#adiel rtb

[norbezjones]

Today, March 21st, is my character Adiel's birthday. He is a love interest (LI) from my game Romance The Backrooms. All the LIs are based on an emotion, and he is based around surprise!

Leader of the Backrooms Brotherhood, Adiel is on a mission to escape the backrooms with the guys he cares about. Then, you come along, putting a detour in his plans--he can't ignore when a person needs help, so he's determined to get you back to Earth in no time. As he does so, your feelings become entangled, and a friendship blossoms--could it be something more?

I mentioned it's also Glarence's day! He's the LI based on anger, a grump who at first doesn't want to help you get home, but grows to love you over time. His birthday is on February 29th, so it only occurs every Leap Year. On non-Leap Years (like this one), Adiel shares his birthday with Glarence so Mr. Grumpy can have a special day. Glarence pretends he doesn't care, but really, he's very grateful. 💚

If you want to check out Romance The Backrooms, you can play it here! There's even a special game for Glarence & Adiel called "The Backrooms Is In The Eye Of The Beholder". For more of their interactions, check out the "gladiel" tag. I have over 100 pages of side stories under the "romancethebackrooms" tag too!

Thanks for celebrating my boys' birthdays with me! We're currently working on revamping the Romance The Backrooms demo, so please look forward to the new version later this year!

P.S. I was determined to actually draw this whole thing myself, and not use stock images. I think the roses in the background turned out ok. It's roses because Adiel's birthday is on National Flower Day (the date suggestion was made by his VA, Khai Troung, for that reason!). Glarence gets black roses, and Adiel gets white ones.

[norbezjones]

Saw all of the Miiverse "Yeah" art going around (since Twitter disabled public likes), and decided to do some versions with the Romance The Backrooms characters!

Which one is your favorite? Let me know!

[norbezjones]

70th day of the 365 Days Of Character Development writing game!  Basically how it works is that each day, we use (with permission, of course) a question from my friend's book on character development to get our creative juices flowing!  If you like this game, I recommend buying the book to support an independent creator!

Also, I apologize for not posting prompts consistently—it’s been difficult for me to post a prompt every day.  I can’t promise daily prompts, but I will try to do at least 1 per week from now on.  I hope that’s understandable.

Here's today's question:

I'll be answering for the main characters of my liminal space otome game Romance The Backrooms.  I’d love to hear the answer to the prompt for your characters—reply, reblog, and/or make your own post (and give me the link, because I’d love to see it!).

Carla (the main character) bursts into tears and sobs.  She isolates herself from others, not answering calls or texts from people concerned about her.  She spends most of her time in the “depression” phase of grief.

Kalcal becomes angry and sad.  He laughs in response to intense emotions, including sadness, so he’ll laugh a lot and go looking for ways to relieve his stress and let out his energy.  Once his energy is drained, he’ll curl up into a ball and cry.  Poor guy. . . He spends most of his time in the “anger” & “depression” phases of grief.

Glarence buries his feelings and tries to move forward as normal.  Unfortunately, this results in him releasing those emotions when he doesn’t mean to, lashing out towards people he cares about.  It’s very rare for him to cry in front of people—not many have seen him do so.  He spends the most time in the “anger” phase of grief.

Uri feels numb & sad, and blames himself.  Even if he logically knows nothing he could’ve done would’ve changed things, emotionally, he feels at fault and like he should have done more.  He spends the most time in the “depression” phase of grief.

Zenobos becomes in denial, then tries to figure out a way to undo what’s happened, find a way to fix it.  Once it becomes clear it can’t be fixed, he breaks down.  He spends the most time in the “denial” & “bargaining” phases of grief.

Adiel becomes sad, but knows that death is to be expected in the backrooms—it was bound to happen eventually.  He spends most of his time in the “acceptance” phase of grief, but that doesn’t mean he’s not mad, sad, or depressed.

[norbezjones]

I'm making a dating sim that takes place in the backrooms!

The demo comes out next month for the Otome Jam, and I'm so excited to share this passion project of mine with the world. I've been hyperfixated on it since October of last year lol.

You play as this lovely lady right here:

More on Carla

And here's more information on the 5 love interests!

More on Kalcal

More on Glarence

More on Uri

More on Zenobos

More on Adiel

I tag everything related to the game with #romancethebackrooms , and I've made a few posts on Twitter if you want to check that out! Most recently, our talented voice cast was announced--I'm so humbled to be working with such talented people!

Lmk your thoughts on this idea. I'll be uploading more stuff about the game on this blog!

Thanks for reading!

[norbezjones]

24 Days of Gift-Giving: Eighteen Aches

Happy December, everyone!

So, @creativepromptsforwriting is doing a writing thing called “24 Days of Gift-Giving” where each day of December has a prompt, so I figured it would be fun to write something up for each prompt!  Feel free to participate too, if you’d like!  It could be a fun writing game!

Like usual, I will be doing these for the characters of my story Romance The Backrooms, a liminal space otome with 5 main love interests. 

Today’s Prompt: Eighteen Aches (hurt/comfort dialogue prompts); “Please believe me, I will not leave you alone.”; “I care about you! Do you hear me?”;

Characters: Glarence & Adiel

Other Info: n/a

__________  

“I don’t know why you even travel with me,” Glarence muttered.  “The way I treat you, how angry I get sometimes—you must hate me.”

“I don’t hate you,” Adiel reassured him.  He squeezed Glarence’s hand and said, “You were the first real person I met in the backrooms, the one who confirmed to me that I wasn’t alone.  You won’t get rid of me that easily, Glarence.”

