Consistency is hard, and Potential rather meaningless, when you don't even know what to expect from yourself.

Sometimes, all of the words in the world aren't enough to express feelings in a way that they deserve.

Regular programming will resume soon, with any luck. Until then, thank you all for your continued support.

It's now just a few days till I'm properly back home since I left at the beginning of December. It's been an amazing time.

Our life has truly grown far beyond what I could've hoped for just a few years ago, to the point where I now feel like my art - fantastical and idealised as it is - is what's lagging behind all that we've received, experienced, and learned lately. It's genuinely gotten hard to keep up, and calling ourselves "blessed" is an understatement.

Visiting, living, and being with people who have grown close to us, contributed to, and been a part of this fucking crazy journey we've been on since we've started transitioning has made me ever more and endlessly grateful for what we have. The experiences we shared together were and will always be precious to me.

While giving room for my anxieties about my privilege and good fortune, I must trust that none of those involved would want this to be transactional, and that their appreciation of the time we had together is mutual; still, I feel I owe a great deal now, more than ever.

Importantly, though, what I owe is more fundamental than reciprocating: it's to be as much myself as I can possibly muster.

The biggest issue, which is what I've grappled with the hardest while on this latest trip, has been my apparent fear and apprehension of doing just that. I've grown a lot more gregarious with expressing and acting true to myself in person than I've ever been before, but even so, I've struggled to follow through in a similar way with my art.

That may come as a bit of a surprise given the subjects I've been posting about lately (perhaps not so much given the relative infrequency and simplicity of the art - though that's the anxieties talking again), but it's true. I've been extremely inspired lately on a regular basis with all the life I've been getting to live, but any time I have the opportunity to put that to good use, and channel it into my craft, I recoil. Cower, even.

Sapphire Synonym has been on my mind almost constantly ever since I came up with the concept. But as I've been trying to push through and commit to what has essentially been a lifelong goal of mine, the reluctance and apprehension I've felt about it all have only grown stronger.

I'm scared of it, and I can't explain why; not because I don't know, but because there's so many different reasons that I'm aware of. It would take too long and get me nowhere, and even so, I am painfully aware that a lot of the fears are only perceived, and not real. My perfectionism, fear of failure, aversion to commitment, and impatience on top of all that..

None of it matters if I could just Make. Draw. Create. Write. Share. Do. It's the only fix.

I am aware of the irony of chastising myself for not creating due to being effectively mentally unwell, but the frustration feels justified. My inaction is only prolonging the vicious cycle I feel stuck in, as I continue punishing myself for wanting to be ambitious with the work I ostensibly love to do. The list of ideas grows, with none of the follow-through.

Several people have discussed these issues with me multiple times over this trip to try to help me, but it still feels like I'm no closer to budging on this deep-seated fear of committing fully to creating things the way I so badly want to. I have so much going for me, and I feel very strongly that that should be enough for me to thrive.

While it ought to be as simple as getting to it once I'm back home again, my past struggles with doing just that - after trips which were even more eventful and inspiring than this - make me worry and doubt myself rather severely. While visiting my girlfriend Arwyn, she showed me some of the physical rewards that I used to send out to my patrons way back when, and she'd kept since then. One of the enclosed letters, dated 2017, had me discussing my ongoing insecurities, and with how many issues I described similar to those in this post, it genuinely read as though I may as well have written it today.

I just want to be okay, and find it a little easier to put in the work I need in order to succeed - not materially (although that would be a nice bonus), but at making the things I have the ambition for. I've done it before, and it's the entire reason why I'm on the path that I am today; but I feel like something is wrong, it has been for a while, and I'd very much like for it not to be any more.

Thank you for reading.

I was spurred on to make this after several experiences I've had this year, accompanied by the advice and support I've gotten from folks like Garnet and Never while talking about the core issues I have revolving around what seemed like a simple fascination I have with either sharing, or outright giving first time experiences to people.

I was at least cautious of the impact that this could potentially have on my relationships, so I made sure not to let it get in the way of things - but hidden underneath was something a bit more fundamental that I was missing for the bigger picture.

I think I could've managed to make this a little bit better, but it does the job well enough and I'm better off for having made it at all. I'm especially fond of how Rayna in a more of a yokai form came out looking, though; and I think she looks really pretty in the last few frames, there.

I love Ping Pong the Animation. The story explores the pursuit of passions, and the personal goals within them which was, unsurprisingly, absolutely fascinating and extremely relevant to me. I usually latch onto (and frankly, project myself onto) a single character within a story if I relate to them enough, but in this unique case, I saw a different little bit of me in several characters over the course of the story. Many of their different attitudes aligned with aspects of my own over the course of my career, which then also shifted over the course of the story.

Given how well things have been going for me lately, including and especially with regards to my art, I believe I discovered the show at just the right time. It encouraged me to actively consider my attitude towards various aspects of what I do, why I do it, and how it reflects upon myself, as well as how that's changed over the years.

It does touch upon some existential themes which were a little harder for me to deal with, but even so, it certainly gave me a lot to think about; some of which I still have to figure out for myself, too.

