Hello, and welcome to…

Pointless Palia Head-Cannons!

This is a segment where my hyper-focused and obsessive brain will shower you all with all of the pointless very important head-cannons I have about the MMO Palia and its many NPCs!

Today’s topic is:

Which Palia NPCs can sing well and which ones simply cannot carry a tune?

Now, in the words of the famous Italian plumber, “Here we go!” (List below the cut!)

NPCs are listed in alphabetical order.

• Ashura - Absolutely yes, but in a very deep, sea-shanty / Gaelic tune way. He’s not the most technically sound, but his voice is very gruff and soothing. Absolutely sang his son lullabies every night.

• Auni - No, I’m sorry. Convinced that he cannot carry a tune AT ALL but thinks he can. Sings loudly with zero inhibition whatsoever. Gotta give him credit there!

• Badruu - We know this man was in a traveling Bard group, so he’s musically inclined for sure. I feel like he would have been killer backup and filler vocals and he can harmonize beautifully.

• Caleri - Doesn’t believe in fun, jovial activities like singing. (Elouisa informs you later that her sister can in fact not carry a tune at all.)

• Chayne - Absolutely. He’s naturally musically inclined, but part of his spiritual training involved learning to lead chants and hymns. Bass level vocals, v soothing.

• Delaila - Not at all. Where do you think Auni gets it? Part of what entranced her about Badruu in the beginning was his musical abilities. She’ll still sing along with a group and put her all into it though!

• Einar - The concept of producing a vocal stimulation to create a pleasing melodic sound is lost to the robot. But if it’s your Oneness, he respects it.

• Elouisa - Cannot sing, but definitely played clarinet in high school and was first chair!

• Eshe - No way. Cruella de Vil type vibes. She definitely was classically trained on the piano, but doesn’t often exercise the skill.

• Hassain - Can absolutely carry a tune and harmonize well! Definitely low baritone or higher bass in range. Can harmonize with higher ranges very well!

• Hekla - Her Jina often sings to herself as she works, but the ability and desire to produce a series of melodies is not within her rune programming.

• Hodari - Not the biggest fan of singing, but has a decent voice that comes off pleasantly gruff and southern. I imagine if Pedro Pascal’s ‘Joel’ from The Last of Us sang a slower, more reserved tune. (My other example was the dad cow from Back at the Barnyard that sings “I Won’t Back Down”… Let me know if that woulda been better or worse.)

• Jel - Definitely took vocal lessons with his sisters. Has a very pleasant and airy singing voice that is very technically sound.

• Jina - Doesn’t really sing much except for to herself. Massive stage fright on this one! Hekla says that her Jina seems happy when she sings, and that’s what matters.

• Kenji - Honestly? 100%, yes. Maybe like a broadway or an operatic voice. Doesn’t sing much but I imagine it would sound really jolly if he was a jollier guy.

• Kenyatta - YES! Doesn’t sing because she thinks it’s ‘lame’ (she gives me massive ‘too cool for school’ vibes) but has a delightful and powerful singing voice (kinda like the wolf Porsha Crystal played by Halsey in Sing 2.)

• Nai’O - Yes absolutely. Got his talent from his dad! He’s very shy when put on the spot though, so he doesn’t sing in front of people often — mostly when he works in the field with his animals by himself.

• Najuma - Not at all! But it’s okay because Najuma has zero desire to, haha. Kid is happy to be tinkering!

• Reth - On god, YES. Man has a beautiful and casual singing voice with a little rasp around the edges. Sings to himself while he cooks or gets really focused on something. I’m thinking “Feelin’ Good” by Michael Bublé, but maybe bit more rough around the edges.

• Sifuu - Not much of a singer, but I know our Muscle Mommy definitely has a few war chants or something up her sleeve! Lady can keep a beat for sure.

• Tamala - Thinks she can, but makes it way too sultry. You heard me. There’s such a thing as too much!

• Tish - Yes! Absolutely. She seems like she would 100% have like a Mandy Moore or Kristen Bell vibe. Very Disney Princess-esque!

• Zeki - Okay, honestly I think yes — but not in a conventional way. Kind of like Ashura; I think he would be great at singing like traditional Grimalkin shanties or folk-songs. Not very practiced, but he’s got spirit!

OKAY FINALLY DONE! I plan to do a lot more of these! Let me know if you have any suggestions!

Wish Defense I: The 'Complaints'

“Be to her virtues very kind, Be to her faults a little blind.” ― Matthew Prior

Disney's Wish was actually great and I'm here to defend it.

I'd like to start by negating most of, if not all, the 'complaints' this film's been getting. Please join me as I do this in 12 brief points:

Asha is a great protagonist. She is not just 'quirky' or one-dimensional: she's caring, strong, beautifully flawed, and doesn't solve every problem on her own; the movie makes a point of every one of these. I never saw her as a clone of someone like Mirabel or Anna. And she does have a character arc: she matures and learns to work hard for what she believes in. She learns that doing the right thing is difficult, but it's necessary. All this makes for a beautifully put-together character that gets through challenges and comes out stronger. Why aren't people talking about how great that is?

Magnifico is a great villain. He's an amalgam of familiar villains like Maleficent, Ursula, and Gaston, done in ways that seem fresh and unique. I've seen a lot of people say his motivation seems to change every few minutes or so, but I disagree. Him using his traumatic past is his excuse for his bad behaviour: that's what narcissists do. Just look at Mother Gothel and all her gaslighting. He was always a self-absorbed jerk who wants everyone under his heel, and whose darkness just got revealed more and more. And his 'villain shtick' is a cool and terrifying one: stripping people of their hopes and dreams to make them docile subjects who depend on him. He takes away their agency, essentially their souls and who they are as people. That is the bad thing he's been doing from Day 1, it's what makes him a villain: the film tells us that. How can people defend him? It's like people defending Gaston all over again. He's a great villain in that he goes against the values the story holds dear, challenges the protagonist in personal ways, is wonderful to hate, and is rightfully depicted as in the wrong for doing bad things. He's the selfish one, not Asha as the 'critics' are claiming. Why aren't people talking about that?

Star is a great secondary character. He is intentionally supposed to be a character that harkens back to those like Jiminy Cricket or Timothy Q. Mouse (I have a very personal connection with Dumbo, so this was important to me). People are REALLY misinterpreting that concept art of them: Star and Asha were never supposed to have a romance because Human Star would look like her grandfather. And 'Starboy' would just be a copy of Peter Pan or Genie, which people would definitely slam, thus I'm glad they changed him. See point 11 for more on Star and why his current form is the one they went with. People just care about having a Jack Frost clone (if they did go that route, they'd probably be slammed for copying Dreamworks, knowing 'critics'). The idea of a mute, magical sidekick, something that we haven't seen since Tinker Bell, is a pretty fun one that feels new and cool. And it's important to note that he never grants anyone's wish: he just helps out, letting Asha and others know that they themselves have to make it come true. Why aren't people talking about that?

I was really worried Valentino was going to be little more than a gag, but he wasn't. He helps out here and there, especially when aiding the Teens in freeing the wishes, proving his importance to the narrative. Plus I did find him pretty funny.

The Teens do stand on their own. I went into the movie knowing they were going to be new versions of the 7 Dwarfs, but each of them felt like their own unique person to me, especially Dahlia and Simon.

The animation is gorgeous: you have to watch it in HD or 4k, which people are doing for other films like Spider-Verse or Nimona, just not this one. It is far from 'lazy' or 'Disney Junior level': it harkens back to art styles Walt Disney himself loved. I can't believe they managed to replicate the feel of classic Disney backgrounds, like Snow White or Sleeping Beauty, so perfectly with modern technology. It looks like a painting, or a tapestry. Disney movies are still beautiful. Why aren't people talking about that?

