#parse lines in file

[cvntoid]

erm… predatory/prey play with roman in the workplace……

everyone is gone, like the building is CLOSED closed. he tries to corner his assistant (because duh) and be like hey… what if you let me fuck you? and she just slips her heels off and just. books it.

it’s all in good fun, until it’s not. hopefully no one sees the security footage of him dragging her back into his office by her ankles.

and then he [redacted] her [redacted] until they [redacted]. goodbye 2024.

“I’m bored.”

“Try… I don’t know. Doing some of the paperwork we have to get through. We only have to be here until everything is looked over, signed, filed…” You sigh a long, frustrated sigh, leaning on the desk with your head in your hands. “Roman. You have to throw me a fuckin’ bone, here.” The hour runs so late that everyone else is gone on this floor, only the two of you left. You’re not tired, necessarily, just so utterly over all this paperwork.

Roman smirks at his place behind his desk, flicking his gaze to you from his computer screen. He lifts an eyebrow. “I could throw you a bone.”

A glare has him giggling to himself, that infuriatingly high little inward laugh he does when he’s feeling smug, or clever. It’s actually kind of attractive in an odd way… but so many things about Roman are. It pisses you off. He shouldn’t be allowed to be so smarmy and careless and just… look like that all the time. Roman’s eyes are on yours again and it becomes humiliatingly clear that you’ve just been staring at him, tracing the planes and lines of his handsome features. He turns a little, giving you his full attention now. Tracing his fingertip along some of the papers on his desk. Knowing you’ll watch.

“Oh… are you thinkin’ about it?” Roman licks the edge of his teeth, grinning. “You’re thinking about it, aren’t you. I mean… nobody’s here, right?”

“Fuck off,” you say softly. A flush rises up your throat and you roll your eyes, ripping another sheet off the top of the stack to parse through it. “You wish.”

“No… no, I think you wish. I do.” Roman rises up from his chair and you’re forced to look up at him, hands freezing as you move to sign a report. “I think you give me those fuck-me eyes all the time. As if I don’t notice. Oh - don’t make that face. I notice, sweetheart. I know when I’m stuck inside somebody’s mind… stuck tight.”

You feel a strange sort of… something. Something that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, just the way Roman’s standing up right now. Looming over his desk. Moving to walk around the edge. Out of pure instinct, you stand as well, palms on the surface as you rise up. Roman’s eyes are glittering, pupils wide and only getting wider.

“Roman…-”

“We should,” he says. “Fuck, I mean. You should let me bend you over this desk. Or… I mean, you could get down on your knees. I could get down on mine, whatever - equal opportunity fucking, right? I’m told I give some serious lip.”

He advances slowly, smoothly, like an animal as you edge toward the door. He’s smiling, but it’s not actually a smile at all. A wolf licking its chops. Your pulse quickens, a surge of adrenaline making your fingers tremble a little. Roman refuses to back down, his voice drawing lower, quieter, trying to hypnotize you like a cat with his words.

“Bad move, sweetheart. I can run. Probably had no idea, but all I did in fucking military school was get screamed at and run. I will catch you.”

Your breath catches in your throat and it’s then that the slice of fear starts mingling with something else, stomach doing flips. A spreading warmth seems to fill the basin of your hips, all that smoldering heat matching the fever-spots of flush in your cheeks. You slip off your heels, grateful for the carpeting - wearing thin tights might not fare so well on a hard, slippery floor while being chased. And that’s what this is, isn’t it? He’s going to chase you. A tiny shiver zips up your spine.

“I’m gunna give you a head start, just to level the -”

Before he can finish, you’re taking off. His laughter trails behind you, and after turning a corner in the endless rows of cubicles, you drop to your hands and knees and crawl, moving another couple rows over like that, holding your breath. There’s a manic thrill bouncing around inside your body, making you shake as you scuttle underneath a desk, both hands pressed over your own mouth. Somewhere nearby, there are soft, light scuffing sounds as he walks. Barely there, hard to discern. If he’s taken his shoes off, you’re fucked.

After a few agonizing minutes of trying to figure out his location by sound, he walks by. The sight of his legs walking away from you almost makes you gasp - almost. God, you can feel your pulse behind your fucking eyeballs. You inch forward little by little on your hands and knees on the carpet. Roman’s still slowly walking the other way. You rise up to a stand for only a fleeting moment before you stumble over your own goddamn feet, making a little sound as you land roughly on your hands and knees again. There’s a moment frozen in time in which you turn your head sharply to face Roman, and he looks behind his shoulder and sees you. There’s a flash of surprise on his face before he’s smirking, turning fully around, and you only make it a couple of steps before his fingers are digging into the collar of your shirt, yanking you back so that you fall down again, this time on your ass.

Limbs are pinwheeling for purchase - you twist in his grasp and he’s on top of you, laughing, practically panting with excitement. In a moment of blind panic, you slap him in the face and he reels a little. In that moment you scramble up and start running again, and he’s on your fucking heels. His laughter titters just behind you and it makes you giggle in return, giddy with the chase, with the weird combination of fear and arousal and anxiety making you throb. You throb everywhere - your pulse finds a loud, pounding home in the tip of your nose, your chest… your cunt.

Wheeling around a corner too fast, you trip again. Roman’s absolutely beside himself, laughing at you as he leans down and grabs your ankles.

“Hey, you really gave it your all,” he commends, voice dripping with derision. He flashes you a grin, all teeth as he starts dragging you backwards. You try to kick and wiggle, but Roman’s stronger than he looks - he has you in a solid grip, clucking his tongue at you. “No, none of that - you had your chances. I win, and I’m going to cum in your little cunt about it. Okay? That was the deal.”

Your skirt rides up and so does your blouse, everything coming untucked and rucking up. The carpet burns as he drags you across it, and you hiss as you squirm to escape it. Roman watches with a hint of amusement, uninterested in your struggle or your discomfort. He drags you all the way across the floor back to his office, and when you try to clutch at the door frame, Roman is swift to toss your legs to the side and take a step closer to kick it away. He finishes hauling you fully into the office and shuts the door, turning to you with his eyes all hooded and dark, cheeks red with excitement. The both of you tremble, the both of you utterly consumed by a manic sort of adrenaline high.

“Well, it’s not being bent over a desk, but - but I kinda like this better. More intimate, yeah? I get to watch you cum all over my cock. Lucky me - and lucky you,” he purrs, pushing your thighs open. When you lift yourself up on your elbows, he yanks your arms down by the wrists. “Dont. Give it up, honey - the struggle is really nice, don’t get me wrong. Cuuute, just fuckin’ cute as shit. But I’m getting impatient.”

He releases you to reach between your thighs, where he pulls at the fabric of your tights with both hands and rips them open down the center.

“Gotta invest in something that doesn’t get sold from a fuckin’ Walmart, babydoll. That was so easy it was barely fun.”

“Fuck you,” you mumble.

“Oh, you will.” Roman takes a moment to pull your underwear to the side. He runs his fingers along your slit, tracing the edges and folds of your pussy as he spreads it open, looking at it, barely teasing your clit. “You know how wet you are? Dripping. How fucking sad is that? Are you - oh, am I pissing you off? Making you all upset? You look like you wanna hit me. You wanna hit me again?”

You glare at him, opening your lips to say something about it when he laughs, shoving his fingers inside of you without warning, curling them, pumping them with a precision that has your glare dissolving. Moans take away all the words you had. Roman looks positively triumphant - he fucks them a little harder, a little faster, relishing the way you make those stupid, breathy sounds, the look on your face indistinguishable from pain. It excites him to think of that, too - hurting you a little.

“God, if you’re this fuckin’ whiny for my fingers, you’re really gunna love what comes next,” he murmurs.

Then you do slap him - but it can barely be called a slap at all. The impulse comes, you run with it in the heat of the moment, and a second too late you pull the slap a little and it barely registers. He blinks a little in surprise, fingers paused in their rhythm. He fucks them into you even harder as his eyes bore into yours, that delicate, angry vein showing on his forehead. His free hands rests on your inner thigh, gripping the flesh there. Keeping you spread.

“Not great,” he deadpans. “Try it again. This time, do it like you give a fuck about doing something right for once.”

You can do that. You can do that very well, and the crack of your open palm against the same cheek stings your hand. The flush to his face is immediate, and his eyes look black as he yanks his fingers out of your body again and he slaps you back with the same hand. He smiles as he watches you wipe your own cum off your cheek, tears welling up in your lashes. He tilts his head and pouts a little, undoing his slacks and pushing them down his hips. His cock bounces free, and the sight of it catches you completely off guard. It’s not that you’d ever had an expectation, or a particularly specific thought as to his size, but he is surprisingly thick. Long. His smooth, rippled cockflesh laced with veins. He grins, stroking it once or twice, and fuck, it looks gorgeous in his fingers like that as he teases himself.

“Yeah, I mean… at least I didn’t slap you with this, right? You wouldn’t even be conscious for what I’m about to do to you. But, you know… maybe another time.”

“Roman, seriously - you’re gunna have to… you know, take it - take it easy, okay?”

Roman’s eyes get absolutely dreamy, shining in the dimmed light and hooded by his lovely, low eyelids, wet lips parted as he crawls up over you. He leans in and lowers down until he can brush his lips just barely against yours, more a tease than anything else. He tilts his head and licks a wet stripe from the edge of your jaw up to your cheekbone, planting a wet, sloppy kiss there.

“Don’t you worry about that.” He reaches between your bodies and runs the fat, leaking head of his cock along your slit, slowly, up and down, back again. Every couple passes, he pushes the tip deliciously against your hole, rocking there but only barely. There’s a crease between his focused brows when he lifts to watch your expression, moving to keep your gaze even when you get embarrassed. “Look at you, all fuckin’ wriggly and full of shame. You getting desperate, sweetheart? Yeah? Wanna ask me for it?”

“Roman…”

“Mhmm?” Roman nuzzles playfully into your neck and nips at your throat, once, twice, a third time - this time hard enough to make you whine in that adorable way, your hips twitching. He chooses this moment to work more of himself in - only maybe an inch, just a little further, where he rocks infuriatingly slow again as he sucks a deep, dark bruise into your skin. He can’t wait to see what you do with that tomorrow - how you’re going to cover it up. But he’ll know. He’ll know it’s there. “Hey - go ahead. Ask for what you want.”

“Can you.. uh,” you mumble, nerves crashing under the sheer overload of sensation, of throbbing need. God, the entire fucking thing - the fear, the chase, the force, Roman being an insatiable goddamn beast hellbent on destroying you; it’s enough to melt your brain. But if finding a few more words is all that stands between you and the rest, then… “Can you please give me… more?”

“More of my cock?” Roman starts edging more of himself inside, a smooth, slow rolling of his hips, undulating. Each little thrust brings him closer to home, and you’re gasping. He fastens his lips to a new spot on your neck, at the juncture of your shoulder. “Just trying to take it easy, right? Be patient - you’ll get it all, honey.”

