Hi

@azaraih and I are back on our bullshit, and by bullshit I mean having a good time making games together again. Been a while since we’ve posted about game making! 

Currently, we’re trying to make the smallest possible VN that still feels personally interesting for us to work on, and basically it’s turned into Awkward Lunch Conversations: The Game. Here are some sprites I’ve been making for one of the characters you can interact with in the game. Unnamed at the moment, but non-binary with they/them pronouns.

I’ll talk about the game more soon, but pretty much my thought process was “What are VNs great at? Character interactions like conversations. What’s a super small, limited character interaction you could do? Having lunch with one other person. How can I make this more interesting for me? What if you don’t actually remember who you’re meeting for lunch, and why.” And that’s pretty much how our game started. Current title is Lunch with J. 

Thanks for reading!

Note: @azaraih and I now share joint custody of a buffalo check jacket, aka we're gay. | Had a very nice friend energy boost last weekend. Socializing can tucker me out, but if I'm interacting with good friends, it gives me back a kind of uplifting energy in exchange. I like connection, and there's something about being around friends in person that brings me contentment. Last weekend we got to have friend brunch, Friendsgiving, and monthly Art Jam with buddies. I hope I can increasingly pour into and draw upon my friendship well. It's like a vitamin, I gotta get that sweet buddy spiritual nutrition. In other news, Minnesota is winter ❄️🧥🧤🧣 . . . #queerstyle #queer #nonbinary #nbfashion #nbstyle #enby #plaid #buffalocheck #jacket #winterwear #winterfashion #breakfasthat #ultralightdown #fashion #style #minnesota #mnfashion #mnstyle #winterstyle #outerwear #layering #filipina #filipinx https://www.instagram.com/p/Bqc1Kg-h5fg/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=maldwaxlml4z

Mostly been drawing skeleton friends for anatomy studies lately but keeping sane with colorful messy sketches of my characters. Noodling around with this fella's floppy hair.

As part of tryin to get myself to draw more, tried doin some of these quick guys in diff colors bc I'm a kid & love colored pens

Aisle 6 Remix

Fic summary:

I feel like….someone’s watching me. Eve looks up from the two flimsy boxes in her hands (microwave stroganoff and frozen gluten-free shepherd’s pie) to see that someone was indeed looking intensely her way. A woman stands a few feet away, cart halted, staring right at her. Young, sickly pale, hair in disarray, clung sweaty to her forehead.

Eve figures she should probably address this situation.

|| One overthinking gay’s remix of the best queer spy vs spy romance on film, if bits of Season 1 were smushed with bits of Season 2 and it all started with a meetcute in a grocery aisle.

Chapter 02: Carefully practiced vulnerability

|| Tips for making a new friend: try having a light conversation to get to know each other over a shared snack.

Click here or on the header above to give it a read!

Hello from me, the writer:

Hellooo who else is gay and horny for weird?? [Spoiler warning: come back here after you’ve read the chap, I’m gonna talk about it]

Eve Polastri understands you, because she’s thirsty for a stranger’s stab hole. And Villanelle also understands you because is thirsty for Eve being thirsty for stabs. Their brain cell truly is away on holiday.

I enjoyed writing this chapter a lot since these Eve, V, and all the rest of us get to chill for one second and a indulge in some conversation. Also I like switching around the POV between two unreliable narrators. I’m always interested in what characterization you can pick up on through someone’s narrative perspective. 

Lasagna-for-one man from the grocery aisle is Julian, yeah. Oksana and Eve’s ships in the night moment in Nice and Neat was a perfect beautiful gut-punch. I wouldn’t trade away that so-tired lingering stare at Eve striding savior-like, fucking near godly, fucking dream-esque slow-motion towards the hell house Oksana just escaped, just ONE moment too late for them to be together again. In that moment at least she knows clever, determined, mutually obsessed Eve came for her after all.

But yea I’m not beholden to writing what’s good for the show so fuck it! This one episode and this one moment are what I latched onto and what made me decide to explore “hey, what if it wasn’t Julian who Villanelle saw in that store, what if it was Eve? What if it was Eve, who she saw for the first time in that aisle?” I’m not even close to above daydreaming about Eve and V getting to hang out domestically in Eve’s house, not even a little. I’m so gay for domesticity and slice-of-life and my being yearns for it.

Had kind of a dickens of a time trying to problem solve the issue of V’s false backstory here. She told Eve she couldn’t involve authorities, she showed up with an obvious wound, she doesn’t have friends or anyone around to turn to. Maybe the lies she gives here still wouldn’t convince someone with a better sense of self-preservation, but we’ll see how Eve feels about it. Hopefully you all find her made up story acceptable for the fic at least.

