These are the articles for two characters that were introduced in chapter 5 of Same Place, Different Universe. Finishing these are part of the catching up to do before I'm ready to continue chapter 9 by clearing more tasks off of my to-do list for the project.

	Pearl
	Clarkia Nieves

Pearl (iPhone 6/6s) is the teammate that Kiah works with the most. She is polite and helpful, and skillful at breaking up conflicts. She is an influential fashion designer and interior decorator and started at least one fashion trend within her sector and beyond; this references the rise of Millennial Pink and the popularity of rose gold as a color option for hardware which the iPhone 6s is widely credited for. I included multiple references about that in her article.

Clarkia (macOS Sierra and High Sierra) is Kiah's rival within Chariots of Colors; Kiah is her predecessor and their rivalry is inspired by some archetypes that are popular in shounen anime. In particular I'd say that Asta's and Yuno's rivalry in Black Clover would be an inspiration. Clarkia is prim and proper, but comically serious and has a sense of humor that’s different from what she usually lets on. *hint* It's inspired by High Sierra's announcement in WWDC.

Updates to the wiki with info from chapter 8 have been finished! One of the next updates to it after the newest character articles will be a worldbuilding article about the counterculture that corresponds to the Microcomputer Revolution since some details about it have been mentioned before in IWASD.

A long rambly follow-up to the the update from the 27th: What a great surprise it was when I was reading Introduction to Multics, which I quoted some sections as references in Multi's article. One of those quotes was of Multics' developers acknowledging that developers of other OSes aimed towards different goals or had smaller-scale implementations were all valuable in exploring various complex ideas to work towards the future!

That's an attitude I try to live up to and the quote I read is one of the first times I've seen this attitude put into words so concisely! It also reminds me of a few more things: It reminds me of the tech personification concept itself since it thrives on a variety of approaches to reach its fullest potential, and of how my own approach towards it is complex (yet *again*), but I don't expect all other creators of their own characters and settings based in this concept to try this. Nor do I see simpler or smaller scale projects as lesser.

Definitely not! I want to make all of this clear. There was a false dichotomy I used to believe in within a subset of the community; I supported the option that I thought encouraged more creativity and cooperation as opposed to sticking only with one small "canon", but long since realized that was part of a false dichotomy; there are many ways to encourage more creativity, not just one. It seemed then there were only two options and I forgot the spontaneity that used to exist. I presume that enough people forgot this back then which led to that false dichotomy (a single canon only vs. an expanded universe) existing in the first place.

Tech personification characters were always meant to be a versatile concept. The same references can be interpreted in different ways by creators and fans which reflects many possibilities, and that's a strength. The variety of ideas and approaches are key and not everything needs to be complex nor on a large scale. It's just... I keep gravitating towards doing things in overly complex ways and have wanted to take simpler approaches that accomplish what I want. When I realize there's a simpler one, it's usually while I'm well in the middle of a complex project 🙃

Same Place, Different Universe is an example of this. It was meant to be a short story that gave a glimpse into repurposed older ideas and show the contrast of them. I have no regrets with how it turned out as another introductory story that introduced a lot of worldbuilding and characters I might not have gotten to, but sometimes I wish I can start a project that I intended to be simple and keep it that way! This increased complexity worked out for SPDU, but it doesn't always work out.

Content warning: Talk about burnout. Highlight the text below to read it.

The webtoon I used to work on crashed and burned from its complexity. I worked on it frequently for the past few years until last November, giving it my all every single time. Somehow I did and could keep up my morale for it when a monthly update schedule became the most I could hope for, but by the end of the year, continuing it in that form no longer felt sustainable. It felt like I just couldn't do it anymore and still feel like I can't. I still think about it and incorporating what I already wrote, and have some new ideas to go with them. It's a matter of piecing them together and would want to try again through an illustrated webnovel format like I do for Operating Superstars.

OS★ Version 1 also succumbed to being too complex in that it sprawled everywhere aimlessly while I tried to reference everything I knew about computing history while I kept learning more. Version 2 mostly avoided that pitfall but it was too complex in other ways that frustrated me.

