Story Start (nsfw!)
Flames | Chapter Start
Flames | Page 65

I have since decided to split this original layout into 3 pages, starting here:
Flames | Page 66

No Text Version Here!

Q: How do you win the Tour De France in reverse?

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It's interesting how much rereading these page plans force me to reconsider some of my writing. I keep finding that a lot of what I want to write still only exists in my head. That some of the things are written rely on understanding things that haven't been written down. I suppose that's good for the editing process. But not so much for the page layout process sometimes. So, uh, apologies for the cramped panels here, especially on FA due to its restrictive image sizes.

Initially, I was thinking I'd use the same fantasy/dream glowy shaders I had used before. But, I really wanted something different here, to give it a very different tone. The fragmented-looking memory representation thing was an idea I initially had early on in December '22, but hadn't planned on using it for this. Once I decided the page had to go out and cover the evening at the bar more concretely, I determined it needed visualization and this representation was a good fit.

The technique is an odd one. I'm technically showing the raw Final Gathering points' contribution to the Global Illumination solution instead of polygons, textures, and shaders from a final render output. Hence, the spottiness where angles aren't quite resulting in anything getting to the camera. Or something like that, lol. Clothing with their finely bumpmapped threads seem to be particularly prone to the spottiness. In the final render, a given pixel's eye rays would interpolate the nearest X number of these points, iirc. Actually making something presentable out of that requires a great deal more playing around with the emission shader (which directly casts FG in a very different way than regular lights.) Some of the emission panels were placed to be more or less like what real lights would contribute, while some were special unrealistic placements for things like coloring the characters in certain ways and from certain angles, to cajole what I wanted out of it. It was fun and somewhat challenging, though I think the posing suffered from the sheer number of frames I ended up needing. It's not great at conveying expressions either, but I lucked out on some shots. It also required a lot of touch-up work in Photoshop. Though, aside from the denoising filter I tuned to soften it up a bit, nothing much I haven't done here and there (albeit usually in much smaller quantities) elsewhere in the comic.

The details of their night in the bar has been in my head a long time. If maybe not in exquisite detail, but the major point where already set. It wasn't meant for inclusion here, though. Instead, I intended for it to be left fully ambiguous, probably permanently. I guess, a part of that reasoning wasn't about the story it was about me. Somethings hurt to write. Regardless, ultimately it just didn't feel like things work without putting it out there. I really rather have expanded this even more, maybe as a complete flashback sequence but that would interrupt the sequence flow it feels like.

EDIT: I've made up a new word! Affectivarson: Emotions which burn other's emotion(s).
This also spawns:
Affectivarsonous - (obscure, see arsonous.) Having the qualities of emotions which burn other's emotion(s).
Affectivarsonist - One whose emotions inflict burning emotions or passion on another's

Also, trio is a weird word.
You have comic trio, comedy trio, but comical trio is less common and who uses comedian trio? But sure it feels fine to flip it around and say trio of comedians, but trio of comedy feels weird. It's like 'trio' imposes chirality on a phrase.

There's much more to be said for this page, but I think it best I leave that for a later date.