October update

Hello! Woo, it's already October! That is terrifying! The passage of time is horrific!!!!!!

Which is very fitting, because it's the spooky season, wahooooo

There are a few things to go over this month. I'll start with something that maaaybe some people have noticed, but I'm unsure how things look on the patron's end. Recently, Patreon offered me the option to allow Patrons to be billed every month based on whenever THEY subscribed. Originally, you'd be automatically billed at the start of the month which would mean many people who subscribed at the end of the previous month would essentially be double-charged. Now it should be all good! If you've already been subscribed for a while, it shouldn't make much of a difference to you though since your charge date remains the 1st. However, if you ever stop being a patron and decide to come back, you don't have to worry about it being at the beginning of the month!

Now for even more exciting news (for me): I'm (almost) on break! I'm taking the entirety of October off from working on NPCs since I've just finished working on the last episode of the arc. I'd been feeling incredibly burnt out and I wanted some time to step away from the story in order to look at the rest of it with fresh eyes and hopefully bang out the remaining kinks in the plot. The last week of October is going to be a lot of outlines and script writing but before then...

That's right, you're actually going to see characters that AREN'T Lucian and his merry band of malewives. I'm taking the time off to develop Vix and Oz's story more. I've got a good chunk of setting and the skeleton of a timeline figured out so now it's onto fleshing things out and bringing them to life. 

Usually. October is what I call Monstober and I end up drawing a lot of porn. However, this time around, things are going to be a lot more focused on the cast of this story. I need to actually design multiple of them, almost all of which are demons, which are in fact monsters. So, it still counts... right? And yes, there will be a lot of NSFW still, just of these characters. I have a lot of really fun designs I wanna do and I'm hoping to push myself more with them. I'm going to really see if I can get some fun motifs going and really nail down getting patterns for different groups to represent them.

Oh! For those who may remember Silk, he's a part of this cast as well! A few designs I made during monstober that I never sold may end up in here actually, including Oz himself. He was one of my first monstober designs last year and I ended up liking him too much to give away.

Warning, I'm rambling about the story for like four paragraphs here, skip if you're not interested.

I'll ramble about them more, but if you've read NPCs, the vibe's going to be a bit different, though I can't say I know by how much. I don't think anyone in NPCs is a pinnacle of morality, however, I do think for the most part all of them are pretty much just good people and no one actively seeks to harm or even inconvenience people. The whole idea/theme was that monsters aren't inherently bad and those in power are the ones that arbitrarily dictate what is and is not a "monster." I may have been incredibly heavy-handed on the "human bad" concept to show the dichotomy haha. I was scared I wouldn't be able to communicate my ideas properly, sue me.

The main idea for Vix and Oz's story (god I really need to name it) is pretty similar but falls more in line with the idea that even if one ISN'T a good person and has done bad, they still deserve the respect afforded to citizens. Not just people, but citizens. Structural stability in a community, even for those who have not been good people is in fact a good thing. I worried a lot about NPCs seeming like passing value judgments on people and deeming some more worthy than others to be metaphorically and literally saved. It was a bit of a funky situation I ended up in. It's why, every so often, I feel a bit resentful of Lucian, but he's his own self-realized character, he can be disliked for certain actions as a little treat. I don't particularly agree with everything he thinks and he'll grow with time, but I did want to focus on characters that weren't so keen on being good without doing much about dealing with the root of the issue.

Vix and Oz are both very selfish people in their own ways. They care solely for themselves first, and anyone else second. They aren't bad people by any means, but they certainly aren't traditionally very good people either. Let's just say that any hope or idealism died a long time ago for them. Vix scams and cheats and manipulates as naturally as breathing. He'll throw away almost any ounce of pride if it means gaining power. Oz has quite literally killed people, so uh, that's not particularly ideal. He threatens and intimidates and cares more for results than whoever may be harmed in the process of him doing something. They've lived very difficult lives and have been shaped by their environments. It doesn't excuse their actions, but it certainly explains quite a few of them. Honestly, it's questionable at first whether they're even better for each other if they legit make each other actively worse haha. Spoiler: they do actually make each other better people in their own ways, though they sure as hell don't try to change the other person. 

And while they do use the system at hand to their advantage, they both know it's a rotten one, for any good it does do. There's a bit more focus on systemic issues and while I don't think these two dipshits are the ones to fix it, they certainly make strides in the right direction.

Back on Topic

Needless to say, there's a lot happening this month and I hope to have plenty of content to offer y'all.

I'm also thinking of making a discord server. I actually have one I share with my friend and co-streamer. I haven't streamed in quite some time and I don't think it's something I quite have the mental energy to take at this moment so I've felt quite guilty about using it for more art-related stuff I'd been considering having one just for me I guess? Is that narcissistic haha? Oh god, that sounds terrible written out like that.

I did want to have a proper space for anyone who'd like to have a community to talk about this or that. I try to curate an audience that's fairly open-minded and I know some people like having that space to talk about their interests and post their own work, be it art or something else. If I can offer that for people, I'm happy to. Also, I get to hold people hostage to talk about my projects live >:) That's right, I'd 1000% have a channel where I don't shut up about whatever I'm working on because it's MY server and I make the rules /j

Anyways, that's all for now! Thanks so much for reading a particularly rambly monthly update!