𝗭𝗢𝗘𝗧𝗥𝗢𝗣𝗘ミ.nishinoya yuu

𝖆𝖋𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖜𝖔𝖗𝖉

Funny story. When I first pitched the idea of Zoetrope to my friends and editors, I told them: "Okay guys, hear me out. I write a romance about a guy confessing to a girl like twenty times until she finally says yes."

And of course, I was met with complete silence. My boyfriend, who was sitting next to me at the time said: "Not gonna lie, Astra. The guy sounds super annoying and creepy."

For those of you who didn't know. A zoetrope is one of the very first devices of animation. It uses a sequence of artworks to emulate motion. Every drawing is a new keyframe and spinning the zoetrope results in the illusion of the art moving. That was the core idea for this story, for each chapter to be a new keyframe. To discard the unnecessary fluff and cut straight into the heart of this romance.

One word that kept circulating in my head when creating Amari Chiyo was the word "realism." I wanted someone down-to-earth and relatable. Part of it was to balance out her love interest's hyper personality, but also because I wanted to write someone the readers felt like they could actually know someone like her in real life or could even personally relate to her struggles and experiences. I hope I've managed to achieve that!

Here are some more fun facts regarding this story:

- Chiyo's name was originally supposed to be Kokoro. I changed it to Chiyo because Kokoro sounded too bubbly and innocent for her character.

- The love interest was a toss-up between Nishinoya and Bokuto. I knew going in that the male love interest needed to be an energetic character for the concept to work, so it boiled down to the two of them. I picked Nishinoya in the end because Bokuto just seemed a little too simple-minded for the concept.

- The character Okazaki Honoka is mentioned several times throughout the story. She is the girl who teases Chiyo for potentially having a crush on Nishinoya way back in Chapter 2. After graduating from middle school, she ended up going to Johzenji for high school. I honestly wanted her to make more appearances but couldn't find the time or place so she's just mentioned here or there.

- When I pitched this story to my friends, I told them: "Mark my words, this will be 10,000 words or less!" Yeah, that was thrown out the window pretty quickly when Chapter 3 totalled about 3,000 words.

- Chapter 7 of this story was originally gonna be completely different. Rather than a school trip at the end of their second year, it was going to take place in their first year and would have swapped places with Chapter 6. It would've detailed the time Nishinoya got suspended after breaking the vice principal's vase. Chiyo was supposed to cheer him up with some food. But I had a sudden concern that Chiyo's personality and experiences wouldn't shine through nearly as much if I continued the story like that. So I decided to scrap that chapter and introduce her mother. I believe seeing her allowed us to get a better understanding of Chiyo as a character and the world she lives in, as well as the pressure she faces as a result of her mother and being the eldest in her family. I ended up moving the moment where she tries to cheer Nishinoya up to Chapter 6 and replaced food with Nishinoya's old DS.

- In combination with the previous fact, we were never supposed to meet Chiyo's mother until I reworked Chapter 7.

To conclude this afterword, I'd like to give a big thank you to my editors Allyson and Joseph, Adonai for helping me make sure Nishinoya's character stayed true to the canon, and Tim for being the only person who actually likes slice-of-life romance enough to give me feedback on that front. I'd also like to give a big shout-out to James, my story consultant/emergency editor. Originally, the final chapter was supposed to end with a simple hug and a hopeful look toward the future. But after reading it, James proceeded to chew me out for not letting them kiss. Saying and I quote, "make them kiss or I'm fucking done with you." So if that final chapter and kiss made you squeal, you have him to thank.

And finally, I'd like to give a big thank you to all of you for reading this story! Zoetrope is very different from my usual long, at-least-40-chapter fanfiction, but I had a blast writing it. So much so that I might consider doing more in the future. Who knows?

There is still an epilogue as well as a short extra story coming sometime in the near future, so please stay tuned for those. But until next time!

XOXO,

Astra

[♡]

↳ now playing ;;
COMEDY- gen hoshino

.ıllı.lılllı.ıllı.

"Let's hold hands and go home. What should we eat today? Something like this happened. I want to talk about it with you."

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© astrella-