#I wish I had time to draw them on the menu interface in In Stars and Time

[nagiwrites]

Starlit bonds

Ch.5 - between the clicks

📌 Synopsis:

A new feature brings a softer side to deep space—Sylus shares a quiet, unexpected moment with Y/N during a photoshoot aboard the ship. But beneath the smiles and snapshots, one final memory still waits to be unlocked.

Characters: Sylus, Kaela, Reyna, Nova, Y/N.

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Sylus navigated through the menus, curiosity guiding his actions now that the tutorial had ended. The game had opened up new options—Crew Missions, Combat Training, Personal Interactions—but what caught his eye was a newly unlocked feature at the top of the screen.

[Wish Pool: Starbound]

Obtain combat cards to enhance your team’s abilities. Higher rarity cards unlock exclusive moments with the crew.

His smirk deepened. A gacha system, huh?

He tapped into the Wish Pool menu, and a sleek interface unfolded before him. A digital star map expanded across the screen, with constellations glowing faintly in the background. At the center, a swirling nebula shimmered, the words “Draw 1” and “Draw 10” glowing at the bottom.

A pop-up notification appeared:

[First-Time Wish: Guaranteed 5-Star Card on First Pull!]

His interest piqued. If a 5-star meant an exclusive scene with one of the girls, he had to see what that looked like. Without hesitation, he tapped “Draw 10.”

A dazzling animation played—a shooting star streaking across the screen before breaking apart into ten glowing cards, each displaying a different level of rarity. One, in particular, stood out—a radiant golden glow surrounding it.

[5-Star Card Obtained!]

Y/N – “A Stolen Moment”

The screen faded to black, and a soft instrumental theme played as a special scene unlocked.

The scene opened in the quiet expanse of the observation deck. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, the vastness of deep space stretched endlessly, stars twinkling in the distance.

Y/N stood near the glass, their arms lightly wrapped around themself, their expression contemplative. At the sound of footsteps—his footsteps—they turned slightly, their eyes reflecting the distant constellations.

“You’re… still awake?” they asked softly.

Sylus’ character stepped forward, the camera angle framing him beside them.

“Could say the same about you,” he replied.

Y/N hesitated, their fingers curling slightly.

“I like it here. It’s quiet.” A small pause. “And… sometimes, I just need to clear my head.”

A dialogue choice appeared:

1. “Want some company?”

2. “You look like you have a lot on your mind.”

3. “If you want to be alone, I can go.”

Sylus hovered over the choices, his excitement growing.

This wasn’t just a stat-boosting mechanic—

this was a whole experience.

After a moment of consideration, Sylus tapped the second option.

“You look like you have a lot on your mind.”

The scene shifted subtly—Y/N’s fingers twitched against their sleeve, and they hesitated before responding.

“I… guess I do,” they admitted, their voice barely above a whisper. They turned their gaze back to the stars, the faint glow of the galaxy casting delicate shadows across their face.

“But it’s nothing important.”

A new prompt appeared:

[Tap to continue.]

Sylus tapped the screen, and the camera slowly panned in, capturing the way Y/N’s posture tightened—like they were debating whether to let him in or keep him at a distance.

“You don’t have to tell me,” his character said, his voice calm, steady.

“But I’m here if you want to.”

Y/N let out a soft breath, the tension in their shoulders easing just slightly.

“You’re… different,” they murmured.

Sylus raised an eyebrow. Different?

They glanced at him, and for the first time, there was a flicker of something else in their expression—something deeper.

“Most people don’t ask.”

Another [Tap to continue] appeared, and as Sylus pressed forward, Y/N’s gaze dropped, their fingers gripping the fabric of their uniform.

“There’s a lot I can’t say.” A pause. “A lot I shouldn’t say.”

The music in the background shifted—soft, melancholic notes playing as the stars outside twinkled faintly.

Sylus felt his curiosity spike. This wasn’t just a normal wholesome card. There was something buried beneath their words, something they weren’t ready to reveal.

But the game was giving him a breadcrumb. A hint.

Y/N’s voice broke the silence again, softer this time.

“Thank you… for asking.”

A final notification appeared:

[Special Card Unlocked – “A Stolen Moment”]

Y/N Affinity Increased | Hidden Storyline Progression Unlocked

The screen faded back to the Home Screen, the card now permanently displayed in his inventory. But now, Sylus noticed something new—an Additional Dialogue Option had appeared under Y/N’s profile.