The music is great: I've caught myself singing every song at least thrice. Each song brings something to the table. 'This is the Thanks I Get' fits Magnifico's character, and is something in the same vein as Gaston's song; you cannot tell me that one rent line is worse than 'nobody spits like Gaston'. I still get chills listening to 'This Wish' and its reprise. I don't know how people online are starting to think it's a bad song, but now others are just jumping on the bandwagon. You can see Asha's love and struggles within the song, and it even has the melody of 'Part of Your World'; how can you hate that? I've seen so many people personally connect with that song, myself included... Why aren't people talking about that?

'At All Costs' was never a love song between Asha and Star: Julia Michaels just wanted a love song (find that Variety article), and now it can be used for all kinds of love. I actually did tear up watching that sequence for the first time, seeing Asha hold her grandfather's wish dearly in her arms. I've seen people say it reminds them of what a parent would sing to their child, like 'You'll Be in My Heart', and I think that's just so wonderful and heartfelt. Why aren't people talking about that?

I don't have the actual post, but I'd like to bring attention back to what an artist on the film said: every 'Easter Egg' is meaningfully placed, a tribute to what has inspired generations. Not one of them felt shoehorned in to me. This movie is a tribute, a love letter, a celebration of what people have loved for 100 years. Why aren't people talking about that?

Magnifico's defeat is far from silly. It makes sense given the rules the world of the film runs on: the fact that 'we are made of stars' is a good Chekov's gun that carries a lot of meaningful importance. Each of us is special, each of us has magic, and each of us has hope. And this is where evil dies and good endures: Magnifico cannot comprehend that anyone but himself is worth anything, thus why he cannot quell this and it is the reason for this downfall. He, the villain, loses because he lacks the virtues the heroes possess. Why aren't people talking about that?

The story of this film is special: as confirmed by the staff, the film is an allegory for Walt Disney's life, and the story of Disney overall. Asha is Walt Disney, Star is Mickey Mouse: a magical force of creativity and inspiration that lights up a dark time. Because of the special nature of this, even though I'm a die-hard Disney fan, I'm fine with there not being any romance in this film (even though I'd like it back someday). This was intentionally made as a simple film à la Snow White, which was meant to be a happy, hope-giving film for people back in the 1930s. Just like this film is supposed to be now. One last time: why aren't people talking about that?

This is the first of a few posts I'll make defending this movie, so for other Wish fans out there, please stick around. I don't care if I get dragged for this: I'd rather stick up for my beliefs and defend myself my way than let online bullies like Schaffrillas, Aldone, or Astor Rhymemaster stop me from loving something I really enjoyed. I really hope this movie gets the Atlantis treatment and becomes a beloved cult classic down the line. Until next time.

First off, I wanna say that I mean no disrespect to the artists who worked on Hazbin Hotel. It’s just that I’ve been seeing people make redesigns of Hazbin characters, and though I don’t usually participate in stuff like this (it seems fun, and you are all incredibly talented. I just feel kinda bad tinkering with someone else’s work like this), the show made me frustrated, and frustrated induced brain-vomit started sloshing around in my skull so noisily that it’s been keeping me up. And, well, I had to get it out somehow.

So…here ya go, I guess. It’s nothing crazy or new. It’s just a few disgustingly rough ideas for this very specific version of Charlie that I kept seeing in my head. They’re far from polished or anything, and they’re definitely missing some key details because I’ve been hyper-fixating on trying to get the face right lol. I might make a full body illustration later, but I have commitment issues so who knows how far this’ll go. That is to say, don’t expect any more of this or the other characters unless 1) my brain decides to torment me with more literal demons or 2) I, by some miracle, become a more productive person. Plus, Tumblr’s a new thing for me, and I don’t know what I’m doing with this yet other than posting art and then disappearing for years. Seriously, you have no idea. It’s a wonder that I posted for a second time.

Anyway, the direction of this design is pretty obvious. I went with the lamb/goat motif because I liked the idea of inverted/parallel symbolism. I was toying with a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” concept where they appear to be a lamb in this form but actually shift into a more wolf-like dragon sorta thing when prompted. Their wardrobe is supposed to be an extension of the innocent lamb deception as the ruffles and looseness are meant to be kinda reminiscent of fluff while communicating a sense of privilege (a white untainted by the grit of Hell… something that probably wouldn’t last long). I was also inspired by white goth and catholic goth aesthetics (I blame Ethel Cain) as well as those insanely beautiful ball-jointed dolls. I don’t know if I captured that well (to be honest, the more I look at those digital renditions, the more I hate them). I considered adding a pair of spectacles coz I thought it was cute lol, and because I thought it could be a way for them to try and seem more human.

If I were doing a rewrite (which I have ideas for, but I should probably focus on my actual original characters instead) then:

1. They would be agender and androgynous (I’d go the Good Omens route and make most angels/non-human entities largely genderless as gender is a human construction, one that most angels wouldn’t really concern themselves with)

2. They would be kinda elitist and naive but still sweet

3. Their intentions would not be entirely insincere, but they would not be acting without selfish goals

4. They would be an eldritch abomination

5. There would be possible exploration of their role as an antichrist as well as basically being a tool of war for their papa’s self-gratification

6. Their pops would suck

7. More horror

8. Like, it wouldn’t not be funny…but horror’s my genre so….

9. They would not suck at fighting, but death is traumatizing and so is being the cause of it (squeamish)

10. That being said, could make friends with Death??

And that’s all I feel like writing. Hopefully I update this lol

OH ALSO. ik you said something abt how some aspects of your feelings on the shth game have changed - what would you say is different now? (again feel free to ignore this)

oh yeah! overall, most of my feelings about shth2005 have remained the same - that game is a contradictory mess and i adore it. i mostly have a few minor grievances with my big shadow 2005 analysis essay. i'll talk under the cut about some specific moments that i think a little differently on - if you haven't read the big shadow essay, i'd say read it first and then come back to read this post.

grievance #1: The Doom

"being Good or Neutral around Maria makes WAY more sense than taking the Dark path. The game’s morality system breaks so badly in [The Doom] that things start to make sense again."

i still mostly agree with my thoughts on The Doom, and the game's failure in design affecting the morality system is something that i think could prompt further discussion. but a couple of people pointed out that the hero mission is still an interesting indicator to shadow's emotional state on the darker paths, and i don't want to completely discredit that concept because i like it a lot.

The Doom's hero mission is grueling. 60 gun soldiers to defeat in a maze level is not something most players would be willing to do. but it may be something that shadow is willing to do on a darker path - rage leading him to hunt and eliminate every single human he can find is harrowing, and it's a malevolence that the darker paths of this game fail to really show. so as much as i dislike the morality missions in this game, i do think they're an interesting measurement of the lengths shadow is willing to go to if it means defeating his enemy. the guy just doesn't stop.

grievance #2: boy what on earth is that take about the hero cast

"They want Shadow to work for them because of a desire to prove their side of the cycle is the right one."

i'll be real with you i think there was a bit too much analysis going on here lol. the heroes want shadow's help because there's a literal alien invasion threatening to wipe out all life on earth. are they manipulative towards shadow? i mean sometimes, but i don't think most of them do it out of malice or intentionally, and i definitely don't think they really care about proving their side of the moral compass right during the Fucking Alien Armageddon.

the only hero character that i think would be deliberately manipulative (minus eggman) is sonic, and i don't think he would consciously realize it. best example i have of sonic's occasional manipulative attitude towards shadow is the whole "if he can't be forgiven, can you?" bit from the mr tinker arc in IDW. and this is really only something he does to shadow - sometimes he just wants to get under shadow's skin without realizing what he's actually saying. sometimes sonic's just an asshole! and i like that, it's an interesting aspect to sonic that i wish was explored a little more in shth2005, the game about his rival. idk that's all i have to say here

grievance #3: who is shadow even?

