Time is nothing but an illusion… in many ways.

If you haven’t read the demo for Consummation ~wind above the dragon sea~ yet, then I recommend checking it out first! It’s a short hour long read introducing you to a much longer yuri chuunige that I’d like to make in the future.

my childhood dreams

You may have seen me say that Consummation is a story that I’ve wanted to create for a very long time. How long; how long is very long?

To answer to that question: almost ten years.

I can’t quite remember when exactly this story entered my brain and decided not to leave, but I can vividly remember drawing the characters on notebook paper during my high school freshman year Biology class. (Consummation, by the same name, was probably conceptualized that year.)

The Four Gods, four territories.

A freelancer called Suzukaze, beloved by the wind.

An info broker called Qin, wearing a qipao.

And a beloved “Senpai” by the name of Kagura.

Those are the key factors that existed back then and still exist to this day.

Of course, since high school, lots of things have changed as Consummation sat around in the ideas document waiting for the light of day, being dusted off now and then in different forms.

For example:

• The protagonist switched to Qin from Suzukaze for a period! (Although we’re back to my wind-blessed freelancer daughter)
• Senpai (Kagura) was explicitly dead in most early iterations of the story, making it a revenge plot
• Characters like Belka and Juhyeon were only created within the last two iterations of Consummation

I’m looking forward to seeing how Consummation evolves from now on, still so much the same yet so much changing.

But for now, I’m happy to ramble a bit about the parts that were exposed in the prototype demo!

Q. world building?

First, let’s talk about the world building. Consummation is set in an unspecified era after the world as we know it was destroyed by a calamity that left the majority of the world uninhabitable and dangerous to return to.

We can consider the genre to be modern fantasy, the setting post-apocalyptic.

The plot takes place on an artificial island built in the Sea of Japan, a smattering of cities built upon the artificial land and manufacturing/infrastructure set below the earth in order to sustain an island that has no external trade. The level of technology is similar to ours but possibly slightly more advanced, even as the end of the world would have destroyed a lot of progress.

Whether or not there is any life beyond the island is unknown to the people living on the island; the belief is that they are the last humans on the face of the earth.

The island, which is usually referred to as just the island, is split into four territories in the four cardinal directions, each territory ruled by a group from each of the countries that helped create the island.

Fun fact: It used to be called the “Scrapyard.”

Should we call this a confederacy of dictatorships? Certainly, it wouldn’t exactly be false. (The island is not a democracy.)

For someone like our protagonist Suzukaze, the specifics of government and politics are beyond the scope of her focus, but you’ll see how the characters live on the island regardless.

Q. What are the four territories?

In story, the countries that built up the island are Japan, Korea (unspecified), China, and Russia. As such, the territories are split between their groups and mostly run along their ethnic lines although movement between territories is not difficult.

There also exists a neutral city-territory, governed jointly by the four groups ruling over the territories, called Central, the location of the main story.

Fun fact: While the Chinese territory and Japanese territory existed in the earliest iterations of Consummation, the other two territories were initially different groups (Italian and MENA).

However, taking into consideration the focus on East Asian mythology and the location of the island, I decided to go with countries from within the geographical region around the Sea of Japan that would be reasonably involved in the joint development of such an island.

(Maybe my Italian and MENA girls are somewhere out there in their own version of an island…)

Q. Who are the ruling groups of the four territories?

However, despite speaking in broad strokes of countries above, it quickly becomes clear that the ruling groups of the four territories are not quite the former state governments but rather families with the blessings of the Four Gods (the cardinal beasts, however you would like to call them).

The ruling groups can be considered powerful families that existed in their respective countries before the end of the world. They were able to gain positions overseeing the island before the collapse and then consolidated power as the de facto government after the collapse.

In earlier iterations of Consummation, the story was also more focused on gangs and gang warfare (a mafia story?). However, for the sake of certain plot points, the four groups turned from their initial characterization as string-pullers influencing a weak government to the government themselves.

This is what we call the monopoly of legal violence.

Q. Cults?

Yes.

Q. language?

Given the four countries that led to the four territories, it would make sense that multiple languages should be spoken on the island.

At the very least, Russian, Japanese, Chinese (Mandarin), and Korean are spoken on the island. For the time being, I won’t specify if there’s a common language used for cross group communication or if everyone can just magically understand each other like Tekken characters. (o´▽`o)

Q. Senpai?

But you might notice that a very important character is referred to as “Senpai.”

Given the differences in types of relationships that exist across cultures (e.g,, there are so many ways to refer to various relatives in Chinese), I was unable to find a good word to describe the relationship between Suzukaze and Kagura aside from “Senpai.”

Perhaps if they were in school, then I’d call it something like “upperclassman” or “senior sister” (haha, no way), but it’s something that I can only describe as “Senpai.”

As such, you may see terms like “Senpai” used throughout the story for character relationships that are difficult to describe in English.

Q. What about honorifics?

However, I will refrain from using honorifics throughout the story. It would quickly become confusing with so many in-story languages, and my familiarity with Korean and Russian is relatively poor.

The lack of honorifics may be considered a loss of information, but as the story is originally written in English anyhow, I imagine that shouldn’t be a huge problem. Overall, I’d like to be consistent within the story.

Thus, no honorifics here!

Maybe next time.

misc

Q. Who are the heroines/love interests?

Given that Consummation is a yuri game, I figure that I should specify who the love interests are before I close off this ramble.

They are Qin, Kagura, Juhyeon!

My daughter Juhyeon will get revenge for her flirting being ignored…

(There is a minor chance of Belka having a route as well, but currently no plans are in place for a Belka route.)

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I hope I’ll be able to elevate Consummation to active project status soon. There is currently no timeline for that change, and I have at least one project queued up before Consummation.

So, for now, stay yuri!

shino

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