A crowd of hundreds raised their cameras as soon as I stepped out. My guards waved their arms to shoo them away. This red carpet was for me to walk on, after all. I blew a kiss for these starstruck peasants.
Vinty is adored by everyone for her world-famous calligraphy work.
Or at least, that's what she wants to think. In reality she spends days sitting out on the street trying to sell her calligraphy with no success, has to deal with street trolls, and has a part time job that she hates but puts up with so she can pay her Cranky Landlord.
Without Within is a Ren'Py-based indie Visual Novel free for download on Steam, made by InvertMouse. There are two sequels: Without Within 2, where Vinty is invited to a calligraphy gathering in Melbourne, Australia and meets a famous calligraphist, Excelia; and Without Within 3, where Vinty is invited to investigate a sighting of a ghost calligrapher in Singapore.
Tropes for all three Without Within games:
- Crashing Dreams: Wakes up when the fans in her dreams begin repeatedly calling her "Miss Vinty" — it's actually her Cranky Landlord nagging about the rent.
- Cute Ghost Girl: Kiki is the ghost calligrapher introduced in the third game. Excelia and Vinty team up to prove if her ghost really exists. It turns out Tai posed as the ghost all along, as she wanted people not to forget Kiki and her legacy, despite her not attending Kiki's funeral.
- Delicate and Sickly: Kiki exerted too much on both her calligraphy and her modeling career, to the detriment of her own health. When she was diagnosed with a brain tumor, it was too late for doctors to save her.
- Dream Sequence: The intro of the first game is of her being a famous calligraphist.
- Eyes Always Shut: Vinty.
- Foil: Excelia to Vinty. Excelia is a world-famous calligrapher, is rich as heck, and owns several properties around the world, including the one in Singapore where Vinty temporarily stays in the third game. Vinty herself is barely famous, is in Perpetual Poverty, and lives in a decrepit unit owned by a Cranky Landlord.
- Insufferable Genius: Tai, who is known to rival Kiki in terms of calligraphy skills and runs a Hainanese chicken rice stall as a side job in the third game, brutally mocks Excelia's skills when the two talk shop.
- Multiple Endings: There are a few A or B decisions in the first game, each of them only has one answer that doesn't give you a bad ending. The failing answer usually involves giving into Vinty's Berserk Button.
- Not a Morning Person: Vinty. One of the first choices in the first game is to wake up or stay in bed. Choosing to stay in bed gives you the bad ending.
- Self-Deprecation: In the third game, Excelia wears a cap with the words "EXCELIA SUX" hastily written on it. Justified, as her status as a celebrity calligrapher means she is subject to scrutiny by gossipers and paparazzi.
- Street Performer: Vinty tries to sell her calligraphy on the streets.
- Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: In the third game, just as Vinty and Excelia are about to catch Kiki, the ghost calligrapher outruns them both, forcing the two to go to Penang, Malaysia, the hometown of Kiki's mother.
