FOR EVERY FIVE LILITH'S THERE'S A GEORGE (POST MORTEM)

It's the first week post game jam and I still care about the robot.

This post contains:

-the perils of writing a 20k story in six weeks,

-a more realized sense of confusion towards compsci majors,

-a deep hatred for the vn software known as Ren’py (and metal),

-a multiple page review of the 2004 film Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence,

-and [6k words of FULL SPOILERS] for Present Perceptual Consciousness.

ABANDON FAITH ALL YE WHO ENTER (fear)

Picture this dear viewer, the year is 2025, the time is I don't know but we're gonna say middle of May- and I get a message from Witty. It's a link for a game jam, one that expects and promotes the messy relationships between women. You know her as 'Toxic Yuri'. Some of you may be very familiar with her and that's wonderful. Unfortunately for me, the idea of a game jam- a toxic yuri one at that- revealed a few glaring issues. 

ISSUE 1: When I was younger, I developed a severe distaste for the 'sad parts' in movies. To this day, I still have no idea why I hated dramatic third act breakups or moments where the main characters split up after a fight. If it was anxiety or second hand embarrassment, I'm not sure. All I know is that this distaste spiralled into an aversion for any kind of external conflict. Specifically, external conflict that toxic yuri tends to build itself on. 

Toxic yuri is about terrible people. Toxic yuri is about repression.(*note from witty: i love repression! Big fan… lets stay repressed forever and die without closure on our feelings) Toxic yuri is about holding onto shitty feelings and having those shitty feelings manifest in the worst ways possible. 

And I don't usually write stuff like that. 

ISSUE 2: My stories- whether its fanfic or original stuff- tend to feature internal conflict. They feature losers that are Trying™ their best. They are about people who are Good at Heart and are lovable despite their emotional hangups. That's my bread and butter, that's where I'm the most comfortable. And while I had stepped out of my comfort zone a few times for my classes, writing a story about shitty people in shitty situations just made me nervous. 

But I was willing to try it out. I hadn't written anything yuri related for months because of school. And it would be fun to work on something with Witty again… since yk. love each other and all that… 

HOWEVER LOVE COULD NOT SAVE US FROM THE FOLLOWING ISSUES! 

WHY? 

WELL:

ISSUE 3:

After pushing past my fears of toxic yuri for the sake of another certified Wittyfrenchie Collab, I came to a much scarier realization. 

This is a game jam. 

ISSUE 4:

And neither of us know how to make a game. 

FIRST WE LIVED IN TOWNS THEN WE LIVED IN CITIES NOW WE’RE GOING TO LIVE ON THE INTERNET (premise)

In the weeks leading up to the game jam's start, we were busy getting used to Renpy since neither of us were familiar with it. This proved to be very difficult as “piss baby easy” Renpy hated us. 

It hated us. (*The first hurdle was reading properly. Instructions on how to install renpy, how to use renpy, and the likes. Spoilers, we couldn’t. Not a strong start for a visual Novel…) 

After we defeated the evil that was ‘following basic directions’, we made a test game that was silly and fun and lasted no more than thirty seconds. However, the fact that we managed to make a thirty second game at all was rather rewarding. It gave us some(?) confidence in ourselves. This rush of confidence led us to the second phase of pre game jam life: Actually Planning Our Game. 

Originally, our pitch for a toxic yuri submission was going to be very different. After wanting to use an elaborate idea meant for a different visual novel only to have the wind knocked out of us post Ren’py Hurdles, we were left without a submission to work towards. This worried me deeply. 

Until:

Revelation. 

About a year or so ago, I came across this artist on Tiktok who had an insane talent for drawing machines. Their page was filled with nature drawings and cute girls and most importantly, very elaborate doodles of robots. A specific robot character would pop onto their page again and again, revealing the story of a young college student that goes on to create a lifelike robot in her dorm room.

(*we also had a scrapped scifi issue of yurimag. I couldn’t figure out how to draw space, on account of it being. Uh. Space. Also im very fond of shaws pygmalion. We should have more pygmalion yuri forever because i think it’s yummy. I kept pestering frenchie to read pygmalion because i’m annoying)

These posts were really interesting to me. I liked the robot’s design and how intricate it was. I liked the way the robot would ask the girl “Are you my creator?” in one post only to be seen leaning in for a kiss in the next. While the story was nothing more than a few drawings in a series of scattered Tiktok posts, the idea of robot yuri set to the tune of creator/creation stuck in my head. 

