Yvonne MacStitch

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I wanted to write this as a way to cover two bases; what if I get hit by a car tomorrow and left people wondering what could've been, and my perpetual jealousy over people who know exactly what to cut as a snippet to share to get people excited. I'm not really that jealousy, but I would like to bring some people up to speed as it'll help open up opportunities for me to get involved in other's korps work.

At some point I realized I've been in the fandom for over ten years (closer to fifteen, if not over that even.) and despite rubbing shoulders and befriending a lot of big ears, I never got a passion product of my own off the ground. I have the usual run of excuses. Mental health issues, homelessness, higher education, a job or several. This year I decided to take a knife to them and excise various responsibilities and obligations that held me down, including some I thought were unthinkable to give up.

Motivation

Why not a personal project, why the korps? Goes without saying I love the korps. It's very subversive, it's very queer, has wonderful creative community that built itself up around what Kraken has shared which is a joy in its own right, and as a supervillain setting its very comicbook. I'm dyslexic and I love comicbooks, it's an accessible medium that has enriched my life by being there.

Personal projects have the issue of perfectionism, and I grew up on the web where you needed really thick skin. As people made a killing being a critic, finding creative ways to lamblast shit products was a form of entertainment in its own. There was websites built around tearing down webcomics, a very novel medium at the time where TvTropes wasn't around with its writing guides to save you. Even Cracked got involved. This was never an environment that I wanted to show anything that might be reflective of myself, creating art can be a very intimate and heart-bearing process. The Korps due to its much smaller community and friendlier atmosphere is why I want to do this, rather than something I'd push out to the bigger, scarier wider world who are committed to misunderstanding and glugging down more irony poison by the pint. I'm not doing this for the fame, money, or headpats. I dislike being touched.

For the story I wanted to tell, I wanted to tell it well and through reading other people's work for research. I noticed that all the best ones (Which is an exclusive category of 'everything I read by anyone') incorporated personal experience and gave their own voice through the characters on various relevant topics. The Korps at its core is wanting to restructure a broken status quo into an egalitarian eco-socialist utopia. It's a big left-wing tent with the requirements boiling down to 'don't be a bigot' rather than subscribing to any particular political othodoxy. In otherwords a very welcoming sandbox for creative self-expression for a diehard anarchist.

I wanted a story that I could channel:
Content Warning: Mental Health Discrimination, Sexual Assault

• My frustrations as someone with a severe mental health condition, I've not mentioned it before but I'm a diagnosed paranoid schizophrena (revised to depressive type schizoaffective, more or less the same thing but I'm sad as well as suspicious). My experiences with my condition gave me a lot of experience with being institutionalized and less-than-stellar experiences with how people really see mental illness. People may make light of conditions that can completely destablize someone's life and infantalize them and make them seem just a quirky goofball: Anxiety, ADHD, Depression, and there is also this overlap with how people treat 'milder' conditions with people who have autism or are gender nonconforming. Not just in how we're talked down to, and made to feel 'less adult' but also made not to show it the uglier side. Don't get frustrated and have a meltdown in public, don't dress too little into your chosen gender or people won't take you seriously but not so much you wind up as a hate crime statistic.

With Schizophrenia, you sit at the bad kids table. Where people people treat you with the same contempt and derision as people with sociopathy, narcissism, or any flavour of personality disorder. You are seen as incurable and with the exception of a handful of individuals a drain on society. You are frightening, and any relation you have changes when they learn you have the condition. You do get more resources for self-help and recovery than those others I mentioned. I feel that might change, we've long written off personality disorders as untreatable but there's evidence even things like classic psychopathy is amenable to change. In that case, psychopaths grow bored with their lives and the instability that has followed them throughout, where age alone tempers them and makes therapy more viable, and in the case of our more modern label sociopath, its now suspected to be made-up of potential subcategories. Where while one might be remorseless, they may have the insight to know they should be and it bothers them that they don't. As I take an ever stronger interest in psychology, I'm ever certain we'll experience a change away from pesmissism surrounding such conditions as we find new modes of therapy and better designed drugs. Instead of them remaining the fodder for hollywood to create a new horror thriller killer.

I'm far more scared of the mentally well, who's supposed capacity for empathy I've always seen as lacking. I've lost friends after taking a fun quiz people were posting results over about how high people score on dark traits, and ditched a few along the way for joking about "B-52'ing patients", and lost respect for other psychology furs cautioning against 'romanticizing' mental illness in such a way that it gave the impression we're unworthy of love and undeserving of help. Most people don't even know that there is a word specific for mental health discrimination, and plaster it all under ableism, which for you, it's sanism.

