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practicing brushwork ft. demir's hair

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dancing 🥺 ie the first time i've drawn demir not looking grumpy

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Drabble 6

“Aja, the Sindalin Red tea has run out. Will chamomile be alright?”

“That’s Councilor Ajani to you, Sipho. Yes, I’ll accept your chamomile if you bring me the good honey to go with it, the one the Toyin family sent for my birthday,” Ajani drawled in response.

“Councilor, you insisted that you are ‘Aja’ after 9 o’clock. It’s even in my contract.”

“Is not!”

“I added it to the renewed contract we signed two years ago. Signed and sealed, Aja.”

“If you keep abusing my trust like this, Sipho, I’ll have you promoted to Bank Grand Secretary.”

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not me forgetting all the art I've drawn of these characters or anything

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drabble 5

Every week, Kenna asks the Teruleb Regional Bank administrators for coppers instead of ter notes for his weekly wage. They glare as if he’s God’s favorite lackey sent to ruin their day, but he leaves with a small handful of greening coins regardless, instead of the paper they call money these days.

Ter isn’t like coin. Kenna can’t weigh its worth in his hand; he has to be told by admins, by ink. How could the precious wonders he carts into the vaults convert into these flimsy bills? The bank’s maw swallows gold and shits out papery squares in exchange.

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drabble 4

Sezim frowns, shifting the clay oven’s glowing embers with her poker. Not quite hot enough for the dough to bake properly. Time to scrounge up more twigs or something…urgh.

She pushes herself upright slowly, and nearly collapses back down at the sight of Demir approaching with an enormous bag of coal on one shoulder. Luckily, her arm crutches stop her from stumbling.

“Where— Why do you— What’s—” she breathes as they drop the bag by the oven and loosen the strings.

“Your fire needs fuel. I bought some.”

Shit. There’s no support for this kind of fall, are there?

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This is super not attractive because I'm not good at sculpting but we conceived of these "moon cups" for the mercury path tradition's new year. Mercury followers pour mercury into a small cup with "steps" scuplted in it every night as the new moon waxes to full. When it starts to wane, they pour the mercury back out a little each day.

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Multipronouns in SugarCube

Hello guys!! So sorry for my absence! I've made JS code free for anyone to use in their Twine game, which allows you to have multiple pronouns for your main character -- for example, she/they, she/he, she/he/they, whatever combination!

Some features include:

Completely customizable, and therefore neopronouns-friendly!

No limitations as to how many sets of pronouns you can add—you can add even just one.

Can determine singular and plural pronouns, even if you use pronouns that are different

Automatically switches between pronouns -- and you only need to write ?mcthey, ?mcthem, etc.

If you want to stick to one pronoun temporarily (e.g. so a character refers to MC as she/her and not switch to they/them mid-sentence), it is possible, too!

DEMO (playable online + downloadable) // CODE (+ documentation)

SHOUTOUT to @magiciansvoyage for inspiring me to do this for Twine!! :)

Why I Did This

I was inspired by @magiciansvoyage (!!!) who made multipronouns in CS, and I wanted to make multipronouns in Twine. Shout to them for this, they're amazing!!

I'm aware there are other gender code out there, but as far as I know, I don't know of any that can have multiple pronouns and switch between them using she/her and they/them automatically, for example.

How to Implement?

Just copy and paste the JavaScript code into your JavaScript, and copy and paste the variables into your StoryInit passage! Link to code here!

You can find the macro with in-depth explanation of what everything does here! I will include a How To underneath the readmore as well for a quick and dirty, but you will still benefit a lot from reading through the readme on GitHub.

How to Use?

This section will be more process-oriented than detail-oriented. For a better explanation on ?mcthey, $mc_they, and the <<gender>> macro, look at my readme on GitHub where you pull the code!

The Setup

Allow the player to add their pronouns for themselves as you would normally. Set these to $mc_they, $mc_them, $mc_theirs, $mc_themself, and $mc_plural (true if plural, false if singular).

