This has been on my mind since the very beginning of this project, and it’s taken me over a year and a half to even start writing it (not counting all my various notes on the matter). The social landscape of Elyris, the desert planet that Gas Station Story takes place on, isn’t one that I’m actively able to explore in the game itself, seeing as it’s framed from the point-of-view of somebody that only gets momentary glimpses into strangers’ lives. So, I’d like to clarify some of my choices, and shed some light on how romantic/domestic relationships tend to play out on this world.

- Pre-Requisite Information - 

To start off with, the racial makeup of Elyris’ society is less than 20% human. I wasn’t able to really represent this in-game due to a limited budget and the nature of Game Boy graphics (I want each character to be recognizable, and be able to be photographed by the Game Boy Camera). Despite this, I imagine that the humans on Elyris, having primarily emigrated from Earth, are also generally part of the lowest class in Elyrisian society (with some exceptions). With the game being set outside of the city, in a generally poor area, I feel like this fits the overall composition of Elyris’ society.

The War between the Earth Corporation and the Squods is mostly just a plot device that I don’t intend on exploring beyond this game. I have always enjoyed “the war before the story” as a narrative thread, but I want to save a deep-dive into that for another project, and a different war (with more Magick involved). That being said, I believe that in the aftermath of this conflict, humans are looked upon much less favorably in the greater universe. Elyris is not an Earth Corp. controlled territory, it’s actually Squod territory — Squods being the stereotypical “little green men” aliens that show up throughout Gas Station Story — so humans are actually quite despised here, but racism isn’t really a theme for this story so it’s never overt. 

Squods make up about 40% of the species on Elyris, but there are no natives to the desert. It’s a fully barren desert planet that had a small “gold rush” 200 years before the game starts, which is why there are so many people living there (Divinity City’s population is about 4.2 million people). The capital city, Last Anchor, is named as such because of the giant, mega-building sized gravity anchor (literally like a ship’s anchor) in the center of the city - left behind by the space pirates that hid their treasure on the planet. It still hasn’t been found to this day.

The War has also lead to a lot of supply issues around Squod territory, particularly for Earth-Corporation-owned business like 8-Fifteen. The Squods allow their businesses to continue operating, but they’ve placed an embargo on Earth Corp. deliveries, so most human businesses have to order through different supply chains than they’re used to.

- Personal Information - 

The player character (simply referred to as “The Clerk” in internal documents) is represented by portraits of my partner, Winona. Sam is represented by myself in a wig and makeup. I’ve only explored their relationship in the course of developing this game, but I can confidently tell you that neither of them has a clear-cut label for their sexuality (sexualities?) - I’ll talk about this more in the Relationships section down below.

The Clerk is primarily a vessel for the player, but no matter how they’re played, they’re still the same character. In my headcanon for them, every response a player could choose is still something the Clerk would reasonably say, depending on their mood that day, how hungry they are, how shitty their commute was, etc etc etc. They do have an official name, but that’s only revealed in the secret credits if you get the “best ending” (I don’t want to designate any of the planned endings as the “true ending”, but only 1 or 2 of them will show you the secret credits and reveal the Clerk’s true name - so I’m calling them the “best endings” as they contain the best outcomes for the two lead characters).

This is completely off-topic, but as somebody that grew up playing Dungeons & Dragons with my homies, calling this game an RPG is weird to me (in the same way that calling Cyberpunk 2077 an RPG is weird to me). I feel like, because the game locks you into playing one specific character, the player is not really “role-playing” because they can’t choose their role. But, that’s really just semantics and neither here nor there. I’ve also seen RPGs described as games that put you into a specific role, which works for Gas Station Story. I suppose, by choosing to play the game, the player did choose their role? I dunno, man.

I guess I’m saying that no matter how the Clerk is played, they’re still the same Clerk, just on a different timeline?

I guess.

Anyways.

(I'd initially planned to write more about Sam here, but after months of deliberation, I've decided against it. You only get to know what's shown of her in the game >:) Sorry not sorry!)

Even though the Clerk and Sam are represented and inspired by Winona and myself, they aren’t actually based on us. I’m not a woman: I identify as non-binary. Neither of us work or have ever worked at a gas station. In fact, I feel like the Clerk speaks more in my voice than Sam does (despite both of them being written by me). Putting portraits of us into the story was not part of the original plan, but became a part of the project very organically. I knew once I started building the project that I wanted Winona to represent the Clerk, but it wasn’t until I really started to write their and Sam’s relationship that I decided to represent the romantic interest myself. A lot of their conversations mirror ones that Winona and I have had in real life, so it made sense to give those characters our faces.

- Gender -

Let’s get the labels part out of the way quickly: the canonical Clerk character is gender non-binary, whereas the canonical Sam character is a trans woman.

I describe Sam as a trans woman because that’s who we would understand her to be in our society - but on Elyris there are no distinctions between who is or isn’t a woman, or a man, or anything. Almost all children raised on the planet grow up without any gender or pronouns being assigned to them by their parents. Instead, they’re expected to decide who they are by the time they come of age (whatever age that may be for the given species). They’re given the power to shape their own identity throughout their childhood and adolescence, and by the time they become adults, they get to codify that existence by choosing their legal name.