Finally, he’s worked himself balls-deep. He rolls so softly, so very tenderly against your cervix, the tip of his thick cock kissing against it over and over in a maddeningly erotic tease. Is it still a tease if there’s no room left to fuck into? He pushes your thighs open and lifts himself up a little, looking down at you. His cheeks are as flushed as yours. You’ve never noticed just how many freckles he has over his cheeks and nose, how they dot him delicately like a surreal expanse of dark stars in a pink sky.

“Touch yourself. Make yourself cum, just like this.”

Zero hesitation - you push your hand down between your thighs, between your bodies, and expertly circle your clit with your fingers. The natural clench against the stretch of him feels otherworldly. The bright, electric sensation of stimulation on the soft cusp of your cervix adds an entirely new layer to it; it’s sharp, but pleasantly so. You sneak a peek between your bodies at the way he rolls his hips, down to where he only slightly moves in and out of you. He keeps you impossibly full. You let your head fall back down and catch his smug lips, the way he licks them.

“Fuck… I’m close,” you whine.

“I know… I know.” God, he almost sounds kind. If you weren’t looking directly at him, you’d believe it. “Do it for me. You’re this tight already… I wanna know what it feels like to have your perfect little pussy milk me dry. You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to empty my fucking balls into you, you know that?”

“Oh - fucking…- shit-” Your entire body seems to seize up, and all that molten, coiled tension melts in a series of devastating waves, pulsating, rushing from behind your eyes all the way down to your toes as he continues to rock into you like that through the crash of your orgasm. His breathing gets erratic and he’s leaning down to lick at your throat. After you move your hand to cling to him, he starts to really fuck into you, rearing back just to slam his cock back inside. Suddenly you’re skating on the shockwave of a brand new explosion of pleasure as he sees fit to set a punishing new pace. The curve of his cock finally tends to all those barely-touched nerves in his full, brutal strokes, balls audibly slapping against your body.

“Yeah - keep fucking cumming. It’s okay, I know - it’s a lot to take. You’re doing so good - look at you. Like you were made to take my cock, huh, baby? I’m gunna fill you up, okay? You ready?” His voice is drawn high, soothing, making your head spin as you try to fit the tone of his voice with the sly, mean smirk on his lips. He reaches a hand up and presses his fingers against your lips, sliding two of them over your tongue. “Good girl - good fucking girl.”

The feeling of your lips and tongue on his fingers, the sounds you make, the way you keep clenching around him - it’s the perfect storm. His hips falter at the same time his moans do, and his cock is pulsing inside of you. He pushes deep, fingers matching as they wander toward the back of your throat until you whine, gagging, grabbing at his wrist to stop him. Your teeth scrape his knuckles and he shudders as he moans, rutting his hips in time with each thick spurt of his cum. There’s a wonderful sort of haze where both of your bodies are coming down, muscles relaxing. The beginning of the afterglow. Roman removes his fingers as his body stills, dick softening inside of you. He sticks those fingers into his own mouth without even thinking about it, tasting you, your saliva. Finally he separates from your body and pats the inside of your thigh, giving it a strangely affectionate squeeze. It feels more intimate than everything else you’ve done, in some weird way: the way he didn’t look at you when sucking your saliva off his fingers, the tenderness of the squeeze. Those things go quietly inside of you, somewhere else to peruse later. Things Roman wouldn’t really want you to have; accidental gifts.

“That was…” you trail off, exhaling hard to convey your feelings. You laugh a little bit, a bit of tension releasing as you do. “Jesus Christ.”

“Oh, you don’t have to do all that… you can just call me Roman Roy,” he cracks, smiling wryly. He sighs and pulls himself together, running a hand through his mussed hair before it falls right back into his eyes. “I know, I know. Big ol’ fuckin’ hog, devilishly handsome, and hilarious? I’m the entire goddamn package.”

“Don’t forget filthy rich.”

Roman shakes his head and bows slightly to you, hand outstretched as if giving you the floor. “And filthy rich. If I could just fuck and marry myself, I would. Now, uh… is your back okay? Got a little… scraped up, yeah? You need some, like, Neosporin or some shit?”

“Yeah, in fact - could you also bring me some Mickey Mouse bandaids, maybe a lollipop? Some stickers? I’m fine, Roman… thanks, though.”

“Show you a fuckin’ lollipop,” Roman mutters, running his hands over his face. He snaps his fingers, fidgety, gesturing toward the door. “Come on, let’s get the fuck outta here. Fuck the papers. I’ll make somebody else finish it tomorrow. I don’t care. Romey tired.”

Roman places a chaste hand at the base of your spine, guiding you through the doors to end the evening. There’s a comfortable silence as you separate, Roman heading for his car while you go off to your own apartment in the opposite direction. Closer to arriving home, your phone dings. Roman’s name shows up and you ignore the tiny wisp of a thrill in your gut at seeing his name there inside your phone, not having reached out first.

Overtime required tomorrow. My shopper will have new tights for you - you’re welcome. Make it worth it. -R

[roksik-dnd]

For everyone who asked: a dialogue parser for BG3 alongside with the parsed dialogue for the newest patch. The parser is not mine, but its creator a) is amazing, b) wished to stay anonymous, and c) uploaded the parser to github - any future versions will be uploaded there first!

UPD: The parser was updated!! Now all the lines are parsed, AND there are new features like audio and dialogue tree visualisation. See below!

Patch 7 dialogue is uploaded!

If you don't want to touch the parser and just want the dialogues, make sure to download the whole "BG3 ... (1.6)" folder and keep the "styles" folder within: it is needed for the html files functionality (hide/show certain types of information as per the menu at the top, jumps when you click on [jump], color for better readability, etc). See the image below for what it should look like. The formatting was borrowed from TORcommunity with their blessing.

If you want to run the parser yourself instead of downloading my parsed files, it's easy:

run bg3dialogreader.exe, OPEN any .pak file inside of your game's '\steamapps\common\Baldurs Gate 3\Data' folder,

select your language

press ‘LOAD’, it'll create a database file with all the tags, flags, etc.

Once that is done, press ‘EXPORT all dialogs to html’, and give it a minute or two to finish.

Find the parser dialogue in ‘Dialogs’ folder. If you move the folder elsewhere, move the ‘styles’ folder as well! It contains the styles you need for the color coding and functionality to keep working!

New features:

Once you've created the database (after step three above), you can also preview the dialogue trees inside of the parser and extract only what you need:

You can also listen to the correspinding audio files by clicking the line in the right window. But to do that, as the parser tells you, you need to download and put the filed from vgmstream-win64.zip inside of the parser's main folder (restart the parser after).

You can CONVERT the bg3 dialogue to the format that the Divinity Original Sin 2's Editor understands. That way, you can view the dialogues as trees! Unlike the html files, the trees don't show ALL the relevant information, but it's much easier to orient yourself in.

To get that, you DO need to have bought and installed Larian's previous game, Divinity Original Sin 2. It comes with a tool called 'The Divinity Engine 2'. Here you can read about how to unstall and lauch it. Once you have it, you need to load/create a project. We're trying to get to the point where the tool allows you to open the Dialog Editor. Then you can Open any bg3 dialogue file you want. And in case you want it, here's an in-depth Dialog Editor tutorial. But if you simply want to know how to open the Editor, here's the gist:

Update: In order to see the names of the speakers (up to ten), you can put the _merged.lsf file inside of the "\Divinity Original Sin 2\DefEd\Data\Public\[your project's name here]\RootTemplates\_merged.lsf" file path.

Feel free to ask if you have any questions! Please let me know if you modify the parser, I'd be curious to know what you added, and will possibly add it to the google drive.

[blackjackkent]

@astreamofstars suggested my next dive into the parsed dialogue files should be looking at the various Vicious Mockery lines available for player characters, and the ways the different companion character VAs speak them. This turned out to be quite challenging, as there are a LOT of them!

There are a total of 97 unique Vicious Mockery lines, each of which was recorded by all ten companion character VAs PLUS all twelve custom character VAs, for a total of 2,134 recorded lines, which is wild. (This is not including Ethel's 60 unique Vicious Mockery lines as well, which brings the total to 2,194.)

In this video, I've collected all 97 VM lines across all ten companion VAs, along with notes (where applicable) on things like

references to Shakespeare (or other pieces of media)

places where BG3 continues a time-honored tradition of the series by butchering archaic English grammar

interesting inconsistencies between the VAs or with the written dialogue

(If you notice any references I missed, please let me know and I might edit the video! :D )

In making this video, I ended up listening to all these lines a LOT, and I do love that some definite patterns emerge which are very on-brand for the characters in question.

Astarion often sounds deeply disdainful and at times almost bored. He barrels through some of the lines as if he doesn't think the recipient of his insult is even worth his time. (Also him calling someone a "parchment-pallored villain" is a bit rich, don't you think? :P )

Gale is deeply pleased with his own cleverness and laughs at his own jokes.

In my opinion, Dave Jones by far most Understood The Assignment; Halsin bellows out the lines like a Shakespearean actor playing to the back row and really relishes the language.

Jaheira is in full mother-tiger voice and clearly ready to kick ass and take names; she's not messing around. (With one exception - I have been laughing over Tracy Wiles's reading of "Mouthier than an arse, twice as full o' shite" for the entire duration of this project, because solely for that line she sounds like she's been possessed by some unknown force and is utterly baffled by the words coming out of her own mouth.)

Karlach reads most of these lines as either battle-cry or schoolyard taunt and seems utterly delighted in both cases. I enjoy that she adds a fun roll on her r's to sound all mockingly fancy.

Lae'zel generally sounds like she's about to rip someone's throat out and often seems completely oblivious to the humor involved, even on lines like the delightful pun, "As the leg, you'll end in defeat."

Minsc definitely doesn't know what most of these words mean but he makes up for it in enthusiasm. I enjoy that "Mouthier than an arse" becomes "mouthier than a butt" only for him. XD

Minthara, like Lae'zel, is mostly not coming at this from a place of amusement; she's MAD. She sounds like a judge handing down sentence in the most disdainful manner possible. (That said, she has my favorite deliveries on some of the lines with timing-related humor: "Thou art saucy... as gruel," "Thine eyes! Pools of tepid piss," "Like a summer's day... thou art sweaty," etc.)

Shadowheart just sounds deeply offended that her target is existing anywhere near her. She's practically spitting on all her plosive consonants and it's delightful.

Wyll sounds remarkably fierce given how nice a dude he is, but a lot of his lines have some righteous indignation (appropriate for a former noble and the Blade of Frontiers) - or he just sounds like he pities his opponent. His reading of "It vexes me to know of you" is my favorite of the whole cast; he just sounds so disbelieving of his target's stupidity.

Overall I think my favorite of these lines is towards the end: "Your body's a temple - to an idiot god!" All ten companions really stick the landing on that one. :D

Thanks for watching! Hope you enjoy.

(Got requests for other investigations into BG3 dialogue? Drop me an ask and let me know! )

[if-whats-new]

What's New In IF? Issue 31 (2024)

By Aj, Dion, Briar, Jen and Peter

Now Available!

