lilliana-kendra - Tumblr blog

[lilliana-kendra]

I play a lot of games on Twitch about queer women, because I think we're awesome and worth celebrating. Check out this clip collection of how overly excited I can typically be XD https://www.twitch.tv/collections/hUt5dLsSbBeDQA

[lilliana-kendra]

Going live tonight to player Super Lesbian Animal RPG!

LillianaKendra - Twitch

[lilliana-kendra]

I was the script and trailer editor on Irrational, a visual novel-esque game about a sapphic couple navigating the difficulties of anxiety disorder on their personal lives and relationship. I'm really proud of how the game turned out! Check out the trailer, and if you feel intrigued, maybe swing my Steam and check out the game!

[lilliana-kendra]

Check out this trailer I made for the Steam re-release of Luxaren Allure, the incredibly sapphic RPG|! Featuring the voiceover of the always awesome Lily V!

If you like what you see, head over to Steam and check it out!

[lilliana-kendra]

I've updated my let's play of Super Lesbian Animal RPG with new videos! If you wanna watch a gay trans chick be way too excited about a game about gay trans chicks, check it out!

[lilliana-kendra]

Stream highlights from the first half of my playthrough of Secret Little Haven, a game focusing on highly relatable experiences of 90s trans women like me! Follow me on Twitch to catch the second half soon!

LillianaKendra - Twitch

[lilliana-kendra]

Join me every Tuesday at 7pm EST and Saturday at 8pm EST for good times, transed genders and hella gay vibes! I play games about queer characters, chat and sometimes practice my bass on stream.

LillianaKendra - Twitch

[lilliana-kendra]

Let's Play Super Lesbian Animal RPG

I've been uploading the VODs of my streaming playthrough of Super Lesbian Animal RPG to my YouTube channel, and I'm having a total blast with this game! It's got everything I love in my games: gay girl, trans girls, magic and adventure! Check out my let's play series if you wanna watch a trans lesbian lose her mind over THE trans lesbian RPG!

[lilliana-kendra]

I've decided to make a pseudo-sequel to my older RPG Maker demo, and with that in mind, I might as well get some more eyes on the old thing in the hopes that anyone will find the next project interesting.

Your Special Day is simple, bite sized adventure about girls who are into each other trying to have a good birthday day together...and maybe kind of failing miserably. Does it break new ground? Heck no! But it's cute, and I churned it out in 2 weeks when I made it, so I think it's pretty okay for what it is!

Any feedback is definitely appreciated.

[lilliana-kendra]

Trailer Editor

For those who don't know me, I'm an experienced game trailer editor, and I'm always looking for new clients to work with! I've made trailers for games like Luxaren Allure, Tales of Yore and Absinthia, and have worked hard to ensure my clients always only walk away happy.

If you're an indie dev looking for a trailer for your game, then check out my YouTube archive and consider getting in touch with me!

[lilliana-kendra]

My fist demo

About a year ago, I made my very first RPG demo. It's not particularly noteworthy in any way, except that I slammed it out in 2 weeks as a personal test. But as I'm putting ideas together for my next project, I figure why not circulate this a little more and get some feedback.

I present to you: Your Special Day--A sapphic birthday misadventure https://lilliana-ginal-young.itch.io/your-special-day

[lilliana-kendra]

I'm looking for some cool indie games with sapphic leads, preferably with a confirmed and canon relationship. Visual novels are fine, but I prefer other types of games. If anyone has suggestions, please comment them!

[lilliana-kendra]

This makes me incredibly sad in a way I don't think I can express. But I do want to say two things.

1: May Marigold means so, so much to me for so many reasons, and your (Kdin's) involvement with her is among the most meaningful to me. She's inspired me a lot in how I've been thinking of trans characters in my own writing.

2: From everything I know of you (Again, Kdin) that you've talked about publicly, I'm incredibly proud of you as a transgender sister. Everything you've accomplished and everything you've survived, it's all hugely inspirational. I know you don't like being seen as an inspiration, but I do, and I couldn't be happier to know that someone like me and who's dealt with so many things like I have can still be such an amazing person.

What’s it like voicing May Marigold?

What’s it like voicing May Marigold?

It’s a blast. I love her energy. I love the intensity that she has that simmers beneath every line. I love how she does her best to be friendly to new people but still keeps them at a distance, which shows she’s healing but not healed. I love how connected she is to the other Happy Huntresses and how much she cares about people. I love her fiery passion that explodes when she’s bottled it up for too long.

