#i DO like the mingus doodle under the cut.

[shininguponthestars]

dialtown whiteboard shit from 2 diff boards (more under the cut)

[ratgingi]

my dialtown ocs !! click for better quality, info on them + extra flavor doodles under cut (its long be warned)

Michy Knight | she/her + pansexual, will date you regardless of head choice

- full name is michelle knight, but she usually goes by her nickname, michy (funfact: i named her michelle before finding out that was mingus' previous name lmao)

- she decorates her head with stickers but takes them off for work, so they change often

- she works at the post office and delivers telegrams on the side

- shes a very bubbly hopeless romantic, and likes to pretend she's a cupid delivering love letters

- she's incredibly social and knows a number of people in town, but does not actively have anyone she really considers a close friend

- she focuses heavily on her jobs, she adores mingus and (pre chapter 3) wants to be part of mingus' "perfect dialtown", believing doing her jobs well will guarantee that for her

- she loves to write, most specifically she writes fanfiction, and publishes them online. occasionally people she knows are featured in these under code names, most prominently of which is mingus

- she technically is aware of norm, but doesnt actually know anything about him. she found the shack while travelling in search of writing inspiration, and now she thinks hes just a hermit who needs some company, so she often sits outside his door and reads her fanfics to him

- the player meets her as a passer-by on the street in downtown while shes headed to her job, and after explaining the situation she gets excited and offers to help find a date. when her offer is accepted she becomes part of your 'party' and goes to the park with you to talk about who she thinks would be a good fit with you (this is determined by the head you have + a few dialogue options with her that show her your personality). after that she tags along with you for other character interactions

- her route is hard to get, as it only "unlocks" after the player loses all other routes she's aware of (namely: olivers, randys, karens, jacksons, and lilliths) while she is with you, after which she apologizes for being a bad cupid and offers to take you to the funfair herself instead

- in her route, you try to help her learn that it's unhealthy to hold herself to certain standards that she does all for the praise of someone she wont achieve, and help her learn that the over-glorified version of love she has in her head isnt something to prioritize over true love; that true love is mutual, and can be messy and imperfect but is just as worth pursuing

- the only other route she appears in is bigfoots (she runs into you while you're outside town hall before the mingus encounter, and asks if youre going inside. if you say you are, she offers you a package and asks that you leave it with tango at the front desk as its a gift for mingus and she's too shy to do it herself. the player instead leaves the package on the office desk after picking up the rug. ("here, i'll put this on the desk, that way it's like a trade! we're even now.")

- her route's hatchling has a lovebird for a head

Jackson Coxx | he/him + gay, will only date you with a phone head

- works at an arcade located in uptown, hes close friends with a coworker of his named exie

- he's a gym bro whos in extreme denial about his sexuality

- he has a lot of false confidence and often remarks on how strong / attractive he is

- hes pretty tall (like 6'2" when he isnt slouching)

- he has very bad fashion sense and often wears the same thing multiple days in a row

- he likes to play with the plastic bit of the case around his head's charging port when hes bored, and this as resulted in it becoming misshapen and sticking out at the bottom (his head is based on my phone irl that i do this with so ngfdkjbgk)

- the player encounters him in the apartments after approaching his door. you catch him as hes leaving his apartment and headed to the gym to work out some. a dialogue scene follows where you can ask him out; asking him out as a typewriter will result in the route-lost pop up ("Yeah, uh... You're.. okay, i guess, but not my type, sorry, haha.") and asking him out as a phone, he will quickly state that he isnt gay, and a bit of a back and forth scene will take place, by the end of which he will agree to take you to the funfair as long as its 'just as homies'

- during chapter two while looking for jackson the player heads to his place of work and meets exie, who says that he's on a smoke break out back but that she'll keep you company while you wait for him. theres a scene between the two where the player makes a comment that he must be homophobic for how much he hates the idea of being gay, and he will defend himself by saying exie is wlw and the two are very close, after which she makes the comment that jackson is also gay, and he gets annoyed with her and tells her not to lie to strangers

- in his route, the player will be teaching him to accept himself, and that its okay to be true to who you are regardless of what people around you might think or say about it, that its important to be who you are and not let the pressures of those around you change that, no matter how scary that may be

- his hatchling has a wolf for a head

Charlie Steiner | he/him + aroace, doesnt have a route

- owns a morgue on the outskirts of town (the morgue is also legally registered as a church)

- he is very full of himself and over the top (think classic funky cartoon villain), hes also incredibly good with people and loves to socialize

- he's very 'animated' when it comes to behavior, he talks with his hands a lot and constantly overexaggerates words/movement

- his head is a phone with a coffin case on it, he almost never opens it though

- he loves dressing fancy and often with a religious aesthetic, usually with big boots and long coats. hes always wearing his gloves, even when outside of the morgue

- he doesnt have a route of his own but is very very present in lilliths, so much so that his interactions even determine what endings you get. he is very protective of and close with them.

