I know you're not going to continue the OneShot Niko blog anytime soon, but I have to wonder a few things... Will Niko be OK, since the blog was ended? How do you wanna put it, in words, for the blog? He's back in his world, so I'm hoping he's still alive. What was the original plot for the blog?
Hmmm… well to be honest, it’s been a while so I don’t think I remember fully all that I had intended to do with that story. Also… the fact that I started that blog waaay before it got revamped and put on steam, and never played the newer version, so what I knew of the story is different.
Despite how dark I made everything, my intent was to tie up some loose ends that I had wondered about after playing the first version of the game, and ultimately have all those reach a happy end. So I can say for sure Niko would be ok no matter what if I had continued the blog. I think the idea was that even with the world he was meant to save being gone, the god(technically us/the player, but I gave them a design for the blog) was still out there… and still had a link to Niko. The issue was, that Niko couldn’t talk to them or hear them when awake, not intentionally, but sometimes heard whispers too quiet to make out, and get nasty headaches if he tried to focus on the sound. Whenever he’d sleep though, he’d experience… visions of a sort, of terrible things from the perspective of the god. Things such as the god’s world crumbling, the disaster expedited by the sun being shattered so Niko could go home, and more specifically which I drew for an ask I think… that entity manifesting and being able to harm the god in their weakened state. I believe my idea implied that the god, and other gods, weren’t completely all-powerful… that the viewer/player was something even more powerful, but was more of an invisible influence. Otherwise, wouldn’t the god have been able to save their world without needing a mortal’s help?
Haunted by these nightmare-visions, and his original goal to know the fate of the god and their world, Niko needed help from someone who knew what he’d gone through. From the start of the blog that help was mentioned, who was there before his quest, and there when he returned. I hadn’t planned them to be more than a name before an ask prompted me into the idea that Niko would have to actually meet and interact with them in an event. That’s when I made Moth.
To be honest, Moth was a fill-in character that I came up with pretty much on the fly just to have a character Niko could talk to that would know more and could help him out in the blog’s story. He was just the village’s priest, the secluded Man on the Hill… hence, me naming him ‘Moth’. (unintentionally, as he developed, his name and role lined up with my inspiration from the moth priests from the elder scrolls series) Moth ended up appearing during a sort of Halloween event that I don’t think I even planned to stretch on from the initial “haha what if I make up some phoenix-themed outfit for Niko with those bird people in mind”. I wasn’t sure about any use of magic, so I just ended up deciding that Moth would know of drinks/potions that could help just as well. To be honest, what Moth gave to Niko was just something like a fast-acting sleep potion, which would allow him to be lucid within his subconscious and without risk of waking up at an inopportune time, at least till the drink’s effects wore off.
When I started the shift into Niko’s mind, what he saw of where he was… wasn’t exactly *his* subconscious. Think of it more like… a projection of himself into a different plane? This, of course, is around when I hit a big slump, lost interest in the blog and game’s story in general, especially once it was revamped and changed and put on steam. I’m not really sure where I would have gone with it from there, just more so in not being sure what I wanted to have it lead to, what sort of obstacles Niko would face… etc. In general though, I intended for the bright white foggy place in Niko’s mind to be more of a personal plane for the god that he was able to see via his link with them. However, as he would have followed the static/noise he could hear faintly, the pure space would become more and more broken and wrong… darkness and deterioration seeping in. What Niko was meant to find… was the god, beaten down and exhausted, with the entity gloating above. He may then have gotten to see the god’s face, before waking up, or maybe suffer some dumb monologue from the entity, I don’t remember tbh… but either then or after a few further tries with Moth’s help, the plan was that he’d get to somehow save the god from the entity and bring them safely back home with him to recover… and be open for questions. From there story events probably would have been done with, and would have gone back to being a for-fun ask blog.
I do miss it sometimes, especially when going back through the blog(like I just had to in order to make sure I didn’t forget some stuff :P ), and easily feel bad for ending it where I did, but I know ask blogs aren’t something I can keep up with, especially not right now… so thank you so much for the polite message. ;v; This was much more manageable for me to do to give it a bit of closure. <3 if i ever get back into the swing of drawing again, maybe I’ll draw niko and moth sometimes…