#EDIT: THIS HAS BEEN IN MY DRAFTS FOR SO LONG. I FORGOT ABOUT IT

[steamberrystudio]

2024 wrap-up and 2025 plans

It's been a really weird year for me and the last few months have been particularly challenging - so much so that I can't really remember much of the start of the year. There's been a lot that has happened and yet it feels like almost nothing has happened.

With a personal move in the works at the moment, and lots of lists and packing and cleaning, the last couple of weeks have felt like a blur of limbo as well.

But rather than just complaining let's jump into the wrap up and plans for 2025.

2024 Progress Wrap up

When looking back over a year of visual novel development, it can be really easy to forget progress and victories because it all smears together into an indistinct timeline.

You know stuff happened but you lose sight of the details of that stuff.

Even while writing this last night, I forgot that A Faerie's Tale was something completed and released this year. I remembered it just now while doing a final proofread of this post.

Development is such a long and repetitive process that you forget all the individual steps it took to get where you are. When I look back over 2024, I admit I feel like I somehow didn't do that much...that time slipped away while I did very little actual work.  

And of course, that isn't true. (Or is it?? Self-doubt assures me that I didn't do anything noteworthy this year.)

When Stars Collide

At the start of 2024, When Stars Collide sat at 485,000 words. I was finishing up editing Asher's route but had portions of the other routes to draft. The UI was still the old design, most of the backgrounds were incomplete and none of the additional features like the flowcharts and affinity meters were set up.  

I wanted to release an updated demo and the more new people told me they were playing the demo, the more I died inside because it was not at all reflective of the project any more. But I was missing critical backgrounds that I actually got only a few weeks before Episode 1 went to beta.

The point is that back at the start of 2024 the game was still very unfinished but I had big plans. My goal was originally to start releasing episodes in June of 2024 but editing and coding just took so much longer than expected that it just wasn't possible.

From a writing perspective, I learned that drafting and editing a game in this overlapping route style was hard. It was just genuinely so much more difficult than the separate route structure I'm used to. It really requires different processes and styles of planning than what I've done in the past. The burden of meticulously matching a timeline of events across 6 routes simultaneously is really tricky with the way I write and form the choices in my games.  

You kind of have to either never refer back to anything that happens within a choice scenario or you have to remember and track a lot of variables and conversations and events. Additionally, writing one plot line from multiple relationship perspectives is actually quite tricky. Things have to align in very specific ways but you also kind of want to make sure that each play through is interesting. You don't want the conversations within the LI-specific content to be identical but they have to be similar enough you can manage the difference with a few key variables.  

I honestly found it a really exhausting way to write. There's so much less complexity and so much more freedom when you are writing separate routes. And for that reason, the writing took a lot longer than I am used to.

One day I want to write up all my thoughts on route structure in visual novels but I haven't had time yet.

Ultimately I drafted about 172,000 words this year. The total word count of the game before I coded it was around 657,000 words - plus an additional 8-10k or so of bonus content. Of course, that shrinks when I code it but that was the total uncoded word count. So that is quite a jump from the 485,000 words I started with this year.  

I always say that working on VNs really skews your view of what "a lot" of words is. To me, as weird as it is to say, 180k doesn't feel like that much writing, which is silly because it's like writing two YA novels.   

But between the end of the Kickstarter for Gilded Shadows and the end of that year, I think I wrote about 250,000 words. That's 70,000 more words but in less time. I think it just shows how much more difficult writing WSC has been due to the structure of the routes.  

I remember having a conversation with someone once where she told me that writing a game like Gilded Shadows is *definitely* harder and more work than writing a game like When Stars Collide. GS has multiple plots and a lot more words. In WSC, the routes share a plot, they share scenes and content, there's only one plot line and there are far fewer words.  

I think it really underestimates the simplicity buff and the freedom buff that you get from having a single separate route in its own space time where you don't have to care as heavily about continuity across routes or a shared timeline of events or all of this other stuff that was such a burden to me when writing overlapping routes.  

I maintain that I'm really glad I wrote When Stars Collide the way I did. I learned so much about game structure and choices and all this mechanical stuff about how visual novels work that I'd never really had to think about for. It was really, really enlightening.  

But I will never do this game structure again. Lemme just say that.  

Drafting aside, I had to also edit all that writing which was its own special layer of hell.  

And then the art. The art has been enjoyable. I really love this game's aesthetic and the character designs. And the characters. I really enjoy them all so much. They are the most adorable crew of nerdy gremlins out there.  

But the art has had is own challenges. I've done about 20 CGs for the game so far and a lot of them are easy enough but the colour slider MC is definitely a bit of a challenge for the CGs. With GS where I recoloured by hand, there were times that I had to slightly tweak Morgan's default colours to look good in CGs. For instance, one of her skin tones looked quite odd next to Magnus, who is very pink. And I had to just slightly tweak that skin tone in his CGs so they looked okay together side by side. It was easy to test that sort of thing before the CG even got into the game.

But I colour Wil in greyscale and I don't see them in colour until I test. And each colour available on the slider is represented by a number. And there are essentially 100 of them. So testing all of those isn't really viable. I do test multiple skin tones from my saves. But in some ways it's more cumbersome to make sure all of that looks good.  

Wil also has 8 hairstyles…in two colours (which are recoloured manually because a couple of the hairstyles just don't really looks as good recoloured automatically (it's my art, not the dynamic colour slider tool).  

It's a lot of work. Hair 5 usually puts my hand out of commission for the rest of the day (so I save it for last. Ha ha). I don't regret it and again, it's something I wanted to to do as an experiment. I knew that 5 hairstyles was probably manageable and 8 was definitely pushing and I was right so no hard lessons really learned there.  It's sometimes valuable experience to push yourself right to that line and really see where the division between "feasible" and "too much" really is. Because then it's no longer hypothetical. You know where the line is.  

A lot of how WSC is set up was me testing if the line was where I thought it was.

Beyond the art, I also got all the other new features set up and experimented with a few things I hadn't been planning on. Many of those features had the core elements set up and coded by wonderful programmer friends and colleagues (Feniks and Windchimes and Jeneara) but I still had to implement all those things in the code to make them function as part of the game.  

Which, for things like the flowcharts - is time consuming. Flowcharts are like that.  

The flowcharts in WSC use a different method than the ones in GS. It's a brand new tool and I'm still learning how to use it but there are also some kinks that rear their heads (not those kind, you guys! The annoying kind that break the game!)  

I think the feature most people are most excited about would be the save screen. It's quite popular. Ha ha.  

With all of that stuff done, I was able to finally….*finally* release the official version of Episode 1 to Patreon and on Itch.  

And I released Episode 2 (minus two CGs that have been delayed by an abrupt move to a new place and me just not having time to draw right now) to Patrons in early access. (and the Itch version should go out mid-January. I hope).

So the point is…that is actually a fair amount of work that has taken place this year. And a lot of challenges that have been met and overcome.

A Faerie's Tale

Another thing I did this year was finish and release A Faerie's Tale as part of Amare Fest and with a team of friends to help out.

AFT is a concept I've had since about 2020 (prior to WSC actually). It was based on a dream I had as was always meant to be a cute little side project. But it kind of fell by the wayside in favour of my larger projects.

Being able to get it released was definitely fun. Jen and I definitely want to go back to it and release Lachan's route though - it was something we didn't have time for previously and it would be nice to get it truly complete.

Thornewood

And while I haven't specifically mentioned it anywhere outside of my server and Patreon...

The truth is...

I've secretly been planning my next project. But not really all that secretly since I have mentioned it a few times.

I've been torn, for a while, on two projects I'd like to tackle. One is called The Crown Wheel and the other is called (tentatively) Thornewood. I still go back and forth over which one I really want to do next. 

Crown Wheel is the one I *really* want to get out there. It's another story that's close to my heart with some ancient characters of mine that I really love and would love to throw out there for other people to enjoy. But…

Thornewood is a bit more solid a project when it comes to planning and plot. Crown Wheel is a little more nebulous in terms of where the story would go. I'm getting side tracked…I'll get into this more in my 2025 plans.

I have not been working on any other project regularly or in any truly significant way. I've really been working on outlines and character profiles more than anything and I typically do it late at night when I can't sleep but can't draw any more because I'm resting for the day and while I just don't want to be working on WSC because I worked on it all day.

I think I have about 13000 words of outline. I did a rough summary of each route and have been trying to expand those and detail them out a little bit more. So technically that is work I've done this year too.

2024 still somehow feels like a weird year for development. I can't articulate why but it definitely was an odd year for sure.

So What are my 2025 Plans?

That's really the big question at this point. What is in store for Steamberry Studio?

First and foremost, the plan is to get When Stars Collide fully released. This isn't as straightforward as it seems though. With the writing complete, I'm focused on the coding and art, but...

Coding expressions is currently a bit tedious because there have been a ton of group scenes in this game so far. This is because it is somewhat of a 'closed set' so when you are not 1x1 with a love interest…you tend to be with a group. This will diminish in upcoming chapters as the plot kicks off more and you also get longer scenes with the love interests. But unfortunately it does come back in the last few chapters.  

But for now I'm looking forward to heading into parts of the game that are more 1x1 or at least smaller groups at a time.  

Additionally the CG situation has been somewhat up in the air for me. I was originally planning to do CGs in every chapter but I wasn't sure if that would a) be sustainable for me and b) make sense.  

I suspected that there would be chapters coming up where there just weren't necessarily any good CG moments. So the "CGs in every chapter" thing was always going to be a bit squishy.   