Then, you can add this to your MC's pronouns with < < gender $mc_they $mc_them $mc_their $mc_theirs $mc_themself $mc_plural > > (had to add a space between the triangle brackets because Tumblr is weird). This will add that set of pronouns, which will be in rotation throughout the story. Make sure to add every argument, or else the macro will complain you've added too little.

When you want the player to add a new set of pronouns, repeat steps 1 and 2. You can keep prompting the player to add pronouns until they're satisfied. Make sure you give them a confirmation and reiterate what pronouns they've added, as there will be no way to remove pronouns once done (I may add this feature in the future if needed).

In-text

If you want to change between she/they, use ?mcthey or ?mcThey for capitalization. For her/them, use ?mcthem or ?mcThem. And so on.

If you want to use is/are, use $mc_is (a $ this time, not a ?), or $mc_was if you're writing in past tense. It will take the latest pronoun mentioned to determine whether to use is/are. If "they" was last mentioned, it will use "are". If "she" was last mentioned, it will use "is".

If you want to use a contraction like they're or she's, then use ?mctheyre or ?mcTheyre.

If you want to stick to one pronoun temporarily, use $mc_they, $mc_them, etc. It will stick to the last pronoun mentioned by ?mcthey, ?mcthem, etc.

If you want to use singular verb vs. plural verb, use $mc_s. Again, it will take the latest pronoun mentioned to determine whether to add "s" to a verb or not.

I also added $mc_has that follows the same logic as $mc_is to determine has vs have.

If this isn't super clear, make sure to read the readme. Also, feel free to DM or ask questions otherwise! :)

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our protagonist, theydies and gentlethems

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The Salt Keep Available Now

The full version of the Salt Keep is out! You can purchase it:

On PC or Mac

On Android

On iOS

The Salt Keep is a character-focused text adventure and RPG (think interactive fiction with mechanics reminiscent of CYOA games or classic gamebooks) set in a high fantasy world where the traditional medieval aesthetics of swords and castles are set against the industrial creep of decaying feudalism. Follow traveling salesman Doyle as he stumbles into the brutal mystery of what happened to the village of Cardwyke, struggles to escape the seemingly unstoppable forces pursuing him, and hopes to find anybody who can free him of his debt. You can:

Guide Doyle through the village of Cardwyke and the keep that looms above it.

Collect items and discover their uses.

Equip gear to improve Doyle's ability scores.

Succeed or fail at percentage-based challenges.

Earn experience and level up based on those challenges.

Talk to and work with NPCs to make progress.

Uncover secrets and missable areas.

Risk grievous bodily harm.

Despite the prevalence of choices and risks, there is no chance of death or dead-ends. The story always moves forward. In turn, you'll change the outcome of Doyle's story (as well as those of the NPCs he meets) not just through the things you choose to do, but through the things you fail to do, as well as the things you choose to ignore.

A demo version is playable in the browser on itch.io if you want to see if the story interests you first. It covers the prologue and first chapter of the game (roughly two hours of play time), so it should give you a good taste of both where the narrative is taking you and how the game plays. If you finish or decide at some point you want to continue into the full version, any progress you made can be transferred regardless of platform by following these instructions.

No technical knowledge needed!

To everybody who has followed here or added this to their collections on itch.io over the past year or so, I truly appreciate it. I hope you enjoy this! If you pick up the full version and you’re into it, be sure to leave a rating and/or review on whichever platform you chose. I’m a solo indie dev and this is, as you probably know, kind of a niche genre, so every bit of word of mouth makes a massive difference.

Have fun, and good luck, everybody! Doyle needs it!

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drabble 3

It was an unspoken rule in Kalcons that anyone who labored in the factories or foundries, or their families, didn’t enter this part of the city without a very good reason. It wasn’t illegal, but it might as well have been. This was where the people who handled big business and important decisions lived, and they preferred to keep their own company.

Sezim grimaced as she led Demir and Kanat through these “forbidden” streets. She resented being made to feel like an intruder in her own town, like a snake squirming through a chicken coop. Fuck that, I belong here.

