#I'M ACTUALLY GOING TO LEAVE TUMBLR AFTER THIS TO DO THE HW

[choko-flan]

Hiiiiii choko!! Still looking over ur progress every now and then!!! How are you doing? I hope you've been well ^^ I still remember first playing the velorem demo all those years ago lol.. I was travelling and downloaded a bunch of rpgmaker games to play and I loved yours in particular Would also be really cool if you started posting just the stuff you draw or your thoughts on whatever u wanna ramble about, idk if you use tumblr a lot tho, I like seeing that the creators i like are like, still alive and stuff you know? only if you want to though! Wishing you the best through whatever is going on right now!!! Signed: Olliver

Hello, apologizes for being super late replying to this been all over the place and haven't had time to fully write out a response. I'm really thankful you are still looking over my progress also always wanting to send me an ask, really means a lot. I've been doing alright like above been all over the place with dev work, hobbies, and taking classes to help with getting a job not related to game dev as this is a hobby (also the industry scares me), though at times I do struggle with imposter syndrome thinking I'm not good enough or smart enough but rn I feel confident in myself (I need to work on my hw...) ;v; means a lot you loved Verloren's demo, I really need to kick myself to work harder as I really want to put out a newer demo as the old one is a bit outdated. The newer one would be longer and have different mechanics which the original didn't have also I can show off my 2nd favorite character bc I need to give him screen time. Though that demo would probably happen when I make a ton of progress on the game like it's close to being done. Or maybe I just hold off and drop the whole game and everyone looks to me because I've change things. The main premise is the same just I changed things idk if anyone is interested I can ramble in a different post about the changes. I still care for the demo I posted in 2020, really want to get the game done so everyone can see the story and characters who been spinning in my head for 7ish years... I keep telling myself to stop hoarding what I'm doing but it's easy to say as I'm often going back hoarding bc perfectionism so here's a few things I've worked on: This isn't the 2nd fav but he's another character who wasn't in the demo, his name is Wally and would be another companion character who would help Chris with his journey. (very sketchy)

Been reworking the inspect system as you can see the thought bubble leaves after certain objects are gone, using thought bubbles to avoid a problem I always face in rpg maker games which is being confused what leads to progression so I often smack the character onto everything until I find the correct thing which triggers progression. Want to just make it clear what is decoration vs actual importance intractable objects.

(this isn't how this map will look I just through it together for testing purposes) This was posted on my Bluesky (X) which I will try to use semi more, I need to go back finishing this but was using a unrelated oc who isn't a character in the game to help me figure out the portrait style.

Was mainly influences by the style of these portraits, still need to go back to figure it out tho.

Tho I shall stop dev rambling as this wasn't an ask for any updates but just thought to share some things I've been doing.

Tbh I get worry about posting about non dev related things here, I did have a personal blog but I haven't used that one in years plus it was mainly to reblog stuff I liked. Worried it would feel like opening the floodgates as it would led to a lot of rambling like for example I'll just post a few things I've been doing on the side if anyone is interested (This is all going to jump around a bunch super sorry.) For starters I like Project Sekai mainly bc I am a vocal synth fan, I do have a lot of scores saved mainly full combos but I'll just post my current FC counter (there's songs I haven't played yet bc lazy)

The 8/27 is because that is Mizuki's birthday which I am a very normal Mizuki fan I only have a few of her 4 star cards and have somewhat tier <- 100% normal fan (don't speak to me about not getting the new year card...)

(yes I have a discord server to plan a year in advance which cards I'm saving for) I don't have a screenshot of the event itself but for her 1st mix event I got T1k (i've been here since the global beta testing before day 1. Tbh I knew of the game before global was announce)

I didn't tier for this one bc I am saving for E5 so this is my worst one.... (I should find people to help with E5 Mizuki) but I care for my dother <- owns 3 plushies and almost all the CDs with her commissions songs and has preorder the newest one on amiami She is just my silly who makes me happy ANYWAYS speaking of gacha games I got back into the hole which is HSR, I am behind in the plot but it's just been the game I open to stare at my wife who took a billion pulls to get then I close it. I love him...

