Shilo Sinnith
writer, artist, gamemaker
[email protected] for inquiries
about
I am a professional writer, aspiring artist, and amateur gamemaker in my 30s from the Midwestern United States. I have a bachelor's degree in creative writing with a concentration in fictional prose.
Writing Strengths + Specialties
FORMATS
2nd and 3rd person general prose
2nd and 3rd person NVL-style visual novels
1st, 2nd, and 3rd person ADV-style visual novels
GENRES
General adult fiction
LGBTA
Erotica
SKILLS
Creating characters and their developmental threads
Mapping relationship webs between characters
Planning plot and narrative beats
Plotting broad, detailed, and specified timelines
Organizing story Bibles with all necessary literary elements
Game Dev Strengths + Specialties
ENGINES
Ren'Py
RPG Maker
GENRES
General adult fiction
LGBTA romance
Horror
MECHANICS
Inventory system and management
General puzzle solving
Turn based combat
Crafting and survival
Other Skills
SOFTWARE
Krita
Photoshop CS6
Scrivener
Wondershare Filmora
Proton Suite
Google Suite
READ
These are samples of my work with the most appropriate ratings I can give them. Works preceded by an *asterisk will open a different site.
DISCIPLE
A free preview of my old Patreon series that focuses on a boy with ennui who then meets and falls for a monster.
This series is complete. It is available in its entirety on my Patreon for only $5.˚ · • . ° .˚ · • . ° .˚ · • . ° .
You are twenty-six and back in school, where no one knows you don’t belong. You look nineteen so you fit right in and you do your best to keep it that way, because there’s nothing worse than sticking out. No one knows that you live with another twenty-six year old or that you already have a bachelor’s degree. They know you work at a coffee shop, but not that you’re full-time or that you’re the manager, having worked your way up since your first run through college. You went back to get a new degree - switching from art to psychology, which was a leap you took blind, hoping you’d land on your feet.You’re doing fine. Mostly A’s and B’s. One C, but that was in a required philosophy course that you sort of brushed off. Not because you didn’t like it. Not even because you thought it was stupid.It scared you.You couldn’t handle the meaning of life. You couldn’t go through mountains of hypotheses on why you exist. You couldn’t deal with famous thinkers, waxing poetic on what else might be out there. Your doctor referred you to a therapist who referred you to a psychiatrist who finally - finally, after all these years - prescribed you a medication (or four) that helped you stop waxing poetic. They helped you stop thinking. You didn’t want to go to class just to be told you had to think again. Because you don’t just consider things when you think. You panic. Thinking makes you panic. When you start thinking, you don’t stop. You keep thinking until you’re breathing into a paper bag and doing yoga stretches to calm your legs down. That’s why you chose psychology.You want to understand why you can’t think correctly.Of course, you’ve also learned that most psychologists were misogynists and that writing papers in APA format is fucking hard. One professor threatened to report you for plagiarism if you didn’t learn how to cite properly and you knew that at nineteen, you would have been terrified. At twenty-six, you’re just tired. You rolled your eyes and snatched the paper from her, telling her yeah, you’d work on it. She was one of the B classes.You had to do a family tree in that class; you had to go back five generations and you had to ask your mom for a lot of references. She came to the United States from Japan when she was in college and met your dad. They got married right after graduation and you’ve heard tales that he’s a very loving guy, but if it’s true, you’ve never seen it. The last thing you want is for anyone to find out the gay kid in their psychology classes has daddy issues though, so you keep that pretty close to the chest, too. Just like everything else about your life. Plus, it’s not that your dad doesn’t love you. He just doesn’t like you very much. In any case, your mom is very proud of you for going back to school for such a practical degree. Your dad is just exasperated you didn’t do that in the first place. What good is an art degree, he asks constantly. Especially if you’re still just working at the coffee place. He doesn’t remember the name. All he remembers is the time you redrew a photo of him and your mom on their wedding day in vine charcoal for a final project and gifted it to them on their anniversary. He remembers it because it was weird, he says. Your mom framed it and put it on the mantel.Your roommate Jenni is the last link you have to college run number one; you two met in an intro to art class and she wasn’t just a good artist, she was the kind of person that really intimidated you in a good way. The kind of person you wanted to be around. The kind of person you wanted to be like. She took good criticism well but met stupid critiques with eye rolls and dismissive hand waves. She knows her worth and builds you up, too. She’s your best friend and you desperately need her around to keep you sane. She calms you down and keeps you level. She also likes to party still, just like you do. Everyone else you met back then has settled down already. They can’t stay out late on a Friday night because they’re tired from the work