the mortis work log

[skinstealer]

things i (ivy) have done todya
- organized things for advanced TCPdex
- concepted 5 petz files
- made the rough mesh for my sona avatar
- begun work with vyn and knux on the second life TCP avatar system- they will be much more involved, i hope people who crave a roleplay experience are excited
- started a skybox build for aforementioned reasons
- did a bunch of welfare calls
- survived an allergy attack

[skinstealer]

scapula mortis here with a proper formal announcement or three, i'm gonna try to stop stressing about whether we're upkeeping this consistently bc what matters is the work itself. here's the state of affairs

we are very sick still and managing that along with life stressors, but getting back to work is significantly helping. we're resuming work on projects we had in progress before life flipped us around, and that feels good. getting agency and control back, etc.

maze trials 2.0, more specifically issue #2, the angel code, is not dead, we have the notes down for the remaining illustrative work and will be returning to that as soon as we can guarantee consistent drawing sessions being a thing and us and como can wrap up the overseer commentary for 2A. we are also working on overall worldbuilding and character development, especially in the overseer and lore integration department. this is still our overall Main Focus aside from universal constants, and we hope to have that out in the relative soonness.

universal constants is almost done with its fourth episode, which will be posted on itch as soon as humanly possibly after completion and thus put on a public stage. i emphasize this because this is the first UC episode that warrants the #vore tag, which is easily the biggest draw to our current published works (aka Room 107) and will be a REALLY big deal for the project. us and como are very very proud of this. episode 5 has...i think about half of it written up as of months ago, but i need to sit down and refine that writing and review our outline for the rest of it. it will probably be a bit, either way, because como has a lot of Very Large Project things to get done first. all the same! it's happening.

plaything is in a bit of a limbo currently, but with getting back to work, i am planning on returning to the formal twine release. i forget how much we've talked about that, but it contains all the way through the first pool scene with willow/crossbone, and should be a pretty solid introduction to people getting into it. we are still deliberating on bonus content/illustrations/etc, how much we want to include, the works, but this has been on the table and still is.

patreon shit is something we are prioritizing atm, both across the HD one and [BAD_DEATH]. we have a whole pile of petz hexes we've concepted and have notes for that ideally, i should be knocking some out of this week, as well as the TCP types and sketches for this month. it is worth noting that when the 2.0 and plaything twines come out, 10 dollar patrons WILL be getting them completely free.

commissions have been a bit rough, both due to illness and a lot of mental shit gumming up the works. with that said, we'd started plugging away at them last week and should continue to do so. thank you for bearing with us on that, seriously.

the tcpdex is getting worked on big time behind the scenes, though...not on the public facing end. no, i've begun work in earnest on The Advanced TCPDex: Volume 1, which should be an actual fucking pdf book thing that serves as a comprehensive guide to TCPs, as well as buckets of morbit worldbuilding and character work. this has been planned and announced for a while on discord, but yes, it does exist, and is being worked on. have a small snippet...

For the past 370 years, tiny cat people have walked among us. A relatively early creation within the Reconstruction Era, these TCPs are considered a far more modern species than the majority of the population. Only the wide variety of construct species starting in this era and continuing to be invented and manufactured can really be comparable in their prominence, and even then- it is somehow far easier to keep up with the ever-changing products of the sapience industry than it is a single, infinitely faceted species.

Some would consider the study of these creatures to be impossible, seeing as their exact populations and nuances can never truly be given a census or survey- but we here at the TCPDex Research Facility have taken up the mantle. We believe that a comprehensive encyclopedia of this species CAN be created, and updated in the same vein as any other academic text.

This is not a fruitless venture. Together, we can understand our planet's most diverse sapient species, and grasp its true potential. Within this bestiary reveals the secrets behind decades of research, working with TCPs as individuals, studying their biology and culture- and sharing those findings with you, the reader.

Do not fear the tiny cat person- as in many ways, it is just like you.