Itch.io - Keep Reading below

If you read the zine, consider liking the post: it helps us see how many people see it! And sharing is caring! <3

~ EDITORIAL ~

Apologies for the delayed Issue!

As you might know, we unfortunately had to delay this Issue due to some personal matters. But as promised, it’s finally here! We wouldn’t want you to miss out on any news.

As this Issue says on the front page, it contains news from November 23rd to November 29th.

But! The Events should be updated to match their status on December 4th, as they are more time-sensitive.

Issue 32 should be released on time. That means two Issues this week!

We want some feedback!

As we’re starting to get a hand of things, we would love some feedback from you guys! What you enjoy, want more or less off, how we could improve... Anything goes! We even have a nifty form.

We hope you enjoy this new issue!

AJ, DION, BRIAR, JEN AND PETER

~ BE A PART OF THE ZINE ~

THIS ZINE ONLY HAPPENS WITH YOU!

Want to write 1-2 pages about a neat topic, or deep-dive into a game and review it in details? Share personal experiences or get all academic?

WRITE FOR THE COLUMN!

Prefer to be more low-key but still have something to share? Send us a Zine Letter or share a game title for Highlight on…!

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!

Came across something interesting? Know a release or an update announced? Saw an event happening? Whether it's a game, an article, a podcast… Add any IF-related content to our mini-database!

EVERY LITTLE BIT COUNTS!

Contact us through Tumblr asks, Forum DMs, or even by email! And thank you for your help!!

~ EVENT SPOTLIGHT : Videotome Jam - "Waiting" ~

November 16th to December 1st 2024

Videotome Jam is a two-week-long game jam for games made in any of the Videotome engines with the optional theme of "Waiting".

What is Videotome?

Videotome is a series of small homebrew IF/VN engines made by Freya Campbell (communistsister), an indie game developer focusing on narrative games that are usually:

science fiction, horror, &/or romance

close to 100% LGBTQ characters

free/PWYW with low tech requirements

liable to make players keysmash due to feelings

Videotome was first released in April 2022 as a part of a game entry for the Domino Club collective. The initial idea for the engine was to make writing text-heavy games as hassle-free as possible, focusing not that much on the visual presentation format, but more on the writer's experience. It would allow writers to write in a notepad and then it would somehow grab the .txt file and parse the lines into an array, spitting them out one line at a time as a kinetic novel.

At the moment there are four engines available:

Videotome, for linear, no frills text / images / music;

Videotome ADV, adding a more conventional layout with ignorable choices and branching;

Super Videotome, for more fully featured and freeform image/canvas use;

Videotome Heartbreak, adding a stat raising dating sim & storylets structure to the above.

If you're more interested in the process of making these engines, check out the devs blog post - Words, Friction, Syntax: Stuff I thought about when making Videotome. (The post also includes a very interesting case study concerning other game engines Freya has experience with.)

If you want to check out some examples of projects made with Videotome, take a look at this collection. It includes games made by both Freya and other devs.

~ ENDED ~

The Educational Jam has ended. Check out the thirteen entries and learn something new!

The voting for ECTOCOMP 2024 is officially over! Check out the results!

You can now check out all 16 entries to the Videotome Jam!

Disabled Rep VN Jam has a very simple premise but a very important message. Check out the submissions!

~ ONGOING (VOTING) ~

A Very Hallmark Game Jam has entered the voting phase. You can now vote for your favourite out of the five entries.

~ ONGOING (SUBMITTING) ~

Media depicting healthy examples of polyamory isn’t that common. The PolyJamorous 2024 is trying to break the status-quo!

This year’s Yuri Game Jam is in full progress. The devs have until December 2nd to submit their projects.

Once upon a time, a game jam was held to create stories around the theme of fairy tales… and that game jam is the Once Upon A Time VN Jam. It’s running from October 1st to January 31st.

Concours de Fiction Interactive Francophone 2025 is for all French-speaking enthusiasts. Submissions are accepted March 3rd 2025.

Are you perhaps a fan of more somber, melancholic themes? Then check out the Dying Year - Visual Novel Jam! You have until the end of the year to participate.

The Black Visual Novel Jam is all about working with creative professional developers who work in visual novels to bring more Black stories to life. The goal is to create a space where Black creators can show their unique storytelling through visual novels.

IF Short Games Showcase 2024 is a great way to shine some new light on your projects made in the past year (Jan 1, 2024 to Dec 31, 2024), regardless of whether or not they are previously released! You have until January 15th 2025 to join.

Winter Visual Novel Jam 2024 is here! You have until January 1st 2025 to submit your projects.

Are you familiar with Decker? Then why not take a part in the Deck-Month 2?

Another bitsy jam is here. This time with the theme "better late than never".

~ OTHER ~

PIZZAPRANKS is accepting submissions for their Indiepocalypse Issue #61. If you’re a dev and would like to try out your luck, definitely check it out! Any game is welcomed, not only IF.

~ NEW RELEASE ~

You stand at the edge of a vast and foreboding cave system, its mouth yawning like the jaws of some ancient beast. This is no ordinary cave—it is the entrance to the Caverns of the Forgotten, a labyrinth of twisting tunnels, hidden chambers, and unfathomable mysteries that have claimed countless explorers before you.

Generations ago, invaders brought magic to the Kingdom of Jubai, setting battlemages at the top of the noble power structure and leaving everyone else oppressed. Now, a secret organization of mage hunters has risen up, phoenixlike, to stand against the mages' power and overthrow their rule. Can your secret order of mage hunters save the kingdom, or will internal strife tear you apart in Magehunter: Phoenix Flame (CScript)?

Today is your first day of work here at Toy Maker’s TOY BOX (Ren’Py). Pull apart stitches or rip off an arm or two; we support whatever you must do to ensure that you only save toys of the highest quality. Should you ever feel unsure, there’s no need to panic! Simply toss the trash where it belongs: the incinerator. After all, it’s of the utmost importance that inspectors upkeep the Maker’s image.

You're struggling for friends in a new town and decide to check out a cute diner! — 'That New Diner', huh? Odd name for a restaurant, but I see advertisements for it everywhere. Might as well check it out. Who knows, maybe I'll meet somebody?

What does the glass sound like? Quite tinkly. It crumbled into sand under the feet of all those worried people circling around. As for you, there was darkness in your eyes for a long time. And the glass has melted into silence long since. But what is this place? And who is this stranger standing in front of you? And most importantly, where — or who — did the bullet hit? — Monarch (Ren’Py) is a short visual novel game that was made during Ukrainian Micro Visual Novel Jam in 10 days.

Halloween is a big deal in Port Gillain, steeped as the town is in old folklore and ghost stories. You, the local psychic, regularly attend the festivities. This year, you can bring a friend. The Second Sight: All Hallow's Eve (Twine) is a companion story to The Second Sight: Dead Reckoning.

Your Aunt’s House (Adventuron) is a short story about mourning. @kessielrg

The story centers around Larry, a cab driver eking out a meagre existence in a dystopian near-future, until he unwittingly finds himself centre-stage in the midst of a technological revolution. — For the first time this multi-media project can be experienced in the form of an interactive novel. Larry Folger Volume I contains all the chapters of the ongoing narrative complete with music from the series.

Your feather, my wing is a game about getting close to the object of an experiment that your 'super-secret lab' leads! It's all about fun, fluff and cuddles. Nothing serious and if anyone from the "normal world" came to this organization, they'd be disappointed by the lack of pathos, mystery and seriousness. But do you care?

Nestled at the edge of an ancient forest, Ravenwood Hill looms like a shadowed sentinel against the pale moonlight. This is no ordinary place; whispers of its dark history echo through the trees, carried by the wailing wind. The townsfolk speak of disappearances, of mysterious lights flickering in the mansion atop the hill, and of secrets buried deep beneath its crumbling foundations. In Ravenwood Hill, you are the only one brave—or foolish—enough to uncover the truth.

As always, don't forget to check out the submitted entries to the events mentioned in the previous pages. They deserve some love too!

~ NEW RELEASE (WIP) ~

Iberian Tales (Twine) - Life was once tranquil on the isolated coast of your city, surrounded by a loving family and promising prospects for success in your societal position. However, tranquility shattered as flames engulf your city, escape becomes the only viable option, if luck favors you enough to evade the soldiers blocking your path that is. @iberiantalesif-game

The Thorned Garden (CScript) is a Harem Intrigue game where you can die at any turn. Build up skills and connections to survive and climb the rankings. @opossumfern

Locked in a luxurious but ominous hotel, you are forced to face trials alongside five other people. Who abducted you and for what reason? What does the future hold with different organizations fighting for power over the world? And just how much is at stake when you play a twisted game without rules? Whether you want it or not, welcome to the Threshold (Twine). @thethreshold-if

5 days (Ren’Py) - Every step forward feels like another memory slipping through your fingers and yet, the world moves on — forcing you to find a way to follow, even when it feels impossible to let go.

~ UPDATES ~

As Gods Fall (CScript) released Chapters 4 and 5. @asgodsfall-if

Knight of Greenhaven (CScript) released Chapter 2.

Lost in your eyes (CScript) released part five of Chapter 3 on Patreon. @kathrinesadventures

Saturnine (CScript) added new content to their demo. @satur9-if

The Thousand Of Us (CScript) added new content to their public demo. @ivanwm-05

Weeping Gods (CScript) added new content to their demo. @jcollinswrites

The Summoner (CScript) released a part of Chapter 4.

Ashenmaw - Dragons of Marrowoods (CScript) added a part of Chapter 1 to their demo. @ashenmaw-if

Our Life: Now and Forever (Ren’Py) added Step 2 introduction scenes to their public demo. @gb-patch

Wasteland Pony Express added new content to their demo. @katieaki

The In-Between (CScript) released Chapter 11. @dalekowrites

Crown of Exile (Twine) released Chapter 10 on Patreon. @ramonag-if

~ OTHER ~

350p Adventure has been ported from Infor 6 to PunyInform. You can either download it or play it online in your browser. — (Some interesting trivia: The game is sometimes called Advent, because the system it was created on in the 70s would not allow filenames to be more than six characters long. This game is sometimes considered as the very first text adventure.)

~

As always, we apologize in advance for missing any update or release from the past week. We are only volunteers using their limited free time to find as much as we can - but sometimes things pass through the cracks.

If you think something should have been included in this week's zine but did not appear, please shoot us a message! We'll do our best to add it next week! And if you know oncoming news, add it here!

~ MAYBE YOU NEXT? ~

We did not get a submission this week. But if you have an idea for a short essay, or would like a special space to share your thoughts about IF and the community...

Shoot us an email!

~ HIGHLIGHT ON ~

A couple of games that we thought were cool.

Your favourite game here?

Do you have a favourite game that deserves some highlighting?

An old or recent game that wowed you so much you spam it to everyone?

Tell us about it! And it might appear here!

WE LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU ALL! WHETHER IT'S GOOD OR BAD, OR EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN...