I wanted to work with this idea for a fiction class I was taking at the time, but I never went through with it. The foundation of the story was shaky and required levels of external conflict that I wasn’t sure how to handle within eight pages. (Which was the maximum page count for the assignments in that class.) So I let the idea fade away for months on end until I remembered it just in time for the toxic yuri season. 

I thought about this idea more and more. I was uncomfortable with the initial setup of a college student creating a robot so I began to twist the idea of ‘the creator’. I eventually landed on someone who was smart but arrogant. Someone who was charming but detached. Someone who was experienced in love but knew exactly how to twist the boundaries of these feelings. 

(*wittys moodboard, made during the latter half of the game jam. But I wanted lesbian henry higgins from the start. Very pleased with the outcome… )

As I pitched these ideas to Witty, I gave examples as to what kind of characters the creator should be modeled after in terms of personality. (In my notes I wrote down Harmony Cobel from Severance and Leon Greco from Ted Chiang’s Understand. Nathan Limos from Dr. Limos Plays God came into the picture later, but I had a solid idea for what eventually became Miss Scientist, or Helena, as I later called her in my head.)

(Helena Eagan was also a personality reference for Scientist, but that’s strictly for act three. In acts one and two, Scientist feels like a mix of Dr. Limos and Ms. Cobel to me.) 

(*Frenchie gave the genius suggestion to make her hot (i initially planned to have her face stay offscreen, cut off at the top, sprite only showing from neck down didn’t want to design characters who said that) and wanted her to have eyebags (hot!) then bam! bam! Scientist was born. On the second try! Rectangular glasses and small, pointed chin, sharp nose, etc. i wanted her to have lots of points and angles, but for her hair and posture to soften the silhouette.)

(here’s her laughing. I don’t think we actually use this sprite ever. I wanted a sprite that showed up like once, a ‘huh, you can make that kind of expression after all, just not towards me.’ Also fun fact about the hands, all of the sprites used the same hand layer and i just tweaked it a little to make it less obvious. Because i didn’t want to render more hands!) 

Once we had a set design and personality for Scientist, it was easy to come up with a plot around her. We went back and forth talking about the kind of world she lives in, the kind of life she leads, and these conversations served as the beginning of the world that is seen in Present Perceptual Consciousness.

However, there was a problem. While we were getting to know the creator well, we still had no clue what to do with her creation. 

Lilith’s character pitch was harder for me to come up with. I kept getting stuck on her personality. More specifically, I was stuck on what I wanted her to look like. Scientist was easy. The internet loves beautiful evil women, there’s no shortage of them when it comes to references. But the robot? I wasn’t sure.

I couldn’t really picture a traditional robot interacting with Scientist, and Witty would avoid the subject. When we talked about plot details such as ripping out her wires in a fit of anger or being a witness to Scientist’s sex life - (Himejoshi cuck chair was one of the first scenes we planned lmao) - I thought it would be more emotional if the robot looked human. I’ve always liked human robot designs and I liked the idea of the robot having these big eyes that were off putting and strange. 

(*initial planning for ui ft. some scrapped cgs and layouts, closeup on himejoshi cuck chair.)

But then we ran into another problem. We still hadn’t found a purpose for the robot. Without a purpose, we couldn’t figure out what kind of girl Scientist wants to make. It was really fucked up. It hindered our progress for a solid week. It kickstarted our initial hatred towards the robot, as nothing about her was easy. (More on this later.)

After going back and forth again, we ended up with a scientist that wants to create a lifelike robot as a way to prove something. (*Dr. Limos you can’t keep winning like this….. Seriously guys go read dr limos plays god it should be on itch.) Her reasons for her experiment ended up being a mixture of wanting to win an award/wanting to quit her job/wanting to be Special in the eyes of the scientific community. 

That last reason stuck with me. Why would making a robot suddenly turn her into someone special? Robots already exist in real life. The science fiction genre has turned to robotic characters since its inception. Creating a realistic girl wouldn’t get Scientist any points in her community. But then Aha! Second revelation!

Robots are banned in this chrome tinged future. (*and we called it chrome city.)

