Hitting the Brakes (Patreon)

Hi everyone!

Hope this update finds you well. I just wanted to take this moment to let you all know that I'll be pausing billing for the month of July. This means that on the 1st July, you will be billed for June updates, subsequently, you will not receive any billing for July on the 1st August. Details can be found here on Patreon's billing cycle.

What's Happening?

For those who've been keeping up with my new comic developments, I've been working on a new project. However, I've hit a couple of story snags, which I've attempted to resolve the past 3-4 weeks to no avail. There was no feasible manner to alter the individual gears of the story, without affecting the structural integrity of the whole. At this juncture, I realized that I was salvaging material primarily to meet Patreon deadlines, and I could not in good conscience push out story material I had little confidence in.

The original story I had intended for "Swole Mates" has derailed significantly, and I do need more time and space to rebuild the project from ground up. You'll see what I mean in the rejected pages below.

By the time I had hit page 3, there were many conflicting narrative voices in my mind vying for dominance. A part of me wanted to cover deeper topics such as consent and healthy boundaries, while another part of me just wanted to do a raunchy for-fun sex comic. The cognitive dissonance I was experiencing the past few weeks had been so great that I had completely lost my vision and direction for the project.

I had learned from a fairly recent collaboration that fell through, that I really shouldn't try to rush or force a story narrative through. In my desperate attempts to pull "Swole Mates" into a functional state, I realized I may be following similar footsteps that led to the missed opportunity mentioned.

In addition to the above, I have my report writing due soon for my final event management module. My mental bandwidth is spread thin and I've to prioritize this matter over all else to earn my certification. The culmination of circumstances have thus led me to the decision to pause billing for July so that I may have more breathing space and hopefully clarity to resume "Swole Mates" down the road.

Director's Cut - Page 2

Director's Cut - Page 3

It was only after drafting out page 3 that I realized the following pages and content would become problematic. In the original thumbnails, Pridestar was going to stealthily slide Snares' speedo down and shove the air nozzle up his rear - much to Snares' surprise and shock. Originally I wanted to include themes of public humiliation and involuntary growth, but quickly recognized that this was all seemingly happening without Snares' explicit consent, and almost borderline rape - something that is very prevalent in kemono doujinshis which is not something I want to reinforce any further. The (not-so brilliant) twist was that this was all arranged beforehand, and revealed at the end that Snares and Pridestar had agreed upon this "scene" - but it was a very lazy and after-the-fact approach. Also, as a reader who's seen the last two major stories involving Snares and Pridestar, it would've been confusing that their relationship and interactions seem to have "reset" to a very tsundere, unfamiliar level, despite the fact that Snares had already warmed up to Pride's approaches in Baewatch. That said, a lot of the stuff that was going to happen for Swole Mates did feel like repetition of Baewatch, just with a different setup, but the effect was practically similar.

Moving Forward

At this point of production, I started to question a lot of my personal choices and the story itself, to which I had completely halted and lost my direction. I've spent the past 3-4 weeks staring at the same problems, and have decided I needed time away from the project and a fresh set of editorial eyes to arrive at a stronger decision.

While I can't say for certain what is the fate of Swole Mates at this point, I will continue to upload the remaining pages to Meatier Showers 10th Anniversary Edition for anyone who hasn't already preordered the book. I do apologize for the sudden stop in production, and hope that you'll understand where I'm coming from with July's hiatus. If you have any thoughts or concerns, please feel free to post them here along with this message.

As always, take care and stay safe!

Snares
Jun 2021