To those still waiting
NPC_Girl on July 6, 2021
Wow… it's… been a long time since I've been here. A really long time. I can't believe I updated this in 2017. Wow.
A lot has happened since I started this comic when I was 14. I mean, I'm almost 32 now. But I still think of this fondly. I loved doing this comic, I loved the story, the characters. I had such big ambitious plans. But I never came back to finish it. I kind of feel like I owe those who loved this comic, enough to come back and look at it an exsplination. Especially as a few people were kind enough to give me money in my time of need, and it was all thanks to this comic.
So this is going to be a long post. About where we came from, and if there is a future.
Where we came from
I started NPC when I was 14. I fell in love with RPG world, and thought it would be neat to make a web comic based on the NPC's in video games. But that quickly got boring and I loved writing stories. I don't know how people enjoyed my lame teeny humour. I guess we all teens back then ey?
The more I wrote for NPC the more I felt like I wanted to be ambitious with it. I wanted to do better art. I wanted to make a better story. I got frustrated with myself because I'm really bad at drawing anything but front view people. I can't do hands. The only thing I'm reasonably good at is shading. And it would take me most of a day in the end to do one page.
I think I came a long way artistically when doing it. I haven't drawn in years now and you can see, it's alright. Still stiff and frontwise right?
One of the main reasons I stopped doing NPC is because I went to univercity. It was fine while I was in halls. But when I moved into an appartment, I didn't have very good internet. It was slow, and uploading anything took ages and I only had a stick internet thing that allowed like 1 GB of internet per month. And I think that challenge really put me off creating. And once you take a break from something it's really hard to get back into it.
Eventurally we did get good internet and I tried. But you know, I was a shitty elder teen, bad at keeping scheduals and more interested in other things. I hadn't kept to schedual for so long, that I just failed to get back into it. I tried. But I appreciate those who helped me out when I was struggeling for cash because I was the one who had to pay all the bills and wait for my other student flat mates to pay me back. awkward as you can imagine. I left uni still being owed probably over half a grand in unpaid money that was ment for electric bills and all sorts. It sucked. and I guess didn't make for a great environment for making comics. But it also didn't help I really wanted to be more ambitious with NPC. I really wished I could take it to print and go to the next level. and it just never got there.
How things changed
After uni I went to work as a HCA in a hospital. I worked weird hours. I didn't really have any friends at home any more. and I didn't feel like drawing. And then the most amazing thing happened. I met someone on one of the wards, and he really liked video games, and knew about MCM and all these geeky things, which up to now I might as well have been an alien for enjoying. Being a girl into geek stuff really just… was a weird thing back then.
This guy, he was also really into table top and he invited me the first day I met him around his house for DND and well… thus began my long enjoyment of table top gaming. From there he also got me into LARP. And I spent a lot of time making charactrs, and buying kit. And for… I guess almost 10 years now I have been a big part of the UK LARP and TTRPG community.
Through it I met my now husband. It was great. But it did mean I spent a lot of my free time writing Pathfinder campaign monsters and not thinking about drawing. I really stopped drawing all together by this point.
A lot of stuff happened. I had a terrible london job after my hospital job. Working in London is terrible, just trust me. But now I work in a really good stable job.
I've also had a kid in 2019, and he kinda has been absorbing every bit of free time. But I've wanted to get back into art and creating again. A big thing that has stopped me is space. For the last 4 years I've had a tiny dinner tray table as a desk. It was pretty impossible to draw on, even with a wacom. There was even a portion of my life where I was half living at my now husbands house, with just a few clothes I had grabbed from home and occationally switched out availble for me. It's just… not been a great decade for art to be honest.
The future
I think about this web comic a lot. Especially when I feel sad about not being artistic anymore. I wish I had finished it. It's weird to see other web comic creators who started when I did still going. I think if Patron had existed when I was doing this I might have been able to keep it up.
But now… well, I have a desk. I have a good computer. I don't have a good Wacom but well I could get a tablet. But… do I go back to this? I don't know. I don't know if there are people out there who care about what happened to NPC.
I think I'd want to restart the comic if I came back to it. My old stuff is just really cheesy and bad. and hasn't aged very well. I think I could do some more interesting things with it now. I've… become a better story writer, and I would like to bring my exspierence in TTRPG and LARP to my writing. But I don't know.
If you stil l care… or maybe are interested. Leave us a comment down below.
Would you like NPC to be revived?
Should I start a new project focused maybe on my new hobbies?
should I start over? or do you really just want the story to continue from where it left off?
I want to leave a big thank you to everyone who has supported me through the years. I still treasure all the fan art I got. And I really appreciate those who went a step further in my time in need. You are all great people.
xxx
Fiona
Sorry for the typos ;P
Ozoneocean at 6:16PM, July 8, 2021
Welcome back!
schubacca at 9:22AM, July 6, 2021
I was in middle of developing a long response, but really it boils down to "Would you all like to see me come back?" Who is going to say no?! "Should I (whatever form of question here about what to do)?" If you are asking the question, it is probably no. I will gleefully devour whatever project you work on and supply to us, but if you are asking the question you have reservations, and working on things because you feel you have to suffers the art and suffers your own self worth, so do what makes you happy and we all benefit. TL;DNR glad to see you are still alive and mobile, impatiently waiting on whatever you feed me.
stinger9 at 6:13AM, July 6, 2021
Good to see you back again! I'd be interested regardless of what direction you go with things, starting over or a new project both sound like better options to me, especially if you're not happy with the old stuff (I know I'd hate trying to pick up where I left off on one of my comics from back then!)
Darius Drake at 6:09AM, July 6, 2021
Holy C**P, I really was not expecting this when I randomly looked at this page. In response to your questions, always remember that the final decision is up to you, anything we bring up is just our preference as readers of what (I'm hoping will be free, because I'm cheap like that) content you may end up providing. Would I like NPC to be revived? Yes, it's an interesting story that has a fun premise and you ended up slipping some potential "behind the scenes" plot points into the story. It's not an absolute requirement, but just the bones of what you have given previously is something interesting to build off of. Should you start a new project based on your new hobbies? I honestly don't know enough about the ideas and inspiration that you've gained, even reading through the entire author's note, to have a valid opinion on this. From what you have said in your comments, I suspect that you may have some regret if you don't at least try to restart NPC to some extent. Whether...
Darius Drake at 6:27AM, July 6, 2021
...For example, the Librarian Fight was probably never going to go anywhere, plot wise, after you started to make the plot more serious. The Cramps (tiny pigmen who's attacks made you feel like you were having cramps, from page 257-259) were good at showing that there's a moral variance between the three characters, and it doesn't necessarily go the way that most would initially assume. Anyway, sorry for the long answer, and it being a little difficult to read due to how DD orders these things, but I hope the correct order to follow the initial post is fairly clear.
Darius Drake at 6:18AM, July 6, 2021
...Whether it's continuing this story, restarting this story, or just working some concepts from this story into a new story is, and should be, up to you. Should you start over, or continue? Honestly... I hate saying this, but I suspect that you may prefer to restart the story, if you choose to continue writing it. Even if we ignore the changes in RPG mechanics (random encounters are now typically viewable on a world map, and potentially avoidable, for example), I suspect that your additional experience in life and writing may cause you to get irritated with the characterisation you have done previously. Not necessarily with the NPC characters themselves, because they do have depth, but with how you have portrayed them at times, the side characters, and some of the "joke references" that popped up. You were already moving away from that when you dropped the story, and removing it if you never planned to return to it seems more prudent. For example, the Librarian Fight was probably...