Vote over at TWC and you can see a neat mermaid drawing I'm working on! Warning for boobs, I guess? They're not done yet, so... As I've mentioned before, Charlene is an amalgamation of a bunch of friends I used to work with when I sold shoes. (Many of them were black, a few were from down South, but none were from New Orleans.) A few of my coworkers went on to work in journalism, which I thought was really fascinating! In fact, one of my coworkers is a big time sports reporter out of Washington now, which is wild considering it wasn't long ago that we were selling shoes together and she was trying to access enough wifi to send off article assignments during her breaks. I guess it just goes to show what a little determination and time can do. But Charlene is also based a lot on myself, because this story is basically my autobiography filtered through a dozen or so characters, then werewolves and magic were added. But I can definitely relate to the idea of your life pulling you in completely different directions (for me, it's politics and comics), but not really feeling like you completely gel anywhere. At the end of Chapter 4, Charlene made it clear that she had a vision that caused her to come to Michigan and find Malaya, though the specifics of why haven't been totally hashed out yet. But she followed that vision because it meshed well with a time in her life that she needed a break and a little self-exploration :). But we'll cap off Charlene's monologue about her life tomorrow, and then I'm going to attempt to smash Elias and Vincent together again for a few pages, because we all need a break from 39 pages of Connie. Thanks for everyone being so chill while I was on vacation! I have to go through and respond to comments, but I've been frantically trying to get these pages done since I got home and some weird hour on Friday. Also, if you missed the announcement, I'm now going to be part of Hiveworks! So expect a new website launching soon, and this will also open up a ton of options in terms of merchandise and whatnot, because now I'll have a team to help me distribute said merch :)...versus me, standing in front of a bunch of boxes piled up in the living room, crying out of frustration from being overwhelmed at the prospect of packaging and shipping stuff out to all of you. Anyway, tell your friends! It'll be neat.