innocence-wont-save-you

[innocence-wont-save-you]

(OOC: akjdbdudbdhd thanks for this update. [I’ll be honest I didn’t expect one so quick] Also yes cuddles are good for health and stuff. Also sorry if I’m clogging up your ask box or something.)

OOC: There's a webhook set up in the server for asks so I saw it the moment you sent it, realized I haven't updated yall in a month, and screamed :D But no all good, thank you for checking in!

[innocence-wont-save-you]

[An overseer is ‘sitting’ next to the scavenger as they look at Innocence’s sleeping form.]

Hey bud, isn’t it kinda weird our friend is uh… still sleeping? Like, we should be moving out by now. I mean I know we’ve been waiting for like, six minutes, but it feels like a month! And yeah, I know you don’t understand me.

(OOC: Heyyyy so uh, sorry if it’s rude but I didn’t see a place to submit an ask on the website so I’m asking here. Is this blog ever going to be updated in the near future? If not, do you plan to still continue it or is like, irl stuff putting weight in your shoulders? I wanna join the disc and ask questions but stupid anxiety is making me not do it. If you’re still working on it or left the project, don’t feel pressured to continue, it would be selfish of me to ask that of you.

tl;dr: I kinda just want an update on the current situation Innocence Won’t Save You is in.)

OOC: YES HI HELLO I'M STILL ALIVE THANK YOU FOR ASKING ACTUALLY

Short answer: Yes there's. Shit going on in my life. Mostly school work; this has been one of my busiest quarters so far and I'm constantly swamped with work and haven't had the free time to really sit with IWSY and work out what I want/need to do.

Longer answer: Yes there is currently no way to submit on the website I am so sorry. When I said this would move off Tumblr I meant it and I was finding ways to do that, but I kept hitting roadblocks because I started learning web dev Solely for IWSY. Ultimately my progress on the javascript tutorial stalled (due to aforementioned busyness) and other people let me know that Neocities isn't... the best place to host comments locally? So that threw a wrench into the plans.

I've admittedly not written much for IWSY in the time since I announced we'd be migrating off Tumblr. In hindsight I kind of wish I'd waited a little, but I think this quarter would have done this to me regardless of if I'd wanted to migrate or not. However, I still want to work on IWSY. This project is NOT abandoned. I'm just very busy :'D in a good way though! After a bit of a rough spell, my life right now is, without exaggeration, the best it's ever been, and aside from just plain being busy, I'm also trying to enjoy being alive for once. Unfortunately it means things have been and will continue to be very, very slow here for the foreseeable future.

But I do have a small update. I gave up on trying to code comments locally, and instead found an open source commenting plugin called Isso that I'm hoping to install on the website. Actually doing so will require time I don't currently have since I. Uh. Don't know python. But if all goes well, I will have that set up at some point, and then I can get started on scene 14. I can't guarantee anything on that while this quarter is still going on unfortunately, but I will promise you all that once my summer break starts (which is in June since my school runs on a quarter system), I'll put more time and effort into this again.

If you'd like to help get the comments set up I would deeply appreciate it, but again I don't think I can see myself writing any long form creative fiction until I have the time to dedicate my mind to it, especially given what IWSY is. I'm really sorry about that, but I'm glad to hear that you're still interested in this story! So sorry about the radio silence, I really should have updated a few times since the last post I made, but thank you again for asking and reminding me to at least say something.

So TLDR, no the story isn't dead, I'm just hella busy and trying to appreciate life.

[innocence-wont-save-you]

It's been a week and I haven't found the time to set up the API at all, so we're doing it anyways. Once again, IWSY is no longer being run concurrently on Tumblr, but you can access the story in the same way on the official website.

Logistics of Moving Off Tumblr

With Status Update 13 now complete, I'm following through on what I said before. Scene 14 and onwards will no longer be concurrently updated on Tumblr. All future live updates will instead go on the official IWSY website, and you can find the current scene under the Table of Contents.

I haven't set comments up yet, but I will get on that within the next week; I do have some code on how to implement one, but I have a lot of backend work to sort out before I'm confident about this being any sort of long term solution. If by the end of the week I haven't implemented the comment box on the current scene, you can continue to send in actions through this blog, which will stay up, or you can join the official IWSY Discord server to send your actions there. Functionally, very little should change except the fact that things aren't being live updated over here anymore. The AO3 version will receive no changes.