[Locked Memory – ???]

Sylus smirked. So they’re hiding something after all.

This wasn’t just a romance game.

This was a mystery.

And he was determined to uncover it.

Sylus’ smirk deepened. The game wasn’t slowing down. If anything, it was pulling him in even deeper.

Navigating back to the Crew Interactions menu, he hovered over Y/N’s profile, his eyes flicking to the Locked Memory – ??? prompt. His curiosity burned—what were they hiding?

A smaller pop-up appeared beneath it:

[Hint: Increase Y/N’s Affinity to unlock new memories.]

So that was the game’s way of telling him he had to work for it. Fine. He could do that.

Before he could think too hard about it, another feature caught his eye—Daily Crew Tasks. Clicking into it, he saw a list of interactions he could do with the crew outside of the main storyline.

Daily Crew Tasks:

• Ship Maintenance (Kaela) – + Engineering XP

• Tactical Training (Reyna) – + Combat XP

• Simulated Chase (Nova) – + Agility XP

• Target Practice (Y/N) – + Affinity & Precision XP

Sylus grinned. Well, that was an easy choice. He tapped on Target Practice with Y/N, and the screen transitioned into another cutscene.

The training bay was quiet except for the low hum of the ship’s systems. Y/N stood near the far end, adjusting the settings on their energy bow. When they noticed him enter, they blinked in surprise.

“Oh… Captain. I didn’t think you’d… um, want to train with me.”

Sylus chuckled, rolling his shoulders as he stepped forward.

“Gotta keep my skills sharp, right? Besides, you’re the best shot on the crew. Who else would I learn from?”

She stuttered falling over her words, and she quickly looked down, pretending to focus on adjusting the bowstring.

“I-I don’t know about that…”

The game transitioned into a Precision Mini-Game, with moving holographic targets appearing on-screen. Sylus had to tap at the right moment to match Y/N’s shots, syncing their movements.

As he played, Y/N’s soft voice guided him:

“Wait for the right moment… now!” [Perfect Shot! +10 XP]

“You’re getting better at this.” [Good Shot! +5 XP]

“Almost! Try again!” [Missed Shot -2 XP]

By the time the session ended, a notification popped up:

[Mini-Game Complete! Precision +10 | Y/N Affinity Increased]

As the cutscene played out, Y/N let out a small breath, lowering their bow.

“You’re improving fast, Captain.”

Sylus smirked, sliding his sidearm back into its holster.

“Good teacher.”

They smiled—small, but genuine.

“Maybe next time, I won’t have to hold back.”

The screen faded, returning him to the Home Screen, but something had changed.

The Locked Memory under Y/N’s profile now flickered—no longer completely inaccessible. Instead, it read:

[Memory Unlock Progress: 1/3]

Sylus leaned back in his chair, his mind buzzing.

This wasn’t just a simple leveling system. The game was making him earn his way into Y/N’s hidden past.

And he was more than willing to play along.

After spending more time completing daily crew tasks and missions, Sylus noticed a new event notification blinking in the corner of his screen.

[New Feature Unlocked: Glint Photoshoot 📸]

Capture moments with the crew in various locations. Strengthen bonds and unlock exclusive images for your gallery!

His curiosity piqued, Sylus tapped the notification. The screen transitioned into a sleek menu showcasing different backgrounds—various locations aboard the ship, along with scenic deep-space views.

A character selection prompt popped up next:

[Choose Your Photoshoot Partner]

• Nova – “Let’s make this quick, Captain.”

• Kaela – “Oh, I’m definitely picking the poses for this.”

• Reyna – “This is… unnecessary. But fine.”

• Y/N – “O-Oh… um, okay… If you really want to.”

Sylus smirked, already knowing who he was picking. He selected Y/N, and the screen smoothly transitioned into a scene set in the ship’s observation deck—a breathtaking view of the galaxy sprawled behind them.

Y/N stood slightly off to the side, fidgeting with the hem of their sleeve.

“I… I’ve never done something like this before.”

A photoshoot interface appeared, displaying different pose options:

[Select a Pose]

1. Side by Side – A casual standing pose together.

2. Leaning In – One character subtly leaning toward the other.

3. Hand on Shoulder – A more intimate, protective pose.

4. Distant Glances – The two characters looking in opposite directions but still connected in the frame.

Sylus hovered over the options, deciding what kind of dynamic he wanted to capture. After a moment, he selected Hand on Shoulder.

