"Gynoid" vs "Android"?

Oh, semantics. Why you so lovely and so pain-inducing.

I like sci-fi, but sci-fi is not one of my fields of expertise. (Fields of expertise: Dissociative Identity Disorder, Adam Lambert, the works of John Green, Batwoman.) So after TCAST came out, I talked to quite a few sci-fi devotees about how TCAST fit into the awesome universe of sci-fi tropes.

One thing I started noticing was the term "gynoid." Gynoid means a robot that is built to resemble a female. You're supposed to use it instead of "android," since the "andr" root of the word refers to men. The word is supposed to be less sexist.

But somehow it kind of rubs me the wrong way.

White Writing Black?

Totally about to kiss.

Finally, my sequel post to my African American Vernacular English post that may actually have to do with visual novels! Or at least writing.


So, when white writers sit down and want to write a black characters, they'll often... do it wrong.

For example, they might write something like "Only wif my magic recipe can you turn out dese tender, 'licious, jiffy-quick pancakes dat makes yo' family happy."

This writer is being pretty condescending to black people. While you can see they're imitating certain parts of AAVE, it sounds more like they're trying to be slangy for the sake of being slangy. Like "'licious"? "jiffy-quick?" Does anyone really say "jiffy" besides my very white father? Fortunately, stuff like that never gets published.

Wait, what? That was in a national ad campaign?

Leaving Darlings Lost

Depressing post ahead! >.<

As I've written in a couple of places, Darlings Lost is entering a hiatus that will probably be permanent.

African American Vernacular English: A Language History Lesson

Controversial statement: African American Vernacular English (also known as "Ebonics") is grammatically correct.

Sentences like "She be at home," "He been married," and "Ain't nobody there" are all grammatically correct.

Here's another example of a grammatically correct English sentence: "Gewát ðá néosian syþðan niht becóm héän húses· hú hit Hring-Dene æfter béorþege gebún hæfdon·"

What the hell does that mean, right?

WE WON THE FESTIVAL!!

OMG WE WON THE FESTIVAAAAAAL!!!!!!!!

Proof.

Total surprise. Some people said we had a shot, but I thought one of the judges had it out for TCAST, which is fine, but I suppose my impression of him was more negative than he actually was. (Thank you, secretly nice guy!)
Congratulations to my amazing team and all of the hardwork they put into this!

I know this happened like, a week ago, but I've been in a shitty mood so that kind of distracted me.

Yeah. Sorry this post is random and short. Need to stop blogging and get writing!!

Still battling it out with Darlings Lost... I have such a love/hate relationship with that game... and I think everyone who plays it will too. ^-^;; Yeah. MUST MAKE IT AWESOME. *runs away*

Writing Shit



My sister recently wandered through craigslist looking for people starting bands. She found that overwhelmingly, the people posting were singers looking for people to play instruments.

The first day you pick up a guitar, you know you can't play Slash's solos in "Sweet Child O' Mine." But it's not hard to sing along with Axl's voice. "Woaaaaaaaaohoh, sweet child o' mine!" And we all know how pristine Axl's voice is. It's not hard to out sing him on anything. Check it for reference.

My point is, it's easy to convince yourself that you're a good singer even though you know nothing about singing. A lot of people can't hear the difference between Axl's million dollar howl and their own voice.

There's a similar problem with writing. Basic grammar was beaten into your head by like, fifth grade. At any point afterwards any person can have an idea for a cool story, boot up a computer and write something down, assuring themselves that they are "writing properly."

But what they don't know is they are piece of shit writer.

I'm also a piece of shit writer, by the way.

Voldemort Visual Novels?!

The summer's over, and I'm moving back (home!!!) into student housing tomorrow, but I wanna blog. So I'll go pack the playstation, and in the meantime, you read HiddenWings07's adorable (but spoilery!) review of TCAST.

You back? Coo. To the blog!