Btw I am F2P I will never spend money on a gacha again looking back on my genshin days I wasted 90 bucks on a game i don't play anymore like it's been 3 or 4 years. I just often farm like crazy and save until the thing I really want is here. Moving away from Gacha but still on the topic of gaming, one of my friends they convince me to get into Retro Achievements which is a fun site to use when you are playing games to collect achievements. So far the sets I've done is Okage: Shadow King and Pokemon Channel.

There's other games I've been doing the sets for but I am a fool that picks games with 100+ achievements. Another thing that same friend above got me into is learning HTML and CSS so I have been working on a website on the side which you can see here: https://choko.neocities.org/ Really want to make a page for Verloren on it, feel that would be cute

RN it's very bare bones at the moment also not mobile friendly, I need to work on that. The only page which works at the moment is the about section but it's also a wip mess.

Do plan on getting a media diary page done as I've been keeping track of everything I've watched, played, or read. I needs some more work but at the moment it looks like this

Below is what it used to look like this but wasn't happy with it, like each entry having it's own clickable page rather having the person scroll to see them.

Umm I guess art idk we are jumping around, I've been stuck thinking about characters for a campaign which hasn't started yet. He is my silly (the dude who I was making pixel art above) I often spam my friends doodles of him bc he has become my favorite oc to draw and he's just a npc to my player character of the campaign.

One day I'll make a full drawing of him so then I can shove him into the faces of people. (I been working on a oc page on my site so if I get that up any info of him will be there also other ocs) I guess if any of these are interested I could start making post about this stuff more, super sorry that you asked something which turned into me full on rambling. I suppose this can be used as a test to see if anyone else would be interested. ^^b thank you again for sending an ask, I hope this wasn't like too much rambling. Will try to use tumblr more, I hope you are doing alright and best of wishes to you!!

[ririthereader]

Stained Glass

Morgan's fingers are glass. Her palms are most definitely flesh and bone, but sometimes, where the skin meets glass hurts – but only when it’s cold. Her fingers are perfectly sculpted; you can only tell that they're glass when she holds them up to the light. They are fragile though. She can't do hard work with them. So she works from home, organizes websites and fixes bugs in codes. She doesn’t type with her fingers, the glass seam pulls at the skin. She uses a speech recognition software that allows her to type with her voice. It's a stable system.

Sometimes though, Morgan likes to put her fingers up to the light, and watch it refract and separate. She likes to see what her hands can make, even if she can't do it all the time. Jamie, her cockatiel, scratches at the resulting rainbows.

She has glass decals and statues on her balcony, decorating the plants. When the light filters just right, her sitting room looks like a kaleidoscope. It even reaches the kitchen during the summer. It reflects onto her stove, and she likes to pretend she cooks rainbows with the fingers that she won’t let make anything else.

It started with her fingernails. When she was six, her mother had gotten into an accident, drove through her green light too early and gotten smashed by someone speeding. Morgan’s mother and the offending car melded together, killing them both. Morgan's booster seat had been flung sideways, and her head hit the window. There's a faint scar in her hairline where the glass cracked.

Afterward she learned from her aunt Sofia that the glass spread every time she got an inch closer to death. It runs in the family, skipping some people she said. Morgan’s fingers have been glass for years now. She thought she could feel with them, almost like phantom fingers, almost normal, but even so it was a reminder of her physical relationship with death.

Sofia said that her great-grandmother used to cry glass tears. They're strung around Morgan's neck. Morgan does not cry glass tears, but she wished she did. She could make and sell charms. She cries enough for that.

Earlier, she cried because Jamie slept on her shoulder and she heard him snore. It sounded like a pot whistling. Now he sits on her knee; she's curled up on the couch talking to Sofia, who's telling her how to make ceviche. Morgan always makes it too sour. The fish would fall apart in the citrus juice. She marinates it for too long, but it’s a little scary eating raw fish. She lets herself believe that the citrus will kill 99.9% of the bacteria.

Jamie grinds his beak contentedly, feathers recently preened and fluffed. Morgan never liked the sound of grinding teeth, or beaks. She felt the sound behind her eyes and in the joints of her neck. But she didn't stop Jamie, since it was a positive expression for birds.

Sofia's voice picks up to yell at the dogs that were running over the old couch. The springs creak and the couch dips very easily. Morgan could hear them barking through the phone. Jamie could too and gives her phone a stink eye. He flies across the room to his cage and patters inside. He chirps softly, calling for food. Morgan leaves her mother to talk to the dogs on the couch and replenishes Jamie's food trough.

