Daily Life in Val Salia

[incrediblealternative]

Two nationless refugees toil in a secluded trade city and dream of building a better life, until one undergoes a mysterious change, which in turn changes everything about their lives and futures. Just another day in Val Salia.

Hey there! I've been drawing the prologue for Daily Life in Val Salia for a little over a year now; when I started, I decided I'd wait until there was plenty of pages to read before bringing attention to it. Which is now!

I've enjoyed TF comics for many years, and tend to prefer ones that focus on how the daily lives of the transformee are changed; how they respond to it, how they deal with it, their thoughts, feelings and conflicts resulting from their bodies and minds being radically altered. It's easy to say, "Poof, you're a (insert thing here)!" But how does that feel, physically and emotionally? How does it affect one's self-perception, and perception of one's life? How does one begin to deal with something as life-altering as losing the self one knows, to be replaced with another?

I haven't been able to find many comics that focus on that, so as they say... be the change you want to see in the world, and all that!

The first page of Daily Life in Val Salia is up at valsalia.com, but the story begins with the prologue, beginning here:
http://valsalia.com/VSArchivePages/001.htm

The actual TF occurs on page 14: http://valsalia.com/VSArchivePages/014.htm

I also post on Deviantart: http://valsalia.deviantart.com/

I'm a sucker for feedback, so by all means share any thoughts or feelings you might have about the characters, setting, plot, or otherwise! It really helps me to know what readers are thinking about, so I'll pretty much always reply.

Also, the comic features these little jerks.

[frice2000]

Very fun webcomic though I have to swear I've seen it linked in this forum before. Also probably a good idea to provide a link where the transformation happens as a lot of people here seem to be impatient and I doubt they'd wade through your well told exposition to get to what they really want to see.

[zdarkness]

Oh, hey! I've actually been reading this comic.

I didn't know you were one of us~

[jimripper]

I love your comic since the first time I read it in Furaffinity, very fun and the characters are great, keep on the good work!

[incrediblealternative]

Originally Posted by frice2000

Very fun webcomic though I have to swear I've seen it linked in this forum before. Also probably a good idea to provide a link where the transformation happens as a lot of people here seem to be impatient and I doubt they'd wade through your well told exposition to get to what they really want to see.

Good point! I'd like to say that I haven't skipped straight to the TF-ey parts of other comics for the very same reason, but that would be a dirty lie. OP updated. And yeah, someone linked to my DA a few months back when things were getting started, but there wasn't many pages to read and the thread didn't last very long. So here we are!

Originally Posted by zdarkness

Oh, hey! I've actually been reading this comic.

I didn't know you were one of us~

Yeah, long-time (mostly) lurker here! After consuming enough TF media, I figured it was about time I made some of my own.

Originally Posted by jimripper

I love your comic since the first time I read it in Furaffinity, very fun and the characters are great, keep on the good work!

All right! Glad you're enjoying this stuff; I had no idea how it would be received when I first started, so I'm still getting used to the idea that others might be enjoying something I've spent time and effort on! I want to try and keep that feeling fresh, and never get to that "Oh, another person says they like my stuff; how quaint, I'm a big shot now" level. This project is something I've put a lot of myself into, so it really means something when I find out someone's enjoying it.

Speaking of characters, do you have any favorites and/or ones you'd like to see more of?

[Skalla-Grimm]

Originally Posted by zdarkness

I didn't know you were one of us~

Gooble! Gobble!

[Snowglare]

I read it for the story. Love that worldbuilding.

[incrediblealternative]

Originally Posted by Skalla-Grimm

Gooble! Gobble!

Ach, I saw the full movie this year, and somehow it managed to out-creepy most of the stuff that's been made in the last half century or so! That ending scene... *Shudder*

Originally Posted by Snowglare

I read it for the story. Love that worldbuilding.

Okay, this is something I've been wondering about a lot lately! One of my goals in this comic is to have the TF element be a large part of it, but first and foremost be a decent story/setting on its own. Sometimes I forget that there are people who enjoy the non-TF elements as well!

And that makes me really happy, as I'm having a lot of fun with the worldbuilding aspect. I'm big into historical anthropology, how various cultures developed their arts & sciences, and I'm fascinated with biology too, so I put this setting together in a way that those would be some major themes.

Especially the theoretical ones, like how a planet with more than one sentient species might develop differently, or affect humanity's views of their own species... or in the case of the more young, developing races... should they distance themselves from the established cultures long enough to establish their own distinct cultural identity, or start using the already-existing languages, writing systems, technology, etc. of the older species?

Of course, things could get boring if the comic didn't explore the issues in a way that keeps things fun.