• My history of having studied forensic science and criminology. The social science aspect of my degree was axed in favour of classes like 'oilfield chemistry' as it was heavily focused towards toxicology or rather a general analytical chemistry degree but jazzed up with CSI aesthetics. There was at least three lecturers who were former forensic scientists, including one who worked on the Madeline McCann case, and technicians who's teeth was cut on the work. The rest is still respect for knowing their field in general chemistry. But the course had a vibe that it was the university using popular culture to get student's tuition money. There was a large imbalance of students to job openings, and this was the time the Forensic Science Service was getting a million sterling funding cut and beat cops were being trained to replace qualified professionals who can interpret the evidence in a way that can lay to a jury what the limitations of it were, and help keep the chain of custody in tact by also serving idealistically as a neutral third-party. Forensic Scientists work along side cops without being them, as there is a seperate professional body and you also get training to spot if cops have tampered with the evidence and are required to report it. Even Law classes had segments on dealing with the police as we did on the media. One lecture was just one line diatribe on not to trust whatever comes out of police interviews, stick to bayesian reasoning and what physical evidence can tell us, as cops have ways of getting guilt out of innocence.

My experience dissecting the criminal justice system made me a SJW before Tumblr was really a thing, you just sift through paper after paper about discrepencies in convictions for the same gram of cocaine on racial lines, you just know something is broken. The more I learnt about the role of forensic science does in the actual day-to-day its less chasing murderers, and more volume crime: Someone slashed tires in an upscale neighbourhood, incredibly petty drug offenses, someone through someone else out of a pub window. I can't imagine making a difference, and some of the work would be soul-rending. Long hours at a microscope writing down the coordinates of dried up sperm cells on a rape victim's underwear, only to go to the court eight months later and have the perp' acquited because the lawyer accused the victim of being a drunken slut and people bought it. There is a back log of untested rape kits in the UK and the US. The personal sucker punch was when testing did get prompted, some guys turned up multiple times and could've been caught earlier.

I fully understand and feel others sentiments that we can't reform this, and it should all be burnt down. In the Korps setting, heroes are the deadbeat cops you knew in secondary school who'd make the 'Respect muh authority' joke one too many times and relished the power but wanted none of the responsibility it takes to serve the public.

Title

The working title was "Slate: A Better You Is Possible" I disliked the name because having it named after the protagonist felt too 'main character syndrome' and the subtitle I thought would give players the wrong impression about the game. Recovery is possible, but its not guranteed and there are four 'main' endings with different visions of what recovery looks like.

The current title is "Nature's Revolver" which plays more into the Nature versus Nurture theme, and the game opens with a piece of text from one of the game's antagonists (spoiler: they're the prison warden) about the role of genetics, environment, social factors etc (the total adds up to six like a revolver's chambers so don't worry) in predicting future offenses and recividism. I'm not expecting a subtitle, and belive it stands on its own.

Basic Storyline

Yvonne MacStitch comes from a crumbling crime family, where most have dissociated from the clan and gone into witness protection or moved elsewhere to hide from retribution from rival firms. When she starts displaying superpowers, she hides them fearing her family will garner confidence in a prophecy. In the ancient era, her ancestors formed a covenant with something in the desert. Something that gave them the knowledge of weapons, as payment for their hospitality, it gave them an edge over their enemies. They were eventually cut back and their guest was killed, but not before mingling with their lineage, every few generations a heir comes forth. Each set on realizing the prophecy that they'll overcome the forces of light and have the world succumb to become their dominion.

Being an heir is a lot of pressure, and a hollowing experience as the ancestor's influence corrodes the mind into becoming its puppet. The expected outcomes are fulfill the contract and use the gifts to take over the world and rid it of enemies, or produce offspring so another heir down the line can be taken for the role long after you've been deceased. The inner circle expect her to be their tool in realizing the dark prophecy, others converted to the rival religion and believe they can secure their place in heaven by burning her and ending the evil once and for all, others speculate through a grisly ritual eating her heart they can acquire her powers. There's also the manhunt after Yvonne assaulted her boss during a freakout at work, as she's suspected of being a rogue superpower and given her high profile as the daughter of a now notable once more crime syndicate the pressure is on.

Themes

I want to work with the following for the more thematic elements of the game:

• Identity and Isolation; Yvonne is queer and very far removed from any sense of community.

• Subverting Expectations; The Heroes are more likely to kick the dogs and scowl at kids, and while people fear Yvonne they're left uncertain which side is right when she shows she's better with both.

