Paranoid Android (2 Post 2 Mortem)

It’s been four weeks and the people still care about the robot.

Also we forgot to mention a couple things. 

This post contains:

-A musical breakdown of a shared spotify playlist,

-a more realized grasp on the game’s themes,

-the perils of having to promote a game to an unknown audience,

-the excitement that comes with being noticed by others,

-and probably some more spoilers for things that i like… hopefully it won’t be too long… got so sleepy after i wrote that Innocence review- (update: i’m a liar… this is a lie. Another 6k.) 

-AND FULL SPOILERS FOR PRESENT PERCEPTUAL CONSCIOUSNESS !!

IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH (recovery)

Immediately after we submitted the game, I spent a week recovering from a cold. During this time, I was mostly bedridden. As I swapped between sinus issues and various fever-tinged cycles, I was overcome with a profound sense of boredom that can only be felt in the summer. (Or when you like, just finish something as big as Present Perceptual…) 

Anyway, I had nothing to do. By the second day, napping half the day had run its course, and by the third, I was starting to go stir crazy from how Bad I was feeling. I was shaking the bars of my enclosure. I was throwing banana peels (*i was eating a lot of bananas…. Potassium…. Yum yum…) at the guards. I had a runny nose and a fever and my whole body was hurting- but it wasn’t covid or the flu it was just my weak ass immune system- and worst of all, I was bored. 

So I started playing some of the toxic yuri submissions! I made a collection and grabbed as many as I could. Mostly I was drawn to what submissions had interesting covers or cool sounding summaries, and most of my recovery time was spent reading whatever I was in the mood for.

Now, while I haven’t gone through all of the entries (208… jesus christ), here are some of the submissions I played during my sick week: 

Offsuit Pair -  witty said they looked like persona characters which made me interested and like… tbh butch shuake if they were normal and had nothing to do but play card games. Super fun! Writing is so immersive! Does a lot with what is essentially a bottle episode! Also I suck so bad at Poker! Audrey kept laughing at me! Meanie! 

Flesh and Pressure - Got to see this while it was being developed in the toxic yuri game dev server. Was really into the cartoony character sprites- which looked like muppets to me- and it was one of my most anticipated games. The writing’s fun, and the art is very charming, but it’s like watching Harry Du Bois of DE fame trying to maneuver a twenty something year old lesbian’s body. Basically it’s built on things happening to our protagonist. Mostly silly, mostly embarrassing, mostly sad. I think it’s a neat game with a lot to say about loneliness, grief, and loving trash compactors.

Ergosum - Mob Psycho if we didn’t have mob or reigen, but the smartest, most arrogant lady in the universe. Really creative world building with an unlikeable, but interesting-to-follow protagonist. Also really like the art in this. Specifically I like how the sprites fit into the backgrounds? There’s this one snowy background that I thought looked really nice with the sprites.

In the Flesh - wittyfrenchie played this together actually! I had tried playing it on my own at first, but I had a massive headache and it made me the Mayor of Frowntown that hated everything, so I shut it off. But then we played it together, and it was so fun trying to figure out what was going on in terms of the story. It’s got scifi, and dollhouses, and silly music that fits the equally silly characters. And it’s overall a fun time to read while doing stupid voices. Also, the sprites are all puppets!! Winner for best character design in my heart!! (*super fun!!)

Uranium Gays - wittyfrenchie also played this together!! Read it on my own at first, but I thought it was so fun I had to read it with someone else. What if girls had toxic yuri powers? What if they were being hunted by the government? What if sex can be so good it splits atoms? These are all questions that are answered in this five(?) minute game. (*during wittyfrenchie epic playthrough it actually took like an hour)  Although it took us a while to even read it because discord hates it when I screenshare, I think Uranium gays is something fun and light in a sea of serious toxic yuri. Also like… author of Uranium Gays is cool as fuck… Really like their other works… Made me interested in Interactive Fiction as a whole + Twine games. (*mentioned my third favourite element, radium too… smiled….)

