25. Did you create any characters (in games, art, or writing) this year? Describe one
GODDAMN DID I! came up with most of the ghosts in ccs this year and it was fun but i think iām gonna soapbox a bit about the facsimiles because i havenāt really anywhere elseā¦.
these guys have technically existed in the narrative since last summer but i hadnāt really developed them nor designed them until like. literally this summer so about an entire year later. their whole deals just being sentient bits of code derived from the memories of two other existing characters. person who made them (marjolaine) has been experimenting with evolving human consciousness from raw code and the facsimiles endeavour was basically just another expression of that with the addendum of an animate human origin point
in the past iāve like described these two as ānew shoots of a plant growing from the same root of an established organismā because they both arise from younger incarnations of their bases and have like. basically fully split apart in ego despite maintaining the memories and foundation of them.
these two guys also just basically exist in the computer. which is also the sky of the entire world. donāt worry about it. but they donāt exist corporeally and can only really commune through a computer interface
frances on the right is a younger copy of marjolaineā¦. for context marjolaine used to be a prestigious opera singer who ended up straining her voice so heavily she retained permanent vocal strain that completely killed her career and also weakened her ability to consistently speak at all. frances was built from memories PRIOR to that as a way for marjolaine to relive her glory days but frances themself became like. very unimpressed with that responsibility and was much more interested in manipulating their own existence and partial omniscience (as a result of being expanded on with code) to just become a major gossip basically hehe. they love peoplewatching the living and coming up with absurd ātheoriesā and assumptions about their behaviours, making bets on things that will happen, peeking into potential ātimelinesā for funā¦.
eventually though marjolaine grew extremely ornery with their waywardness, and started to pressure and berate them into fulfilling that desired snapshot of her own life. this placed a lot of stress on frances and they basically just shattered into code under it which. although not a permanent affliction is something that requires a prolonged period of recovery. and prior to ādyingā they basically vowed to never commune with marjolaine again so. that bridge is burnt. fucked up your clone real bad!
(also yes theyāre named after that One Album. for no reason really)
sezim on the left derives from another guy (olzhas, who has many problems, such as being friends with marjolaine) who basically ādonatedā eir own memories for this experiment only to like. very quickly regret it once it turned out sezim developed into kind of just. an embarrassing immature bratty version of emself from like 5 years back. heās much more vexed about setting himself apart as a distinct individual than frances was, to the point that itās what occupies his mind mostā¦. his main pastime WAS hanging out with frances and testing the precise vastness of their knowledge, together, but once frances exploded and shit, seething about his general existence kind of took priority lol. heās basically just got an entire thing of āiām a terrifying being of great wisdom and power but i have to be tied to this random motherfucker that i hate and i wish i could shed all that influence off. and also iām confined to a computer.ā he sort of just āfledā once frances exploded (which heās EXTREMELY bitter about btw) and has formed an undying grudge against marjolaine, thus never contacting her again afterwardā¦.
these two have a weird role in the story where theyāre kind of just setpieces for their basesā story arcs. funnily enough. but theyāve got a bit of meta to them that i think is interestingā¦. mostly just embodying the idea of āhereās āpeopleā who both literally and figuratively sit āaboveā the narrative and the traditional idea of being developed charactersā by design theyāre kind of just witnesses or, more aptly, critics of the main conflict of the story which is all about really convoluted and annoying interpersonal drama radiating out into more serious conflict. they kind of think itās all stupid and avoidable and they are 100% right. but whoās going to listen to them! nobodyās really casting an ear to them since theyāre so above it all to begin withā¦.
or something like that. i like these two catty fucks