Preparing for Pride Month... (Patreon)

Hi all, it's BáiYù (he/they) here! This colorful piece of guest art depicting three mimir with Pico, Moon Pie, and Cheese from Sunny Day Jack was drawn by one of our Discord Moderators, ToyboxToonz.

Wondering where the weekly devlog is? Don't worry, it'll be posted tomorrow. I just wanted to say the quiet part out loud that you all may have noticed about SnaccPop Studios as a whole before we officially head into June, aka LGBTQ+ Pride Month.

SnaccPop Studios is Queer

From the very early beginnings, the SnaccPop Studios crew and audience has been majority queer, neurodivergent, disabled, etc. Sauce and the majority of the Discord Moderation Staff is queer, most dev team members are queer, several of your favorite VAs are queer, and so on and so forth. I asked team members who were comfortable sharing who they were to come forward, and I'm always excited to be working with a real diverse crew. So without further ado, let's talk about who's on the team!

Moderation Team

Name: Jude/Fox ♡
Pronouns: he/they
Role: I'm a moderator for the Snaccpop discord server and an occassional writer for Snaccpop Studios ♡
About: Hi! I'm a transmasc digital artist who also loves writing in his free time ^^ I also have my own lil projects and Virtual Novels that I'm working on ♡
Projects: My latest projects (and my commission info!) can be found on my ko-fi & twitter - in my linktree!
Websites:https://linktr.ee/foxinround

Name: ToyboxToonz
Pronouns: he/him transmasc
Role: discord moderator for Snaccpop Studios !!
About: hi !! I'm ToyboxToonz, but you can call me Lee! I'm a pansexual trans man who draws colorful cartoon animals on the internet for fun !!
Projects: no current projects at this time, but my commissions are open !!
Websites: https://toyboxtoonz.carrd.co/

Name: Aura/Rory!
Pronouns: They/she/he
Role: Moderator for the Snaccpop discord community server & dev team member
About: Hello hello! I'm Aura, and I'm an aspiring artist & writer. I don't do as much as I'd like to creatively due to being busy irl, but I'm always in thought about something (usually lewd writings)--
Projects: Creative director for TGOGM, but nothing else otherwise atm!
Websites: https://auraclecreates.carrd.co/

Development Team

Name: NaughtyMaus
Pronouns: Any
Role: Voice of Jack, Jambee, Dexter and more!
About: I does the voice acting and doesn’t afraid of anything! Commissions: Ask.
Website:https://www.tumblr.com/naughtymaus

Name: Perrie Ridgewell
Pronouns: She/Her
Role: Spanish Translator and Spanish Voice Acting Director
About: I'm a Demisexual/Bisexual Latina who loves doing voice acting as a hobby, draws in her free time, and sings whenever she can haha n.n
Project: Currently helping develop the Visual Novel "A Double Sided Mirror" as a Voice Actress, translator, and more!
Website:https://twitter.com/PerrieRidgewell

Name: MysteryCorgi (formerly under the alias TerminusDoll)
Pronouns: she/they, sidhe/fae
Role: sensitivity reader, UI artist
About: I'm a disgaybled (queer + disabled) visual novel developer. I am passionate about visual novels and about video games and other interactive media as a conduit for telling stories. I also believe strongly in representation and accessibility in video games and media, as well as supporting other creators.
Projects/Commissions:https://mysterycorgi.itch.io/
Websites:https://mysterycorgi.neocities.org/

Name: Primarvelous
Pronouns: she/they
Role: Video Editor
About: I’m a transfeminine, bigender and bisexual woman who loves to create. Visual novels are a big favorite form of storytelling for me. Being able to participate with Snaccpop and be recognized as a queer team member is such an honor!
Projects/Commissions: Art, Video, Voice Acting. Available on my carrd website.
Websites: carrd & itch.io

Name: Small Edamame
Pronouns: They/Them
Role: English to Japanese Translator
About: I’m a demisexual/pansexual NSFW artist! I love to learn about new things and people that I love! during my free day, I mostly go to the aquarium to watch penguins while drinking a cup of tea! I take commissions!
Websites:https://twitter.com/smalledamame/status/1632300070640185345

Name: Biscuit
Pronouns: She/Her
Role: Narrative Designer/Writer for Sunny Day Jack
About: I've been writing for approximately 7 years now and I've got a pretty decent portfolio going on. I enjoy writing about absolutely everything. Horror, romance, Yuri and anything LGBTQ! Nothing is too much. I enjoy discussing manga and novels, and I'm usually writing something if I'm not doing anything else, so feel free to commission me! Projects/Commissions: Script Writing, Fanfics, Outlining, Directing, Editing. Life is Strange: Aftermath on itch.io

Name: BáiYù
Pronouns: he/they
Role: Producer & Publisher
About: I'm a nonbinary trans masc/demiflux pansexual Chinese-American game developer with nearly a decade of indiedev experience under my belt. I can do just about everything besides art and audio, and in my spare time I take care of my cat Mark Caitlyn. I'm extremely passionate about supporting my fellow developers and advocating for true representation in games.
Projects: Too many to list
Websites:https://tofurocks.itch.io/

Where do we go from here?

We're known all over the world by people from different walks of life, and while we strive to make content intended to comfort folks after a hard day, there's one question I kept asking myself the longer I worked with SnaccPop Studios: are we showing up enough for the people who've fallen through the cracks in society?

It's very easy for someone to say something like "Trans Rights!" or "Black Lives Matter!" to verbalize progressive ideals. Personally speaking, I'm a very strong advocate for diversity in all fields, and true diversity is intersectional; yet when you add certain basic traits to someone's existence such as their ethnicity, gender, disabilities, neurodivergences, socioeconomic status and so on, suddenly a lot of folks following through and making good on those ideals in a meaningful way is less common. So the question then becomes: how do we go from theory to praxis in a way that matters?

Moving Forward

We've seen some people ask us things like "why don't you have more of this kind of character?" and trust us, we know the representation in our current games isn't where it could be. One thing that's rather unique to SnaccPop Studios in all of my experience as a game developer is the fact that all of our series involve coordinating with Voice Actors from the start, which means we need to take the VAs themselves into account when making characters. Adding another layer of complexity in hiring is the fact that SnaccPop Studios is a strictly Erotic Adult brand focusing on masculine love interests, and even if we focus more on the softcore, there's still the unfortunate stigma that any 18+ work has when attached to your name. All of these contributing factors make the potential talent pool that much smaller.

This isn't to make excuses: I know SnaccPop Studios can do better on this front. While we can't make changes to some of the existing series' main cast (we don't want to put people out of a role they've been promised), we will do better moving forward to incorporate more diverse characters into our future titles, and that's a pledge.

Closing Thoughts

If you're one of our lovely Patrons, you may have already seen our latest character in the DachaBo series. He's a POC character with a different build compared to some of our other boys, and we're working closely with his Voice Actor and several sensitivity readers to ensure that we do this guy justice.

I really cannot overstate my excitement for this character. I've lived over two decades of my life feeling lost and invisible because I never saw anyone canonically like me in media, and the day I finally did felt so freeing for me. Since then, all I can think is, "So this is what it's like for everyone else? To relate to stories so deeply and personally, and to feel like this exact thing was made just for them?" My hope for the second DachaBo love interest is that someone else will be able to have that feeling too in a sexually empowering way.

As always, thank you all for your support. We wouldn't be able to do this without you.