I know, for instance, that chapter 6 probably won't have any because there aren't any good moments for it to be honest?  

Anyway. I am thinking that I may take a less formulaic approach to CGs and focus on making sure there are CGs in every episode if not every chapter. Maybe chapters 5, 8, 10...and then...Idk. One or two of the ending chapters. 

Even if it's just four of the remaining chapters, that's still 24 more illustrations for the game. Which I feel like is a very reasonable amount considering there are already about 20. 

Another thing I'm really going back and forth on is the nature of episodes moving forward.

Do I want to continue with 2 chapters per episode or do I want to drop to 1 chapter per episode? I battle myself on this all the time. It's such a hard call for me.

One challenge with moving into single chapter episodes is that I just feel the episodes would be less satisfying with only one chapter. Realistically the chapters aren't that small - even the short ones are more than 30,000 words each. That's...half a YA novel.

But, again, *realistically* when we reduce that to a play time, it's not that much.

People consume unvoiced visual novels at a rate of about 250 words per minute. That means 15,000 words per hour.

So 30k is just two hours of content. When you start dividing this up between "main plot" and "LI route content", you start whittling away at how much content *per character* there is. If there are 20,000 words of "LI content" - yeah, that's more than half the chapter. But that gets divided by 6 characters. And that means 13 minutes of playable content *including all the choices* for each character which isn't a lot. And most people are not going to play through every choice option.

Which means people could be getting through the unique content for their favourite character in less than 10 minutes.

By combining chapters, that means we get episodes that are 70,000 words or 90,000 words. It boosts the amount of content per character by a significant amount and that is really what I'm looking at when I consider episode layout. 

I try to think about what is going to make for the most satisfying episode for players. The drawback of 2 chapters per episode is that it's…a lot. It's a lot of expressions. It's a lot of flowchart work.  

It just takes more time.

Regardless of whether it's just 1 chapter at a time or whether it's 2 chapters at a time, I really want to move forward with steady releases and get the game fully released to players in 2025. That is obviously my primary focus going forward.   

The story is finished. It's burning a hole in my laptop. (Not really). But I want to get it released.

Having the story already written but delivering it in smaller bites to players is doing a lot to save my drawing hand from inevitable doom but it's so hard for me mentally. I know the things coming up in future episodes and I'm so keen to release it and see reactions and talk to people about it. And it's just so difficult to not be able to do that as fast as I want.

I'm trying to be patient and I hope all of you are willing to be patient with me.

In other work…

I will likely continue to plan out my next game on the side, though I don't intend to start working on it or writing it until WSC completes. It's too hard to manage two projects like that - at least for me - most of the time.

When it comes to Thornewood (the most likely contender for 'next project'), it is a 'dark fantasy' in that the setting is gritty and grimy fantasy with an underlying darkness in the world. It's not really a dark romance though.

I always view dark fantasy as including settings where the darkness comes from outside the main character interactions. The setting is dark and the stories have danger and darkness....

But dark romance is when the relationships themselves are also dark. And I feel like I don't really write dark romance. I don't write perfect relationships either but I wouldn't describe them as 'dark' by any stretch.

Either way I'm looking forward to working on something more overtly fantasy again.

I've been dabbling in science fiction for a long time now (since 2019 - that's when I started Gilded Shadows!!) and I've been wanting to move back into fantasy settings for a while now.  

Even just working on the profiles and outlines and world building for fantasy projects, it feels like the Fae and the magic are calling me back home. So I'm really eager to wrap up WSC and bury myself in a more fantasy themed setting again.

But I have a long journey to get to that point.

There's a lot to do in 2025 and I still have a lot of stories to tell.

I hope you will all be here with me for the journey.

[hrokkall]

You were created by humans to protect. They died, so you continued to protect—protect everything they hold dear. You rest in the corners of hell that make mockeries of their holy places and tell yourself that you, you are the last bastion of everything they held dear. You are more than a machine, you fight like man—with honor—as you still bow before the thing that claims to be you. It fights like a dog, and you flee. You can't bring yourself to go back and see what has become of the temple.

You have a new purpose now. If it seeks to destroy, you will give it destruction. You use everything that humanity taught you to create, study the curvatures of their statues to weld together a new arm out of the remains of a sentry you mangled (what a worthless, worthless warmachine—knowing nothing but itself) resembling their own. You settle, once again, in a faux temple—this one of golden stone—and you wait.

It arrives. Of course it does. And you rend it apart. Piece by bloody piece. You take apart everything that you hate, hate, hate. It takes until your chest is dented in for the red haze in your vision to clear, to realize the scrap lining the floor is your own.

So you flee. Not in cowardice—you are not human enough for cowardice, you have always known this—but for the most mechanical thought of self-preservation. You flee and it follows, and some sinking feeling knows that the only thing the two of you feel is hunger.

You were never human, nor did you truly seek to protect anything but yourself. You will never know peace, for you were nothing more than a leftover of war.

It hardly matters. You were created by humans to die—and you die like the machine you are.

[pan-magi]

*posts random rukh thoughts over a month late b/c I forgot about it*

Are the rukh an actual light source? The things my mind gets stuck on repeatedly while working on shit.

The answer would appear to be yes. This is shown when there is enough gathered at one place, usually in a relation with one of the magi using enough magic and producing magoi at a rate to be visible to everyone who can't usually see them. With the exception of Judar, but I'll get to black rukh in a minute. This is usually conveyed through light even if the surroundings are dim. The first time Aladdin is seen really going off is one such occurrence.

I keep thinking to myself. How does rukh produce light when magi using magic isn't involved? Do magicians constantly see hundreds, thousands, of light sources no one else can see? Or is the light so minimal it doesn't make a difference? I like to know what light sources I'm dealing with.

The closest we get for this is with Baba. She sees the world directly through rukh; it is her source of sight. Though tbf, the anime doesn't really touch on her being blind outside of her interaction with rukh. The manga is only a little clearer. Point being, light source or not, it is a way to see and experience the world.

Does that mean that it acts as a sort of passive night vision outside of Baba? Who knows. The one time I can think of an example is that while exploring the fifth district there isn't much light shown outside of some lanterns and dim lights, but Aladdin, Titus and Sphintus don't seem to have much trouble. Meanwhile, Marga and the rest of the citizens there are used to the level of light and don't work really as a control group. So I dunno.

The other conclusion is that it's not the rukh that produce the light. It comes from the magoi that they produce. When Judar explains the magic system to Aladdin (imo, a condescending smartass doing an exposition dump is a surprisingly effective way to deliver information to the audience in a quick manner), he produces magoi to deliver his point. It acts as a bright beacon that everyone reacts to and sees, especially when Judar starts attacking people with it.

I don't really have concluding thoughts on this. It's more of a ramble dump. Good place as any to switch to talk about black rukh.

I kinda dislike in the anime that black rukh is also shown to produce light. A dim purple light typically, but a light nonetheless. One of the reasons I think of to why is so that each is distinguishable in a way. That a mass of black rukh isn't shown to be a massive black blob and nothing else.

(left about normal, right darkened slightly to show point of black blob)

It isn't how I ever imagined them to be though.

I'll end this on a headcanon of mine. I always thought it made more sense for the black rukh to absorb light or at the very least cast a massive shadow. The first impression Aladdin gets from seeing Judar is describing him like a black sun. What would be the cause for someone to come to that conclusion? Mine was that the overwhelming amount of black rukh from Judar would be a blot of darkness until Aladdin can focus on him properly. If it is only dozens of black birds surrounding the guy the description will be less extreme.

An eclipse (what I can attribute to being like a black sun, outside of blackhole) doesn't just cast ordinary shadows. It is putting out the main light source of the planet. It isn't a cloudy day, a storm, or night time during a new moon: the closest other comparison. The darkness of an eclipse hits different. Plus, when Aladdin gets memories about the fall of Alma Tran the sun there looks like it is permanently eclipsed. That's the quickest shorthand to show that it is nothing but darkness all the time.

Anyway, that is how I see Judar and the black rukh in general. They are opposites and out of spite literally and metaphorically counteracts the light from the white rukh.

Yup, no closing thoughts. Thanks for reading this word vomit if you did!

[airborneice]

can we talk about how @the-hilda-librarians-wife is just out here writing poetry in the tags like it’s no big deal

@sketchbookweek Day 3 - Sun & Moon / Family

you know I had to bring up my sketchbook kid Mattie for this one. in my mind this is like…impromptu midnight storytime bc someone woke up the entire household and now she’s almost settled no one wants to get up or go back to bed

(Kaisa has become a little more comfortable with openly doing magic by this point, partly because of reconnecting with Tildy in season 2 and partly because no matter how shoddy her spells come out, they never fail to entertain her kids, especially her youngest. Kaisa does the best stories in this house. no child can resist magic floating pictures)

[erinwantstowrite]

i feel like if you released a 24 hour + video of you talking about your plans for your original book i would sit and watch all of that with no breaks. so: would you be willing to share at least the bare bones of the plot you have now? or even some tropes that would be in it? or maybe random questions like how many main characters? how many povs? if it's sci-fi or fantasy? just stuff like that!

ahhhh!! i'd love to talk about them because they're constantly rotating in my brain!! i hope this doesn't get too long but we all know me, i can never stop yapping 😭

(okay this is present erin editing before posting and yeah this got long guess who called it. anyways there's art and stuff under the cut as well)

(Marked this as mature with violence only because there is an image below where I drew injuries/cuts on a character)

This book has been a thousand different books in all kinds of settings, plots, lessons, etc, and that's because I've had these characters since I was in middle school. At first I was so obsessed with them that I'd write and draw them all the time, to the point that my teachers were concerned I wasn't paying attention. I was seriously into magic and fantasy at the time because Harry Potter books were still the epitome of writing to my middle school brain. Ruby was a wizard with a bird theme that lived in the countryside and one day found out that her town was "alive" in a sense... But after I lost that sketchbook with all of the details (devastated to this day), and started venturing into other books series and shows, etc, I sort of forgot about the og story or what it was like. What remained was a love for the characters I had made over anything else about them, so I'd end up writing stories with a different theme each time, but the ocs being the same, just with their backgrounds shifted. (Around the time I was obsessed with VLD, Ruby was in a sci-fi plot set on a planet in another solar system.)

