Is there anything more profoundly human than to cry?
Orphaned from a young age, you do what you must to survive. But what happens when something sinister disrupts the mundanity of your everyday life?
You begin as a child born to a native mother and a colonist father. Although you are shaped by both cultures, neither has always been eager to claim you.
Amidst war and an ongoing colonisation, you must find your place within the Kingdom of Yawa or die trying.
Ascendant is a 16+ Epic-Fantasy inspired by the ancient Empire of Majapahit. This interactive fiction also draws inspiration from ancient manuscripts (such as Pararaton and Negarakertagama,) colonisation and local Southeast Asian folklore but is otherwise entirely fictional in nature and therefore, does not contain 100% historical accuracy.
Features:
- play out your backstory
- play as female, male, or nonbinary
- decide the fate of those around you
- face the consequences of your own actions
- play as one of the mythological races based on Southeast Asian folklore
- romance your companions
- or have short (and long) flings
- delve into the magical Kingdom of Yawa and discover its secrets
- uncover your family's secrets
TW: Heavy, mature themes and discussions, such as body horror, war crimes, sexual themes and discussions, cults, religious trauma, colonisation impact, banning of native languages, child abuse and other potentially triggering materials
DEMO | Playlist
How Sleeping Dogs Lie
Note: As the local indonesian law bans NSFW content, I will adhere to it by making future sex scenes non explicit (i.e. not mentioning any body parts and focusing more on the intimacy rather than the sex itself,) as otherwise, I'd have to do 12 years in prison. 😭🫶
Romance Options
The Knight, Arya Civa (M)
"Hell could not claim him,
yet he yearned still for its icy embrace."
As the miracle son of the Mahapatih (prime minister,) Civa is raised to be a great warrior and to someday lead the Yawan army to glory.
However, you see cracks forming underneath his composed elegance as he bears the expectations of those around him.
Playlist | Moodboard
The Serpent Spy, Laoly Gülo (F)
"There she stood,
venom dripping from her tongue as she stayed blindly devoted to a lost cause."
Born into a family of Naga performers, it didn't take much for her to fall in love with the art of Ronggeng dancing, captivating her audience wherever she goes.
Yet you realise early that her charms conceals an ulterior motive.
Playlist | Moodboard
The Winged Scholar, D. Solisa (F/M/NB)
"So sang the winged creature,
its voice heavy with longing as it casts its gaze unto the void."
D's future is as bright as their mind, set to be one of the best poet Yawa has ever seen, they shouldn't have to hide their real identity.
But with everyone carrying their own prejudice beliefs about the winged people of Wandan island, it was easier said than done.
Playlist | Moodboard
The Vessel, Gani/Gari
"Faithless, pathless, kinless.
How cruel had the world treated you...
And yet you persist..."
You won't be meeting this character for a while, don't worry about them :))
Playlist
The Thief, Sura (M)
"Worthless...
wholly undeserved of attention.
And yet, there he stubbornly stood, screaming on top of his lungs "I am here."
Playlist
The Catalyst, Layla (F)
"Broken with longing she is,
for the one she loved is no more."
The Fallen, Arjuna (M)
"Oh how the fallen wailed...
and oh, how sweet is the song of ivory's ire."
As the fourth son of a local ruler, Arjuna has lived a mostly privileged life with little to no responsibility upon his shoulders.
But what happens when he is stripped of all that once made him special? Can his heart stay pure even with the whispers of death and destruction?
just found out that there is a sudanfunds website! like gazafunds, it is a compilation of funds for people facing genocide
edit: i've added the correct link to this version of the post. if at all possible, please try to reblog this version or direct back to it. for some reason, the original sudanfunds link i put is now defunct. the correct site is still called sudanfunds and is now back up, and that's what is now on this version of the post. hope this makes sense
Just found out about the so called "boti hunters", a hate group formed to discriminate against queer and trans folks, targeting mainly trans women.
Everyday, queer people in Indonesia has to live in fear because of the laws and discriminatory comments made by our fucking president (????) and ignorant ministers.