"to him, doing what’s “right” means giving as many people as possible that same chance at life. It’s not a justification of morals or a desire to be heroic that leads Shadow down this path - it’s just what he wants to do."

i've circled around my final opinions in my shadow 2005 essay a lot because honestly. i don't really know where i stand on these thoughts currently lol. shadow is inconsistent enough that i struggle to really pin down what exactly he deems as "right" or what he even wants to do most of the time - it's especially difficult to pin these things down when trying to cover shadow as a whole across the entire franchise, which is what i was trying to do here. because man, does this guy feel all over the place when you look at everything.

i think there's truth in the idea that shadow doesn't really care about protecting the people of sonic's world (this sonic channel story explores that concept a bit). at the same time, i think it's also entirely possible that this "i don't care what happens to others" attitude is a bit of a front he puts up (especially around sonic). and as silly and non-canon as i think the sonic twitter takeovers are, i do think they were kinda cooking something when they made shadow work at a soup kitchen. these are all somewhat different ideas and interpretations of shadow, but i think they're all plausible for this character. personally, i'd rather embrace the inconsistency then try to limit him to one worldview.

the only solid "truth" i can formulate about shadow's motivations right now is this: whatever he deems right, or whatever he wants to do, he decides for himself because it's his life. he doesn't do these things for maria, or for gerald, or for the rest of the world. his choices and actions are his own - maybe inspired by others, but not for them. and the things he decides to do are often inconsistent because he's an immortal, traumatized, teenage hedgehog - a paradoxical creation that's still learning how to live. he might be the ultimate life form, but it's more important to me that he's just shadow.

About that Nova and Pluto height difference picture (this is gonna be a long post y'all)

I deleted the picture I drew of Nova and Pluto kissing on every one of my social medias save for Tumblr because people have been expressing their discomfort with how Nova looked like a child compared to Pluto who looked like a fully grown adult.

And I completely understand all the upset reactions since Pluto makes everyone look way more tiny than they truly are. It definitely didn't help that I was being lazy when I sketched and lined everything since I dread full bodies sometimes and tried to cheat by hiding most of Nova's with her big gamer jacket.

So that, mixed with Nova's height in comparison to Pluto, and me not focusing more on her anatomy led to a picture that, if you are already familiar with the characters, looks cute and fluffy. But if you are new to them, looks a lot less cute and more gross.

After talking to a friend as well as a mutual about the picture, I decided that deleting it and fleshing Nova's design out more would be the best.

Unlike Jack, Nana, Sweetheart, and Bitterbat, I've been slacking on drawing Nova and Pluto. And the latter couples have had whole make-overs and an established way I draw them that makes my brain go "YEP THIS WORKS". But Nova and Pluto have been neglected in my head so I haven't been updating their looks alongside my art style like I have been with the others. Which means I still draw them based off the designs I made of them back in like-2020 or 2021???

BASICALLY THEY'VE BEEN LONG OVER DUE FOR SOME TINKERING.

Specifically Nova. Pluto I am very happy with. But Nova's design needs more lovin' in it.

I won't be completely overhauling her since I love her current look-I just want to do a better job at her design.

When I first designed Nova and Pluto, they were meant to be based off retro anime designs for a cute girl and handsome boy (even though Pluto is nonbinary). Sadly, cute anime girls often look very less mature than their male counterparts and so Nova suffers the same problem by default. I also wanted Nova to stand out from my other adult female characters and have her lack the same amount of curves and basically be flat.

This is something I will still be keeping because the idea that "curves=adult" is genuinely a shitty concept. Same as "short=child" since there are PLENTY of shorties out there that are grown adults. I am one of them-it's why I keep making my girls so short. I need some representation down here 😭.

When it comes to Nova's current default outfit-I will technically still be keeping her gamer jacket in her wardrobe closet but I'll be giving her a new jacket that will serve to be her new default one that shows her build more so she won't look so "childish" compared to Pluto. It'll help to avoid a repeat situation (I hope) as well as solve my constant frustration at having to cover up good ass anatomy with clothing (I DO IT ENOUGH TO JACK-I PLAYED MYSELF WITH NOVA'S JACKET)

OVERALL-Nova just needs the same love I gave to Nana and Sweetheart when they went through their original tinkers.

I will continue to draw Nova and Pluto together because I care about them and their story a lot. But with the themes that occur in the story and the relationship Nova and Pluto have together, it's definitely important that I make sure that cat girl looks more like a cat woman in future art I draw of her.

As for why I didn't delete the Tumblr post of the original picture-this entire site is an internet archive which means if someone reblogs something from someone, and then that someone deletes the original post, the reblog doesn't go down with it and remains. So it'd be useless to delete it. I just settled for turning reblogs off.

In the future I definitely want to redraw the picture but I'll hold off until I give Nova the touch ups she very much deserves.

Hello, I love your writing! May I ask for some more general nsfw HCs of Aizen?

Sure!! There'll be a brief HC of Akon and Urahra in here too lol

TW: dom/sub undertones, light humiliation, public (ish) play, cum play, toys.

Image isn't Aizen, I just wanted a placeholder - it's from "The Sadist Training Plan" by Mariko Sawamura.

Aizen humours being a switch if that's something what you want to try, but he is really all about control. Oh you're going to sit on his face? He'll make you work for it by teasing you verbally or physically. He knows what makes you tick, so any sense of control you thought you had, goes away. You riding him? Eventually he'll be the one controlling the pace and thrusts of your hips.

I see him as a guy who prefers receiving rather than giving oral (I got another ask about this that'll speak more about this in a few days lol). Not that he hates giving oral, but there's a thrill to him watching you choke on his cock.

This goes with a headcanon I've had for a while, but Aizen, Akon and Urahara, have probably invented some sex toys for their s/os. Akon I can see eagerly showing his partner what he made, letting them be curious about it, give them space to inspect it, etc. He's here for a good time, and it's even better if you're having a good time. Hell, he'll probably "test" it on you in the Squad 12 labs (if no one is around).

Urahara teases you with his inventions, it's a very sensual time as he holds you down and explains what it does. You might even egg him on and he's very receptive for "improvements".

When it comes to Aizen and trying out his "experiment", it means you're going to be tied up and subjugated to many intense orgasms (that he will give permission for). If he's in a "better" mood, I can see him doing something similar as Urahara, sensual and slow, but you'll still be restrained and have to ask for permission. His curiosity will get the better of him, so he will tinker with his inventions to give you the maximum pleasure he can.

That being said, a modern day AU Aizen would also be up on trying toys on you. He likes to watch you squirm and beg, all while being in a position to watch you. He'll be the guy that gets the remote-controlled vibrator and takes IMMENSE pleasure watching you squirm during your dinner at a fine dining restaurant.

But he's trained you well - your cheeks are flushed, your lips rosy and eyes watery, but you're still his good pet and eat your meal as he watches with great curiosity as to what will give. He'll crank up the dial a bit more just to watch you shake and quiver as you get closer to your orgasm.

He def has a breeding kink, or really anything about having his cum in or on you. Some days he wants to be messy and cum all over your face, other times he feels possessive and cums inside you instead. Other days, when he's being a bit of a creep and pervert, he'll cum on your underwear and force you to wear it (he really, really likes to exert power over you).

Tangentially related, he has a bit of a humiliation kink, but again it's a private thing between you and him. He's fine knowing that his wonderful s/o the public knows, is really just a greedy slut for him in the bedroom, it's a great source of pride for him to know how little it takes for you to become undone and lose yourself, and he's really the only one who knows how to do that.