One of the most recent iterations was Ruby and the other characters essentially struggling to understand death, life, and everything in between. The story is called "Behind the Blue Glass" and I still really like that title lol. All of them had died on the same day, at the same time, just in various different ways, and then all of them came back to life in the same manner. They all developed different powers from the experience: Liam could float/manipulate gravity), August's body was essentially a phantom that could go through objects and disappear, Vin could possess people, Jean had an empathy link with the dead and could talk to and see them clearly, and Maya could figure out someone's cause of death/also tell when people were about to die. As for Ruby, she's the only one who can move freely between the land of the living and the land of the dead. It's different from Jean seeing the dead, as she's still in the land of the living.

The plot of that story was Ruby having dreams/visions of these other people she had never met before and knowing she needed to find them and set "something" right, but she didn't know what. She sets out to find them anyways, and they each join her on her quest to find everyone simply because they never got an answer to how they came back from the dead and find it weird that they all died on the same day and time. They solve deaths of ghosts they come across, meet people who are still grieving lost ones, have to lay some of the ghosts down to rest- all while figuring out why these shady people have started following them and trying to stop them from figuring out what happened to them. I even made some first draft titles (definitely, 10000% inspired by PJO because I was reading it at the time):

to top it all off, it's set in the 2010's I believe? Around that time. Just because I think more books should write about the time era

I have some (recentish) art of the characters:

first image: (Liam on the right, August on the left)

this is what Ruby looked like when I was first designing them for the story:

They're meant to look dead-ish but this art was SO long ago when I wasn't confident in my art so Ruby just looks like a wet rat or smth idk what is going on here

And here's Vin!! I don't hate this drawing of him that much, surprisingly, but this was also drawn a while ago

and this was some art i was planning at the time:

i think that's all of the art that i have for this story (at least on this computer. My old laptop might have more but it's been laid to rest)

to be honest, i'm still thinking about writing this story, but Ruby's name would be changed because at this point, this iteration of her character is VERY different from present day. She's two different characters at this point 💀 that's how you know I've had her for SO long because she looks so different from her original drawings.

The latest version of Ruby ended up in a story with completely different characters in the cast and a completely different setting (even if some of the characters were inspired by their og versions). It's called "The Clocktower's Chime"

It's very much inspired by those reincarnation manhwas. I like those stories but they all have the same plot over and over, and while I was more interested in the versions where the character is sent back in time to live their life again but with all the knowledge they had in the future, I always struggled with the aspect that the characters' mental age is far older than they are. It makes the dynamics a little weird, but they can be excused unless it's a romantic dynamic, I would think? I dunno, it was hard to get into the plots mostly because of that.

So I used Ruby as a placeholder OC and came up with a story where upon their death in the future, someone casts a spell or a god sends them back, and instead of having a mental older age, they get a journal with all of the details of their future. Ruby woke up one day and found a journal written by herself that detailed everything about her future up to the point of her death. It was more like a book, however, rather than a journal. It just looked like a journal because it was in her handwriting.

So Ruby gets this book, doesn't believe it at all, until she notices that there are way too many "coincidences" lining up with the events of the book. She starts believing it could be true, and then decides it must be when she finds out that a prominent family in the country she lives in is going to visit her hometown. In the book, they were there because they learned that Ruby was their daughter that had been kidnapped as a baby and believed dead. However, in the book, Ruby had spent her entire life living as a weapon instead of a daughter, and she died by their hands when she refused to kill a woman that is prophesized to end a war that would devastate both countries.

Ruby is, like, 12 at that point. So her kid brain is like "obviously I run away and go to school in a different country and tell everyone I have a different name and there's no way this could go wrong." Except before she can even do that, she runs into Julias Parlia, a Duke's son from the country that is supposed to be her enemy in the future. Ruby is like "shit this is THE worst adult to run into and I haven't even gotten to the running away part of my plan" and Julias ends up being the reason she doesn't even get to the train station. He's fucking hilarious by the way. He's got a well adjusted family with two loving parents and a bunch of little siblings and he basically picks Ruby up by the scruff of her neck and is like "I want this one she's insane."

This is Julias (kneeling on the ground to talk to Ruby) and Emelie (Julias' knight and childhood friend, she's so silly)

and this is the part where I share art from many months ago... when I posted my most recent art and said Ruby keeps getting buffer every time I draw her, I meant it 💀

Ruby and her love interest, Cecelia

This is Vekenti, a character that was also supposed to be a "villain" in the original timeline. Ruby goes looking for him to prevent his death as well, and Julias obviously is like "Omg another weird kid, how delightful!" Everyone thinks Vikenti and Ruby are related, but they are not. They're just raised as siblings in both timelines and have a lot of the same mannerisms

Julias' love interest (unnamed? I can't find her name anywhere) and him

REALLLY old drawings of what they looked like in the OG timeline (I desperately need to redesign these because I could do better now)

Julias and Ruby again

and that's all the art I have for this one (besides the other post of Ruby I posted today, this is the story that that version of Ruby belongs in. She's looks very different now!).

All of this has been in the back of my mind for a while, and I've been trying to figure out which story I would want to write first. Middle school Erin would love for me to finally write Behind the Blue Glass, but sometimes I find myself wanting to write a fantasy story like Clocktower's Chime a lot more

[tavina-writes]

MDZS Society! aka: there's a lot less killing than you'd expect

This follows from this post and also the recent translations of MXTX’s most recent interview (which I can now no longer bother to find bc this has been sitting in drafts for like, siiiix months? More? Oh god anyway.) which reminded me about my feelings regarding MDZS society and how different it is from the martial societies we see depicted in typical modern wuxia. (Small disclaimer, I am a wuxia genre fiend and I love like, thinking about fictional societies so this is like, “AHA! You’ve unlocked my trap card!”) 

For the purposes of this, I’m going to be looking at MDZS/CQL’s depiction of the jianghu (which I think is fairly similar! I don’t actually think the show writers made CQL’s jianghu/martial society more genre typical than it was in the book) and comparing that with modern classic wuxia (mostly Jin Yong and Gu Long works.) For this comparison, I’ll be looking at a Jin Yong book — Legend of the Condor Heroes (which is widely considered the starting point of modern wuxia as a genre) — and one Gu Long book — Dagger Li/Sentimental Swordsman, Ruthless Sword (widely considered his most popular work) — and seeing how their societies differ from MDZS society. 

This will likely come in two parts because this one was already getting long, and I don’t think we can fit “how often does nobility exist in a typical jianghu and what do bloodline sects look like normally versus what they look like in MDZS” in this post along with the main topic of “is MDZS society a particularly physically violent place?” 

This post discusses how often cultivators are socially expected to kill people. Like, actual living human beings instead of, say, monsters or ghosts which have been categorized differently than like, human beings. 

EDIT: I forgot to talk about Dagger Li but this was already much too long sorry. Feel free to hmu for more thoughts though.

Now, it might be easy to think that cultivators killing actual people is a really common thing in MDZS/CQL universe! After all, they do have martial arts training and one of the prominent things about the first life is just how many people die both in the Sunshot Campaign and the fallout afterwards. However, I would argue that a lot of the traumas and related issues and reactions that happen in MDZS happen because cultivators are, by training and education, not actually prepared for killing actual living breathing human beings! (And also that the morality of this world prevents it for the most part) 

Now, we do actually get a pretty good window into what the typical training is like for young cultivators in MDZS, because we get a fairly well defined schoolhouse scene where LQR is asking them questions about "how do you tell the difference between various different problems we have to solve?" and "how do you go about fixing this problem?" and none of those include the moral quandary of "if I, a young cultivator out in the Jianghu, see a guy who is doing something I morally disagree with, under what circumstances do I beat him up and/or kill him." This does not appear to enter the curriculum at any point, leading me to believe that the morally correct number of people not like, ghosts or ghouls or fierce corpses, a regular average MDZS cultivator is supposed to have killed is approximately 0.

Which. Is a thing you get in a normal martial arts wuxia jianghu. There is generally the threat of "oh yeah this that or the other faction will be doing shitty things and thereby try to murder you." Instead, in MDZS/CQL most of the heirs of sects are...attending school together. Doing teenage things like partying and gossiping and attending classes.

And sure yes, there was a case of WWX and JZX trying to beat each other up. But the sects did sure let their kids stay at Lan summer camp for months on end (sometimes repeatedly, see NHS) without fearing for their lives or that anyone would steal another sect's techniques or otherwise causing real havoc or intersect warfare etc.