"Mamá is pretty mad at the dogs. I'm glad you're not a hassle." Morgan ruffles his neck feathers briefly and goes back to her phone. Sofia stopped screaming by then.

"Mamá, I got the instructions, but it would be nice for you to show me how. Do you want to come for dinner?" Her apartment is lonely.

"Sure, I'll get your brother to watch the dogs. He's studying for exams anyway. I'm on my way. Thaw some fish."

It would take at least forty-five minutes for the commute. Morgan opens her freezer to get some fish ready for her whirlwind aunt. She looks at the clock on her oven. It’s four in the afternoon, and the fish needs about three hours to marinate, so they would be finished cooking and chatting by eight. Sofia would take most of it home, to feed the rest. Morgan drops some frozen tilapia in a bowl of room temperature water and goes to organize some paperwork before Sofia comes.

Her desk is a mess of invoices and website templates. Her headset rests on her 24 inch monitor and the wires hang, tangled. Morgan picks at the knot, her fingers clinking together and sending pleasant shivers down her spine. She ties up the wire with a stray hairband and leaves it on her monitor. Morgan shuffles her papers into a folder and turns her monitor off. Sofia doesn’t need to see the mess of CS code on the screen.

Jamie flies from his cage to Morgan’s head. He stays as she cleans up a stray shoe from under the couch, some bowls, and instant noodles. But he escapes to his cage and shuts the door when she pulls the mini vacuum out of the closet. Morgan cleans up the bird seed in efficient strokes, trying to minimize the time she needs to have the vacuum on.

Her hands are passing over the bite marks that Jamie has given the vacuum cord when Sofia knocks on the door. Morgan shoves the vacuum in the closet without finishing coiling the cord and answers the door. Sofia will talk first. She always does.

“Morgan, hello! It’s been too long.” She pulls Morgan down for a hug. Morgan buries her face in Sofia’s neck, an earring presses against her brow bone.

“Three weeks is hardly a long time Mamá.”

She pulls back and strokes Morgan’s hair, tucks it behind her ear. She cut it recently and donated 14 inches. “Three weeks is too long for me. Did you cut the fish?”

Morgan shakes her head. “It’s still thawing.”

Sofia clapped her hands. “Then let’s get to work.”

 Sofia cut the fish into cubes, ignoring the slight ice in the center, while Morgan mixed citrus juices. That would be her only job for the night, since Sofia would talk her ears off. The café was going well, the college students looked dead, Old Man Joe was still a nuisance, Eduardo was failing physics, and the dogs missed Morgan. Jamie emerges from his cage and flies to the dinner table. It’s a small one, big enough for four. His claws tap on the table, dancing for some food. Morgan smiles and breaks some bread for him.

Sofia digs around Morgan’s pantry and brings out an onion. “So Morgan, when was the last time you left the apartment?”

Morgan breaks off another piece of bread for Jamie, even though he hadn’t finished he first bit. “I got groceries yesterday.”

She peels the onion skin back. “I meant for leisure.”

Morgan rips some more bread for Jamie. “I got lunch last week.”

Sofia’s mouth forms a line, onion in one hand, knife in the other. “That was a luncheon with a client. It doesn’t count.” Another piece of bread falls to the table. “When was the last time you saw someone that doesn’t pay you?”

Jamie looks up at Morgan with his head cocked. He ruffles his feathers and patters to her hands. “It’s been a while. I can’t remember.”

Sofia cuts through the onion viciously, angry. Jamie gets scared and flaps his wings. They haven’t been trimmed since the last time a stranger visited. He flies up, up, up, brushes the ceiling and lands on the fridge. Sofia is still cutting the onion.

“Can you put him in his cage? We’re cooking.”

Morgan looks from Jamie to Sofia. Her eyes water. This isn’t how it was supposed to go. Her eyes burn. Sofia sniffs. Jamie sneezes.

“Mamá, can you stop cutting for a moment? The onion is irritating Jamie.” Morgan’s throat is clear. She is not crying.

Sofia put down the knife and pulls a tissue from her pocket. “How will you get him down?”

Morgan smiles and onion-induced tears fall. She sniffs. Sofia blows her nose. Morgan calls Jamie, clicking her tongue softly. He scratches at the fridge door.

