#I'd post this on my art account - but I need to work on my monochrome series first lmao

[0dotexe]

New pfp, but make it a full sona ref.

[dreadnotau]

So, what the heck's been going on with Dread Not?

First off, kind of a big announcement, the twitter is officially GONE. As "twitter" (x?) added a policy that starting from November 15th, all posts made by users would be fed to their AI algorithm, both my personal twitter as well as the Dread Not twitter are deleted, to prevent my content from being used to feed some shitty AI algorithm. Tumblr isn't exempt from this bullshit AI fad either, but at least they gave you a toggle to opt out of it. It's a low bar and yet sites keep not clearing it. Don't be afraid, though, I've downloaded the archive of the official twitter account and if the fancy strikes me (and if there's enough of a demand for it) I might mess around with the html and make a downloadable version of the Dread Not Twitter for anyone interested in having it as a remnant of that bygone era. I'd just have to find a way to scrub all my actual personal data from that account first though, lmao…

On a more serious note, you probably noticed the comic itself hasn't updated properly since, what, June? And that was only one page. Before then the last update was in September 2023, so it's been well over a year since proper, consistent content for this comic has been made. For that, I am genuinely sorry. I made a lot of false promises and with the update in June I hyped it up with being "finally back" and then held up none of what I promised. That sucks and I wish I had anyone else to blame, but it's all me and my shitty nonexistent work ethic. I COULD'VE finished Act 1 during the summer, but with the way my motivation for art works, I got swept up in other projects thinking I could make up for lost time eventually, and then just didn't. This sucks and I wish it hadn't happened, but here we are.

Moving forward is going to be difficult because of this. As mentioned, I have other projects I'm working on now, projects I'm arguably more invested in than Dread Not. If Dread Not was EASIER to make, it'd be less of a problem, but I've set up a kind of impossible standard for myself of putting my everything into every page. This makes it look phenomenal, I can't deny it, the last few pages have been some of my best work and I still look at them very fondly, but there's also an aspect of… what it is that I'm actually putting so much work into. I don't mean to diminish my own fiction here, but Dread Not was kind of made on a whim, and while it has themes I find interesting it's not as… deeply significant as some of my other work is, or at least is MEANT to be.

To use a metaphor to illustrate, Dread Not is like popcorn that I've painstakingly made a giant ornate bowl to serve it with, while my other projects are fully planned meals that I need to find a good way to serve, and if all my energy is spent trying to figure out how to make my popcorn snack presentable, what time does that leave to the Actual Full Course Meal I'm planning? I hope that metaphor makes sense, because popcorn is still good! It's tasty! You can make it really nice and spicy, but at the end of the day that's not a gourmet meal, and I'd like to try my hand at more serious (culinary) projects. Projects that require me to work not just physically, but also mentally, to explore more difficult themes that mean a lot more to me. And, don't get me wrong, Dread Not HAS interesting ideas in there, it's just that I haven't reached them yet because I've been so preoccupied with this fucking BOWL. The popcorn is cold now and I still haven't finished painting it's goddamn container. There's a reason you usually serve this stuff in a paper bag.

And, paper bag analogy is right, because if you've seen my latest art dump on my art blog, you might've seen a couple of different styles in one place. Flat colours, monochrome colours with an emphasis on shading, a general complete lack of backgrounds, etc. What I want from you, dear reader, is to tell me what YOU want from Dread not. There's no way for me to finish act 1 in a reasonable time frame without downgrading the art, so I want to know what kind of downgrade you're willing to put up with. My personal ideal would be if I could just release the remaining pages as just line-art with minimal shading, but I understand that's probably not what people want, so…

Here's a forum for you to weigh in! (I recommend filling it out after you read this whole post)

On a different note, I want to heavily stress that I'm not abandoning the project, it's just morphing into something different now. It kind of HAS to in order to survive. Originally, working on Dread Not was something I did between classes, it was my only real "organised" artistic outlet if you could call it that, but now that I'm going to school FOR art, something as demanding as a full comic is less an outlet and more a chore. Even WITH downgraded visuals, that's still time spent on something that's not getting me grades or recognition, and while it's fun I'm kind of planning on doing art as a career now, so fun projects have to be REALLY fun for me to still invest so much time into (again, refer back to how my shitass art motivation works). This is why Act 2 is now planned to be entirely text, like other fics I actually work on in my spare time as a Break from visual art. It's a continuation of Act 1 still, just as originally intended, but I'll be adjusting my original script for Act 2 to fit into the new format. I'm sorry if this is disappointing to anyone (if the visual downgrade for the end of act 1 wasn't enough), but this is the most reliable way I can get myself to actually work on Dread Not since, again, I don't think a "passion project" should be draining to think about.

All of the technical stuff about the comic/AU/fic ASIDE… I want to give a huge shoutout to everyone in the Dread Not Discord server. Despite all the hiatuses and despite all the Lack of content I've given them, the server's been decently active and we've even made stories and characters completely divorced from Dread Not or even Deltarune as a concept! It's a really nice group to be a part of and I'm eternally grateful that something I made attracted such creative and thoughtful and SKILLED people into one place to share new ideas and discuss old ones. It's just a great time all around, and I don't think I'd be where I am today if it weren't for that server, as corny and stupid as that may sound.

I'm sorry this ended up being kind of a damper of an announcement, but seeing the state this blog is in I think it's a little necessary to make a proper post addressing all the stuff that's been going on behind the scenes. I hate leaving ya'll in the dark, but I also know that these posts are really long and probably really boring so getting something like this every other week would probably be even more annoying than complete silence.

Again, thank you all for your patience and, by all means, weigh in on what you think should be done with this AU going forward.

-Kooki

PS - I'll announce my other projects when they're in a more presentable state, for now you'll have to wait for those too, sorry.