I can see him being the kind of dom that likes the concept of collaring in private. Not necessarily pet play, but a physical reminder that you're his - it doesn't even have to be an actual collar, but a very exquisite, delicate necklace that only you and him know the meaning of. In public, people think it's romantic how he buys you expensive jewelry, but in private, its his way of showing his "ownership" of you. He would definitely buy you a Cartier Love bangle because he takes the meaning of it literally lol

Do you have any headcanons about Worm characters getting tossed in the infinity train?

this one is Inch Resting to sort out. i do not. Have Headcanons for this per se because i'd have to finagle out the logical details of making this crossover work first. which is going to be very longwinded because i love to say words.

trigger events happen when you hit a particularly isolated psychological low. the train picks you up when an internal problem of yours has you at a crossroads in life where the decision you make next will majorly impact your future. so they're similar-ish concepts, psychological problems resulting in Ostensibly Supernatural Fuckery with your life, but i don't think anyone's trigger events would be the same as their crossroads moments. trigger events always happen when you're having more or less the worst day of your life--the train could certainly get you on your worst day, but it's significantly more likely to pick you up right before you have the chance to make a decision which could lead to your worst day. actually, it's probably most likely to pick people up shortly after they trigger because they 1. have a fuckton of psychological issues and 2. just got a shiny new opportunity to make really bad decisions about it

this means that if you just flat out put the infinity train in worm--which i think would be very funny to do, throw another absolutely batshit worldbuilding device into earth bet, fuck those guys--the plot would Not Shake Out Right. the train would be kidnapping people left and right before anything could happen. the undersiders would probably never meet. etc.

example here: the train would pick alec up right as he's considering running away from the heartbroken up, he's on there for...a while, never gets hired by coil, you get the gist.

the other thing about this is that it's very textually canon in infinity train that if your problem is something the jarringly-twee train cars can't stumble into helping you sort out, then you can just straight up end up staying on it for decades! you can die there, the train doesn't give a fuck! and i think most worm characters are in the camp of "could Not be efficiently fixed by the train," which again, is going to result in some wild plot-fuckery. the shortest run we see someone have on the train in the show is a month. that's still a long-ass time. with the numbers worm characters would have, and with how badly their issues would clash w/ the train's approach? there's not even gonna be a world to go back to by the time they get their exits LMAO

(sidenote: i feel like people in worm would be significantly less likely to get on the train than ppl in inftr's universe. they'd see it and go "nope. that's DEFINITELY some fucked up and evil tinkertech. not touching that." hell, the PRT probably lies and tells people it's an a-class tinker because they don't want to admit they don't know what it is.)

anyway all of that is to say that this works best if we don't give a fuck about timeline continuity. beyond that all i know is i wanna put so many worm characters in their tapes so bad. the way tapes represent (or misrepresent) memories is SO clever and well done and tells you So Much about the characters. i want to see how fucked up and awful taylor's tape is. i wanna see alec trapped in his tape for god knows how long just sitting there watching himself from seven years ago cry and throw up. i wanna see the amy tape where everything but victoria is almost in grayscale. i wanna see the amount of memory repression and lying-to-himself going on in brian's tape. brian's tape would genuinely be worse than grace's in terms of how many memories are altered i think. play of his trigger event where it's exactly how he told it to taylor and then he Remembers He Was Lying and it plays back how it really happened and he has to think about how he was nearly pissing himself from fear ♥

and oh my god the numbers would be fun. if they run out of space on your skin they Canonically go into your mouth and start tattooing up your insides. get the slaughterhouse nine on there, jack slash can become world's first man to be walking around w/ a number inside his mouth.

OHOHOHOH i like this train of thought with car guy eiffel who always has a tiny screwdriver/one of those with interchangeable heads in his pocket eiffel going to engineering and screwing around with spare parts and fixing things when he needs to think eiffel who always has little metal bits and screws that hes messing with on his desk eiffel who makes little metal trinkets for his loved ones. he sits and rambles to hera about engines and different manufacturers and they design the perfect car together with her knowledge of the world and his brain for design and mechanics. im thinking very much kaylee from firefly who never understood people but somehow machines just talk to her and spring to life in her hands. doug eiffel who wanted to go to college for aerospace engineering and work for nasa but never went to college and picked up a job hauling scrap parts to pay for said college degree before he dropped out and ended up working as head mechanic and whose dreams of building space ships were reignited when cutter found him in prison. or, my saddest thought yet, eiffel already planning on building a car with his daughter for her sixteenth birthday before she was taken from him.

idk also brings new life to his relationship with hera as the ship and how no one else on the hephaestus was really fit to do big repairs, but if he had a background in mechanics he could understand her on ANOTHER level that the other crew members dont get

oh gosh, i really don't think he'd be into anything that complex! like - don't get me wrong, eiffel is smarter than people (including himself) give him credit for, but he's a handyman, not an engineer. he is like the model for undiagnosed adhd class clown; he got through high school because he tests remarkably well without ever studying, and that was just enough to keep him from failing on account of all the homework he didn't do. i fully believe that eiffel never went to college, and never intended to. he's unambitious, and i love that about him.

maxwell's got the genius mechanical aptitude, minkowski's got the hard work and dreams of spaceflight... eiffel's passion is radio. when i say he's a car guy, i don't think it's his thing like radio is his thing - he's just a guy with a head full of american pop culture biases, who likes tinkering with stuff, and who lists "monster trucks" as one of the top ten things he misses about earth. like - i feel bad that so much of this is me disagreeing with you, these are just very different things! eiffel's definitely got tools on hand, he keeps one of his tool bags by his bed, he likes building things out of spare parts - canonically, he's got a lot of technical know-how, but it's in a much more practical, hands-on way. i don't think he'd be telling hera about design, much less his own design concepts, as much as he'd be ranking his dream cars. and i do not think functionality factors in as much as "he thinks it's cool" and/or "they used that make and model in a movie that he liked."

and speaking of hera, honestly, like... eiffel's good with his hands! and he can follow her instructions and do repairs if necessary. but the kind of electronics eiffel works with are nowhere near as complex, and i don't think spaceship maintenance comes naturally to him - and it's certainly not something he wants to do!! and while it makes a pretty big difference whether we're talking general station maintenance vs. specifically hera's hardware here, i think the fact that he doesn't know how to navigate this stuff without her input is part of the reason she feels safe with him. he didn't even think about what "optical system" could mean. eiffel couldn't (intentionally) mess with hera's systems even if he wanted to. hera is so used to people who "understand" her in that way taking advantage of her; i think it's reassuring eiffel has no interest in it. he is a people person; hera's just a regular person to him.

but anyway. i think he was looking forward to teaching anne how to drive, and that would be a depressing note to leave this on, so. eiffel could not be an engineer, and i think even the thought of the work that would require would make him break out in hives, but he could be a mechanic, for whatever length of time it'd take him to get fired. and i think that would be hot. put him in another set of coveralls and get him greased up. that's what's really important.

cw fatphobia / capitalism || I just remembered a post about how the size of clothes didn't rly change, just the number attached to it and wondered: Is it everywhere around the world that more is charged for clothing when the number is above a certain point? It is where I live (Not any of the Americas), which gives reason to think that this is the other reason aside from diet culture why clothes get their size-number reassigned, yes?