Which is infeasible in any other sort of Jianghu situation. For example, contrast this scenario with this scene from LOCH where Guo Jing's shifus are giving him advice since he is newly 17 and about to set out by himself into the great big world:

Guo Jing therefore bid farewell to his teachers. They had witnessed his battle against the Four Demons of the Yellow River, and were not too greatly worried. The young man had proved that he knew how to use the skills that they taught him. Therefore they let him leave alone. On one hand, the meeting of outlaws in Yanjing worried them greatly, so that they could not ignore it; and on the other hand, a youngster always had to travel the jianghu alone, in order to learn lessons that no teacher could pass on. At the moment of parting, each made their last recommendations. As usual when the Six spoke after one another, Nan Xiren was the last one to express himself. "If you cannot defeat the enemy," he said. "Flee!" He knew that given Guo Jing's dogged character, he would prefer to die rather than to surrender, if he met a master, he would certainly fight to the bitter end, even at the risk of death. That was the reason Nan Xiren gave him this common sense warning. " Martial arts have no limits," added Zhu Cong. " As the proverb says, 'For every peak there is one yet higher', so for every man there is one stronger. Whatever your power, you will always one day meet a foe stronger than you. A true man knows to retreat when necessary, when facing grave danger, it is necessary to contain one's impatience and anger. This what is meant by the adage, « If one preserves the earth and its forests, one does not fear to lack firewood ». It is not therefore not cowardly to take good advice! When the enemy is too numerous and that you cannot face them there, it is especially necessary to avoid being too reckless. Keep in mind Fourth Shifu's advice!"

Does this seem like the sort of advice that any Young MDZS Cultivator would get? "You're a good kid, but when you go out into the world, there will be people who straight up want you dead even though they met you 15 minutes ago, you cannot persist in fighting with these people because they will want you dead and you are a baby cultivator who needs to learn to run away when shit gets rough or you will be dead."

And again I come back to how MDZS cultivators are more like occupational ghostbusters because this really does inform how their society functions and runs and how everyone reacts so badly to the Sunshot Campaign beginning and its aftermaths and possibly explains how JGS could get his way after Sunshot.

Because what happens when you get a society that does train heavily in martial arts and have Able To Kill Real People Weapons who spends most of their time solving very black and white situations of "okay is this ghost whose eating people's livers good or bad? y/n?" and a clear hierarchy of "how do we get rid of the ghost eating people's livers in town x" instead of say "is it morally correct to kill this group of bandits who's been threatening the town" or "is it morally correct to kill this shitty businessman who's been holding people hostage and threatening to hack off their limbs" you have a reduced level of philosophical musing on like, "what is the purpose of martial arts, which is designed to kill people and what do I use martial arts for?" and "under what circumstances and situations would I personally find it morally correct to kill a man?" Which are all questions that Wuxia coming of age stories typically have, and I think MDZS does have, but expressed differently.

Again, it appears that the number of Real Live Human Beings that it is morally acceptable to have stabbed in your life is approximately 0 in this universe, and the expectation that you, personally, might have to fend off people trying to stab you over brunch is also approximately 0.

This also leads to a situation where like, questions of vengeance have very difficult escape hatches! If your parents are murdered on the job by an evil rampaging ghost, this is very sad and tragic and now you're an orphan and of course that's not good, but this is a occupational job hazard, not like, "Yeah Joe Bob from the sect down the street murdered my dad because #Reasons~, and now it's my legacy to grow up to murder Job Bob from the sect down the street to avenge my dad."

(I have a whole essay about how this pertains to both of the Nie Brothers, and how it pertains to JGY and also Jin Ling, and how this seems to routinely fuck people up in MDZS in a very specific way we don't typically see in other wuxias, but this is getting SO long as it is).

But yeah "the socially acceptable number of real living people (instead of ghosts or demons or fierce corpses or whatever) to have killed in your lifetime as a cultivator is approximately 0" means that the Sunshot Generation gets really really fucked up by all of this "killing real people" they did.

Which! might be why JFM was so slow to move on "yeah the Wen are threatening to kill your heirs." <- socially inconceivable behavior. Why society in general is so shocked by Xue Yang and the murder of the Chang <- which would be bad normally but not quite like this. And why no one did anything specific about JGS even if they felt he wasn't entirely correct. What are they going to threaten him with? Death???? A trial of his peers? Social Shunning??? Public shame???

"But Tav how does this relate to CQL!Su She's morality?" I hear you ask. Well you see, the question of "he should've been ready to die for his sect!" is utterly baffling in a society where nobody is expected to be ready to die for their sect on a regular basis because the idea that you should be ready for someone trying to stab you before brunch is utterly nonsensical in a world where most people expect that the baseline number of murders a cultivator does in their lifetimes is 0. That's the world he lives in.

On this regard CQL!Su She is utterly blameless. Nobody handed him a rulebook or expectations sheet for "the sect down the street will try to kill you" nor SHOULD they expect he'd be ready to die at a drop of a hat when no part of the education or social expectations include "ready to die for your sect because it's routine for people to try to kill you."

If you don't even expect to be stabbed and possibly die at a discussion conference where there are lots of cultivators from many sects why on EARTH would you expect to be facing down death in your own home when there's. cultivators here to kill you, this situation is so out of left field?

[fictionalhoedown]

