Hello guys,

My itch page is finally LIVE!!!!! Thought I'd never see the day. After  SO many years of writing this story, I'm here - almost at completion, and soon to be shared with the world. Yippeee!!

For anybody new to my work, hello!! Thanks for checking me out. I'm writing a LGBT speculative fiction visual novel about civil war, transsexuality, gay love, and generational trauma. "But Heathcliff, how do those things come together?" you ask. You'll see... :-)

I have been so, so nervous about the reception of my project to the world. I have kept this story under wraps for a really long time, and I figure I should talk about its origins:

Around 12-13 years old, like most kids, I was pretty into action movies and shonen. Attack on Titan, specifically.  This was probably the biggest catalyst for creating my story. But over the years, the framework changed rapidly. Initially, in the early days where I was inspired by shonen manga, it was rather zany (and childlike): an international war breaking out in a "mirror dimension" in the afterlife, where soldiers fought against gods who were essentially ten-feet-tall marble statues. (It's really weird, I won't get into it.)

And then I read a book one day during middle school that would change me forever: All Quiet on the Western Front. Once I started reading anti-war literature as a child, it was extremely hard to stop. I found it fascinating, enlightening, horrifying. I perused through dozens of soldier and medic diaries. And as I grew older, and the more research I did about conflict, I knew that I wanted - and needed - to ground my story more and more in reality if I wanted to write a story that was meaningful.

After 2022, when the war between Russia and Ukraine began, I gave up on writing this story. I had just moved to Germany, and I couldn't take the prospect that the things I were imagining at that time were becoming real. But eventually, I locked in and decided to do all the research I could about the military-industrial complex in order to write a better story. I didn't have any choice; the characters had already become part of me. My mission was to write a love story about two soldiers that could be enough to overpower any war. That's what Mark and Abel have always been meant to symbolize. It was then when I realized exactly where it was supposed to be set: in America, in the equivalent of someone's own American backyard. In an American civil war.

Over time, writing about romance in the trenches became the only way to cope with my reality. No matter what, there has always seemed to be war happening even in an age where "civilized" countries harp on about world peace and individual freedoms, and the evils of the military could not become clearer as they have this year.  Meanwhile, I kept sitting and studying in my bedroom, boyfriendless, thinking obsessively about relationships in order to relax.

I'm able to rely on my family and loved ones, and I cherish that every day. However, I want to donate the proceeds of my work for those who can't. As mentioned on my page, a percentage of the proceeds from my novel are going to go to charity. In the meantime, I've still got to get a job myself!

Until then, I'm still writing this novel. I've written about 65k words and I'll probably hit the 75k or even 80k mark by the time I'm done.
If you're interested in supporting my project, you can preorder a key for 5 dollars/euros on Kickstarter, where I am currently struggling to get funded, lol. When I launched, I was more focused on going live than anything else; now I'm working on actually getting my project beta read by people, which is awesome! If you want to beta read too, feel free to shoot me a message. You can also add me on discord @Dunnsinane or send me an email: lamentofthefirstborn@gmail.com.

Lastly, I'll talk a bit about my vision for the demo: there will be a full German translation. It will include my first 3 chapters, which are about 24k words give or take (still editing...), and hundreds of digitally painted CG illustrations. I aim for something around winter; December to February. But I've got a serious amount of work to do until then, so wish me luck!

Much love, take care of yourselves :-)

-Heathcliff