I can't speak to this topic w/ a ton of authority, but I can definitely agree there are soooooo many ways that capitalism and fatphobia interact when it comes to clothing sizing, prices, and discrimination. Oh also, capitalism X fatphobia X sexism specifically too, because a lot of clothes intended for men will use measurements as a size (ex "36 inch waist") while clothes intended for women have an arbitrary number attached (ex "size 10.") Here are just a couple of examples I know off the top of my head: 1. "Vanity sizing" --also called "size inflation" this is where certain retailers have increased their sizes over recent years. The idea is that when you go shop there, if you can assume that the average customer is very invested "the thin ideal" mindset and carry inherent fatphobia within them, they'll get excited when the jeans they buy from the vanity sized retailer is a smaller number than other stores. For example, someone may usually wear a size 12 but at this store they're a size 8, so it makes them happy and they feel like they're a better person for the lower number. So basically, the experience cheats a little to leverage the customer bases' inherent fatphobia to gain and retain more customers and maximize profits. Retailers like Gap, Loft, and Old Navy are the ones I usually hear accused of this. 2. "Exclusivity sizing" --This is when a retailer engages in the opposite of vanity sizing...this describes brands that have made their space in the market by being specifically known for being ONLY available to people in a very limited, small size range. These type of retailers happily give a big "FUCK YOU" to the entire concept of plus sized clothes or an inclusive approach to their customer base. They are looking to repel fat people and attract people who enjoy not being aligned w/ fatness. They can take two approaches I've seen. The first is where their sizes are actually smaller than other places (I often think of Hollister or American Apparel). The second is where the size range is so narrow that it IS the store's brand. Their whole business model hinges on exclusivity, like the old 5/7/9 stores that most folks who remember mall life in the 90s will well recall w/ me.

For these retailers, their customer base gains loyalty and profits are extracted from them by association with being able to fit into the clothes where again, thinness is positioned as BEST. Whether the customers are consciously aware or not, they are buying into an exclusive club of thinness when they shop at these places. I kinda made up the "exclusivity sizing" term/label here, but identifying this concept is not mine.

3. "Size inclusion"--These are retailers who are turning all of this on its head and offering as wide of a size experience as possible. Many of them, like Yitty and Universal Standard, also throw out traditional sizing schemes and invent their own, where a larger body is considered the "normal" one for their customer base. In my assessment, this one is the newest iteration in how clothing retailers gain profits by tinkering w/ size because I can't recall it EVER happening before the past 5-10 years, but I could be wrong. Of course, this approach is also the least fatphobic, but it's not any less capitalistic in nature. Their goal is to still project a brand that makes money off of the market. They're just betting that in 2022, their size inclusive approach will appeal to a certain target demographic who cares about this topic and wants to spend their money with likeminded companies. (Which on that note, if a thin person wants to act as an ally to fat folks on the topic of clothing size access, one quick thing they can do is immediately start buying clothes ONLY from a company that is size inclusive. It'll not only put your $ toward a source that fat people can also access to help sustain it; it'll also real quickly teach you a lesson as an ally about how hard it is to find quality items in like a size 30. And YES the companies that offer clothes in those sizes are often quite expensive.) Anyhoo, I probably didn't answer your question, but there's a wordy reply on what this all brings to mind for me. It's super fascinating but also extremely frustrating to behold.

lion primary + lion secondary

Hey! I’ve been wanting to write to you for some time.

I think I am a Double Lion, for the most part. At least, right now that’s what I feel comfortable with. If I had to talk about my values, right now my loved ones are more important to me than any big cause or my country etc. If anything happens to me, they’ll be the ones impacted the most. Naturally, I prioritise them more.

On the surface, sure this looks pretty Loyalist, but that little “right now.” Just that little acknowledgement that this is how things are now, but maybe not how they’ll be always makes me think that there’s an Idealist primary underneath.

What keeps me going at my worst moments is my desire to see my nephews and nieces. I really want to be an aunt. I want to see my sibling get married, and be there for them. And I will live to see that at any cost.

I am the most important person in my life. It’s my life, it should be centered on me. And this is a attitude I adopted recently after I went to therapy.

I don’t have too many universal values on here. But this one I like. Because the way I see it, the alternative is burning yourself out (and very possibly building up some kind of resentment.) At which point you’ll have made yourself someone else’s problem anyway.

Beforehand I used to run myself ragged trying to find the One True Purpose of my life. The idea of a cause that I could wholly dedicate myself to captivated me. Letting go of that idea wasn’t easy, but I had to because a) it isn’t realistic and b) it wasn’t good for me.

Oh there’s the Lion. This is actually a fun (and probably useful) way of thinking about Exploded Lion. Exploded Lions vanish into the cause - but what is there is no Cause? Probably something like this, hopping around and getting increasingly and increasingly desperate.

The opinion of my loved ones matters to me, but at the end there are some things I simply won’t budge on. And these things are not topics I am willing to waver on, and I cannot fully explain why I have come to value these concepts/beliefs so much. It’s definitely been a process though, little things adding up over time to create like a fort of belief.

Beautiful description of a Lion primary.

As for secondary, I think I am Lion because nothing else fully fits. I don’t know if this is a primary thing or secondary thing, but the idea of changing myself so that other people would like has always been utterly repellent to me.

It is a secondary thing - but in this case, yeah that feeling would be strengthened and reinforced by your primary.

Even when I was utterly desperate for social connection, I was adamant that I would rather spend the rest of my life alone than change myself for anyone. Companionship obtained that way is not worth anything. I don’t think in extreme terms like “spend the rest of my life alone” any longer, but my stubbornness on this remains.

Healthy Double Lions are such powerhouses.

I am at my best when I prioritise myself and do not allow my behaviour to be influenced by the way others behave. I mean, to a certain extent I am willing to, but that’s when it comes to making sure I am not making someone needlessly uncomfortable? That I am respecting their boundaries? I don’t think these things count as “changing my behaviour” though. It’s just being considerate.

Being a Lion secondary shouldn’t just be open permission to be an asshole :) Lion secondaries can always hit the breaks. In fact, they’re really good at hitting the breaks. Lion secondaries can hit a boundary and stop, or at very least lower the volume.

I can’t think of examples for singleplayer, but I really like fixing things if that counts for anything. Tinker around with the thing for a bit and it all starts making sense. It needs me to use my head without using it too much. It’s invigorating. I really like fixing things more than creating them.  I would’ve become a mechanic if it paid enough.

Awww. You, and other EXTREMELY LOUD Lion secondary Anakin Skywalker <3

(I would not be surprised AT ALL if this is a Single-Player Lion Pattern)

As it is, I will probably become an engineer. I think bird primaries are so cool. I thought I was a bird primary because it seems like the right way to go about things

You, and all the rest of the Lion primaries.

but it stressed me out and made me miserable.

Yep. (I imagine you probably had some Burning in your past, or even some Burning and Exploding happening at the same time, which would make you my first example of a Burnt/Exploded Lion.)

It’s so cool how their way of doing things minimises bias and they just. They choose based on what seems to them to be backed up by sound reasoning and that’s incredible.

I know right. It’s so cool.

I tried to do that but it just turned me around in circles. Everything can be justified if you try hard enough. I think I’ll stick what feels right over what looks right.

The is the the Lion primary way.

Thanks for reading all this way :)

Thank you for writing in. You seem remarkably self aware, and in a remarkably good place. I think you’ve got yourself and the system pretty figured out, and this was a very relaxing read.

TTRPG design WIPs (part 1)

I was inspired to look back at a game in progress that I've been tinkering with for a long time, and of course that forced me to see everything else languishing in my WIPs folder, so I figured I'd give a little rundown here of what I have in various stages of development.

Untitled Cooperative Survival Game

This is the first game I ever started designing, and while it needs some refinement, it is in a reasonably playable form...as long as you're inside my skull and don't require much of anything actually written down yet. The premise of the game is that the characters are a group of survivors stranded in an uninhabited wilderness and have to work together to:

survive

explore the environment they've found themselves in

find a way to get out

The game has a heavy emphasis on cooperating with the other members of your group to prioritize the most important needs with limited resources and an incomplete understanding of the challenges you face.