Additionally, this blog will likely become more of an ask blog tied to IWSY. Plot relevant asks will be marked as such, but since this is no longer being used as the gameplay interface, there's less of a need to keep things delineated. All prior rules stated still apply, don't be unpleasant etc, but honestly the shit yall did on their birthday was hilarious, so why not lmao. Would still appreciate actions being headed by a > sign so it's easier to tell who's playing and who's just sending in asks.

If you've already looked at the site, you might have noticed that the character files tab has a lot of information and also some art (drawn by Viridian!) that hasn't ever been mentioned on Tumblr. Plans to expand that have been made, I just need to find time to write stuff. Expect other additional info like that to pop up on the site, because it gives me far more control over what I display and how I display it, so if you needed extra prompting to go check that out, this is it, wink wink.

A lot of things are in flux right now, but I sincerely hope you enjoy the story enough to stick with me. If not, thank you for sticking around for as long as you did. I'm deeply grateful I've had the chance to write this story at all through all the changes its made. I'm definitely going to keep writing it, it just will look a little different from what I initially imagined, but it's for the better. All of this means so much to me.

Anyway. If no one sends asks in, this will be the last post on this blog for a long while most likely. Been nice talking to you all.

[innocence-wont-save-you]

So when I said the end of the week I actually meant within a week, but I've looked at the code today anyways lmao. There is. A comment box. It doesn't look very nice but it exists. The problem is that the comments don't save, and I need to learn how to do that.

So. Uh. Expect some weird shit to go on with how scene 14 is run I would say. I have to learn how to set up an API for this...

Logistics of Moving Off Tumblr

With Status Update 13 now complete, I'm following through on what I said before. Scene 14 and onwards will no longer be concurrently updated on Tumblr. All future live updates will instead go on the official IWSY website, and you can find the current scene under the Table of Contents.

I haven't set comments up yet, but I will get on that within the next week; I do have some code on how to implement one, but I have a lot of backend work to sort out before I'm confident about this being any sort of long term solution. If by the end of the week I haven't implemented the comment box on the current scene, you can continue to send in actions through this blog, which will stay up, or you can join the official IWSY Discord server to send your actions there. Functionally, very little should change except the fact that things aren't being live updated over here anymore. The AO3 version will receive no changes.

Additionally, this blog will likely become more of an ask blog tied to IWSY. Plot relevant asks will be marked as such, but since this is no longer being used as the gameplay interface, there's less of a need to keep things delineated. All prior rules stated still apply, don't be unpleasant etc, but honestly the shit yall did on their birthday was hilarious, so why not lmao. Would still appreciate actions being headed by a > sign so it's easier to tell who's playing and who's just sending in asks.

If you've already looked at the site, you might have noticed that the character files tab has a lot of information and also some art (drawn by Viridian!) that hasn't ever been mentioned on Tumblr. Plans to expand that have been made, I just need to find time to write stuff. Expect other additional info like that to pop up on the site, because it gives me far more control over what I display and how I display it, so if you needed extra prompting to go check that out, this is it, wink wink.

A lot of things are in flux right now, but I sincerely hope you enjoy the story enough to stick with me. If not, thank you for sticking around for as long as you did. I'm deeply grateful I've had the chance to write this story at all through all the changes its made. I'm definitely going to keep writing it, it just will look a little different from what I initially imagined, but it's for the better. All of this means so much to me.

Anyway. If no one sends asks in, this will be the last post on this blog for a long while most likely. Been nice talking to you all.

[innocence-wont-save-you]

Logistics of Moving Off Tumblr

With Status Update 13 now complete, I'm following through on what I said before. Scene 14 and onwards will no longer be concurrently updated on Tumblr. All future live updates will instead go on the official IWSY website, and you can find the current scene under the Table of Contents.

