On Nine Months of Silence
Writing for TiTS on a lark turned into an unimaginable six years of full-time work on multiple games, opening doors I'd never dreamt of walking through. It saved my life too, three times now, but I failed to mature into the role responsibly, and I've been paying for my stubbornness ever since.
I didn't know how to pick my battles, or in other words, what projects to focus on and what I should have dropped before they spiraled out of control. That was clarified with my dabbling in a companion for CoC2, my biggest failing and greatest lack of foresight, and a hard lesson that required a lot of time to take to heart. I led folks on and on with it while simultaneously trying to force myself into it by doing things that only became a cycle of self-punishment, for instance commissioning so much art to attempt to justify and elongate a time-frame that existed only in my head. While there are many other severe factors that slowly took my heart out of that endeavor and destroyed my belief in it, they are wounds best not reopened; however, it does not change the fact that it all started with my naïve belief that I would be able to juggle that significant workload in a time where something new - and oftentimes bigger and more important - happened every month, a time, upon retrospect, where I should have embraced flexibility and learned to let go.
From working on Cloud 10 for a spell, from becoming employed on TiTS part-time and then later full-time, voraciously consuming the contents of every other document and submission to improve my work, all while not respecting the dangers in having unrestricted freedom to work on whatever I wanted with only myself to hold myself accountable. I'd worked two years with that modus operandi, as I was not necessarily obligated to any game. When those opportunities arose, I was found wanting, and that was stressed and exacerbated by many situations where I felt isolated by the occasional lack of a common aim with clear, unified and shared goals. When I first started in 2018 going into 2019, things were a lot different, but a lot of the people who were go-getting with me... simply aren't anymore. A lot of them moved on or vanished, and that's a dreadful feeling and a terrible running theme in my life, as I've lost more than a handful of people important to me over these years. The month-to-month events gradually became more and more negative and my general excitement and will to speak up drained as I sank into into the emotional turmoil of not having anything ready, despising myself for not having it ready, and the weeks and months piling up; a windy hall of mirrors, repeating endlessly.
My productivity gradually declined as well, from late 2020 onward, culminating in 2022 with an urgent need to relocate - many long, brutal months of house-hunting and sponging up the stress and anxiety of everyone around me, day in and day out. When the move finally went through, when everything was said and done, when I became a homeowner and finally picked back up again, I was shattered. The torment didn't end there either, despite the valuable certainty it gave us.
The downward trend finally 'peaked' with Sophora's extremely unfinished implementation last September. I hold no grudges over that, but it should not have happened. That it did, though, left me utterly crestfallen. It was something I took alone, as with most things. The last nine months of silence began with that, on top of every month bringing its own unique malus or two, usually some new madness integral to the travails of owning property.
Just to give one example, not the worst but one timed perfectly with another crushing experience, our insurance sent us a letter that they would be discontinuing service with us. The reason given was "tall trees / branches overhanging the property", even though every house in this neighborhood has tall (and very healthy, and very straight!) trees in their yards. It took two days to resolve that, one of the simpler things in fact. They helpfully disclosed the information of the company they obtained their information from (tall trees or somesuch) so I looked them up, and discovered that they're a heavily maligned bunch of con artists with overwhelmingly negative reviews out of Texas. A call to our insurance provider revealed they didn't even have pictures of these offending "trees / branches", and so the matter was resolved -- but they were still committed to severing us with NO EVIDENCE, by their own admission.
I then went on to experience COVID-19 over the course of a truly horrendous week in December, beginning with a fever more intense than any in my life. I remember going to sleep and waking in genuine delirium and confusion, finding it impossible to speak cogently while also realizing that my faculties were severely diminished. I went to the hospital and received no care, not even a cup of water, and my primary care provider gave me no assistance beyond "if you need to clear your sinuses, go into the bathroom and run the hot water so the steam can clear it up a bit". At the end of it all, I was left bitter, furious beyond words, and then that turned into an equally intense depression at the start of 2023, hardening my inability to communicate out of shame and embarrassment.
That brings the explanation of my diminished presence to a close. That's all in the past, now I will tell you about the future.
I'm still here.
I'm not gone yet, and there's still all the time in the world to deliver on TiTS projects. The pendulum has begun to swing the other direction. Times'll be tough for a while longer, but I'll put myself back together again. I will be preparing one more CoC2 project as I can - Kura Pregnancy, of which the document exists and is laid out, and then I will devote myself only to TiTS, and try to rebuild my confidence and your confidence in me. The current project getting pushed on is the expansion for the Jumpers, Sophora, and Vanika (the Shock Hopper) with some collaboration from Nonesuch for a few unique smut scenes I was able to sell him on. This will feature a quest to resolve Sophora's attacks peacefully and learn Zheng Shi's history while affecting some very unique changes in the story. I'll share the doc soon. I can't give any concrete release dates or finish dates, as there's no telling when something gets coded due to the constant updates & bug fixings courtesy of Gedan and Jacques00. When It's Done™ is my only answer for now.
I'll start returning to regular updates - from now on, I'll talk about whatever I've done every Wednesday, coinciding with TiTS work meetings. Over these last few years, there were assets and materials I've been slowly accruing, pieces of other, non-smut works I'll present and release someday.
Thank you for your continued support not of myself, but of TiTS, without which I would not be here. So long as I'm still here, I'll do my best to make things right.
