16: my little peptalkery

november 2nd, 2023

an earlier draft of this page had Holly’s “diving into adulthood” comment turn into a much more extended swimming metaphor, to which Christina asked if Lily, Emmy, Amber + Holly seemed like a good “pool noodle squad,” and I’m very tempted to just refer to the four of them by this moniker from now on 😛

this page includes one of the comic’s first retcon-adjacent moments! at the time I wrote and published the page where Holly cringes and then apologizes to Amber and Emmy for her axe-murdery joke (page 3), I think it was just a throwaway comment that mainly served to set up the other three’s responses, but as I’ve developed Holly’s personality behind-the-scenes in the many months since, I realized it wasn’t the best paw to put forward as an early characterization choice for readers trying to get a handle on Her Whole Deal. Holly has many strengths, and self-confidence is generally one of them; Holly has many weaknesses, and a reluctance to apologize can at times be one of them >u> but she *does* really really really want to make some new friends this semester, and I think it’s very in keeping with her current character that her pursuit of this goal is triggering anxieties that she’d previously believed to be long-buried!

artistically, I’m experimenting with what to do with Holly’s antennae when I’m not sure how to draw them without it being visually confusing! on this page, she’s theoretically holding her phone in front of her face in every panel, but in order to focus on her facial expressions I’ve just kinda cut off her antennae earlier than I normally would. I think this could be a little confusing if you stopped and noticed it directly, but I’m hoping it improves the overall readability of the page. see also: Holly’s grandparents disappearing from the call because I didn’t want to keep drawing all of them x3

speaking of drawing people, the rest of the roommate pool noodle squad will be back on-panel next page, and I’m excited to see all of them again! 😀 it’s been a while irl, although less than 24 hours in-story!