your very first words to me were ‘Look lady, I don’t know who you think you are, but I’m not working for you, so you’d better come up with a better idea for this’” She said, giggling fondly at the memory, “I was so taken aback that the only thing I could do was laugh.”
“What’s your point, Miah?” asked Dusty, his fiery attitude coming out a bit more, “I swear you had better have something better than laugh it off because if not, I’m going—”
“Ugh, you are so annoying sometimes, even when you are sad” interrupted MIah with mock frustration that hid her amusement, “what I was going to say, that I didn’t know what I wanted to do with a little, not really anyway. I was just doing what I thought you were supposed to do with one but, well, you quickly changed my views on that, and eventually we started figuring things out.”
With a sigh, she gently lifted Dusty’s chin with her index finger, making sure she had his full, undivided attention. “I guess what I’m trying to say, is that we expect things to go one way, but the reality is that we don’t have a clue what’s going to happen, and we just—just need to take it a step at a time. I can tell you this though, little dude, I’m not going anywhere. I’ll help you through this, I swear. I know I can’t empathize with being a little but, well, losing someone isn’t unique to a species, right?”
Dusty searched her eyes, and his shoulder slumped, feeling better from a mix of having finally let his emotions out, and knowing that Miah cared. It’s hard to put trust in a stranger, especially a giant stranger that was considered his ‘owner’, but Dusty knew Miah was more genuine now than when they first met, and for that, he was grateful.
“You’re right, Miah” he finally admitted, “I guess this is something we can both relate to, or will both experience at one point in our lives so….we should be able to count on each other.”
Before anything else could happen, Dusty’s facial expression went stern, “So help me god if you tell anyone i cried—”
“I would never, shortstack,” laughed Miah, “I’ve told everyone i have the toughest little around, and you know image matters to me just as much it does to you”
WIth that, she picked Dusty up in her hands and brought him to her lips, placing a gentle kiss on his forehead. “It’s going to be tough, Dusty,” she said, her warm breath washing over him,”But we can get through it.”
Dusty shuddered again hearing this, and relaxed, finally feeling like the world was lifting from his shoulders. “Thanks, MIah” Dusty said with relief, “I…needed this”
“Don’t mention it buddy. Now, let’s get ready for dinner. No pellets for you tonight, okay? Dad’s making ribs, mom’s got mashed potatoes and some salad. You’re going to eat like a king tonight”
Miah sat Dusty on her shoulder as she stood from her bed, and flipped off the light to her room as she made her way down the hall. Both had a long road ahead, but neither felt alone in this. Despite the journey they would take, they felt sure that they would come out better and closer in the end.
Just a heads up, I’m still working on Roni and Joey and renders, but I had to write this lol I don’t have Miah or Dusty flushed out as characters, but they will be in Roni and Joey at some point
Miah is now my new favorite guardian. Physically and mentally loving and treats littles like people. I love the duel bond. Her love and bond with him will be big for her because she knows she always has a person who unconditionally loves her always close by no matter where she is.
I will say it’s taken her a bit to get there, similar to how it would have taken Dusty a while to accept everything. I want to say roughly 4 months in total, where the first twoish were probably where the development took place
she does seem pretty cool though. i need to flush things out a bit more
0) Standard timeline questions,
0.1) When is this?
0.2) How old are they? (and/or dates of birth)
0.3) When he shrink/when she get him?
0.4) is he Little trained?
1) “He wasn’t in trouble, and Miah wasn’t even mad at him. She had just moved his bed for him to her dresser and gently set him down on top of it.” sounds like he threw a tantrum or something, must have been rightfully pissed if he’s not at fault.
2) “the tiny table she had purchased for him flipped over and one of the legs snapped off from a kick he gave it. The couple of chairs that went with it were smashed, too “kind of figures Little furniture would be harder for Littles to break.
3) “Dusty hated making her upset, but he knew it was for the best. The loans for everything they’d need to take care of him would have just been too much to bear, and if something unexpected happened to his father, Dusty knew they would need the resources that tending for himself would take away.” that’d be a hard decision, but at least it was his to make, and respected.
4) “she put it on speaker, making sure it wouldn’t blow out Dusty’s eardrums, and set it down.” Couldn’t she have just put it in Little mode?
5) “It was during those conversations, when Dusty knew Miah was too busy to pay attention to him as she offered her guarantee to help Dusty visit with his family, when he finally lost it, and began trashing his habitat.” yep, justified tantrum.
6) “Now, he lay there, lost in his sadness. He felt genuinely guilty for what he did to the habitat, but Dusty just couldn’t hold it in anymore” he should feel guilty, as he is guilty, but I’m glad he’s not being punished fot it.
7) “Now, though, it just seemed everything he had done just didn’t mean anything, and that even maybe he wasn’t a good enough son to begin with.” loosing a loved one has that effect on people.
8.1) “The one thing that Miah had realized that was never mentioned in guardian training was the way they would bond with their little. Maybe it was because it wasn’t the same kind of thing, or maybe it was that Generitech didn’t expect every guardian to bother with being emotionally available with their little” Little of column A, mostly column B.