(*I liked these games.. Theyre awesome..)

All of these games are really cool!! Rated them five stars!! I wanna compile a list of my favorite toxic yuri submissions to share with the world… But I still have games in my queue… so that’ll have to wait… (*i have so many games in my queue.. In fact i have 227 which is more than 208… oops… sorry games but my queue is fat and awesome) 

(*Go play awesome games… speaking of game reviews guys guess what)

INDIE DARLING TO SLIGHTLY LESS INDIE DARLING (aftermath)

After I recovered from my cold, and I was capable of staring at my computer for long stretches without being suddenly overcome by a fever, I spent some time trying to get a sense of what people thought about our game. Promoting a game is so different than promoting something like fanfic, because while fanfic can give you a built-in audience, there’s none of that for games!! People have to show up for you!! 

And then the itch dot io porn game banishment hit a week after submissions and it sent everyone scrambling.

It’s exactly what it says on the tin. In the ways of Tumblr and Steam, any content tagged ‘nsfw’ or ‘adult’ was either suspended or delisted due to itch having things going on with credit card processors. There’s a lot of articles that talk in depth about the incident, as well as a lot of first hand accounts on what this kind of censorship can do for people in the indie scene, so while the situation has been cleared up- the fact that this sort of thing happened without warning is really shitty and unfair to a lot of people.

It also left people unsure about the future of games on itch in general. So what do people do when they’re unsure? Well. A lot. But in the case of the toxic yuri jam, this meant panic downloading every game out of fear of the submissions being wiped off the map. 

So while our game had had a stream of people that did like our game (mostly oomfcircle or random people on itch… ty btw it means a lot), the panic downloads messed with the analytics of our game by a wide margin.

Suddenly, there were all of these people who had downloaded our game, but no one was leaving comments. No one was leaving ratings. No one was saying anything (*except for alexandria flesh and pressure.. Ty alexandria your game rules). 

And that sort of thing made us feel bad, I guess. Like we couldn’t rely on a built-in audience because this was an original work, and we weren’t sure what the general consensus was with people who weren’t familiar with us. (So literally everyone that existed off twitter.)

Anyway, so there we were, feeling bad about the uncertainty that came with a shaky reception, wondering if game dev life was for us at all… 

BUT SUDDENLY: 

(*screenshot of the article! The review!!! And georges big fat head on the cover!!?!!!)

GEORGE’S BIG FAT HEAD GOT US INTO AN ARTICLE!!!!!

(*this is really problematic because i need to start the humanize scientist campaign for 420 downloads but everyone is on team george for good reason. But scientist my diva… the world needs to know you…)

AND THE PEOPLE ARE ON TEAM GEORGE!!!!!!!

When I thought about what the reception would be like post game jam, I didn’t think it would include something like an article. I had thought maybe it would be a hit with our online friends, or maybe it could drum up some attention in the visual novel scene slowly, but surely. But this? An article two weeks post game jam? Insane. Crazy. Unheard of. 

And we were in it!!

I can’t really describe what reading this meant to me. At the time of publication, I was feeling particularly bad about the lack of reception. I had thought about the effort witty and I had put in, and how much of our summer had been dedicated to this project, and seeing such shaky reception–it made me feel terrible. Like all the work we had done just wasn’t special or noteworthy. (*i felt bad because the mass panic spike made our stats look lopsided… evened out now but they were soo uneven)

But then I read this–an aspect of reception I hadn’t even considered in the first place. And it was talking about something we made, it was talking about something I had written. 

Suddenly, I was texting witty and updating my twitter and telling the whole world about the article. My hands were shaking so badly I almost dropped my phone, and I was happier than I had been in weeks. 

Like it was one thing for your friends to say they like what you wrote–or your family–or particularly loyal strangers on the internet over fanfiction comment sections–but it’s another thing to see something like this. Even if it is just one person’s list, the fact that something I had written had made it in at all made me feel good about myself. 