Absolutely DETEST how much we regressed as a society.
This week's writing had been pretty much a breeze, thankfully. Can't exactly say the same with coding tho 😭 it's just such a pain in the ass, I debated on hiring someone else to do all the grunt work (decided against it 💞)
As I am going back to my full time job, I might be more inactive, so I'm halting any further activities on my patreon at least until i'm in my vacation. I'm going to put this announcement there prolly this afternoon CEST.
I'm also thinking of adding a sanity mechanic in both ascendant and hsdl, the more party members you lose, the less sanity you have, making your mc more unhinged and harder to control 🤭
Oohhhhh I'm also writing the end of chapter 2 in ascendant and the angst I have prepared for u guys who lost one of the ROs depending on your previous choices 🤤
Anyways, highlight of this week ✨️
Curing our homesickness by making these mie goreng ayam 😚
Hi, I was wondering if I could ask some questions about the ROs but if you'd rather keep everything under wraps then feel free to disregard this ♥️. Are the ROs attracted to the MC from the start? Or is it slow burn for some of them? And will we still be able to pursue a platonic friendship with some even if it's not romantic?
Hiii 💞, in Ascendant some are attracted to mc from the first flirt interaction. Meanwhile, in HSDL, only Dewangga seems to be interested in mc romantically after flirting w them for the first time.
And yes, you can still pursue them platonically, especially in Ascendant where it's more of a found family vibe.
In HSDL tho, you'll constantly feel like the ROs have hidden agendas against you (it might be true for some of them)
First of all, hello star, I really like the premise for your IF. I'll be keeping close tabs on it, I'm excited to play the demo. (also 12 years in prison for nsfw 😭😭 the more you know). Will there be an option to play as a trans character? Also I'm interested in the lady who wants to kill me. Curious to see how that will turn out.
Hiiii, yes, you can play as a trans person! 😊
It's a fantasy world, there's no reason for you to not be able to transition. Also I'm assuming you're talking about Widyatari?? In which case, you're in for a ride (of angst)
You killed the King. The act witnessed by his subjects. The war is over and it has been won by you.
For years, your Mahapatih had prepared you to take over Kawi Kingdom after your father met his brutal end at the hands of its former ruler.
Since then, you have been reigning over your own Kingdom, Kelud, from the age of seven. The Rajapatni, your father's wife, oversees the Keraton, ever ready to take important matters pertaining to the realm out of your hands.
It is clear that you are propped up to the throne not as a ruler, but a vessel to fulfil her own ambitions.
The fact that they had not pushed for you to be wed despite you being of age is not lost on you. You know that you are replaceable, a royal placeholder to be rid of once your younger brother is fit to rule.
Things became even more complicated when the child of the dead King, Nareswara/i, whom you've only had few interactions with in your childhood prostrate themself before you and declared their sudden undying loyalty.
The path of war, intrigue, and romance lies ahead of you. What story shall the bhujanggas write once you inevitably meet your end?
How Sleeping Dogs Lie is a mature and dark Epic-Fantasy inspired by the story of Raden Wijaya and Jayakatwang as well as the tragic story of Jayanegara. This IF is intended for a mature audience (+18). Although this story draws inspirations from Pararaton and Negarakertagama, it is entirely fictional and sensationalised, it does not contain 100% historical accuracy.
Features:
Establish your relationship with your family and advisor
Play into your fears and paranoia
Play as female/male/nonbinary
Romance an unhinged royal, an imprisoned noblewoman, or a royal poet who also happens to be your childhood friend
Optionally, you can also enter a polyamorous relationship and be with both the noblewoman and the poet
Rule a Kingdom with the looming threat of a coup floating above your head
Experience a taste of getting hexed by santet and pelet
Expand your Kingdom into an Empire,
What kind of ruler will you be?
CW includes stalking, obsession, unhealthy relationship dynamic, kidnapping and imprisonment, horror, body horror, blood and gore, implicit sexual content, general sexual themes and discussions, mentions and implications of rape, mentions of infanticide, war and war crimes, murder, death of major characters & mc, mentions and depictions of abortion and miscarriage, classism, fantasy racism, mentions of animal abuse and many more.