-Dr. Spinal Clot

yes, this will be in-character. yes, it will also be out of character, and include developer's commentary. it will also include in-universe pieces of media, the works. if you want a comparison to an extant piece of media, i highly recommend the Dragonology books in terms of sheer Depth and what kind of approaches will be had here. i'm really looking forward to working on this! so far, patrons have seen all there is of it, as well as TCPdex editors- considering it's kind of pertinent knowledge to, you know, the wiki itself. ZERO idea of when this'll be done, it is going to be a massive undertaking, but enjoying the process.

kaleidoclub is back in active development! with our own system shit in flux and plural media on the brain, this'll be one of our active release focuses while we get back on our feet. the great news is that we're not holding back nearly as hard anymore, and this project is going to go on all cylinders from here on out. expect Ongoing Storylines!

oneshots are back in active development as well, including ones just for our practice and exploration. that's right baby, vignettes and scribbles are back on the menu along with the funded stuff. Get Hype. new characters are coming, and we're gonna let ourselves go wild.

the house is probably coming back, like. today. i just want to do something low investment and high engagement, you know? and that's a good avenue for that. plus, people have been asking for it. may as well.

felid factor is a project i would like to return to soon, both due to system shenanigans and the fact that TCP worldbuilding is getting cranked up to 11 in terms of development shit. The Time Is Now. no concrete updates, but that's just something i'm thinking about on the side.

i think that's most everything...aside from, well, what we've been up to for the past...month...or so.

THE SECOND LIFE NONSENSE

yeah, if you're on discord you know exactly what we've been coping with. we have gotten VERY, VERY back into second life, including product development and just, making avatars/resources for other people. we have actually done so with a whole pile of people, both HD team and close friends, and have begun releasing products under the collective label SCRIMBLO WORLD. we have our first in-world store opening on friday (think an ingame "physical" location) and a lot of shit in the works, and this is my current focus overall in order to get some passive income rolling.

now, you may say, scapula, i do not play second life, that's a weird pervert game and it runs like shit and it is difficult to handle- all of this is true! but we will be releasing morbit avatars on there sooner rather than later, and already have one plaything-based design up and going. if you're a morbit discord member, you can get that shit for free, and if you're a patron for homebrew deviants, you get access to any and all avatar betas. the TCP ones...well, they're getting new versions. you'll just have to wait and see for the full plans there.

if anyone wants to learn how to play this mess of a game, let us know. we have a community space available for anyone who wants to vibe, and are more than happy to just let people chill and play with us.

okayyy that's the state of affairs. i am now running out of steam so this is what you get 

[skinstealer]

i think i need to stop saying "more updates soon" and then fuck off for a few months, but i HAVE been doing things. let's talk about it. 

we've been doing more SCRIMBLO WORLD shit for second life, that goes without saying. it's work that makes us happy. but, that's slowed down a bit....because more of our main work is back on the table, and i have Things to Share.

getting personal for a second, the past three months have involved some fairly major personal revelations and life decisions that have changed the trajectory of our, well, everything. the good news is, this is a very positive trajectory! but it's been really hard, and one of the decisions made was to cut back on how much of our personal life is in the public eye- at least, in the active moment to moment. it's really clear by now that life as a Content™ Creator™ isn't the move. it's not what we ever really wanted for ourselves, and our life, not this sense of being a Public Figure! we just want to make stuff and share it and talk about it among peers. 

growing up autistic and with god knows how much weird bullshit going on neurodivergence-wise left us feeling like we'd have to appeal ourselves to whatever is the "correct" way of sharing art and making friends in order to be accepted, but all this really did was push us into a mold we never really wanted to be in, and then punished whenever we'd naturally leak out of that. i feel like trying to fit to stuff like a Fandom-built Community and Open Species and adoptable culture really fucked me over in that department- and made Morbit/HD works worse for it. part of why i stepped back for such a long while is because i've been unpacking the depths of how much being online and being in the public eye first and a person second has worsened both our trauma and emotional regulation issues, and have been focusing primarily on using distress tolerance to help ease both of those in therapy. 