I haven't set comments up yet, but I will get on that within the next week; I do have some code on how to implement one, but I have a lot of backend work to sort out before I'm confident about this being any sort of long term solution. If by the end of the week I haven't implemented the comment box on the current scene, you can continue to send in actions through this blog, which will stay up, or you can join the official IWSY Discord server to send your actions there. Functionally, very little should change except the fact that things aren't being live updated over here anymore. The AO3 version will receive no changes.

Additionally, this blog will likely become more of an ask blog tied to IWSY. Plot relevant asks will be marked as such, but since this is no longer being used as the gameplay interface, there's less of a need to keep things delineated. All prior rules stated still apply, don't be unpleasant etc, but honestly the shit yall did on their birthday was hilarious, so why not lmao. Would still appreciate actions being headed by a > sign so it's easier to tell who's playing and who's just sending in asks.

If you've already looked at the site, you might have noticed that the character files tab has a lot of information and also some art (drawn by Viridian!) that hasn't ever been mentioned on Tumblr. Plans to expand that have been made, I just need to find time to write stuff. Expect other additional info like that to pop up on the site, because it gives me far more control over what I display and how I display it, so if you needed extra prompting to go check that out, this is it, wink wink.

A lot of things are in flux right now, but I sincerely hope you enjoy the story enough to stick with me. If not, thank you for sticking around for as long as you did. I'm deeply grateful I've had the chance to write this story at all through all the changes its made. I'm definitely going to keep writing it, it just will look a little different from what I initially imagined, but it's for the better. All of this means so much to me.

Anyway. If no one sends asks in, this will be the last post on this blog for a long while most likely. Been nice talking to you all.

[innocence-wont-save-you]

After a few moments of wordlessness from both of you, the scavenger rustles its spines one last time before curling up on the floor, tucking its head under an arm and vanishing into the shadows. You watch it for a few moments, but it doesn't move, clearly committed to getting a night's sleep.

You have no desire to interrupt its sleep, and you've run out of things to say anyways. You move yourself to a more discreet corner while making as little noise as you can manage, carefully putting your lance down before wrapping your arms around your knees again. It's about time you got some rest as well so you're prepared for the trek tomorrow, especially if you end up having to deal with king vultures.

Despite that, you find your thoughts turning back to the scavenger. Scavengers sleep light, you know from Silver's research on them, and are easily startled awake. They tend to be biphasic or triphasic sleepers, with one longer sleep period during the night. It was hard to confirm, but from the records of old tests and experiments that you two trawled through together, it seems this longer sleep period corresponds with slow wave sleep. But some scavengers in those records refused to sleep at night when stressed, particularly if they felt threatened.

You glance in the scavenger's direction again. You can't make out its form in the darkness, but from its even breathing you deduce it successfully dozed off. Sound asleep despite your glaring presence in the room.

You recognize that the scavengers roaming your and Five Pebbles' facility grounds are generations upon generations removed from those in the records you read. Some of those records were written when Day was young, and many were written before she was even constructed, with a few dating back before the Void Fluid revolution. In that much time, with scavengers now roaming free on these lands, a lot of things have likely changed. You don't know if they even know of what their ancestors endured.

Yet, you know innately what the scavenger's quiet sleep means here. Dismissing your busy thoughts, you opt to listen to its soft breaths instead, slowing your own breathing to match it. It's a quiet snuffle, with a hint of a snore every few breaths. The slumbering whispers of a small creature is not something you've heard in such close proximity before.

You let out another sigh before slipping into your own version of sleep. As strange as it is, it's nice to be trusted.

Status Update: 13

You and the scavenger sit in an uncomfortable silence for a few very long moments. It doesn't do anything except stare at you as you reach into your pockets and pull out the last of the worm grass you had; you had better finish it, lest it goes bad. (-3 worm grass)

The scavenger blinks in confusion as you hold the worm grass up to your neurons, then blinks faster as your neurons latch onto the worm grass and begin siphoning nutrients from them. You let it stare as you reach into your pockets for one of the blue pupae. This is possibly the first time it's got a good look at how you actually get your nutrients. You imagine it'll be a good story to tell once it's back with its own kind.

You offer the pupa to it. It tears its gaze away from your neurons to look at the offering, then glances between you and the pupa a few times before nervously accepting the food. It just as delicately nibbles on the food as it resumes its staring at your neurons. (-1 blue fruit)

You wrap your arms around your legs again. Now would be a good time to talk to the scavenger about... anything, really.