The screen adjusted as his character moved into place beside Y/N. They stiffened slightly as his hand rested lightly on their shoulder, their eyes flickering to him before quickly looking away.

“T-This is fine, right?” they murmured, their blush faint but noticeable.

A “Snap Photo” button appeared, and Sylus tapped it.

A soft shutter sound played, and a new notification popped up:

[Photo Saved to Gallery!]

Exclusive Image Unlocked: “A Quiet Moment” (Y/N)

Y/N exhaled, finally meeting his gaze.

“I… I think it turned out nice.”

A small smile tugged at their lips—genuine, if a little shy.

Before the scene could fade, another prompt appeared:

[Would you like to take another photo?]

• Yes – Try a different pose.

• No – End session and save progress.

Sylus debated for a second before selecting No. He’d gotten what he wanted—a moment that felt real.

As the game returned to the Home Screen, the newly captured photo was now framed in the Gallery Menu, a reminder of the bond he was slowly building with Y/N.

But even as he admired it, his eyes flicked back to that still-locked final memory fragment.

This was fun, sure.

But there was still something deeper he needed to uncover.

And he was getting closer.

A/n : ok um hope this wasn’t boring, I’m almost getting to the myths and hopefully that will bring some spark back and I’ll do a poll and see if y’all want me to write the other girls myths but yeah thanks for reading.

Tags:

@kaylauvu

@codedove

@crazy-ink-artist

@animegamerfox

[albinohare]

Can augmented reality really give us a vision of the future of sailing?

See further, see more and sail faster… Will Bruton investigates the navigation benefits that augmented reality is bringing

High definition cameras can provide the live image for the plotter, stabilised by a separate sensor to counter pitch and roll

Google’s mission statement is ‘to organise the world’s information.’ This almost impossibly ambitious declaration of intent underpins the technology giant’s ventures into everything up to and including Space. The message is clear: in a world where information is abundant, how we organise and access it is fundamental to it being useful.

Step on board a yacht equipped with an early electronic plotter and you can quickly find yourself the slave to a complex and far from intuitive menu system. It can take forever to get to what you need to know, making it quicker to pick up the almanac, and do things the old fashioned way.

Fortunately, things have improved since those first electronic plotters. We are now entering an age of innovative and user-orientated design where the influence of mainstream consumer technology has finally reached marine electronic products. But what does it all mean for the sailing we stepped on board a boat for in the first place?

Knut Frostad carefully considered where sailing information was positioned on his Outremer 5X

Make it relevant

Former Volvo Ocean Race CEO and Olympian sailor Knut Frostad bears rather more brutal scars of marine electronics than mere frustration, once nearly losing his eye to an errant antenna while racing offshore. Since leaving the shore-based role of CEO at the Volvo Ocean Race he has taken the helm at Navico as head of digital products. Navico is the parent company to three marine electronics brands, including B&G.

On a particularly revealing video on the company’s YouTube channel we see how the ex-Olympian uses technology on his family’s yacht, an Outremer 5X. Screens are positioned precisely at eye line height, electronic plotters are visible from all (four) helming positions and everything is carefully refined to show only the information that is useful.

It’s an attention to detail more likely associated with a German luxury car, where everything sits just right. The take-away is one we can all learn from; by filtering out what’s not necessary, the sailing experience is optimised. Retaining a firm grasp on the technology is what empowers successful sailing, not an abundance of raw data.

The challenge faced by designers is not simply to provide data, but to make information useful. Raymarine currently employs around 100 people in its development team. Improvements in how software is developed have changed things. Marine brands now design plotter interfaces on the same platforms as mobile phone software; making the process of development faster.

The result is interfaces that are inherently more intuitive to use, making the much thumbed paper manuals of the past redundant. The less obvious and more exciting prospect is the scope for increased capability of a single piece of hardware as time goes on, adding capability as new external components are released.

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All of this has made the marine electronics market more competitive, with each manufacturer driving hard to capture the market at the point of purchase. After all, once purchased, you often commit to that brand of electronics throughout your yacht.

Augmented reality, something achieved by linking cameras, GPS, image stabilisation and software technology, is perhaps the most exciting realisation of how the humble electronic plotter has become much more than an interactive chart. It’s changed my sceptical view of how much more can be done to make things better. By presenting data overlaid on a live camera view, we see much more, without having to connect the dots.