Per My Last Email,

(yes, the comma is part of the title)

This is another game that is mostly finished and was, in fact, available for free in its incomplete form on my Itch page for a while before I decided to take it down for the next stage of revision. Per My Last Email, is a comedic epistolary game of eldritch horror and office politics, where you are trying to survive an interdimensional invasion of your office job long enough to clock out and go home. You play via email (or post in a Discord server or something to simulate emails), taking credit for every success you can while shifting the blame for your failures onto your co-workers as much as possible, all while things in the office get progressively weirder.

It mainly needs some random tables, a revamp of the progress tracking system, and some refinement to the overall structure/turn order for asynchronous play. Playtests have thus far been tricky due to the perpetual issue of people getting busy with life and forgetting the game exists.

Paramnesis/Paramnesia

Less well developed in terms of mechanics, this may end up being my first foray into designing a PbtA game. The overall structure of PbtA feels right, but I definitely have some specific mechanics in mind that go beyond the usual PbtA format. Paramnesis (or Paramnesia, I haven't decided which form I like better) is a paranormal investigation game initially inspired by podcasts like The Magnus Archives, Archive 81, and The Black Tapes. In the game, players investigate strange happenings that at first seem disconnected, but ultimately tie together with personal mysteries in each character's past. Key to figuring it all out is striking a balance between healthy skepticism and openness to the weird as the characters confront things beyond their understanding.

The GM is encouraged to not have an overarching mystery in mind from the start of a campaign because players have opportunities at certain key moments to declare when the current investigation relates in some way to their personal mysteries. Ultimately, players and GM work collaboratively to find the shape of whatever is behind it all. My biggest challenge with the design of this game will be to give GMs the right kind of guidance to tie threads together without having control of all the strings.

Anything You Can Do

As the title may suggest, this is a two-player game about variety show rivals attempting to out-do each other and win over the crowd. However, something happens to put the show in jeopardy, and you must work together—or against each other—to make sure the show can go on. This is my first game to use playing cards, and the mechanics are pretty fleshed out but could use a little refinement; then I just have to do the actual writing part (why is that part always so hard?). I'd also like to see if I can work out a version for three or four players, but that may come after the initial release.

I think I'll leave it at those for now, and come back to some of my less well developed projects and concepts in a later post!

Which of these projects interest you the most, and which would you like to see me work on first?

3, 16, 17, 22 and 23 for writer asks (I hope I didn't overdo it with the asks 😅)

You can never overdo it! I love answering questions. 🥰

3. What are some tropes or details that you think are very characteristic of your fics?

Well I definitely know I can't seem to avoid "misunderstandings" regardless of pairing/fandom. 😂 I know I have plenty of little HCs that seem to filter in and out, but I don't know of any other specific tropes that I use.

16. What’s an AU you would love to read (or have read and loved)?

Okay, I have some super hyper-specific answers for this if you're ready. 😂

Bagginshield- Established Relationship Post-BOTFA Adventure. So like Bilbo and Thorin are already married, go on a diplomatic trip, and then get into a whole heap of troubles. I haven't seen many out there like this, but I look constantly. 👀 And now I'm going to be looking at @lordoftherazzles way...😏

Tintin- MORE 👏CHARACTER👏 BACKGROUND 👏INFO. This doesn't even have to be in prequel style (in fact I would prefer it not to be), but I had this idea that I told @dimdiamond that Tintin's relationship with his still alive father is like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. So if someone wanted to write that AU, I'd help you plan the shit out of it cuz I'm probably not getting to it anytime soon. 😂

17. What highly specific AU do you want to read or write even though you might be the only person to appreciate it?

Oh, damn. Same as above? 😅 Okay you know what. I'll talk about highly specific AUs I want to write here.

Bagginshield- Okay, so I've actually teased this AU before, but I have plotted out a Role Reversal AU where Bilbo "Prince of the Shire" is trying to take back his homeland and hires a group of "warriors" (they are actually blacksmiths/tinkers/toymakers) so it has a bit of A Bug's Life feel to it, meets Snow White, but Thorin has a Blackbeard level reputation. So yeah, idk how it gets more hyper-specific than that. 🤣🤣

Haddotin- I guess the best way to describe this one is Alt First Meeting, but basically Haddock is already the rightful owner of Marlinspike and one of Tintin's investigations brings him to the former Captain's front door where he mistakes Haddock's uncomfortability in high society for guilt. 😅 Sooo "Murder Mystery Misunderstandings Alt First Meeting"??

22. Who is your favorite character in [insert fic] and why?

@tra-golden told me I could use any fic I wanted to, but it's Bilbo. Any fic, anywhere. 😂 I LOVE sassy, smart characters so Bilbo definitely fits the bill there, but I find the older I get the more I relate to my little hobbit sooo yeah. You'll find most of my fics come from his POV because it is 100% the most natural to me.

23. What’s a trope, AU, or concept you’ve never written, but would like to?

And just to add on to the LONG LIST OF AUS I'VE ALREADY NAMED!! 😂 I answered 23 right here. 😉

Ask me some fic questions!

DUDE!! That tweet you had about anakin composing a song to/inspired by Obi-wan’s name!! 😭😩 stunning idea! 10/10!! I imagine anakin never intended to tell Obi-wan that so does Obi-wan ever find out? When! How! Please add to this idea! I love it so much 😭😭😭 (Also love the idea of anakin being musically gifted since anakin can in canon (sort of) actually sing and Hayden can, in fact, play piano very proficiently!!)

AHH i am so so so glad you asked me about this because i've been going crazy thinking about it. for reference, here's the tweet anon is referring to:

tweet was inspired by this tiktok piano video.

"anakin being musically gifted. it’s like moving meditation. anakin playing piano and composing songs when he needs to submerge into song and force. obi-wan falling asleep to the same composition every night not knowing that anakin composed it to the word “obi-wan” / anakin composing this since he was young, so the first part of the song is simpler and slower. but it grows more complex, quick, layered as he also gets older and gets better (and his feelings for obi-wan also grow)"

so yes, this concept is haunting me. as you said, he can sing well AND hayden plays piano so this is... so perfect i think, especially as anakin is quite the gifted kid. he's a genius that also is able to sing and draw, so he's definitely someone that can use his hands for delicate movements and he is someone capable of understanding music in some capacity. i find myself going back to moving meditations for anakin in different ways: literal meditation with movement, tinkering with droid/ship parts, and now piano. it's an interesting method but it works for him as he constantly needs to touch something and be stimulated. the force guides his fingers, he submerges in the music the same way one might with meditation.

i have this very detailed image of anakin picking it back up, especially, during the clone wars. he plays on a holo-piano but he absolutely favors his physical one on coruscant. i love the idea of anakin being introduced to piano by obi-wan casually (either being taught or just given the instrument), though obi-wan never pressed it (thanks to @zimriya for fueling this particular thought ily) and anakin kind of working on stuff at his leisure. he starts to compose songs in a similar way as the man in the above video, by lettering the notes on a piano, choosing a word, and playing that word on the piano. he does it with many words, but the one that he keeps secret is a song composed of obi-wan's name.

as he's young and learning piano, his composition of the obi-wan piece is simple. light. innocent. but as he grows older and better at piano, as his feelings begin to warp into something else, the composition is layered, it's a mix of yearning, or sorrow and anger and jealousy, regret, pure happiness - and it's a song that obi-wan always heard faintly but never asked about.

i need obi-wan finding anakin playing after an intense failure during battle. i need him to just... hear this emotion and i need anakin eventually telling him that it was always about him. I want anakin teaching obi-wan the simple beginning keys and telling him this part was composed back when he was like... 12 or 13. this is sorta similar to the background of bethoveen's Für Elise piece, or the supposed rumor that he composed a piece for his beloved at her skill level, but when she rejected him the piece's later half was super complex and difficult to play. so yeah - it mirrors that concept except anakin is very deeply, hopelessly in love.

hope this made sense. please feel free to yell at me more about this concept because it's definitely making it's way into a wip of mine!

