November 2015

ExorJosh: Master Post

Until Dawn AU (Comic list and Summery)

List of ExorJosh comics & illustrations:

Comics:
[1 “Inconclusive”] [2 “Masked”] [3 “What Happened”] [4 “Sam”]
[5 “Change Room”]  [6 “What’s that sound”] [7 “unknown symptom”]

Other UD Comics:
[siblings] [bromancy]

Illustrations: *some nsfw*
[At the Mall] [In the Morning] [Walk the line] [on the steering wheel][Josh’s Scar] [nostalgia] [kiss] [Warm Tea] [Chillin on sofa]

Other UD illustrations:
[Josh][some legends say] [Peck] [Ashely]

List of Fics (coming soon)

***This post will be updated every time I make a new ExorJosh posting. 

What is #ExorJosh:

ExorJosh is an Until Dawn head canon/AU that I came up with that is more of a possible post-game scenario .
It is continued after one of the canon ending where, Josh turns Wendigo.
In this scenario, Josh gets captured by a team of private investigators that was put together by Josh’s rich parents who are desperate to save their last surviving child.
Once he is captured, his parents put him through every possible medical treatments to ‘stabilize’ him thinking that he is suffering from some sort of a neurological illness in combination with an unknown viral infection that’s causing his physical deformity. This is because he already has a history of severe mental illness. However, when they run out of options with all the negative results, they resort to an exorcism. Not by a christian method but through a Native American method. They are able to come to this decision due to their high interest in, and past dealings with, Aboriginal culture(<-this is a canon) in combination with the word-by-word police report of Josh’s friends and from reading the dead-wendigo-hunter’s diary that was retrieved from the remains of the lodge basement.(by one of the investigators)
While it’s not for sure whether the exorcism fully rid Josh of wendigo spirit, it appears to be a success and Josh regains his consciousness. However, he is extremely weak from the months of deterioration/treatments and the physical deformity is clearly evident around his mouth and right eyelid. He gets the basic treatments (skin-graft, etc) to re-construct his right eyelid and to close the wide gap on his left cheek but he refuses to get any more cosmetic surgeries out of the guilt of causing so much medical expenses to his parents. (Evident  from his in-game dialogue that Josh is not just a spoiled rich boy but financially conscious enough)
Even after the exorcism, it takes a long time for Josh to recuperate physically and mentally and he has to stick to a specific diet and slew of medications.  Eventually, Josh’s mother contacts Chris and Chris is the first friend for Josh to re-unite with. Then, despite of Josh’s newly developed anxiety, Josh is able to re-unite with Sam as well with the support of Chris.

This is the base idea of ExorJosh. There are more related Ideas and awesome fics written by other lovely people that expand this scenario. So if you’re planing to write on #ExorJosh, You should check these out :)

[related idea/facts posting #1]  [Josh’s Mental health#1]  [Josh’s Mental health#2]

Logic Behind #ExorJosh:

In this section, I’ll expand on the logic behind this AU.
If there are any more questions, please ask me and I’ll add explanation to this part of the posting.  

*** If you’re very invested and protective of any other 'Josh-survives’ scenarios, I DO NOT recommend you to read beyond this point. My intention is not to destroy someone else’s fandom branch but to explain why I came up with #ExorJosh the way I did to people who are interested.

click below to continue reading.

When I came up with this Headcanon, I was having a hard time with completely investing myself in other 'josh-survives’ scenarios due to the way I over-analyze the believability of all the story points in regards to the already established universe.. and so I had to build this AU of #exorJosh in the same way as I would for my professional works as a story artist…It’s almost like an occupational illness.. -..-  

Anyway, for myself to be convinced in a josh’s potential survival scenario, I had to consider the following:

• Does this new scenario follow and respect the official story events that’s already written?
  
• Are the important character choices made true to the character’s canon personality.
  
• If not, is there a buyable explanation to that choice?
  
• Are the special themes that were introduced/emphasized during the official story considered and respected?
  (in the case of Until Dawn, this would be the significant presence of aboriginal culture and the emphasis on the  supernatural lore of wendigo)
  
• If Josh is cured of Wendigo spirit, why is this exception made for him? why is he a special case compared to the others that got possessed by Wendigo?
  

All that considered, I had to come up with something that’s more of a possible scenario that continues post-game instead of a complete alternate universe that undo some of the unavoidable official events.

It was also important for me to relate the cure of Josh’s curse to something of Native American culture since that’s an important element to the Until Dawn universe. Thus after a research, I came to a conclusion that exorcism of wendigo through a combination of Native rituals is a very lightly touched and unexplored but possible topic and I could easily incorporate that into this AU.

As for why Josh is a special exception who gets to survive after being possessed by wendigo, my theory is that, it was possible because he is the only person in the record that was ever to be captured before fully transforming. On top of that, as several people suggested, I imagine that taking the wendigo spirit away from its home mountain would weaken its connection to the host. Some writings suggest that wendigo is believed to be a spirit of starvation and/or the spirit of the mountain that punishes the wicked who commits cannibalism. So along with that idea, the fact that Josh would be taken away from the mountain and then be forced to stop practising cannibalism would take away the purpose of wendio spirit to posses Josh which would then make it easier for the exorcism to work on him.

In regards to Josh’s parents resorting to exorcism, some people questioned how did they find out about wendigo and what convinced them to believe it.

The canon of Josh’s parents is that, at least Bob, Josh’s father is very interested in aboriginal culture and even has past dealing with an aboriginal organization. This is shown through the excessive amount of aboriginal art and decorations apparent in the lodge, plus the book, “Native American Myth and Legends” and the letter that shows Bob’s decision to build the lodge that’s close to an aboriginal land even after receiving anonymous threats against it. I actually believe that Bob might have some amount of native american ancestry due to his heavy interest and his dark hair which would also explain how he was able to find people that could execute the exorcism on Josh. Going back to the topic, I imagine that Josh’s parents would also get their hands on the full recordings of the other kids’ police interrogations and I think it’s even possible for the parents to retrieve the wendigo hunter’s diary from the burnt remains of their lodge since the diary was left alone in the basement. Even if none these were the case however, I think the sheer amount of desperation Josh’s parents would have to save their last remaining child can easily push them to extreme measures if it has any sliver of hope. Not to mention, Josh’s father is a well renowned movie producer who is know for his horror movies. I’d think that he would have some great imagination.

As for the possibility of remaining spirit possession within Josh, I left it vague for people to explore .

@knight-of-eire said:Your comics got me into Until Dawn and reblogging them got my friend into Until Dawn and we both hatelove you for it, excuse me I need to SOB MY HEART OUT BECAUSE JOSH DIDN’T DESERVE THIS AGONY!
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@mysunandwolfie said:…your comic came on my dash and I was in love at first sight because the premise was so cool and the art was so cool and God it sounded amazing. But then I played it and I swear to god I kept your blog open because your comic gave me hope okay (and spoilers) and I swear it was the only thing that got me through the game. Except now what am I supposed to do with my life??? (Apart from stalking your blog and your tag that is shhhh)
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“I’m a healer.”
“I made you believe in the world I created!!!”

No really tho, I’m sorry… OTL
I didn’t mean to make you guys go through that entire game with a predisposed belief for Josh’s well being…
you poor souls..ha..ha