I love how unapologetically trans she is and how it’s part of her story but not the ONLY part of her story.

May is such a wonderful character, and I love her.

What’s it like voicing RWBY’s first openly trans character?

I was so excited to bring this character to life, I was waiting patiently for V8 so we could let May announce her being a trans woman herself, I hoped everyone would be as happy and excited as I was.

But then fan theories of “who could be trans” exploded (a lot of them initially well meaning at first) and spread a massive amount of miscommunication, then the decision to put the truth out there early was made, and thus began a tightrope walk of “this is still exciting” while my happiness for everything dangled over a bit of lava.

Lots of people, both inside the company/industry and from the fandom, made something that started as a dream into a nightmare.

Hate threads on Twitter. long transphobic videos on YouTube, “it should have been this character instead” or “your character is bad rep, we should have had (INSERT SHIP HERE) as queer rep instead” messages on Tumblr, people claiming “May’s coming out was so CONFUSING I had no idea what she even said”, and some people just straight up ignoring her all together because “she’s useless and serves no purpose” … this was just some of the publicly viewable stuff I had to deal with.

I’m not even going to go into the things I had to deal with that you all didn’t see happening because it wasn’t on social media and was behind closed doors.

What was supposed to be something wonderful turned into me getting harassed, made fun of, threatened, and left me ultimately horribly depressed and my heart and soul crushed.

I hope she made any kind of difference to people. Both outside and inside the industry. I hope her existing makes any kind of change for anyone.

I love May very much, I love playing her, and I’ll be happy to play her forever if given the chance!

But every other aspect of it was like walking on broken glass and having to keep smiling through it all.

[lilliana-kendra]

If you'd like to help support Absinthia, the loudly and proudly queer JRPG in development by Team Bewitched, consider browsing over our merch store on Redbubble. All purchases go toward compensating the queer artists behind Absinthia, as well as allowing for further reinvestment back into further development.

You'll find the merch store right here.

If you'd like to try out Absinthia's demo, head over to our Steam page!

[lilliana-kendra]

Hello again! I'm the co-writer (and much more) of Absitnthia, the unapologetically queer indie JRPG in development by Team Bewitched, and I think it's time to meet our leading characters!

First, let meet Sera, our POV character.

When Josh and I were first revising drafts of the overall plot and character arcs, Sera wasn't planned to be a lot more than Freya's adopted little sister who learns to come into her own. But, after one round of revisions, it hit me that Sera is only primary character who never has any kind of romantic or sexual involvement with anyone, and I started wondering why that was. And then it hit me--Sera doesn't WANT any partners! That's right, not only is Sera learning how to be a badass warrior who can stand up to anything, she's also asexual, aromantic, and very happily unpartnered! And yes, it absolutely will come up as part of her character. Don't confuse that for being anything else, though. Sera is empathetic and wishes for only best for her friends and family in their own love lives, even hoping everyone else is enjoying their own adult fun time.

Now let's meet Freya, the protagonist who drives most of the action.

I'll say up front that I have absolutely loved shaping and writing this character. Freya is everything I always wished to have in a lady protagonist when I was young: beautiful but classy, badass but kind, resolved to her path but woefully imperfect, and also very sapphic and canonically transgender. Part of what I've loved about writing Freya is that she's complicated, as any real person truly is. Her outlook on life and her actions in the story are heavily motivated by personal experiences, but she's never 100% correct. In fact, sometimes Freya might just be absolutely wrong in some of her decisions, no matter how wounded she may be. I truly hope to return to future Team Bewitched projects to writer her further, because I am completely in love with how she develops throughout Absinthia.

Onto Jake!

When Josh told me in the early writing he was considering making Jake a trans man, but felt worried it would be too many trans characters in one story, I was beyond happy to give Josh a hard push into making it canon. And just like with Freya, it definitely comes up a time or two. One of the things I love about Jakes is that he really is just such a GUY. He's the living embodiment of the word impetuous, and exploring where some of that comes from has been a lot of fun. And even though parts of Absinthia's script are still under revision, it's been interesting and exciting both for me to write a same-gender romance from a man's perspective. Will Jake grow up a little and save his boyfriend some trouble in the future? We can hope.

Let's meet Thomas!