the past 10 years have been very, very hard on us. those who have been following with us personally outside of a community setting know that we went through some pretty serious system shakeups we've referred to as "the implosion". i'll be honest, we still don't know how to address this. we went from like 200 guys to knowing about around 30 active ones, all with pretty huge identity shakeups. it's hard to really talk about this in a way that can convey what this has entailed, and what this feels like, but i guess our overall take is this:

no one you knew before the implosion is dead, or gone. we've had a very large shakeup in system and everybody essentially got broken up into puzzle pieces- and the resulting puzzles are still being put back together. all of them look different, some more than others, but we're still the same background, core interests, and core values- if anything, we're even moreso Ourselves than before. our personal theory is that this was our brain's reaction to getting out of a debilitatingly bad situation and allowed to start things fresh in like, basically every department- consider the new Skinstealer System Version 2 more "true" to what we want to be, especially since we've consciously embraced that. 

collectively, we still go by Mortis, and are going to be embracing our TCPsona we made a few years back as a representation of both our irl body and us as a collective. that's a huge change- we're all TCPs by default now! this is something we've needed to really embrace for a very long time, but you can refer to us as TCPs first and foremost as a sort of species descriptor. "human" is okay too, but this will make us very happy. roleplayed physical interactions are still [shaky hand] for us, and affection is still a big no unless you're specifically cleared for it- but we're trying to be more okay with being seen as freaky guys (usually) under a foot tall. feel free to ask about what's cool and what's not. 

genderwise, we're pretty firmly nonbinary transmasc across the board. he/him works fine for a singular pronoun, but they/them plural is a great standard one for us. we prefer Mortis if you're referring to us without knowing specific fronters, but if you're up for asking or read our discord status/a notation in a post on who's talking, PLEASE use that! it will make us very happy and help us feel more grounded in being plural, which is something that's been progressively really hard for us in the past 6-7 years. 

almost out of the woods on the personal talk.

these big life changes have, again, lead us to realize how much we've been repressing and stifling ourselves. it's been really dogshit to look back at the past decade and realize just how much of our life has been shoving ourselves into a box. so, for the new moves forward- none of that. no more punches pulled. everything from here on out is Us. just purely, purely us. i don't expect this to be everyone's cup of tea- but i hope for those who it is, you really, really like seeing it. it's hard to explain all of the changes at play here, but i think they'll be evident in the work itself soon enough.

as for the less heavy shit, here are things we've been up to that have been helping a lot!

getting back into toy collecting alongside como!
getting back into plushmaking hardcore- including MORBIT PLUSHES!!! i will be posting pictures when the full batch is done, but i took a crack at a private wave of karacel plush commissions, and they're coming out great! i have no idea if i'll open these publicly, but it makes me very happy.
doing more physical self care such as incredible activities like bathing, eating more than one meal a day, and getting more shit diagnosed. 
emotional regulation and distress tolerance therapy, as mentioned
talking with friends privately and building up confidence in social groups that arent Public and i am a Figure
playing videogames again
writing and drawing and creating 100% for fun
getting involved with the nature around my apartment, even if it's a lot of looking outside my window and scouring iNaturalist
making cleaning my space into a fun, peaceful activity
shoveling really good media into my mouth at rapid speeds (shoutouts to Severance, Look Outside, and Fool Night especially)
writing memoir shit about my life and making it something i get to divulge at my pace- i actually have a release planned for one of these!

and much more.

and without further ado. project updates.

i'm just gonna run down like. everything. 

maze trials is yes, still in the works. i know. me and como have some rewrites to do and i'm going to begin work on illustrations for real now that my shit is together more or less. i'll be figuring out a private stream schedule to start and eventually see if i'm up for public ones, either on twitch or discord with everybody else but team members muted. likely the latter for training wheels. 


universal constants- episode 5 is done aside from illustrations, and launches Soon. like, really soon. expect (likely) weekly updates. this one's a bit of a breather after 4, but don't worry- we're getting into shit like:

morbitian political intrigue
more weird kink shit
lots and LOTS of plurality
a hint of gender
maes and charon being really gay
two new characters who have been taken out of the maybequest unused design vault
ghosts?

