Changing Pains & July Scene Update; Sophora Overview

The week leading up to the turn of the month into August was a worrisome moment in the family. I knew most of this year was going to be extremely difficult but towards the end it would start shifting favorably, and today I can say that part's finally begun - I can say there's a lot of weight off my shoulders, for now. Hopefully for good.

I don't have a meaningful writing update for the last seven days. I was still crushed, I was exhausted, and I've been struggling back into healthier routines I used to have before 2022's move, like regular, daily exercise.

For the Vava Groom monthly content update, I'm delaying it again. I'm sorry. I also still need Nonesuch to proofread it, as Vava Groom is his creation. As the monthly content is delayed, I will post a proper progress report this Saturday, along with the document and the next poll.

Lastly for this post, I wanted to talk about the currently furloughed Sophora Quest & Jumper Quarters xpac document that I was working on and hoping to have implemented across July. I'm uncertain the content in question - primarily regarding Sophora - and my pitch for the Jumpers will remain faithful to my original goals if it does indeed pick back up and the team decides on a course of action to make it compatible with their wishes.

I figure I might as well explain what my intent was, because there is a fully fleshed out story I'd been keeping close to my chest for a long time.

Every new thing I do is an experiment, or something new to me, and Sophora was no different. I took the idea of Nemesis from RE3 and concepted a doc for her a few years ago, 2019 I think. There was also a bit of the Iron Maiden character from Witcher 3 in there. Originally, Sophora would have been a bit character next to Vanika herself... then things happened. Also never got around to finishing her until 2022. Writing her was a way for me to heal, and I inserted several Nordic themes into her content while hoping to establish a mystery to solve on ZS. Her content focus (Hate Sex, Stalking, Hardcore Amazonian stuff) wouldn't be for everyone so I included several disablers at the behest of the team. Sophora as she is now is an enigma, and she's a laquine, so you only know that she may be a Jumper by association. To get to the bottom of that, having the Jumper Xpac was the next step.

For those who haven't read the xpac document, a proper resolution would come by discovering that Vanika was uncharacteristically afraid of her, wouldn't talk about her, appeared to exert minimal control over her. Through a straightforward process, you could decide to get her voice back and make her talk by working with one of several doctors and coming up with a portable solution that you could use on the spot. You'd maybe learn something, stick it to Vanika, and come away from the whole thing feeling like you'd affected change on ZS. Healing Sophora (while also defeating her in front of Vanika and many of the Jumpers in their own quarters) and learning her story would render Vanika permanently paranoid, and while actual effects on gameplay would be limited (the bulk of writing was a solo endeavor, after all) there was at least a feeling of making an impact.

Sophora would later meet up with you for a one-on-one and you'd get to ask her all the needful about herself, about ZS, and why she attacked you in the first place - she can only get relief through combat. Sophora targets you because you made an impact on ZS through a number of ways (usually just by defeating Vanika and getting the ZS probe). Anyone who has lost to her would have seen stalking events (like perturbing emails) and she would also explain she sent those threats to make you want to fight her as hard as you possibly could. As it stands, I flavored the formation of Zheng Shi as being indirectly her doing: Sophora once commanded a fleet for her own purposes and Vanika (the Shock Hopper) was one of her crew, who mutinied and seized it all by defeating her in personal combat. Fast forward and Vanika has made the Jumpers out of that fleet and all five ZS gangs eventually come together as is described and presented in the main story.

At the end, Sophora says that she will ask a favor of you if you complete your quest for inheritance. You would unlock her as a permanent contact and could phone her over via the CODEX for more rough intimacy, and/or to borrow one of her three powerful weapons or exchange one for another. If this had been implemented, I planned one last side-adventure involving her. You would go with her to the remains of a colony that used to be her home and climb a great mountain together, and at the summit learn why she founded a mercenary fleet and what she's looking for, and gain a purely flavor decision to help her in that search or not into whatever epilogue involves you becoming CEO of Steele Tech.

I actually commissioned music for the hypothetical summit scene, too. It's attached. My idea was that we could see about running it in-game for the scene (embedded like a .gif/.webm) after a long CYOA-style man-vs-environment sequence culminating in revelations and exhaustive, sub-orbital smut, with further repeatable sexual scenes unlocked.

Well, that was long winded. I apologize for the long waits. Whatever happens after upcoming Phaedra content, what's already backlogged will still get done. I'm going to retain Nonesuch for more help this month on one of those projects, too.