• Nature vs Nurture; There's four viable paths that can paint Yvonne in a different light; rising above her nature, embracing the violence inherit, accepting who she is, or forfeiting it all. Each have very stark views about whether we're the product of our environment or encoding.

• Nihilism and Violence; Frequently there are antagonists who believe nothing matters, and have grander schemes and Yvonne (may) embrace a philosophy akin to might makes right in that anything she fights for must matter. The minor antagonists that do have ideals fights can be opted out of by diplomacy if there even is a fight at all to be had.

• Rehabilitation; Yvonne I try to avoid naming what specifically is wrong with her, leaving it up to audience speculation as a way to aid connection to the character. Yet she has very strong antisocial tendencies, and a fair part of the game involves how does someone like her fit into a utopian dream. RCGs have mostly been seen to use relieve people of anxiety, depression, PTSD, but I have yet to come across as them aiding in personality disorders. Each dark personality trait is on its own spectrum, the issue is where the cut-off line and what side of that line Yvonne stands.

• Literature references but particularly Plato's Allegory of the Cave, and Dante's Inferno (Especially the Eighth Circle). There is also some oblique references to American Psycho, The Wasp Factory, A Clockwork Orange.

• Survillience; largely self-explainatory. The game is set in the UK which is notable for how much it spends comparatively to other european natures on CCTV.

• Artificial Sweetener; Yvonne's charm sometimes deserves a second take, and I somewhat reinforce this point by only ever having her drink diet soda or use artifical sweetener in her coffee. This is absolutely a major theme, and cruicial to understanding my work. /joking.

Gameplay

Originally, this was meant to be a simple visual novel. Its now something appromixating a traditional RPG with visual novel design elements. You still get the choice of options in conversations and to pursue or not certain paths, but conflict has become more graphically richer with getaway chase scenes resembling a pokemon battle with the sprites changing to show how far away you are versus close to getting caught. This has dramatically increased the workload on the art-side of things, but hey you do get to move around and take a breather at your own pace.

I'm also borrowing elements from horror games and limiting the amount of saves available by having books you need to put bookmarks in, that are references to other korps writer's work. Along side inventory management.

You accumulate 'experience points' by selecting options that align to one of four attributes:

• Crown; Embrace Yvonne's superpowers from her ancestor and be able to meld into darkness, fire umbrakinetic bolts, and transverse dreams. At the cost of your own autonomy and personhood.
• Eye; Understand people at the cost of softening up and becoming emotionally vulnerable in a world that's all too ready to hurt you.
• Hand; Practical skills, great at parkour, be self-sufficient. Terrible at parties.
• Gestalt; Simply be Yvonne and nothing more, or less.

Characters

• Yvonne MacStitch, jackrabbit, has various darkness superpowers. The protagonist.

• Faith Slaine, red fox, Yvonne's ex who turned out to be an undercover cop who wanted to use her to bust up other crime families before eventually betraying Yvonne to get a step up on the career ladder.

• Justine, bat, former korps-associated hacker who simply made a little too much money in crypto and decided to go back to non-world domination cyber-criminality. Harbors regrets about that choice.

• A Coyote Tagalong, the fourth wheel. Incredibly important despite lacking details.

• Fiona "Firewall" Slaine, Faith's younger sister who only become a hero to impress her, and relunctantly at that. Her power is kinetic rerouting, able to take any punch and with a simple touch sending the equivalent force back. Can even soak up smaller attacks to deliver her own fight-stopping one.

There is a lot more but these five are the main not-all-antagonist's characters.

Factions

• North-Sea Security Council (EU), HQ is a large submarine and is made-up of various European Nationalities and sponsoring a roster of twelve heroes.

• Granity City Oilers* (Scotland, Aberdeen.) has a roster of five heroes; Agent Active (leader, super speed), The Repuginator & Repulse (Cyborg Gadgeteer and Telekinetic but only repels objects), Hellhound (Mech Pilot), Sharpe (Accuracy).

• Unnamed Inverness Supergroup (Scotland, Inverness) only notable for having "Scissors" an (MtF) Tiger Precog that defects to the Korps.

• The Clydesdales* (Scotland, Glasgow) has five heroes; one that can communicate to the city (female), one that can transform his skin into steel and then into carbon-iron dust to reappear elsewhere, one that is capable of possessing others while the original body becomes immovable the second gains the combined strength and physical attributes. One double-agent working part-time as an assassin for the NSSC who can create miniature gravity disruption spheres and pluck and pull at things, notably wrist-bones, as a means of torture.

• Edinburgh Supergroup (Scotland, Edinburgh) nothing notable yet.

