🦋 Welcome to Lepidoptera Lunatic Asylum 🦋

⚙️ This story has one set ending. Your choices are futile. You can’t change fate.

Characters ⚙️ FAQ ⚙️ Itch.io ⚙️ Discord ⚙️ Masterpost ⚙️ 1st Anniversary Post

Welcome to Pupa Project 🦋

Pupa Project is a visual novel that has one set ending. Lepidoptera Lunatic Asylum opens its gates to you, beckoning you inside to come and pick up the pieces of splintered minds. Our story begins one year after Blythe Waldrop had been admitted to the asylum. Between navigating the harsh conditions of a Victorian institution, and learning what it means to truly heal, you will help Blythe understand what it means to be free.

While this story only has one ending, the choices you help Blythe make just might restore the fragments you need to piece together the whole picture. So choose carefully, it’s time to see the world through her eyes.

"I-I DON'T DIE!! YOU!!"

As everything came to a head, as the world was caving in around her, crashing and burning, as sound jumbled in her mind sounding like laughter and sneering and threats and clocks and music and whispering… Blythe lunged for a butter knife sat on the edge of a table.

Pupa Project now has both an Instagram account and a TikTok account!

New asylum platforms! Why not go explore? >;3c

I wanted to make a little mini announcement to open the door to you all!

Thanks to a lovely friend giving beautiful beautiful amazing constructive criticism, I reevaluated Amaryllis’ color palette and have fixed her colors to be even more gorgeous and stunning!!

However, I want to take this opportunity to make something very clear when it comes to the character design of both Amaryllis and Cassandra!

PLEASE DO NOT BE AFRAID TO GIVE ME CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM OF THEIR DESIGNS!

I think we are all very aware I am a pale, sickly, victorian white man BAHAHAHA I am not Nigerian, I am not Vietnamese. So please never be scared to offer constructive criticism if you feel their designs could use improvements!

Amaryllis and Cassandra are crucial parts of the asylum narrative. The majority of asylum inhabitants across all time periods have always been women, women of color, and specifically black women. And this still persists to this day. While Pupa Project draws from personal experiences, I refused to make a cast of all white characters no matter if this story takes place in Victorian England and no matter if I, myself, am not a person of color. Because it’s just not accurate in the grand scheme of things. I try my best to share these sides of things through character designs and historical context even if it is not the main focus of the story. But there is no better way for us to learn than from actual people alive and breathing now.

I know the following of Pupa Project is still very small, but I want to make it clear now and forever, please never be scared to guide me on designing my characters! I welcome it completely, please never worry about being pushed away or discouraged if you bring up ideas on how to improve my character designs.

This is not just my story anymore. This is something for everyone. Everyone will always be welcomed.

(And also just a side note on this topic, if anyone ever in this community is unwelcoming towards their fellow patients based on race, gender, sexuality, disability, there is a spot in the dead house waiting for them. I will not tolerate ANY of that. They will be dealt with immediately. :) )

"Have you ever thought about killing yourself?"

"Yes yes… they'dlike it bett er tha tway! They'd li keit be tter! Yesss yessyes!"

-⏳🦋-

I am finally back at it! Working on one of the CGs for our beautiful Blythe’s Time Fragment ⏳🦋

I remember once my therapist growing up told me “No one ever gets help when they’re manic.”

Experiencing mania is really strange for me sometimes. Just like a depression, it’s hard to even realize that you’re experiencing it until you’re coming out of it. For the past at least 3-4 days, I’ve been hypomanic, which is the type of mania I get. Basically it’s mania that only lasts a couple days or weeks, shorter periods than full manic episodes.

When I’m manic, everything is just so so fast and so so overstimulating. My thoughts and feelings get tangled and I feel strained in my chest, however I also feel very excited and energetic and impulsive, but I don’t understand why. I talk so much and so fast and I say the same things over and over again and I can’t control it. I was talking to my mom for like thirty minutes just going in circles before I remembered we had errands to do so I managed to stop myself to go get ready. Later in the day when I realized what was happening, what I was experiencing, I told her, but I knew she already knew! My mom always tells me she knows when I’m experiencing my symptoms because she sees it in my eyes. My pupils get huge when I’m manic, or they get glossed-over and dazed when I’m psychotic.

I am on mood stabilizers, so the mania and depressions aren’t as bad as before! I rarely get episodes like these, but even with breakthrough symptoms, I am able to recognize what’s happening quicker and take action to cope better than I could without the medicine. Medicine never cures anything, it makes what you’re experiencing more manageable! Hypomania lasts at least four days, and I’ve found that my episodes typically last around that time or a little more closer to a full week.

I feel I am losing myself…!

I’m not sure if other visual novels do this, but I had the very cute idea of once in a while having dedicated sprites of two characters interacting! My favorite thing ever is drawing my characters, so I love coming up with tons of sprites! And these are examples of my duo sprites I had in mind! Instead of full cg scenes, sometimes a blessed duo sprite will appear! :D

I have some ideas of how I will execute it in the game, and I’m really excited to implement them!! I’ll be back to coding in July to finish the first full chapter! And I hope the second chapter will follow up swiftly after that :3c

I just wanted to give a bit of an update as to why the blog has been pretty quiet this week!

A couple days ago my cat, Bambi, had sadly passed away. She was 20 years old! I practically had her my whole life!! I’ve been in mourning for a couple days after. I’m starting to feel better! But I just haven’t had much energy to draw because of this and also health issues flaring up once again.

🦋 Billions of Blythes!!! 🦋

I did this doodle page because I wanted to fill a canvas with the baby!!! :D 💓🐛

Close ups underneath ✨🦋

Posted to my Bluesky for reaching 500 followers!!

I’m so so excited to have so many supportive patients coming along on this journey with me! Between here and bluesky, I constantly receive so much love and support on my art and on this project! With this blog and my bluesky, I have 632 fellow patients joining me in Lepidoptera Lunatic Asylum!

I never ever expected Pupa Project and my art as a whole to get so much love that it does! It truly means a lot to me that I’ve been able to form a little community surrounding this project!! Pupacord will always get a shout out in these posts too because everyone in the discord is so so overwhelmingly kind and supportive and I’m so happy I can share what I’m working on there. I get so excited to see everyone in there chatter (and seeing detectives trying to piece things together ;3c)

I just wanted to make a post here since I realized not everyone on this blog is in Pupacord!! So you were not witnessing me live-blogging my ER visit BAHAH

Monday this week I had to go to the ER because of a health complication. It’s something that is extremely common! It’s not life threatening or anything! But it’s something I have been dealing with for weeks/months and I might be dealing with it a little longer until it resolves itself or, in worst case scenario, I need to get it removed for some reason. I was told to monitor it as it could lead to a complication that would need immediate emergency care, but at this point, my doctors are not too concerned about it! The ER told me to just come back if the pain gets worse!

I was in the ER for 7+ hours. And the whole visit, while I was happy I went because there was something that needed to be addressed, was something unexpected for me. I first went to urgent care for the issue because I didn’t think it was a big deal really, but the doctor there referred me to the ER where I spent the whole rest of my day into the next.

ALL THIS TO SAY!!! I am very very fatigued. I have a couple wips I’ve been wanting to work on for Pupa Project, mainly a writing piece and a little doodle for pride month! But I am so drained from health issues, joint pain, etc etc, that things might be really slow this month. My plan is to hopefully get back to coding in July! But I’m just too fatigued to work on art this month!

Thank you guys for always being patient with things and thank you to those in Pupacord who kept me company while I waited in between tests!!