Introducing Moonlight Wanderers

If you've been following along on my Patreon, you're probably aware I've been hyping up Moonlight Wanderers for a while now.
www.patreon.com/RainComic

If you're not, I did finally name drop it this past September.  
jocelynsamara.deviantart.com/j…

I've since used a DA journal meme to informally introduce the main character a little while back too (though that'd only be at DeviantArt, so I'm sure some interested parties may have missed it).  
jocelynsamara.deviantart.com/j…

But we still haven't really seen or heard much of anything else.  I figure with the release of Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon today (which I sadly probably won't be able to pick up any time soon), this is as fitting a day as any to finally start talking about my upcoming project, Moonlight Wanderers, a Pokemon Moon Nuzlocke comic.

If you're not familiar with the concept of a Nuzlocke, Pokemon games are generally considered to be a bit on the easy side.  So a Nuzlocke is a self-imposed challenge where any time one of your creatures faints, you are to consider them dead and you can no longer use them.  It leads to great emotional attachment and can sometimes be very intense, as every choice you make matters so much more.  And a Nuzlocke comic is a fairly common trend where people basically write about their experience with the challenge.

Now, I've already long since done the run the comic will be based on, logging notes of Pokemon catches/names/partings, as well as some details of more significant battles, and any other information I thought might be important.  That said, the comic will NOT be a retelling of the game's story (my notes are purposely vague to promote creativity).  In fact, despite using the characters from the game as well the structure of the Island Challenge, the overall story will be going in a very different direction.  The story will probably be considerably darker than my work with Rain (seeing as it will deal with themes of life and death), but also might be funnier/quirkier to offset this.  Take that however you will.

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If you are familiar with the Sun and Moon games, you probably recognize some of these characters in the accompanying image.  And if you're not familiar, don't worry if you can't keep track of the names right now.  But to go into specifics with the accompanying image:

First box:
Hau with Fire Cat (his Litten) and Waffle (his shiny Pichu).

Second box:
Lillie with Nebby (the Cosmog) and an unnamed(?) Eevee.

Third box:
Maya with Tsukiko (her Popplio) and Cerise (her Fomantis)

Fourth box:
Midori with Herbert (her Bulbasaur) and Nibbles (her Trapinch)

Fifth box:
Gladion with Null (Type:Null) and Fang (his Zubat)

Hau, Lillie, and Gladion are from the games, though their designs are slightly different and they're all aged up to late teens for the sake of the story.  And while the basics of their personalities are more or less intact, do expect new developments and depth not seen in the game.  The same will be the case for most other major NPCs too.  These are just the main ones who would appear most often in Moonlight Wanderers.

Maya in the center is the protagonist, based off my trainer character.  You've been seeing images of her for over a year now, even before the release of the original Sun and Moon (I've been planning a long time). Don't forget you can read more about her here - jocelynsamara.deviantart.com/j…

Midori in the fourth box is the other original character, and plays the role of Maya's rival (since Sun and Moon were a little weird about defining the rival and people like to argue over who it actually was, I just made my own).  

I'll touch on all these characters in more detail at a later date, but because I know people will ask: yes, you CAN expect many established characters may potentially (dare I say, very likely) get the patented Little Lynn treatment and be queer and/or trans to some capacity in this comic (because that's just what I do). It wouldn't be a focal theme of the story like it is in Rain or anything; they just would BE what they are. ^_^

And as for the Pokemon, I thought it'd be a nice touch to include each of the main characters' two main ones here (as the story isn't just about the people, after all).  Yes, there'll be MANY more Pokemon significant to the main story.  But besides not wanting to add more to an already crowded poster, I didn't want to show more for spoiler purposes.  Knowing the games could tell you what certain trainers (like Hau or Gladion) might have later.  But who has what and at which point could be considered spoilers for a story like this (especially with Maya and Midori).  So I wanted to keep it to two major front runners for everyone.  In the average supplemental art piece, these are likely going to be the Pokemon you'll see most often alongside these trainers.  That doesn't necessarily mean plot armor though.

And because I'll certainly be asked, yes, someone will have Rowlet.  Like in Sun and Moon, I've decided the owner of the third starter will be kept a secret for now.  But no, it's not who you probably think.

***

The current plan for Moonlight Wanderers is for it to begin sometime in early 2018, and have it post alongside Rain.  In other words, one should not affect the other.  MW will have longer, more detailed pages, but will probably only go up once a week.  While I haven't decided on the day yet, it won't be any of the Rain post days.  

And while I would love for everyone to read and enjoy both Rain and MW, I understand and respect that there's a chance that many won't be interested in one comic or the other.  As long as you can put up with me periodically using Rain's platform to hype MW for now, when the actual comic starts, they will be separated.  DA will have separate folders.  SmackJeeves and Comic Fury will have new comic pages setup.  It'll have it's own Facebook page, independently of the Rain page.

Questions are very welcome, but be mindful that there's probably a lot I can't answer just yet.

Take care for now, everyone.  ^_^