(* everything in chrome city is blue and has futurist stylings. It sucks there. Greatest city in the world.)

Once we banned robots, it was easier for me to come up with a solid motivation for Scientist as well as explain why she needs to build a robot in her house. If robots were banned then Scientist would have to act in secret. This made her desire to be special in academia carry a lot more weight to it. Like yeah…. I made a robot…  yeah…. It’s banned… I’m so #cool.

The idea of banning robots really set the groundwork for the setting in Present Perceptual Consciousness. We ended up tossing ideas around regarding the ban and people’s reactions to it. 

Eventually the timeline of events ended up looking like this:

• Sometime in the not so distant past people tried to make human-like robots. 
• Although cool, this raises ethical concerns about robot rights and mistreatment.
• Rather than integrate robots into society, the government got scared over a potential robot uprising and Banned them. 
• Production of robots is now very limited and can land you in JAIL if not approved!! 
• It's been years since the robot ban and now the style of our metallic oomfs is coming back in the form of high end fashion. 
• Rich people are now altering their bodies via augmentation 
• Scientist works for/is in close contact with these people. 
• This is the part where I wrote down in my notes “Your transhumanism sucks while mine is cool!!!” I think this sets the tone for Scientist and her views on the world rather well. 
• (*she hates her well paying job! Shes one of the top people in her field! Shes looking down on everyone theyre squandering her talents on [JOB] no shes not leaving her job are you stupid. 0 future nobel prizes, 0 emotional commitment, 7 MILLION ways her transhumanism is better, trust.) 

So yay we got a proper motive, that’s great, that’s wonderful-

However,

ISSUE 5: 

We still have no design for our robot.

HATE! HATE! LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I'VE COME TO HATE YOU SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE (struggle)

In act two and three I got very invested in Lilith’s character arc, which was the intended goal. However, getting to that point was a major hassle. 

See, I tend to write things in chronological order. I need to start at the beginning of stories so I can lay the foundation for a satisfying conclusion. I do this with everything, even essays and other assignments for school. So if I can’t think of a solid beginning that hits my standards, I tend to get stuck, which is not ideal for a game jam.

I spent a week stuck at the beginning. I was unsure about everything. I kept swapping between first and third person before landing shakily at second. I kept switching tones, and ideas, and I had three versions of a story that I wasn’t sure of.

(*at this point, we had a rough idea of the layout, colour scheme, all the scientist sprites done, but still NO ROBOT. She was just eyes...)

I had never written scifi. Had never written toxic yuri. My robot’s narrative voice was not as clear as her creator’s. I thought it was over. There was no future for me in the game jam world, I was considering throwing in the towel out of shame.

…But then Witty told me to… write an outline… instead of doing my usual shtick of “winging it until something feels right”… and suddenly I felt a lot better. Revelation three: winging things in a game jam is bad. 

So I made an outline and began working on the script that you see in the final game. Act one is my least favorite of the three and I feel like it shows more than I like. This is for a variety of reasons. 

I purposely chose a more detached, clinical narrative voice for act one, rather than my typical “emotional girl” voice. I was writing a science fiction narrative that required an initial sense of confusion and fear. 

Worst of all, I was learning how to code on Renpy at the same time. Most of this experience involved youtube tutorials and good old trial and error. I developed a routine of banging out a few hundred words and shoving it into Renpy. While it eventually became formulaic and even fun at certain points, getting nvl mode to work, and also understanding how to change the ui to my liking felt like being repeatedly bashed in the head with a hammer. 

I don’t understand how people make video games willingly. 

I don’t understand how people major in compsci either.

My time with Renpy made me realize that.

(*my time with renpy also made me realize that.)

So yeah. Act one was made under new and frightening conditions. 

But while I was in the trenches of writing and coding, Witty was dealing with something much scarier:

ISSUE 6:

Designing our robot.

(*baka robot, as i was calling her for most of the time, was a nightmare to work with! Initially, we planned to have parts where she had no skin, then she gets skin. (wow.) this proved to be difficult on account of four things!!! 

1. I didn’t know how i wanted the robot anatomy to work 

2. I didn’t like drawing metal

3. The existence of wireplay means i have to draw said wires

4. She was just eyes. Eyes without a face even)

(at this point, scientist and nice girl, or violet as you may know her as, already had their sprites finished. All that was left was our robot! And time was ticking! Time was ticking and she was eyes!!!)