The existence of Fragments Reloaded is another complex project that became me trying to work on two different universes based on the same concept at once since some ideas I wanted to revisit wouldn't fit the tone I intend for OS★. I plan to keep the difficulty and complexity of it and the main universe in check by choosing what I'll portray and what can be left to interpretation, and where to diverge from computing history. Some characters in either are mentioned only in passing, and this all depends on which characters I have the most story ideas for.

With a story idea I suddenly thought up within the past week, I'm trying to intentionally keep it simple. I'm trying to have it introduce more characters and worldbuilding details, but also not be several chapters long and to limit the scope.

Chapter 8 of Same Place, Different Universe is published.

Title: Lay It on Us, Marcia. What Happened?

Contrasting with the previous chapter, this one starts off revealing a serious worldbuilding detail, but leads into a silly scene. Ruby appeared before in System Time Reset... offering to help Marcia, and here she appears again offering to help, but also being nosy. Kiah also joins in; she and Ruby have skills as detectives, and they wonder what happened with Marcia the last night:

"Oooh-- What's this?" Kiah asked eagerly. She approached more closely. "Did I miss something?"

"You know there's a fine line between being detectives and just being nosy." Marcia flatly said.

"Being nosy is sometimes part of a detective's job." Ruby said with a chuckle.

"Is there something going on that's a threat to your well-being, or the team?" Kiah asked, taking another step closer towards Marcia and sounding more serious.

"Lay it on us* (*"Tell us"), Marcia. What happened?" Ruby asked. "As nosy detectives, we need to ask these questions."

As I continued the illustration of Ruby, I made an Art Nouveau-inspired background for it since the gradient shading I started with reminded me of Art Nouveau and it's been a long time since I drew anything in that style that it called out to me again! This chapter is a shorter one, but still has some info to add to the wiki.

My draft of chapter 9 is mostly finished, but it's much longer with more illustrations. I may post multiple WIPs before it's published.

I've been so focused the most on Same Place, Different Universe lately, but also trying to catch up with writing more articles for characters that appeared in early IWASD chapters but didn't have articles yet:

	Gerald Cosker
	Multiplicia Fernández-MacAlister

Gerald (General Comprehensive Operating System) and Multiplicia "Multi" (Multics) were introduced in chapter 1, though Multi was only mentioned and made her first real appearance in chapter 11.

Their articles depict a bit about the complicated relationship that they had as colleagues in Great Iron Smithing Crew. They were two of the most well-known OSes on the team, and I intend for both of them to be the "jerk with a heart of gold" type though in different ways.

The dynamics between them are meant to be kind of tragic; their rivalry may not have been what it was if Gerald didn't feel like he always had to keep up with Multi, but he hates being seen as unremarkable and unable to adapt; when Multi helped him, he was thankful for that, but might've also on some level seen that as being pitied which he also hates. Part of Multi's characterization about her over ambitiousness, tendencies towards complex solutions but valuing that other OSes can come up with simpler solutions is inspired by my own tendencies 🥲

I wrote more commentary to go with this update. It'll be published as a follow-up post.

The project wiki article of the Fragments Reloaded universe had a lot added to it with overviews for the organizations to be featured so far! It seemed like the right time to add this information since Same Place, Different Universe got more into its FR side in chapter 7.

📄 Fragments Reloaded

Since the differences between it and the main Operating Superstars continuity are drastic, I also plan to draft an article that gives an overview of their differences. Publishing these updates may also be a good lead-in for an article about the setting I had in 2019 that FR is adapted from. I already drafted the start of it and publishing it is another thing on my to-do list which has gotten quite long 🙃

There's enough info I have for some of the organizations to have their own articles, which I could draft the first versions of now before I publish chapter 8 of SPDU.