I have such a hard time believing that whatever I make is good. While I know that’s a common thought process for anyone in a creative field, I feel like it especially rings true for me. I think my overall lack of confidence, coupled with the fact that I keep hearing that the arts–specifically writing–don’t seem to matter, comes together in a way that makes me hard on myself.

 Even though I have been writing since I was a kid, and I understand on some level why people are drawn to the things I make, and I can be a little bit of a show-off at times–I’m so aware of myself, which makes it hard to believe in any kind of self-made talent.

So yeah. I’m working on that. I think being your own biggest hater bars any chance at getting into more articles… and I would like to make it into more articles… Because holy shit.

Then a few days later, ash bloomfilters–yuri scholar of the century–said our game made her tear up even though she’s read so much peak and it was like holy fucking shit. (Hi Ash and Iris and El… and the rest of yuri union, very happy to know yuri scholars like you…) (*<3)

And suddenly in the next week we were set. We kept getting comments saying that Present Perceptual was horrific, and that it made people cry, and that 20k of robot girl angst did mean something to them. For a while, Present Perceptual was in the top four rows of the toxic yuri game jam. So more people got to see it. So more people got to play it.

And while we managed to keep the momentum going for a bit before the other games in the jam were reindexed and the stats returned to normal, the fact that we had managed to get up there at all was really special. 

So of course, blinded by this brief stint of fame, it just made me think about the game even more. I had already been dealing with visions of some kind of sequel, but suddenly, I was receiving visions of a second post mortem. (And now you’re reading it.)

So. 

STUFF I FORGOT TO MENTION BECAUSE I WAS TOO BUSY WRITING ABOUT GHOST IN THE SHELL: INNOCENCE (reconnecting)

Lilith

Part A: Network

I had a lot of fun messing with the concept of her system/her relationship to her network, and I think it’s because a lot of it can be found in Nier: Automata. In Nier, you play as an android who is fighting a prolonged war with alien-made weapons known as machines. Despite this, you are forced into close proximity with your enemies in a series of events that alter your perception of your cause and your ideas of philosophy. As you grapple with the nature of dissolving a “them” vs “us” mentality, the machines will tell you more about themselves and the relationships they’ve formed in this battle.

In Nier, the machines mention being connected to a hive mind- end of evangelion soup style network where all of their data can be stored and shared. However, some machines have decided to disconnect from the network as a means of experiencing more to life–which is crazy to 2B and 9S, our beautiful android protagonists.

When asked about their disconnected state, the machines will mention that while the feeling of being severed from their network grants a sense of excitement/freedom they can barely understand–the lack of a network also has exposed them to loss, loneliness, and fear. 

I thought that Lilith experiencing this on a smaller scale would be interesting. So her character pitch eventually became “a part of a computer that’s been cut off and put into a real girl”. And eventually the idea of her network became “something adjacent to a family/clothmother”. 

While I was writing, I was stuck on the idea of Lilith not being able to belong in one specific category. She’s too human for her network, but too false to be considered real by her creator. She’s also unique in her existence, with her being one of the only androids left. 

(At least, that’s what she’s told. I dunno, I think there’s a lot more androids out there… When Lilith goes on her post canon road trip and finds companionship with a different kind of android, and she’s forced to deal with the idea of not being alone anymore, but she’s still so unique in her design/function, causing a new sense of loneliness what then–)

Part B: System

Nier also shows up in the form of Lilith’s system. In Nier, all Yorha style combat units are given assistants known as pods. The pods are designed to help combat units on their missions. While in game, the pods are primarily used for shooting enemies/bullet hell boss battles while you use 2B’s giant swords to kill things– they also serve as a connective tissue for Nier’s themes on philosophy and agency. 

They also serve as guides for androids. When you’re damaged by an enemy, the pods have lines of dialogue where they alert their androids on the state of their health. But as the story goes on, the pods grow to comment on aspects of their android’s behavior, which in turn, changes how the pods think.

While I used Lilith’s system as a way for Lilith to talk to someone other than her creator (even if it is in her head), I liked the idea of the system changing as Lilith does. Same as how the pods change over the course of Nier. 