I don't normally write characters who are more reserved and analytical, but it's fun to break that mold sometimes, and Thomas has been a lot of fun to write. While I can't say for sure yet how it will come up in dialogue, Thomas is technically pansexual (and a POC to boot!) and loves Jake more for his personality than his parts. One of the things I find endearing about Thomas is how he really is about the only person who can handle Jake's energy, and it really is so sweet. And did I mention how much I love that Thomas kicks just as much ass as everyone else, despite not being a melee oriented character? Let's just hope that Thomas' patience for Jake holds out in the long term.

Onward to Ruthea! (Character bust not done yet)

Ruthea is such a fascinating character to me, in that she's evolved so heavily from not existing at all in early outlines, to being one of the most important characters in the story. She also provides a direct link back to Ruth and Gwen from Knight Bewitched, what we consider our flagship title. Some of the Ruthea-specific scenes are still under revision at this time, but I'm already so dearly fond of this character and I absolute cannot wait to see what happens to her by the end of Absinthia--and hopefully beyond! Just, please, Ruthea...don't break my daughter Freya's heart. (Again.)

And finally, our antagonist Lilith!

Sometimes you want to cut loose and write a bad guy who's bad, and Lilith has definitely scratched that itch for me. Lilith is sarcastic, manipulative, emotionally abusive, and completely unconcerned with the effects her actions have on others--and she loves every moment of it. She's been such a blast to help write that, despite being in her second game now, I kind of want to have her back as the bad guy one more time in future projects. But, two is probably enough, and it's been a lot of fun to see how she's evolved from her introduction in Celestial Hearts.

And those are the leading characters from Absinthia! I hope you've enjoyed reading this as much as I've enjoyed writing it. If you like what you see and you'd like to see more, or potentially support our project, please head over to our Kickstart campaign and check out all further details there.

[lilliana-kendra]

Removing myself from my immediate involvement, Absinthia really is the kind of game I wish I had when I was growing up. As a kid in the late 80s and 90s, everything in every story, no matter how good, was always so cis/hetero/allonormative, and no matter how much I loved certain JRPG characters, I never actually saw myself in any of them.

This is why I'm so proud of my work on Absinthia, and why I'm so excited to bring this game to all of you. An aro/ace POV character who's an awesome friend and badass warrior? Check. A trans man who is the living embodiment of the word "impetuous?" Check. A pansexual POC man who loves his trans boyfriend with all his heart? Also Check. A trans woman protagonist who's beautiful, ass kicking and struggling with whether or not to repair the relationship with her cis lesbian girlfriend? Double check.

And beyond just the characters and their relationships, I've worked hard with the project lead to make sure that the themes that govern the overarching plot are also relevant to things real life queer people live with every day. In other words, Absinthia is unrepentantly queer, and aspires to being more than just another visual novel.

We've crossed the 50% funding mark on our Kickstarter, but we need a push to get over the finish line in the next two weeks. Please follow the link below and look over our demo, steam page and everything else. If you like what you see and you agree that Absinthia is even half of what I say it is, please help us out. If you can't donate yourself, then sharing it around can still help.

[lilliana-kendra]

Hi there! I'm Lilliana Young, the co-writer and creative consultant on Absinthia, an ambitious indie JRPG that puts queer characters and themes front and center in a way AAA studios are too cowardly to do.

Absinthia is directed and designed by Joshua Keith, a veteran with several smaller indie RPGs under his belt, and pays homage to the aesthetic and style of SNES classics like Breath of Fire and Lufia. It features all the classic trappings of JRPGs: turn based battles, team attacks tied to character relationships, traveling through a colorful pixel art high fantasy world and even some light puzzle solving.

View our new trailer here:

But the heart and soul of any good RPG is the storytelling, and to bring new life, polish and perspective to Absinthia's story, Josh brought me in to draw upon my education in writing and my study of visual and musical storytelling. I'm also here to help make Absinthia's characters and themes some of the most blatantly queer you've ever seen outside of a visual novel.

We weren't satisfied to stop with cisgender gays, oh no. Our characters cover most of the queer rainbow, including asexual, trans man, trans woman, pansexual and cis gay characters, whose personal arcs and relationships are tied to real things real queer people live with. And did I mention that I (the co-writer) our composer and our character designer are all queer people as well?

And did I mention that we have a deal with a publisher to bring this to ALL current consoles, as well as Steam and Itch? With the very real possibility of a physical release later on.

I won't beat around the bush, Absinthia is in Kickstarter and we need the generosity and support of people like you to help us bring this to life. Absinthia is a dearly important project to all of us at Team Bewitched, and we truly hope we can share this dream with all of you. Please consider backing us on Kickstarter, and sharing this around with anyone who'd be interested.