The opening themesong, Tadahitori, was probably what left the first, biggest impression on me. While some of the lyrics' meaning probably gets lost in translation (there's at least three subtly different takes on it), the intent and message that I could garner from it stuck with me quite strongly either way. By the end of the show, with all the separate plot threads tied up and the repercussions laid out, I knew I couldn't let that feeling of purpose that it gave me fade away without committing it to canvas.

There's more about the creative process below the illustration.

I originally set out to try mimicking the anime's rough, gritty, apparently almost careless style (which I mean in an entirely good way), but it was too far a departure from my usual smooth, clean lines, and ended up being impossible for me to pull off in a single attempt. The brush I chose for the lines frankly does most of the work towards achieving a similar look at all, and even then, I ended up finishing the piece by polishing the linework even more, only diverging further from what I originally meant to do.

That having been said, I'm still very pleased with the result. The whole process effectively served as an exercise in reflecting on my achievements, looking back on a lot of my recent work and celebrating it in my own way. I think it does a good job of conveying the joy that I've felt lately with making and sharing things with you all, even if it can sometimes be a rather lonely and daunting endeavor.

Basically, I'm altogether excited, optimistic, and determined to keep doing more and better in spite of all of that, and the song's lyrics very much spoke to those same feelings I've been grappling with over the years.

Ever since Chili became a thing, I've been feeling things out, and it seems like I've found a few more rabbits bouncing around inside my head. One particularly loud voice was one that I've chalked up to my habitually intrusive, anxious, fearful, and worried thoughts.

Flake is the one whose been mostly responsible for those thoughts, is unsurprisingly a hare, and seeks out problems and danger for us to be careful of and stay away from - perhaps a tad too insistently at times. Her fur colours are more muted, wears a shock collar, is "taller" than me but stands shorter cause of how she slouches. She often doesn't bother wearing her glasses.

When we're feeling especially scared, I've taken to calling it "Flaking out," as I depicted in the follow-up comic I made after first pinning down her design.

Expressing this aspect in different ways has actually made it easier at times to give room to the worried, scared, perhaps spiralling thoughts that sometimes crop up. It's let me give them space, rather than letting them fester inside my own head in the interests of keeping us safe. It's been interesting, to say the least.

I Want, but I Can't.

Chili and I have started aligning a bit better. It's still a struggle.

Being ignored and forgotten are among my worst fears; but likewise, I want to be known for my best aspects as much as I can manage. I want to be honest and genuine, and to share in my joys and sorrows, but also be a good example for whoever is paying attention.

It's stressful at times, sure, but I know I've done some good in the world, so I'm going to keep doing it.

I'd been thinking about this for a while, so it came to me with relative ease despite it being 90% background (and I usually avoid drawing backgrounds). Working on this on stream today and getting it done in about the span of an hour and a half felt really good.

Thank you for being here and not just paying attention, but supporting me directly, too.

My latest return home has once again proven challenging to me, and last night was especially difficult. I decided to stream and work on some art that came to mind while I was struggling, and I'm both very pleased with the results and feeling better for having made them all.

First we have one that sums up my issues with pursuing what it is I want for myself. I struggle with asking for things in the first place, so when it becomes a problem then I don't even know where to start.

One stylistic detail that ended up being a little too subtle in the final piece to easily notice is that I used a different brush for the linework in either half - I felt like they helped further convey the feelings held within me that the dialogue and posing might not have on their own. I also realized halfway through the process that I actually hadn't drawn kid chocolate exactly on model, and looks more like a midpoint between the two of us. I didn't bother "fixing" it since that has plenty of implications that I think elevate the piece even further.

Next is this one, which captured the vibe of more recent experiences, such as this weekend's.

Given the above context, I think it should speak for itself.

One year ago today, my puppygirl egg got shattered. A lot happened that built up to that one key moment, but that was the absolute point of no return.

Since then I've gotten to enjoy a whole slew of new sensations and experiences I certainly otherwise wouldn't have, and even helped many other girls discover and learn more about their pet-aligned aspects as well. It's all been especially fun for me.

I wouldn't trade Puppy for the world. I'm so happy to have finally accepted this side of myself, cause she's genuinely helped me thrive ever since then, and for a long time to come too, I'm sure.

The longer it's persisted, the harder it's gotten to ignore...

This isn't a problem nor a bad thing, but I've always taken these kinds of questions about identity very seriously, and as I've joked in the past, I've historically tended to be more closeted about my puppygirl side than my transgirl side.

My recent experiences being Garnet's pet has made it hard to deny, even for my own reluctant self.

This has been - and I know I say this for a lot of things, but it applies more than ever here - a long time coming.

This is the piece that first inspired Art is Poison. You can actually read more about my struggles with this comic's inception within that post, which I would encourage you to do. The four and a half months between then and now that I worked on this intermittently were fairly protracted; marked with self-doubt, questioning, and uncertainty about whether it was worth seeing through to the end.

The last six pages were the hardest to get done. I think that by the time I got that far, I'd ran out of mileage that "doing it for myself" could grant me, which gave way to questioning whether I did it right, and if anybody would even understand what it was I tried to say with this comic, never mind relating to or appreciating it.

In any case; I did do it, and it's the biggest project I've taken on in many years now, which is quite the achievement. It feels good to bring it to a close, rather than giving up as I've felt tempted to do from the moment I had the idea.

I'm proud of this piece.

I hope you like it; but if not, no worries. Thank you for giving it a look either way.