I liked the idea of Lilith’s system losing the need to categorize emotions like SAD or HAPPY, and to experience them at the same time Lilith does. I also liked the idea of the system being something like a friend/conscious for Lilith, so when her mental state spirals the system could express concern towards Lilith or even anger towards Helena. 

So yeah… thought of the system as a little pod robot thing… Felt bad whenever Lilith hits herself so her system will be quiet… Like no little robot girl, don't do that :( 

(I had all of these reactions/feelings towards the story like I wasn’t the one writing it. In school I’ve learned a lot about how characters will lead authors to certain places and I didn’t really understand it until I was writing out Helena being more evil than originally planned or Lilith responding to her treatment in more shocking ways. 

I also was so out of it towards the end. That cold was beating me up so bad on the first day. Witty says I was in a fugue state, which makes sense, but it was a weird experience to be both so locked in I was shocked at how the story panned out and so exhausted that I wanted the game to be done already.)

Anyway, go play Nier. It’s actually awesome once you look past the “hot robot in a french maid outfit haha” which btw has a canonical reason for its existence in game? I don’t remember what exactly, but I’m pretty sure there’s a reason for 2B’s frilly maid dress. Or maybe it’s just Yoko Taro being a capital ‘f’ Freak again. 

Helena

Part A: Undisclosed Backstory

Miss Scientist doesn’t necessarily have a backstory, because in the early phase of production, Witty put me on watch so I wouldn’t humanize her too much. Despite the surveillance, I understood that with the game being under this lens of “experiment” it meant that I couldn’t even humanize Scientist unless I absolutely had to. She’s someone who didn’t even bother to give her robotcreation her name because why would she? Lilith is her ticket to a nobel prize and nothing more. (And she failed at that… failed so hard… Diva, are you stupid?)

Anyway, in pre-production Helena’s backstory was that she hates her job/wants robotics to be cool again/has a lot of control issues even though we never go into why. 

And she has a sister :D

Helena’s sister–still unsure if she’s older or younger, but ideally they’re close in age–gets her one phone call/diary entry in the game before we hurtle towards the end of Present Perceptual. 

And it sucks because I wanted Scientist to elaborate on the dynamic she has with her sister. I thought it would’ve been fun to see how her personality plays off of someone who grew up with her, but came out completely normal. 

Yeah, Scientist Sister is completely normal. We specified that she has a family, and a newborn baby, and that she’s pretty much completely fulfilled in every aspect of her life. An actual mother compared to wire mother over here. 

And this sort of thing drives Helena crazy mainly because she a) can’t have a satisfying relationship even if there was a gun to her head and b) her sister won’t let Helena do mental tests/experiments on her baby. godihateyoucatherinewhywon’tyouletmedomytestsonyourbaby–

I named her sister Catherine because that was one of the names I was considering for Helena when I was still in the pits of trying to see if the story worked in third person. (It didn’t. Third person requires identifiers, specifically names, because saying “she did this” and “she did that” is confusing and evil. So while I landed on second person, I kept the names Helena and Catherine hanging around just in case I wanted to use them.)

Also, I liked how Catherine means “pure” and Helena means “light” so they have some cohesion going on. And then there’s Lilith which means “dark”. So that’s a fun opposition when she’s compared to Helena. Even if we weren’t going to name anyone at first, I like the ones that I chose. Even if Cat isn’t given any screentime. 