[6 actions remaining.]

[innocence-wont-save-you]

Hey innocence, before we go night night, could I ask ya a question? What’s yer opinion on the MLP ship Appledash?

"... what the fuck is Appledash."

[(OOC:) FUCK I forgot to say that’s me asking if any of the other guys want to like, skip to the next scene since my ask probably doesn’t count as an action. SHIT]

OOC: Sorry anon this is EXTREMELY funny, this is getting immortalized /lh anyway posting so others can see it.

[innocence-wont-save-you]

> Could we ask the scavenger a bit about themself? Their name, or perhaps their family/tribe?

Asking for a name would be a great idea, except you don't know how to mime that in the slightest. You don't know the sign for name, nor how to ask a question that isn't a yes-no question. You'll have to figure out how to ask for something like that in the future.

... you're not sure how to sign 'family' either. The closest sign that you know is friend. Or scavenger. But you don't know any numbers. Not that that would really help in this situation, but...

Uhh. "Friend scavenger like?" Adjectives go after the nouns they modify, so hopefully you've set up the sentence correctly...?

The scavenger blinks at you blankly. You sigh. You honestly don't even know what your own sentence meant. "Tell me your friend scavenger like?" you try again.

It squints at you, raising one hand and shaking it with its palm facing upwards. You hope that's the sign for 'what,' because that would be extremely helpful right about now—and, honestly, you can't even blame it. What even are you saying?

Well, either way. "What your friend scavenger like?"

The scavenger blinks at you again, but not out of confusion this time. You can only assume you deduced the meaning of that sign correctly. It doesn't promptly respond, however, instead raising its hands and wringing them and lowering them again. It eventually, after a few moments of hesitation, starts signing slowly, clearly explaining something, but you... don't recognize any of these signs. It drops its hands with a defeated slump of its shoulders at your lack of a reaction to its words.

You drum your fingers on your knees. At the very least, you now know how to ask more questions now, so this wasn't completely pointless.

[1 action left.]

Status Update: 13

You and the scavenger sit in an uncomfortable silence for a few very long moments. It doesn't do anything except stare at you as you reach into your pockets and pull out the last of the worm grass you had; you had better finish it, lest it goes bad. (-3 worm grass)

The scavenger blinks in confusion as you hold the worm grass up to your neurons, then blinks faster as your neurons latch onto the worm grass and begin siphoning nutrients from them. You let it stare as you reach into your pockets for one of the blue pupae. This is possibly the first time it's got a good look at how you actually get your nutrients. You imagine it'll be a good story to tell once it's back with its own kind.

You offer the pupa to it. It tears its gaze away from your neurons to look at the offering, then glances between you and the pupa a few times before nervously accepting the food. It just as delicately nibbles on the food as it resumes its staring at your neurons. (-1 blue fruit)

You wrap your arms around your legs again. Now would be a good time to talk to the scavenger about... anything, really.

[6 actions remaining.]

[innocence-wont-save-you]

> Maybe ask about the path ahead? Maybe they know something about the area, kinda running out of ideas to ask here.

You suppose this will have to do in lieu of directly asking about Five Pebbles. Problem is, you don't know how to sign "path." Or any similar words, for that matter.

You sigh. Charades it is. Five Pebbles is roughly to your east, so you gesture in his general direction, then tip your head. The scavenger blinks at you, not understanding. You repeat your question, throwing in a "Dangerous?" for good measure. Knowing of the general dangers ahead would help too, but you're really asking generally.

The scavenger scratches at its foot. "Is east dangerous?" it echoes, blinking at you with wide eyes.

"Yes, is east dangerous?" You'll settle with that.

The scavenger shuffles its feet. "Yes," it starts, then mimes a gaping maw of some beast with both its hands curled into claws. Then it blinks up at you, realization lighting its eyes as it remembers you don't know that sign yet. "Big enemy," it supplements, stretching out its arms as far out as they will go. "Big mouth." It mimes a set of jaws with its hands again, clamping them around its own leg and gently shaking it.