I also updated the roadmap organize the completed objectives into a new section and added some new objectives in the Immediate Roadmap section:

📄 Roadmap

My current to-do list for this project is looking like this now:

• Publish articles for two characters introduced in chapter 1 of I Was a Software Developer...
• Finish and publish articles for two characters introduced in chapter 5 of "Same Place, Different Universe"
• Draft articles for some of the Fragments Reloaded organizations that have been mentioned or featured in SPDU
• Finish SPDU chapter 8 and publish
• Update the project wiki with info from SPDU chapter 8
• Continue illustrations for SPDU chapter 9 and finish the draft of the chapter
• Continue draft of IWASD chapter 15 and start illustrations
• Finish the draft of the article about my old setting from 2019
• Draft an article about the differences between the OS and FR continuities

A WIP of chapter 8 of Same Place, Different Universe was added to the sidebar. In this illustration, I felt like trying something different than I usually do, so I'm using soft shading and gradient shading. I really wanted to make one of the illustrations in a watercolor style, though that's not very practical when I'm often using nothing but the trackpad 😔

This shading was also done in Inkscape along with the base vector art. Just with some gradients and blur, some of that effect I want to do can easily be done, but I'll see what I can do to add more watercolor effects after exporting into Krita.

Along with this update, a few entries from the sidebar and several from the update log, up until the start of last month, have been moved to the Archives page. Since this page has grown large, I added a navigation section to the top of it.

I updated several articles on the project wiki with information from chapter 7 of Same Place, Different Universe but also updated the articles for teams that have them with a few more worldbuilding details. One of the additions is mottos. I previously thought it'd be cool if the teams had their own mottos, but I didn't have any clear ideas until I suddenly got them one day when I stepped away from the computer 😅 Fortunately I was able to type them down.

A lot of times, ideas can come to me when I'm away from the computer for hours, and it’s so frustrating when I'm unable to use it or write anything down and I have to hope that I don’t forget by the time I can 🙃

Team mottos so far:

• The Awks: "Flock to simplicity"
• Chariots of Colors: "Onwards to colorful fruitful endeavors!"
• Great Iron Smithing Crew: "Go at it programming and consoles!"
• Programmable Darling Patrol: "Tough but friendly and knowledgeable! We are the Programmable Darling Patrol!"

The PrDP's motto is inspired by Magical Girl teams, and GISC's is based on the blacksmithing phrase "Go at it hammer and tongs" to reflect their tenacity. With CC's I tried to evoke imagery of travel, spreading artistic expression, and a punny reference to their sector, The Orchard. The Awks' is concise, mentions simplicity that the team became famous for and has a pun in it, though some members would deny the latter.

Highway to Shell's will be "We're on it", which follows with The Awks' conciseness, and has a double meaning. I was *really* tempted to have their motto be "Awk and sed all night, and shell script every day"! I repurposed it to be for The Awksimilies since them having a motto like that feels more fitting. It might've also been overkill for Highway to Shell, which is trying to make The Awks' philosophies cool to the general populace, but is one of the teams that's often seen as trying too hard to be cool in-universe.

The Defenestrators' will be "Rock on and throw your expectations out the window!" This reflects the team wanting to challenge expectations, but there's a double meaning that might not have been intended by the founders reflecting on how the AIM Alliance which it's partially based off of didn’t accomplish everything it hoped.

My draft of SPDU Chapter 8 is mostly finished and I'm vectoring the illustrations for it.

Chapter 7 of Same Place, Different Universe has been published, and there's a lot of commentary to go with it! I spent quite a bit of time writing this and making a few last-minute additions to the chapter before I was ready to publish it.

This one mostly takes a turn for the serious for what the recordings mention, and the disagreements between the two characters listening to them. One was over whether this research as a detached observer was necessary or it's callous. Another was whether Marcia continues to infiltrate her team's other universe counterpart alone to avoid endangering anyone else, or for others to go with her since the team's counterpart is highly militaristic.

In the recordings, I intended to portray the character that made them as a very conflicted person that struggles with her loyalty to POMME vs. her discontent that led her to nearly leave vs. her resentment towards Concordia vs. wanting her approval. There's also a conflict over POMME being a close-knit organization for so long and that it is in the process of being undone as more of its older members have left. Concordia is supposed to be a divisive character through how she’s been mentioned. I’d like to get to a chapter where she appears, and there might be a chance for that.