Previous chapters:

Ch 01 | Knife me, rob me, creep up in my sleep

Me? About to read 270 Miles and More from the beginning again just so I can drown myself in your beautiful writing? YOU BET! Obsessed. Thank you for sharing. 😭

Omggg you are the sweetest thank you and bless you!! :’] Haha I gotta read it all again myself so I can remember what the heck I’m writing as I pick it back up for Ch 6 writin’. Wish me luck! 

Just doppin’ by to say I am loving 270 Miles and More so much! Such a bright spot!!! Stay safe!

Hey, thank you so much! So happy to hear you like the fic, I appreciate you reading and reachin out. Take care!! :] 

Aisle 6 Remix

Fic summary:

I feel like….someone’s watching me. Eve looks up from the two flimsy boxes in her hands (microwave stroganoff and frozen gluten-free shepherd’s pie) to see that someone was indeed looking intensely her way. A woman stands a few feet away, cart halted, staring right at her. Young, sickly pale, hair in disarray, clung sweaty to her forehead.

Eve figures she should probably address this situation.

|| One overthinking gay’s remix of the best queer spy vs spy romance on film, if bits of Season 1 were smushed with bits of Season 2 and it all started with a meetcute in a grocery aisle.

Chapter 03: More of a tectonic movement

|| Be patient when getting to know someone new: sometimes people won’t be so comfortable sharing certain things with you until you’ve earned their trust.

Click here or on the header above to give it a read!

Hello from me, the writer:

[Spoiler warning: come back here after you’ve read the chap, I’m gonna talk about it]

Find it kinda weird but fun writing interactions where nobody fully knows what anybody else’s deal is and you’re always stuck trying to figure it out through one character’s lens at a time.There’s what Villanelle knows about herself (which we don’t know all of yet). There’s what Eve knows about herself  (which we don’t know all of yet either). There’s what Villanelle knows about Eve (little) and what Eve knows about Villanelle (even less). Who even knows what’s going on here.

Hope you’re looking forward to seeing two little curious clever reckless punks try to be roommates, and also they will constantly be eating because food is all I care about on this earth. 

Previous chapters:

Ch 01 | Knife me, rob me, creep up in my sleep

Ch 02 | Carefully practiced vulnerability

Hey friends! How are you? Hope y'all are swell. Sorry s'been real dead over here so soon after I just started this blog up. Bunch of stuff's happened with me recently, got contacted by a place I was really close to being hired by last fall after months of assuming I wouldn't hear back from them about another opening this soon if it all. Had a whirlwind week of interviews and meetings and then after being quickly hired at the end of the week, ANOTHER whirlwind of a first work week. Got immediately put on two projects, clocked in 54.5 hours that week. Thankfully that's settled down to a regular 40ish average now but it's still keeping me real occupied and sleepy. Going on my 3rd week now but still finding it pretty crazy to go from months of unemployment to sudden pretty much OVERemployment in no time at all. I'm actually loving the job despite how challenging it is though and my co-workers are rad and super nice and I like working with them!

But obv all that's meant my work/life balance struggle hasn't quite been in a place where I've been able to do as much art/post as much stuff here as I'd like. I'm workin on it, I'll get there! This past week I just wrapped up an shirt design entry for the Homestuck Design Contest over on welovefine. Yep I'm a Homestuck. (Although not really a Homestuck blogger, so if you want to talk Homestuck with me cool! If you're not a Homestuck s'all good.) So I'll throw a post plugging my design up here soon. If you like Dave Striders you're in luck? If you're here for game/otome stuff, I'm hoping to get more done with that soon! I miss it. You know who has been real productive on the game/ren'py/vn front lately though is my favorite person azaraih so if you're interested you should go check that shiz out.

Thanks! Take care! Art soon! :]

One more batch! This about rounds up the characters you can expect to be interacting with on the island (except for one of Teen Alchemist's rambunctious younger siblings whose sprite I haven't gotten the chance to finish yet.) Other character batches here and o'er here.

These three you aren't necessarily going to need to interact with like the route characters or the Innkeeper or Shopkeeper. It might be in your best interest to take a shot at befriending them though. Might be more to them than there seems and hey, maybe they've got some help to offer you? You might as well chat them up, what else you got to preoccupy you while trapped on this tiny rock, you silly grump?

Still to come, probably some alternate sprite expressions, screen mockups, stuff like that? I'll try to post a bit more in general too, although it won't all be game-related work. I'd like to post sketches and fanart and other personal art too :]