Glarence shook his head.  “Nah, that’s not true,” he insisted.  “You’re going to leave me alone someday.  I just know it.”

“I won’t leave you alone—I promise,” Adiel told him.  “Please, believe me, ok?”  He reached out and cupped Glarence’s cheek.  “I care about you.  Do you hear me?  I care about you.”

Glarence smiled and put his hand over Adiel’s.  “Thanks,” he muttered.  “I. . . I appreciate it.” Adiel smiled, and his hand retreated.  “I’m glad, buddy.  I’m glad.”

@creativepromptfills

[norbezjones]

The Backrooms Is In The Eye Of The Beholder by Norbez Jones (call me Bez)

Adiel asks Glarence a question.

I wrote a new Romance The Backrooms game for Velox Turbo 2!

Before RtB's' events, Glarence & Adiel traveled together, just the two of them. One night, before they rest, Adiel asks Glarence a curious question.

Link to play in case you don't wanna scroll up: https://norbez.itch.io/the-backrooms-is-in-the-eye-of-the-beholder

[norbezjones]

24 Days of Gift-Giving: One True Pairing Moments

Happy December, everyone!

So, creativepromptsforwriting is doing a writing thing called “24 Days of Gift-Giving” where each day of December has a prompt, so I figured it would be fun to write something up for each prompt!  Feel free to participate too, if you’d like!  It could be a fun writing game!

Like usual, I will be doing these for the characters of my story Romance The Backrooms, a liminal space otome with 5 main love interests. 

Today’s Prompt: One True Pairing Moments, Painting each other’s nails

Characters: Adiel & Carla (the main character)

Other Info: Adiel is a shadow creature, in case you don’t know.  So his whole body is pitch black, including his nails.

__________

“Are you sure you can’t just do it for me?” Adiel asked.  “I’ll probably be bad at it. . .”

Carla shook her head.  “Nail painting is something you learn by doing,” she told her boyfriend.  “Watch me while I’m painting yours, ok?”

Adiel held out his shadowy hands, and watched as Carla carefully painted his black nails white, applying both the nail polish and a substance that, as he understood it, would help the polish dry faster.  She looked incredibly focused while doing this, wielding the nail brush with the expertise of someone who had done this a thousand times before.  The aurora emanating from her as she did this task made Adiel smile—it was admirable, and made him remember all the more why he loved her so much.

When Carla finished, Adiel said, “That was impressive.  Where did you learn to do that, anyway?”

Carla smiled sadly.  “When my grandmother was alive, we would give each other makeovers at her house,” she told Adiel.

Adiel put a hand around her and held her close.  “I know your grandmother was important to you. . . I wish I got the chance to meet her,” he said.

“I wish that too,” replied Carla.  Then she kissed him on the cheek and said, “Ok, let’s give it a little bit longer to dry, and then, it’s your turn to paint my nails.”

A few minutes later, Adiel was holding the sunny yellow nail polish in his hand, and he took out the brush.  He felt every little movement in his hands all the more, every twitch felt dangerous and risky towards the task ahead.

“Hey, look, you’re not going to do perfect the first time,” Carla told him gently.  “But when you do something imperfectly, you learn how to do it better in the future.”

“But what if I get nail polish on your skin?” Adiel asked.

“I’ll just wipe it off,” Carla replied with a shrug.  “It’s not the end of the world.”

Adiel let out a relieved sigh.  “That’s good,” he said, feeling better about the situation.  “Ok.  Let’s do this.”

@creativepromptfills

[norbezjones]

14th day of the 365 Days Of Character Development writing game!  Basically how it works is that each day, we use (with permission, of course) a question from my friend's book on character development to get our creative juices flowing!  If you like this game, I recommend buying the book to support an independent creator!

Here's today's question:

How does your character feel about the inevitability of their own death?

I'll be answering for the main characters of my gameRomance The Backrooms.  I’d love to hear the answer to the prompt for your characters—reply, reblog, and/or make your own post (and give me the link, because I’d love to see it!).

Since this can be a triggering topic, I will hide my answers under the cut.  CW for discussion of death (of course), mental health issues, and suicidal ideations.

Carla (the main character) feels anxious about the inevitability of death, but she tries to push forward and not think about it too much.  She’s had anxiety attacks as a result of overthinking it in the past.

Kalcal feels nothing in particular.  To him, death is just going to be a new adventure, so there’s nothing to be afraid of!  He’ll get to it when he gets to it.

Glarence feels anxious about his own death, but he tries not to show it and disguise his nervousness with a stoic attitude.  He sees death as a terrifying thing, an unknown horror that will rip him away from everything he knows and all of the people he cares about.

Uri feels sad about the inevitability of his own death, but also angry that he hasn’t died yet.  He is suicidal, and thinks that if anyone deserves to die, it’s him, so why is he still here?!

Zenobos feels anxious about the inevitability of his own death, but is also comforted by it.  Because when he dies, he’ll get to meet all of the humans he bonded with who have passed away, people he spent a lot of time grieving.  And he would like to see them again.

Adiel feels . . . conflicted.  On one hand, he knows death is a reality, and has seen many people die.  On the other hand, he doesn’t have the needs that other people do, like food, water, or sleep, and has survived things that would kill most other people.  So as a result, he wonders if he can die at all.  And if the others can die but he can’t, is he trapped in the living realm, while everybody leaves him?  He doesn’t know.