Another part of Helena’s backstory was a brief instance of a relationship she had in high school. We didn’t go in depth on it other than:

1. Miss Scientist had her first girlfriend sometime when she was seventeen.
2. The girlfriend and her parted ways since the girlfriend was going to college and long distance is hard.
3. Scientist was like hmph whatever i don’t care, but you know she obviously cared, even if the relationship only lasted like, six months.
4. Smash cut to Scientist in her mid to late thirties and she can pull whoever she wants, but like… is she happy… 

I knew that if I added a past relationship or a new dynamic through Helena’s family, the whole story would fall apart. Helena needed to be detached. She needed to be cruel. And she needed to view her creation as something false. (Think she failed on that part… with her crossed out diary entries… and how she weirdly humanizes her robot at times… and like her rewatching the kiss–)

Wait, I wanna talk about that. Guys I need to talk about the kiss thing–

Part B: Helena Eagan (also full spoilers for severance just scroll until you hit part c if you wanna avoid severance spoilers)

So first of all, I stole Helena’s name from Helena Eagan in Severance. Because a) hot villain and b) has the weird creator/creation dynamic with Helly. 

There’s a scene in season one, episode four of Severance where Helena records a message for Helly after Helly tries to quit her job at Lumon. There’s two lines from the scene that really stuck with me while I was writing Present Perceptual. 

It’s when Helena says to her doppelganger creation: 

“I understand that you’re unhappy with the life you’ve been given, but you know what? Eventually, we all have to accept reality.” 

Only to follow it up with the gut punch of:

 “So here it is: I am a person, you are not.”

The entire scene is a minute by the way. A minute and that’s all it took for Helly/Helena’s relationship to be explained, along with Helena to be properly established as someone who doesn’t view her creation as human.

I thought Scientist saying the phrase “I’m a person, you are not” would have been too on the nose considering that Helena’s response video is a very popular scene. After discarding the concept, I decided to honor Severance in a different way by just… making a reference to one of their other most popular scenes. 

In season two, episode one, Helena watches a recording taken by Lumon’s security cameras. The video shows Helly and Mark kissing, only for Helly to remark afterwards “In case we don’t come back this time.” And Helena… watches the footage again. And again. And her pupils dilate. And suddenly, she wants the life her creation has built for herself. 

I thought that including a scene like this for Scientist would be perfect, since I wanted to show that Lilith kissing her at the end of act two did impact her on some level. Even if she refuses to acknowledge it. 

Since I was confined to a text based reference, I had to really consider how I wanted to show Scientist being impacted. So first of all, I spread out her rewatching the kiss across the act, and secondly, I did this: 

While I wrote this segment I had a few statements that I wanted to say, then I cut them up using a generator that could translate English to binary. The idea behind this scene was to give some idea as to what Lilith’s data might actually look like. It was also made to show that even when she’s slipping up in terms of humanizing her creation, Scientist can’t help but still think about herself. Same as Helena Eagan during the kiss footage. 

Basically, the parts of the code segment that are left in English are what Scientist is choosing to focus on. (Her doll kissing her/loving her despite the treatment she’s been subjected to). She can read the rest of the data, can see the kind of stress she’s putting Lilith under, but she’s actively ignoring it.

So if you translate the binary, you get the full idea of what the memory looks like. But since this is a post mortem and I keep revealing my secrets and ruining the mystery, I’ll show you what the statements are supposed to say. 

THE DOLL LISTENS TO YOU.

DOLL CLINGS TO YOUR EVERY WORD.

REACHES FOR YOU.

FOR YOU.

YOU REJECT THE ONLY PERSON THAT LOVES YOU. 

THE DOLL LOVES YOU.

Me when I’m in an evil situationship/creator competition and my opponent is Scientist. 

Part C: Mother’s Doll

(*speaking of mother/daughter doubling/mirrors, mothercreator and daughterdoll, hit manhwa like mother like daughter!! Please read…)

The use of dolls in fiction is so good. It’s so good. Here’s a metaphor you can dress up and play with! But! You must be extremely careful with how you use her because she’s fragile. Couple that with the idea of parental rejection/the desire for control and you have a story like Present Perceptual. 

I’ve been playing with the idea of dolls/agency long before Present Perceptual. I keep returning to the idea of characters not agreeing to their assigned roles in a story and seeking a way out. (Wrote a ten minute play for a class last semester all about this, but yurimag 3 is what I consider to be the standout.)

