SCHUMPLE

(STILL IN NEED OF HELP AS OF JUNE)

I have been on a mission. I have been on a mission that has shown itself to be quite the endeavor, especially as a student. I have been learning to code to create a Look Outside dating simulator (in which you play through the 15 days of the game as Sam, and pursue various characters), this project is called “Look Inside”. I do not intend to use unofficial sprites, but if anyone is able to draw in the official styles and has ideas, I won’t complain.

I have been working for a few weeks now casually and have a basic game as of now, but despite having played Look Outside over twenty times and having completed all of the Steam achievements, I find that I lack a proper understanding of a lot of the characters and how they’d evolve/interact over the story. I have a love of Leigh and Hellen, for example, but I feel that I need assistance to gain a proper understanding of them to write them. While playing the game, I had a terrible habit of using the same team in my playthroughs, and I’ve missed out on a huge amount of content throughout the characters because of it.

If you have any writing experience in fanfiction, etc, or are passionate about a character in this game, please give me ideas. The character list is expansive, but I want an equal amount of love to go into writing each one of them, so some may be excluded.

Sybil

Jeanne

Lyle

Leigh (I have a little)

Juicebox

Monty & Xaria

Spine

Hellen (I have a little)

Fredrick and the Fredrick’s

The Astronomers (I have a little)

visitor

Pierre

Dan

Philippe

Shadow

I’m open to including other characters, but you have to give me enough ideas and/or information. I’ve pondered David or Audrey, for example, but David would force me to add the sewer and kids, and Audrey would be difficult to use for a dialogue-heavy story. Sam doesn’t say much, so it’s a lot easier to play off of him with a more talkative person. (I doubt the want for romance-able David is that much of a need in this fandom, but something about him and Sam together makes me happy.)

You can dm me, you can give me an ask, you can repost this, I don’t care how the information gets to me.

I don’t know exactly how credits would work in this situation (and it’s a free visual novel, not a work of perfection), but I will credit people for ideas that I use in the game. Probably an end card or something.

Note that this is my first time programming, and I have no help besides that which comes from this post, so it might take a while to make it public. This is purely a passion project and I have no way to say for sure, but with the information I currently hold, it shouldn’t take more than about 12 months to finish. I might want to polish it a lot, so no promises on a finish date. I will keep you all updated when it feels relevant.

The software I’m using is Ren’py in Visual Studio Code.

JUICEBOX GOES INTO LABOR

Ah, yeah I don’t believe it was on the tier list. I know the list is missing a few ships, likely due to being pre 2.0 update, so if anyone wants deeper commentary you can ask. I was tempted to add characters like Pierre to the list, but it sounded tedious to even figure out what ships people had thought up, let alone getting the images. A lot of the higher ships on the list I ended up with came from the ships on the list to begin with rather than my mind; I’m not the most creative when it comes to pairings

S rank: a lot of ships that I'm searching for on ao3 non stop.

Sam/Hellen brings me so much joy, I'm very much on the fence about whether I like it more than Sam/Leigh. I love Leigh and her quest so much, my shipping of her with Sam is primarily from wanting her to be in a healthy relationship and learn to trust people again. I love Hellen, but it’s quite influenced by fanon works like “If You See Me, Don’t Scream”, by 1MidnightRain1 on AO3. She’s a beautiful woman, and Frankie is very cruel to her by acting like her deformity is so much more terrifying than the other things you see in this game. (I have the same gripe about Pierre, and would’ve put him and Sam in S if not for the tier list excluding him)

I love Sybil so much, and I love her, and I want her to be happy, and I love her. It makes me so sad that she could never be with Jasper.

Eugene.. ok.. if you haven’t killed him and raided his house like a monster (or an extremely guilty achievement hunter), you won’t understand any of his appearances in this list. My opinions on him flipped so drastically that I have no words. I want to hug him. When I saw Eugene/David on this list, I was confused. I wondered if it was a crackship, and then I realized… They're perfect for each other. I don’t care that they’ve never interacted in-game; I want them to be happily married and run an orphanage together.

I don’t have a lot to say about Sam/Dan, but Dan’s quest really changed him as a character for me. I want to hug him, and I love how much he cares about Sam. It’s not in a creepy way, despite how it may seem to be; he just lacks social skills and is a huge attention whore.

I love Spine, she’s a sassy thang, and I find her very endearing. Her appreciation of cereal, her genuine want to improve Sam. She doesn’t understand why what she’s doing is negative. I like to believe she loves Sam (despite how misguided that love can appear). I could go on for hours about how interesting I find the approach of her character writing to be, but this is about shipping.

A tier, these ships have the potential to be really fun in fanfiction, but from the game itself, I get mixed messages about how I feel about them.

Ok, the elephant in the room. Sam/Lyle in A tier. I love Sam and Lyle together, but the mixed interpretations of Lyle’s stalking make me less keen on it. I like to believe Lyle’s stalking of Sam is excused by the game suggesting that Sam likes him back, like sure, he’s a creep, but it’s out of love. When I play the game, I see them as canon. I love Lyle and find him very cute (one of the hardest characters for me to kill because of that), but some people interpret him as being very toxic. I can see both sides, and for that, I struggle to really say I want them to get together. The idea that Sam would find out Lyle has been stalking him for however long, and find it at all cute or endearing, is low to me; so I’m conflicted.

I like to believe Jeanne is a sorta punk motorcyclist, from the items in her apartment. I read a fic where she and Lyle were close friends, and I can see the two of them bonding over being both gay wingmen for each other. I can really just see Jeanne and Audrey together. I don’t particularly know what calls me towards her being interested in Sophie’s mom, but whatever. Lesbians be lesbians.

I don’t have much to comment on the rest of the A tier.

B tier, I get why people ship them, I just don’t

I see Philippe as aro/ace, and Sam just sees him as a little guy.

Sam and Sybil are cute; they have their moments, but the things I like about them are overshadowed by my liking them both better with other people. They feel like besties, though.

Sam and Jeanne could work; they have a few good moments, just not enough chemistry for me to see them as anything more than good friends.

I still haven’t gotten the ending for freaky shadow slut, so maybe my perspective will change, but he’s just a needy whore to me right now. I’ve been inside of him a few times, but I’m one for the chase, and he wants Sam a bit too hard. Sam already has two great kinky stalkers, so it’s unfair competition— I must say, I also share dismembered tongues to initiate kinky foreplay, so points for that.

I see Hellen/Leigh and Hellen/Audrey pretty similarly, you do you. Go lesbians, get that freak on. The main difference being Hellen/Audrey gives off alcoholic gossip moms together, and Hellen/Leigh feels more like my girlfriend and me, but on cocaine.

C. I’m indifferent. It’s either not really for me, or feels kinda random

The punk trio is fun together, I don’t see any of them as romantic, though. Juicebox is mine, and you can’t take him from me. I just see them as really close friends. Monty and Xaria seem more like family, in particular.

The astronomers being in an orgy is fun, but it’s low-hanging fruit. Like, of course I can see it, I’d just find them more interesting if they had relationships outside of their group, kinda makes them feel more like individuals. That’s something I like about (arguably) Jasper/Sybil, and Harriet/Beryl, because they’re shown to be close, getting more expanded upon. It just helps me see them as Jasper, Aster, Aurelius, and Beryl, instead of manuscript, photo, painting, and annoying.

D. random or I actively don’t want them to be together

Rafta makes me mad, because I thought she was gonna be a cool party member or something, but instead she went and ruined my darling’s Marshal and Eugene. I never got particularly attached to Nestor, though I do really like his name (and the Rafta Nestor name puns). I also love the name Rafta, but the betrayal has bittered it for me.