Have something to say? Send us a message titled: Zine Letter!

As we end this issue, we would like to thank:

our awesome mysterious anon!

all you readers who liked, shared, and commented on the last issue! What might be tiny actions are huge support and motivators to us! Thank you for cheering us on this journey!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

And see you again on Saturday!

AJ, DION, BRIAR, JEN AND PETER

WHAT'S NEW IN IF? 2024-ISSUE 31

[mogruith]

BG3 Photomode Tutorial #2.5: More Scene Manipulation

Chapter 0: Overview

Chapter 1: Script Extender Debug Console

Chapter 2: Scene Manipulation

Chapter 2.5: More Scene Manipulation

Chapter 3: Otis_Inf Camera Tools

Supplement: Mods and Resources

In continuing from the last tutorial, I wanted to talk about how you find and play cutscenes. There's a couple ways to do this but I will show you my way because I think it is the most thorough way if you need to figure out what flags you may need to edit in order to get this working. It'll also give you the tools you need to troubleshoot flag settings.

In the above screenshot, you can see a cutscene that is meant to be played in the Shadowcursed lands: The cutscene where you play the Lyre to summon Kar'niss. It is a complex scene with tags to resolve and multiple NPCs - some of which aren't humanoid.

I will show you how to find a scene based on a snippet of dialog, how to locate its name and UUID so you can plug it into this command:

Osi.QRY_StartDialogCustom_Fixed("SCL_Drider_Caravan_HalfOrcCaster_865adfae-1b72-1ed2-f961-d55abd4fb7b1","S_GOB_DrowCommander_25721313-0c15-4935-8176-9f134385451b",Osi.DB_Avatars:Get(nil)[1][1],"S_Player_Gale_ad9af97d-75da-406a-ae13-7071c563f604","S_Player_Astarion_c7c13742-bacd-460a-8f65-f864fe41f255", 1,1,-1,1)

Warning: Please keep in mind, this is still a very finicky process. Again, take it slowly. And please don't be afraid to ask for help if you're struggling. Once you get the hang of it, you can pull out scenes and troubleshoot them into playing with ease.

There's also a good chance I'm glossing over something and not explaining it clearly/accurately. Please send me an ask, DM, comment to clarify anything that's confusing!

BG3 Dialog Reader

In order to do this my way, you'll need to download BG3 Dialog Reader and generate HTML files that include all the dialog of the game. There's already a very lovely tutorial on how to do this, so I recommend you follow it. EDIT: Or download their parsed files from their Google Drive: BG3 - parsed dialogue (1.7).zip

You've probably seen posts in this format before:

So you should now have HTML files located somewhere on your system. You need to search for a line that you'll find in the cutscene you want. Now you need to ask yourself: What line can I search for that is unique to that cutscene so that if I search for it I will get exactly what I'm looking for?

In the Drider-Lyre scene I recall an NPC asking "Did you bring the lyre?" so that's what I searched for. I use the Everything search tool because it's awesome and search for the file like so:

You will need to take a look at this file later, but for now, just take note of the name: SCL_Drider_Caravan_HalfOrcCaster. This is the first half of what you need to complete the first parameter in the command at the beginning. And we are going to use this to find the UUID.

Finding the UUID

To find the UUID, you're going to need another tool. The BG3 Modder's Multitool. Go to their GitHub, look along the right column and click on the link in the Releases section.

After that, click on bg3-modders-multitool.zip to download it. Extract the files to a new folder somewhere handy and run bg3-modders-multitool.exe.

In BG3 Modder's Multitool, click on Configuration and set the bg3.exe location to your Baldur's Gate 3 executable (E:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Baldurs Gate 3\bin or something along those lines). The Documents folder should auto-populate but you may want to double check it.

Now click in Search Index. It's going to start a process where it searches through the BG3 files. This can take a while the first time, but will be instant after that.

Once it's complete, you can now take the name of the scene and pop it into the new Index Search window that popped up.

In the results on the left, there will be a lot of files that list it, but I generally look for ones that say Assets\Dialogs\[PAK] and end in _merged.lsf and click on it. Then click Convert & Open.

This should open in Notepad or Notepad++. Now search this file for "SCL_Drider_Caravan_HalfOrcCaster" - keep in mind there can be MULTIPLE results. Note that the first instance you will get is SCL_Drider_Caravan_HalfOrcCaster_AtTower. This is the wrong scene.

You are now looking in the code a couple lines above that string for a value that is an ID type and has a value that's a lot of letters and numbers. This is the UUID.

So you have what you need to create this first parameter. Combine SCL_Drider_Caravan_HalfOrcCaster with the string of letters and numbers separated by an underscore. Like so:

SCL_Drider_Caravan_HalfOrcCaster_865adfae-1b72-1ed2-f961-d55abd4fb7b1

Plugging into the StartDialogCustom Command

Note that this copies straight in to this command in the first parameter:

Osi.QRY_StartDialogCustom_Fixed("SCL_Drider_Caravan_HalfOrcCaster_865adfae-1b72-1ed2-f961-d55abd4fb7b1", "S_GOB_DrowCommander_25721313-0c15-4935-8176-9f134385451b", Osi.DB_Avatars:Get(nil)[1][1], "S_Player_Gale_ad9af97d-75da-406a-ae13-7071c563f604", "S_Player_Astarion_c7c13742-bacd-460a-8f65-f864fe41f255" ,1,1,-1,1)

Now on first glance this looks pretty much like other times I've shown you this command, except note that there's FOUR actors. When a cutscene doesn't play at first (after double checking the UUID), this is very often the reason why. This is the minimum because the roles for the half-orc and Karniss need to be filled. First position is Kansif the Half-Orc, second is Tav, third is Brawler Vez, and fourth is Kar'niss.

Note: Kar'niss CAN be played by a non-Drider NPC - they will float angrily around carrying the lantern. It's hilarious. Try it. Here's when I tried it with my Tav:

Setting and Clearing Flags

Now. Depending on where and when you play this scene, the scene may or may not play or it will quit early. There could be a few reasons for that. The UUID could be wrong, the number of actors could be wrong, or a flag could be set that's not supposed to be set.

Let's have a look at the BG3 Dialog Reader file for this scene to see what flags are in use.

By default you should be able to see checkflags (blue) and setflags (orange). Look at the top of the page for a reminder of what the colors mean. The blue check flags are checking to see if the flag is set or not. If SCL_Drider_HasMet_CaravanFirstTime = False then you have met the drider caravan yet and this line will play. You will notice that after that is the orange SCL_Drider_HasMet_CaravanFirstTime setflag. That means the game will NOW set the flag as you have now met the Caravan for the first time. There may be occasions where you need to change the flags to get a cutscene to play. Here's the good news: There's handy commands for that!

print(GetFlag("flag",Osi.DB_Avatars:Get(nil)[1][1]))

Osi.ClearFlag("flag", Osi.DB_Avatars:Get(nil)[1][1])

Osi.SetFlag("flag",Osi.DB_Avatars:Get(nil)[1][1])

The bad news is you will have to find the UUID for each flag! So we gotta go back into BG3 Modders Multitool and search for the flag SCL_Drider_HasMet_CaravanFirstTime

Thankfully, you'll only get one result and the big string of letters and numbers is the UUID you need.

Now you combine them like you did with the cutscene name and UUID before, separated by an underscore: SCL_Drider_HasMet_CaravanFirstTime_39e94029-84f7-418d-ddce-8947bcbb7688

So let's say the cutscene isn't playing because you're on a save where that scene has already played. Clear the flag on your Tav: Osi.ClearFlag("SCL_Drider_HasMet_CaravanFirstTime_39e94029-84f7-418d-ddce-8947bcbb76", Osi.DB_Avatars:Get(nil)[1][1])

And I think we will leave it at that. I realize this was a LOT to cover. Go through this very slowly. It will take time to understand what is happening here.

And as always, if you have something you're trying to do and you're struggling with the directions, I can try to help! Please send me a DM, Ask, whatever else and I'll gladly help you with whatever you're trying to do.

Thanks for reading and sticking through this so far!

[galedekarios]

gale & the magma mephit

so remember that time where the protag can save mirkon and gale will tell you about summoning not only tara as a boy, but a magma mephit as well:

and you do meet a magma mephit during his ressurection protocol.

first, gale's projection will tell you about it:

and then the magma mephit will of course appear once you actually do use the flute and letter as instructed:

back in early access days, those lines always got me thinking and it had always a headcanon of mine that the magma mephit in gale's story ("nice fellow. we kept in touch.") and the magma mephit involved in gale's resurrection protocol ("stay clear because the little camp can melt metal." + "of course, in walked the housekeeper. screaming, yelling, panic, and before you knew it: fire everywhere.") are one and the same.

well, i was parsing through gale's patch 4 files today and found this new (to me, at least) line:

Gale: I may have summoned things rather more exotic than a winged cat. Player: Such as? Gale: There was that magma mephit once. K'ha'ssji'trach'ash, in fact. You met him.

i'm beyond excited that my little headcanon was confirmed.

[good-night-space-kid]

Geology and The Terror

As a geologist who is incapable of turning off their geology brain even while watching shows for fun, one of the things that baffles me a bit about The Terror is why they continuously refer to the landscape as shale when both King William Island and the filming location in Pag, Croatia are dominated by limestone. Given the desolation of the landscape, the geology is rather at the forefront of many scenes so it was fun to try and parse it out as I watched.

King William Island, Nunavut, Canada

According to the official map of the bedrock of the region as published by the Canadian government (Harrison et al., 2015), the entirety of King William Island is mapped as dolostone, dolomitic limestone, and limestone with only minor components of shale, sandstone, conglomerate, and breccia. This is a shelf marine deposit dating back to the Late Cambrian, so this is very old sedimentary rock but younger than most of the surrounding hard rock that composes various parts of the Canadian shield. Notably, the pink units mapped on the Boothia Peninsula are Paleoproterozoic in age (2.5-1.6 billion years old), potentially up to 2 billion years older than the limestones of King William Island.

(This is an absolutely massive .pdf file with some scaled features so I would recommend viewing via the official publication to actually read anything or see fine details: publications.gc.ca/pub?id=9.557274&sl=0)

Notably, this map was published in 2015, 8 years after the novel was written. However, according to the bibliography for the map (which can be accessed via the previous link) a preliminary geologic map has existed for the area since at least 1967, though I was unable to track this publication down online. The novel was clearly thoroughly researched and Dan Simmons could have easily accessed this publication and others through multiple institutions.

The surficial geology of King William Island has also been mapped, and is predominantly glacial, as one would expect given it's location. For those unfamiliar with glacial geology processes, this is basically saying that the bedrock is buried under a bunch of glacial deposits. Glacial till is composed of rocks and sediments plucked from the bedrock and ground up. This is why the surface of the island is not one big rock, but a bunch of smaller pieces. Interestingly, the material on the southern part of the island is sandier because it contains more material derived from the Canadian Shield further south. If you're interested in glacial geology, I highly recommend zooming around a bit on Google Earth because the features here are GORGEOUS.