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drabble 2

God must have blessed this harvest, Eser thinks, hearing another poor soul retch outside their alchemy workshop. By some divine act, the wheat blight went unnoticed until everyone broke bread for the Autumnal offering, and now Littledagh is reeking with the consequences.

It’s been a long week of healing guts and throats, but what’s one more patient? Eser opens the door to a youth who, despite their frail frame and the pool of vomit at their feet, stares at Eser with fierce eyes. They point to themself. “Demir.” Another retch. “Alchemist. Teach me.”

Eser cackles. “You’re a chatty one, huh?”

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drabble 1

Demir squints at the pubgoers’ faces, barely lit by sputtering lamps. “Malnutrition” they say, answering Sezim. “Inflammation of soft tissues. Fatigue.”

Sezim’s mouth falls open. “That’s what you see?”

“Pallor,” they add helpfully.

“I was thinking ‘poverty’, but that works too,” she snickers, pouring oil from a sigil-marked flask into a lamp. The flame turns azure, and immediately the patrons sit a little straighter, chat a little louder.

Demir smiles, impressed, but Sezim’s voice sobers. “I can lift their spirits, but— the shit you noticed? Starvation, cramped apartments, 14-hour shifts?” She faces them. “I need the other Tria for that.”

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Drabbles

While the game is from Demir's point-of-view, we'll be regularly releasing drabbles (100 words each) from various characters' perspectives to give snippets about the world. These drabbles will also be in the Extras for the game.

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As the village alchemist, you’ve spent a decade protecting your home from God.

God, the malevolent; God, the cursed; God, the strange power that seeks to ruin societies and swallow them at their weakest; God can be warded off by alchemists following one of the Paths of the Tria Prima: salt, mercury, or sulphur.

Apart, each alchemical Path can affect specific aspects of human physiology. As a salt alchemist, you have healed the injuries and strengthened the bodies of every villager in Littledagh more times than you can count. For these ten years, that's been enough to keep God and its Sufferings away.

But when a sudden landslide swallows the farms and half the mountainside with it, Littledagh is thrown into chaos. Healing cuts alone won't cut it when the village is under threat of starvation and swallowing. You urgently need to find alchemists from the other Paths and convince them to help you fix this. Apart, each Path is limited, but together?

Together, the Tria Prima can perform miracles.

Three with a Wondrous Measure is a fantasy Interactive Fiction game written in Twine about a hot nonbinary alchemist who solves societal issues with the power of anarchism and polyamory in order to spite God.

Features:

Play as Demir (they/them) a nonbinary salt alchemist who likes healing people and dislikes saying unnecessary words.

Make choices that influence Demir's personality and how people perceive them.

Experience a strange alchemy system that is unlike any alchemy depiction in other stories.

Explore several different cities across an Ottoman-inspired region, and decide how to address their unique societal issues.

Get to know two alchemists from the other Paths, and decide whether to romance one, neither, or both of them in a polyamorous vee.

Enjoy heavy themes of anarchism and anti-capitalism.

Spite God.

Romance:

Sezim (she/her) - A vivacious sulphur alchemist, Sezim lives in Kalcons, a town transformed into a train manufacturing center. After getting injured in a failed revolt over atrocious working conditions, Sezim became disabled and was declared unfit to work. Instead, she has become a de facto community leader and cook, with a little anarcho-syndicalist crew trying to agitate workers, provide mutual aid, and defend people as needed. With all this shit she's gotta do, any rest will just have to wait for later. And later, and later...

Ajani (he/him) - A cunning mercury alchemist, Ajani is a Councilman in Port Teruleb, a cosmopolitan port city, trading hub, and tourist center. Letting the other Councilors, much less the Regional Bank, find out his alchemy practice would be political suicide and very gauche, so Ajani prefers to pull strings and pluck secrets with a more subtle hand. The poorer neighborhoods of the city distress him, but he has a grand plan to fix this social stratification. He just needs an opportunity and, given how much the pressures of politics bear down on him, a bit of room to breathe.

Demo TBA