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ć ā¦ Exko Media ā¦ ć
@exkowrites
A blog for all of my creative endeavors.
Main blog: @exkomuses @derpyfeesh helps me with most of my projects (they make most of the art, plus they help me with ideas). Go follow them, theyāre cool. ą“¦ąµą“¦ą“æ ĖĶĢź³ĖĶĢ )ā§ ā All works here are teen friendly and will be very loudly and obviously stated if not. I intend to keep this a safe space for everyone, however a lot of my stories deal with heavy themes. Always remember to take your health and safety into account first. You can always click away.
I'm Exko or Echo X, whichever. I'm a novice writer and artist.
I'm currently working on two three four (but oneās a secret) projects (all currently incomplete)
Quick disclaimer:
All of these projects are passion projects, but also not guaranteed to ever be completed (due to a whole host of personal problems). As such, my work will always be free, but somethings may go unfinished. I deeply apologize for this.
That Distant Shore
Play here on Itch.io
Play as a displaced highschooler struggling with their parents tragic death.
Info post
The Last Mage AU
An Echo X Undertale AU interactive fiction.
(Info post tbc)
and
Saint Winslows, Vulston Pride
Read here on Quotev
Strange things have been happening in the little town of Vulston. Strange things do tend to follow Fritz though. Frederick Corbin, otherwise
Read here on AO3
Saint Winslows, Vulston Pride by ExkoXx
Chapters: 3/20
Read here on Wattpad
Strange things have been happening in the little town of Vulston. Strange things do tend to follow Fritz though. Freder...
Saw Hadestown pro-shot yesterday and Iām using it as an excuse to nerd about film to a bunch of theatre kids.
Pro-shots are great just for the accessibility alone, but part of the reason I love them more than just a static tape of a show is because of the EDITING!!! Theatre is already such an intimate medium but with the right editing and camerawork you can take shit to a whole new level that simply canāt be achieved on stage
The close ups of Orpheus during Doubt Comes In so you also couldnāt see anything through the darkness? The framing of the Workers and the Fates in Wait For Me as they stare down Orpheus, emphasizing the danger and their intimidation?? Justā¦ Epic III?? In general?????? Put this on streaming yesterday so I can dissect the shit out of it cus my memory is really bad rn
same anon from earlier. Donāt you think it would be more helpful to post the smaller updates anyway? It would keep you on track. Like a gym buddy.
no pressure to finish your projects. I was just curious. You probably have a busy personal life (fanfic writer and all yk)
Honestly? Probably yes. š
I get stuck in my head at times. I get self conscious over my lack of writing which feeds my imposter syndrome which makes it hard to write which causes me to get self conscious over my lack of writing andā¦ you get the idea. Itās an ouroboros situation.
The answer to that is probably just forcing myself to write more but adhd is a Bitchā¢ļø.
Iāve also learned a lot since making the mistake of publishing both TDS and TLMAU before even having the prologues done. I want to go back and fix the coding on those two, which I actually have made progress on! Iāve also set a rule for myself not to publish anything that doesnāt have at least a chapter done and ready.
I will try to be more active though. Iāve been in the IF community as a reader years before starting my own. So, I know how frustrating it is to have an author go MIA. I did not mean to do that to anyone else. Even if I donāt have much a āhey Iām still alive and working on thingsā would probably be better.
I still do! I am an extremely slow writer and I donāt like to post when I have nothing substantial to share which leads to me being not being as active as Iād like to be.
I also have a terrible habit of starting too many projects at once. Right now my current goals are actually two shorter Interactive fiction stories for (hopefully) next year. Theyāre both holiday specials that I started this year but were not ready in time for their respective holidays, which is why Iām now aiming for next year. I wonāt fully announce what they are until Iām further along in development and can guarantee when theyāll actually release; but I will say that one is a fanfic (wonāt announce the fandom yet) with the soulmate trope that Iād like to release around Valentineās Day and the other is a fairytale short story for pride month. Again, Iām aiming for next year but I make no promises. (Yet)
I definitely pulled an Icarus with my other projects which is why Iām temporarily shifting focus to some smaller ones. That way I can have something finished sooner rather than later. Itāll also give me more coding practice before getting properly into the mess of variables that That Distant Shore and UT:The Last Mage will have.
