I have a theory about the bts of Goodbye Volcano High that may be reaching but I may as well get out of my head.

There is this character, a raptor called Alvin, who is the boyfriend of Reed, and shows up briefly in a couple of shots from time to time:

And there is this other character, that was going to be a protagonist but was scrapped at some point during production, a liopleurodon named Leo, who was going to be a close friend to Reed (and we know would have been gay or bi because he was potentially going to end up with Sage).

Both have blue bodies, dark purple hair, violet-grey-ish eyes, long beaks, grey trousers, and are very close to Reed.

Could it be that Alvin is a (very) repurposed Leo? That the basic idea of Leo's design was used for Alvin? Am I desesperate to believe Leo lives on in the game?

Maybe.

I like to think Leo enjoys hanguing out in storm drains when he's depressed. Sage meanwhile doesn't like hanguing out in storm drains under any mood, but he's a bro.

So I was making an OC, and couldn't figure out what to do for the colors. So I was chattin' it up with some Discord friends, like ya do, and I just started doing up the character up with all the different dino gang colors, plus Mango, Leo, and Joshchan, who is an honorary member of the dino gang if ever that was such an individual. Fun fact: I still have no idea what to color the character.

( Please don't tagged as sn00t gam3, please )

a mspaint mugshot of Leo from Goodbye Volcano High, who is cut content character.

(I wonder, what if they bring him in the final game and what his personality would be?)

GVH Character Playlists: Sage

I saved the best boi for last: Sage!

As mentioned in the last post, Sage serves as one half of a comic relief duo with Stella, so I imagined that he would listen to a mix of pop hits and alternative/indie songs. Half of these are love songs too, so... I'll explain in a bit.

Counting Stars: A song of hope and dreams, which Sage has a lot of.

Me and My Gang: Sage's dedication to his friends.

Somebody to You: IDK if the fandom ships him with Leo (a scrapped character) or Stella (his partner-in-crime), but this could be Sage in either scenario, wanting to be the perfect partner.

Tongue Tied: Also either way, Sage could be the awkward boyfriend, hence this song.

Spitting off the Edge of the World: Despite his upbeat personality, Sage does have some sadness in him, shown especially in that one scene with Fang. This could represent his tepid relationship with his parents and his defiance in the face his challenges.

Rather Be: More of a platonic song, his bonfire song.

What if Leo was in Snoot Game? I really like his character and it made me sad he didn't make it past the GVH concept art, also this is my excuse to try and replicate the Snoot art style.

Here's a character that was cut from Goodbye Volcano High that was revealed in the dev stream a few days ago. Meet Leo!

GVH was originally envisioned as a dating sim with three playable characters. Leo, a male liopleurodon, was one of them. He was on the Volcano High swim team, and was described as tall, moody, quiet, kind of depressed guy. One of his romance options was Sage, a shorter, feminine microraptor guy. Leo was both visually and personality-wise inspired by the anime Free!.

Eventually the dating sim concept was dropped, and the other two player characters (Fang and Rosa) were folded into the main story, with Fang as the lead character and Rosa as a secondary character. Leo was, unfortunately, scrapped.

Goodbye Volcano High is just a week away! Yippee! To celebrate this occasion I will release GVH protagonist first-date ratings part 2, in which I rate how well my first dates with GVH characters will go based on what I know about them from fandom memes and promo materials. Part 1 can be found here. Contains spoilers for JoJo's Bizarre Adventure part 6, and now featuring alt text.

I think Naomi would be the type of person who would provide me with a full list of philosophical personal questions on our first date in order to acertain a comprehensive first impression of me that accurately represents who I am. For example, she may ask me what I would do with an elephant in my possession if I could not sell or give away the elephant, which was apparently a real job interview question someone had. While I would undoubtedly appreciate her hard work, I will not guarantee that I won't accidentally give out a response so profoundly disturbing and strange at some point during the process and possibly make her cry (for example, answering that I wish to recreate Thomas Edison's elephant electrocution procedure just to prove that I can do it better), leading to an overall 5/10 experience.

Much like the Trish date, I suspect that my date with Rosa will take place at an arboretum due to her interests. Because of this, I will likely be reminded of the fact that I once went to an arboretum in China during my childhood, to cheer me up after I completely failed at an extracurricular English speaking competition due to stage fright and the fact that I forgot to study the prompts they gave out before hand. I will then give an extended speech to Rosa about how my years of hard work studying English didn't matter in that moment because I fucked up one high-stakes competition and everyone thought I was a dumbass. If Rosa is able to relate to this as a potentially bilingual character herself, then my date will be a 9/10 experience. Otherwise, it's likely a 4/10 if she got weirded out instead.

Stella's interest in the occult is a major jumping point for my first date conversation with her, as I will use her knowledge of Tarot cards to discuss archetypes in the classic Hero's Journey and possibly analyze how each card's meaning corresponds to their respective Stand user in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. If Stella does not like JoJo's Bizarre Adventure then I will reveal the fact that I do not either and then go into an existential rant on why Part 6's ending retroactively made all the other parts pointless by undermining the agencies of previous protagonists with the idea of Fate being an unstoppable force that pre-determines all actions. Overall, this will be an invigorating discussion if nothing else. 7/10.

I don't know why but attempts at adding Sage's image to this post consistently results in an image of Rosa being added instead. Sage himself does show up on the final post after saving, but during the editing process itself his image keeps being replaced by Rosa. My conclusion from this is that Sage does not want to go on a date with me and may in fact prefer to date his original love interest Leo instead. I respect his loyalty to his lover even after he has been completely cut from the final game and thus functionally erased from existence. Sage is a good boy and I love him platonically. 10/10.

Imagine the cast of GVH as the cast of FFVII. Who's who?

We actually discussed this in the KO_OP server! Here's what I came up with in the end:

Cloud - Fang

Barret - Trish

Tifa - Naomi

Aerith - Rosa

Red XIII - Reed

Cait Sith - Stella

Cid - Naser

Yuffie - Sage

Vincent - Leo

What GVH character concept art or scrapped design is your favorite (not counting Leo)?

Probably first pass Reed. I love the arm tattoo that's integrated into his pattern.