Quick(-ish.... ok not really) 1/24 Update!

Hi yall, just wanted to post something because I've been a bit busy for a while and I felt like I haven't made that super obvious, and so it might look like I've gone eerily quiet for a bit lol

First things first, content! Expect this month's cosplay-themed pics (the sequence and pinup) to come out this week, and the monthly frames to come out on the 31st! Apologies for the further delays on "Have Some Class, Hero!", I've just been swamped with a lot of current obligations, including my present day job, as well as just some personal things regarding my family life, my personal mood, and also brainstorming a lot about what I'm gonna do next. 

Let's start off with future projects: I know I've teased doing a second run on HSCH once the first is complete for those who are up for it, but I also am up for starting a different sort of interactive comic with a different pitch. I'm not entirely sure myself since I get that some folks REALLY wanna know what happens on other paths (and to a degree I want to try another run just so the work I put into scripting the other paths doesn't go entirely unused and unknown lol), but I think I'll leave it up to you guys by putting up a patron poll upon HSCH's completion. 

Something I've been thinking of in an on/off capacity for a while is perhaps doing followup sequels to some of my previous comics. I've teased doing a sequel to "Anything for Milady" (the princess swap TG) for a long-ass time, and I ended up not doing one immediately ironically because I had so many potential ideas that I knew I couldn't really make the time for them. At this point though, I probably should do one just because at this point it's an unfulfilled promise, even though yknow... I do very much like that comic and wanna see how Hunter!Princess fares >:)

Another thing I've been thinking of a lot more recently is, weirdly enough, some more animation. Not too big animations, because I still do remember "Unholy Bliss" and feel a bit PTSD'd about it right now, so don't expect any animations I make in the next while to be like, insanely detailed and robust and stuff. HOWEVER, I still do very much enjoy the process when it isn't burning me out, and I have an idea for a short TGTF animation I wanna do next month or so, at least as like a test for some more robust ideas beyond the RPG-style pastiche I did with my previous ones. The pitch/concept will be a secret for now, but I know how I wanna make it and I think yall are gonna like that once I get to it :D

Maybe we can mix some patron interactivity and somehow allow you guys to participate in pitching ideas for a prompt for a TGTF animation? That's thinking really far ahead haha, but I do wanna find ways for yall to get more involved with the creation process and fluff fun ideas into the works, but we'll see how that goes.

There's also the matter of longer-term comics I pitched a while ago: I'm still in the midst of writing "Thanks For Listening" and "RunGunBun" and having a lot of fun with them, and I'm especially anxious to get started on doing "Thanks For Listening" fairly soon since I already have a very firm direction on where I want to go with it and how to present it -- a mostly monochrome slice-of-life with semi-autobiographical elements... with a protag who inexplicably went from male to female overnight. It's a story I do picture having a very definitive length but probably would constitute a pretty long series with a few chapters, but it's a story I really wanna tell and get out with the world :D

"RunGunBun" meanwhile is very much a longterm work in progress because it's much more of me cutting loose and cramming together a load of scifi/fantasy concepts into one space opera-ish package loosely inspired by early 90's anime. I have less of an idea of when that will launch and how it will fare out, but that's also a thing I'm really excited on and want to do in the future just because it seems really fun!

Now while I'm here I think I should talk about some other stuff that's on my mind, and I hope to keep it brief for reasons I hope you can infer from my talking of it: basically I've needed to relearn how to mellow myself out and I guess not be so bothered by "bad news", whatever they may be, and have been trying to take a little more time to myself lately.

I think I might've mentioned it somewhere in a past post or tweet but in the last half-year or so, I got pretty seized up by anxiety due to several big personal troubles all coming in at once, from health scares to very petty worries about online interactions and paranoia due to things happening to my friends and peers. A bunch of them slowly petered out over the months, and I got back to seeing my therapist again semi-regularly to get a handle on my emotions, but I'm honestly still in a place where it feels like I'm way more sensitive to news around me (not just media news, I mean like, my friends telling me they have something bad going on in their life), and that ends up affecting me and how well I'm able to work and think creatively.

I dunno if I'm great at portraying this, but I consider myself REALLY empathetic and end up REALLY caring about what's going on with the folks around me probably to a fault, in that I may see something bad happen to them and then feel like crap because it doesn't feel like there's much that I can do other than listen to them, or (if we're being honest), just not. I find myself in a bit of a rock and a hard place whenever someone mentions a family friend getting sick, something bad happening at their job, a company of something they love doing a really bad thing, or dealing with their own general anxieties and paranoia and stuff, because it kinda feels like something I end up not being able to handle myself. I sometimes find the need to find a healthy outlet for my worries and tension, only to balk at the last second because I'm scared that what I'm gonna say is gonna drastically affect other people in a negative way where they feel the same, ie unable to help and themselves becoming too scared and uncomfortable to offer a semblance of reassurance.

I hope yall don't think of this as like an invitation to ask further about what I'm on about lol, like "hey uh Cosmo, are you okay? No, really, do you need to talk about it?" because right now I am a bit in a limbo state of being unsure of how well I really wanna open up about it beyond the scope of my professional therapist who I trust -- I don't wanna share anything that may end up really scaring yall, or at least stuff that I THINK is scary that yall might actually be really easygoing with, but still gives me trouble breathing and heartaches if I dwell on it too hard. I guess to keep yall from getting totally worried: don't fret, I'm feeling perfectly safe and I have a lot of plans, artistic and personal, this is just a pretty weird personal funk to get through.

I think part of this process though is me needing to be a little more tempered with my self-imposed "obligations". With social media especially, sometimes I do get burnt out and make myself scared by over-worrying about how I engage with folks on it in light of things that trigger or upset me, as well as making myself feel like I HAVE to do such and such to "seem active" to people who like me but may not "know" me. It's not fun feeling like I have to constantly reach this "default-by-mental-reflex" level of expectation of how I act on the internet and through my art that only increases as my ambition gets bigger and bigger, because that quickly turns into a chronic frustration in having no solutions to the problem of being myself.

So, yeah, I basically need to chill out more and accept myself as is better, haha

Thank you all for your continued support, it really does mean the most to me! I really am excited to be able to do more very soon, I'm just still in the process of re-learning to temper myself as to not burn myself out and smother myself with my anxieties. Hopefully things get better soon, and whatever positive momentum from my new projects transfer into better vibes for my personal life, or heck, the good news come first and I get spurred into more creative action. We'll see! :D