PODCAST INTRODUCTION: From This Mouth That Bleeds

a retro-mecha cyberpunk sapphic audio drama (coming soon!)

Blurb

"Humanity took to the stars and left us for dead." Lorelei knows the end. Has seen it flicker along the edges of her home, catch fire to everything she's ever known. Has felt it gnaw its way into her bones, watching as the last safety ship glinted starlight in the sky. Lorelei knows the end. And she knows everything after, too. Lieutenant Lorelei Reed is a first-generation, three-star pilot for the United Forces of the Red Remembrance. She is the only pilot capable enough to helm the UFRR's greatest mystery; Acheilus, an antiquated shark mecha from before The End. It is a time of peace; the bitterness from the Coalition of The Last Frontier's abandonment has long since diluted away in favor of lucrative trade deals from space - goods that could only benefit the UFRR's longevity underseas. It is a good deal, kind, even. Generous. But Lorelei cannot help but taste the tang of deceit between her teeth. The sickly stick of rot amplifies after she spots another shark mecha circling the edges of UFRR's water space. Sleek black and glinting metal - a convincing imitation of the UFRR's mechanics. The problem with this: Lorelei captains the only shark in the entire fleet.

Themes

loss, grief, being homesick for a home that no longer exists, loud-mouthed pilots, and trauma-stricken lesbians.

Snippet

My hands shake. Admiral Thetis was right about one other thing, too.  I had been gone for a long time; I'd been gone for months. Months of an endless blue that pervaded my eyes, an infinitum of mouthless words, and moments to think and move as I pleased. I'd rediscovered creatures that hadn’t been seen in years, listened as whales called through, and laughed when other sharks circled Acheilus, trying to communicate. It might have been the closest thing to peace that I've ever felt.  Peace does not exist in the lion’s den— a name I've mocked HQ with —  instead, the oppressive nature of fear lies thick along the walls of the hull. Fear is every step you take, it is every beating heart, every conspired whisper. It exists within the hollows of my cells, in every ill-intended look cast my way. I am fear and they make me believe it. 

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Pellicule is a minimalist UI template for use with Twine's Sugarcube format, inspired by professional screenplay formatting and analog photography.

Use built-in widgets to format passage text like a script, classic snail mail letters, or take advantage of a crisp, clean layout to comfortably display dense prose. Showcase your writing with bold, sophisticated display themes or create your own with custom colors.

Features:

Crisp minimalist design

Light/dark display themes

Custom plug-and-play widgets to format screenplay and letter essentials

Pre-styled template options for choice links and buttons

Built-in keybinds to toggle menu & close dialogs

Responsive design for desktop, tablets, and mobile devices

Annotated passages, stylesheet, and JavaScript for plug-and-play convenience

This template is free to use! Comes with detailed instructions on how to use the built-in widgets and commented code, ready for your story!

Okay, let me actually answer this question.

In order of MOST to LEAST sexual partners...

5. YVETTE | ???

Y'all figured this one out easily enough. Yvette is the oldest main character, and also a sex worker, so naturally he has a lot of sexual experience. However, people who guessed that he was picky about partners were also correct! If the question was instead "most partners in the last 5 years," Yvette would not win (lose?) this ranking. Instead that would be...

4. KC | ~20

Mercenaries are nothing if not heartbreakers, and KC is no exception! While she has had a few longer term relationships, hanging out in the queer club scene got her quite a bit of experience.

3. DOC | ~10

Yes he's a fucking nerd, but he's almost in his thirties, dammit. He's had several long term relationships, one of which was an open relationship. Grow up.

4. YASMIN | 5

Yasmin is still pretty young, plus she's, y'know, monitored quite frequently by handlers who don't want her getting involved with vices. She's gotten with a pretty high number of partners given that fact.

And the grand winner of the virgin olympics...

5. LEVI | 1

Can you guess who that 1 is?

It's funny because Levi's definitely the one I find the most attractive, so in my head he's, like, some kind of sex god. But I know in my heart of hearts that this man has only ever gotten laid by the object of his weird relgiosexual obsession.