(This map is absolutely massive and the lines scale with zoom so it's hard to see at this resolution, access it here: publications.gc.ca/pub?id=9.834073&sl=0)

(Google Earth Pro, satellite imagery from 2020)

According to the surface geology map and Google Earth, the actual landscape of King William Island is much more water logged than it appears in the show. It's not entirely impossible that there has been some geomorphological change since 1848, but most of the features mapped would have been formed during the last ice age and as the glaciers melted and not more recently. This would have been handy for the men of the Franklin Expedition because each of these pools is filled with freshwater.

Pag, Croatia

Tracking down a geologic map of Croatia was somewhat challenging as I don't speak Croatian. I was able to find a map of the whole country, and while it's all in Croatian the symbol for the geologic time periods is universal so time periods can be correlated. This shows that the units that make up Pag are Cretaceous and Paleocene-Eocene in age.

(Map accessed here: https://www.hgi-cgs.hr/en/geoloska-karta-republike-hrvatske-1300-000/)

I was able to find a .pdf (access here: http://kig.kartografija.hr/index.php/kig/article/view/158/274) that had a bit more information on the map above but at a lower resolution. This states that the Cretaceous units are dominantly carbonates from the Adriatic sea and the Eocene units are also carbonates. This makes sense as both the Cretaceous and Paleocene-Eocene boundary/PETM are times of increased global temperature correlated with increases in global sea level.

As always, the best geology website out there, Macrostrat, also came through on the unit lithologies. I was unable to access the source listed on Macrostrat, but both the Cretaceous (green) and Paleocene-Eocene units (orange) are listed as limestone.

(Source: https://macrostrat.org/map/#x=16&y=23&z=2)

One of the best views that we get of the geology on Pag is the last scene with Bridgens in episode 9. During the zoom out of this scene we get a really nice view of the bedrock and debris covering it.

Given all of this, I'm really not sure where the landscape description as shale came from. If there is historical precedence for calling the rocks on the island shale, let me know! I have read a few books but none of the primary sources from the expeditions to this region, so if it comes from that I wouldn't be surprised.

Overall though, I have to say that the filming location was well chosen given the similarities it holds to the geology of King William Island.

[carryoncastiel]

I'm trying to so something with the new parsed dialogue files for patch 6 but until then I checked some Wyll files again.

There are actually some added lines of dialog for when you leave him to go to Avernus (or go fight Vlaakith). I thought they didn't add anything for him because I tried that path in the game but apparently it's just not accessible at this point?

Player: I miss you so much, Wyll. Wyll: By day, I bargain with dusty bureaucrats and fuss over documents that would make a devil blush. By night, I sleep alone, longing for your touch. Wyll: But I love you no less now than ever. And I love that you are fighting for your people. Wyll: But I love you no less now than ever. And I love that you devoted your talents to such a dear friend. Wyll: I will wait for you, I promise - no matter how many sunsets pass. You are my heart. Player: And you are mine. I'll join you in Baldur's Gate as soon as I can. Wyll: Nothing could make me happier. Gods, what a treasure you are. Player: My beautiful man. You've always been such a softie. Wyll: Not always. But once I met you, well - love has a way of tempering a blade's edges Player: It could be a while, you know. Can you really wait that long? Wyll: I'll wait until the hot Hells freeze over and the cold Hells melt away. Let forever pass, if it must. Time itself can't keep us apart.

There is also an impossible kiss option which wasn't there before. Hilariously enough the devnote reads "If we have the bandwith add some kissing to his dialog"

Idk Larian, but didn't you just do nothing else but animating kissing for two months? You added an extra scene for Gale at the end (and extra animations for other characters I'm sure) but this was too much?...

At least it means kissing Wyll might gonna happen at some point, I guess.

Player: Lean in for a kiss. Wyll: Ah. A kiss as sweet as the first you ever gave me.

[hillbillyoracle]

So you want to print and distribute a free zine...

I wanted to throw together a short tutorial on how I print zines using this excellent COVID safety zine by @newlevant as an example.

Printing

First make sure you are clicking on the printable file. When you open it, it should look slightly jumbled. I always look for seeing the front cover and the back cover on the same page.

Then click "print" (usually a printer icon) and open "more settings".

The key things people tend to get wrong when they try printing zines is they forget to make sure that it is double sided and flips on the short edge. If you tried printing one and it came out looking wonky, make sure to check this.

Also, it will make your life infinitely easier if you use the collate option should you have it available to you.

Fit to printable area is a helpful setting to have on if you're printing zines who use a different paper standard than you. This zine didn't for me but I leave this on out of habit.

When you've got this all set up - print as many copies as you want to assemble.

Assembling

When you get them out of the printer they'll look like this. Just a big old stack. I highly recommend parsing out each individual copy before you try assembling any. I have made that mistake before.

This is how I stack mine.

I like to leave the cover side up as it makes for a clearer division as I'm assembling.

As you're flipping through these to parse and stack them, check them over for any issues with printing. I ran out of printer toner on the first three so I'm glad I checked.

Imperfections are fine but you're looking for anything that makes critical information unreadable.

To assemble a copy, get them lined up by tapping them on the table along a short and a long edge.

Both hands is a lot easier but I was trying to take a picture lol

Then fold them hamburger style and smooth down the spine as best you can. If you have a bone folder or similar use that.

Again, let go of perfection. We are looking for good enough here. Minor errors here should not make info unreadable so don't sweat the small stuff.

I recommend doing all your folding in one go to prevent errors. Or at least it really helps me.

Now it's time to staple. You will see my fancy stapler in the background - you do not require it and I would not recommend it. Unhinging a normal stapler is way easier to use in my opinion and this one gets jammed fairly easy. Use what you've got.

If you don't have staples, but you do have sewing supplies - check out this tutorial for a way to bind it with thread.

If you have no staples and no thread, you don't have to staple every zine. Smaller ones (~5 pages or less) do fine with no staple. They can be a little tougher for some people to use and don't hold up as well being taken in and out of places so I would consider that when thinking of where to leave them. They're still well worth printing and putting out.

This zine is small enough that one staple in the center should be enough to keep it together.

I opted to staple in two places - one about an inch in from either edge - mostly out of habit. It does add a little stability and will make them a little better for putting in Little Free Libraries and other places where they'll be removed and placed back.

Here is my partner looking over the zines to make sure my stapling didn't cut off any important information in each copy. It's a little tedious but it's pretty important. A quick flip through can mean the difference between someone getting the info you want them to have or not.

And here's the finished product

I made 15. I'm pretty privileged and have been making zines for over a decade now so it's almost like knitting or crochet for me. Feel free to make fewer copies or just one for yourself. It still counts.

I will stick some in each car and my bag. I have some medical appointments coming up so I will for sure be leaving some of these in the waiting room.

I'm also going to keep an eye out for Little Free Libraries and other place where people are looking for something to read. I might also toss some on the tables of a coffee shop I pop into sometimes (masked, take out only) and the library to pick up books (also masked).

I tend not to give them to specific people, even people I know, because people are way more open to information they've picked up themself than something it feels like someone is pressuring them to read. But if people bring it up in conversation, I'll be sure to offer a copy to anyone who is interested.

Hope this is helpful!

Go out there and print!

[entamesubs]

How the Fansubbing Process Works for entameSubs

The delays have brought about speculation and misinformed assumptions of how our work is done.

This post explains our entire process to put this misinformation to rest, and also informs those curious of how fansubbing works.

----------------------------------

For those unaware, each subbed episode comes with a section of credits at the very end that are specific to that particular episode. For example, EP124 was translated and timed entirely by me (entame), while EP122 was translated jointly by tessa (batsugeemu) and yona (angelthinktank), while I took a proofreading role. Each episode's credits are different, and I always make sure to credit properly based on who worked on what.

Step One: Translation

The job of the translator is to just get from point A (Japanese) to point B (English). One full run-through of the script, no stops in-between. Work is not edited, proofread or checked in any way, it is simply translated and then moved onto the next phase of the assembly line, so to speak.

Leave typos in, leave mistakes in, leave phrases you cannot translate or parse alone and move on. Awkward or literal translations are fine. The goal is to finish the whole script. A couple lines missing here and there is fine - they will be caught later. The first step is just to get it done.

Translating a full script can take anywhere from 2-6 hours, depending on the episode or any extraneous circumstances. To be clear, 2-3 hours is the absolute fastest that it can possibly happen, and it is an outlier. I can count the amount of times it has taken 2-3 hours on one hand. Those are usually reserved for our dedicated "speedsub" episodes, where we have everyone on deck to work continuously, without break. This is not a norm, nor should it be assumed so.

A normal episode will usually take around 4-6 hours working time to translate. Sometimes this is done a couple hours on one day, and another couple on a separate day. Sometimes it's done all in one sitting. It varies depending on the translator's schedule.

Step Two: Proofreading

After that, the proofreader then goes through for a second or third watch to do edits and checks. The proofreader is strictly in charge of making sure the translation itself is correct as well as fixing any missed lines from the translator. Grammar, typos, various other minor corrections are not expected to be done in full here, the main job of the proofreader is to just make sure the Japanese to English translation is complete, correct, and makes sense.

Is the subject correct? Is this the right verb to use in English? Are they talking about themselves or someone else? Is the context the original translator took correct/accurate? A second/third pair of eyes is essential to making sure everything comes out properly.

The translator may mark specific lines that stumped them or they need a second opinion on for the proofreader to pay special attention to. Maybe the translator can't think of an appropriate way to make something work, or need pun ideas.

Proofreading and translation roles are entirely switchable on request, because both proofreader and translator must know Japanese.

Step Three: Timing

At the same time, the timer begins the tedious work of timing the subs to the episode itself, making sure sentences show up at the correct place, for the right amount of time.

They ensure subs cut at scene changes, that the lines shown on screen are properly broken up if a character pauses, and are instering forced line breaks where necessary so subs don't awkwardly fill the entire length of the screen and are instead always centered.

Step Four: (not) "Final Check"

"Final Check" as I'd like to call it, is always done by me. Once proofreading and timing are both done, the sub files are sent to me.

I add in the opening and ending, I do all the fancy text effects if need be (such as scrolling text, rainbow text, gradient text, translating signs or posters shown on screen and blending them into the episode, etc - this is all under "Typesetting"), and I also do a third check of the script on a watch through to further edit any lines that may feel awkward to read on screen or I have thought of a better translation for.

The state that the subs come in pre-final check are subs that only contain the very middle of the episode itself. This means the prologue, the opening, the ending, UTS Report and preview are entirely unsubbed, alongside any signs or extraneous text on screen. Subs are not done pre-final check. There is a reason they must go through me first and that is because I am the only typesetter on the team.

To be clear, timing and typesetting are two entirely different skill sets. Getting the subs timed properly is one thing, getting the subs to look nice, flow well, and not feel awkward to read is another.

Typesetting is usually known as an "invisible" job. When it's done poorly, you notice it. If it's done well, you don't.