DEMO (late aug - early sept.)
ASCENDANT
Romance Option
Nareswara/i (M/F/NB) (na.rɛsˈwa.ra/ree)
"This humble servant has noticed how Your Highness shivers with delight at the mere sight of blood... One can only think of bringing Your Majesty a small gift befitting of such brutality, a token of one's eternal gratitude.
This humble servant's only wish is to please one's ruler for a lifetime, after all. And if the gods would allow it, then this servant would gladly follow Your Highness to hell and beyond."
You remembered how their father's blood trickled down your arms, the crunch of his skull as your Mahapatih hit his head with a heavy mace, ending his miserable life. You remember the details of his face being the same as their's as they prostrate themself now before you.
You would have them executed had the Rajapatni not intervened. As the queen regnant repeatedly points out, your religion dictates that you show mercy even to your enemies, but are you able to do so when you often feel like they're secretly out to get you for murdering their father? What's worse is the fact that your mysterious illnesses are alleviated with their presence alone...
Standing at 6'3, Nare makes for an imposing figure with their huge brown feathered wings and their strong clawed legs. Short black hair matted with blood as they stand with you in battle, lips curling into a sharp and thin smile, seemingly taking joy in vanquishing your enemies. Their brown skin is riddled with beauty marks that only adds to the allure of their visage.
Dewangga (M) (də.wˈ.aŋɡa)
"My Liege, I may not be worthy of your love or even your time... but wherever you need me, wherever you are, I'll always be there. I want to spend the rest of my life sitting right next to you.
And when the time comes for you to part with me to the afterlife... I'll write poems that would last for centuries long, music that even the gods themselves would stop and listen to... such is my love for you."
When you were younger, Dewangga would often discreetly brought you to cockfighting games and would dress you up as a civilian. It even got to the point where you became the one manning the game yourself, your people entirely oblivious to your real identity.
However, as your duties takes you elsewhere, you slowly drift away. Gone are the carefree children trying to make the most of their childhood. Dewangga has grown into a charming young man befitting his status as a royal bhujangga, will you rekindle your friendship with him? Or will this reunion be the start of something more?
Standing at 5'10, Dewangga makes for a charming figure, the smile on his full lips reaches his dark brown eyes and his perfectly white teeth draws attention to his dimpled cheeks. You find yourself wanting to run your hands through his long and braided curly hair, which he often ties up. His dark brown skin remains unblemished despite everything you've both been through.
Widyatari (F) (wˈɪ.d.ɪə.'ta.ree)
"You are worse than a snake or a serpent! I hate you for who you are, I hate you for what you represent, and I hate you for all that you did!
Above all else... I hate you for making me believe that we could ever be anything more than this!"
Like a caged songbird, Widyatari often tries to escape her prison. The young woman had been through hell and back fighting against you up to the point where she, along with almost all of her kin are captured, leaving their fate entirely on your hands.
You must admit that you find yourself at least a bit amused when you saw her stealing a guard's keris to try and stab her own cousin after she saw them eagerly submitting themself to you. Despite her being your prisoner for years, you don't actually know much about her. You are, however, quite well acquainted with her battle prowess.
Standing at 5'9, Widyatari makes for a fierce figure. She subconsciously flexes her brown wings at every word coming out of your mouth, teeth biting the inner of her cheeks to stop herself from saying anything she'd regret. Dark eyebags decorates her light brown eyes, accentuated by her long and straight black hair which used to always receive proper care that she now forgoes, putting her pride above vanity. Her tanned skin is marred with scars from previous battles.
PATREON
No AI was used in the making of this IF. All visuals in this post were made using Canva and BG3 with mods installed 🌸
Just found out about the so called "boti hunters", a hate group formed to discriminate against queer and trans folks, targeting mainly trans women.
Everyday, queer people in Indonesia has to live in fear because of the laws and discriminatory comments made by our fucking president (????) and ignorant ministers.
