Upload Notes: Kaiju Summer Fun (Patreon)

I may have missed the deadline for KaiJune... but I made it in time for KaiJuly! I really wanted to get this out on time, so I was more than happy to put in some extra time to get it done a lil earlier than expected. It helps that this story was just innately a lot of fun, even addicting to write for~ I was thinking of this story a lot in my freetime, and I think I managed to capture most of my ideas pretty well!

There's limitless possibilities with stories like these, hah. I can write kaijus in this environment just... all the time. Two girls going to the beach, and they're giant monsters. What could be better? I really wanted to have this be a feel-good story from their perspective, I had Girls Just Wanna Have Fun playing in my head to get in the right mood. I also drew inspiration from my own yearning for the beach... It's been so long since I've traveled anywhere, so I've been thinking of the beach a lot. I used my last trip to Florida as images to work with, but man, I need a refresher of what it feels like.

I hope everyone enjoys these two gorls!! Because I really did lol. These might just be two of my favorite originals since starting the patreon, and I came up with them in like, a night. Daria came to mind first, I've seen the electric antlers idea a few times, but never on a kaiju. The sheep kaiju came about from the patron's suggestion, a perfect pick for two docile kaiju. That docile part was really something I wanted to highlight, how these two monsters are capable of causing so much mayhem, yet normally they're fairly gentle creatures, some of the least concerns for humanity as far as kaiju go. That's sexy, isn't it? I thought it was sexy.

The kaijuverse is sort of coming together, isn't it? It's something I've been meaning to work on more seriously, even if the kaijuverse itself leans a bit on the sillier side of things. But you can see glimpses of larger ideas I'd like to get around to. I really like that kind of immersion, how Felicity's wool is harvested as this important resource... even though to her, it's something inconsequential, she can just grow wool whenever she wants. She even likes being pampered and having her wool sheared for her! And Daria's generation of electricity -- these resources they provide not only add depth to their characters, but gives them immersive roles to be fitted into. Humanity might fear kaiju, but they also envy that energy they exhaust and want to harness it. And in return, they're willing to make giant smartphones and bikinis... It's a bizarre world, but I think it's just twisted enough to feel scarily real, almost, hehe.

But back to the characters themselves, yeah, I really liked drawing out their dynamic. They're so sweet, Felicity is perfectly sheepish and Daria is outgoing, mature, cool. And Felicity just melts to being flirted with. What a great setup. On a farfetched note, and this is just a detail... but I actually still have a bit of a hang-up over Daria and her gender. Ultimate, I decided it was a matter I didn't want to distract the story with, but I'm still on the fence whether to commit to making Daria transgender or not~ I try not to bog stories down with these kinds of themes, it's simply not my expertise to be writing about, but Daria, what can I say, struck a chord with me that just felt right is she was a transwoman. Not like it'd change much~ The interactions where something specific like genitals would come up, I left vague kinda on purpose for this very reason, just in case someone wanted to squint and consider her trans anyway. But in either case, Daria's still a giant kaiju monster woman.

And all that thinking about gender stems almost ENTIRELY from the fact that I gave Daria antlers, a male-dominant trait in deer. Maybe that sounds dumb~ I wouldn't be the first to make a cisfemale deer with antlers, but it's admittedly where the thought first derived from. I could go on and on about trans inclusiveness, how it fits into my writing, but really, that's not a topic I have the energy for. Maybe another day, because it IS a topic I feel strongly about~

But wow, what a fun story. Thank you to my patron for enabling me to do this~ I definitely want to revisit these two again someday, perhaps even get them drawn if I find the right person! They were real cute, and I think there's plenty of possibilities to show them off in the future. Hope you guys enjoyed this one, and thanks again for all your support~

AND FINALLY... I am caught up on upload notes. Woo! Hopefully from here on out, I can just stay up to date again and get the commentary to upload alongside the story itself.