(*as you can see, violet used to be purple.)

Note from Frenchie: That’s why she’s named Violet tbh… Violet is Violet because she used to be violet. Fun fact: her full name was supposed to be Violet Haraway, after Donna Jean Haraway- the philosopher that wrote the Cyborg Manifesto. Her last name goes unmentioned in the final game because Witty thought it sounded too similar to Nick Carraway and neither of us fuck with the Great Gatsby like that. 

(*suffering, struggling, i decided to give her whatever scientist and nice girl didnt have, shape and expression-wise. (you are the first person to ever have a side part) It seemed to be a hit with frenchie so i went with it)

(initial coloured sketch- BRO THINKS SHES FRANKENSTEINS MONSTER STRANGE GOLD EYES that didn't feel very cohesive with the [everything else] so we switched to electric blue, which didn’t provide enough contrast and was very scary in a bad way, then we finally landed on wire red! yay!)

(some concept stuff for baka robots body and structure. Do i know anything about how to build a functioning robot? Not really. Did i have to make puppets at some point in life? Several. I also took anatomy so i just eyeballed things. Hey girl lets get you something resembling a venous system, you’re sooo human. Also in the top right, you can see some rough sketches of what would have been her skinless sprites.)

(ok lets talk about her skinless sprites now. Some background on my sprite creation process, because they all had similar silhouettes and i was rendering features, i found it easier to paint in layers, which is how i ended up face to face for hours with this: )

(work in progress! I was cussing the whole time baka robot baka robot. Metal is a pain, wires are a pain, symmetry? Shhhh let’s not talk about that. You know how theres an ugly phase in rendering, where you just have to trust the process and keep rendering until things looked good? This ugly phase was so long and so despair inducing i wondered if it would last forever. And yeah kinda… THE INDIVIDUAL TEETH BECAUSE I THOUGHT IT WOULD LOOK STRANGE IF SHE JUST HAD A BOXERS MOUTHGUARD AND SHES STARING. BAKA ROBOT BAKA ROBOT. SHE STARED THAT BLANK STARE AS I MISERABLY RENDERED METAL. FOR HOURS BECAUSE I DON’T LIKE TO RENDER METAL. BUG EYES TAUNTING ME. ITS A BEAUTIFUL SUNNY DAY AND YOU ARE RENDERING THIS BAKA ROBOT. so yeah theres a part of me that will never love lilith 100%, because this resentment is there… my creation….. and we didn’t even use the skinless sprites because she was scaring the hoes and it actively made the reading experience worse)

(you see her in the corner of your eye wyd. She looks so skinless and ugly but i was proud… and then she wasn’t used…. Most of my time SPENT ON HER, WASTED. Its ok though lilith, frenchie will love you) 

After weeks of pain and anguish, our robot finally had a face. Her sprites are what you see in the final game. I really like the design. I think she hits an intersection that blurs the line between looking cute and strange. Probably scary too… Cause like… Red eyes that glow in the dark… Jesus…

(*are you seeing this shit)

She made my reading experience worse.

Anyway, the design was set. Act one was completed writing and code wise. Although we still had a ways to go, we were on our way to completing an actual game? 

WHY GHOST IN THE SHELL 2 IS BETTER THAN THE FIRST ONE (intermission) 

Before I started devoting myself to Present Perceptual Consciousness full time, I looked at material that would eventually be used as a point of reference in terms of the story’s broader themes/ideas. The places my research led me were rather strange. I read a series of short stories, one involving a toaster having sex with a home assistant (Wanting Things by Cal Ritterhoff) and another that studied the twenty years it takes for AI to grow into a real person. (The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang.) Both of these were rather informative- even if I didn’t like them very much, it’s so fucked up because Ted Chiang is my goat- but I had one reference material that stuck out more than the rest.

Ghost in the Shell is a movie about augmented humans finding meaning in a world where their bodies do not belong to them. Sporting gorgeous character designs along with a thorough and “deep” exploration of transhumanism, Ghost in the Shell is one of those movies that supposedly go beyond the preconceived notion of “anime”. Its influence stretched into The Matrix and other works that explore transhumanism. I can see why it is considered to be a cultural touchstone, and I can understand its many, many praises.