Absolutely DETEST how much we regressed as a society.
Just found out about the so called "boti hunters", a hate group formed to discriminate against queer and trans folks, targeting mainly trans women.
Everyday, queer people in Indonesia has to live in fear because of the laws and discriminatory comments made by our fucking president (????) and ignorant ministers.
Absolutely DETEST how much we regressed as a society.
Sooo i just finished the intro post for How Sleeping Dogs Lie, which is a more mature story that predates Ascendant where you'll play as a villain.
Its plot is directly tied to Arjuna's personal arc as well as the general lore of Ascendant. It'll be taking some of the heavy-lore-burden away from my shoulders as I continue to write Ascendant lol, I think I'll actually add some choices within Ascendant for when HSDL references comes up in dialogues and stuff.
I'm also planning on dropping it along with the upcoming update (the intro post not the demo, yet) but I've been wondering whether I should just drop the intro post asap instead so I can share it with you guys or if I should just wait until the update and arjuna's pov are out and the demo for HSDL is proof-read and ready to come out?? 👀
note: the intro post for HSDL does not contain any spoilers for Ascendant whatsoever
I've debated about sharing this since I don't want to give this person anymore attention than they already received, but this post resonated with me so I thought I would share some thoughts after all.
A little while ago I picked up a troll on Wayfarer's itch.io community forum. This person was angry at Wayfarer's game design, and wrote at length about their issues with it. Now, I think if someone doesn't like my game or my writing style or my design choices—that's fine. Wayfarer is not going to be everyone's cup of tea. But what I do take issue with (aside from their behaviour—criticize my game all you like just don't be a misogynistic asshat or I will block you) is that they began their post by claiming that my game is obviously written by an LLM. Any pushback given by other forum users resulted in them doubling down on it, including the claim that because Wayfarer is an in-browser HTML game it must be AI, along with a number of other pretty nasty things intended to make me upset.
I started this project well before the use of genAI was widespread. Wayfarer has been in the works since 2019. The original concept and prototype were done Oct-Dec 2019, I spent 2020 reworking things and writing the game's opening, and I spent 2021 pushing towards its September release. I have written every word of Wayfarer myself (yes, all 1.8 million of them if we're including Episode 3). My UI is adapted from an open-source template created by a human developer, and the game artwork was drawn by human artists and graphic designers, all of whom are credited in the credits.
If there are mistakes, errors, or inconsistencies in Wayfarer's design, if the lore and worldbuilding is derivative or tropey, that is due to my very human mistakes and decisions. If there are elements of my UI that look bad or don't function smoothly, it's because I am a self-taught coder and I am doing the best with the skills I currently have. I am one person writing and coding an interactive fiction game on my own.
It is mindboggling to me that I even have to say that.
It is mindboggling to see the creative landscape change over the course of only a few years. But I fear we are now at a point where if someone doesn't like a work, the easiest thing they can do is brush it off as AI-created. The game sucks, therefore AI was used. The author has these overused writing habits, therefore AI was used. The author writes too much, therefore AI was used.
I've been asked before by a well-intentioned person whether I would consider using AI due to how much text is required for an interactive fiction game like this. The answer is no. The answer will always be no. I take pride in my writing. I take pride in my writing process—the process of creation is as important as finishing a project. I am a writer first before I am anything else.
I think this is what people who use genAI don't understand. They see art and writing as a product to be churned out and mass-produced quickly for fast entertainment. I've had a number of AI-generated VN studios follow me on bsky, proudly announcing how you, the player, can use their system to generate a personalized interactive game with romances of your choice and full artwork in a matter of minutes. It's a short-cut to a polished product, not something that is the final result of months or years of hard work and artistic vision. GenAI devalues the artistic process, and the process is what makes art art. Even when I make mistakes, even when I have plot beats that aren't executed well or moments that need better editing, my writing is mine.
AI accusations are changing the creative landscape as much as AI use. Being put in a position where you have to prove that you did not use AI because you happen to like using em-dashes or short sentence stacking adds significant stress to writers. It is exhausting to have to not only protect your work against AI scraping, but to also protect your integrity as an author against AI accusations. As OP stated in the post I linked, certain writing habits that people claim are signs of AI were originally used by human writers, and it is upon their work that it was trained.