week. You get it, you just aren’t like that. You and Jenni will go out every few weekends to hit on men all night and if one of you strikes out, both of you strike out. You either bring home two guys or none. Or more. And when it’s none, you spend the night eating ice cream out of the carton and watching a movie until you pass out in the living room.But some nights, you have heart-to-hearts. And that’s why Jenni knows how much you hate to think.You’ll get onto a tangent. Your thoughts will start to barrel out of control and get away from you. You start to panic. You think and think and think without ever talking about what you think. You just let it fester. This often leads to panic attacks about whether or not there’s something else out there and if it even matters that your dad doesn’t like you very much. Because if there’s something else, if there’s something beyond what you know, beyond what anyone knows, then maybe your little life is so insignificant that it doesn’t matter what you do. It doesn’t matter who does or doesn’t love you. In the grand scheme of things, life doesn’t matter if there’s something more after it. You don’t necessarily know if you care about there being life after death as much as you care about there being anything out there at all. Another universe. Well, of course there are other universes, but maybe other dimensions. Other life. Even here on Earth, what if ghosts are real? What if your grandmother is still wandering around, still watching over you? You hate that thought though because then she knows when you’re taking a shit and that makes you feel weird. That’s something she doesn’t need to see.You’ve gotten better at recognizing those tangents, but they still happen, even on medication. Because anxiety doesn’t really leave you, not fully. You’re always going to have trouble thinking. Your brain is always going to run itself out of control, until it feels like it might catch fire and explode. All your doctors have tried to give you something to contain that. But no pill is going to truly cure it. The only thing that could cure it probably doesn’t exist.It certainly doesn’t exist in an abandoned nursing home off the highway. It certainly doesn’t happen to be corporeal, to have a thought process itself and the power of speech. It certainly doesn’t care that you exist, at least. If it did - if the cure to your problems was real - it wouldn’t care about you. It would never fall in love with you. It would never change its lifestyle, uproot its entire existence, alter its core being just for you.Or maybe it would. But you wouldn’t know. Because you haven’t met him yet.
SHOOTING STARS AND SATELLITES
This is the first chapter of Shooting Stars and Satellites, which as of right now is no longer available for purchase as I move sites. It may be available again soon.˚ · • . ° .˚ · • . ° .˚ · • . ° .
i. from cil.Taking the back roads was meant to be an act of genius, but there’s a tree down blocking the street and the cars are backed up on the usually solitary stretch of pavement. Cil doesn’t drive himself often, so this is especially frustrating, as there’s no one else in the car to complain to. All alone. Only his frustration is there to keep him company.Not that there’s much to complain about. A tree fell down, they’re working to get it out of the way now. There’s nothing to be done other than what they’re doing, so Cil puts his car in park and waits until it’s his turn to move again. They’ve got the debris cleared from one lane, so they’re filtering cars back and forth and Cil simply has to call the office to let them know he’ll be late and to push his conference call back an hour.“There’s nothing to be done,” he says to his secretary. “I’m completely stuck.”“Can’t you just turn around?”Cil is annoyed because yes, he could, and he probably should have, but he didn’t. He didn’t, okay? And now it’s almost his turn to go, once the people on his right are clear. So turning around now would be pointless.“It’s all blocked,” he lies. “Lots of trees.”“How did you get to where you are in the first place if it’s blocked by trees?”“I gotta go.” Cil hangs up quickly before he can bury himself deeper. His employees aren’t afraid of him. They aren’t afraid to ask questions and get details. He prefers it that way, except for in these cases, when he’d rather their suspicions go unremarked.He watches as his phone buzzes with emails in the cupholder - he has a dedicated phone holder on his windshield but never takes the time to actually clip his phone in it - and inches ever closer to his goal. Very slowly. So slowly, like an itch he can’t scratch. All he wants is to get to work for a very stressful day. He just wants to be overstretched at work, rather than in the car all alone.And finally, it’s his turn. He waited like the patient man he is and now he gets to go. It’s his moment of glory as he gives a big grin to the police officer waving him on, and everything is perfect, so of course the back of his car suddenly swerves sideways, sending him careening into a skid. He can only imagine the look on his face as he slides, watching the officer run for his life as two tons of metal come screeching towards him. It’s probably a mix between bewilderment and acceptance. He’s already accepted it. He’s already accepted he’s getting in a fender bender today, because that’s just how the morning is shaping up. That’s just how it is, sometimes.He