• The Regulation* (England, London), Mister Why (Powers unknown), Firewall (Faith Slaine as noted above), and Dr Everett Hocker (Hero name unknown, controls plants.)

• Unity (UK), Unicorn, Lion, Welsh Dragon, plus an Isle of Man and Shetland hero.

• The Knights (UK) belonging to Odinsdottir, they make an appearance. Described as "Chavs in Power Armour."

• Eden (Italy) Religious sect super group dedicated to hunting down the forces of darkness; demons, vampires, etc.

• Friendly Neighbour (Russia) invested a lot into NSSC and has significant sway over operations.

• Valhalla Warriors (Norway) sends one hero to investigate and report back, having a fight with Yvonne in the process.

• Independant Superheroes; for the people who actually wanted to make a difference.

*These three belong to my collaborator Kolvencia, I've fleshed them out with some character ideas.

Development Hurdles

Game Development is a labour-intensive process and I've constantly had to upgrade my workflow each time I sit down to better colliate notes and design documents. I've got from using Google Drive to Scrivener, and from Twine to Game Maker Studio 2. A significant portion of the process has been spent on skill acquisition and consolidation with note-keeping and maintaining a self-reflective journal.

Plan Forward

There is a lot of moving parts involved, and I feel I can address this by dividing days up to work on different aspects; writing, coding, art, quality assurance.

Prologue: Tell Me What You See In The Dark

Yvonne is in her thirties, and is slowly coming around to her family's way of thinking. The player is given the option to decide to appease her family and change her appearance, or reaffirm Yvonne's self-identity. Each chapter opens with her looking into a bathroom mirror, and the player selecting options about how she should feel about something.

We also find out about two members of her family; "The Saint and Sinner", one was a hardened gangster and the other the irish equivalent of Mister Rodgers who died due to homophobic mob violence. I've more to say about them later.

She gets ready for work, arrives to do her shift working as a security guard, gets confronted about thefts of the stock then cold-clocks him after noticing a halluncination. A sign that her powers she's been repressing for a decade are returning, a blackened skeleton of herself that has been stalking her. She calls up associates (Faith and Justine) to stage a kidnapping to buy herself more time to fix this as she's gotten comfortable with her easy night job as a guard. Later disguising herself as the manager to talk to police called by him as to give a statement before locking them in the office and fleeing on foot. She's pursued by a third officer and the fight mechanics are introduced.

Outside she sets up multiple distractions including attaching her shirt to some barbed wire fencing to make her look like she climbed over it, only to be pursued by shadows like her skeletal doppleganger. Adding to the danger is the momentary illumination of a cop car's headlights. She does eventually make headway, taking clothes from washing lines and learning to use her powers to leap across shadows allowing her to run to the city.

There she intervenes in a hero (Agent Active) harassing a coffee shop worker he's been waiting to approach once she got off her shift, the two fight. It is brutal due to his acceleration adding to each punch, she eventually wins and she's taken back to hers. Finding her shadow powers can manipulate other people, she's uncomfortable at the prospect and puts the other woman into a dream state to help herself to the fridge and cry, fearing her power like this will make people love the idea of her instead of the reality. The dream turns out to be relatively tame, and is of her at the woman's band practice where she's picked up guitar again. Yvonne stands by the window, wanting to leave before being embraced by behind and encouraged to do so as Agent Active will be prowling the street with the other heroes to take her down.

At the train station, Yvonne approaches (not yet) "Scissors" who knew Yvonne would be here, only for Yvonne to use her powers to make her unnoticeable. All Scissors sees is a random pedestrian about to take a train and not who she's looking for.

Chapter One: Run, Rabbit, Run

Time Skip Forward, Yvonne has used her powers to evade a national manhunt, and is making money through busking and petty crime to keep her vagabond existance afloat. Spending her nights in bars, and using her darkness powers to seduce people into getting a place to stay for the night. She grows horns, and her eyes turn black whenever she blinks.

She evades and fights the Clydesdales, and some independant heroes. Despite her success so far, she's growing worried about the ancestor's influence over her with black-out episodes that leave people she once got to know avoid her. None are wanting to explain what she did to scare them off.

She's approached by a korps operative who needs a hand filling in for a sick bassiest and she looked capable. She has little knowledge of the korps and unaware of their association. Only for the venue to turn out to be a 'nazi bar'. Players get an option of dropkicking someone or abstaining where another character on stage does so instead, necessitating a chase through the backrooms to the locked door. Choices need to be made, and once done the band get outside and escape on motorcycles, racing through the city to a 'social centre' that is a korps safe house. Yvonne sticks around for two weeks before being on the move again.