A love letter to many things - vast empty spaces, the mythology of journeys, the love of my life, poorly constructed poetry, and the forces of nature - soujourn is precisely 494 words in length and has neither end nor beginning.

Created for Neointeractive's Revival Jam- a short game jam about bringing back themes and constraints from older game jams to create small interactive fiction games - using the constraints of Neointeractive's Neo-Twiny Jam to create a work of interactive fiction in 500 words or less.

DOCTOR CYRUS SOKOLOV & WYATT ABRAMS GAME PORTRAITS by @tapeworrmart

Doc and Levi apparently:

The Signal Hill tourism board advertises GRATUITOUS SEX, VIOLENCE, AND BAD QUEER REPRESENTATION!

that’s so cool to hear about the ttrpg, i hope it works out bc that’s such a cool concept!! honestly i don’t even mind that the games going slower because honestly every time i replay it i always find something new i hadn’t in my previous playthroughs! honestly regardless of what im doing or who im focusing on i always go back to reese,,,,

Thank you! <3 <3 <3 You're in luck, cause Reese is gonna show up more in this next update ;)

hello, person who referenced signal hill in academia here!! just wanted to say how much i am still loving the game, i spend my days doing silly beta testing but i finally got to replay signal hill and oh?? my god??? the attention to detail,,, the world building ,,,, the story lines ,,,, i forgot how fucking good this is!!! i hope ur keeping well too and enjoying the story as ur writing it 🩷🩷

Ahhhhh hello again! Thank you so much!!!!! I haven't had very much free writing time this semester, but I'm still super pumped for this story and how it's turning out, even if it's going at a snail's pace haha. I actually created a TTRPG version of the game that I'm testing out with my partner and workshopping new ideas with them😌

Thank you for checking in, hope you're doing well as well! <3

Effective lore dumps are all well and good. I highly recommend coming up with some cool shit and just dangling an explanation right outside of where the reader can reach. Oooooo you wanna know what's happening here so baddddd. My worldbuilding is consistent enough that you don't know if I'm ever gonna give you closureeee.

So last night I did almost all the remaining prep for the next update that I've been working on during this two semester long hiatus. The next update is around 25k words and has a massive amount of new lore y'all are gonna love!

...but I am very set on the idea of finishing the two small leads that come after Whispering Streets. It feels wrong releasing a dialogue-based lead and then when you finish it you just get a little message that says "Okay, you're done! Go back to the game now I guess"

But I know it's been months since this game has been on hiatus, and I don't want to delay it even more, y'know?

So I'll make it your choice, if you don't mind.

So last night I did almost all the remaining prep for the next update that I've been working on during this two semester long hiatus. The next update is around 25k words and has a massive amount of new lore y'all are gonna love!

...but I am very set on the idea of finishing the two small leads that come after Whispering Streets. It feels wrong releasing a dialogue-based lead and then when you finish it you just get a little message that says "Okay, you're done! Go back to the game now I guess"

But I know it's been months since this game has been on hiatus, and I don't want to delay it even more, y'know?

So I'll make it your choice, if you don't mind.

I was just cleaning out my room and found the page where I theorycrafted what my difficulty thresholds should be for Signal Hill! I wound up going with the even numbered set, but boy, I did a lot of thinking about it!

This quest doesn’t have the “implemented later” text but Yvette isn’t at Darling’s. Is it in the game already? If so, how do I trigger it?

Thank you!!! ☺️

Uh.... hm. That is very strange, because that is not the correct flavour text for that quest, that's supposed to be for the quest after Ride the Waveform. And neither of them have incorrect flavour text in my code. How the hell..? If you could let me know whether this is the public release or the beta release that's be great haha

If you have not met Yasmin yet and it's the flavour text that's wrong, the lead should actually tell you to find the club called Waveform in the Heights.

If you have already done that quest and it's the title that's wrong, it depends on whether you're in the public or beta release. If it's the public one, that lead isn't implemented yet. If it's the beta release, something is very broken haha.