khywae
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December Newsletter - In Deep Water + 2025 Reflections
🕑 Added 2025-12-31 22:46:18 +0000 UTCHeya crew!
I can't believe this is the last 'hey crew' of the year. As we close 2025, I still can't believe we created 10 Tapes this year, bringing us to 18 total since we set sail!
Here are my thoughts on this year and what's ahead for 2026. Grab a coffee, tea, or champagne, if you're feeling festive. You're good readers, so I know you'll stick with me! haha
Rafayel's Tape - In Deep Water:
As a certified monsterfucker, merman smut was too good to pass up. But Abysswalker Raf was also incredible. It was a hard choice.
Development went well this month! Drawing all the details in Rafayel's clothing was hard. Really hard. But I think I managed to capture his likeness in 2D. I hope you think so too.
The story is centered around New Year's Eve traditions. And that's why it kills me that I can't send it yet. Everything is done, it's just the animation and AE composition that need a few tweaks. It shouldn't take long. If you don't receive the link today, it will be sent soon!
December is a crazy month normally, but this time it decided to be even crazier. And instead of doing something simple, I decided to animate a smut scene underwater. With a merman. Did you know there's basically zero reference for animating merman smut? It's dry out there, crew. Which showed me that I had to do this right and with care, so that maybe it can become a reference for other artists/monsterfuckers in the future. It's serious business 🧐
Here's the summary:
You are the Bride of the Sea God, bound to Rafayel across lifetimes. He's dying—his divine power fading without the one thing that can save him: your heart. But there's another way. An ancient ritual that hasn't been completed in thousands of years.
The Seven Midnight Pearls.
Collect all seven from the deepest ocean trenches before the New Year, and the blessing will strengthen his power—buying you time together before the inevitable choice must be made.
Three nights. Seven pearls. Each one guarded by trials that will test your courage, trust, and bond. The deeper you dive, the more dangerous it becomes—and the harder it is to resist the pull between you.
Can you complete the hunt and claim all seven pearls? Or will you surface with empty hands, your body aching for more but your future uncertain?
Dive deep and choose wisely.
Really sorry about this delay. Next year I'll focus more on meeting deadlines. Thank you for your patience! 💕
2025 Highlights:
In the 10 new Tapes we created this year, we dove deep into the LADS universe, Nanami finally got his happy ending, and some crew-favorite Tapes got long-awaited sequels. Smut scenes evolved from json files to mp4s, allowing more movement and immersion with physics and better ambience. Two Tapes (Sylus' and Caleb's) got their own soundtracks. And one captain, yours truly, learned she could actually do this, that this dream is actually happening ❤️
It wasn't without struggle though. I had to pull back a lot from being online. Family issues happened. Itch.io got nuked by payment processors, most of my games got delisted, and they no longer receive support from the website. And then there were new challenges, like the $99 I spent on an Apple Developer license to stop the security warnings on Macs, only to discover after a full day of troubleshooting that RPG Maker games can't be code-signed and the software won't provide support for that.
Or the day this month when I woke up and realized I couldn't see well from my left eye. It hurt, I had a headache, everything was blurry and I was seeing double. I even considered going to the emergency room, but it was the end of the month so I had to work. I know, I know, health first. But thankfully, it went away by the end of the day, and I'm getting it checked out and taking preventive measures now. This made me realize how much I'd been taking my sight for granted and not taking care of my body. I thought about what would happen if I lost my precious sight, and it broke my heart. I realized I wouldn't be able to continue with this dream, or it would become much, much harder.
But that scare was the wake-up call I needed. I made a promise to myself to take better care of my whole body next year, and I hope you'll join me in that!
It was a rough year in a lot of ways, but despite all the difficulties, here we are, and we keep going.
Looking Ahead to 2026:
There are still so many characters and fandoms to explore. With the new Patreon system I believe things will be more fun for everyone. I'm thinking of starting to upload videos to YouTube, especially about choosing the monthly character where you can participate, but I'll let you know more when the time comes!
With your support this year I was able to buy a license for Moho, another animation software. Thank you!! The learning curve is pretty steep, so I'm going to take my time to learn it well. I'm also studying the craft of writing again to bring more diverse stories, and I'll be reading some books about game design to see what else can be implemented.
There's a phrase I like: 'ars longa, vita brevis', which I think summarizes this journey. It basically means that mastering a craft takes a long time, and life is short. There's so much to learn, and I can't wait to see how we'll improve next year.
In the first part of the year, my goals are: first, to add all the games to Patreon. It's almost ready, and it will flood the main page because they'll all appear as posts at once. Don't worry though, I'm turning off notifications for them so you won't get spammed with 30+ alerts.
Then I'll finish the new title screen and implement the new tier system. I wanted to finish it this month, but I quickly learned that focusing on two art-related things at the same time means neither gets done, which contributed to this month's Tape delay.
I also want to start learning Moho and begin working on translations for past Tapes.
Final thoughts:
Thank you all so much for this year. Almost every piece of game content I consume shows me how much there is still to be made. The gap that exists. The amount of beautiful men and muscles we could be enjoying. I only wish I could do more for this community. But consistency is what matters. Little by little we'll add more and more content for the female gaze out there. And this is only possible because of your support. Thank you!
Here's to 2026, to more Tapes, and to all of us being a little unhinged together about fictional men.
Happy New Year, my dear crew.
With love,
Khywae 💕
Comments
Lirin
What Patreon level did we need to be to get the file? Sorry I’m confused 😵💫
Varsity 1
WE ARE SO BACK!!! I'm glad that you listened to what your body was saying. I've been having a similar reflection too with my eyesight noticing how I've been struggling to read things at a distance I normally should be able to see. Listen to it and let your eyes go back to how they used to be before you become nearsighted or worse.
