Here's some music as you read: 

The month of March has been really stressful for me. Back in late February, my boss at work mentioned that it'd be a busy month for me. I'm an A/V tech at a university, but the role has grown beyond simple troubleshooting at this point. I'm actually the project manager for an A/V project happening in a separate building we support and it's my first time doing that sort of thing. I have to do my regular job on top of coordinating with several vendors. The people at work, my boss included, have been very patient with me and provided me great advice throughout the process but ultimately I've been doing it all alone. Honestly, the stress has taken a bit of a toll on my body. Things should ease up in April, though. I really need some time off from work. I'm actually the one that calls out the least and it always feels like I have to work around other people's shit to schedule vacation time. Last time I tried to take a day off it was "too inconvenient" or something, and it really pissed me off. They weren't intentionally trying to deny me a vacation day, the timing just sucked. Nonetheless, it really bothered me because it felt like everyone could fuck off whenever they wanted except for me. Our newest hire even has a remote day while I'm stuck being on-site for the entire work week. 

TL;DR - Work has me stressed out and I really want to take some time off. 

Speaking of work, the visual novel has been progressing slowly but surely. It's been really hard to find guides or advice on writing because a lot of know-it-alls on reddit like to say shit like, "hurr durr no book will help you learn just start writing". I'm someone who has always needed a bit of guidance when it comes to tackling projects. I like having structure like templates and outlines because otherwise I end up wandering aimlessly. 

One day at work, I found a writing blog and bought the blog owner's PDF book on writing stories for comics and other media. I've been reading it and it's been very helpful for me. For now, let me give you Kuleshov Effect's major theme and maybe a quick summary of the story. 

Major Theme: The will to live against all odds arises when you find something worth protecting.

Core Concept: The journey of an android who seizes her own existence to save what's most important to her. 

Summary: A military android created by a legendary alchemist develops sentience and fights against her creator's plan to unleash chaos upon the world. 

I hope this makes the idea of my VN more concrete for anyone interested about it. I'm really happy with the major theme, core concept, and summary because they're solid ideas as opposed to a vague concept that's floating around in my head. 

I also wrote a whole outline for the story because it kind of felt like it was writing itself for a bit, but I'm not 100% on it because there's a few scenes and concepts I want to review. I have several "scenes" that I know I want to include, but I'm not sure the order they'll be in the narrative. 

For now, here's the outline for the early portion of the story:

Between 1200-1280 Albertus Magnus, creates the first android using alchemy. Thomas Acquinas, believing that the attempts of his mentor to create artificial life are a sin, destroys it. The core survives.

In the future, Thomas is dying and is willing to embrace a natural death. However, his mentor wants to save him with alchemy. 

Albertus splits Thomas's psyche in half. One part goes into an artificial body, a homunculus, and the other goes into the android core. Without a soul, Thomas's original body expires. Albertus plans to reunite these two halves in the future once technology has progressed further. For now, the two halves of Thomas lay dormant in their vessels and have an extended life thanks to alchemy. 

From the shadows, Albertus spreads android technology across the globe. The first generation are "automatons" around the 1700s. The second are "tin men" in 1900s. It's only in the 2100s that "androids" become indistinguishable from humans. 

However, there's a huge distinction between the android that Albertus made and those created by humanity. In the 2100s, android bodies are completely artificial but have a type of psionic link to a human "host" brain. The human hosts live and experience stimuli through the android body but their brains exist in a secure place remotely. 

Albertus's android is a completely artificial being, but compatible with the technology of the age since the "cores" all work similarly conceptually. Aside from that, the android would completely be indistinguishable from any other one in the 2100s. 

The story will follow Albertus's android as it tries to defy the reunification with the other half of Thomas's psyche. Albertus believes merging will transform Thomas into a superior being on top of making him "whole" again. 

That's all you're getting for now. 

At work, I try to read a lot of stuff for my story in my downtime. Lately, I've been reading this book called "Artificial You" by Susan S. I'm not sure if I like the book yet or if it'll be useful, but it summarizes a lot of the ethical concerns about AI and what different groups wish to accomplish. The books shows different arguments for/against an AI with consciousness, too. Honestly, the topics are a bit all over the place. It reads as if your best friend works at NASA and is talking non-stop about their hyperfixation on AI. The book is written really casually and is easy to understand. If anything, I appreciate the insight on what giving a machine consciousness would look like from a scientific standpoint. 

Speaking of reading, I've been really enjoying Full Metal Daemon Muramasa. It's a visual novel that I've been interesting in reading for years now. I'm so glad that I decided to read it now because the writing is very inspirational to me. If you don't know about it, Muramasa is about a man named Minato Kageaki who pilots a sentient armor suit named Muramasa and fights with the goal of destroying Ginseigo, a silver armor suit that indiscriminately kills entire villages. At first, it seems like a very noble quest, but the description of the visual novel says "This is not a story of heroes". 

As I read further into Muramasa, it became apparent. There's a price to Muramasa's power and Kageaki has his own personal struggles with that power as well. I think any normal person in his position would break, but he's not a normal person and his motivations for destroying Ginseigo do not seem so noble. I'm currently approaching Chapter 5 which is providing a lot of backstory. I'm really excited to discover all the endings since there's dialogue choices throughout the story. 

The story had me thinking a lot about "good" and "evil", though. Spoiler Warning for Full Metal Daemon Muramasa. In the story, Kageaki has to kill an innocent person, or the person he's closest to at the moment after vanquishing the antagonist of each chapter. That is the price of using Muramasa. The deaths are very unexpected and also influenced by your dialogue choices and the affection meter tracking several characters. 

It takes the phrase an "eye for an eye" very seriously and it's always very gruesome and cruel. When I was younger, I made an effort to come across as "neutral". I felt that I could be superior if I could avoid having to make a decision. Nowadays, I think that being neutral is a very cowardly thing to do or something that comes with an incredible amount of privilege. I don't really say that lightly because I've had to make really hard decisions in my life where I could not be neutral. For example, I was the one who authorized hospice for my mom when she was in her last few days of life. I was the one who authorized the use of morphine to ease her suffering. One of my uncles blamed me for her death when he found out about that second one. He blamed me for letting the doctors anywhere near my mom. Even back then I knew that he was hurt and saying that just because we just lost her, but it didn't affect me any less. 

I've had issues with my family's lack of action and overall passiveness. Last year, it was that lack of action that threatened my brother's life because no one would call an ambulance when he wasn't able to even stand up or make decisions for himself. The person who has to take action in those situations is always me. No one has ever made them for me and it's both steeled me and also made me very bitter about certain topics. Something you may notice is that I'm incredibly independent/self-sufficient, or at least try to be? That stems from this feeling that no one is coming to help and similar feelings of abandonment during really difficult situations. 

When I was in high school, I used to watch Mad Men and there's this quote from the first episode that has always stuck with me. Don Draper played by Jon Hamm tells off this hippie guy who is blaming the world for his problems by saying that "the universe is indifferent, there's no big lie". Whenever I think of that quote, it oddly makes me feel a little better because I don't think that "God" or any otherworldly being has it out for me and actively making my life worse. Things just happen because that's how life is. 

However, it's also pushed me down this road where I think of "good" and "evil" as human constructs. Like, if humans didn't exist on Earth there would not be such thing as good or evil, nature would just play out as it needed to. I think I've just accepted to go with the flow no matter what happens in my life.

I've kinda rambled enough. I'll add pictures and spellcheck later. That's most of what I've been doing lately. I really need to get back to drawing because I dislike how much I've put it on the backburner. The training arc must begin soon!