Going to take a train she finds the doors don't open, and turning around to face the newest member of the Clydesdales, backed by a member of the Regulation and one of Unity, and several ARS (Armed Response Squads).

Chapter Two: Sticks & Broken Bones

Yvonne is arrested and imprisoned in an instition that is a mix of Arkham Asylum and Broadmoore Hospital, called Stonemuir. There she finds the warden is her former child psychologist who regularly interviewed young children who demonstrated powers. She was spared being taken from her family for training by the insistence of her mother not to leave her in the room with him. A good call as he was in a few short years after fallen from grace after it emerged he abused many of his patients, and had fallen upwards into another position of power. He is upset at Yvonne's transgender identity and schedules for her to start testorone injections in an attempt to detrans her, the player is given options to fight back with one option involving puncturing an attendant's wrist with her buckteeth and shattering the syringe. Due to the costly nature of hormones, he's resigned to defeat, and instead reassigns her to a different ward.

The other patients realize this victory is short-lived and she'll be reassigned to the worst ward that has a double-digit fatality rate. The team of former supervillains hatch a plan, involving creating a storm to knock out the power, and for Yvonne to use her darkness powers to tug the wires in between the walls, like bunching up arteries around the heart out from around the body. Almost a year has passed while institutionalized, and it ends with her finding out the Warden has contracted some alien fungi from a hero mission to the arctic and has become erratic and sadistic towards the patients, trying to infect the others in an attempt to 'cure' them.

The player's main choice is to decide where the final showdown will take place.

Chapter Three: Nightfall

Yvonne makes her way back up from England into Scotland during the prison break to find the korps safe house, and rests there, wanting to thank the band leader she had played with before for introducing her tothis place only to be told he's not here and lives elsewhere having just missed him. She's given directions the next morning and drives off on a motorcycle to find a military-style check-point and recognizing them as belonging to secret department. Yvonne in her early twenties had joined the military (Intelligence Corps in specific, but had been asked to get discharged to avoid scandal after her family's criminal connections came to light in an expose; hence the dead-end security guard job she's been working at since). She's wounded and falls through the shadow of her motorcycle, realizing her powers let her walk between two worlds - the waking and the dreaming. She emerges from the soldier's shadows to wrestle a rifle and finish the fight.

At a construction outposts she finds korps personnel underfire, only its largely civilian workers who were assembling the first opening of an underground base. They leave an impression on her with their unspoken desire for a better world, and goes around to flank the attackers. Once done she's taken to the actual korps base located in the distance, and the story takes a slower base.

She gets to explore, experiment with various projects to build skills, get to know people, and live a life. She's assigned a room with Ennis 'Quintic' Yap, a Squirrel who has extreme electro-conductivity that while unable to generate a sizeable electrical charge, being shocked increases his speed and enhances his physical and mental attributes for a duration. All she asks is for him not to unplug his night light as she has nyctophobia (a growing concern that her powers strengthen in darkness, with the overlooming threat her ancestor will take control of her if she sleeps in the dark.) She leaves rose to pass on the message, but after brushing his teeth, Ennis forgoes putting on the RCGs to even get the message and unplugs the night light. Falling to the bed to find that Yvonne isn't there.

One bad dream later, and Yvonne wakes up face-down in a lake naked. She stumbles back towards the base opening before finding department operatives and an unrecognized PMC is in the area, and uses her darkness powers to subdue them before rushing back inside to find the base is being raided. Various missions and locations are presented but notably: The site has 'Wildfire Protocol' an array of traps to stall invaders, confusing and demoralizing them, has been activated only it affects everyone due to sabotage and a manual engage. With many of the easy escape routes locked down, and defenses turned against the residents.

The player needs to make choices on where to go, and who to save. Afterwards they are interrogated during the debriefing about the events and her role, the results can vary but sucessful ones show her baptism through fire be rewarded by being welcomed into the korps.

The Next Chapters are outlined in Scrivener in more detail but I'd just show off the names for now. I want to focus on the first three chapters and prologue, before I move past the broad strokes and into the finer details.

Chapter Four: Stygian Skies

Chapter Five: I am not okay with what I'm about to do

Chapter Six: Bagged & Tagged

Chapter Seven: Mind Games

Chapter Eight: The Sunless Heir

Chapter Nine: Ganzfeld Radii

Chapter Ten: Wasteland

Chapter Eleven: Caligo

Chapter Twelve: To Outlast a Storm

Chapter Thirteen: Voided Warranty

Epilogue: Don't Talk To Strangers

There is a lot I have left out, but I hope this is a useful overview. There is a lot I had to cut for brevity, and others I just didn't mention.