🌿💝💥💌

🌿 how does creating make you feel?

oh god. well honestly i feel like it depends very strongly on what exactly it IS that i’m creating… sometimes when i’m writing a character study or an intimate moment i feel intensely vulnerable and open, which is of course both terrifying and extremely cathartic… and then sometimes when i am writing humorous scenes or Cursed Concepts i feel so evil and wicked and pleased with myself the whole time. so which emotions i'm experiencing while i’m actually in the moment of creation can really be all over the map… but of course i can say that once i’ve actually finished creating something i always feel proud of myself! even at times when the piece didn’t come together as well as i was hoping it would in the end, there’s definitely something to be said just for that pure “oh i made a WHOLE NEW THING” sense of satisfaction :)

💝 what is a fic that got a different response than you were expecting?

i’ll be honest, i really thought that Do my friends think I’m dying? (or do I just need to go to sleep?) would get about 20 hits total… i mean, it’s a recursive fanfic (inspired by the excellent good old fashioned lover boy) about an extremely minor ted lasso character with an unintelligible summary and the tags “yes I’ve written a reddit thread as a fic” “sorry except i’m not”; i was really just writing it to have a good time (and oh my god, did i have the BEST time…). but the response to it was actually quite warm, and MUCH larger than i was expecting! and not to brag lmao but i got Many compliments in the comments section about how convincing my various insufferable reddit personalities were… i guess i’ve found my calling! i’ve been meaning to write another reddit fic ever since, actually—it really was a blast

💥 find your least kudos'd fic - say something wonderful about it.

least kudos’d by raw numbers would be my most recent one, Philosophical Shifts in Teixcalaanli Xenocontact! (although i wouldn’t necessarily call it my least warmly received—the kudos-to-hits ratio on that one is actually fairly good, it’s just a very new fic for a very small fandom! but i didn’t go through and calculate K:H ratios on everything, so i’ll just talk about this one.) i think that with this fic i really nailed the voice of the narrator, three seagrass—from her speech patterns to the way she thinks about the world; her love for poetry to her partially-worked-through tendency to exoticize the foreign and the new to the detriment of everyone involved. she was a lot of fun to write and i’d love to try my hand at her again soon!

💌 share something with us about an up-and-coming work (WIP) that has you excited!

agh okay i’m always the WORST person in the world to talk to about wips because i will happily spin you elaborate tales about all the Concepts i’m currently working on and then you will just never hear about them again… but here’s a snippet from something for stranger things that I’ve been tinkering with off and on for AGES and really do hope to get finished… sometime in the next few years… i’m calling it “things that we were working on,” and em, this one goes right out to you: you know exactly what you did. <3

“Hold the phone,” Eddie interrupts, earning himself a glare and yet another eyebrow twitch, but he doesn’t even care to savor the rise he’s getting out of Higgins this time, because he is actually, genuinely desperate for an answer to the question he’s about to ask. “You’re telling me Steve Harrington is gonna be here? In detention?” This day really is just shaping up to be something else, isn’t it. Steve Harrington in detention? Hell had better not have frozen over yet; Eddie hates the fucking cold. “What’d he do?” 

Or, probably more accurately: what’d he do that they didn’t let him just get away with this time?

[fic writing asks here!]

Devlog #3 - Revisions and Indecisions.

Sjdjfdhs hi. Apologies for letting the “see you in a month” turn into several months. Work got busy, then I caught Covid, after recovering I went on vacation, and then work got busy again… But I did work on this VN all throughout.

I didn’t make as much progress as I wanted, but some progress was made nevertheless.

So what exactly did I do? Let me count the ways.

Story Revisions

Changed the premise from magic academia to magic uhhh small business? Workshop? Something like that, I'm not sure what to call it.

My original story followed the player character and their love interest as they explored their university campus. This came to be because I was tinkering with the concepts of "group partners to lovers" & showing the player character as non-humanoid to allow for reader-insert and immersion, like the Obey Me games and the pink sheep MC. But the story stopped being appealing to me, plus the scope started to become bigger than I had anticipated. Multiple CGs in different locations across a giant campus? Yeah that's a nightmare to draw.

I'd still like to explore the idea of a non-humanoid MC though, so maybe that'll be a future game, or at least another brain dump post!

But anyway, I shrunk the premise. One store, one LI, and the customers that enter the little workshop. I'm still sticking to the idea of mundane modern fantasy though.

Because of the location change from university to workshop, I've had to revise the LI a lot. He's shaping up really well though! His name is Fen, I hope I can introduce him here sometime soon.

Building Frameworks

I'm not sure what to call it, so for now I'm calling it frameworks.

Basically, instead of tackling each aspect of the game separately from drafts to completion (ex: drawing all sprites right now and then moving on to writing the script), I want to create rough versions of everything.

I think this will help me because then I'll have an idea of how much work each aspect will entail, and I can hopefully spot and remedy any holes or glaring skill issues.

This is especially important for coding. I'll be using RenPy, the classic engine for visual novels, but I have very little coding experience. I'd like to gain some before I start creating the writing and assets meant to be incorporated into the platform.

By creating the framework (or I guess prototype is the better word in this case), I'll get some understanding of how RenPy works and once I have the assets complete I can insert those in.

For plot frameworks, I'm trying not to go into too much detail. Lots of bullet points cause I fuck with those.

For character frameworks, I must admit I'm putting a lot of thought and detail into Fen, but I think I should as he's the core of this game. I'm reminding myself though that much of him can still be altered if the story requires it.

There's definitely more frameworks I need to think about, like sprites, backgrounds, and music too.

But to sum it up, I'd like to create a rough draft of the entire game, and then only afterward do I start going in and changing details and adding colors to the big picture. I hope that makes sense.

Next Step: Character & Coding Frameworks

For the rest of April and probably the entirety of May as well, I'll focus on fleshing out Fen and putting together the coding framework.

I think figuring out Fen's character arc will help me get an idea of the overall story, which is incredibly daunting yet exciting lol

I'm not planning on making the coding look pretty, I just want to make something that functions. I have no clue how well that will go so please pray for me or something.

Personal Thoughts: I am Afraid

I think the reason why I didn't make a lot of progress is because lately, I've been afraid of doing so. I've never made a game before, or written an original story. I don't know what I'm doing, and instead of directly addressing things I've kept working around them. And because I haven't made much progress, it stresses me out. And then that stress makes me do less work.

Hellooo feedback loop.

I'm an indecisive person who likes to look for the right or most optimal answer. But in a creative project like this, it's hard to know what the "right" answer is cause it can be subjective.

I'm trying to remind myself to enjoy the process and to take small steps, and everything is still changeable as I'm still in the beginning stages. It's hard, but as I'm writing this update I think I'm feeling better.

I'm sure this gamedev journey will be me enjoying the ride and then immediately hating it, so for anyone reading: thank you for your patience. I appreciate you.

I'm going to try and post an update, no matter how small it is, once a month. So. Cheers to me being able to post this in April.

I'm still trying to figure out what to post and how to get my thoughts across. I've never done anything like this before, so please bear with me. If you have any feedback, please feel free to share!