Stanford Pines x Self-Insert

Summary ;; Ford Pines discovers a strange glowing red flower, obviously he brings it back to the shack to bring it underground and study it. But Stanley has other plans, seeing it as a business opportunity, but of course he messes it up

~~~~ (I'm sorry I forgot to use they/them pronouns so this is a Stan x female self insert)~~~~

EdIt;: Im rly sorry if its bad, its been a long while since I wrote fanfic but I love this man to death I need this ;( y'all would tell me if this is shit or not right? pls hlp

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Stanley's POV

Ford comes barreling in with something glowing red in his hands "the hell is that?" his brother didn't reply, instead he neatly stacked his books and gently places on the diner table a black pot with a large glowing flower.

Similar to a Lily, three long tubes with large pollen balls on each end gently emited small visible spores. I get irritated that he's ignoring me, again, and turn the tv off to lessen the noise "hey dick face!".

He looks at me with the highest form of disrespect, "Can you please tell me what the hell that thing is doing in my living room?" Ford huffed and straightened his glasses.

"techniqly this is my house Stanley. secondly! I don't know! I found it today. But I do know that I need to drive to my lab and retrieve some nessecary equipment items that I think would be beneficial of concealing this thing until I can learn more~"

The nerdy Pine brother looked 'too' excited about this research, "riiiiight, because playing with a flower is scientific?" my brother groans again "god why are you so childish! Just let me be happy about this discovery" I held my hands up in defense.

As he packed somethings up, he takes a step and looks at me very seriously, "listen Stan, I'm gonna be gone a while. Please, do not sell the damn flower in your freak shop. And more importantly. Do. Not. Touch. It."

I look back at the flower, everything about it calling to me to not sell it but cause general mischief for my brother and his nerdy hobbies. "yeah yeah, I promise! Jeez, you really think so low of your own blood?" he rolls his eyes and exits the living room with a sarcastic "yes.".

_______________

Self-Insert's POV

My cold wet hair dripped down my hot skin, I wrapped the towel around my chest, securing it well, then clipping the bottom, for no unnecessary 'drafts' of wind.

I combed my hair back out of my face and misted some perfume on before leaving the bathroom with the intention of going to my room and getting dressed. Until, !CRASH!

Rushing down the stairs with zero regards for slipping on my ass, I make it to the bottom to find Stanley Pines, my dear close friend, face covered in what looked like red spray paint and a broken flower pot with soil on the ground.

"Stan! What the- " I run to his side, holding his face with my hands to inspect the damage. I sprint to the kitchen and get some wet paper towels, trying to gently remove the mystery color from his face.

"Yeah yeah I know, Ford told me not to touch it already. But I didn't techniqly!" As I am dabbing his nose with the wet towel I give him a 'bruh' look. He protests "I'm serious! That damn flower basically farted this stuff in my face!" I laugh at his explanation.

As I finish cleaning the last of the flower spores from his eyes and nose, I notice an unfamiliar heat radiating from him like he was a mobile fireplace. Looking at his face, I see without the spores he is very flushed and red faces, a gentle sweat beginning at his bushy silver brows.

I put my lips to his forehead to feel his temperture, only to be met with an iron skillet burning my face, "Ow! Good Lord, how are you still alive! Your burning like grits with no butter!" I push the hair from his dripping face, to better see, he seems shy and sheepish? Stanley Pines? Shy?

Stanley's POV

I can't handle it, god this was such a mistake, I should have listened to Ford! Her glowing skin was the only thing I could pay attention to, as she spoke it was like how adults speak in cartoons.

When she was cleaning my eyes with the paper towel, I felt her breath, it sent chills through my whole body, like I was a teenager again! Her neck looked so... exposed... My body was turning up the heat like it was thanksgiving day.

I unconsciously trailed my eyes downward, (Self-Insert) continued her health assessment check with me, all my senses got more and more sensative. The TV volume was on low but it sounded like it was wracking inside my skull.

The living room light looked so bright and yellow for my eyes, I thought they were gonna dry away to dust. (Self-Insert)'s smell, fueling me into my lungs and straight to my member, so sweet, like honey and vanilla.

Her touch, as she nervously holds onto my arm for foundation, I can't think about anything else but the electrical storm going on with her beautiful body being pressed up against my old ass having a stroke on the floor in my fucking boxers. Real charming Stanley.

I unknowingly found myself gripping her wrist to bring her closer, hooking my arm around her waist and cupping each hip perversely. "T-Toots-... I can't... think... I don't think I... can even breath right now... but-" looking up deep into her eyes, the tent on me rises high to the sky.

Self-Insert's POV

The elder man aggressively shoved me, falling to my back but not hitting my head, thanks to his hand engulfing the back of my skull. Stanley's arms were firmly planted next to my head, his girtle not present but his very, very large lower half pushing past my legs, nothing but the thin blue and white striped cloth gently laying against my womanhood like a dog sitting on top of the bun.

"I can't explain how much I want- no..." Stanley falls forward, dipping his head to my throat like he's gonna rip it all out, "Need you~" I watch carefully, scared but, weirdly excited? His giant hands engulfing my wrists, the heart violently beating against his palm, "Stan." I say, to try and get his attention.

Suddenly rocking his hips to an imaginary song, he shifted his hands from my wrists to my biceps, pushing his weight on me as both our pre-cum juices covered and soaked his boxers. I couldn't run, the man was 5x larger than me, and I mean, It's not like it doesn't feel good~

Stanley grunted exhastedly, looking like a horny boy humping his pillow. The stubble on his face scratched all over me as he open mouth licked me like a loli-pop and drunkenly sucked hickies from my throat to my collarbones, he kept saying stuff like "I swear. you taste so good.", "I wish I could eat you like cake~", "say my name again, and I think I'll bust".

Gently removing himself from licking my neck, Stan suddenly rips my towel open, my no longer steaming body, hitting the freezing cold ac air of the mystery shack. Not saying a word, a small dripple of saliva dripping from his lip as sweat poured from his face.

His calloused fingers found their way to my chest with no hesitation, picking each bud with his pointer and thumb and rolling them around, my breath hitched as he pulled and let them fall back watching the buds grow stuffer and pinker "pretty, pink, buds" he murmurs.

While he gawked and played with my titties, I open my legs a bit more, adding to the closeness, his shaft firmly pressed to my soaking entrance. Reaching for the elastic of his boxers, I stick my thumbs in, circling around his waist and intending to push them down, feeling his swelled tip bed for attention.

!!EHEM!!-

Stanley's POV

(Self-Insert) sat in my lap as we watched my favorite romantic drama movie, my brother sat at the table next to us, toying with his glowing flower, that surprisingly lived.

Ford gagged once more, like he did for the 100th time, "I fucking hate you Stanley.".

I groan and drop my arm from the air dramatically, "Jesus fucking Christ Ford I already said I was in the wrong and I was sorry. How was I supposed to know it was gonna spit some sexy love juice in my face!" (Self-Insert) chuckled nervously as her face turned beat read again.

"Lets all of us just forget it okay. Please? Ugh~"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I"M SO SORRY THAT WAS BAD- It was rushed and I'm finishing this at one thirty In the morning- AND I ALSO WORK- the lengths I go for horniness...

pls like...

<3

[ghostinthegallery]

I can't believe The Silence and the Storm is over a year old! The first anniversary was May 27th (yes I missed my own fic's birthday in my defense I was traveling and forgot how time works).

I'm trying to compose my thoughts because this sure feels like a time a blog post would be fitting. However, my engrams are scrambled because...wow do I have too many feelings.

As some background, I've been a writer for a long time. And I've written 3-5 books (depends on how you count "completing" a book but it's 5 full drafts, 3 of which were heavily edited). I wanted to be a trade published writer (still do) and for a while I was feeling good about my chances! I got lucky and received some wonderful professional mentorship (and met one of my best friends during that program!). I took that guidance to query agents (a necessary step for access to most big/medium US publishers). I knew it would be hard and take time but...4 years later all I have to show are a few requests, hundreds of rejections, and one agent who asked me to rewrite my entire book only to reject me anyway (me, bitter? No not at all nooooo).

I'm a creative person and sharing my work feels like sharing a part of myself. Something that is not easy for me to do. After a while I just assumed I was missing something necessary. My work didn't resonate, but I didn't know how to fix it. I’d never reach anyone in the way I so desperately craved, and it was my fault for not being good enough. I felt broken.

During one of many major depressive episodes my spouse bought me a copy of The Infinite and the Divine. That book has changed my life. I was never much of a fanfic writer before. Either I thought the original work was too good and I didn't think I had anything to add or it was too bad so why would I bother with it when I could just go read/watch something better? 40k inspired me though. The ideas are incredible but underutilized enough that I felt like I had something to add.

So I started writing necron fic because why not? There wasn’t enough for me to read, and I needed more robot stories. Maybe I could rediscover my love of the craft, make some friends, make some robots kiss. Distract my mind from the horrors. So I posted a little OC fic and actually got some nice comments. Hey! Positive reinforcement! Hadn't had that in a while.

Emboldened, I continued in the most normal way possible. Going from a 7 chapter OC story to a giant civil war epic including every named necron character I could find with 6 (then 7...then 9) POVs. It was the type of grand space opera I've always wanted to write but never did because I didn’t think I had the skill and it's harder to sell. Luckily AO3 is free. Ain't no playing to the market there!

Now, a 40k necron civil war space opera is...niche. So I wasn't expecting much. I would have been happy with some kudos, some comments. Fan art felt like a pipe dream, but what are writers if not dreamers? The main goal was to enjoy myself. It was low pressure fun, I love the characters, what could go wrong?

Nothing, but I was wholely unprepared for things to go as right as they did. Y’all have been amazing. So many great comments and ideas exchanged, gorgeous art, fun asks, a lot of screaming (it’s fine probably don’t worry). I’ve never had such a strong outpouring of support for my work. It feels incredible. But also sometimes confusing. I’ve trained myself so well to handle rejection that I kind of forgot how to handle acceptance. Especially for something so personal. This is a weird story about undead space robots, there’s a lot of politics, sometimes the robots have sex. It’s got out there head canons, and 99% of the tyranid parts are pulled out of my ass because nobody knows how the space bugs work okay. My weirdness being embraced on this scale is one of the greatest feelings of my life. But it’s also new, and way out of my comfort zone. I’m being seen and adjusting to that.

Still, writing in this space has been one of the most consistently joyful things in my life for…well, over a year now! It’s changed how I view my art. I actually can create stories that touch people and make them feel things. I can take risks and have them pay off. I know not everyone will love this, but some people really seem to love it. That is mind blowing to me.