That being said I thought it was ASS–

Okay. 

Look.

Ghost in the Shell (1995) is well made on a technical level. I thought the animation and music were incredible. I thought the introductory credits scene that featured lines of code before flipping to a reconstructed version of the Major was creative, and interesting, and it easily became my favorite part of the film.

But holy shit it was so boring.

The plot was loose and failed to captivate me, the dialogue felt dense and dry in a way that fell flat for me, and I was so uncomfortable at the camera’s fixation on the Major’s boobs every time she had an action sequence. While I understood that her sexualization is a symptom of her Belonging to the State, but literally every time her boobs came out this letterboxd review would pop into my head:

Yeah. I didn’t like Ghost in the Shell. 

That being said:

Its sequel Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence is a completely different story.

Fucking loved Ghost in the Shell 2. 

You, dear reader, will now sit with me as I explain why I love Ghost in the Shell 2. 

First of all, it actually has a plot. Mirrored after noir thrillers, Innocence is a crime drama set in a world that is filled with cyborgs and robots. While robots were touched upon in the previous film, they are given the full spotlight here. 

After a series of violent deaths that are reported to be caused by malfunctioning gynoids, detectives Batou and Togusa are sent to investigate on account of Section 9 dealing primarily with robot centered crimes. As Batou and Togusa begin to piece together the crime, the case leads them to bizarre places such as gun fights with yakuza members, cyborg brain hacking, and memory mind spirals that are designed to break the ego.

Second of all, its overstuffed exploration of its themes actually worked for me here.

My favorite example of this is a very long sequence towards the end of the movie where Batou is thrown into a final showdown with the villain. The villain’s main threat in this story is his ability to hack the brains of cyborgs, which directly impacts Batou and Togusa on account of them being augmented. These hackings result in nightmare level mind melt scenarios that involve Batou and Togusa dying multiple times just so they can find the exit. 

The final showdown concludes in three back to back to back monologues where the villain and Batou talk about philosophy and it's the coolest thing ever.

But no one talks about it because you never hear about Innocence only about Ghost in the Shell and Ghost in the Shell isn’t even that good–

Anyway, I really liked Innocence. Although the use of CGI held it back in terms of artistic style for me, I thought the story made up for its predecessor greatly. A letterboxd review called it “an improvement on the source material in every way” and I’ve never agreed with anything more.

Really, it’s a masterclass at exploring themes of transhumanism and philosophy. It’s also a banger story about a gritty detective guy and his cyborg dog. I can't recommend it enough.

Innocence was also the last movie I watched before devoting myself to Present Perceptual Consciousness full time and its influence definitely bled into the game.

HARRY HARLOW IS EVIL AND DEAD SO WHEN I USED HIS PAPERS IN MY GAME I DIDN’T CREDIT HIM (connecting the dots)

There’s this scene in Innocence that stuck with me as I began to work on act two. It's a scene with Batou, Togusa, and a medical examiner known only as Haraway. Haraway studies the cause of a murderous gynoid’s malfunction and eventually marks it as a purposeful act of suicide. This confuses the detectives greatly, and Haraway puts out her cigarette to explain the reason for the gynoid’s malfunction. 

The scene isn’t longer than five minutes, but it eventually served as one of the game’s core themes.

I couldn’t find an official transcript of the english dub which is the one I watched, and I don’t feel like linking a video of the scene since the one I found is in not great condition. Here is a transcript of the original version that was translated into English. The rest of the script can be found here.

Haraway: "Humans are different from robots. That's an article of faith, like black isn't white. It's no more helpful than the basic fact that humans aren't machines.

"Unlike industrial robots, the androids and gynoids designed as 'pets,' weren't designed along utilitarian or practical models. Instead, we model them on a human image, an idealized one at that. Why are humans so obsessed with recreating themselves?”

"Do you have children?"

Togusa: "A daughter."

Haraway: "Children have always been excluded from the customary standards of human behavior, if you define humans as beings who possess a conventional identity and act out of free will. Then what are children who endure in the chaos preceding maturity? They differ profoundly from 'humans,' but they obviously have human form. The dolls that little girls mother, are not surrogates for real babies. Little girls aren't so much imitating child rearing, as they are experiencing something deeply akin to child rearing."

