bridgeburner...

an apt title for a project i originally made as a teenager when i'd been burning bridges myself. or someone else was. i share the same body with them. it might've been all of us, or none of us. either way.

teenagers burn bridges. i... think that's an inevitability of life, but even more so for that specific life stage. you're angsty, you're mad at the world, the world feels like it hates you, so you have to hate it back. or you have to hate yourself. even if you don't hate the world - it's entirely possible to sacrifice yourself for a "greater good", isn't it? to think that way? to want to be the savior of the entire world in the face of such hopelessness?

this game is going to be about teenagers and it's strange looking back on what i'd created before. the old visual novel [flick](https://scoliwings.itch.io/flick). that is what i am basing this new game off - it's a reboot, a revamp. i want to complete that dream teen me had. at the same time... it feels like my dream's changed a little.

i know the curse of telling my backstory over and over.

i know trauma.

repetition.

i knew i couldn't escape and syn in flick damn well knew it too. that even if they were in another world, they'd still be stuck. lonely. not knowing a single familiar face because you were either alienated or alienated others - or both. even having a loving family never quite feels like enough when you see your parents meeting with so many friends - your relatives, your cousins, your peers in the classroom, just about everybody else seems to have a friend.

that's still the hard part, i think. knowing i can't write friends into this project. friendship as a teenager is hard, even worse when you're deaf and autistic. (is syn an self-insert? absolutely. then again, ve've never seen any deaf protagonists in video games. give me one and prove me wrong.) i was yearning for media that showed the bleakness of the sheer, overwhelming feeling of loneliness. everyone in everything i saw on television, in comics, in any story, seemed to always make a friend, and if they didn't, it didn't turn out well. i know humans NEED friends, we need to socialize with each other.

but...

i need something where you're alone, and you can see the kindness of every stranger...

...and know exactly how long it would take to get to know them...

...and feel so lost because you've tried everything.

and they won't know you back.