It’s making me reassess a lot about how I approach my art. Writing and other. I still plan to pursue publication. I want to get paid for my work, but this is making me consider alternate paths that might fit my style (and psyche) better. I don’t know what the future holds, but if you’d told me a year and a half ago that a big part of it would hinge on an AO3 gay robot skeleton space opera…I would have thought you were nuts, but also hoped you were right because that sounds rad as hell.

So in conclusion, thank you all so much for reading <3

[no-where-new-hero]

Chapter 26: On the Bay Shore

I was dreading this day of the book club.

I do think this chapter succeeds extraordinarily well in setting up everything that Dean will be for the rest of the series. LMM's overall tone really changes with regard to Dean from book to book, but the tension of the dynamic is here from the outset. It spells romance, but with a shadow over it. Dean saves Emily's life, coded as romantic and chivalrous. Dean saves Emily's life and also immediately tries to have a claim on it that she resents. The push-pull of the scene is bewildering, and I feel as though Maud herself is finding herself almost distracted by her problematic new character.

We also cannot quite ignore the loving detail Maud gives us about his appearance: "beautiful" voice, "dreamy and attractive" eyes. "Dreamy" is only ever used as an adjective for Douglas, apart for Emily herself. Emily likes his mouth (show me a reaction to a mouth that doesn't immediately connote sensuality). She does not think him handsome like the Jane Eyre analogue that she is, but these reactions to his looks are more how she responds to Perry or Teddy than, say, to Father Cassidy the Brown Nut. Twice in one paragraph, Maud tells us Emily's likes "a flavor" about him and "that lean clever face of his." He has a connection to her beloved father and gives her the impression that she has known him for a long while, an apparently kindred spirit that will wait for her--romantic in notion, cringy to our modern ears, but also more universally symbolically troubling the more and more you realize that Emily's journey has to be, almost by definition, a solitary one.

I think part of why Maud seems to be trying to get us on Dean's side is the way that he's a character whose thoughts and reactions we're privy to (Aunt Elizabeth is the only other one): we know he "never forgot" how Emily smiled at him here (oho, the foreshadowing, Maud!). We know he knows she wants to recite her whole poem to him. He becomes, for the span of this chapter, a strangely immediate secondary main character. In other LMM novels, this kind of primacy is afforded to such important people as Gilbert Blythe. In addition, of course, is the fluency of his conversation. Maud's gift for dialogue shines through Dean, and despite the imbalance we can perceive between the lines, the relationship that evolves between Emily and Dean has a tangible realism not felt elsewhere in the novel (Alice Munro, in her afterward to the book in one of the Canadian editions, points this out). I think this is due, in some measure, to the tension between said and unsaid, between two natures that are similar but desiring two different things.

Dean is very interested in symbols and metaphors; he thinks of Emily as a fairy, a star: it's dehumanizing but, right on the heels of Aunt Nancy's vivid portrait of adult womanhood in Beatrice, such a romanticized and abstracted attitude feels safer, childlike in its fancy. It is so very nearly like the return of a Douglas analogue--except for the fact that Emily is no longer a child. The preceding few chapters have assured this for us. And Emily's own obsession with the transgressions of Beatrice start echoing onto her own desire to reach out for the aster. She, like Beatrice, overstepped. She, like Beatrice (according to Dean--though he was only joking, says Maud!), cannot get off scot-free. Again, the tension between two opposing appearances confuse our takeaway.

I will always stand behind my own hypothesis that Maud just really enjoyed writing Dean. Right before she began drafting Emily of New Moon, she wrote in her journals about wanting to write a "novel for grown up people ...a psychological portrait of one person's life" that she titled Priest Pond, and my favorite LMM headcanon is that Dean would have been the main character of this novel. He has similarities to other prominent male figures in her canon (Walter Blythe and Barney Snaith), and he's also so fully rendered in a way a lot of her supporting male characters are not, which makes me suspect she had done a bit of planning for him beforehand. I think she absolutely set him up in this conflicted way because of Emily's necessary arc, but I also think that she was interested in him on his own behalf. And I'm rather sad she never wrote that other novel, going by the complexity and layers at play in this chapter.

[air--so--sweet]

Made my first fan edit in over a decade (in my day they were called fanvids). Apparently you can't use copyrighted music longer than a minute on tiktok (it was easier to get round copyright in my day also) so this one is just for you tumblr. Also let's ignore the clips with logos in because I'm not getting clean versions to re-edit it, it's 8am and I haven't been to sleep (thanks ADHD hyperfocus stopping me from literally noticing the sun coming up!)

Edit: Had some sleep so now time to write a ridiculous number of words about a 3 minute edit! This was a lot of fun to make, I forgot how fun video editing is and capcut is a dream compared to windows movies maker and sony vegas (which was what all the cool kids were using for some reason in the mid 2000s but I never got the hang of it).

It also reminded me how fun some of the dance numbers are. Like I love Dancing in the Moonlight and Twistin' the Night Away. I know for the latter they originally had a choreographed routine but it was scrapped and and they were told improvise and have fun. It's something that definitely comes across in the final scene and it makes it feel more authentically like three siblings messing around.

Also in editing the video scenes I noticed stuff I wouldn't have otherwise. Emmy breaks multiple times because she's having so much fun (it's left in because it makes sense for her to laugh in the moment but Emmy's laugh is very different to Allison's).

The weird dance Diego does with the sword during Another One Bites the Dust, and the fact Lila has to fully step back at one point to not get hit in the face! I always thought Lila was just pulling Five in by the hand for a hug in the same scene but you can see them dancing together in the background throughout. I knew they danced together at the wedding but Five was blackout drunk at that point so it's fun to see him dancing with her at a time when he's...well not sober, but definitely less drunk.

Also as an aside, in the first draft of the script for S1E1 it's shown explicitly that Five is uncomfortable with touch after years in the apocalypse. Though the scene in question didn't make it into later drafts, it still feels implied to me throughout season 1 and it makes me feel happy to see how far he's come, seeming genuinely comfortable with Lila's affection. Also if anyone is interested in the idea of him struggling with touch @soshadysoquiet has a great fic exploring this (though rather than my view that he's become accustomed to, and comfortable with touch it posits that he's dealing with so much due to the apocalypse he doesn't recognise touch as the cause of his distress).

I also think there's a sort of theme happening in the partner dances during Footloose, rather than the characters being paired randomly but that will take long enough to explain it needs it's own post, even if this one wasn't already obscenely long.

[apprenticestanheight]

hi!! i have a request :) would it be okay if you wrote a specs x transmasc reader where the reader gets specs to help him with a testosterone shot?? its totally okay if no tho!! have a good day :)

T - specs x transmasc! reader

hi nonnie!! I'm sorry this took a while--this one has been sitting in my drafts for a good few weeks now and I've had it written for just as long. My object permanence is the absolute fuckin' worst, however, and I, admittedly, forgot to edit this before today because of getting distracted by other projects and also getting so anxious I physically could not will myself to get out of bed multiple days in a row since you sent this one into my inbox.

HOWEVER, I did get my shit together today (started on medication for adhd because I told my dr I thought I had it and we're testing it out to see if it works for me to help with those symptoms + anxiety management wot wot) and so, here this is!! I am, once again, sorry for the delay, and I promise if you send another request in I will do my best to do it that week.

fic type - this is fluffy!!

warnings - there are mentions of needles in this

In the five years since you'd come out and the five and a half since you and Specs had started dating, you'd only asked him to help you with your weekly testosterone shot maybe twice in the three and a half years since you'd finally gotten through all of the necessary hoops and had been able to start taking it.

Normally, you could do it yourself without a hitch, sometimes a little squeamish at the sight of the needle, but that Friday you'd asked him to help because he did it a bit quicker than you did--even if by just a solid second or two--while the two of you were on a time crunch in a rush to meet Elise and Tucker. Also, somewhat, as a way to squeeze a bit more time with him out of your day because you had to work an eight hour shift from 3-11, and when you got home he'd either be reading a comic while half asleep or asleep on your side of the bed in your absence.

He agrees to your ask without questioning it, getting the shot ready while you talk to him about how work has been because you've worked a string of evening shifts for the past three weeks and have been too drained to talk about it the next day. He happily listens, occasionally commenting where it's appropriate to make a remark or agree with an opinion you hold about a coworker, though he also acknowledges that he only has your bias to base an opinion on and not his own.

"Thank you for this, by the way," you murmur as you're standing up to pull your pants down to your thighs. "I know I could've done it myself, but I've missed you a lot lately and wanted to squeeze in an extra few minutes."

That remark brings out a soft smile from Specs, given to you as you're sitting back down. A second later, you can see the debate as to whether or not he wants to give you a forehead kiss occur in his expressions before he pauses, presses a quick but somewhat lingering kiss to your forehead, one of his hands reaching up to cup your cheek.

"I've missed you too, for what it's worth," Specs says. "Elise has kept us busy with her clients and Tucker and I have kept ourselves busy with Spectral Sightings stuff, but we've not seen much of each other lately and it's been hard."

You've missed him so terribly that it hurts, and there have been multiple points in the lulls of your evening shifts wherein you've been tempted to just pick up the phone and call him. You haven't for fear of being judged and seeming co-dependent, but you're at a point where you don't care how co-dependent it makes you seem. You're allowed to miss him when you're working evenings and don't get much of a chance to see him except for in your easier mornings.

You're nodding your agreement with his sentiments as he finishes getting your shot ready. You watch the needle go in, unblinking and relatively unphased, grabbing a "fun" Band-Aid--one shaped like a ghost, one of many from a Band-Aid kit gifted to you by Tucker for your birthday that year--to place over it as the slight pain from the injection settles and the needle is removed.

You pull your pants back up and rake your hands through your hair as Specs discards the needle properly, ever the one to be cautious about how your injection needles are handled, and you're thanking him as you put your testosterone away as it's meant to be stored.

He does a bit of idle cleaning while you finish getting ready, and you wind up stealing one of his button downs to wear over a black shirt. You kiss his cheekbone as he tosses you your keys, and the two of you leave your shared house hand in hand, so full of contentment that you already know how happy you seem is bound to make Tucker fake a gag while he smiles.