ends up completely backwards, facing the car that’s just given him months of financial headaches and insurance paperwork. Car accidents are such a hassle, which is why Cil tries to find himself in them rarely, as he imagines most people do. But this driver seems to have a different mindset, if the appearance of his shoddy car has anything to say for him. It’s a beat up clunker from 1901, probably one of the first to come off the assembly line. Which is fine - everyone lives within their means, except this car looks like it’s also been in a few wrecks. Maybe the dents and scratches are from a previous driver, but Cil doubts it. He tilts his head back and looks at the ceiling. He takes a deep breath before he knows he has to get out of his car. There’s a thump of the other driver slamming his door closed, and he’s shouting something before Cil can finish his breath.“The food was slipping and my foot came off the brake!”Cil looks in his side mirror. He can’t quite see the man yet, but he’s shouting as if Cil has done something wrong. As if he’s the angry one, when Cil imagines he should be quite apologetic. Cil isn’t very mad himself - Cil doesn’t really get mad - but he is inconvenienced further, which is beginning to really get on his nerves.He finally reaches for the door handle and opens the car door, unsure where the grace he’s exiting his vehicle with is coming from. Maybe it’s because his suit was just pressed so he knows his slacks look great. Not that the guy in front of him will care.Cil’s eyes go wide. It’s like a movie. Or a TV show. Or a book. Or something fictional; it certainly can’t be real life. Someone this beautiful can’t have just inserted himself into Cil’s life with no option of escape. Cil bites down on his bottom lip hard for a few seconds and furrows his brows in confusion as he looks down at the other man - or kid, maybe, is a better term for him. He looks to be in his twenties, just a few years younger than Cil, but he’s short, around five-foot-four, and has messy hair flying all around his face. It’s a nice, deep auburn and could probably just barely be pulled back into a ponytail. A small one. A small ponytail, just barely dipping down into the collar of his t-shirt.“I, uh-”“I’m sorry,” he says as if he’s simply following instructions. Social instructions. If you hit someone, you apologize. “It’s just - I have a delivery and it started slipping everywhere and when I went to catch it my foot came off the brake and I hit down on the gas instead.”Cil isn’t sure what to say. The kid is clearly frazzled, but scowling still, as if this isn’t his own doing. And Cil supposes it’s not exactly, he didn’t mean to hit Cil’s Aston Martin. If he’d meant to hit anyone, it would not have been the person whose car reaches into the millions. Especially when it looks like his car reaches into the tens.“I need to get this delivered,” he urges. “Can I please just give you my number and - what kind of car is that?”“Aston Martin.”The kid’s eyes go wide.“What?” he cries. “I can’t pay for that!”“Do you have car insurance?”“Yeah, but I can’t pay for that!”“Just making sure you had insurance at all.”“Yeah, yeah, I’m poor, I get it. My car sucks and I can’t hold down a relationship or whatever, I know.”“I - what? I wasn’t sayi-”“I’m telling you right now, I have to go but I can’t afford to fix your car. I’ll have to take out a loan and I’ll go into debt which I guess is what’s going to happen but just so you know, you’re not getting the money to fix this anytime soon. Not that you’d need it, but…”“Look,” Cil says, trying to calm the beautiful human in front of him down. There’s something about an attractive person getting wild that makes Cil flustered. “I’m in a rush, too. Let’s just exchange numbers and I’ll call you later. Don’t worry about anything for right now. It wasn’t that hard of a hit, both our cars are still working. So let’s just deal with it later.”The kid regards him curiously, as if he doesn’t trust him. Cil gets that a lot. Nice people can’t ever be trusted. There must be a hidden agenda. But Cil doesn’t have one right now, other than to get this guy’s number at all.“Really?”“Yes,” Cil says, reaching into his pocket but realizing he left his phone in the car. “Do you have your phone?”The kid takes it out of his pocket and punches Cil’s number in. They both hear it ringing from his car and shake hands, the entire exchange lasting about four minutes. They go back to their cars quietly but then the kid shouts out behind him:“Hey, wait!”Cil turns.“Yeah?”“What’s your name?”“Cecil,” he says. “But - but call me Cil.”“Alright,” he mumbles, turning back to his phone. He must be putting Cil into his contacts. Cil licks his lips. He supposes he should get the kid’s name, too.“What’s yours?”“Yale.”Cil blinks.“Y-Yale? Like the school?”“My mom just liked the way it sounded,” he says, rehearsed. He doesn’t even look up from his phone. “Call me when you get home from work, okay?”Cil nods and finally gets back in his car, allowing Yale to back out first and waving at him as he drives past and off down the opposite road. He watches him go before another car honks at him to get a move on and he does, stepping down on the gas a bit too hard and lunging forward. He laughs to himself and backs up slowly again, finally getting back onto the right street, passing the evergreen downed on the road, and wondering if it’s a sign that he studied at Harvard.