#the project (dyvj)

[drinkyourvillainjuice]

but what would happen if Dime ate the Project though

It's getting a little Dungeon Meshi* in here...

*I have not read Dungeon Meshi.

[drinkyourvillainjuice]

Has Project had a tasty snack in a while? Because if we're talking about who will die well we got like 5 teammates who could work. It's for a good cause. Project is my pet now. my pet project- oh my god is that why it's called that

Project can eat little a intruder, as a treat

[drinkyourvillainjuice]

Which team is the most powerful between Glory Hounds or Altruists vs The Coven (with Dime or without)

A little hard to quantify. If Coven are involved in a scenario where 'powerful' is part of the equation, something has gone wrong.

Also, the Project is a hell of a trump card, you know?

[drinkyourvillainjuice]

I love opening the blog and receiving a whole college class on media literacy for free. Gotta love the internet (IM BEING POSITIVE THIS IS NOT SARCASM IM GENUINELY PRAISING YOU)

It's like local comedians say "we laugh and we learn!"

But as to answer your question, I really like DYVJ! And it's due to a number of things. The story is great, the angst and drama levels are through the roof, interacting with you is super duper fun! But also! Both you the creators and the story and its characters are unabashedly queer and freaky and flawed. It's positive representation and fun all wrapped up in a quirky package made of recicled paper that makes me feel a level of kinship, it sears on my brain and makes you hard to forget. You got 10/10 on branding my parasocial friends! You got me cheering on this project to eternity and beyond!

awwww i love writing essays for free, its half the fun of having a platform :) thank you for the kind comments about the work, but keep in my mind that we arent your friends despite our friendly exterior so you don't set yourself up for failure :(

you should befriend some of the recurrent posters here in the notes, though!

[himbeereule]

Counterpoint to your specific experience: not only are most of the disabilities represented in IFs in general, and including in dyvj, either more on the invisible side, mental health issues are also in general more "relatable" since the line between "normal", temporary distress and "actual" mental illness is blurred (most times the main difference is exactly just whether it's temporary/rare or chronic/recurring).

Same goes for "mild" physical disabilities that don't impact the MC's range of behavioral choice too much, if all; now, this ties into an even bigger problem, which is that people like to play suffering simulators. I'm not criticizing, I do too, but that means that only things that would impair the MC's behavioral range within the readers' intended choices would "feel" like "actual" disabilities to them.

To get a little more concrete:

If someone is playing a story about a severely traumatized MC, they won't perceive the trauma symptoms as disability, because it doesn't limit their abilities in the context of how they want to play the story. If someone is playing a story with an MC that's physically disabled in a way that doesn't have huge impact on the story, they'll either forget about it or treat it the same as the mental health issues - an exotic accessory for their character.

I think it's evident a positive response wouldn't be as likely for more visible, physical disabilities by the fact that relatively few IFs include disabilities/wounds that touch an MC's aesthetics (a scarred or otherwise "disfigured" MC usually draws a lot of negative responses, and that's despite the fact scars in particular are often treated as aesthetic accessories as well; I also think you'd get a lot more negative response if MC would be permanently stuck in black goo-form); as well as by the fact there's barely any IFs with MCs that have permanent physical disabilities with severe implications for the story, like blindness or wheelchair-bound-ness (idk English).

Which is a shame, I'd really like to see more of those.

(btw, I absolutely love your story, even though I generally don't like the superpower genre; so I really hope I didn't fumble my wording and made you think I'm criticizing you. I'm not. I just think your last point is based on a skewed perception and wanted to throw out my unwanted opinion. I swear I mean well ;_;)

(pls don't hate me I really love your project)

the IF community is so able-bodied... i guess i get why they all have a hiss fit and a meltdown every time a author EVEN tries to make the player character disabled. :(

Customer hat on: I am assuming it’s because it challenges the view that the main character should be to some degree relatable to anybody. A blank slate that a reader can entirely impart themsleves on. A disabled body implies that it cannot be as such, or a disabled mind means coexisting with the blank state that the industry uses as an approach for marketing. (I.e. in your game you can be anybody! But the default is white and abled, and everything is written with that in mind!)

writer hat on: Ithink that’s a reductive way of working on a MC that is the audience analog. You have the ability of creating a narrative based on themes that that people face everyday (such as everyone will be disabled at some point in their life, no matter how healthy you are right now)

Dyvj hat on: the main character has a disability (the superpowered version of drug addiction + PTSD + a physical disability of your choosing) and we have met no lash back. Except that deleted anon about meth addicts (on the war against meth addicts, I am on their side). But I think the positive response to this game despite having a MC who is disabled is a nice thing to keep in mind that things can get better from that lens, and authors have the creative responsibility to make stories interesting no matter the audience’s potential response.