Mar 17, 2025
To:Taylor J
And thank YOU so much for reading it and leaving such a lovely review.
Especially when you wrote: "I had no idea a story about cat people could be pulled off in such a serious way, but you nailed it. It's even better that the cat people act like cats and aren't just a reskin of a human, which is ironic in the context of Sprouts story."
I was super glad that got through. Like, you don't expect that from cat people in anime, right? And like, I didn't want to do a whole deconstruction of the archetype, but I wanted to show that you could make them a bit more realistic and still pull off that anime feel.
In terms of giving Sprout a chance, I didn't get to explore her character at all, but Aiko was trying to be accepting of Sprout in her own way. She just had her own baggage that caused her to gravely misunderstand Sprout. Now that the contest is over, I've been struggling to write an omake chapter that explores the penultimate chapter from Aiko's point of view.
And a sequel will definitely come some day. I need to expend this one and fix some of the pacing problems, but I won't introduce any new important details. But it'll take a while. I burned myself out writing for the contest, and it's a bit too difficult to think about this story right now because when I go back to edit it, I'll always be second-guessing things, thinking, "If I had done this differently, would I have had a better shot at finals?"
But that will fade in time, I'm sure, and then I can come back to this. Sprout is definitely in store for a journey that, in some ways, will be more difficult for her than this one.
(I've never actually seen The Core. Maybe I should give it a shot.)