8.2) “once you let them in, a guardian can become just as attached to their little as their little can become attached to them” that’s a lovely sentiment.
9) “Miah I…I’m sorry for ruining the stuff you bought for me…. I..I can help fix them…and I can do some extra chores too…” Good that he apologises unprompted and that he wants to fix thing
10) “It’s never some jerk or a murderer or something like that. It’s always the people we care about that get this…bullshit thrust on them.” I’m sure Jerks and murderers have had cancer and lost loved ones.
11) “Now…look at me. I’m a few inches tall on a good day.” and how tall is he on a bad day?
12) “I made them let me go, give me up to make sure that he could be taken care of and… what was it all for?! His body not responding to the treatments anymore? His expected lifespan reduced to 6 months?! What kind of sick joke is this!” Let’s be honest, Dusty’s sacrifice was never gonna achieve that much.
13.1) “I just miss everything already. He’s not gone but, well, part of me feels like he is and I miss it” The separation would add to that.
13.2) “I miss playing catch with him, when he’d stay home to watch me while my mom worked, when he’d put me in my car seat and ride his bike to the gas station so we could get candy or something, the times he would take me out to practice catching fly balls for baseball. I just, I miss it. I miss it so much” Half those things were taken by Smallara not cancer.
14) “Dusty was fine with that to an extent, but he didn’t feel comfortable letting Miah see him like this, but if not her, then who?” fair enough to nt be fully comfortable, but he doesn’t have a lot of options (unless you count nobody as an option)
15) “Do you remember when I first got you? When I said, ‘Little man, you’re going to be such a good worker?’” bitch fucking what?
16) “Your very first words to me were ‘Look lady, I don’t know who you think you are, but I’m not working for you, so you’d better come up with a better idea for this’” I’m really liking Dusty.
17) “I didn’t know what I wanted to do with a little, not really anyway. I was just doing what I thought you were supposed to do with one but, well, you quickly changed my views on that, and eventually we started figuring things out.” why would she get a Little without an Idea of what to do with them?
18.1) “It’s hard to put trust in a stranger, especially a giant stranger that was considered his ‘owner’” agreed, though at least Miah seems to understand that his trust is earned, unlike certain guardians who assume it was included in their purchase.
18.2) “Dusty knew Miah was more genuine now than when they first met, and for that, he was grateful.” Character development is good.
19) “No pellets for you tonight, okay? Dad’s making ribs, mom’s got mashed potatoes and some salad. You’re going to eat like a king tonight” that sounds awesome.
0.0) Sorry that I don’t have this as flushed out as I want it to. I did the story more before the characters and just wrote how I kinda wanted them to interact with each other. I can do more with it over the weekend
0.1) I’m thinking this is around the time Roni ends up finishing training. so same year and everything (I still need to redo the months though for the TL as I messed up my calculations. I’m wanting it all to be in school and by the time Roni finishes training, school would be over in the states). But Miah would have had Dusty around the time that Joey found out he was vulnerable\hybrid
0.2) I’m thinking Miah is a year younger than Roni, so a 10th year (sophmore) in the same high school. Dusty is 19
0.3) whoops, answered part of this in one. Miah got Dusty before Joey found out he was vulnerable. I still need to flush all of that out as I don’t think i’ve fixed the timeline part to account for Roni’s training without school ending before she finishes.
so I’d say for a length of time as a measurement, Dusty probably shrank 2 months before being paired with Miah, and the pairing occured before Roni’s 2 month course, just not sure exactly how long before, and this occurrs when Roni has Joey after training, but I haven’t decided as to when.
.4) not little trained.
1) yeah, he’s gone through a lot so far and kind of just let it slip
2) harder to break for a little, easy to fix for a guardian. best of both worlds
3) Cares a lot about his family. Doesn’t want to feel like a burden or a bad son
4)lol i hadn’t thought of that, but she also wanted to hear, so idk if it would effect that or not. assuming it wouldn’t
5)He basically decided to let it all out as soon as he could, and knowing Miah was too busy to stop him he found the best option.
6)I think it’s justified to an extent. It’s a bad habit to break stuff when you’re sad or frustrated, speaking from experience, but at the same time, it’s probably the one thing he could actually have control over and made the choice for himself regardless of the consequence he may have face, which under a different circumstance, Miah wouldn’t have been too happy.
7) sadly it does
8.1) i agree
8.2) I think we see that more in the stories than we let on. Like despite their faults and treatments, Sarah’s been profoundly affected by Jordan, and so Has ellie to a lesser extent, but mostly cause of how Jordan’s effected Sarah. We also kind of see how it’s having some kind of affect on Madison and Kenzie, though admittedly it’s cause that it’s their parents, and Chrissy I think is probably getting a lot closer to scott than she probably expected.
9) He knew it was wrong from the get go. Had Miah not been on the phone, it probably wouldn’t have happened and they’d have gone right to the talking part
10) yeah, but we never focus on that when it’s someone we care about. it’s usually just how unfair it is that it’s the people we’re closests to that don’t get some kind of break while we see these horrible people just getting off scott free and living life without recourse.