So I made up the term "Voldemort Visual Novels" to describe a certain type of VNs. They're not, like, Voldemort/Harry slash VNs or something. (Though that might be disturbingly awesome.) Remember how in Harry Potter everybody called Voldemort "He Who Must Not Be Named" because, well, saying his name scared them? And they thought things would go wrong if they said it, or summat?


A Voldemort Visual Novel, as I call them, is a game too early in development to be spoken of because there's such a high chance of it floundering. But the developer is obviously starting to work on it and they're excited about it, and the temptation to talk about it is too great, even if they have more stable and developed projects in progress.

TCAST Robot Types

Because Autumn, the protagonist of TCAST, lives in a world where androids are a normal part of the culture, I tried (and mostly failed) to not explain them so much in the game. So here I make up for it.
Explanation of robots go!

Searching High and Leaux

Get it? If you're French, "Leaux" is pronounced like "Low?" Punny!

Sorry. o.o

If you've been following my blog you may or may not have figured out that I'm mildly obsessed with the TCAST download counter. (We've hit the 3000 milestone, guys! 8D) Ok, so I'm not like obsessed, but I do check it every once in a while and squeal and run around the house until someone hits me with a firehose. Ok, I'm kind of obsessed.

My point being, a lot of people have played TCAST. But I want to talk about someone who hasn't played TCAST. And may not even know TCAST exists.

Namely, the person who drew that picture right there.

You guys are so awesome.

Ok, I have not googled my game enough for that to come up so quick. XD

Thank you so much to everyone who has played and downloaded TCAST. Thank you especially to those who've told your friends about it. :) It means so much to me, and it totally blows my mind every time I look at those download numbers and think "2700 people have probably spent an hour of their life playing something that I created."

Just... wow. :) I feel so honored and humbled.

Alright, I'm going back to work on Darlings Lost now. XD

Sequel Dilemmas

After the break, this blog contains some major spoilers about TCAST. If you'd like to play it, go here!

"You like me, you really like me!"
Cough. You want to see a writer doubt themselves? Search no farther than my "On the Eve of Something Cheap and Sacred" post. Which, may I say, it's a healthy thing for a writer to question themselves, and I'm glad I did and I will do it in the future.

But believe me, the person who sat down and wrote that post had no idea the reaction TCAST would get. Namely, the overly positive reaction.

That Cheap and Sacred Thing complete!

"Only one person has ever told Autumn Godfrey "I love you." And that person wasn't even human—but Autumn's android playmate and babysitter, Elly. Mysteriously, Autumn hasn't seen Elly since Autumn was seven, but now, with the help of Jude—an android prostitute with attitude—she might just find out what happened all those years ago."

Info and download after the jump

On the Eve of Something Cheap and Sacred

John Green, my favorite author ever, often says in his video blogs that he is always nervous that people won't like his book as he writes it. Which is kind of upsetting and kind of hilarious.

John Michael flipping Green, 3/5 of your books have been New York Times bestsellers and you've won the Michael L. Printz award, the Edgar award, and a literature prize from freaking Germany! Also, you are genius! And hilarious! And brilliant! For serious, what do you have to worry about?!

But on the other hand, if John Green has a right to worry that people will not like his book, than even more-so do I.
I have never released any of my work for a wide audience, and though I believe I've done my best, who's to say that it's something that people will like.

Beta-testing for TCAST has about finished. I'm still figuring out exactly what's going into the bonuses, but the game is on track for a Tuesday (or maybe even earlier) release. And that scares the hell out of me.

Setting up the ol' Blog...

I am finally setting up a blog!
The adorably gay banner is from my upcoming visual novel That Cheap and Sacred Thing, which despite it's vague and pretentious title, is about robots. The lineart is by the fantabulous Leaux and the coloring is by ah-maz-ing Verity.
Hopefully TCAST will be released within a month. o.o We'll see.
On the miraculous chance you're not actually from the Lemma Soft forum, here's the thread where you can see more about TCAST.