Anyway, dolls, control, mother, daughter, lack of agency, lack of consent–all good themes to tackle during a Pygmalion themed game. Lilith is Helena’s personal project, her freak metal baby, but most importantly, she’s her perfect, wonderful doll. And she is going to stay that way. 

There’s this specific piece of fanart for Severance that I would come back to while writing part two/three. It’s an Eagan family portrait, featuring a young Helena clinging to a doll version of Helly. It’s gorgeous. It’s horrific. It’s literally everything I wanted to do with my own creator/creation dynamic. 

Credits to @elysionarts over on Twitter. I thought about the Eagans and Raggedy Helly for days…. 

A few days later, witty sent me this wire mother drawing which is equally horrific!

And finally had these specific stills from Evangelion because 5% of Present Perceptual is made up of Eva references… One for George and one for Scientist…

I’m gonna be so honest when I tell you I was pissed at my inability to draw because dolls as a symbol of parental control/lack of agency are SO PEAK in visual form. (*hiiii i don’t like to draw dolls because i spent a semester making them on a time limit and they came WRONG but they were forced to exist anyways… felt super guilty because they were trapped in that form and i also didn’t love them. also ended up burning most of them come winter… sorry dolls im not meant for that kind of responsibility.) 

Dolls get the horror of control across in such a visceral manner… so awesome… I loved using art of them as a reference for writing. 

But I think with all of these images swirling in my head, I felt like I had to try harder to get the horror of being “Mother’s Doll” across. I had to get the feeling of control being ripped away. 

It’s no surprise that whenever I was writing Scientist touch Lilith’s face, I was thinking about the wire mother of the century, Makima. And it’s no surprise that I was thinking about Rei whenever I wrote Lilith responding to her touch. 

But at the time of production, I was so worried that the story was going to be nothing but a bunch of references. No substance. Was I washed? Was I some fraud?

(Smash cut to several weeks later and multiple–multiple–reviews are commenting on how horrific Present Perceptual is… Mainly because Helena Scientist is so fucking scary to her metal baby.)

(The scene where she pries Lilith’s mouth open before calling her a disgrace is one of my favorites.  It wasn’t in the outline. Or at least, what I had in my head originally wasn’t supposed to be that scary. But now she’s horrifying and holds nothing but hate for her little doll.

Rip to the humanize Scientist campaign. I made her too scary… Do you all still think she’s hot though…)

Violet

Part A: Consent 

In pre-production, Violet– or Nice Girl as we called her for the longest time– was supposed to be the inverse of Helena. She views Lilith as a person, gets confused at the idea of “not being real”, and she uses her prosthetic to bond with Lilith. All of this comes together to give Lilith her first and only reference for genuine kindness. 

And I think I succeeded in Violet’s character pitch. She really is a nice girl that would have treated Lilith well if Lilith was under her care. That being said, Violet is also very perceptive, doesn’t seem to be entirely swayed by Helena’s charm, and is ultimately the connective tissue on the game’s overarching theme of consent. (*scientistxnicegirl my otp…. back when george was going to die, scientist was going to keep on going with her project until lo and behold, she achieved what she wanted. Then she was going to present it to the board, and get sent straight to jail for the multiple broken laws and ethical violations. THEN nice girl, VIOLET, would visit her in prison and scientist would get so mad. Theyd write a book together and never get together. Rip diva. You couldve had something.)

(note from me: Their ten year academic semi toxic not-yuri could go crazy but it would be like the L + Light stare for 50k and idk if i can sit with either of them for that long. Maybe one day…)

In the game, it’s mentioned that Violet has a prosthetic arm. But while Lilith–and by extension the audience–are only shown prosthetics that are made through consensual means, Violet explains that this prosthetic wasn’t something she willingly chose. 

Somewhere in post-production, I realized just how much a lack of agency is ingrained in the characters’ lives. And what’s even more interesting is how they respond to that lack of control.

Exhibit A: Lilith is never given the full picture about having a body when she is still a computer. She can’t consent under this condition, leading her to be confused and saddened by her inability to mirror humanity perfectly. 