I usually try to avoid mood whiplash within the same chapter, but it happened when I added the silly scene with Mi-ho and Clarkia. That scene with them was meant to lighten tone of the chapter a bit so it wasn't all serious.

This chapter reveals that most of the older POMME members left for Scrap Heap, which is the main vintage computing-based organization.

Scrap Heap is very helpful, but tends to be looked down on by the more powerful organizations for its scrappy, thrifty image that's a far cry from that of the big corporate-based organizations (i.e: POMME, Ministry of Panes). It's come a long way from how it started in membership, resources and popularity, which reflects how retrocomputing grew a lot and gained a lot more resources during the 2010's, but still struggles with having an image that deters some OSes from joining who wanted to join it and would benefitted.

The character who made the recordings is one of those OSes. She acknowledges that her older relatives that left for it might be happier there, but can't bring herself to join them because of their image. This could also show that pridefulness as a flaw, since she thinks she'll lose her self-respect, though this is brought about by the stigmas that joining Scrap Heap has.

In Fragments Reloaded, POMME and MoP are influenced more heavily by contemporary Apple and Microsoft respectively and the attitude of "latest is greatest" that obsolete members are pressured to keep up with, and rely heavily on the popularity they can keep.

This contrasts with the Operating Superstars continuity, which has shown several earlier Chariots of Colors members still happily being active members (as of 2017 when Same Place, Different Universe takes place). I haven't really shown much of Defending Waits for Nobody yet, but several of its earlier members are also still happily active members of it. In this setting, these teams and their communities have larger influences from the vintage Mac and Windows users. That's not to say there's no conflict within these teams nor struggles with OSes that are no longer current keeping fans, but that this is considerably less bleak than in the FR continuity.

As of Operating Superstars Version 3, there are a few dedicated retrocomputing-based clubs. Many of the earlier CC and DWN members are dual members of their teams at least one of them which may be based around nostalgia, research, demonstrations of retro art and retro technology.

The narration also revealed another worldbuilding detail; POMME had a time in its history when its members nearly lost everything and had to regain it back: "We've been through so much. We had rivalries we put aside, we lost a lot together, we more than regained it together."

That's in reference to the "OS Wars" of the 90's when Apple nearly met its demise, but rebuilt afterwards and made a comeback. The narration mentions that Chariots of Colors also had a time when its future was uncertain, but that they also made comeback. However, I intentionally keep specific details about the conflicts during that timeframe vague in Operating Superstars Version 3, whether the hostilities that erupted involved combat or didn't. Admittedly, I’ve been indecisive about this for Version 3 since the start.

If they didn't (and I’m leaning towards it not, since I'm still leaning towards Fragments Reloaded covering the "OS Wars as a war" angle), then CC still struggled a lot with an uncertain future and could’ve come close to disbanding from a loss of morale and other losses from strategies that backfired. With that angle, I was thinking about how Apple's and the Mac's near demise wasn't just because of Windows 95 being so successful, but there were several issues within Apple's strategies failing.

A WIP was added for chapter 7 of Same Place, Different Universe. As of when this was posted, the draft for that chapter is mostly finished and I vectored the illustrations. The shading, line art tweaks and any effects in the last step are all that need to be done.

While I was working on Same Place, Different Universe, I didn't forget about these characters or two more I drafted articles for the project wiki, but since I'm back to working on I Was a Software Developer... for now, it felt easier to finish these:

	Piritta Olson
	Olympia Lincoln

Piritta (PDP-6, PDP-10 series and TOPS-10) and Olympia (PDP-12).

Piritta is a highly influential engineer that is very friendly and polite but has a rebellious side; she contributed to two countercultures which correspond to the Hacker Culture that started in the 1960's, and the Microcomputer Revolution in the 1970's. The latter was through a collaboration due to Altair BASIC being written on a PDP-10. These countercultures challenged what kind of work was acceptable for OSes to do to be accepted in Techlandian society.

This is just for story purposes, but she's a former member of her sector's most formidable Warrior guild before she left it to become an OS and join the Programmable Darling Patrol.