[andthekitchensinkao3]

Seven Sentence Sunday-ish and WiP Wednesday combined 😘

Edit: I forgot the tags!! Sorry @in-my-loki-feels @loki-is-my-kink-awakening @kcscribbler and @lokimobius ! I've been busy going over my original novel for sending it to another agent who's (long story short) rejected it once upon two revisions ago, but wanted another look. As such, I've missed not one but TWO Seven Sentence Sundays in a row! AND the WiP Wednesdays too!

AND I'M ON VACAY so I literally have no excuse not to write a bunch 😁

First, I give you 14-ish sentences from Chapter 5(!!) of Loose Ends: Mobius has asked Thor and Frigga to give him and (panicky) Loki some space, and Thor is being a suspicious ninny about it. Cue Mobius guard dog/protective hubby mode:

Thor strode forward like a warrior on the battlefield. “Just who do you think you are, to come in here and make demands? To speak to the Queen of Asgard as if she’s your equal? I’m not leaving you with him for one second unless you tell me what’s really going on!”

This was getting really old, real fast. Mobius stood, keeping his palm flat between Loki’s shoulder blades so he’d know he was still there. He wasn’t going anywhere. “You want to know who I am? You want to know what’s really going on with me and him?”

Thor stood there, the proverbial poster boy for victory. “Go on.”

“I’m his friend and partner,” Mobius stepped around the chair, placing himself between Thor and Loki. His palm stayed put. “And until Loki decides to elaborate on what that means to him, that’s all you’re gonna get, Your Highness. Copy?”

--- Aaaand because I'm a one-track kind of writer: my zero draft for later in this same scene. Mobius comforting Loki (coming down from a panic attack) with a Midgard tune.

Loki moans, largely unresponsive. Mobius arranges him onto his side, brushing his hair from his face.

“Loki? I’m here. It’s okay.”

“Don’ want to wake up. I can’t-- I can’t go back there, I don’t, I don’t want to be here, I want to go home.”

“I know, bunny. You’re not asleep, okay? You’re awake, and I’m right here. Squeeze my hand. See? I’m solid. You’re not dreaming.”

“Moby…”

“Hey, shh, it’s okay.” *wipes his tears away* “I’m still standing, better than I ever did. Yeah?” Tiny, whisper soft, like a lullaby. “Looking like a true survivor. Feeling like a little kid… I’m still standin’, yeah?”

Loki nods, still shaking. Mobius takes off his cloak, drapes it over him, rubs his back.

[kuwdora]

naked vid draft - Dead of Night (season 3 TWN/Yennefer/Thanedd)

@ahh-fxck asked if I'd like to share anything about my new Yennefer vid that I'm worked in on and GOSH do I ever want to share! My brain has been on happy creative fire since VidUKon last weekend and my recent excitement is Interview with the Vampire but I need time to digest season 2.

But I have my long overdue Yennefer/Thanedd vid that I finally started.!! YENNEFER! Thanedd! Season 3! The song is Ruelle's "Dead of Night" I've been vidding for a bajillion years now but I'm sharing part of my process that I've never done before: process video! I've been envious of people's process gifs for all their art and decided to try and screen record some of my vidding. I used quicktime and it slowed my machine down a lot and I was having playback issues but I made do. I might look into some other software to record more editing if it doesn't make my system lag. Otherwise I'll post more snippets and screenshots of my software later. Here are my first clips laid for Dead of Night - Yennefer/season 3 vid:

33 minutes of editing condensed into 3 minutes

Repeating the same 30 seconds over and over

Unmute for maximum vibes and repeated lyrics and a glimpse into my vidding process!

I forgot to export a draft for real-time playback. I have a more recent draft of 1:12 or so to share that has a slightly different beginning already since when the brain is on fire it zooms along the timeline. But I can share more drafts in another post. I always knew I wanted to open this vid up with Yennefer and Geralt in bed to mimic the way that scene was used in the books and show. But since this vid is going to be about the way the intrigue/mystery of the season coalesces during Thanedd ball I knew I should work on some other visuals to set that up as well like Vilgefortz's illusions and other visual elements to play into the themes of mystery and unseen and nebulous motivations. If people want more process videos from my vidding please let me know! I might share more from this vid or other vids. If anyone has questions about what they see send me an ask and I can try to break down my process in more detail if I can slow my brain down enough for words.

[kandyrezi]

Kcalb + Wodahs [thesis]

Still working on some fics, but in the meanwhile, I had this post in my drafts for so long and I forgot about it entirely, so I thought I might as well edit and post it now.

I was going to discuss the “Kurotsuno & Sullivan’s relation to Kcalb” theory first, but I got finished with this one a lot faster, so I’ll be posting the former one at a later date. This headcanon post concerns Wodahs & Kcalb + their relation to one another.

This is just for fun, so I apologize for any potential inaccuracies - if that’s the case, then I implore people to point them out so I can try and fix any inconsistencies there might be. This is quite short, but there’s always a lot to talk about.

I want to first start off by not focusing on either Kcalb or Wodahs, but on other characters far distant from TGG to give a bit more context and background behind my theory. Namely, this image here is quite intriguing.

Ivlis, Rosaliya, & Reficul are labeled as, “Manufactured by God” - that is, they were created by the God of the world they (used to) reside in.

Two appear to be missing from this picture, leaving out Satanick & Kcalb, but they obviously had to appear somehow. They did not materialize out of thin air by nothingness - we've seen previously, as an example, Siralos created Ivlis (& Igls) from flames, Meikai was created from a star by Satanick. So, if their corresponding Gods did not make them out of something, then where did they come from?

Speaking out of materializing out of thin air, All of the Gods ALSO had to “appear” somehow, as they are not clearly the highest deities in DSPverse, considering Vicers, Justim, Photon, Nortkele, Reminiscences are all above them in terms of ranking and categorizing, although it's largely unknown what they are supposed to represent (in the grander scheme) or even what species they are. They could also similarly just be cosmic deities, but higher-ranking than the gods we currently know most about.

It is likely, as one of many possibilities, that either Justim or Vicers created them. Judging by the image below - by how Justim is in focus and standing in front of all the other gods - I’m inclined to think they are the one who created all the Gods, at the very least, since they have been stated to be “God of Gods” - yet Vicers has never been called “Devil of Devils”, which would make sense if Vicers only created two of them (Satanick and Kcalb), as the rest of the devils were created by their own corresponding Gods.

Justim: *gestures behind them* these r my ocs! ^ u ^

(Not really related as such, but Photon and Nortkele are fairly obvious in a sense what they’re supposed to represent (it’s pretty much spelled out in their names), but that leaves Reminiscences… so, maybe they (she?) are a personification of “Matter” while their dark counterpart is a personification of “Antimatter”? Either way, they’re supposed to represent at least something floating around in space? An atom? A neutron? We’ll have to wait patiently for a while longer for another clue.)

Anyway, back to Vicers.

“The power to bestow life and the power to take it all away.”

So, Vicers can both create and destroy, it seems like. If he really did make Kcalb, he could have bestowed the latter with his destruction powers.

Vicers & Justim’s relationship seems quite complex, they’ve been inconsistently described as several things ( “can’t stand eachother, can’t live without one another either” / “used to have a big fight in the past”, and now “lovers” ), all these facebook relationship statues could be spread out within a specific span of time; maybe they started off as friends, then got into a conflict with one another, almost started (or did start) a war, then they made up, but it was still quite tense between them. At long last, they settled their differences and then became friends again, eventually lovers.

Wodahs could similarly have been created by either Vicers or Justim (or they could have created them together, as sort of a peace treaty and proof that two opposite beings can co-exist together, but I am more inclined towards only Vicers having manufactured Kcalb, as well as Wodahs.)

EDIT: Future!me has come to edit this wall of text before posting, having now read some of the more recent information from one of DSP's drawing livestreams. "Did Etihw create Wodahs?" question was answered with an uncertain: "You can say yes AND no to that." well, that kinda throws the "Vicers created Wodahs" theory out the window, doesn't it?

So, what if Etihw gave life to something that originally belonged Kcalb? Like a feather from a crow?

Characters of different species can be “blood siblings” as we’ve seen (Igls Unth is an angel, Ivlis is a demon, but they’re still technically 'siblings' created by the same god, if you see them as such), so could Kcalb & Wodahs be the same? It might be more appropriate to refer to them as half-siblings in this case.

Reficul & Sol / Ivlis & Igls Unth “Devil and the Head Angel” - both duos are considered blood siblings, so why couldn’t Wodahs & Kcalb be considered the same? (granted, Reficul used to be an angel, so using her is kind of a flimsier example.)

I personally can’t get behind either 1) “Kcalb used to be an angel” or 2) “Wodahs used to be a demon” theories, because

1) For Kcalb to have been angel, he would have to have been created by Etihw in the first place, but that’s clearly (as we saw in the previous point) not the case.

2) Wodahs has been an angel since he was a young babey;

and a FALLEN angel, no less? Gray wings in DSP’s universe are associated with damnation by god... hmm…

We’ve seen angels turn into demons, but never a demon turning into an angel. The concept of "redemption for your sins" doesn’t appear to exist with Gods & their angels. Once you’ve turned into a demon, there is no "reversing" that effect or gaining back the status as an angel. It’s the same with biblical/mythological concept of angels/demons (as all fallen angels automatically become demons, but never in reverse).

Since all angels are typically created by Gods, Wodahs could possibly be an outlier and considered not a true angel, but a “farce” in a sense he was created out of something that originally belonged to a Devil, hence why his wings have been gray since he was a child.

He’s also quite brutal in some instances in TGG in contrast to most angels; he keeps bullying/purposefully reminding Kcalb about his missing eye (instead of just letting go of the past), chokes out Grora and almost breaks her leg when she messed up his flowerbeds, and his GGT!self was seen trying to drunkenly molest GGT!Grora in one of the omakes...)

But, maybe in the past things were different with someone like Etihw (who is generally considered an anomaly amongst the other gods), who was willing to give Wodahs actual pure white wings and halo when he left Kcalb to go over to Etihw’s side during the war (thus is the reason Kcalb took his eye for betraying him in the first place).

He still shows more loyalty to Kcalb in the game over Etihw despite everything, which reaffirms my theory of him not having a very close relation to Etihw post-war.

Curious to hear anyone else's thoughts on this!

[laiosynth]

scar wuwa headcanons masterpost

it happened chat

so. let's talk scar wuwa.

first of all let me say that i have been able to play only his first interaction-- where he does that story about the lambs and the village after kidnapping your beautiful platonic wife. this is all based on all the possible info i could find through story and dialogue publicly available online. :3

everything (and it's a lot) under the cut v

we'll start with

1-- PHYSICAL APPEARANCE/FEATURES