Exhibit B: Helena’s access to robotics is very sanitized and restricted, causing her to act in reckless and harmful ways after deciding to make a robot in her home. 

Exhibit C: Violet is a child when she gets into a major car accident. When she wakes up in the hospital, she has been given a prosthetic arm. This causes a rift between her and her peers/family on account of the physical trauma being so tangible. And while she currently aims to understand the blurry lines between man and machine, she still has these lingering feelings of isolation that Lilith relates to.

Bonus Exhibit: Literally everyone undergoing the Ship of Theseus robot surgery. I dunno… replacing your individual body with a metallic one that probably looks exactly the same as other participants… Stripping yourself of “you”... Wanna know what the thought process is like…

Part B: Control

Violet name dropping Helena wasn’t in the outline. Her being a little snarky and calling Helena out for her false personality also wasn’t in the outline. These were spur of the moment decisions, but honestly, I think it gives Violet more depth. Like yeah I don’t really like you, but I’m probably the only one in the world that can match your freak/clock your falseness. 

One thing that I wanted to focus on with Violet rather than Lilith or Helena was how she spoke. She’s very casual in her speech until Lilith explains to her what’s happening. From there she takes a more formal/strict tone, similar to Scientist, but even then she does it in a way that feels more human than Scientist. So the difference in language feels special, clocking Helena’s bullshit feels special, because Violet is a complete outsider but she’s somehow more of a person than Helena can ever be. 

(Their toxic academic not-yuri-yuri would go so crazy. It could be a truly insufferable, terrible time all around, but in a fun way? Nicegirlxscientist is my personal experiment. I wanna lock them in an elevator like in Pressure Cooker and see what happens.)

So glad people seem to really enjoy Violet. She’s my favorite character. Was able to truly get under Helena’s skin because she has Dr. Limos as a professor, like she knows arrogance when she sees it. 

OH YOU LIKE MUSIC? NAME EVERY SONG (sharing the playlist)

For every wittyfrenchie endeavor where we share a cast of characters, we like to make a playlist. Most of the songs are not like, reflective of the story, but it’s more a vibes-based situation. 

So when we weren’t in the pits of using free music for Present Perceptual, we could be seen here, listening to peak while we worked on the game. 

(*screenshot of the playlist taken sometime late july. As of now (aug 5, 2025 - frenchie’s birthdayyyyy) faith torn apart isn’t available on spotify fuck my stupid baka life (happy birthday frenchie…). Respect xiu xiu for taking a stand but ouuuu…. Link to it on youtube. Phenomenal song btw. Listen if you have the chance. Frenchie will go more in depth.)

Gonna do a lightning round explanation for why I chose my songs and it’ll actually be quick this time I promise.

1. Paranoid Android - We got an android and she sure as hell is paranoid. Also I thought the lines “Ambition makes you look pretty ugly/God loves his children” were fitting lines for Scientist and the kind of person she is. 

1. All I need - A song that makes me think about Lilith. Animal trapped in a hot car/insect trying to get in the warmth of someone else’s light. Also I love this song. I think the climax and repetition of “All is wrong/All is right” feels like it fits act three- the best and only part of the game. 

1. Geyser - I wanna shout out the goat for having multiple Lilith themed songs on her hit album Be the Cowboy. Mitski ily you’re always my top artist on Spotify. Anyway, I picked Geyser because “turning down the hands of other people/the harmony is harming me/I will be the one you need” are all very Lilith concepts… 

1. I’m Every Sparkly Woman - I was thinking about our friend El’s poem, I’m Every Sparkly Machine while I was writing Lilith, even if I didn’t realize it at the time of production. Still, when making the playlist, Sparkly Machine found its way in through Sparkly Woman. Also “whatever you want/whatever you need/i’ll do it naturally” is prime Lilith… she makes me so sad, man… Lilithgeorge my darling robot I’ll be nicer to you I swear… 

1. Killing Time - I LOVE MAGDALENA BAY!!! I LOVE EM!!! IMAGINAL DISK IS SUCH A GOOD ALBUM!!! I’ve used Imaginal Disk for other stories/characters before but I needed to include it somehow for Present Perceptual. Literally the idea behind the album is a girl getting a disk implanted in her brain that changes her into a “better version of herself”, only for her body to reject it, and she has to come to terms with being human. Peak. Peak. My buddy Lilith can relate. Anyway the lines “I'm looking in the mirror and swallowing the key/It only takes a minute/Now I'm taking mine,” were supposed to be for act three Lilith.