If you put writers in a position where they feel like they must avoid writing in a certain way because that's how AI writes, you are suffocating the creative process. You are putting the writing community in a place where new (and sometimes old) writers are afraid to create freely lest they be accused. There has always been tropey, derivative, and overused ways of writing, but if you do not allow writers to be that then there is no space for them to make mistakes, write poorly and make bad art.
And you cannot make good art until you have made a lot of bad art.
There are people who use AI for their creative endeavours, and I don't condone that (shame on them). But I also don't think endless speculation about a work or barging into an independent author's space to accuse them of using AI does anything to counter its use. Chances are you are yelling at a human writer who is as anti-AI as you.
If anything behaviour like this only become a quick and easy way of discrediting an author for shits and giggles—because we live in a time where online rage-baiting and harassment campaigns are more entertaining than pursuing an offline creative hobby and thinking for yourself.
Also, added Harrison and Angelina's profiles to the menu.
I'm happy to present chapter two, and I hope you enjoy it :) I'd appreciate being notified of any bugs if you find any (also, your saves may be gone... oops and sorry...) and of course I'm always happy to hear your thoughts on the chapter! <3
content warnings under the cut.
Content Warnings (the new ones are in italics): racism, violence, smoking, drinking, language, harm to children, body horror, gore, cannibalism
I have something that I might drop as soon as the update and Arjuna's POV goes out 😗
Keyword here being might as I might as well just wait until I've finished chapter 2 to avoid major spoilers 🤭
Spoilers below for something I had in mind
Soooo this is a prequel that actually ties into Arjuna's personal arc as well as the lore in general.
Here, you'll play as a villain mc, plagued with paranoia and evil spirits. Mild spoilers, you'll be hexed a lot with something that we call santet and pelet.
Santet is like the practice of hexing someone by sending evil energy and spirits to come and get them. When you get hexed with santet, your health will deteriorate, most people ended up losing their minds, while some ended up dying. So it's just overall a very nasty curse that no one rlly wants to deal w.
Pelet is more like a love charm ig, in the beginning, you'll feel an overwhelming sense of disgust in the fact that you can't get this person out of your head. Eventually, you'll start to think that it's actually normal to feel this way towards someone you have a crush on but you'll still have that initial disgust deep inside your heart.
This story will be much much darker than Ascendant and has a lot more horror and body horror elements to it. I'd say its current age rating is 18+. I'll include the CW on the bottom of the post, dw 😊
You'll have 3 love interests here; an unhinged Garuda prince/ss/x, a Garuda noblewoman who is also the cousin of the prince/ss/x, and your childhood friend, the royal poet.
Poly option will be available for the noblewoman and the poet.
Do be careful when interacting with the ROs as some of them can and will die if you pay too much attention to them and only them.
I actually started writing this bcs I was mad that I hit a writer's block and also bcs I couldn't participate in kinktober 😭 but then the words just started to flow out of my brain and eventually I wrote HSDL along with Ascendant.
Initially, I didn't really want to write it, like at all, as I was afraid that writing this one would drive my attention away from the main story. But then I started to view this as a companion story which will be focusing more on the lore and the more mythical aspects of the story, so it kinda unloads a bit of the burden that I had when writing ascendant yk
Once I feel like whatever spoilers for Ascendant that are included in HSDL are finally out in the open, that'll be the perfect time to finally drop the demo for this prequel, rn I'm focusing on making the update better by including codex and adding some flavour texts for mc's personalities.
Anyways, current CW for HSDL includes stalking, obsession, unhealthy relationship dynamic, kidnapping and imprisonment, horror, body horror, blood and gore, implicit sexual content, general sexual themes and discussions, mentions and implications of rape, mentions of infanticide, war and war crimes, murder, death of major characters & mc, mentions and depictions of abortion and miscarriage, classism, fantasy racism and many more.
