iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

JILLIAN F. KILLS⚾Shortstop by the Sea @killjill.itch.io · 30/08/2026

immediately after i did that last answer someone found my power bombs and i had to do a bunch of morphball bomb stuff ration-style. anyways here's my vndev process (alt text continued through all the images)

Q: whats your process 4 making visual novels?

A: i'll often have a loose idea that's bouncing around my head like it's in a rock tumbler until it turns into something i'm excited to work on, then i start on writing at the beginning of the jam i'm planning for (at least in the case for most of my games, which are jam games).

i try to figure out pretty early if i want the text to display in adv or nvl or a mix because that heavily influences the way i'll write the entirety of the work. adv lends more towards more conversationally-written things, while nvl is better for longer-form prose, though nowadays i've considered learning more and more towards using nvl mainly, even in things that might end up being more dialogue-heavy... i just tend to like how it plays with screen space a little better. i care about the visual ergonomics of my games a lot and i don't necessarily like making things that tire your eyes out and make you follow exhausting patterns of movement. the text is the thing you're looking at for 98% of a vn's runtime, so i want to create layouts with that in mind. this is the biggest part of why i tend to not want to go the route of traditionally-staged adv, because your eyes are glued to a little rectangle at the bottom of the screen, often with a wider resolution than necessary. for that reason i try my best to figure out a layout as soon as i can, but that doesn't always come as quick as i'd like it to. shortstop's layout came about mid-way through production and lyn remarked that it was like the light had returned to my eyes when it came to me, gahahah...

when writing i try to also keep a sort of 'choreography' in my head, even if it doesn't always manifest physically. i don't have to describe every single thing in text because i can use audio or visuals to communicate them, so i try to keep notes on things (at least, when i remember to take them). assembling vns sometimes feel like putting together a film or a play, because the actors... (cont)

...will give life to the work after the script's been written.

if i'm doing the art myself, i tend to weave it in between working on the script when i want to have a day where i'm not just writing. a boon to solo work is if i'm getting tired of doing one thing for too long a stretch, i can chip away at something else for a bit and i don't necessarily feel like i'm stuck banging my head against one thing at a time. i do get pretty absorbed in my work even if i'm not actively working, so i get kind of crazy sometimes. this is why it's important for me to do things that aren't work while i'm actively making a game, like walking, or watching baseball, or seeing new places, or in general just seeking novelty. most of my better ideas come while i'm away from the keyboard and experiencing life. you need time by the creek, time and space to let your mind wander and be somewhere else.

i'll also try to do a bunch of research depending on what it is i'm writing for. for one of the games i'm working on i spent a ton of time visiting a bunch of out-of-use coastal sea forts and being in them, feeling their stone, feeling the sea air, and inhabiting those spaces while also learning about the forts themselves and their histories, and the histories of the surrounding areas. i don't get to be in the space of everything that i write for, but it definitely helps a lot. postcard i made while out in the midwest and i don't think i would have been able to write it like i did if i didn't immerse myself in it in the way i go to.
after i've gotten writing done, i'll generally give it a few editing passes, and let a friend or friends read it, and then give it a few more passes. i almost ended up sequencing shortstop's ending a little differently but lyn ended up giving me some pretty good direction for how it'd better work and i think she was right for it.

other aspects i don't have processes that are as clear, i have yet to really fully take on and complete a project where i've... (cont.)

...dedicated myself to just art for example, but i do tend to end up sketching a lot out in my sketchbooks.

all in all the process tends to be me going it's so over=>we're so back=>it's so over=>we're so back etc. for a few weeks and then it's done

Q: Fabvorite shape and why

probably a teardrop... it can be a water or it can be a tears... but most importantly, it's boobs

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JILLIAN F. KILLS⚾Shortstop by the Sea @killjill.itch.io · 28/08/2026

my hada came in!! isn't my wrist zipper cute? >w[ ] #kig

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JILLIAN F. KILLS⚾Shortstop by the Sea @killjill.itch.io · 22/08/2026

a pic from a few months ago when I went to a con in kig for the first time! (^◡♡) playing mahjong in kig was a lot of fun... #kig 📸: @ppilotco.faith

a picture of a kigurumi looking at the camera very cutely

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JILLIAN F. KILLS⚾Shortstop by the Sea @killjill.itch.io · 17/08/2026

went to an anime store and there was just a nico yazawa ita bag that someone sold

the ita bag in question. it is full of badges and buttons, some official, some unofficial

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JILLIAN F. KILLS⚾Shortstop by the Sea @killjill.itch.io · 16/08/2026

max and mentha stickers came in so I finally decorated the other side

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JILLIAN F. KILLS⚾Shortstop by the Sea @killjill.itch.io · 27/07/2026

almost 500 toxic yuri visual novels to read. that's more than i can count on my fingers and toes. you should read a couple, maybe one, or two, or a couple dozen, or maybe a couple hundred #toxicyurivnjam itch.io/jam/toxic-yu...

i can only think about toxic yuri until i die

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JILLIAN F. KILLS⚾Shortstop by the Sea @killjill.itch.io · 26/07/2026

'shortstop by the sea' inspo killjill.itch.io/shortstop-by... #toxicyurivnjam

Not I by Samuel Beckett as performed by Billie Whitelaw
Colin Stetson - When We Were That What Wept For The Sea
Colin Stetson - New History Warfare Vol. 2
Dennis Cooper - Closer
Nobuhiko Obayashi - Emotion
Minor League Baseball
Jackie Mitchell with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig
Virginia Woolf - Mrs. Dalloway
Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse Five
margo - Milk Puzzle
J. D. Salinger - The Catcher in the Rye
Carson Lund - Eephus
Tim Lincecum circa 2010 World Series
kazehai & ppilotco - Ten Metre Tide
Takeshi Kitano - Hana-bi