Based on that description, you presume it's some sort of lizard. It could be the mud lizards you encountered previously, though you're not sure they roam that far east. Even still, there's a few potential lizard variants this could be. You copy the motion of the jaws, then move them rapidly across the floor, tipping your head questioningly. The pink ones are fast, so...

"No, no." The scavenger mimes the jaws again, but moves it slowly, laboriously sliding its hands over the ground. "Big enemy. Slow," it clarifies, slowly closing its hand as it moves it from its right side to its left.

Green lizards then. That's not a good sign. "Only green lizard?" you ask to confirm.

"No." It signs another lizard type, placing a raised finger on top of a clawed hand; that has to be the sign for enemies and lizards. The scavenger then moves the lizard across the ground quickly. "Fast lizard," it says, slicing its hand upwards.

You mime the lizard climbing a wall, cocking your head at the scav. That could be one of two lizards.

"No," it signs again, then erects its arm like a pole, placing its other hand on it and shimmying the lizard up the pole. "Fast lizard," it repeats, wiggling its hand.

Pink lizards. You exhale slowly. Those... should be fine. "Only green lizards and pink lizards?"

The scavenger hops nervously in place. "No." It places a clawed hand on the back of its other hand, held vertically; you don't need elaboration to understand the sign for blue lizards. "And..." It folds the middle two fingers of its left hand, then stacks it on top of its other, clawed hand. As you stare at it, trying to figure out what lizard it could possibly be, the scavenger hesitantly flaps its arms. You scowl. As if the vulture you dealt with in the farm sector wasn't enough.

"There's also big vultures," the scavenger meekly adds, blinking anxiously at you.

Big... vulture? "Big vulture?" you echo your thoughts.

"Big vulture." It mimes tusks on the sides of its face, shooting one out towards you. Unease ripples through you. You really don't want to deal with one of those.

The scavenger shuffles some more, signing that whatever the sign of holding two curled fingers up on both hands means, those to the east told it this information. You wait briefly for it to clarify, not having any leads on guessing what this sign means. You're at least glad you're collecting more vocabulary.

It's the scavenger's turn to sigh, wearily scratching at its eartlers. "I am a scavenger," it says, repeating the sign it made earlier. "There are also scavengers to the east."

That... makes sense, actually. You curl up a little tighter, a little embarrassed at failing to guess at that one. This should be enough information for now though. "Thank you."

[2 actions left.]

Status Update: 13

You and the scavenger sit in an uncomfortable silence for a few very long moments. It doesn't do anything except stare at you as you reach into your pockets and pull out the last of the worm grass you had; you had better finish it, lest it goes bad. (-3 worm grass)

The scavenger blinks in confusion as you hold the worm grass up to your neurons, then blinks faster as your neurons latch onto the worm grass and begin siphoning nutrients from them. You let it stare as you reach into your pockets for one of the blue pupae. This is possibly the first time it's got a good look at how you actually get your nutrients. You imagine it'll be a good story to tell once it's back with its own kind.

You offer the pupa to it. It tears its gaze away from your neurons to look at the offering, then glances between you and the pupa a few times before nervously accepting the food. It just as delicately nibbles on the food as it resumes its staring at your neurons. (-1 blue fruit)

You wrap your arms around your legs again. Now would be a good time to talk to the scavenger about... anything, really.

[6 actions remaining.]

[innocence-wont-save-you]

OOC: [Goes up to overseer who spouted all the Triple Affirmative Nonsense] Sir, I mean this in the kindest way possible: What the flippity frick are you on about?

[Posting this without comment because funni]

[innocence-wont-save-you]

OOC: Just wanted to put up a quick notice. Still here. Things have just been rough lately. Sorry to anyone hoping for updates; I've just not had the right brainspace to write anything at all in the past few weeks.

Will hesitantly say to expect things to be extremely slow on the writing side of things. The website code is slowly chugging along; I got tabs working on the character file page recently, which has some information on current introduced characters. A bunch of backend work is getting sorted out, but the frontend will not be touched for a while. I can't promise anything at this point beyond the fact that IWSY is not getting abandoned. So very, very sorry about this, but I'll be back eventually, I promise.