Your dialogue is stiff because everyone is being too honest
Great dialogue can come from radical emotional honesty. But in most real conversations, people
dodge questions
answer indirectly
lie (badly)
change the subject
crack jokes to avoid serious answers
lie (convincingly)
say half of what they mean
tell the truth but get so anxious/angry/defensive others now think they're lying
If your dialogue feels unnatural, it might be because everyone is saying exactly what they think, or articulating their thoughts too well. Try letting characters hide things instead.
BITCH THIS IS THE MOOD WE'RE GOING INTO THIS YEAR WITH
I'M GOING TO WRITE BADLY BECAUSE I HAVE FRIENDS WHO WRITE WELL AND I'M GOING TO PAINT BADLY BECAUSE I HAVE FRIENDS WHO ARE AMAZING ARTISTS AND I'M GOING TO EMBROIDER BADLY BECAUSE I HAVE FRIENDS THAT ARE AMAZING AT FIBER ART.
When I was deciding between Twine or ChoiceScript I eventually settled on Twine for a variety of reasons. I also question my life decisions. :,)
No regrets though. I would still make the same choice now. But man is it difficult. Is it worse starting from scratch vs having learned a different one? Like, does that previous knowledge carry over at all?
Oh, also! If you need any help with Twine I have some resources. I started using it a bit over a year ago and have used it on and off since, but I am by no means good at it lol. That does mean I have done a lot of googling and at least know what to look for though! I use Sugarcube. ^-^
I actually started with Twine first, but I became overwhelmed instantly and was recommended Choicescript. It was still hard for me as someone with no experience, but I managed to get the basics down in a week's time and complete the first chapter of my IF. Then Uni started, and I started doing major rewrites.
Fun fact: 'Twisted Love: Red String' originally started as an Ancient Chinese romance story, as it was based on a book I wrote when I was younger (terrible but close to my heart). Now it's more of a fantasy with some other elements sprinkled in.
If that wasnāt enough, I got ambitious with all the features I added to my IF, and it became harder to get ChoiceScript to do what I wanted. So I tackled Twine again. It was a big learning curve, but like you, I donāt regret it. Itās actually letting me be more creative while expanding my programming knowledge. Although it is tough using both Twine and ChoiceScript, since Iām still working on my other IF, 'Protocol R.E.D', and trying not to get certain things confused.
Ps. I also use Sugarcube aswell, so I appreciate any resources you may have.
I so so feel the overwhelming feelings and the over ambition. Iām struggling with the same thing right now. One of the things I wanted to do was have a really in-depth character creator. That was neat. But also absolute hell lol. My current project Iāve actually slimmed down the CC a ton. It makes me a bit sad, it feels like compromising something that was important to me. But, I think this has been a good learning experience for me. I guess that, itās better (at least for me) to make something imperfect, than to not make something at all.
One of my stories is also based on a book I was writing when I was younger! I never got very far with it at all but I really liked the concept. And then about a year(more than atp) I was going through my old documents, saw that project and had the realization that the themes would work perfectly in an interactive fiction format. Thus began my journey with Twine haha.
Resources under the cut cuz this got a bit long.
You might already know some or honestly probably a lot of these resources but Iāll list them all just in case (and for anyone else who might need them, Iāll also be using the generic you for that purpose)
The Twine Cookbook & SugarCube v2 Documentation (along with the others but since sugarcube is what I use itās what Iām familiar with) web pages are the most basic of basic but are really helpful. Can be a bit difficult to comprehend if youāre new to twine/sugarcube and especially if youāre completely new to coding in general.
That actually leads me to my next point and thatās like genuinely justā¦ searching my problems has worked out fantastic haha. Intfiction.org has a ton of answered questions on there. In that same vein the Twine subreddit is also great, Iāve asked a few questions there before and theyāre super helpful. This is the method that worked best for me because I got to see exactly where the problem was (which was often my same problem) and the reason why it didnāt work + the solution. Which let me extrapolate for similar problems/know what to look for in a general sense.
Thereās also a ton of video resources on YouTube, though I havenāt actually used those much. They didnāt really mesh with my learning style unfortunately, and sometimes just left me more confused. Would probably work well for someone else though.
