Future of Open Trade (Patreon)

So, I've been working on what the future of the story and made come choices as far as where things are going. I wanted to set some expectations with you.

TL:DR

The Main Arc of Open Trade will be coming to a conclusion in July 2025.

New Open Trade short stories will start after that point.

THE DETAILS

Basically I've been looking at the story as well as your desires and what you want to see happen and realizing that the plot of the story has grown too weighty that it doesn't allow us time to explore the smaller things you are interested in exploring.

The best thing I could do is resolve the large plot elements and bring the larger narrative to a conclusion. There are going to be a lot of aspects of the story that simply will not be answered or addressed. There are things I set up with Riley (Lexi's boyfriend) that I'm still interested in exploring, but I can say that (currently) Riley doesn't appear in the remaining pages.

This is me responding to the story structure and going, "Oh, this is where the end of this story is." And the rest won't fit in the narrative. It's a bit of Steve Rogers returning the Infinity Stones. Frodo and Sam's long journey to get home to the Shire. There are interesting stories there, but we don't get to see those things because it drags out the story.

Ultimately we are going to end where our characters need to be, but it won't be filling in every question or desire you have.

IS THIS AN ABRUPT ENDING?

With 21 Pages remaining (at the time of this writing) I can see there can be some concern that this is a quick wrap up after several years of story.

A few months ago when I started planning on the ending of the story, I was estimating an ending in Early Fall 2025. I'm pretty close to that target from what I can see. I was working on the script and I didn't try to cut corners or rush things. I left room for jokes and my normal dialogue heavy pages. I let it the ending land where it was going to land naturally.

Things can still shift when I go to draw. Panels get cut and added. Additional pages can manifest. Pages can be deemed unnecessary. But I think it is safe to expect a July 2025 conclusion.

WHAT ARE THESE SHORT STORIES

With the poll earlier and comments and the feedback you give both here and on Discord, you have expressed your desire to see what happens to our girls if they lose a trade they have grown attached to, or one they hated. How have they changed and how does returning to normal continue to change them.

Honestly, I'm interested in that too.

There are things that simply don't fit into the structure of the current narrative. Or ideas I've wanted to try, but likewise don't fit into the story. Shifting to shorter more focused stories gives much more room to explore these different ideas with the amount of attention they deserve.

I already have a list of ideas to start with. I'm excited to go in this direction.

If there is something you want to see, comment below, or comment on future pages.

WHY AM I TELLING YOU ALL OF THIS?

I like to set expectations. It's good to know that there are more stories coming and that I haven't forgotten story threads you are interested in. Upcoming short stories are just as valid as everything that has come before up to this point and what is yet to come.

But I want to thank you for joining me for the ride so far. We have 3 more months to go, and many more after that.