Because there are so many species with different types of birth certificates, the biological sex of a person isn’t considered that important either - only the biological species (special certificates exist for planets that have multiple indigenous species). Doctors are expected to treat every patient as an individual due to how different every body is.

I also define Sam as a trans woman because she represents a part of me that wants to transition - or maybe an alternate reality version of myself. Presenting as "masculine" as I do on the day-to-day gives me a lot of privilege and security - but it also causes me a lot of dysphoria a little more than half the time I look in the mirror. She’s the piece of me that looks in that mirror and wishes her outer shell reflected the woman inside of her, and the version of me that’s confident enough to be that woman every day. As with every nearly character in this story, though, she’s not all of me, just a fraction. (She’s also that part of you, if you’re reading this and feel the same way!)

I don’t think there are societal constructs around the notion of gender on Elyris. At least, not generally speaking. Each species certainly has its own ideas they consider “traditional”, but as the social landscape of Elyris has progressed over time, and with as much of an interplanetary melting pot as it is, those ideas have quickly faded. Most people just love their partners for who they are, for their shared interests and goals, not the role they’re expected to play in each others’ lives.

Also, a large portion of people never pick a codified gender. If somebody doesn’t choose one by the specified time for their species, they’re just left with a special tag for genderless. It is a huge pain in the ass to change this later, so it’s recommended that a person pick one by the deadline unless they’re sure they identify as genderless. There also isn’t a “genderless” option to explicitly pick, so not picking is the only way to receive this denotation.

The Clerk falls under this category. The Age of Majority for humans is 21 under the laws of the Earth Corporation (or 20 under the laws of the Squods, they don’t like uneven numbers). The Clerk never really wanted to pick a gender: they think it’s a pretty unnecessary thing to have on a municipal certificate at all.

- Relationships -

I had the idea for this game way back in 2017, but it wasn’t very detailed at that time. I didn’t have much other than the core idea of “a story game set in a sci-fi gas station”. After playing around with GB Studio and my Game Boy Camera for a few years, it all started to come together.

However, I’ve known Elyris for a long time. Elyris — or, the people that live there — represents my hopes for humanity’s understanding of love and romantic relationships. Not that I’m an expert, by any means whatsoever. I’ve goofed up my fair share of relationships. But I am hopeful that our descendants will be better than I have been. And Elyris is far from perfect, I’m not trying to paint this world as any sort of utopia. None of the other problems we face in our modern society have gone away. Capitalism and imperialism still run rampant. People hurt each other, a lot. Most people still feel like they have no purpose in life, feel like they have no place in the universe, feel like they’re getting by just a day at a time (and barely at that).

But, in matters of love, Elyrisians understand that no single person can ever truly fulfill all their needs and desires. Their media isn’t full of romance that preaches finding your “one true love” or “living happily ever after”. They understand that love takes work, that figuring things out requires constant, intentional communication. That everyone is different, and has different wants and needs. If someone is of a different biology than you, they might not even know what your needs are! 

I’m speaking about the majority here, just to clarify. Broad strokes, obviously. There are still groups of people that believe in monogamy, and (cough cough) preach it constantly. There are still people that don’t care what you want or need, because they believe what they want from you is more important. Partners still argue, parents get divorced, love goes unrequited.

Speaking of broad strokes (zing!): sex is an entirely different can of worms. I’m not going to get into the details (mostly because I don’t want to think about them), but I imagine everything is much more complicated, while simultaneously being much more freely explored. Sex is something you’re unlikely to quickly “figure out” with a person that has different biology than you. Sexual compatibility takes a backseat in romantic relationships, because people still fall in love with each other for their minds, their movements, their words. Partners usually understand that your biological desires aren’t the same as your romantic desires. Panromantic, polyamorous relationships are infinitely more common than uncommon.

When people fall in love and want to be closer to each other, they typically cohabitate for a while before there’s any real commitment made. People want to be sure that they are truly compatible before getting into the complications of governmentally officiating their partnership. Weddings are not frequent in Elyrisian culture - typically, a wedding is considered a celebration of the longevity of a relationship, to be held every 10 years. But most people tend to forgo the wedding altogether and instead enjoy an intimate ceremony on their own, leaving the large ceremonies to wealthy families and public figures.

Before I wrap this up: I’ve always enjoyed this clip where Donald Glover talks about Lando Calrissian being pansexual in Solo.

he’s right tho

Those are my thoughts on gender and relationships in Gas Station Story (and several tangents)! I hope this lore dump gave you a better insight to the inhabitants of Divinity City, as Game Boy dialogue boxes are far too limiting to give you more than a small peek behind the curtain. I’d love to return to Elyris some day in another project to really get into some of these themes, but that’s something I’ll worry about in the future. Thanks for reading!

- issumatek