hi

I apologise in advance, this won't be a positive post. This year was awful and beyond depressing. And the future feels bleak.

Me and my friends' struggle to afford living, while our professions are being stolen by soulless machines, developed and advocated for by equally soulless people. Our group suddenly lost a dear, longtime friend, and right after that, another had a brush-in with death due to a sudden medical emergency, and recovered only to be pulled back into thankless, unsustainable grind everyone is stuck in - because you've gotta survive, somehow. Don't even get me started on the violent events happening around the world.

Everyone seems just… so damn tired. Disillusioned. Resigned.

Frankly, I'm at a point where I regret not pushing through my burnout and health issues, to do more of my personal projects, stuff I consider a part of "actually living", when it was still feasible. Because allowing myself to heal, currently feels like a wasted time. Even though I know this is an irresponsible and unfair thing to say. Also very rich, considering even remembering to drink or eat felt too exhausting and mentally taxing during those days.

But I will keep crawling forward, not because I feel any hope anymore, or have strength left - but because what other option is there? I want to return to the fancomic I'm making, even though it's been in limbo for months. I want to keep contributing to my friends' gamedev projects. I still want to keep pursuing my passions, fulfil my goals. Even though, honestly, right now I don't know when and if it will be possible.

I may desperately feel like I want to turn into a stone statue, but the truth is, it's just the lethargy and apathy talking.

What I really want is to fucking live. I want me and my friends to thrive, to feel secure, and be able to do something that has meaning. Not struggle to barely vegetate in a world that never rewards, but only seeks to exploit our efforts to a point of them feeling futile.

That's it.

(Some panel teasers first! ...Gonta sanity fine.)

I took a few months long break from personal drawings - an *actual* break, not just sitting in front of a screen, tired, stewing in guilt that I'm tired, and that I can't magically muscle through burnout, or headache, or exhaustion.

My brain was stuck in a loop of berating myself for underperforming, not doing well enough, for taking so long on "mere" 27 pages, when in the past I could finish a 90-page webcomic chapter much faster. I wouldn't let myself rest, because I didn't do enough; but I couldn't do enough, because I didn't allow myself to rest. And it's been going on for months and months.

What a stupid, unconstructive thing to do to myself. I was only spiralling down, intimidating and overwhelming myself with work on the one thing I specifically wanted to keep doing out of joy, not ambition and pedantism. So I decided to just say "fuck it" and stop for a while. Like, actually stop, do something else and try to feel unapologetic about it.

So I briefly took up sewing, a creative activity I had no personal stake in, and then I started PVP-ing in DS3 (sorry if I happened to kick your butt in there. Rest assured my butt gets kicked just as much), which did wonders, too, as non-artistic pastime.

And, in the end, it seems it worked.

I finally feel this internal drive to draw again. Sadly, I can't spend all of my free time on the doujin (I might need to open commissions soon), so my pacing will still be glacial... But there was an internal change from "I have to, I have to, I must..." back to "I want to". And this is all that matters.

Still, that makes me think... while technically I don't have deadlines, the comic has taken so much longer than I thought it would - and it will take a while still. Thus, I wonder if I shouldn't change my approach re publishing it.

The initial idea was to post it all at once when it's fully finished, but I debate releasing it one page at a time instead, while it's still work in progress.

Thing is, I don't think it would be good for overall pacing. I don't want to sacrifice it, plus I can't guarantee regular uploads, esp since I don't exactly work on the pages in chronological order (While the first page is done, it was drawn after I finished a few in the middle & at the end; and there are still a few important pages/panels in first half I'm a bit too afraid of touching just yet, wanting to do them justice. This is how I work in general, jumping around rather than sticking to overly strict linear order.)

The compromise would be to post like 3-5 pages per post, making it so each upload covers a specific scene, however, same issue arises - I can't promise regular uploads. In the end it feels like a half-measure. But maybe it's a good idea, despite that impression?

There's a secret option, too - if this takes absurdly long, my plan was to just post the storyboard, after replacing some panels/pages with already finished drawings. The thing is readable as is, and long finished on that front anyway. My personal deadline for that was "right before my current lease ends", but, well… I plan on extending it anyway, and again... it's just a back-up option for when everything else fails. In the end, I just want to finish the comic, and present it how it's meant to be presented, however long it will take.

All those things considered, I'll stick to the original plan for now... and then we shall see. I simply wanted to share where things stand currently, and where they might go.