At this point, I also go over and double check things like character voice and make sure it's following our style guide. While this is a consideration made during step one and two as well (translating and proofreading), this is the point where things are tightened up.

Extraneous TL notes may also be added here in-episode if needed.

Step Five: Quality Checks

After everything has been bundled together and ready-to-go, it gets sent to our Quality Checker for the very last and final run-through. QC checks spelling errors, typos, grammar, weird English, missed casing, missed lines, style guide errors, etc.

The QC does not need to know Japanese (though it is a nice bonus if they do!), they only need to know English so they can check for grammar and weird phrasing. At this point, all of the translation work and check has been done, it is just making sure stuff makes sense to an English audience now.

After QC sends in their changes (or lack thereof), the timer usually goes back to fix up the final file for publishing.

Step Six: Distribution & TL Notes

Finally, the person who hits publish and uploads the episode file to all relevant sites is me, since I know how to setup, run, and seed torrents.

A lot of people may not know this, but all anime pirate sites (R.I.P.) pull their content from Nyaa's feed. If it's not on Nyaa, it won't be on a pirate site. In order to actually ensure proper distribution of the episode, it needs to be uploaded through Nyaa. Once it is on there, the pirate sites will all update of their own volition.

Translation notes, if any are necessary, are also written entirely by me, even if the episode may not have been translated by me initially. These are usually only written if I have time or if there is a specific concept/idea that I really want to make sure comes across properly.

Final Words

I hope this gives you better insight into the entameSubs process and how episodes are usually worked on/made.

A lot of our team is scattered across different timezones, with one person being 9 hours ahead, and another one being 6 hours ahead. This means things are done at different times and at the leisure of whoever is in charge of their role. If someone is busy, then there is nothing else anyone can do but wait.

It may be that after waiting for someone to finish, someone else in the chain becomes busy, and the process of waiting starts all over again. Steps are done like this so that we have appropriate checks in place. This is just how it is. None of us are paid, and all of us are doing this for fun.

Most of all, I take a lot of pride in the team's work. If something is not up to snuff, or I don't feel comfortable publishing it until we've been able to correct something that's been bothering us (whether that's a line, typesetting, or etc), it doesn't get published. These subs are not just "my" translations, but the work of the whole team.

Call it arrogance, but I'd much rather put out something we're proud of than something rushed through the wringer just for the sake of getting stuff out. You may disagree with lines or certain translations, but they are our work at the end of the day.

And it is a lot of work.

Thank you.

[cvntoid]

on this fine morning i’m thinking really hard about Roman Roy finding my fucksongs playlist.

he’s just bored. he’s so bored that he can’t keep his own fucking hands to himself, and what’s privacy, really? it’s just my tablet, whatever. probably not gunna find anything interesting on there. but why not peek through my shit?

boring, boring. stupid. oh, a bunch of text files with his name on some of them…? he’ll save THAT for later, for sure, when i’m not going to come back into the room anytime soon. delicious.

opens up my spotify, parses through the stupid playlist titles.

…“fucksongs”? the fuck? am i fucking somebody else? i mean, whatever, but he’s never been privy to this information, so… not that it’s a big fuckin’ deal. but. am i?

scrolling through the list, there’s nothing inherently sensual or romantic or sexy. it’s a jumbled mess of different genres and artists. the songs have no running theme whatsoever. Roman’s immediately irritated. he’s not a big fan of not being in the loop or understanding what the fuck he’s dealing with. it makes him shift in place, reading and re-reading these song titles. he plays one or two. they fucking suck. who listens to this shit?

apparently i do.

“hey. hey, get in here, what - what’s this playlist? ‘fucksongs’? the hell is this?”

“uh - wow, that’s not really your business, can you - give me that! - stop it!” oh my god, he’s holding it out of reach, smiling in his lopsided, infuriating way. “stop waving it around, Roman, you’re gunna fucking drop it!”

“answer me and maybe i’ll consider giving it back. c’mon, ‘fucksongs’, spill the beans. indulge me with your musical whimsy.”

“fuck off, it’s none of your business”

“you keep saying that like it makes a difference. it is for fucking, right? haven’t been fucking me to it, so - are… are you fucking blushing? wow, look at you pretending to be all fucking virginal and shy, get the fuck outta here,” and he’s laughing, oh god he’s laughing so hard, and with a little time and ruthless teasing he gets it out of me, the whole song and dance, literally - all those nights i listened to specific songs that thrust right, that it makes me feel it, that my brain’s just connected to my pussy this way. the throbs. the hot, involuntary clench that comes with hearing/feeling it, the mental pictures it forces into my head, the way sometimes if i’ve been listening long enough or in the right mood, i can cum a little, little sweet bursts like i’m being fucked by it.

“oh, yeah? okay, okay - hold on. okay”

grabbing sets of headphones, bluetooth connecting them. he’s already half-hard when he yanks my pants off. for science, he says. because he doesn’t believe it. sounds stupid. and he starts going through some of these songs, pushing his fingers inside.

“i don’t get it. is it working? i think you’re defective. or full of shit. or both. hmm. this music fucking sucks, by the way, some of it isn’t even in english.”

and by the grace of stroking at the right pace, it all clicks, when he lines up with the bass, whatever it is - there it is. the stupid fucking look on my face, the way i squeeze my eyes shut when my cunt clamps down on his fingers.

“oh. oh my fuckin’ god, this is so stupid. are you actually cumming a little? fuck, my fingers are soaked, so you must be. this is sad, really. hold on. hold on, you fuckin’ freak.” pulling his cock out, smirking, yanking my thighs open. “let me give you a little more. yeah, stop struggling. shut up. listen to the nice music. god, you’re pathetic.”

barely even needing to work himself inside. already so slippery, face already so red, eyes all dreamy while he matches the beat, and good god i’m a mess. gasping, whining, rocking my hips, letting him take it all from me as long as he finds the beat. doesn’t matter how mean or hard he gets - in fact, it only makes me cum harder. it’s like a magic trick. thrust there at the right time and bam, another one, and god my cunt’s getting so fuckin tight, it almost hurts

“this is too easy. all i gotta do is play one of these songs and you’ll be ready for my dick, huh? bet i could make you drool for it. you really shouldn’t be telling me any of this, shouldn’t leave your shit out for me to go through. this is one-hundred-percent on you, you do know that, right? a thousand percent. now, point to the one you wanna cum the hardest to - i’m getting close. hurry up. fuckin’ pick so i can give you your prize.”

absolutely milking himself. “ohh fuck, there it is, yeah - yeah, good girl, fuck. oh, fuck, like a goddamn - vice - ffuuuuuck”

anyway good morning i’ve been up listening to spotify and vibrating out of my body thanks for coming to my ted talk

[dcdreamblog]

i Just Have To Ask

is That One Of Them ManHunter Bots? and If That Is A ManHunter Bot Why Was It With The All Star Squadron?

No but the color similarity is both as intentional and as sinister as it seems. Manhunter had a bad habit of stumbling into situations like that

(The clearest file photo of Paul Kirk as Manhunter, background cleaned, circa 1942)

Paul Kirk II was born to a relatively wealthy family in Empire City and spent most of his time searching for distraction. He traveled, he honed his body, he hunted big game on the African continent until the thrill just no longer appealed to him.

It was during a travel searching to dispel this ennui that he stumbled into the orbit of the mysterious Cult of the Manhunter, a group of fanatics focused on hunting the guilty and destroying them. Their uniform, which Kirk modeled his eventual costume off of was based on the visage of their robotic masters who planted the seed of the cult on every world where they lay dormant. Though of course Kirk did not and could not have known that the masters of this freakish holy order were fascistic alien robots.

During a return to his native Empire City a friend of his was murdered by a deformed gang leader called The Buzzard. Using his skills to bring the criminal to justice Kirk found the rush he had long since been missing on the hunt. So he became Manhunter!

(He could not have known that former police office Dan Richards would then pick up the name less than a year later, also in Empire City a squabble that left the two men rather poorly disposed to one another for their entire lives and makes historical records VERY fun to parse as you can imagine)

While Kirk did join the All Star Squadron he was rather quickly scooped up by the nascent OSS to run black ops missions behind enemy lines, often alongside fellow agent Tex Thompson AKA Americommando. He did not enjoy the experience of being a spy, it was morally dirty work and far too subtle and quiet for a born hunter. He retired as soon as the war was over and returned to Africa.

When a charge by a Cape Buffalo left Kirk mortally wounded he was discovered by "The Council" a shadowy think tank with aims of world domination, natch. The healed Kirk, enhancing him genetically and altering his mind. They placed him at the head of their enforcement thugs which they staffed almost entirely with clones of Kirk himself. An Interpol strike against the group that somehow included Gotham's Batman managed to shake Kirk loose of his altered perspective long enough for him to bring the base down around the Council, killing the original hero in the process and seemingly all of the clones. Two of the clones however, survived.

Kirk DePaul was a member of the Los Angeles based hero business Power Company until his mysterious murder in relation to a string of murders related to those carrying the Manhunter identity. Currently the legacy is survived by Paul Kirk III, who currently works for the "HEROZ4U" hero rental app, which gets a bad rap on premise but I've heard nothing but good things about.

[vapolis]

when talking to Royal after going on a ride with D a pop up appears saying this:

"three line 1821: Couldn't parse the line after *selectable_if: (not(mc_vice_one = "smoking"))#"Got another one?" you ask, eyeing the cigarette."

yeah, I'll fix that when I have access to my files!

[if-whats-new]

What's New In IF? Issue 30 (2024)

By Aj, Dion, Briar, Jen and Peter

Now Available!

Itch.io - Keep Reading below

If you read the zine, consider liking the post: it helps us see how many people see it! And sharing is caring! <3

~ EDITORIAL ~

Event Highlight!

In this Issue we take a quick look at the Videotome Jam hosted by Freya, the dev behind all the Videotome game engines!

Continue reading to find out more!

We want some feedback!

As we’re starting to get a hand of things, we would love some feedback from you guys! What you enjoy, want more or less off, how we could improve... Anything goes! We even have a nifty form.

We hope you enjoy this new issue!

AJ, DION, BRIAR, JEN AND PETER

~ BE A PART OF THE ZINE ~

THIS ZINE ONLY HAPPENS WITH YOU!

Want to write 1-2 pages about a neat topic, or deep-dive into a game and review it in details? Share personal experiences or get all academic?

WRITE FOR THE COLUMN!

Prefer to be more low-key but still have something to share? Send us a Zine Letter or share a game title for Highlight on…!

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!

Came across something interesting? Know a release or an update announced? Saw an event happening? Whether it's a game, an article, a podcast… Add any IF-related content to our mini-database!

EVERY LITTLE BIT COUNTS!

Contact us through Tumblr asks, Forum DMs, or even by email! And thank you for your help!!

~ EVENT SPOTLIGHT : Videotome Jam - "Waiting" ~

November 16th to December 1st 2024

Videotome Jam is a two-week-long game jam for games made in any of the Videotome engines with the optional theme of "Waiting".