- he is the first person you meet during the morgue encounter. if you ask him out as a phone, he will say he isn't interested and that you should look elsewhere for love. when you ask him out as a typewriter, he will state he himself cannot help you, but that he has an assistant down the hall who may be able to help you

- there are two times talking with him changes your route. the first is after lillith accepts your offer for a date. while they are getting ready, the player returns to the main room in the morgue and he asks how the talk went, and after being told they accepted he requests that you allow him to secretly tag along and help him make sure lillith doesnt know, offering to give you tips during the date. telling him no results in the good end being closed off, after which you can only get one of the three 'bad' ends. the second time is during chapter two before a second date with lillith, he will again ask that you let him secretly tag along, and telling him no will set you up for the shit yourself and die end.

Lillith Morozov | they/them + lesbian, will only date you with a typewriter head

- charlie's assistant in the morgue

- unlike him, theyre very antisocial and much prefer to avoid people, spending most of their time at the morgue. they struggle to process and display emotions in a 'proper' way, and when they get over stimulated will either shut down or have a physical outburst depending on the type of emotion that caused it

- theyre mute and communicate through sign language (which shows in the dialogue box like {this}), they even taught charlie sign language and he translates it for people when needed

- their favorite hobby is preserving bugs/flowers/bones through taxidermy/pinning/jars/etc

- their head is a folding clipboard, though they usually keep the font part clipped back. whenever they get upset/feel a strong emotion in general, they 'close' their head, as it makes them feel more secure

- charlie will occasionally use their head like a normal clipboard when the two work together (they do not mind this dont worry)

- theyre technically 'petite' but are incredibly strong, usually taking the more physical jobs around the morgue

- during chapter 2, there is a little date scene with them (that you can only reach if you told charlie yes, after which he will give you a tip that you use to get the good end) where the player makes a remark that the waitress serving the two of you is cute. lillith will become closed off after this remark and once this is noticed the player will be presented with 3 options: you can continue to make comments about the waitress and pick at lillith over it (this will lead to bad end 1 where lillith essentially snaps and pickles the player lmao), you can tell lillith that theyre the only one that matters and put them on a bit of a pedestal; becoming cold/mean toward the waitress to prove it (this will lead to bad end 2 where the player tries to preserve lillith 'like a delicate flower') , or you can assure lillith that you remarking that you thought the waitress was pretty wasnt a sign they were being replaced and that you thinking someone else looked nice does not lower their value (here is where charlies tip plays in as he tells you that way of thinking is smth lillith has trouble with, and will lead to the good end)

- as you can probably tell, lillith's route is about teaching them that the opinions of those theyre close with do not immediately raise or lower their value as a person, and that its okay to struggle and be imperfect - that they and their actions have value regardless and do not need others to actively/constantly see it for it to exist

- the hatchling for lilliths route has a lamb for a head

congrats !!! u made it to the end have some doodles i made of them all

[ratgingi]

some little doodles and rambles pages :-] bonus Longer Ramble under cut, goes into some general oc stuff as well as kinda how things work in my oc group set up

on the topic of michy, her name is accidentally a nod sorta to her relationship with mingus. since her last name is knight . you can make the connections there but it was Not intentional on my part i just happened to name her that (just like i. named her michelle before finding out that was mingus' original name HJSHBAVJDSAB) and my qpp cress pointed out the potential for it

speaking of names, i got inspired to pick jacksons name based on a tiktok i saw while creating him, with a character named 'chase wood'. i thought it was Really Funny but didnt want to directly rip either of those names so got to work thinking of something. i took the name jackson from the song that sort of inspired his personality (called "jackson, you are dying" by picture us tiny) and grabbed the last name coxx after seeing a randomly generated npc in a video i was watching to complete the joke

also charlie got his last name the same way jackson did in the sense of a random npc in a game video i was watching had it and i thought it was good enough. while i was trying to figure out what kind of name to give him (hed already had the name charlie for a good while, since he was a generic objecthead oc i had but decided should Become a dt one) a character named 'warden steiner' was mentioned like. once. and i thought that sounded close to frankenstein and was like. yeah thatll be cool

also kara has a second major nondateable technically. she may or may not get scrapped bc shes genuinely horrible (i hate. writing her. i made her design pretty nice but i just actually hate her BHJSJHABJD), but shes a rival from karas pageanting days who would lead to two different bad ends if she became real, one of which is. a death end for kara. i dont wanna go into full detail bc again its likely to get scrapped just bc i literally hate the rival but tldr kara gets shot(? or smth idk she eats absolute shit either way) during a performance because the rival convinced the player that the only way to help kara realize performing isnt for her was to sabotage it and it goes Wrong. the other bad end is just kara trying to warn the player that the rival isnt good to hang around and eventually cuts off from the player which would lead to the shit yourself and die end bc player probably gets thrown under the bus by the rival during smth. most likely in a literal sense