(*ooh i’m going to copy that! 1. Faith Torn Apart - thought how sparkly it sounds fit our theme, the poem at the end is SO crushing. Drenched in despair. Guttural! I thought it would be a good opener to get the vibes of the game.  2. I’m A Fool To Want You - yeah. Self explanatory.  3. I Am A Reflective Surface - yeah. 4. It’s Only Sex - yeahh. Himejo cuck chair. note from frenchie: i can recite most of it’s only sex from memory…. in another life i’m a fuck ass theater kid. 5. Lovefool - see above. Also i thought it flowed into killing time )

ALL OF THESE SONGS ARE GREAT BUT LET ME TELL YOU 🫵 

(*OMG KYAAA IS IT FAITH TORN APART TIME)

ABOUT FAITH, TORN APART!

As I previously mentioned in the first post mortem, the hit album Forget was what carried me through the end of act two and the entirety of act three. While I had been swapping between a bunch of different songs so that way it could fit the scene/mood, Faith, Torn Apart was on constant repeat. I love Faith, Torn Apart.

While initially, I was struck by the instrumentals because of how much they add this sense of dread before the lyrics even kick in. The drone(?) It lasts forty seconds before a tune interrupts it. At first, it felt very much like Present Perceptual- sparkly but ominous- so I could understand Witty’s inclusion for it. Then the drums kick in and I was like, holy shit this song is awesome. 

But it’s the poem at the end that really stuck with me. Witty describes it as drenched in despair, and yeah! I agree! 

However, when I listened to Faith, Torn Apart for the first time, I was a little confused by the poem. Upon relistenting, I could pick apart a focus on what appeared to be young girls with lines like “My braces are real/My pose is for you/My family will never see me again”. And of course there was the final gut punch of: “Do anything you like/Because I was born dead/And I was born to die.”

The more I listened, the more I understood the poem to be about a young girl of some kind, but I was left wanting to know why the poem was included in Faith, Torn Apart. I searched online but all I could find were reddit threads ranking Forget rather than anything specific analysis regarding Faith. Even Genius annotations couldn’t offer me anything. I was left searching and searching…

But then I got access to this article, which describes the production surrounding Forget. In the article, the poem in Faith is described as this:

“The poem, which you’ll need to listen to on “Faith, Torn Apart” to hear, features a litany of fictional, matter-of-fact statements made in the first-person, spoken in the anonymous voices of the girls in those photographs. They combine to form something deeply discomfiting, extraordinarily humane in its evocation of these young girls’ oppression, alternately violent and innocent in its language. It is, to put it another way, a work by Jamie Stewart. Davis’s voice lends weight to the piece, one that eventually — as it should — accrues enough heft to feel crushing.”

I feel like Faith, Torn Apart succeeds in its crushing portrayal of hopelessness.  The poem is so simple. It’s just a series of observations. A series of sentences that make up a bunch of girls' lives, even if they aren’t true. 

While I found out all of the extra information after we had wrapped up production on Present Perceptual, I’m glad that this song was what helped me finish the script. It’s so haunting, and as the article described, both violent and innocent. 

 Witty says that she pictured Lilith just staring at herself in the mirror as she repeats the lines from the poem. I think I had a similar idea when I was writing. 

I also think that she learns to let go of the poem’s contents after the events of act three, simply because she’s in a place where she doesn’t need it anymore.  

Credits to io on twitter – Made me think of Lilith, on her road trip.