What is Videotome?

Videotome is a series of small homebrew IF/VN engines made by Freya Campbell (communistsister), an indie game developer focusing on narrative games that are usually:

science fiction, horror, &/or romance

close to 100% LGBTQ characters

free/PWYW with low tech requirements

liable to make players keysmash due to feelings

Videotome was first released in April 2022 as a part of a game entry for the Domino Club collective. The initial idea for the engine was to make writing text-heavy games as hassle-free as possible, focusing not that much on the visual presentation format, but more on the writer's experience. It would allow writers to write in a notepad and then it would somehow grab the .txt file and parse the lines into an array, spitting them out one line at a time as a kinetic novel.

At the moment there are four engines available:

Videotome, for linear, no frills text / images / music;

Videotome ADV, adding a more conventional layout with ignorable choices and branching;

Super Videotome, for more fully featured and freeform image/canvas use;

Videotome Heartbreak, adding a stat raising dating sim & storylets structure to the above.

If you're more interested in the process of making these engines, check out the devs blog post - Words, Friction, Syntax: Stuff I thought about when making Videotome. (The post also includes a very interesting case study concerning other game engines Freya has experience with.)

If you want to check out some examples of projects made with Videotome, take a look at this collection. It includes games made by both Freya and other devs.

~ ONGOING (VOTING) ~

The voting for ECTOCOMP 2024 has officially started! To vote and participate as a jury, you must do so by giving between 1 to 5 stars on each entry page of the jam. The voting period ends on November 30.

~ ONGOING (SUBMITTING) ~

A Hallmark movie is a feel-good, family-friendly film, often centered around romance, personal growth, or holiday themes. A Very Hallmark Game Jam with a theme of “Charming Love Interest with a Secret” is also all about that!

Are you a fan of Videotome games? Then the Videotome Jam with an optional theme “Waiting” is for you!

This year’s Yuri Game Jam is in full progress. The devs have until December 2nd to submit their projects.

The Educational Jam is a perfect place to learn something new. Discuss some obscure tidbit. Showcase your insight about a specific thing, your pub trivia skills, or that Wikipedia rabbit hole you went down last time.

Disabled Rep VN Jam has a very simple premise but a very important message.

Once upon a time, a game jam was held to create stories around the theme of fairy tales… and that game jam is the Once Upon A Time VN Jam. It’s running from October 1st to January 31st.

Concours de Fiction Interactive Francophone 2025 is for all French-speaking enthusiasts. Submissions are accepted March 3rd 2025.

Are you perhaps a fan of more somber, melancholic themes? Then check out the Dying Year - Visual Novel Jam! You have until the end of the year to participate.

The Black Visual Novel Jam is all about working with creative professional developers who work in visual novels to bring more Black stories to life. The goal is to create a space where Black creators can show their unique storytelling through visual novels.

~ OTHER ~

PIZZAPRANKS is accepting submissions for their Indiepocalypse Issue #61. If you’re a dev and would like to try out your luck, definitely check it out! Any game is welcomed, not only IF.

~ NEW RELEASE ~

In Arctic Adventure unearth forgotten journals, repair malfunctioning equipment, and solve puzzles to piece together the station’s dark past. But beware—some secrets are better left buried in the ice.

You are a dragon - huge, winged, flying and even capable of magic. Only here, in a system of caves created by your magic, you can be yourself. But the time has come for you to leave your home. The old map, that you've been keeping since times immemorial, is now ready to unravel it's secrets in A Dragon and the Tower.

You’ve spent your whole life visiting the majestic Hotel Lexington, and now you’ve inherited it! The once-grand building is in disrepair, and rumored to be haunted! You’re the only one who can restore its former glory before it’s lost forever. Check in to your hotel, and check out the ghosts in Haunted Hearts Hotel.

As always, don't forget to check out the submitted entries to the events mentioned in the previous pages. They deserve some love too!

~ NEW RELEASE (WIP) ~

You are a key member of "The Constellation Club," a close-knit group of friends brought together by your shared love for music and dreams. Over time, the club members drifted apart, but a mystery brings you all back together. Reunite with your friends, uncover secrets, and chase the dreams that first united you in The Constellation Club (Twine).

Have you enjoyed the first Volume of Oblivious Melodies? Then be sure to check out Chapter 1 of Volume 2 (Twine)! You play as the Horne siblings, navigating their emergence into gentry society. You will delve into a country divided by class, religious dissent, political factionalism, and the ever-encroaching interests of empire. @oblivious-melodies

In Ashenmaw - Dragons of Marrowoods (CScript) you play as a freshly hatched dragon whelp, navigating the odds and ends of the politics and mysteries of the five flights. Intermingle with the younger races, and jump headfirst into uncovering the secrets of Ashenmaw and the Marrowoods. @ashenmaw-if

Aydan joins his husband Leo in this important family reunion that takes place 2 months after his father’s death. Suddenly, they are all trapped in the house for 3 days and the lawyer states that one of the siblings is the murderer of their own father! Find out who the real culprit is in Guilty at 5PM (Ren’Py).

In a realm of forgotten tales, you emerge as a ghost to yourself. Stranded in a land where memories fear to tread, the icy breath of solitude kisses your bare flesh, a chilling reminder of your forsaken existence. In this realm where salvation dances with oblivion, Snowborn (CScript), awaken to tread the treacherous path through a world steeped in sorcery and demise.

You are a young nobleman, in a stagnating empire, either on the verge of resurgence, or it’s final demise. An Empire held together by fragile institutions, led by ego-driven men. And here you are, in the middle of it all. As this den of vipers strike, where will you fall? Find out in Scion of the Alason (CScript).

You wake up suddenly with a system telling you that you are occupying the body of a green tea b!tch! The spy of the fearsome overlord, Hasthael who betrayed him for the male hero, resulting in the death of his beloved lightning hound. Avoid the fate of dying and accomplish the missions given by two of the available systems in Project Dominion (CScript).

You are the Aeon, an omniscient entity as old as time. When your powers begin to malfunction and the source of an incoming threat is unbeknownst to you, how will you protect the fabric of the universe? Abandon your omnipresent form for the first time in millennia and craft an identity as a demon to infiltrate the Ethereal Plane in The Time Keeper (CScript).

~ UPDATES ~

Aesemyr: The Withering (CScript) released 3/4 of the "university gathering" path of Chapter 3.

After Dark (CScript) released the last part of the fifth day of the journey.

Eldritch Tales: Inheritance (CScript) released part one of Chapter 3. @darielivalyen

Honor Amongst Thieves (CScript) updated their public demo. @leoneliterary

Oh Mother, Where Art Thou? (CScript) started Act 2 of Chapter 1.

Our Life: Now and Forever (Ren’Py) added extra content to their Patreon demo. @gb-patch

The Abyssal Song (Twine) released Chapter 5. @ri-writes-if

Virtue’s End (CScript) has updated their Patreon demo. @virtues-end

When Life Gives You Lemons (CScript) updated their public demo. @when-life-gives-you-lemons-if

~ OTHER ~

Is playtesting something that interests you? Check out part one of Drew Cook’s let’s TEST IF #1: being a playtester. @golmac

GlasswingGames is currently running a giveaway! You can enter to win either a chibi or emote of a character of your choice! @glasswinggames

~

As always, we apologize in advance for missing any update or release from the past week. We are only volunteers using their limited free time to find as much as we can - but sometimes things pass through the cracks.

If you think something should have been included in this week's zine but did not appear, please shoot us a message! We'll do our best to add it next week! And if you know oncoming news, add it here!

~ MAYBE YOU NEXT? ~

We did not get a submission this week. But if you have an idea for a short essay, or would like a special space to share your thoughts about IF and the community...

Shoot us an email!

~ HIGHLIGHT ON ~

A couple of games that we thought were cool.

God-Cursed by @wings-of-ink (Twine)

I think this game is fantastic. Plot, ROs, writing, everything. Deserves thousands of reads and compliments!

//recommended by Briar [Team]//

Your favourite game here?

Do you have a favourite game that deserves some highlighting?

An old or recent game that wowed you so much you spam it to everyone?

Tell us about it! And it might appear here!

Hello! I appreciate what you all do. As a living thing with a 9-5 job, I couldn't regularly check updates from existing WIPs, especially the ones I really like. I also tend to be the last person to know new IFs with lots of potential. So, I'm glad that with your zine, I get weekly updates from everyone in one place. Thank you, thank you so much!

- a very mysterious anon

WE LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU ALL! WHETHER IT'S GOOD OR BAD, OR EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN...

Have something to say? Send us a message titled: Zine Letter!

As we end this issue, we would like to thank:

our awesome mysterious anon!

For a very encouraging message!

As always, huge thanks to all you readers who liked, shared, and commented on the last issue!

What might be tiny actions are huge support and motivators to us!

Thank you for cheering us on this journey!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

We actually have a separate Zine for all our individual Interviews!

Last Issue’s Interview with Leia Talon will be added this upcoming week.

And see you again next week!

AJ, DION, BRIAR, JEN AND PETER

WHAT'S NEW IN IF? 2024-ISSUE 30

[mister-qi]

Mr. Qi Friendship and Romance Mod Devlog 5/9/2024

Previous update

For those curious about the mod progress, read on!

Since the previous update, most of my efforts have been spent on Art and Implementation. While I've made some progress on Writing, that hasn't been my main focus.

Writing

Heart Events: no major progress, besides a bit of writing/blocking for the 4 heart cutscene.

Daily Dialogues: Generic dailies are 64% done. Unique dailies are currently on the back-burner. Marriage dailies are also on the back-burner, but I have quite a few written regardless.

Misc dialogues: A new section! This includes so many little details, which even get as hyper-specific as what happens if you divorce him and then attempt to invite him to a movie. What does he say if you give him a bouquet at low hearts? What does he say if you're married to him and there are slimes in the house? Stuff like that! There are 49 of these written so far, and it's hard to estimate my progress because as I continue looking through both the documentation and existing files I get more and more ideas.

Gift Dialogues: Not a ton of progress since the previous update, though I've written his birthday gift reactions.

Art

Portraits: 2 new portraits finished: blush and shocked.

Sprites: You may have seen me posting about this, but Mr. Qi does not have a walk cycle in the vanilla game, so I had to make custom animations for him. I've also changed his color scheme to better match his sprites.

Besides that, I've also made a walk cycle for the Bouncer, who will show up in at least one cutscene, maybe two.

look at him go!

Maps: I'm really excited to announce that I've recruited someone to help with maps! Their name is wovensong, and they're currently working on the Casino VIP Room, which features in the 10 heart cutscene. They're helping with both the sprites and .tmx files, which is a huge help.

Misc sprites: none yet

Implementation

I have a functional version of Mr. Qi that can be befriended in my files now. He doesn't have a ton of dialogue in game yet, but you can give him stuff, raise his friendship, and trigger some placeholder heart events. But getting to that point has been kind of a hassle, in ways that the average modder doesn't have to deal with!

