I decided to fan art of one of my favorite pieces of media, the interactive fiction game, Mind Blind by Jo O'Connor. An interactive fiction game is where you get a game that is just stories and text; no visuals whatsoever. And Mind Blind specifically is a game that sells itself as being a story where you, the player who is the character of [Insert First Name] "Button" Wiseman, are decidedly not the chosen one. It takes place in a world where pretty much everyone has some form of mind-based powers, or at least some kind of defense against other people's, but you not only don't have any such power-- no, the people who score a 1 on the Pollard Scale have even more of a mental defense than you. You have a 0, and there's historically never really been anyone who shares the same "honor" of being, well, mind blind. And it really sucks that your family in particular, the Wisemans, have such super super-powered individuals (your parents practically founded what is ultimately a superhero/FBI/CIA-like government agency)-- and then, also, you. And your big brother/primary guardian, Nicholas, who is now the new head of said superhero government agency. And though a LOT MORE HAPPENS, that's all I can say without spoilers.
I decided to make fanart of it because it's a game I've been watching Jo O'Connor develop publically since she uploaded chapter two or three for people to beta-test for her? I'm on her patreon and everything. And this game reminds me a lot of my own life, both in how Button's storyline can easily be read as an allegory for disability; in how Nicholas Wiseman reminds me heavily of one of my own big brothers in particular, who is in the fact the one I am the closest to; and even in how sometimes feelings about yourself and how you're perceieved by both your family members and people outside of your family can be really complicated and contradictory, (and Jo O'Connor does a fantastic job at letting that complexity be as simple or as contradictory or as toxic or as evolutionary as you want to customize it; it's amazing) and that's in both a "seeing myself based on my personality versus my abilities/productivity" lenses. It's a, frankly, unfairly fantastic game to be so fully developed by one person alone. Also, there is a plethora of characters for your Button to romance (or not romance, a platonic route is entirely possible) which the hopeless romantic in me finds super fun. But, yeah! I highly recommend supporting Jo O'Connor on patreon and reading the privated versions of the demo of the game once you have played through the public demo on dashingdon.
But, yes, I adore the game and I wanted to make some kind of graphic design like this for it. I don't know if I prefer the version with the button colon or the regular colon better, but they're both fun. I just wanted to get this idea set onto paper, because I would like to get something like this tattooed on me. Mind Blind has meant so much to me, and made me feel so seen on my road to a diagnosis for my disability that I had newly processed I had (I just thought everyone was better at baring their chronic pain than I was; I thought the act of walking and standing was hellishly torturous for everyone, but I probably actually need a wheelchair for pain regulation. I just need to get diagnosed first so my insurance will let me have said wheelchair, which my doctor is trying her damnest and fastest to do), but I feel very connected with Button in the sense that I had newly processed that my life was abnormal around the same time as I had stumbled onto the initial demo of the game. So, again, yeah, I would like a tattoo to commemorate how much I like this game. But this is more of "I don't know how I would verbally describe this to a tattoo artist, so I drew this to better communicate my idea" than it is me handing a tattoo artist a tattoo design I had already made. I'm very particular about what tattoo artists I would let tattoo me, and I'd like to see their intrepretation of the idea (even if it means all my time fiddling with making those little people look like Keith Haring's people was for naught, haha). Especially since I'm quite committed to neoclassical tattoos, for many unrelated reasons, and the way I drew this design is decidedly not neoclassical. Plus, I'd like a tattooist's perspective on how realistic this is to heal far into the future; I think the button colons is a better idea, but the reality is the holes within the buttons will likely blur and no longer be holes after 10 or so years unless the colon's individual dots are much larger than my thumb's nail. Which, I don't want this to be a back piece. So. Probably going to have to either have regular colons or a different stylization of buttons. But, yeah, I really like this design and I'm excited to have made the first step in getting this tattooed onto me.
For context of the design elements for anyone curious (but without any spoilers, don't worry): the Zero in the background is a digital clock stylized zero because if both the prologue's clock and the [redacted] clock counting down until the presumed [redacted] [redacts] + because of the main character's Pollard Score being a 0/a Zero on a scale that's usually 1 to 10, in addition to an insult ("a zero" in a derogatory sense) that one can be called. The brain is for the obvious mind-related powers nod, the obvious Wiseman surname being presumed to be related to brains nod, the game's attempt at being "realistic" contemporary sci-fi that is pretty heavy into the science side of things, along with the [redacted event] that happens with Nicholas and the [redacted group name] being a gang who hates [redacted trait that is related to brains]. The lightning is meant to be another nod to brain powers, but it goes from a null sign to a lightning bolt to both further allude to the Pollard score and also be a reference to how the bolt/null sign cuts through the brain and makes Button's brain "broken" while also giving it ideas (a brainstorm, get it, I'm so clever, haha) as the best ideas come from limitations. The tears/raindrops/people falling are all emotionally-based, and I tried to make the people different in action in the same way that different people's Buttons will be different (just hanging on, trying to overcome, falling by not having a good grip, and falling by having let go). The trauma and sensitivity of the main character is about as severe as you make it. And, reflecting that, one side-effect of the brain's wrinkles that I really like is the amorphous side of the eyebrows that it allows for. I tried to maintain that when I deepened the eyebrows, to keep that ambiguous quality of if the eyes of the person reluctantly crying, angerily crying, not realizing that they are crying, and so on. And then, the main character has the familial nickname of "Button" so the colon of the clock being shifted into Buttons is a cute concept. It was really fun to try to combine so many ideas and references into one image. This was a blast to try to get to do and I'm glad I made the time to finally try to translate my idea into something phsyically communicative with my theoretical tattoo artist to play further with-- and to make something so cool for one of the best games I have ever played (maybe even THE best game, depending how it ends as Jo O'Connor is indeed still developing it), even if you were to remove my sentimentality and parallels to it. I hope this post potentially inspires someone to check the game out most of all though. It is an absolute blast, and is absolutely defintively the funniest game I have ever played regardless of everything else about it ♡
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