Togusa: "What on earth are you talking about?"

Haraway: "Raising children is the simplest way to achieve the ancient dream of artificial life. At least, that's my hypothesis."

Togusa: "Children aren't dolls!"

Batou: "Descartes didn't differentiate man from machine, animate from inanimate. He lost his beloved five-year-old daughter and then named a doll after her, Francine. He doted on her. At least that's what they say."

Ghost in the Shell and Innocence both carry these Ship of Theseus style themes that eventually come to the same conclusion regarding man and machine and the difference between them. There is no difference. In a world where cyborgs and robots are running around, feeling as much as a human does, then how long will it be until the degrees of separation disappear altogether? 

In Ghost in the Shell, man and machine are already united.

In Present Perceptual Consciousness, man and machine are on the verge of being united.

And if the divide is starting to disappear in Present Perceptual Consciousness, then what does that mean for an android like Lilith?

Nothing. It means nothing.

You know why? 

Enter Wire Mother:

(*BEHOLD! Doodles of scientist as i was deftly avoiding the cgs! Wire mother shirt because heh. Our robot has wires and also for obvious reasons (yay double meanings!), more things where i try to hype myself up for the wireplay cg which didn’t make it in because i failed, and dr. employee.)

I’m being so for real when I tell you that the wire mother drawing of Scientist changed everything for me. 

Before I started writing act two, I was having thoughts on the connections between mothers/children/dolls/robots but I had no solid way to lay the foundation for what I wanted to say. I was still unsure how to portray the dynamic I had in mind for creator/creation until Witty showed me the wire mother drawing and it stayed inside my head for days until:

Revelation 4: 

Just make Scientist an evil mom. 

Like it’s obvious in hindsight, but it was four am when I had this realization. I was half asleep and coming back from the bathroom and I felt like the smartest person on the planet. Everything I wanted to do clicked then, and I wrote the beginning of act two, which includes my favorite diary entries from Scientist. 

I think I knocked out after I finished writing them, but I remember being so proud of the lines “It has a face only a mother could love/I can’t even bother to play pretend.” Like that shit felt so good because I knew exactly what kind of person I wanted Scientist to be. (*love that entry! sorry, i understood her…)

She’s a girlboss, she’s a war criminal, she’s a lunatic, she’s a false mother that hates her freak metal baby and she’s never going to die. (*lol)

After I read in depth about Harry Harlow’s cloth mother/wire mother experiments, I wrote the rest of act two as fast as I could. As Helena began to grow cold(er) and more detached, the way that I wrote Lilith changed as well. 

While Lilith’s feelings for Helena are undoubtedly romantic by the end of act one, the further I got into act two/three, the further that initial sense of love changed. Lilith’s affection for her creator was a mixture of romantic and platonic, a mixture of deep admiration and this paralyzing fear of abandonment. 

Throughout the game, Lilith repeatedly attempts to reconnect with her network. As she clings to her false mother- the one that ripped her away from her network in the first place- only to be met with rejection, her mental state stumbles. She wants to be with humanity, but she can never understand them. She wants to be free of a body, but she craves her creator’s touch. She wants to be loved, but she can never receive it on account of what? Not being real? She isn’t sure.

I had this specific tumblr post in my head as I finished act two. At this point, I was so attached to Lilith. Probably because I saw her as a little monkey clinging to a wire mother that actively refuses to comfort her. It fucked me up. I felt really bad for my creation. 

As I closed act two, I was listening to the hit album Forget by Xiu Xiu. For an entire afternoon I had Faith, Torn Apart on repeat.  The poem that closes the song also made me feel really bad for my creation. Like jesus christ I was in the emotional trenches.

(*at this point in time, I was listening to it’s only sex on repeat and drawing himejoshi cuck chair at long last…) 

This is important because:

I CHANGED THE ENDING (forgiveness)

It’s the final days of the game jam. I’m speedrunning through the third act as fast as I can. I’m writing like I’m being hunted by God, I’m figuring out what music we should use in the game, I’m ending my summer classes, I’m stressed out of my goddamn mind because what if we don’t finish when we’re so close to the end? 