And again, thank you to whoever's reading this. I hope you have a great timezone :)

Weekend Top Ten #596

Top Ten Ideas for Star Trek Videogames

So Star Trek. It’s alright, innit? The slower, more cerebral sci-fi show, for Grown Ups who like Talking About Things. As opposed to Star Wars’ sugar rush of wacky aliens and loud weapons. It’s kind of weird now, when both franchises really feel just like stretched-out shared-universe TV serials, but Back In The Day, Star Wars was the exciting, cool movie series, and Star Trek was the serious, nerdy TV series. Everybody could drop a reference to the Death Star or Princess Leia or maybe even a wampa, and basically you were on safe ground. Start talking about dilithium crystals or bat’leths or the Grand Nagus, and people would back away slowly. Nowadays, simultaneously we have a situation where genre TV is all-encompassing, but also its more granular nuances of lore and nerdery are sort of kept to a minimum.

Back in the days of the Wars of Star, though, one way the hyperdrive people had more bragging rights than the warp drive people is through videogames. The nineties were, in a lot of ways, the Golden Age of both properties, and Star Wars excelled in producing some of the greatest of all licenced games. The X-Wing and TIE Fighter space combat games; the Dark Forces/Jedi Knight FPS games; the Rogue Squadron arcade shooter games. They probably reached their zenith with Knights of the Old Republic; since then, there have been good games, but I don’t think anything has shaken the galaxy in the same way. Star Trek, on the other hand, definitely had some great games – shout out to both Klingon Honor Guard and Voyager: Elite Force for being more unusual FPS titles and just generally terrific fun – but it’s hard to think of one that really broke through the way most Star Wars games did. I think because of the more cerebral, slower-paced nature of Trek, a lot of the games fed the fanbase in very specific ways, giving us complex simulations and interactive movies that went deep on the lore and the technobabble.

Anyway, despite the many Trek games on offer, I think nowadays there are some gaps in the market. So, despite my woeful ignorance of the depths that videogame Trek has to offer (I Googled it when writing this thing and there are tons more games in that franchise than I first thought), I’m going to offer my suggestions here. Ideas for games that scratch a particular itch in Trek fandom; areas of the franchise that would translate perfectly to different genres.

And that’s really all there is to it. What more do want from me? I’ve had a busy week.

Star Trek does Mass Effect: after making an official Star Wars RPG with Knights of the Old Republic, BioWare made an original property that clearly owes a debt to Star Trek: Mass Effect. But there’s something in its formula that would perfectly fit an official adaptation. Let’s say you play the First Officer of a starship; during the game you can select your team to go down to planets on away missions, talking to people, solving problems, and occasionally engaging in firefights. Meanwhile you get to walk around the ship, visiting various sections and chatting to the crew. It could be a great mix of discrete “levels” set on planets, with an overarching storyline that allowed for some evolving, emergent gameplay. And maybe there could be a little hidden emote that allows you to sit on a chair like William Riker.

Star Trek does X-COM: there was already an Away Team game, where you played as, well, an away team out on missions, but I think that concept lends itself to a turn-based X-COM style of gameplay. This would most definitely be a tactical combat game, where you have to position your squad behind the usual helpfully-placed crates and boulders to fire your phasers at whatever Cardassian/Romulan/Borg baddie you were facing off with this time. The usual Trek staple of different classes of character – engineers, commanders, etc – would lend a good dose of variety to your squad, as would the nuance of tinkering with your phaser settings and the option of beaming out if things got too tough.

Star Trek does Pandemic: Pandemic is a game where the aim is to spread a virus across the globe, wiping out all of humanity before they can develop a cure. This idea isn’t exactly the same, but what about a tactical game where you play as the Borg? The aim of the game is to assimilate the entire Galaxy. Perhaps the galactic map could be divided into different “powers” – eg Federation space, Romulan, Klingon, etc – and they might have different ways of tackling the Borg, and so you’re dividing time and resources between different tactics. The ultimate goal, though, is to conquer everything and make it all part of the Collective. Resistance is futile, remember!

Star Trek does Gone Home: I’m not necessarily riffing on Gone Home in particular here, but it’s more about those slightly spooky “walking simulators”; things like Dear Esther too. So here you’d have essentially an interactive version of one of those episodes where a member of the crew returns to the ship and discovers that Everything is Different. Here, basically, the plot is that you return from, I dunno, a Bat’leth tournament or a stellar cartography conference or something, to find your starship is utterly deserted. Only by wandering the dimly-lit corridors, speaking to the computer, solving clues, scanning with your tricorder, etc, can you piece together the puzzle and find out what happened. It would be creepy and kooky to begin with, but being Star Trek there’d be a pseudo-scientific explanation.

Star Trek does Superhot: you could definitely argue that the most compelling aspect of Superhot is its trippy time mechanics, with time only moving if you move. But this game would be more in the line of how Superhot plays, meta-textually, with the notion of being a game. You play a person playing the game, and the game in the game turns hostile. So this would be like a recreation of one of the numerous “holodeck goes wrong” episodes (seriously, the holodeck is the most dangerous piece of technology in all of science fiction). So you’d be playing the game, going through different puzzles and scenarios, trying to uncover the real game so you can escape. And the “real” bits, where you’re breaking down the “fake” game, could be rendered in a more stylised, Superhot-esque fashion; although with the old school yellow and black grid as a background.

Star Trek does Sim City: Sim City might not be the best example, but the general gist is you’re establishing one of the many-referenced Federation colonies. So you have to go out and tame the wilderness, making atmospheres breathable, building different buildings to regulate water or harvest local minerals. There could be a campaign where you’re tasked with running different colonies for different reasons – mining dilithium, setting up a research centre, etc – or a sandbox mode where you just basically cover a planet with your futuristic colony.

Star Trek does Startopia: shrinking things down a little bit more we have this, basically a Deep Space Nine simulator. You’re given a run-down starbase to manage, Sisko-style, and have to turn it into a bustling galactic hive. Yes, you can specialise in military or scientific research, or spy on the Cardassians or something; maybe you can even start churning out Galaxy-class starships. But you could also make it a home, creating shops and restaurants, living quarters, schools (watch out for Bajoran extremists!); basically, create the outpost of your dreams. Even open a branch of Quark’s!

Star Trek does Overcooked: speaking of Quark’s, this game would double-down on that setting, where you play another distant relative of everyone’s favourite duplicitous bar-owner, who’s been given the job of running a franchise. So here you not only need to make sure your dabo tables are turning in a profit and that there are adequate, er, stimulations in the holosuites, but also that you’re serving your customers. So you run from one job to the next, throwing drinks at grumpy Irish engineers and occasionally shouting “allamaraine”. And if you cock up a drink order or your racht dies before anyone has chance to eat it, Quark comes in and tweaks your ears.

Star Trek does Elite: really, this one seems kind of obvious, and I’m not certain that they’ve not actually done a version of it. But you’d play an independent pilot – maybe like Rios from Picard – who has a small ship, ferrying cargo or passengers. And, like the galaxy’s most famous space-sim, you can upgrade your ship as you progress, buying a bigger boat to take more cargo. And you can play it by the book – dealing with the Federation would mean protection, access to advanced technology, but also an inability to make profit in a society where money doesn’t really exist anymore – or you can go rogue, smuggling contraband to shady individuals around the Alpha Quadrant. Maybe you could even become a space pirate! Steal a cloaking device from a derelict Klingon cruiser, buy a couple of black market quantum torpedoes, and away you go!

Star Trek does Arkham Asylum: so the Arkham reference here is that this would be a third-person action adventure game focused on physical combat and exploration, but you’d play as a Klingon. Sent off on high-risk missions by the Chancellor, you’d visit far-flung planets, investigate mysteries, and beat up just tons of people. Expand your abilities, augment your tech, and buy a bigger Bat’leth, learning all kinds of vicious fighting techniques. Like Klingon Honor Guard of yore, the focus on Star Trek’s knobbly space Vikings means it can revel in the blood and the guts, swigging blood wine and deciding that today is a good day to die. Qapla'!

Sadly no room for a Pokémon-style Tribbles game, but ah well.