You see... the vanilla "Mister Qi" has a space in his internal name. If you know anything about coding, this should be setting off alarm bells.

Here's an example of where that's an issue: say you want to trigger a cutscene at two hearts with an NPC. You'd write something like:

f Jodi 500

which the game reads as "trigger this cutscene when you have 500 amount of friendship with the NPC named Jodi"

But if you were to write:

f Mister Qi 500

the game would go "you want me to trigger this cutscene when you have Qi amount of friendship with the NPC named Mister?? WTF?" and then SMAPI throws you a big red error and the cutscene would never trigger. Yippee!

It took me... a while to figure out how to get around this. Luckily the 1.6 update now allows for parsing for quotes in certain scenarios, so what actually works is:

f \"Mister Qi\" 500

So I'm glad that I started this mod now instead of pre-1.6!

However, it's definitely possible that the space in the internal name will cause issues down the line, so I have some (rough) code for what to do in that scenario. This involves hiding the vanilla Mister Qi, and adding a new, identical NPC with an internal name that doesn't have a space. Other mods, such as Morris Redeemed and some NPCs like Marlon and Gunther in SVE, do this as well.

And, if you're thinking that I could just change the internal name itself: maybe?? But probably not. There's some hardcoded stuff surrounding Mister Qi, and I worry about breaking it. Additionally, if any future official Stardew updates added new content revolving around Mister Qi, there's a risk that the mod would break in more serious ways.

Final Notes

Overall, I feel like I'm making pretty good progress! There's still a lot to get done, but I'm proud of the work I've done so far. Thanks for reading!

[meowmeowmeowmeow4x]

Dark Blue Moon and the Suffering Sun Chapter 14

hope u all enjoy <3 comment and reblog it really means a lot :>

MASTAPOST

The smell of Atlantean was getting stronger, Danny kept himself and Damian invisible as they perched atop a cliff looking down at the town. He could hear Damian licking his lips. Kid, you literally just ate! Was he thirsting for vegetables or blood?

“Excellent. With your camouflage, we will be able to infiltrate and extract the resources without any trouble.”

Danny waved his hands to cut off that notion. “Hold up. Who says ‘we’ are going to raid the Atlanteans? Why shouldn’t I just leave you here and come back and we can be on our way?”

Damian frowned, fins rattling in offense. “May I remind you who has more experience in this field?”

“True, but your dad might skin me if he found out that I let you become a glorified sea pirate.”

Damian tutted. “What father doesn’t know will not hurt him. Now go! We are wasting time!”

With that, Damian attached himself to Danny’s hip, practically hooking his claws into Danny’s scales. The bloodthirsty theory was beginning to gain traction in Danny’s mind, what with how the kid was audibly purring despite Danny not giving any touches at that moment.

Danny let his invisibility wash over his scales, turning his body from translucent to being one with the water, his powers seeping into Damian’s body and hiding him from view too. Hopefully Aquaman wouldn’t be too upset with them.

The boys approached the Atlantean town from above. Danny’s lateral line pinged dozens olf times. Civilians wandered the streets, peddling wares and chatting about the day. On the far side, trainees tossed javelins and practiced archery while an instructor yelled commands at them.

“There.” Damian whispered. The boy tugged on Danny’s fins, and Danny followed the direction to where the market was. “I believe I spotted a cartographer in the crowd. We should be able to obtain our prize from him.”

As Danny descended and swam just over head of the Atlanteans, his ear fins prickled. Chatter in Atlantean filled the water, none of which Danny could parse out. Hell, even his Pacific Siren was pretty choppy, a fact that Sam endlessly teased him about. Ocean languages were tricky! It wasn’t his fault!

Whatever, point is, Danny spotted the guy. Thin, stocky, wearing a dark blue overcoat and tunic, fit with undersea glasses, carrying rolled up paper underarm. The man shuffled into a small corner shop on the street, a good distance away from the bigger crowd in the market. Danny crept up behind him, careful not to bump into any one.

The shop was nothing impressive, just a humble joint probably frequented by travelers or whatever. Maps of the world decorated the walls, accompanied by globes atop display cases that contained even more charts of the local area. The owner kept his back to them as he bent over a bench and filed away his new acquisitions.

“Now, while his back is turned.” Damian whispered.

Danny swam into the shop through the doorway, careful not to make a single sound. The shopkeeper hummed. Danny compressed his hand through the tiny slit of the display case. He reformed it to its proper size on the inside. He grabbed the closest map and spread his invisibility to it, before pulling it out.

The shopkeeper turned around. Danny’s gills stilled. The man stared at the spot where the map had just been, eyes quirked up. He was none the wiser as Danny turned tail, and exited the shop in swift fashion.

Once out of earshot, Danny let himself relax a little. “Welp, time to get outta here then.”

Damian poked him in the side (thankfully below the gills; that would hurt) and chittered. “Negative.”

“What do you mean negative? We got exactly what you wanted?”

“Not yet. Look.”

…

“You know you’re still invisible, right? I can’t see what you’re pointing at.”

“The seahorses!”

Danny’s face blanched. “You wanna eat the seahorses??”

He felt a whack on his sail. “No, you buffoon. I would like to pet them.”

This kid’s priorities. “If you haven’t noticed, we’re kind of in enemy territory here.”

“I am aware, but I have never pet a seahorse before, and I may not get another opportunity like this again.”

Danny’s jaw gaped open. “If you haven’t noticed, there’s an entire ocean ahead of us.”

“Don’t condescend to me. The seahorses are in our vicinity, and there is no guarantee we will come across another school on our journey. Therefore, we go to them now.”

In all honesty, he should’ve expected the kid to be distracted by his love of animals. Hell, Danny could even relate with his own obsession with astronomy.

“Fiiiiine. But I have a bad feeling about this.”

And so Danny flipped fins and brought Damian to the seahorses, as requested. The little things were floating around a coral reef within the town borders, surrounded by a fence. Architectural features like these always reminded him of Dora’s rants about how Atlanteans were essentially humans, and he could see why. What was the point of a fence when everyone and their mother could just swim over it?

Case in point: Danny right now.

Danny lay down on his belly in the sand, keeping a hand on Damian’s shoulder to keep the invisibility flowing. The sea horses swarmed over him, poking curiously at his fins, sensing the disturbance but not seeing it. One particularly brave seahorse even brushed its tail along his gills. Danny had to bite his lip to avoid gasping or giggling from the ticklish sensation. Damian didn’t say anything, but he seemed to be having the time of his life, with how the seahorses’ manes creased from the kid’s touch.

If Danny flexed his ear fins, he could even pick up the slightest cooing sound from the kid. If he could see the younger guppy’s face, he bet it would be split in a huge grin. Then again, Damian didn’t seem the type to express positive emotion so openly like that, but who knows? Maybe the invisibility’s lowering his inhibitions?

A foot brushed his dorsal fin. Danny gasped from the sudden rough touch on his sensitive fin. Dammit!

Maybe he was the one who should’ve remembered they were in enemy territory.

A child gasped, mouth gaped open as she stared at where his tailfin was. Danny pulled Damian back, getting ready to take off. Yeah this was the part where they got the hell out of dodge.

Only for the girl to lean down and poke him. Right in the gills. Ow.

Danny yelped in shock. His body snapped back into the visible spectrum as the little girl went saucer eyed. Outside the fence, an Atlantean woman stood stunned as she blinked owlishly at them.

He chuckled. “Well, thanks for letting us pet your seahorses, but we really gotta go, so see ya-”

“SIIREEEENNNNNNS!!!!!”

Well fuck.

Sam slammed her fist against the punching bag. Every yell brought forth primal rage, and righteous anger. In her mind’s eye, Vlad’s face ate every punch and crunched with every kick. Skulker’s smug mug got caved in. And most of all, Danny’s fucking parents. Her fucking parents.

Didn’t take Superman to hear them screaming upstairs. Hurling accusations, badmouthing Danny for the six hundred and fiftieth time. “Oh how could he lead our precious Sammykins astray like this?” As if they didn’t do that already!

And now she was grounded. Put on house arrest, even. Tucker shared a similar fate. That just left Jazz to monitor the situation. Luckily, Tuck prepared secret burner phones for them for this exact scenario.

Being grounded also meant they couldn’t search for Danny again. In all likelihood he had probably skipped town. Tucker’s forays into the GiW’s servers showed they were still on the lookout, so that was something to be relieved by. If only she and Tuck actually knew what was going on!

She growled and then transitioned into another scream. How the hell did the Fentons even know where to look for them!?

The anger melted away into anxiety. The conversation replayed in her mind. Half the time she wasn’t even sure what she was saying. That was so close. One slip-up and she would’ve landed Danny on the dissection table, not that the result they got was much better. Danny still had a target on his back, and no one could be blamed for it but her. Six months ago while they were just teenagers in over their heads, the idea of caped heroes coming in to save their asses seemed like a dream.

But now? Bruce Wayne funded the Justice League. The fucking Justice. League. It was like Paulina getting a poor girl who bumped into her suspended because of her dad’s wealth. Only replace the poor girl getting suspended with Danny being turned into scientific sushi by the Goons in White, or even worse: his parents.

Oh, and she pissed him off even more. Sam banged her head against the punching back.

Danny was strong. She was strong. Tucker was strong. They had faith in each other. But as yesterday’s hack proved, there were far, far bigger fish in the ocean. And she would destroy anyone who heard her admit it, but part of her was terrified.

Sam retreated to her room, not even sparing her arguing parents a glance. Once in the safety of her private sanctuary, she retrieved her spell book, and began to research anew. She needed to be in tip-top shape to help Danny and Damian Wayne get home. They were going to contact her and Tucker any day now, and she needed to be ready for it.

Please be ok, Danny.

Maddie finished the last of the software updates to the Fenton Sonars, resetting them and reversing the damage Tucker had done. What were they thinking?! Aiding and abetting some of the most dangerous creatures on the planet. All those PSAs and lectures she knew he had sat in on with Danny and the takeaway he had was to play superhero with a savage beast?!

The sonars pinged. Just as she suspected. No sign of Phantom near Amity. The GiW hadn’t found crap in however many hours of search in the surrounding waters, so the bastard probably fled with his tail between his… tail. Maddie scoffed. Some hero.

But that was perfectly fine by her, because she had Phantom’s hydroplasmic signature.

Switching programs, she accessed the Fenton Satellite’s computer programming. One key stroke later, and Phantom’s signature beamed up to the Fenton Satellite. Maddie grinned darkly.

“You finished over there, Maddie?” Jack asked. Glow torch sparks lit up behind her and cast the lab in stark shadow.

“Yes sweetie, now all that we need left is the hardware.”

On the workbench, Jack carefully welded their newest creation. She took up the spot beside him, and began slotting components in as they transitioned to working in perfect harmony together. Jack glanced at her, and she passed over the wrench. A nano-battery array here. A forty-inch radar dish there. A custom Fenton piston set over there. With two children on the line, they worked round the clock. They tested their new inventions rigorously, then broke them down to rebuild them better.

Phantom won’t know what hit him.