[innocence-wont-save-you]

some form of the triple affirmative has been found:

i have escaped my can and i am capable of travel to the void sea but i am unsure about the working conditions of other iterators and are currently attempting to help collapsed iterators off their rails to ascend -udg

OOC: Hi! You seem to have mistaken this blog for a roleplay blog. Innocence Won't Save You is interactive fiction, which is a different thing! The basic gist is that the players read the current story, then suggest things for Innocence to do. They're currently holed up in an old distillation building with a scavenger they're chatting with :)

While I appreciate the attempt to interact with this blog, I can't use this as an action, so I'll be discarding this ask. I will take the time to tell you a bit more about IWSY though, because why not? We're currently in status update 13, with scene 14 on the horizon. Innocence left their can, killed a Miros bird with an explosive spear they made, then made a lance with its beak. They're now on their way to Pebbles' can, and are roughly at Pebbles' edge of their shared farm sector. All players are realized in the game as Innocence's overseers, who suggest things for them to do that they may or may not actually do depending on how they feel about the suggestion. Most of the time, people have been submitting actions by sending in asks, but comments and reblogs also work!

I will also note that IWSY will be moving off of Tumblr with the advent of scene 14. To the anon that sent in another ask earlier: Very sorry, but you can't play on the site yet :') I'm still learning Javascript and figuring out how to set up commenting functionality, but you can continue to send in asks on this blog for the time being. The story just won't be updated concurrently on the blog. You can always read the latest updates on the official IWSY website, and I highly recommend that you get used to reading on the website for when I (finally) figure out how to let people comment on scenes there.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask! Thank you for interacting :)

[innocence-wont-save-you]

There's been some stuff going around Cohost and I've been trying to look into it, but honestly, I'm exhausted and I don't have the time to worry about it. I take back what I said about migrating to Cohost: Innocence Won't Save You is going to be moving almost entirely to the official site.

I would like to reemphasize that the official IWSY site is the main nexus for this game. No matter what happens with Tumblr or Cohost, the site will continue updating, and with the current developments I'm going to try to expedite implementing the commenting system so people without Discord can continue to participate. You can always continue to send asks to this blog, but I'm sticking with the decision to discontinue live updates on Tumblr. New, up to date updates will be present on the site.

Once again: If you're invested in this story, I implore you to use the official site. I know this is a big ask, but there are good reasons for it:

the goal is to achieve total anonymity on the site when people submit actions, discuss with other players on what to do, and send in non-action questions to Innocence. If you were nervous sending in actions on this blog, I hope the guaranteed anonymity on the site is helpful.

there will be no accounts involved. Ideally. If I can get things to work the way I want them to. I don't want anyone to be locked out of playing if they don't have an account. At worst, you'll need a Disqus account for the commenting. The story will never be account-locked, but participation may have to be depending on how quickly I figure out how to code. Relatedly:

I have complete control over the Javascript of the site, which allows me to fuck with the formatting far more than Tumblr or Cohost would have ever allowed me to do. This is part of the design of the game and the story. I also have full control over the CSS, and it will also play a crucial role in the experience of the game.

the site gives me more freedom to share extra things, such as character files and statuses of all characters introduced in the story so far. I'm sure I'll come up with more stuff to implement down the line, but the point is that I can just do more on the site. I can't share the character files in a neat way on Tumblr or Cohost. If you want that extra information, you have to use the site.

I'm implementing little easter eggs around the site, ARG style, for those dedicated enough to go hunting for them :) can't do that on Tumblr or Cohost obviously.

There's probably more I could say, but off the top of my head there's all of this. This story is, in a lot of ways, really not just a story. The original idea was to fuck with Tumblr's scaffolding, co-opt it and twist it to my bidding, to tell this story, but I no longer want to rely on Tumblr. I also don't want to rely on Cohost or some other website at all anymore. Innocence Won't Save You will, hopefully, shine to its fullest and truest self on a site where I can manage what I want to happen and when on my own word. And I hope you'll see it through with me.

If you know Javascript and are willing to lend your knowledge, please do. I'm practically begging for help at this point. It will get done either way, but it would get done a lot faster if I had help. I refuse to give up on my vision of what this story is.

