rumchatacream:

While we all excitedly wait for 404, here’s some behind-the-scenes bonus reading!

@kmudle, an intellectual: So, James is gay.

Me: Nice.

From there, I started the thought experiment of: Who is his boyfriend? What was their relationship like? So, I wrote down my idea and sent it along to Kent and, the wonderful human he is, agreed to let the pitch be in the game. (If you look closely at the picture James shows you, you can see the boys are sitting on a fire escape, where the excerpt you’re about to read takes place). This moment in particular occurs after they’ve been in a relationship for a little while.

::Anyways, here’s the little pitch I sent::

The Night the World Ended

When the apocalypse first started to break out, James was sitting with his boyfriend, Charlie, on the cold metal fire escape just outside Charlie’s bedroom window. They cuddle together, absent minded, passing a can of Four Loko in a brown paper bag back and forth. Charlie snuck it, and a tin of sour cream and onion Pringles (James’ favorite), from his family’s bodega downstairs. The two chat, laughing and prodding at each other as they get tipsy and watch the sun set.

The sky is pink. Crickets chirp. The familiar din of the city hums distantly.

They have a small FM radio perched beside them, playing some grainy pop music they weren’t listening to anyway.

Then flashes of red and blue light up the alleyways in the distance, an alarm blares. The two think nothing of it. It’s just part of the ambiance. But then comes another. And another.

The two start coming up with stories of what could have happened. Maybe there was a big fire? Or someone robbed a bank? Then someone screams. The music stops. Static crackles pensively. Are more people screaming? Charlie tells James to hang on a second, he climbs through his bedroom window and back inside. James sits alone, his legs dangling, eyes locked on the flashing skyline. The static finally turns to words– An emergency message. The city is going on lock down.

James calls out for Charlie. Silence. He swallows hard, his heart starting to race. He looks back into the room. The lights are on, but no one’s there. Gun shots ring out. He pulls up his legs.

What the hell is going on? James crawls into the window. He calls out for Charlie again, warning him of the emergency notice.

But there is only silence.

~ Bonus Info ~

~ Charlie and James joined the Whisperers together, along with Charlie’s parents. James never saw his family again after he said goodnight to them before heading toward Charlie’s place.

~ Leaving the Whisperers was extremely difficult for James. When he finally decided he had to go, he and Charlie weren’t on bad terms. They hadn’t grown apart. But their extreme ideological differences forced them apart. James tried to convince Charlie to come with him, but it didn’t work. Charlie never stopped loving James, but rejected his change of heart and didn’t fight him when he said he had to go.

~ The photo that James shows you in Episode 3 is inside of a plastic covering. This plastic covering actually used to be for his food truck ID. But he put the photo in there instead. The lanyard has since been lost.

~ Some **Personal Headcanon** that was in the doc, but is not in game~

~ James was always kind of a fan of horror movies. They aren’t things he’d watch on his own, but he loved watching them with other people. He was never one to scare very easily, unlike Charlie who, while brave in day to day life, couldn’t stop himself from jumping at sudden noises in movies, and would always be the one who’d scream.

~ James learned the rock trick while hanging out with Charlie outside the Whisperer camp. They were skipping rocks across the concrete to pass time when a walker approached. Charlie chucked a rock, sending it clattering across the ground. The walker slowly turned and followed the sound. Both of the boys went wide-eyed at that, and would often use the trick when they were feeling lazy and didn’t want to run out and kill the walkers, themselves.