Rubble and Rust 3 year retrospective

Rubble and Rust is a story I made in a time of my life when I was hurting a lot. I was avoiding visual art, and wanted something I could do to express myself.

Thankfully,  I was told about RenPy and immediately took to it like wildfire!

I found a thrilling new sense of freedom with writing! I went nuts including everything I wanted to see in a game.

So yes, it is pervy. It is violent. It is a bit warped in a lot of places. But the thing is, it is very true.

Rubble and Rust's main cast, composed of Sharon, Kate, Nigel, Bel, Lachlan, Elaine and Kenneth, are all real fragments of people I've known. 

Whilst these characters are all fictious, it is important for me to say, that I always write from a place of truth. There is never really a time I include a characteristic that comes from nowhere. That is the point of good writing. 

In short, Lachlan, isn't any boy I knew. Lachlan is me. 

Or at least, is a fragment of how I've always seen myself.

​Which is not that weird, as people often want to be with someone that is like themselves. I just haven't always seen characters 'like' me reflected back at me in media that I consume. 

I have often felt chronically shy, especially when it comes to love.

But it was inevitable, that I made a new character to soothe Lachlan.

I made Sherry for him. And Sherry is very similar to how I look...I am a redhead. I am called 'attractive'.

​But Sherry is very brazen. Most of all, she isn't dissuaded or turned off by Lachlan's shyness. She takes as a turn on really and keeps going for it. I relished giving Lachlan a love interest. 

I also need to emphasise in this post how crippling Lachlan's mental illness was. But as some may know, I have had severe mental illness. I do ever try to deliberately hurt people when I've been unwell, but I always caused chaos. In Rubble, Lachlan simply is an extreme case of what happens when people are isolated and pushed past their limits. 

I write Lachlan being sexually assaulted at one stage. I want to make it clear, I do not write content like this without thought and love put into Lachlan. I write it because, I've known sexual trauma. And it is the sexual trauma mostly that stews and triggers him into his illness, if I can make that any more clear.

Writing sexual trauma, and how it influences things like mental illness, is a very intense topic. You need to be ready to feel a lot. There are just too many ​emotions in this work.

So for better or worse, the 'dangerous male psycho' trope wound up in my work in the end. Even though I know Lachlan is a good guy. 

But that was the point. 

Lachlan is a very good guy.

Psychosis, mania...whatever I've been diagnosed as, happens to a lot of good people. We don't quite understand why it's happening.

I felt like my own experience with bipolar mania, was processing very intense emotions and memories. I understand this may blow people's minds, but psychosis/mania is a form of processing. It is not a weakness. 

In short, Rubble and Rust is a very complicated story. I did write the ending whilst coming down from a mania. I felt a bit frazzled, but still capable of writing some meaningful things.

I haven't revisited this in years, but remembered how much I loved crafting these characters, and feeling the story blossom as I read it back, over and over and over.

Rubble and Rust is a visual novel for now, but it also is in all my current work. More than that though.

​Sherry is all the bravery I have in me. Lachlan is all the tenderness. Bel is the young girl I am.

They will live on.

Initially posted on Itch.io