original concept and characters by clara li (@capy_clara on twt/insta) — constant WIP

*apologies for the abominable amount of run-on sentences and cussing in this, i never planned on showing it to other people so this is literally just my inner monologue. have fun. if you have any inclination to draw my guys or make your own guys or lore ideas PLEASE send them my way

<aside> <img src="/icons/knife-kitchen_lightgray.svg" alt="/icons/knife-kitchen_lightgray.svg" width="40px" /> oc pages

“CROW”

“WOLF”

</aside>

original concept artwork/reference sheets:

crow reference sheet (v2) by me — wolf’s to come!

OVERALL CONCEPT:

• PREQUEL COMIC: if birds could fly
• institutionalized, undocumented, and kidnapped kids are secretly experimented on by the government and spliced w animal dna for various evilcorp reasons, under the guise of a CPS foster care system. story follows a main vigilante duo, both escapees of this organization, who grow to trust each other and fight to take the whole system down.
  • crime-fighting morally-gray anarcho-socialist codependent vigilante besties with issues!!!!!! LETS GOOOOOOOO
  • characters inspired by the irl symbiotic relationship between wolves and crows in the wild
    • fight (brawling) AND flight (parkour) duo
• overall dirty grunge city aesthetic (street-level) with themes of trauma, family, institutionalization, dehumanization, and ostracization. strong anti-establishment messaging
• mostly set in “realistic” world but with sci-fi elements regarding human/animal experimentation and splicing as well as psychological/dream-like elements. some body horror, action, dark comedy, mostly gritty realist drama
• set in an amalgamation of new york, detroit, and chicago south side — large cities with prominent low-income/gentrified areas
• inspirations
  • (MUST-LISTEN) the song creepy crawlers by the viagra boys
  • the marvel comic nyc vigilante scene (daredevil, the defenders, frank castle, the spiderguys)
  • jinx/ekko, raven/beast boy dynamics
  • andor s1 (the prison episodes) + the ivy ridge riots
  • the neverending story
  • dying light 1&2 (esp the parkour stuff)
• some lore questions i gotta decide
• tbh can’t decide if this concept would work best in visual novel format, TV live action format, animated show format, movie format, fucking. video game format….. IDK. something like arcane but 2d with a grittier style would be pretty sick. i also think “if netflix daredevil was made by an indie studio that wasn’t afraid to shit on the nypd” is a novel vibe

MAIN PLOT:

*for character backstories in more detail, see their individual pages

pre-canon

• CROW was put into a "foster care/orphanage” system as a child (7) by a corrupt CPS though very very unfortunate circumstance (father burned their home down with intent of familicide; crow lived, mother died, father missing and presumed dead by police)
  • she naturally assumed that all the other kids in the facility were also orphaned/given up somehow—organization did their best at the beginning to hide their true intentions, esp from the kids
  • wasn't old enough to realize that there definitely shouldn’t be weird secretive medical shit in orphanages? so in the beginning suspicion isn’t really ever a factor. they’re all just kids who don’t know why nobody’s there to help and everything aches and why everyone is touching them with gloves and scalpels and needles all the time
    • just thinks that yeah, everything fucking sucks, but im stuck in this system and so is everyone else because where else are we supposed to go?
  • there’s some media suspicion/conspiracy theories that none of these kids are actually being fostered or adopted, so to get rid of that they start sending out some of the kids to foster care homes. which is sorta how crow forms any kind of bodily autonomy and consciousness that maybe her life up to that point WASN’T very normal
    • crow had mostly shitty experiences with foster families and they often ended badly, since he’s a high-risk kid with strange tendencies and a habit of juvenile crime and lashing out. just kept getting sent from and back to the system, which is kinda what they wanted bc she was a “promising specimen” or some shit
  • it’s “common knowledge” that, like a foster home, the kids are free to go with documents once they hit 18. (this is a lie; they are killed off and buried beneath the courtyard/collected by the police.) idea: maybe a character who they didn’t finish off correctly and was able to escape though badly injured
  • when she’s 12 she meets DOVE, 15 (the white-winged martyr; shown in If Birds Could Fly)
    • become inseparable (implied one-sided hero-worship crush)
    • when dove turns 18 crow is 15 — [INSERT EVENTS OF IBCF HERE]. dove is martyred, crow escapes.
      • alternate: dove tried to escape first but was ratted out by the first cop she tried to tell and fucking disappeared. the attempt discouraged others from getting out but encouraged crow’s attempt
    • word gets around; there are small uprisings that follow (but no major — organizers are swiftly discarded & disposed of).
      • she isn’t the first or last to get out — potential rivals/ally groups there
  • now lives in the streets scrounging for food and money via petty theft and devious licks. learned parkour in the process; uses his small frame to his advantage
• WOLF had a brief stint in the SAME system — however, his POV is that he was kidnapped and held captive for a month or so in the facility when he was a child (11?)
  • he naturally assumed that the other kids in the building were also all kidnapping victims. entered muzzled after mouthing off to somebody he shouldn't have and couldn't ask or answer any questions; he got the sense that talking wasn’t really a thing that people “did” there.
    • was instantly picked on, forced to learn how to fight in order to yknow. Not Die
    • but being muzzled also gave him the advantage of eavesdropping on other people with important information while laying low
  • old enough to realize just how worryingly huge the operation was but too scared to do anything about it
  • he was eventually able to escape/be rescued and reunite with his family, which is why theyre so protective and sheltering of him (wolf pack mentality)
  • told his parents bits and pieces of information, but neither wanted to alert authorities due to the potential of corrupt government and them getting murked or smth due to having confidential info. (also police don’t really give a fuck about missing black children, we know this)
  • now works at a no-kill dog shelter :)
    • smth smth dogs in cages kids in cages metaphor
• basically, the organization was a human+animal hybrid experimentation operation that got kids from wherever they could (including both genuine foster kids AND kidnapping) whilst fronting as an official government mandated foster care system. [goal of operation??? theyre harvesting babies for adrenochrome!!!!!!!! idk yet.]
  • the kids were forbidden from discussions about the nature of the place and often were pitted against each other
    • i don't think they were holding dogfighting matches or anything, they just aren't stopping the fights from happening? and some kids start noticing that one ones who win disappear for longer (since the “stronger” kids are seen as more promising for further procedures), and as a result they instigate fights more bc hierarchy/morbid curiosity/a want to find an escape
      • this is how wolf is forced to learn how to fight, and how crow gets so good at hiding/evasion/parkour (fight vs. flight)
  • they all noticed weird shit though — people being ushered into back rooms by workers for periods and coming back with a different eye color, sharper teeth, lots of gauze covering up surgery scars, something new and horrible in their expressions. etc.