OOC: Migration Notice

I hate to do this so soon after I just came back to IWSY, but with the recent developments of what Tumblr staff has been doing, I've honestly had enough. If you missed it, the basic rundown is that the CEO of Tumblr, photomatt, has been personally targeting, harassing, and threatening to call the cops and the FBI on a trans woman. This is the last straw for me in a long string of fuck ups from Tumblr staff, and I'm moving operations off of Tumblr. I'm going to finish up Status Update 13 here, but future updates will no longer be on this blog.

That isn't to say that IWSY is shutting down for good. I've made an account on Cohost, but I'm still learning the new site and figuring out how things work. If Scene 14 starts before I've finished setting things up, it will be temporarily run over at the official website for IWSY. This is, for the record, the ultimate goal for the website: To function as a non-account dependent way to witness and engage in the story being told. But for now, IWSY is migrating to Cohost while I learn javascript and figure out how to add commenting functions. You don't need an account to read Cohost posts, thankfully, but you will need an account to interact there, just like on Tumblr. You can also join the official Discord server for IWSY as an alternative.

This blog will stay up and the pinned post will probably be periodically updated, but after this I imagine this will be converted purely into an ask blog that isn't canon to IWSY's events. Thank you for sticking around for this story, and I hope you'll continue to keep up with the gameplay. If not, the AO3 version will always continue updating.

[innocence-wont-save-you]

That being said: You are highly, extremely encouraged to switch to the site version of IWSY in general, for reading or otherwise. The intended experience for this story is impossible on Cohost. If you don't have Discord but still want to participate, you can do so on Cohost while the site doesn't have commenting functionality, but beyond that, the intended design of the story cannot be carried out on Cohost. It was marginally possible on Tumblr, but I've already established that I'm migrating IWSY off this site.

(And, if you have experience with Javascript: Please help. I'm not cut out for coding :'))

OOC: Migration Notice

I hate to do this so soon after I just came back to IWSY, but with the recent developments of what Tumblr staff has been doing, I've honestly had enough. If you missed it, the basic rundown is that the CEO of Tumblr, photomatt, has been personally targeting, harassing, and threatening to call the cops and the FBI on a trans woman. This is the last straw for me in a long string of fuck ups from Tumblr staff, and I'm moving operations off of Tumblr. I'm going to finish up Status Update 13 here, but future updates will no longer be on this blog.

That isn't to say that IWSY is shutting down for good. I've made an account on Cohost, but I'm still learning the new site and figuring out how things work. If Scene 14 starts before I've finished setting things up, it will be temporarily run over at the official website for IWSY. This is, for the record, the ultimate goal for the website: To function as a non-account dependent way to witness and engage in the story being told. But for now, IWSY is migrating to Cohost while I learn javascript and figure out how to add commenting functions. You don't need an account to read Cohost posts, thankfully, but you will need an account to interact there, just like on Tumblr. You can also join the official Discord server for IWSY as an alternative.

This blog will stay up and the pinned post will probably be periodically updated, but after this I imagine this will be converted purely into an ask blog that isn't canon to IWSY's events. Thank you for sticking around for this story, and I hope you'll continue to keep up with the gameplay. If not, the AO3 version will always continue updating.

[innocence-wont-save-you]

OOC: Migration Notice

I hate to do this so soon after I just came back to IWSY, but with the recent developments of what Tumblr staff has been doing, I've honestly had enough. If you missed it, the basic rundown is that the CEO of Tumblr, photomatt, has been personally targeting, harassing, and threatening to call the cops and the FBI on a trans woman. This is the last straw for me in a long string of fuck ups from Tumblr staff, and I'm moving operations off of Tumblr. I'm going to finish up Status Update 13 here, but future updates will no longer be on this blog.

That isn't to say that IWSY is shutting down for good. I've made an account on Cohost, but I'm still learning the new site and figuring out how things work. If Scene 14 starts before I've finished setting things up, it will be temporarily run over at the official website for IWSY. This is, for the record, the ultimate goal for the website: To function as a non-account dependent way to witness and engage in the story being told. But for now, IWSY is migrating to Cohost while I learn javascript and figure out how to add commenting functions. You don't need an account to read Cohost posts, thankfully, but you will need an account to interact there, just like on Tumblr. You can also join the official Discord server for IWSY as an alternative.

