Project's dead.
Dec. 8th, 2020 09:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dmxratedUnfortunately, I don't think I can do Starbound anymore, for the following reasons:
1) Trying to re-create the era in which Lucky Star took place. Especially with COVID-19 driving businesses out left and right, trying to create maps as true as possible to what existed back in the '00s is just becoming increasingly impossible, with pictures of what anything was disappearing off of Google Maps and Google Earth Pro, which makes it harder and harder in turn to remain true to Lucky Star itself instead of just making shit up and creating this town or that in name only.
2) Money. The reason I don't have a job in the first place has mostly to do with time to devote towards the fic. True, I've already got a career path planned out, but in the meantime, I still don't have any kind of income to fund anything with.
3) Lack of focus. Even with college and Pokemon both long behind me, I have barely been able to churn anything out year after year following the first two years. Following five chapters and a one-shot sidestory, there I go to spend a year on the sumo fic, more than another seeking help to plan a personal reboot of the first Cibus fic, another and a half that went nowhere with Unwilling Service, and the first half of 2018 struggling with plans for Magicant, and then having to take multiple breaks while actually writing chapter 6. Then I spend the next couple of months with Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door in anticipation to Super Paper Mario for Christmas, the month of December playing Getter Love!! for its 20th anniversary, and revising ch. 6 when Chelle then offers to help me with fanfiction for the first time in three years, before I'd write chapter 7, which turned out to be such a hassle as to drive me to another distraction with Food Fantasy. And finally, the fact that it took a whole year to write THIS IS IT! does not say anything positive; even when I wasn't gaming or busy even with other things, it still took days at a time to be able to write more than one bit each said day.
4) Detail inequity. As much as I like how anything I write generally turns out, the fanfic itself was all a mistake. Now, if the game ever does get made, there's bound to be an awkward disparity in dialogue, micro-events, and characterization between the first arc and everything thereafter. I even noticed when I played The 7th Stand User, certain details that originated in Stardust Crusaders that would not have been conceived if that originated as that game instead of the manga and anime that it is, and there probably wouldn't be any point removing details here just to line up with the rest of the game.
5) Itinerary restraints. The story as a whole is supposed to begin on November 8, five days after the anime ends, and end on around March 4, just shortly before the school year would normally end. Even worse is the first half of the story, which is supposed to unfold on Yutaka's manga-established birthday of December 20, followed by a special event to take place on New Year's. The way things are planned out, with a fixed number of 12 mana spots to visit, there is barely any room for nearly as many different activities during each part of the game as Ness and his friends had throughout Earthbound while my own characters travel around.
6) I've been too aware of this for years: Earthbound's humor style just does not mesh with the setting of Lucky Star. The latter was all about deconstructing most anime tropes, despite such things on the sidelines as particularly what goes on inside Anime Tenchou. Pani Poni Dash! would have been my better option back when I first conceived the whole thing.
No matter how I look at it, I had bitten off way more than I could chew when I thought anything up for this. When I find myself actively obsessed with game mechanics but have to push myself each day just to write one bit of literary prose, with the rest spent mulling the next bit over, it's already obvious what I should be doing with life and what to abandon.
I don't think it's any coincidence that the newly conceived Cibus game has finally given me an outlet away from it all, and abandoning this as we speak should do wonders for my money and mental health, with the relief of not having to hurry the Cibus game along for the sake of anything else in particular, while still trying to create something while I'm still alive. Not sure what I would do next if I still have years to go once that's done, and maybe something will dawn on me naturally the less I think about that. Who knows, maybe a second Cibus game.
1) Trying to re-create the era in which Lucky Star took place. Especially with COVID-19 driving businesses out left and right, trying to create maps as true as possible to what existed back in the '00s is just becoming increasingly impossible, with pictures of what anything was disappearing off of Google Maps and Google Earth Pro, which makes it harder and harder in turn to remain true to Lucky Star itself instead of just making shit up and creating this town or that in name only.
2) Money. The reason I don't have a job in the first place has mostly to do with time to devote towards the fic. True, I've already got a career path planned out, but in the meantime, I still don't have any kind of income to fund anything with.
3) Lack of focus. Even with college and Pokemon both long behind me, I have barely been able to churn anything out year after year following the first two years. Following five chapters and a one-shot sidestory, there I go to spend a year on the sumo fic, more than another seeking help to plan a personal reboot of the first Cibus fic, another and a half that went nowhere with Unwilling Service, and the first half of 2018 struggling with plans for Magicant, and then having to take multiple breaks while actually writing chapter 6. Then I spend the next couple of months with Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door in anticipation to Super Paper Mario for Christmas, the month of December playing Getter Love!! for its 20th anniversary, and revising ch. 6 when Chelle then offers to help me with fanfiction for the first time in three years, before I'd write chapter 7, which turned out to be such a hassle as to drive me to another distraction with Food Fantasy. And finally, the fact that it took a whole year to write THIS IS IT! does not say anything positive; even when I wasn't gaming or busy even with other things, it still took days at a time to be able to write more than one bit each said day.
4) Detail inequity. As much as I like how anything I write generally turns out, the fanfic itself was all a mistake. Now, if the game ever does get made, there's bound to be an awkward disparity in dialogue, micro-events, and characterization between the first arc and everything thereafter. I even noticed when I played The 7th Stand User, certain details that originated in Stardust Crusaders that would not have been conceived if that originated as that game instead of the manga and anime that it is, and there probably wouldn't be any point removing details here just to line up with the rest of the game.
5) Itinerary restraints. The story as a whole is supposed to begin on November 8, five days after the anime ends, and end on around March 4, just shortly before the school year would normally end. Even worse is the first half of the story, which is supposed to unfold on Yutaka's manga-established birthday of December 20, followed by a special event to take place on New Year's. The way things are planned out, with a fixed number of 12 mana spots to visit, there is barely any room for nearly as many different activities during each part of the game as Ness and his friends had throughout Earthbound while my own characters travel around.
6) I've been too aware of this for years: Earthbound's humor style just does not mesh with the setting of Lucky Star. The latter was all about deconstructing most anime tropes, despite such things on the sidelines as particularly what goes on inside Anime Tenchou. Pani Poni Dash! would have been my better option back when I first conceived the whole thing.
No matter how I look at it, I had bitten off way more than I could chew when I thought anything up for this. When I find myself actively obsessed with game mechanics but have to push myself each day just to write one bit of literary prose, with the rest spent mulling the next bit over, it's already obvious what I should be doing with life and what to abandon.
I don't think it's any coincidence that the newly conceived Cibus game has finally given me an outlet away from it all, and abandoning this as we speak should do wonders for my money and mental health, with the relief of not having to hurry the Cibus game along for the sake of anything else in particular, while still trying to create something while I'm still alive. Not sure what I would do next if I still have years to go once that's done, and maybe something will dawn on me naturally the less I think about that. Who knows, maybe a second Cibus game.