Suddenly, it's the last day of the game jam and I’m coming down with a cold. My throat is sore, my sinuses are messed up, I’m developing the beginning of a fever when I send Witty a message. 

I loved her I loved her soooo much I gave a fuck I gave so much of a fuck Lilith my little baby monkey my stupid baka robot my dearest darling GEORGE

That’s what we called her during the production of act two/three by the way. George on account of her wire mother/cloth mother character shift, and also because her sprite without hair vaguely resembled a baby monkey. Also, she’s just curious. (*gay little monkey in the apple store)

Originally Lilith was going to be the one to die at the end of the game. We had thought that the story should end in tragedy, with Helena never changing and Lilith being rebuilt so the cycle could start anew just under different circumstances. 

And I was so close to the ending. I was so close. I just had to speedrun towards the end, and Witty could plug the last of the script into Renpy, and we could fix the music, and I would finally be free from the evilness that is putting together a video game.

(*sidenote: i think its really swell that frenchie made me give a fuck about baka robot as well… day-one-hater-pull-the-plug-patrick-abort-that-thing me! I blame the fact that we named her and that frenchie can write well :(  i was in the doc commenting things like GEORGE. god.)

(Note from me: I was celebrating the fact that I made Witty Care about the robot. If I could make the number one hater care about the baka robot, then anyone could. It made me feel good about myself.) 

But oh my god I couldn’t do it. I cared? I cared so much? I felt so strongly for this computer girl that wants to be a radio tower? I wanted her to see the ocean and to eat burgers and to find genuine love and to be a person on her own terms? (*i dont think she can actually taste the burgers, being a robot and all but hey, let her find out on her own terms.)

(Note from me: no yeah she definitely can’t taste. I think eating a shitty burger is peak character development though.) 

So yeah. Swapped the ending. 

Some other changes include the fight at the end being much more physical rather than verbal, and Helena’s villain monologue being cut since I thought her “I can see your memories” monologue was so fucked up and there was no way to top it. 

And suddenly, I was writing the confrontation scene and adding an error sequence that wasn’t in the outline. I was listening to Jenny Gogo on repeat (Forget is such a good album you guys), and I was stuck on the line that vaguely sounded like “save me WOAH” even though it was actually “JENNY WOAH” and then:

The diva was down.

(*RIP)

Rip diva. You lived, you served cunt, you created so much emotional turmoil in your robot that I felt killing you off was the better option. 

(*another sidenote: i find it really interesting how frenchie and i latched onto different characters during development. I think it has to do with the fact that i could maintain some emotional distance between George (was so set on not naming her, so i could resent her in full but well. Here we are.. George it seems im somewhat fond of you… TCH. ) but frenchie needs to get in her head. Legally obligated to give a fuck… to name and to care…. Wtf!!!!! She changed her fate! Out of LOVE!!!!! Scientist was easy peasy for me so no resentment thats my diva, sprites finished first, me when i hate my sourdough starter, my loser...) 

(Note from meeee: It’s how I write things!! If I don’t care about the story then why am I writing in the first place!! It worked though because people cared about george… Witty cared about george… Here’s some evidence on that claim btw.)

(*TCH.)

I like the ending that I came up with. I think it’s dramatic and holds more weight in comparison to what was originally planned. I like the ending sequence where Helena’s hands are finally warm as she’s dying, and I’m really, really proud of the last error sequence.

I also feel like this holds the door open for anything that I want to do in the future with Lilith. While I don’t know if a lengthy visual novel is in store on account of Renpy being evil, I feel like the world can be expanded upon. Short stories? Light novel? Something that won’t be as evil for Witty since the metal sprites left lingering hatred, and something that won’t be strictly timed because that stressed me out so much. 

I just know that I would like to do something in the future. I’d like to write something for Present Perceptual Consciousness that isn’t bound by a limited scope/perspective. I’d like to talk more about chrome city and the people in it. And the idea of different kinds of robots hanging out somewhere.

I’m also interested in Lilith living out of a beat up car/Lilith trying shitty food/Lilith visiting places that she’s only seen through screens/finding love/finding peace/not feeling the need to cling to anyone/just herself/only herself.

(*celebratory doodle for hitting 69 downloads, thank you everyone whos played! And everyone who read to the end!)

✨🐒✨

THIS IS THE SKIN OF A KILLER GEORGE!!!!