scene 35 wip + fanta talks a lot

Mimi and eyesss. it's so fun to draw close-ups. i've started to line scene 35 and i'm making nice progress. i'm not promising anything, but it could be that i'm done a little earlier than usual with this scene. i'll keep you updated on that 💙

and i'm not sure how to say it, but... maybe you have read my tweets at the beginning of the month? after the last public update i distanced myself from certain things big time. i tried to find the source of my unhappiness regarding some things for quite some time now, and after doing a lot of thinking and listening to podcasts, and talking things through, i think i have found it. i just don't want to feel bad about my story and myself and my pace anymore.

it's easy to lose direction when you work in the webcomic industry (or any content creator industry really) ... the peer pressure and pressure from the audience is huge, the need to keep up with the others is too, the platform algorithms demand steady fast updating or else you'll be forgotten, or else you're not eligible for ad revenue, if you don't get enough views you won't get paid, the fast paced consuming makes people very demanding and impatient and *rude* and it leads to some readers not appreciating panels, or plot... or anything, even if it's free to read. which then makes me think the work was not entirely worth it. and so on. there is a lot more to it than i can tell in only a few sentences... 

i questioned my story more than once. almost regretted making it so complex, because if it was simpler and if i wouldn't add so many details, i could do more pages instead... could stay on top of the lists. but at what cost? it wouldn't even be Ghost Lights then? .... you see the problem? to be honest it all made me so unhappy. like everyone else i was chasing something, numbers, views, i don't even know, never feeling good enough. i tried to keep up because i don't want to stop the comic. i just want to keep working on it. it's my goal to create a fulfilling story for others to read. but i guess the truth is, that if i would keep at it like this (feeling guilty about the way i do things) i would have to stop anyway. 

i'm just very glad that i always had a ton of kind people around me who told me that it's okay to do it my way. very patient people, people who told me all their feelings and theories ;; who made me super happy and motivated me to draw and share (you did that, too!) that's why, even though the guilty feeling was always kinda there, i still did it like i wanted. and i'm so glad about it, because no, i don't regret making the story the way it is. it's just that this... i call it machinery, or whatever... doesn't match with what i want at all. i love to draw, i love the task of drawing. i love to spend a bit more time on details and to put easter eggs into dialogue and backgrounds for you guys to discover. and i love to tell stories and to spend time with my characters. when i realized all of this, i felt relieved. because those are all things i wanted from the beginning, and they're all still there. so my goals haven't changed... just got a bit lost.

it will probably take a while to not be so affected anymore, but i want to focus on the important things. continue to look after my health. and block some other stuff instead. as you can see, i thought a lot about what's important for me and what isn't. you're so important to me, too! like a broken record: you're a big reason why the story and the characters are the way they are ; _; 🦌💕 you just help me so much and i wish i could hug you all