The Future of Crimson Gray (Patreon)

For once, this isn't a big serious post for $10 backers. I've been going through a lot lately and I just wanted to do something light and fun. This post will be about some of my hypothetical plans for Crimson Gray. They might never come to pass, but I enjoyed making the post and I hope some of you enjoy it as well. If you are 100% opposed to learning spoilerish things about future Crimson Gray titles, skip this one.

Though I tried to make the first Crimson Gray simple and self-contained, the truth is that even before I started writing it, I had huge plans for the future. A high school romance is really not my sort of thing, but I felt that it would be best to start things there.

Now, I don't know if I'll be able to go there, in the near future or even at all. Depending on how things go, Dusk and Dawn may be the conclusion of Crimson Gray for the foreseeable future. But this post is some previews of what might be, which I hope you will all find enjoyable. I would greatly appreciate your thoughts and reactions. ^-^

That's a theoretical title screen concept for Crimson Gray 2. I know many people felt Crimson Gray ended things (and I did try to write a conclusion instead of a cliffhanger), but I really feel there's more to explore in an established relationship. I intentionally wrote John and Lizzie as teenagers in the first story - I would like to write them as full adults too.

They'd have some serious issues to deal with, both regarding the world changing around them and regarding their relationship. You'd also see the cast expand as Lizzie becomes slightly more open-minded about allowing other people near John. Lizzie has extremely mixed feelings about the possibility of having children, which is something I've never seen explored in the yandere trope in the way I'd like to do it.

But (spoiler alert) on the canon path they decide to have children. Crimson Gray 3 would pick up years down the road when they have two.

Their eldest is Mary Anne. Though she inherited Lizzie's condition, it isn't as severe and she can be more of a normal teenager in some ways. She has some tension with her parents - they were extremely concerned about her psychological profile being discovered, so they were a bit strict with her. I really like the idea of playing the parents of a yandere, and her relationships might not go as smoothly as Lizzie and John's. You'd better believe hidden variables would have an effect on this.

By contrast, Catherine loves everyone in her family without reservation. She's inherited Lizzie's condition too, but unlike Lizzie she grew up in an extremely supportive family. I have concepts I want to explore regarding a "well-adjusted yandere," though for her early years she's just an adorable stabby angel.

As I've mentioned in places, Crimson Gray is an alternate history with a different technological and sociological progression. I have interesting ideas for exploring that in ways that I feel are doing something a little new. We'll have to see how my career goes in the future.

Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed seeing the concept art as much as I did! If nothing else, you can add Lizzie and John's future family life to your head canon. ^-^