during my 2025-2026 school year, i decided to take a step back from a lot of work i felt was difficult to understand and overly high-concept. instead, i shifted to working with a smaller, simpler cast of characters, those being a cast of fantasy creatures shape-shifting to fit in with a world they no longer fit in as a part of. the story takes place in 2005, with everyone being dysfunctional in some way, either having outwardly antisocial personality traits from growing up before recorded history, or being trapped presenting in bodies they're uncomfortable with.
it was a fun exercise, exploring how to make two designs of wholly different species look in some way the same. notably, every design here was either entirely automatically made in its earliest drafts, or originates from a dream.
one unpredictable element that arose during development was a star-crossed romance between the characters of tarrodin and worell. as non-humans, neither really conforms to human societal standards. both being gender-ambiguous and separated from human moral standards, they eventually bond over what every set of jerks bonds over: making someone else sort of uncomfortable in a harmless way.
i had a lot of fun writing out the internal monologues before their actual interaction. the juxtaposition between their attitudes shows a lot about them, and exposes their flaws in a very distinct way.
another element of this project i really enjoyed was the inclusion of the antagonists, three ultimately harmless cryptozoology researchers who sparingly interact with the cast in ways that push them towards one another.
these characters were actually created by a close friend (@ugly.organist on instagram). originating from one of their dreams, a brief discussion revealed that we were, miraculously, entirely in-sync regarding the personalities of these characters immediately. i am very grateful to have been able to contribute narrative roles to them, and to have been given the chance to play around with them at all.
"Roomates Forever" currently only exists as one, short issue, but i plan to revisit it soon.