Olympia is admittedly a member of the PrDP that in some ways struggles to stand out, and she is rather reclusive. However, she is liked by many people who worked with her; she is skilled at adapting her style to work with a wide range of students. Adaptability is her strength, though it can also make it more difficult for her to stand out; the PDP-12 had one of the shortest production runs of the PDP line-up, and it can run PDP-8 software, but the PDP-8 was still widely used when the 12 was released.

The next character articles will be for Gerald and Multiplicia. I intended to publish their articles earlier but got caught up in finishing the latest story chapters.

I updated each of the articles for the characters that appeared with information from chapter 14.

In time for Halloween with a little time to spare! Chapter 14 of I Was a Software Developer... is published. I updated the story section above and moved the listing for chapter 13 to the Archives page.

I posted this chapter with only one illustration since it's a larger than usual one to finish it by Halloween, but I still hope to at a later time make a render of the teleporter or of the console the characters used to operate it.

However, the next chapter will continue into this event since I had more ideas that were enough to be split into another.

Many characters appeared in this chapter; it also reveals worldbuilding details about the process of teleporting to the Human World. There'll be a lot of articles to be updated on the wiki with info from this chapter. It was tense for Damien to enter the room with the teleporter that led him to receive the tape that that took him to Techlandia, which led to his life to change forever! The conversation between him and Piroska highlights the similarities and differences in their situations as arrivals from the Human World.

Returning for this party would be bittersweet for them in different ways, but they still hope to have fun there. It may also be a challenge for Juna, due to her limited knowledge of the Human World, but she needs to go with since she's Damien's mentor.

I Was a Software Developer... Chapter 14 WIP 2

Before the Halloween party in the Human World that Damien will be going to, the Programmable Darling Patrol host their own:

Piroska and I readied ourselves to walk into the lobby room where the other OSes were waiting to see our costumes. She stepped in to it first and was dressed in a tattered gray shirt with faded gray-red slacks and scuffed dark gray boots, and had fake metal bolts fixed to the sides of her head and neck. Her hair looked disheveled, but she intentionally styled it this way. She also used a pale green make-up on herself to look paler and deathly, and to draw stitches on her face and arms.

"How does this creation look?" She asked and posed. The other OSes met her costume with applause. "Your turn!" She then said to me.

"Alright!" I said and stepped into the room. I was surprised to see the other OSes dressed in their own costumes; Piper was dressed as a ghostly train conductor, Polyxena was dressed as a vampire with an elegant dress and cape, Etta was dressed as a pirate. Phuong was dressed as a plague doctor with an oversized syringe as a prop, Piritta was dressed as a robot, Olympia was dressed as a fairy with a green and brown dress and leaf-patterned wings, and Valencia was dressed as a mermaid, but she claimed to be a siren that led sailors to their doom.

I dressed in a red suit with a dark red shirt and a black tie with a red hash pattern on it, and held a golden trident. On my head I had red devil horns. I also struck a pose. "Am I cool enough to make a deal with?" I remarked.

Everyone applauded, but I heard Piroska and Piper laughing. "What's so funny?" I asked.

"You forgot to change out of your sneakers!" Piroska said. I looked down and saw that she was right. I briefly felt mortified as I saw that I was still wearing my green and white sneakers, which because of their bright green color and being slightly scuffed, stuck out like a sore thumb to the rest of my costume!

"Damn, I forgot to change out of those!" I said.

"Couldn't you say you're dressed in business casual?" Piper mischievously said.

"Yes. I could! If I can be anything for Halloween, why not be a fashion victim?" I said and chuckled.

Juna walked into the room, dressed as a witch. Her costume also garnered applause from everyone else, and me. However, I was surprised by it a lot. Being dressed as either a witch or wizard was what I thought she'd most likely dress as for a Halloween party, but her costume was fancy.

I added a WIP for chapter 14 of I Was a Software Developer.... Although I was still focused on SPDU, I shifted back to working on IWASD since the next chapter takes place in a Halloween party and I hope I can finish the chapter, or at least the illustration by Halloween.

This'll be part of a larger than usual illustration with full-body drawings to show off the costumes. Someone else will also be with them...

Chapter 6 of Same Place, Different Universe has been published.