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JILLIAN F. KILLS⚾Shortstop by the Sea @killjill.itch.io · 22/07/2026

this is the secret as to why the red sox are on their streak rn

it's mumugi mugi but she's playing for the red sox

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JILLIAN F. KILLS⚾Shortstop by the Sea @killjill.itch.io · 21/07/2026

it would be fun to run about on a baseball field with a big head on but also in this situation nobody is catching or hitting any of those damn balls

Q: who would you draft for your all kig baseball team lineup

A: you mean like other kigs? hard to say bc i'm shy and haven't talked very much to a lot of other kigs yet but i know pilot at least would be the catcher. i'd probably be 2nd base

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JILLIAN F. KILLS⚾Shortstop by the Sea @killjill.itch.io · 21/07/2026

been thinking about the delitches foods of the worlds all day. so desperately do i crave to eat something so heavenlishly spicy that i enter a new state of being

Q: hi. what food would you teleport into your mouth rn if you could

A: hello. sichuan hot pot with bok choy and beef tongue

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JILLIAN F. KILLS⚾Shortstop by the Sea @killjill.itch.io · 13/07/2026

im gonna Freak Out. good work everyone holy shit

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JILLIAN F. KILLS⚾Shortstop by the Sea @killjill.itch.io · 13/07/2026

[ SHORTSTOP BY THE SEA ] is now available. Baseball is about waiting for something to happen. Baseball is about being powerless. Baseball is about not getting what you want. Baseball isn't about anything. 9k words, for adult audiences only. #toxicyurivnjam killjill.itch.io/shortstop-by...

"But my heart has dulled to it. Call me selfish, but part of my enjoyment came from being able to imagine myself on the field. Running around and defending and sending people down to be relegated to some AA team. I've always been mean like that. But I can't anymore. It's not a field for me any longer. I could reach and reach and it wouldn't matter. Landis' ghost still haunts the field almost a hundred years later. One could try their best to imagine the players as sexless amoebae, but the untold truth of it was that in all but officiality it was all boys' leagues."

"Summer like a sheet, humid cloud sticking to you like thirsting tongue.

Beat-beating down it is on me and every we of the field and of the bleachers bleaching in the sun.

Bat in hand.

Sun-kissed pitcher throws it to me, but he throws it outside, ball, too outside.

Throws again. Curveball curves into the strike zone. I didn't know when to swing.

Third pitch. Ball whizzes by my head and into the catcher's mitt."

"'I'm, not allowed?'

'It's fine, you could drink in Canada.'

'But it's not Canada.'

'We're close enough.'

Then you smirked. 'I Had my first beer when I was 13. You could do worse.'"

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JILLIAN F. KILLS⚾Shortstop by the Sea @killjill.itch.io · 19/06/2026

watched some awesome stuff and also the backrooms

eephus (2024)
tifusari (1964)
backrooms (2026)
maska crvene smrti (1970)

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JILLIAN F. KILLS⚾Shortstop by the Sea @killjill.itch.io · 09/06/2026

play my game about how flatties are god's favorites killjill.itch.io/postcardfrom...

postcard from brentville screenshot "So flat you'd think God bulldozed it as if to say, 'Flat is Justice! Hallelujah!'

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JILLIAN F. KILLS⚾Shortstop by the Sea @killjill.itch.io · 09/06/2026

a lot of me and lyn's portraits look like this when put next to each other

my gf's character duha looking really fucking cool and awesome and moody and chuuni next to mumugi mugi who kind of looks like that one comic panel where tom from tom and jerry is talking about the mortality rates of car crashes

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JILLIAN F. KILLS⚾Shortstop by the Sea @killjill.itch.io · 30/05/2026

this bit from gentrification of the mind really gets it

Just as gentrification literally replaces mix with homogeneity, it enforces itself through the repression of diverse expression. This is why we see so much quashing of public life as neighborhoods gentrify. Permits are suddenly required for performing, for demonstrating, for dancing in bars, for playing musical instruments on the street, for selling food, for painting murals, selling art, drinking beer on the stoop, or smoking pot or cigarettes. Evicting four apartments and replacing them with one loft becomes reasonable and then desirable instead of antisocial and cruel. Endless crackdowns on cruising and "public" sex harass citizens. The relaxed nature of neighborhood living becomes threatening, something to be eradicated and controlled.
Since the mirror of gentrification is representation in popular culture, increasingly only the gentrified get their stories told in mass ways. They look in the mirror and think it's a window, believing that corporate support for and inflation of their story is in fact a neutral and accurate picture of the world. If all art, politics, entertainment, relationships, and conversations must maintain that what is constructed and imposed by force is actually natural and neutral, then the gentrified mind is a very fragile parasite.

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JILLIAN F. KILLS⚾Shortstop by the Sea @killjill.itch.io · 25/05/2026

can you believe it guys? Toxic Yuri VN Jam 2! TYVNJ2! just a week away! TYVNJ2 is in a week! woohoo! i am so happy about this information. :D TYVNJ2, just a week away! oh wow. can you believe it? Toxic Yuri VN Jam 2! just in a week! it got here so fast! Toxic Yuri VN Jam 2 itch.io/jam/toxic-yu...

toxic yuri visual novel jam 2 is next monday!

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