“Jamie, come here.” She lifts her hand up, fingers forming a perch. He whistles at her but stays put. “It’s not the time to play games. Come here, Jamie.” He dances a bit.

“That’ll never work, just grab him,” Sofia says. It’s well-meaning, but it would hurt Jamie. She turns and continues cutting the onion.

Morgan is irritated, but says nothing. She tries calling Jamie again, putting her hand at the top of the fridge. He pecks at her fingers, so she moves them away. This startles him; he flaps, and falls. Jamie swoops and passes over the onion, aiming frighteningly close to the knife.

“Mamá, watch out!”

Sofia reaches toward him and he shrieks. Morgan can see what’s going to happen, but she’s already crossed her small kitchen, her hand already closing around the knife. The knife will slip and slice Sofia’s arm. Jamie will lose feathers and hide behind her mug tree. Morgan will bruise her forehead on Sofia’s forehead. Terrible, but repairable.

Morgan did not anticipate breaking three of her fingers.

The knife sliced Sofia’s arm, onion juice forcing a violent reaction, slamming the knife and Morgan’s hand into the counter. Brown glass falls from her hand in chunks. It doesn’t hurt. Morgan feels like it should hurt. Sofia grabs her sliced arm and applies pressure. Jamie chirps loudly.

The tears fall.

Morgan stands there, sobbing, one hand on the counter, the other muffling her mouth and hiding the sliding mucus, while Sofia patches herself up. Runs cold water on her injury, wraps it in gauze that Morgan keeps in the bathroom. Jamie trills softly, staring at Morgan’s face. Sofia comes back from the bathroom and picks up the pieces of onion that flew, throwing the bloody ones away. The knife clatters in the sink. The onions are now in a bowl. Morgan is still crying and Sofia is picking up the pieces of finger. The blood is spreading, the shards in a neat pile. They glitter fantastically.  

Sofia pulls another tissue from her pocket and hands it to Morgan, who takes it and blows her nose.

“I’m sorry, Mamá,” her voice breaks, “I didn’t mean to –”

“Shh,” Sofia rubs her back. “It’s not your fault.”

Morgan is talking through hiccups, the speech is almost unrecognizable. Sofia gets her a glass of water. She gulps it down, but still hiccups.

“Breathe, and then talk.” Sofia’s hands are shaking; she’s worried, but detached. Her arm still stings. Morgan takes a few steadying breaths, but still can’t get a coherent sentence out. Her hand is still limp on the counter. She hasn’t moved it since the initial impact.

Efficiency is cold, but Sofia softens the edge by rubbing Morgan’s back. “I know this is scary, but you need to get your bird back into his cage so we can clean up the glass.”

Morgan forces out a whisper, “Terrifying,” and goes back to sobbing. Sofia holds back a sigh and pulls Morgan back to her chest. Jamie walks out from behind the mug tree and chirps. Morgan doesn’t respond so he walks toward the shards of finger. He leans as if to bite them, but Sofia waves him off. He flaps away, back to his cage and sits on top, dropping a load into his drinking water.

They stay like that for a while, until Morgan depletes her reservoirs. She sniffs and Sofia hands her another napkin, this time from the counter. Morgan blows her nose with one hand. It’s scratchy.

“Now what?” she croaks.

Sofia nudges the glass, blood shifts. “We put you back together.”

Morgan looks at the pile of glass on the counter and the jagged edges of her fingers. “How can we fix this?”

“Glue.”

“Mamá, if my fingers couldn’t handle this while whole, they wouldn’t even be able to hold Jamie’s weight if we use glue.”

Sofia turns one of the largest shards between her fingers. It decorates her with red patterns. Her other hand is clenched.

“Mamá?”

“I don’t know how to help you here. I didn’t know the first time, and I don’t know now. I’m sorry.”

Morgan looks at her shattered hand again. Her thumb is fine but her index finger is noticeably chipped. Her other three fingers are obliterated. Her pinky doesn’t even have a stub; it’s broken down to the seam. She looks into her hand, trying to see if she could find veins or flesh. It’s all brown. She can’t discern any textbook-worthy anatomy.

Sofia’s shoulders are shaking but she still speaks. “Is this why you never leave?”

Morgan puts her whole hand on Sofia’s shoulder and wiggles the other. She can see the tendons in her palm moving, the stubs responding. It looks gross, alien, so she stops.

“Morgan?”