11)lol if he has back pain he might hunch over 😀
12) on some level he knows that. We do a lot on the idea of hope though. even when hope seems like a pointless thing. He probably just thought in general his dad had more time as he’s really young to have a prognosis like this
13.1) totally
13.2) a lot of it was from his childhood too. Cancer or Smallara, his real point would be that he just wants to be with his dad because his dad means that much to him.
14) yeah, but holding it in hasn’t worked out yet, and over the past few months Miah’s changed a decent amount as a guardian, which I’m hoping to explore a bit in the future
15 ) lol she had been trending in the Cindy direction as far as her views of littles went
16) Dusty’s not afraid of a lot, despite his size
17) So I’d say that initially she was between Kenzie and Madison on view points, biased more towards Madison. She wanted a pet and her family does pretty well, so she thought a little to do things for her would be perfect, but as she got to know Dusty and see how he behaves and thinks, I think she relized that hadn’t given it as much thought as she should have in the first place, or even really considered that a little has more thoughts than your average pet. It’s kind of like getting a dog because you want one, just to find out that they are quirky and goofy in their own ways and march to the beat of their own drum, so you can’t really force them to do certain things like you thought you could. It’s just in this case, it’s more extreme since the actual mental and personality portion of littles isn’t as publicly known, as we’ve seen in Cindy pre and post smallara.
She also has a few external sources that influenced her views on littles too (not really cindy, but people that would eventaully agree with cindy at a certain point) and she admired these people, but seeing how big of a personality Dusty has and how willing he is to speak his mind and set boundries made her have to change her ideals and kind of challenge what it is she’s been told.
18.1) I think part of her thought that same way and feels guilty for making that assumption with a little that for most of their life didn’t know this is where they’d end up. She’s become a lot more empathetic.
18.2) if I decide to write a prequel to this where they first met, we might see that. otherwise I’d say it’s good to assume they had some growning pains but they each saw each others points and learned to adapt since they were pretty much stuck with each other. Now it’s turned into a reciprical relationship
19) a giant rack of ribs would be my last meal lol BBQ is so good.
0.0) all good. You can get that all sorted in your own time, no rush.
2) Nice
3) Fair enough.
4) I am imaging hearing on Little mode would be like listening to a little.
5) planned tantrum
6) It’s not a good way to handle emotions, I agree, but he wasn’t covered in options. I could see Miah getting mad if he did it over something else.
8.2) Sara was set up to get attached to Jordan, since he’s her emotional support, Ellie already had a crush on him. Madison and McKenzie already loved their parents, Chrissy I do agree with, but there is still a maintained divide between them.
9) would have been healthier and less expensive.
10) Like Mal and Sara, always avoiding consequences while others suffer.
12) It’d still sting though.
13.2) I know that feeling.
15 ) glad she pulled her head in.
16) excellent, I’m curious how Sara’d handle him.
17) I see, so she had only a tiny limited idea of how it would go. She’s drinking that Cindyesque cool-aid like Sara and Mia did, not it exactly but not too different, and Dusty changed that.
18.1) good to know
18.2) If we see it I’ll keep that in mind.
Loved this story.
thank you!
I really liked it, I think it’s worth investing in this story. As an independent story, reconciling with the other one. I really liked it, thank you for allowing me to enjoy continuing to read stories of giants, a hug.
I’m thinking of it. I like the way the two of them came out, and I do have intent on bring them into my main story. They were just a way to deliver the story for now.
CM, I think this story has more potential than Roni and Joey’s story in my opinion. Miah and Dusty didn’t know each other, which creates possibilities for conflict and rapprochement, forcing both of them to rethink their values and ideas, and the issue of the evolution of power relations between the two. You could even alternate chapters that tell the beginning of the story of the two with chapters that tell the current point in the story. These are ideas that I had, I really liked this story, it would be a shame if these characters occasionally appeared in Roni and Joey’s timeline. Hugs.
I for sure won’t close the door on the idea. This story was just more personally influenced than Roni and Joey. I’m not too certain if that’d be something I could recreate. Not that I wouldn’t try or try to find a way to hit these more emotional moments. even Roni and Joey and their friends will have conflicts at some point, I’m just still setting the scene slowly.
either way, still appreciate that you read and provide feedback!
My two cents would be to stick to your original plan and use it as a introduction as the moment you add a second story it creates that much more work but even moreso its double the creative output needed. You need double the storylines, double the compelling characters.
It can be difficult to balance priorities as one story will normally take a precedence over the other.
Where if they are just intertwined into one story. You can do more with that pacing wise. you can do an chapter of with them and then a chapter with joey and roni. You can intersperse the episodes where maybe something exciting happens at the end of a Roni and Joey episode/chapter you can then jump over to an episode of this to build tension.
that’s the other side of it too. I’d like to do another story at some point, but just managing the one for me on top of all the characters and when to intro them, how much time to give them in the story, etc. it’s pretty hard for me since this is my first time doing anything like that.
I’m still always amazed that you can balance the stories, characters, renders, lore, and everything so well lol