i wanna talk about mechanics some now uhhhhhhhh ok so on the topic of 'major nondateables'

i have probably explained how it works before but in order for a character to qualify as a 'major nondateable' they have to 1. heavily effect the route [to the point of interactions with them being able to change its course] and/or 2. heavily influence the route's dateable's thoughts/actions/general motivations during it, sometimes both. they also CANNOT be another dateable in a different route. if i were to apply this to in-game characters for example, mr dickens would be a major nondateable from olivers route, and mayor mingus would be a major nondateable from norms. the majors dont have to have an active presence near the dateable during the route, they just have to apply to the above guidelines. these are the reasons why characters like exie, adelaide, stephan, stop, etc are not considered major nonedateables, because while they are close with the dateables from the routes they have a presence in, they do not change the route or motivate the dateable toward anything. charlie actively changes the route and clearly has a big sway over lillith, oakey would be mentioned several times by kara as a reasoning for why she says or does certain things during her route, and juniper - despite not being close to margo - has the ability to effect the outcome of the route.

and not every route Has to have one obviously . and there are some that would Technically be major nondateables for each other (ex. murr and roe, isaac and vinnie) but Because the other half of the pair is also dateable in a separate route, they do not qualify

also smth i dont think ive talked abt much is the fact that yes outis genuinely does call the ocean his wife. i mentioned he does that a few times when i first made him but there would be several points in his route where he does this (its mostly joking but there would be points where hed be talking abt it and say smth like 'i love my wife a lot but she scares me very much'). also originally i was going to give him a shark tooth on his necklace, based on the one i have irl, but the story for my irl one is a guy punched it out of a sharks mouth and i think if outis found out about that hed start crying and would not want anything to do with it. so shell necklace it was

also the two instances the petstore would show up in are once in outis' route and once at the end of murrs. for outis, you would be accompanying him to his shift that day, and brainstorming ideas for what you can do to try and figure out how to help him overcome his anxiety. kiki would approach you once you arrive and would spend a moment interrogating the player on who they were and what their intentions with her friend were, and would occasionally chime in with her opinion while you talk to him. in murrs route, youre taking him there to introduce him to the idea of maybe getting a pet he can dote on. after he doesnt really connect with any of the animals there would be a little interaction with twerpy where he gives the two of you directions to the shelter that their sister works at and he decides hell go sometime alone. (he ends up getting a cat, her name is darling and hed kill for her. you dont get to meet her bc murr and roe still dont show up in ch3/4 but she Exists)

murrey is a firm believer in the concept of true love and believes hes found it multiple times in the past, and absolutely Despises the thought that some people have of only being able to really find it Once. during his route thats what hes chasing (there would be a point where he complains hes gone so long without feeling true love that he intends to find it again, and the player has the option to tell him you can only find it once - which would start you down one of his bad ends), and the thought that its something you can only obtain once and never again makes him incredibly miserable.

murr is also entirely aware that there are different kinds of true love, but hes been stewing in his loneliness for so long that the romantic kind is the only one his brain will allow him to focus on. this is why his good end sort of helps remind him of that along side dealing with his loneliness in healthier ways

also adelaide has a side job at the shelter as well. when you meet her with margo and juniper in chapter 4 shed mention something about murr adopting darling and inform you that hes a lot happier now that he has the cats company. also margo and juniper are doing better after your help as well bc margo is getting a bit better at communicating and juniper is trying to be less. [gestures vaguely] . shes still an ass bc thats just her but yknow what i mean

also im thinking about making michy my only dateable that shows up in chapter 3. everyone else's interactions that would be in ch3 have been moved to 'chapter 4' but she was my first gal i think she deserves her spot there. youd meet her with norm while heading down to the subway and shed run up to you two after recognizing his voice (shed talk about being on her way to a date with her partners, i Wanna make them show up in person but as they both belong to friends of mine im not confirming anything really bfhdjbfdjs) and talk about how after your help to get out of her parasocial issue shes found true love and is focusing more on her friendships and her happiness. :-]

also funfact i have partial scene scripts for stephan and stops routes somewhere on my laptop. they were both going to be dateables at one point and i wrote a little about what mightve happened + pieces of a scene from each but idk if ill be able to find them nor will i ever show them if i do probably but they are there. somewhere

also !! alex is intersex . i dont think ive ever stated that anywhere bc it isnt really relevant to the story or anything but its pride month so might as well share. good for them

also i am gonna confirm at least ONE of the library dateables is actually a vampire. probably. yall dont get to know who though (my qpp knows but cress keep that info to urself /vlh)

i had more i wanted to say but forgot to write down somewhere so. take this