we're really proud of this one. hope you're ready for shit to get wild from here on out.

plaything- working on getting this going again, no ETA, both twine and forum quest. it's happening and hasn't been forgotten! 

second life- yeah we're going strong. i have a pinitelle avatar release planned for august, and that's going great. TCP avatars are also VERY in the works, and the best news is, i have successfully figured out a ReShade style for making ACTUAL prerendered SPRITES VIA SL!!! i am considering using these for assets in the future for all kinds of things, and they may add a significant amount more oomph to ongoing interactive threads/games as well as twines. expression icons, anyone?


kaleidoclub- active development, currently, working on lots of charts and fleshing out characters and their relationships. having some fun stuff go down with making fully fleshed out models of characters to use as aforementioned assets, and shriek is done with the texturing/modeling stage, and comorbid has a basic model/texture set set up that i need to expand. ideally the other toybox members will come more or less easily when shriek's done, and the non-motif shifters should be fairly easy. i just like shriek. 


advanced TCPdex- IT IS HAPPENING!!!!!!!! just not showable yet. patrons might see stuff soon though. if you do want to get involved at all, however, the discord now has a new event called BUILD-A-TCP taking place by people voting in polls to build new morbit side characters that can be used for the advanced TCPdex's ongoing narratives and graphics. i may post about them soon here!


the wiki- extreme amounts of behind the scenes work, particularly on species and lore/science fronts. we've got some fantastically crunchy shit in the works for people who like a bit more depth to the morbit shenanigans, and lots of fleshing out that i've always Really wanted to do but never could. the new UC characters show off a lot of nice karacel rework stuff, and i'm looking forward to potentially doing writeups for both of them.


the house- i feel like it needs something. maybe i just need better habits. i might take some time this week to figure this out, we'll see. 


commissions and patreon obligations- I AM DRAWING AGAIN! I AM DRAWING! AGAIN! and these are getting picked at. it will take me some time to be okay with doing art for money again- i am processing a lot of trauma regarding this subject that's really needed to be unpacked for over a decade- but i want to reassess my relationship with it. 


petz- i'll be honest. i don't really know what to say here that'll be satisfying. i have officially quit the community and am sunsetting my patreon (and it will be paused until i can properly close it), but this shit is still a part of me and my life. i just hate that it is now a part that is both something i long for and am deeply stressed out by, and it may take me a bit to reforge my path with it all. 


oneshots- i have been really wanting to do these more! considering i was able to write 2k words out of nowhere the other night- my first solo writing in ages!- i think i can give this a crack. stay tuned for that, i guess. i think it'd be nice.

toymaking- sewing's good, and i'm considering it as an alternate income source considering, uh. the uh. the state of my country. i am a little worried about all that. my plush work has gotten better and better and i think by the end of the year i'll know whether i want to run a public storefront or not and what i would sell, but for now, private commissions and gifts for friends along with piles upon piles of personal plushes work just fine. i've yet to break into toy painting yet, but i'd like to learn!(painting has always been a fucking abysmal medium for me.) 

i think i'll do a proper breakdown of what we've been up to soon, and maybe start sharing some patterns- regardless of whether i sell the same designs, i'd like people to be able to make their own too. besides, a lot of my shit is meant to be done on a budget, and god knows we need more shit like that publicly available. 

if you'd like to send me some supplies stuff or whatever, the amazon wishlist remains intact and i'm willing to do some small-scale art trade stuff for it if you message me for the wishlist beforehand and are very nice about it. i need more socks. please give me more socks. i really really need a dragon's hoard of socks my OCD hates not having good color combos.

the website- i know. i fucking know. i know i know i know. im not gonna say this is the year i get off my ass and do it. but i do have some ideas, and i'd like to give it a shot now that i dont feel a need to be """"professional""" anymore- just me and my friends who do this as a team. maybe i'll just roll some text out on it over time or something just so that there's more than a landing. that'd be nice. 

and whatever else i'm up to. this took a few hours to write and that's what you get.

i will likely be announcing a community event tomorrow, but i wanted to get this out of the way tonight. i'm happy to be back. 

