As someone who has a day job to pay the bills, I tend to look forwards towards holidays as rare breaks where I can put some concentrated time towards working on the mod.

Recently, got news from my job that we should be able to take all of next week off, so that looks potentially promising for getting more progress done. Of course, I’ll have to balance that with social obligations.

This past week has largely been spent on adding in, editing dialogue, running the re-render on the animation. (Unfortunately, it happens to still be ongoing).

I’ve got to run the renders for frames 629-722 and 902-1022 left.

Most of the ending for the NTR version of the scene is in. There will always be room for additional edits, but it’ll be on to work on some the intermediary images that flow in between.

So far the end of year goal for this scene feels very promising. Additionally, I’ve also been brainstorming some notes about Davide’s character.

A lot of times, writing advice states something along the lines of the need to contrast the main character versus his rival, because in storytelling a lot of the time, we, in society, define who we are by our position relative to those around us. It’s why that old saying that you are the average of your five closest friends holds.

So I’ve been thinking of peppering in the scene with certain elements to portray a certain upbringing or sympathetic humanity to him.

One idea that came up is to create an older sister character for him, as in typical African American society, there are also some tough matriarchal societal positions, so she could be a foil to him, and someone whom he doesn’t regularly show off around the gang. I.E. A dirty little secret of his that he keeps.

On a tangent, it could also be interesting to explore that role, as, if she’s the one keeping him more grounded from his criminal enterprises, would she be more of a straight-laced character/no-nonsense? Or does she also know about his criminal enterprises, and opportunistically benefit off of it? Meaning- is she of the conservative matron-like roles in the Wire? or the younger women who seek to rise up in the world off of the wealth the criminal enterprises offer?

Also, seeing as how the scene incorporates cat murder, I figured it may be interesting down the line to have a contrast, where Davide may have a pit bull or some really large dog. Doberman? That he has at his home, and whom he absolutely adores.

That contrast and hypocrisy of his behavior could highlight that he doesn’t necessarily inherently hate animals, but more that he hates people siccing their pets on him, which could, I think portray a deeper element to the character and their upbringing.

Additionally, his treatment of his pet could be similar to that of a noveau riche to their Lambo or sports car. That could portray it as a situation where pets are status symbols to him, and things wealthy white people have.

That could offer some behind the scenes/secret scenes where there’s a portrayal from his perspective regarding his upbringing. Being in foster care, the older sister character possibly not being related to him by blood, but by their foster father figure, etc. And there could be some social commentary there as well for missing father figures/mother figures and the impact they have on children as well as aspects of being looked down upon, disregarded, despised in the foster care system, and that general sense of not belonging.

But these are all random thoughts as well. Just ideas to explore.