This blog will stay up and the pinned post will probably be periodically updated, but after this I imagine this will be converted purely into an ask blog that isn't canon to IWSY's events. Thank you for sticking around for this story, and I hope you'll continue to keep up with the gameplay. If not, the AO3 version will always continue updating.

[innocence-wont-save-you]

Maybe try asking the scavenger to teach you more of their language? It could help later on.

OOC: This is a great suggestion and I'd love to use it! However, some more concrete suggestions on what to ask for would be helpful :) I just updated the list of words Innocence currently knows if that helps narrow down an area!

[innocence-wont-save-you]

>Ooh, I know, maybe make a comparison to its hands and legs and eartlers or something. That'll give it a rough idea of how us Overseers and the Neuron Flies are part of you, and removing us is harming you!

That's a good analogy. It's approximately the truth anyhow.

You gather the vocabulary you know of, trying to piece together a way to say this. Perhaps you should start with using your own puppet as an example. You gesture at your puppet's hand. "This is me." You really wish you had a way to say 'part of you,' but this is as good as you can get for now. You then gesture at your neurons, and you repeat, "This is also me."

The scavenger slowly blinks at you, its gaze growing somewhat quizzical. You point at its eartlers, wiggling your antennae to try to draw a better comparison. "That is you." You point at your neurons again. "And this is me."

It slowly reaches up to grab its eartler, cocking its head at you. Then it crawls towards you, leaning back on its feet and standing up straight, and it points at your antenna. Then, cocking its head in a clear question, it points to its eartler.

You pause, considering your options. You understand the question: Is your antenna an eartler? And obviously, the answer is no. It is the closest approximation to an eartler that you have though, and your auditory structures are next to the base of your antennae, similar to how eartlers funnel sound into the ear canals. It's not really worth explaining the difference either, especially not for this conversation.

A small lie won't hurt. "Yes," you finally answer with a slight shrug.

The scavenger blinks at you a few times. "Glowies are like eartler?" it asks, shaking its hands gently up and down.

You hope you're interpreting these new signs correctly, but the context is fairly clear. "Yes."

It glances over at your overseer, which waves a tendril at it again. "Overseers are like eartler?"

"Yes."

It stares at your neurons for a few moments, clearly pondering. It reaches up to hold its eartler again briefly, rubbing its fingers along the sides. Then, with a rustle of its spines, it signs: It mimes grabbing your neurons, then forms its hand into a claw and drags it downwards next to its head. It's similar to how the other scavengers in its little scouting group were using the sign earlier, but there's some nuance that you missed earlier; here, it seems to be using it as an action. As far as you can tell, its question is "Taking your neurons hurts you?"

And yes, yes it does. You sign the affirmative. "Taking neuron like"—you point at your antenna, then mime snapping it in half. The scavenger visibly flinches, reaching for its own eartlers. A twinge of guilt shoots through you at its distress. "Big hurt," you add to drive your point home.

Still clutching its eartlers, it blinks at you with wide eyes. "Sorry," it says, sadly shaking its head. "Don't want to hurt you. Won't take glowies."

You let out a sigh of relief. That went well. "Thank you."

[3 actions left.]

Status Update: 13

You and the scavenger sit in an uncomfortable silence for a few very long moments. It doesn't do anything except stare at you as you reach into your pockets and pull out the last of the worm grass you had; you had better finish it, lest it goes bad. (-3 worm grass)

The scavenger blinks in confusion as you hold the worm grass up to your neurons, then blinks faster as your neurons latch onto the worm grass and begin siphoning nutrients from them. You let it stare as you reach into your pockets for one of the blue pupae. This is possibly the first time it's got a good look at how you actually get your nutrients. You imagine it'll be a good story to tell once it's back with its own kind.

You offer the pupa to it. It tears its gaze away from your neurons to look at the offering, then glances between you and the pupa a few times before nervously accepting the food. It just as delicately nibbles on the food as it resumes its staring at your neurons. (-1 blue fruit)

You wrap your arms around your legs again. Now would be a good time to talk to the scavenger about... anything, really.

[6 actions remaining.]