Marcia and Antares begin listening to the tape. Before starting to listen to it, there were second thoughts; Marcia worried again about the ethics of her adventures, and if Antares, who is a newcomer to TIMES would be prepared for this.

Several articles on the project wiki will be updated with information from this chapter. The Archives page has been updated with chapter 5.

The renders were straightforward and I didn't have any issues with Blender freezing this time! I was worried since it seemed like my computer I've been using for years became less reliable.

However, there's an issue I haven't been able to resolve on the meeting room render where enabling the "Shadows" option the Render properties tab causes a circular shadow on the table to appear when a light is shining directly above it without anything else in the way. Turning off the "Shadows" option fixed that, but it removed shadows that I wanted, so I spliced two renders together.

Same Place, Different Universe Chapter 6 WIP 2

I'm finished with the draft for this chapter and just need to finish the illustrations. The illustrations are in-progress and I'm continuing the drafts for chapters 8 and 9. Chapter 8 has been tricky with what to include, that I cut out a scene that I started writing for it which would've introduced another character, but I might be able to repurpose it later.

One year ago today, I published the first chapter of Same Place, Different Universe! Before I started this, I wanted to write a short story about someone in Operating Superstars getting a glimpse of another universe based on the predecessor project I had in 2019. This was just going to be a drawing or two with a 1 or 2 chapter story, but it became much more ambitious and complex than I planned.

After it went beyond two chapters, I planned for it to be 5 chapters, but it grew beyond that too; in chapter 3, I started making illustrations for each chapter, featuring more characters and saw this story as a way to introduce more of them.

This is because my approach to introducing characters changed between when I wrote chapters 2 and 3. My approach to introducing characters is consistently through their appearances in stories. In a way it's trickier; there are characters I still want to introduce but I feel that I must wait until I can feature them in a story, but it's also worked more smoothly for me when ironing out details about their characterizations that I might not have otherwise thought of.

Sometimes I feel like stories in this project and the characters write themselves! As I'm writing this, I'm up to chapter 8 drafted and this short story turned into a webnovel.

Same Place, Different Universe Chapter 6 WIP 1

One of the illustrations for this chapter will be a render of this room. This is close to final, but I still need to modify some of these materials to be cel-shaded.

Modeling rooms in this team’s headquarters is challenging, but it can be fun to experiment with different room color schemes. With this color scheme, I intended for it to balance being calm through the purple and beige, with being energizing with yellow as the primary accent color and orange as the secondary accent color.

The Update Log page got long enough that I moved the first few entries to the Archives page.

Chapter 5 of Same Place, Different Universeis published, and along with it, the the Archives page was updated with the announcement from chapter 4.

Several articles on the wiki will be updated with information from this chapter. It's another silly chapter, but leads into a major plot point.

The 3D modeled backgrounds for two of the illustration are ones I'm proud of but also frustrated by; the render of the hallway turned out rougher than usual and I had to manually draw in several lines and it's obvious where I needed to draw them in when I was making the final edits. One of them was that I forgot to add the bottom of the cafeteria windows to both sides; they're in the model of the cafeteria, and I forgot that I didn't add them until after I rendered that hallway which took a few tries 🫠

I spent a lot of time finding the materials that I thought would've been the best fit for parts of Chariots of Colors' headquarters, but when I saw that multicolor tile material that I chose for an accent wall, I immediately thought to include it somewhere in their HQ!

Two characters were introduced in this chapter; Pearl and Clarkia. Pearl (iPhone 6/6s) is a fashion designer and interior decorator. She became influential since the 6s popularized rose gold as a color option, which may have also influenced the popularity of "Millennial Pink" as an interior decor color. Her name indirectly fits the number theme naming that most of the iPhone characters have; Pearl is one of the gemstones for the month of June, and the color options of the 6 and 6s are not unlike the colors that pearls can naturally have.

From Fiore's appearance in this chapter, I now think of her as someone who is often terrified of social interactions and dislikes public speaking, but has a fearless side when flying planes, hang-gliding or being aboard a space station.

Several articles on the wiki will be updated with information from this chapter.