Then thereās here, Tumblr. There are a few IF writers on here that document their process and/or answer(/d) questions. Unfortunately these can be really hard to find since Tumblrās search feature sucks, but the author of Wayfarer made some great resources.
Oh! And Chapelās macros. Not a resource (or well, not in the same way as the other examples) in and of itself, but can make some things so much easier and add some cool features that I think most people wouldnāt know how to code themselves.
This one probably isnāt really relevant to you specifically but; Itch.io for templates and the like is really good imo. I am so thankful for them, I did not and probably couldnāt have built the ui from scratch.
That is all I can think of right now. I hope at least something in here will be useful to someone. Good luck with the writing! (Both with the code and the story, each are so difficult in their own ways haha)
When I was deciding between Twine or ChoiceScript I eventually settled on Twine for a variety of reasons. I also question my life decisions. :,)
No regrets though. I would still make the same choice now. But man is it difficult. Is it worse starting from scratch vs having learned a different one? Like, does that previous knowledge carry over at all?
Oh, also! If you need any help with Twine I have some resources. I started using it a bit over a year ago and have used it on and off since, but I am by no means good at it lol. That does mean I have done a lot of googling and at least know what to look for though! I use Sugarcube. ^-^
Iām just a writer, I have no clue how to code and learning has been so weird. I am struggling so hard with getting character stats set up. Welp time to call my Dad and have him check the code. Maybe I should get a rubber ducky lol.
Oh you sweet summer child (aka me from a year ago) if only you knew that would be the easy part š
Currently Iām actually finding coding easier than writing. More frustrating in some ways but Iām actually making progress with the code. Meanwhile with the writing Iām just staring at a blank document for an hour before reopening twine lol.
A lot of my stories have gone through so many iterations especially when it comes to the titles (cuz I suck at naming things).
For āThat Distant Shoreā itās especially interesting because that was supposed to be a book before it became an IF.
The two names I was able to find for TDS were:
Crashing Tides and a Mothers Hand - this was likeā¦ the first version and all I really knew is I wanted it to be a family tragedy on a coastal town lol
The Things We Lost - this was after I knew a but more about where I wanted to go with the concept. But it was still far from the current draft.
Then for Saint Winslows, I basically only knew I wanted a boarding school mystery story (this one actually came about cuz of She Who Shall Not Be Named and my learning about her being an awful human being. Her book series was big for me as a kid though, so I wanted to do something similar-ish while being inherently queer cuz I live off 50% hope and 50% spite)
The oldest name was āThe Haunted Hallsā which isā¦ definitely a name. š
Thatās kind of all I have to say about that. The only thing that carried over into what it is now is the town layout lol. This first draft was bad. Likeā¦ soooo bad. It was ridiculously wordy. There was a three part prologue that was entirely just describing the town.
This draft eventually changed names to be āThe Flowers We Saw That Dayā which honestly has nothing to do with the story I have no idea why it was called this other than I think an ex recommended the name. It also finally got to some character stuff. Was still pretty bad though. Eventually I completely rewrote it, starting off with the man characters actual thoughts instead of a disembodied voice explaining the towns layout in excruciating detail. Then I settled on the current name. Somewhat inspired by Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (or the title at least). But also horror movie titles for some reason. (The taglines specifically)
Anyways, idk how to end this. I was just musing I guess. Maybe someone else will also find this interesting.
Going through and editing variable names because past me was stupid and named them shit like ā$FNameVarā Iām not even joking that is a real one I had to change. And they were all named like this!!! Specifically with the āVarā at the end. Like yeah no shit itās a variable what else would it be dummy???
First piece of 2026 (and first complete piece since last May š¬)
I had a sci-fi outfit idea which gave me motivation to break out the iPad and from there it kinda snowballed into this. Originally it was just gonna be a quick outfit sketch, so I used a pose based (not sketched over, but still, transparency and all that) from Pinterest. I donāt know who made the base, but if I find out, Iāll add the credit.
Survived another year. Hereās to surviving the next. Thank you to everyone in my life who continue to support me through all these ups and downs. You mean the world to me. (ā„ļ¹ā„) ā¤ļø