-hazard mortis

[skinstealer]

• did up sliced bread, scapegoat, bear graham, harvester, and inkray type
  
• 17 new hybrid bases added to queue, as follows:
  
  Lich x Merchant
  Dwarf X merchant
  Space (abs) X merchant
  Time X Doctor
  Time X gun
  Time X induction
  Pillow X corpse
  Pillow X giggle
  Pillow X lust
  Leviathan x knife
  Leviathan x fight
  Leviathan  x infinity
  Trash X time
  Trash X lich
  Trash X Doctor
  Nudibranch X witch
  Jack o' lantern x pillow
  
• wildsnare, snuggler, muzzletrap, and baguette (weapon) types added to patron TCP queue
  
• Batch #1 of TCP avatars prospectively rigged, need to lock in later but i tired
  
• did laundry
  
• ate soup
  
• remembered to turn on the AC
  
• successfully remembered to hot compress
  
• removed ass from dad type
  
• came up with patreon system for SL things
  
• made this entry
  
• 
  
• 24 karat ebody labubu 
  

-scapula

[skinstealer]

today's progress



new TCP Types: animatronic, arcade prize, otter, haunted doll, stale baguette (weapon)



new hybrid bases: pillow/corpse, pillow/giggle, pillow/lust, time/induction, pillow/jack o'lantern

plaything update is written and i'm about to go format it
begun work on micro-scale environments for second life to provide an immersive TCP experience: behold.


this is intended for your fatherly TCPs, though should work with any of the models well enough. an office study turned into a shelter, with each object in the enviro also coming with standard-scale versions so you can  use them as highly customizable furniture. it's less a backdrop, and more an actual space for you to make your own. still have a lot of design schematics to figure out because this is our first tiime making something like this at all, but it should be pretty fun.

signing on for the Obscrya second life event as a potential smaller scale release window for scrimblo world as opposed to more high effort scale events like abnormality. should make it easier to get stuff in peoples' hands. 

working on Phalae as a character and his relationship with Manzana- might actually have some story ideas going on???

....and a bunch of fetish worldbuilding that i'm not posting here 

plaything update to follow. cleanup for knuxoween continues and i begin preparations for Toy Collector Show Adventure. 
- scapula

[skinstealer]

got more designs and queue additions lets go



new TCP types: snuggler, moon rabbit, muzzletrap, tail, wildsnare



new hybrid bases
fight/leviathan
nudibranch/witch
space (abstract)/merchant (storage)
dwarf/merchant (storage)
lich/merchant (storage)

queue additions
[inhales]
[wakko's countries song from animaniacs voice]

new TCPs
rabbit ears (body)

hybrid bases
Acid x cat
Acid x dog
Citrus x acid
Citrus x burn
Citrus x collision
Collision x fish
Collision x eyeball
Eyeball x Leviathan
Eyeball x jelly
Jelly X computer
Jelly X Leviathan
Leviathan x basic
Leviathan x space
Space x twin
Space x engine
Engine x snake
Engine X bat
Bat x corpse
Bat x mafia
Mafia x giggle
Mafia x dog
Dog x bastard
Dog x cat
Cat x choas
Cat x doctor
Doctor x lamp
Doctor × giggle
Giggle x Leviathan
Giggle x dust
Giggle x burn
lamp/corpse
bastard/corpse
Tent x mafia
Gore x mafia
Dad X choas
Twin X choas
Dust X triops
Engine X Fight
Jelly X Giant
Shield x burn
Lamp x mountain
Ocean x democracy
Citrus x sadism
Purpose x lich
Equation x collision



and offmenu because ace gets special treats

Facebank x whale Shark 
Seraph x Twinkle Light
Seraph x ink
Sea monster x retrosuar
Rot x retrosuar
Pet x monster
Pet x snowman
Vintage X rabbit
Tiger X ragamuffin
Geode x pitcherplant
Touch x Teddy bear
Arcade prize x Monster (or sea monster?)
Sundew X Jester
Horror (emotion) X puppy love
Wool x cactus