She blinks and puts her hand down. “Yes.”

Sofia looks up at her with red eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

“You’ve already said that.”

“I know, but I should have told you, when the glass breaks, it breaks. It’s useless to try and stop it.

Morgan takes a step back. The skin on her face pulls tight, tear tracks cracking. “What are you talking about?”

Sofia turns back to the shards. “Your mother had glass toes. They broke off because she was trying to be too careful.” She smiles, remembering. “She always wore at least three pairs of socks. ‘For padding’ she said.” Sofia gives Morgan a sad smirk. “They never matched. She would stay indoors, walk only on carpet.”

Morgan takes a step forward. “What happened?”

Sofia looks down. “One day she took off her socks, and her toes had fallen off. Just like that. They’d grown brittle from the lack of use.” Sofia looks at Morgan with earnest eyes. “Take a pottery class. Come home and work in the garden. Use your hands because once they’re gone, they’re gone.”

Morgan shakes her head, hair getting caught in her eyelashes. “If I leave the apartment, I might die. You’ll have to bury my shards. They’ll be so small you can’t tell if it’s me or a car window. ” She squeezes her arm with her good hand. She doesn’t want to be crushed to a million pieces. But it’s too late, she’s been shattered.

Sofia pats Morgan’s arm, allowing her to release the pressure. “And you might die here. You might die anywhere.”

Morgan blinks three times and shakes her head a little bit. “But Mamí –”

“Learned this after her toes fell off. Do what you want. That’s what she did.” She smiles, her eyes still watery.

Morgan looks at her fingers and turns around. Jamie peeks from around the corner and chirps. Morgan smiles, but focuses her attention to her balcony. The assortment of pots sit, organized by how much water they need. This is her garden. All she needs to do is water them and pluck out dead leaves. It’s low maintenance, but Morgan always wished to be able to get on her hands and knees in the dirt.  

She looks at her hands, broken and not broken. They’ve never tilled soil.  They’ve never molded a pot. They’ve never kneaded dough. They’ve never cooked over a large vat of stew.

She turns back to Sofia. “But how can I do these things with one and a half hands?”

Sofia says, “Your mother lived without her toes. You can function without three fingers.”

Morgan is quiet for a beat. “Did Mamí try fixing her toes?”

Sofia shakes her head. “She screamed so loud that the neighbor’s dog howled. She couldn’t even look at her toes.”

Morgan nods, contemplating. Glass can be melted, molded, or blown. She could fix her fingers. She just needed window lead. She also needed to clean Sofia’s blood off of them. She wiggled her stubs again. She didn’t know how durable that kind of repair would be.

“Maybe you should break off the jagged parts of your fingers. For safety.” Sofia was holding her injured arm.  

“I – oh.” Morgan doesn’t own an oven mitt, having never used the oven. So she wraps her hand with a towel. She looks back at Sofia, who is still holding her arm. The blood has seeped through the bandage. She blinks quickly and glances at the knife in the sink. The blood is visibly dry on  the blade.

“Mamá! How deep is your cut?”

Sofia releases her arm and wipes her hands on her pants. “It’s not bad, I’ve had worse.” Her face pulls tight, holding back a wince.

Morgan turns and grabs a plastic bag, sweeps her broken fingers into it. Blood streaks across the counter and patterns the plastic bag. She zips it tight and walked over to Jamie’s cage, clicking her tongue again, and coaxes him inside with promises of fresh spray millet.

“What are you doing?”

“We are going to get you to a hospital, and then I am going to look for a local glass warehouse.” Morgan locks the cage. Jamie climbs the door and bites he latch. She covers his cage with a blanket grabs her phone.

Sofia looks between the bag of shards and Morgan, who is putting on shoes. “You want them to fix your fingers?”

“If they can.”

“And if they can’t?”

Morgan closes her eyes and sighs.

Sofia nods. She wraps the onions in saran and leaves them in the fridge. The fish was set to marinate a while ago and was already in the fridge. She goes to clean the knife, but Morgan stops her.

“It doesn’t matter, I’ll clean that later.” She’s already holding a purse and her jacket.

Sofia looks at Morgan’s eyes. They’re clear, if a bit watery. She hugs her, tight. Morgan hugs back, her mitten on Sofia’s shoulder.

“Get green fingers.”

Morgan laughs. “We’ll see Mamá, we’ll see.”