Military precision

For many years Raymarine’s parent company FLIR has been building military and aviation technology. Unsurprisingly, this knowledge has percolated through to consumer marine electronics. In the sky, the possibilities of augmented reality became mainstream years ago, giving pilots what they call ‘increased situational awareness’ or information about the stationary and moving objects they must negotiate their way around.

The Raymarine FLIR system’s ability to track targets with thermal imaging has many potential uses

What is striking about how this has manifested itself in Raymarine’s yacht systems is how chart and traffic information appears in a three-dimensional format that is genuinely intuitive. Unlike relating the chart to what’s seen with the naked eye as we have always done, with augmented reality, the relation of a buoy or vessel is done for you; bridging the gap in a way that seems entirely natural. No brain power necessary.

Everything appears automatically, in the place you would expect it, supplemented with data that’s directly relevant to that specific point up ahead. How much information you see is easily controlled by choosing what data you wish to see. Furthermore, on the screen, buoys are visible before you see them with the naked eye.

The view on the screen in a busy Southampton water, even with all data points (AIS, buoyage and waypoints) switched on, is clear rather than crowded. A high definition camera fuels the system with a live image, while AIS data, buoyage and waypoints are overlaid on top.

Augmented reality places information about a vessel or mark in the same place as you see it with the naked eye, removing the need to interpret from a standard plotter view

“What you see on the screen is a feed from a fixed camera, however the image is digitally stabilised,” explains Richard Marsden from Raymarine. “Our independent sensor is taking into consideration the pitch, roll and yaw of the vessel, so when the seas get rough the image remains stable. There’s a lot of vessel data being processed to achieve such clarity.”

Sure enough, as we encounter wake from a passing tanker, the image is noticeably smoothed out whilst the boat continues to pitch and roll. Coupled with Raymarine’s Axiom plotter, which is available up to a whopping 24in screen, it’s a far cry from the greyscale interrogation exercise many of us were familiar with from using older plotters.

Coming into a channel is where the augmented reality system really comes into its own. It would be easy to discount a technology that quite literally alters what we can see as something likely to produce the tunnel vision so many experienced instructors warn us against.

Valuable nav data is displayed in an easy to understand format

But because drawing information from augmented reality is so instantaneous, I found myself using it to confirm my own visual navigation rather than the other way round. I had to squint at a channel marker in the distance, yet I could confirm what it was on the screen with a half-second glance, while keeping my eyes up rather than down. Being able to see further than the naked eye makes navigation a more predictable exercise, because everything is seen earlier.

A step forward for safety?

The US Coast Guard cites the most common contributing factor to sailing yacht accidents as operator inattention, followed by improper lookout and operator inexperience.

When it comes to active navigation, doubt about our position leads our attention away from the immediate indicators surrounding us – like buoyage – and onto other sources of information that might take longer to process. Augmented reality, though, is an instant reference tool.

Augmented reality software can identify and label the high definition view from a boat’s onboard camera

Raymarine has also added other complementary technologies that work fluidly as part of the system. In a MOB situation at night a rotating camera with thermal imaging technology can track a target automatically in the water, based upon the temperature difference it can detect. The Axiom plotter then tells the helmsman which way to steer towards it. Unlike many bits of kit related to that worst of worst-case scenarios, this potentially lifesaving tool takes no time to set up. It just works.

What next?

With a change of pace of development for marine electronics comes a market that is working harder than ever to be first to the next big thing.

Garmin, a company whose products cover many sports, is paying an increasing amount of attention to body-worn technologies. Though not strictly speaking augmented reality, their latest Nautix kit places key sailing data directly in front of one eye. Mounting to your existing sunglasses frame, this eyepiece is similar to those worn by combat helicopter pilots. It is also wireless, perhaps making it the next big thing for racing crews, including those usually left in the dark at the bow.

Garmin’s Nautix system monitor links wirelessly with the yacht’s instruments, making data accessible to anyone wearing the headset

Will such a Star Trek like device draw ridicule amongst a crew of old hands? Perhaps to begin with, but if it delivers results, that will quickly fade. For Raymarine, linking cameras to onboard systems is something being explored even further, using them to develop automatic berthing in marinas – a prospect that, once refined, will certainly be embraced by the motor yacht market.

For sailing yacht owners, blindly adopting the latest electronics innovations has sometimes been a fast track to running hard aground. But what augmented reality does is bring aboard essential information and present it in a more concise and effective way than ever before. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it!

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