did you know there's 2449 combos in the first batch of TCPs 



(this is fine i have plans for how to handle it)

copied and pasted from discord:

no stream today because i will be prepping for knuxoween
he arrives this evening and i have a bunch of cleaning id like to get done
we wont be doing mixups laboratory this year sadly for a couple reasons but im considering starting up posts in my blog thread again because we DO have this whole trip to a los angeles toy collectors show planned that i do want to post about both the even itself and the prep we'll be doing
as well as media we've been enjoying bc oh i have some Recommendations
and finally: because i am remembering once again that i fuckinf hate microblogging. i have a bsky account and have been running it for a few months primarily for second life shit and it did take off so i got a little too comfy with it
and got a grim reminder that this shit sucks and i need to run my own shit as much as possible
so, along those lines
i am making a new fediverse soon on an instance that should work better for us than a more larger one, and that will be a preferred alternative to bsky for actual Social Prescence that isnt HD shit
i have put in steps to finally get some land for public  HD usage in second life, with my goals being a new Homebrew Deviants Community Clubhouse (plaything now includes, not just morb), and in-universe environments where people can just exist/roleplay as their favorite species/characters.

 SL is so much fucking easier for me than discord atm when it comes to direct communication but i am also realizing i need to have space more adjusted to [gestures] This, alongside my work in the usual maker scene. ive been wanting to do this for a long time now and im pleased to say it's in motion and will ideally be a welcome return to having a direct Game Social Space for the community.

with that i need to go Clean. ruminating on a lot of ideas and will have more soon.

-scapula

[skinstealer]

hazard mortis
wow things love to happen so much. 
had a pretty severe death last month that we're still grieving, but had our first formal work day since.
got an avatar for Reaper Type rigged- more on that later. the pack of avs we were working for HAS released, but i'm fucking tired and will explain another day.
MT 2.0- Issue 2C is in the twine porting phase. got the initial port done, final formatting and testing has to be done before porting and implementing the commentary- but then we should be good to hold yall over.
i'd like to make a hub page for the maze trials and universal constants twines hosted on the site, seeing as that would help readers a lot. should probably poke vyn about that...

for now, thank you for hanging in there. unfortunately new commissions are on hold outside of specific circumstances due to personal life changes, but the extant ones will be completed as we have the energy and emotional security to do so. stay cool.

[skinstealer]

beige box mortis


[image description: a sketch of a dream type TCP, slumped, exhaustion and wearing sloppy loungewear. 

text reads:
currently unnamed Dream Type TCP, he/him, no modifiers. 37 years old, lives in Precipice, Taverne. 

software developer of ScreenDreams, a digital plane screensaver program that allows electronic devices to idle and filter shreds into their power reserves without needing to shut down the device. 

takes a lot of pride in designing the visuals for ScreenDreams, and while his work is mostly appreciated for its practicality, he has some degree of fame in niche circles. does not interact with them. 

no-rest bitch face, does not take time for himself often up until he ends up crashing out and sleeping for like a week. meets deadlines, but at a cost.]


ive been busy in the background but this will do for now. expect more updates and changelogs very soon

[knux400]

Is he aware of the inherent irony of creating software that lets computers dream whilst getting no fucking sleep himself

[skinstealer]

he definitely is and he says it's his muse (it is not)

[skinstealer]

[id: gif of two pompets chasing around my beastieball player sprite like their lives depend on it]

pompet get volleyedball

[skinstealer]

[id: a work in progress skin for the PLAYTHING avatar, featuring blue gradients and powdery clustered accents]
making a custom skin for gyiyg today. going to finish  bleed layers and kitbash it in SL



[id: a photo of the anniversary pikachu plush, made to look like its pixel sprite]
also what the fuck is this thing and how did it get into my house

[skinstealer]

[id: a blue and white gradiated ant avatar, made to look chunky and powdered in cream colored chunks.]

ant