this is the one i currently have the most fleshed out for.

[ID: on the left, there's a traced sketch of a wuwa screenshot of scar. it's been edited heavily and stylized to fit the attributes listed to the right of it. the list starts with a heading of MOST, under which is listed hooded eyes, cowlicks, lazy scar eye (and in parenthises, prosthetic with a question mark), black lipstick, smile lines, lip cleft, dimples, and nerve damage/unresponsive tissue. then under that is a heading that says "Less", under which is listed ponytail..., lashes, stretched piercing holes, and brow shape. END ID]

i stand by this list draft, with the only exception being the hooded eyes. in practice, the eyes i draw him with have monolids. i would add a few things to the list now-- we'll get to that. i'll start by explaining each of these choices, in detail.

EYES

this one... i just felt it in my soul. there's nothing more to it than that. but in practice, when drawing him, i want to mention that i do try to make it stay somewhat loyal to his eye shape from in-game model.

[ID: a low-quality screenshot with two eye drawings. the one on the left says "traced" above it, and is more stylized than the one on the right. it has a slight fold on the inner upper lid, and is more slanted up at the outer corner than the eye on the right. the eye on the right says "mine" above it, and the eye has a monolid with a clear fold. it is less pointed and slim, and has stylized eyelashes on the lower lid. END ID]

demonstrated above-- i wanted to keep that kind of shape that felt correct for him, which softening it up. his in-game model eyes are almost predatory, which is interesting, considering his story.

COWLICKS

so if you look at his model hair, it's very Anime Boy Spiky, which is silly, but i just kept getting draw back to the shapes of it, and... i just think it's really silly. look at him.

[ID: screenshot of scar from wuwa. he's grinning lopsidedly, facing the camera. his hair is flat and hangs straight down in the front, save for large hair vents. his hair is very spiky in the back, sticking out away from the head, in contrast to the hair in the front. END ID]

(side note, this specific fucking screenshot of him appears when i close my eyes now. i have it on 7 different fucking layers of my CSP scar bible file. he'll be there when i sleep tonight.)

LOOK AT HIM. i know it's typical anime boy gravity defying hair but. to me, that is so so silly. so in my headcanons, i kept the energy in that he has some cowlicks in the front of his hair that he CANNOT for the life of him style away, that curl the hair right out to the sides in a way that looks ridiculous when his hair is too long or too short-- he had to learn to work with it. it's sosososo silly to me AGRGRHRGRH

[ID: the same traced sketch from earlier in the post, but this time, it's been slightly edited. highlighted in red are the cowlicks, that go out and up, sticking out noticably in the silhouette of his hair. the cowlick on the left wasn't in the traced sketch from earlier, i had to edit it in. END ID]

yeah i had to edit the left cowlick in cuz i forgot it... still. illustrated by above, his cowlicks are very noticable and he has to work to make them work with the rest of his hair, which is very wavy. they still look a little ridiculous sometimes.

BONUS about his hair:

if you look at him and his hair... you give that shit 2 or 3 weeks, maybe 4, and that is a full-blown bonafide mullet. i love that so dearly. i think he just Has a mullet, but he wears it in a scraggly-ass little ponytail. to keep it off his neck.

[ID: drawing of scar wuwa, with the cowlicks mentioned above. he's looking down and to the side with a big grin, which means his tiny ponytail is now visible. it's very small, and the red hair and white hair from different parts of his head mix, making it dual-colored. END ID]

this sketch kinda illustrates it, and i think it's perfect.

LAZY SCAR EYE

we're at the point now where i've realized this is going to be a doozy of a post. yay. ANYWAY.

with this, i'm going off the logic that scar has not one but TWO scars over his right eye. the first looks like a nasty burn, and covers a large portion of that side of his face, and the second could be a lot of things, but the most important thing is that it goes STRAIGHT through his eye.

it's highly likely that that eye is no longer responsive or functional. so i draw it as a lazy eye that never follows the same direction as his good eye, usually resting in a forward position.

[ID: a drawing of scar wuwa. he's tilting his head to the left, pouting and squinting in thought as he bites his cheek, rubbing his chin in thought. his good eye looks at something closely, very observational. his other eye is lolling to the side, slightly askew from forward. END ID]

here you can see it pretty well, i think. i think it just adds a little bit to his character and look,,, yeah

BLACK LIPSTICK

i liked it. i thought it was very him. he's a diva boything he needs to slay

you can see it in all these drawings, but for those using ids/screenreaders, he has black lipstick on only his top lip, kinda reminiscent of shego.

SMILE LINES/DIMPLES

i'm grouping these together.

anyway, scar is a guy who smiles a LOT. i mean we've only gotten to see him while he's in his element at work, but he SMILES. and yes when we see it it's frequently somewhat crazed and evil-looking, but i think the smiles are a HIM thing. i think he's a smiley guy. i think he's got smile lines and dimples that accentuate his smile a lot. (this comes back into play when i talk about his expressions later.)

LIP CLEFT

this is mostly me headcanoning that the scar goes through his eye AND the left of his mouth because yeah, and it takes a chunk of flesh out of his bottom lip that's very noticable. it's entirely a personal headcanon cuz Yeah

(can you tell i'm being speedy and using less images now cuz i wanna get through all of this before i go to bed?)

NERVE DAMAGE/UNRESPONSIVE TISSUE

this is essentially a personal headcanon that he has nerve damage (and associated chronic pain, but that's for later) from the burn (?) scar on the left of his face, and as a result, that side of his face doesn't emote nearly as much-- somewhat reminiscent of a stroke victim. whenever i draw him, the left of his face is somewhat slack-- all his smiles are lopsided, and whenever his face scrunches in any way, it's uneven.

STRETCHED PIERCING HOLES

he's got big ass gold earrings he wears ALL THE TIME ALL DAY EVERY DAY. no way he wears those heavy things regularly and his piercing holes aren't even a little stretched out. i think he could comfortably fit a 6-8G plug in those holes. (truthfully that's one of my favorite things to draw about him.... idk why)

EXTRAS NOW!!

other stuff:

i think he's got fangs and a tooth gap. sharp teefs. yeah.

god i'm getting tired writing this so remind me to continue with part 2 of 4 tomorrow morning. thank you for reading

[manonamora-if]

March Check-In

Lol. We definitely were not back on track here. We tried and SUPER FAILED at going back to the schedule.

Will March be better? Let's find out together...

Onto the usual index:

Recap of last month’s progress

IF Events in the Next Month

Plan for the next month

Still long post under the break. If you want a mini version, head over to itch.io!

February Progress

Welp... there wasn't much of a list in the January Check-in, since it was the retrospective, which included the yearly plan. Still, I did make a mini one on itch. Put together we'd get:

Play more IF and maybe review. ✅

Finish the coding of Harcourt Ch5 ❌ and editing of Ch6 ❌

Fix one of the semi-completed games: ❌

Complete the Vamp/Smoochie jam entry✅

Heyyyy 50/50. Passable grade!

I've passed the very funny number of 420 reviews on the IFDB recently, mainly working my way through the French games (since there are very few reviews and French IF peeps are neat people). There are 300+ games left on that side, it will take me a while to get there but I'm making progress (almost done with 2023!). If my pace continues... I might be able to reach 2nd place in the ranking before my 1 year anniversary of reviewing games (mid-may). Also somewhat related, I've been trying to rate more games on itch too :)

I said I would finish the coding of Harcourt... and then didn't. But MelS was more productive than me, and he finished the first draft of Chapter 6 earlier than planned... which I haven't finished commenting on either... So :/

I also didn't fix any semi-completed games. So there.

But I managed to make it for the Queer Vampire Jam and the Smoochie Jam with Teatime with a Vampire ! A 20k-long trippy game with a hot vampire and a weird show...

AND AND I finally fixed my website and my itch.io profile. It has a cool feature on the front page. And we did a little AMA a few weeks ago!

Honestly, I thought I would have been done with Teatime two weeks before it actually was completed. So that threw a wrench in the rest. And probably having to moderate a few events at once...

And the extra day clearly didn't help.

EDIT: I TOTES FORGOT, but I updated DOL-OS for an extra QOL screen at the start.

What’s happening in March?

There's always something happening in the IF world. I don't think I ever find all that happens anyway... but. Here's the ones I know!

Today is the last day to submit a Spring Thing intent! (ranked)

he Queer Vampire Game Jam ends in about three weeks. Got a vampire/human story with a LGBT+ cast? Then this is the event for you! (unranked) Also they are doing a fundraising/matching donation with submissions!

The SeedComp! (Sprouting) extended the deadline for a few more days! See @seedcomp-if for more info ;) (ranked)

Concours de Fiction Interactive Francophone 2024 se termine Lundi! Viendez faire des histoires en français!! <3 (ranked, duh)

The next @neointeractives mini-jam will all be about bringing back old jams... Check out the Revival Jam !

The Text Adventure Literacy Jam 2024 just started! It will be looking for "parser for beginners" entries until May!

Note: @neointeractives will have jams all year long. One a month/or so. And the next Planting Round of @seedcomp-if will start as soon as the results are dropped.

The PLANtm for March

Busy plan once again. Here are the thing I'm hoping to do or finish this month:

Complete my French Comp entry. The deadline is in 3 days. Will I make it? Probably. Will it be good? Probably be not because I've been writing it only in the past two weeks. You can expect some "love" letters though...

Complete my SpringThing entry. It will be all about fixing typos and potential bug. The code will be ready next week anyway. Maybe slap some cool-er animations.

Play more games! Consider this done. There's the Smoochie Jam, the SeedComp! and the FrenchComp right there...

Finish the Code Ch5 of Harcourt and edit Ch6. At least one round of edits would be good. So I can put MelS to work again.

Finish fixing The Roads Not Taken. I'm so sorry babe. I'm not avoiding you I swear. I actually haven't bee on the computer with your files this month...

LET'S DO THIS! WE CAN DO IT!

~

The 2024 To-Do List:

I have done nothing here. So here's the list again for nothing.

The hopefully maybe easy to handle To-Do:

fix the bugs in EDOC + overall the French version to match

fix the bugs of TRNT + find a way to add the missing pieces (giving up on the translation)

fixing the interface of LPM and the popups + check animal interactions

figure out the One-Button JavaScrip/jQuery issue...

edit the loading screens of the completed tiny games to include the program/format logo at least.

The 'Need a Bunch of Content to update but it's planned!' To-Do:

Update my website (bunch new title - also I don't think the logo clicky thing work...) + redo my itch page

Finish TTATEH (MelS dependent - this year should be it - for real)

Finish Exquisite Cadaver (half-way mark by this summer - manif)

Finish P-Rix - Space Trucker (main path at least)

Update CRWL (it's been almost two years... I'm getting ashamed)

The Unlikely But it Would be Dope To-Do

Finish The Dinner as it was planned (and translate)

Finish In the Blink of an Eye as it was planned (and retranslate)

Finish The Rye in the Dark City

Fixing TTTT (at least fixing, maybe try adding some storylets)

And finally The 'It's impossible, but one can wish' TO-DO:

Remaster SPS IH (if I managed to start this after completing the rest... I'm going to eat a whole sheet cake).

Start the IFComp project (2025? Might end up being a ST?)