#uri rtb

[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]

June Of Doom Day 25: "I Should Have Listened To You." (Romance The Backrooms)

Time for @juneofdoom ! Just a short piece. This is Day 25: "I should have listened to you." I incorporated the keywords “guilt” & “failure”. 

Takes place: WAY before Romance The Backrooms occurs 

Other things to know: this story takes place in the backrooms. It is from Uri’s point of view.  

___________ 

He opened his eyes, unsure of where he was. He tried to remember who he was, but his memory was blank. Even so, he felt guilt in his heart, like he had failed something, or someone. 

He could feel power surging through his body—but then, he felt it fading, as if it was being drained out of him! He gasped in horror, reached out a hand as if he could physically grab the strength surging through his veins. But before he knew it, it was gone. 

In the back of his mind, these words echoed: 

“I should have listened to you. . .” 

[norbezjones]

24 Days of Gift-Giving: Ten Titles

(This is December 10th’s prompt!  Posting yesterday’s & today’s later!)

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: Ten Titles (… creative titles for your next story); Burying our memories

Characters: Uri & Manorial

Other Info: URI ANGST URI ANGST URI ANGST!  If you don’t know about Uri & Manorial, here’s the basic gist: Manorial is an entity known as a Memory Collector, who attaches to people and trades near-unlimited power in exchange for memories. 

__________

When possible, Uri tried to sacrifice insignificant memories.  What he ate for breakfast the other day.  Things he thought about when he was bored.  Stuff like that.

But sometimes, Manorial wanted more.  “Sorry, idle thoughts like that aren’t going to cut it for me, Uri,” the cat would purr with a laugh.  “If you want my help, I need something more . . . substantial.”

So, he would give memories that were more significant, trying to keep the others informed on what memory he was sacrificing.  If he was lucky, it was something one of the others in the group was there for, and they could fill him in on what had happened later.  Bring back the memory through their own experiences.

But other times, Manorial would ask for a memory only he & Uri was there for.  Something nobody else had witnessed, and therefore, nobody else could bring back for him. 

And Uri would give the memory.  What choice did he have?  Burying a memory in exchange for power—surely, it had to be worth it.

Right?

@creativepromptfills

[norbezjones]

24 Days of Gift-Giving: Eight Vacations

(This is yesterday’s prompt!  Posting today’s later tonight!)

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: Eight Vacations, “An adventure vacation was definitely not his idea of a fun time.”

Characters: Uri & Carla (the main character)

Other Info: Post-RtB, a timeline where Uri has parted ways with Manorial (the entity that lives inside him and can bend reality in exchange for his memories).

__________

Uri wasn’t the type of guy who wanted adventure.  It was the kind of thing that kept unfortunately coming to him, because that was what life in the backrooms was like, and he wanted peace & quiet more than anything.  So when Carla suggested going on an adventure vacation, Uri was confused more than anything.

“Why would we do that?” he asked her.

“Well, I’ve noticed that you’ve lost a lot of confidence since Manorial left you,” she explained with a sympathetic expression.  “I think it would be nice to have a fun getaway, and give you a chance to see how capable you are.”

“Come on, I’m not capable. . .” Uri mumbled.

“Yes you are,” Carla insisted, taking his hand.  “Uri, you survived the backrooms—that makes you more capable than most people I know.  And it wasn’t just Manorial’s skills that helped you survive—it was yours, too.  And more than anything, I want you to see that.”

Uri nodded, taking this in.  He looked into Carla’s eyes, and saw so much love & passion in her gaze—he could see how much she cared about him, and he smiled.

“Ok,” he agreed.  “I suppose we can give it a try.” Carla grinned.  “Great!  You won’t regret it."

@creativepromptfills

[norbezjones]

Whumptober Day 6: Not Realizing They’re Injured (Romance The Backrooms)

(Posting this a day late again because of my late shift.)

Look, in case you couldn’t figure it out from June Of Doom & Whumptember, I like whump.  So I’ll be participating in Whumptober when I have the time/energy to.  I may use all of the day’s prompts, or I may use some of them.  We’ll see what happens.

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.  This is an original work, not fanfiction.

Enjoy!

(I also included the fictober-event prompt today!)

Today’s Prompts: Not Realizing They’re Injured, “I’m not giving up”

Characters: Uri, Glarence, Manorial

Other Info: More Uri x Glarence content, hooray!  Haven’t done this in a while, here’s a link to the last story of this type: Tumblr, Pillowfort.  It’s also from a whump event, funny enough, though that was June Of Doom.

_________

“You’re hurt!” Glarence remarked as he approached Uri.

Uri frowned.  “I am?”

“Yeah, stupid!” Glarence exclaimed, pointing at Uri’s shoulder.  Uri glanced down, and saw a gaping wound there, running all the way up to his neck.

“. . .Huh,” Uri muttered.  “Guess I didn’t notice.”

“I did,” Manorial teased, chuckling.  “Goodness, Uri, you have to be more careful.  If you don’t take care of yourself, how am I going to keep collecting your memories, hmm?”

“Shut up, stupid cat; you’re not helping!” Glarence shouted.  He came next to Uri and said, ““Come on, lean on me.  I’m pretty sure Adiel has one of those healing salves from Leon still left.  He can fix you up; we’re not giving up on you that easily.”

“Alright,” Uri agreed.  “Thanks.”

And so, the two of them went together to find Adiel.

[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.