update no. Bajillion

Instructions

Im gonna be so honest im tired of making these kinds of posts, but I don’t know any better format thats easier on myself to do so. Hi !! Here’s another update. I sincerely apologize to any of you who have asked me when I’ll be posting my next art dump, to which i have responded “in a few days!” It has not been a few days. I understand that. I am sorry for making you wait so long and for being misleading about my posting schedule. It feels like there’s been a lot going on, even though there actually hasn’t been a lot going on. I’m not quite sure where to start. I have thankfully started summer break! Unfortunately, it feels just as stressful — perhaps it’s a different kind of stress at a similar, if not higher intensity — as when the school year was still ongoing. I’m not totally sure what happened or when it happened; I’m going to assume that everything started once I had finished AP testing. After finishing AP testing, I was completely out of it. Perhaps it’s the amount of cramming I did; whatever the case, I just /could not/ do any more work. I was unable to focus, unable to sit down and study, and just had a general lack of motivation to do anything whatsoever. At the time I was struggling to pinpoint whether or not it was simply me being lazy, or if it was something deeper, like burnout. It was likely the latter; I understood that it was necessary for me to study, or else I’d fail my finals (for context, AP testing is the week before finals week), yet sitting down and starting felt the equivalent to ripping out each of my teeth with pliers. My brain simply refused to cooperate and let me begin my tasks, especially ones that required prolonged focus. This lack of motivation became much, much more prominent once school ended. I was very grateful to not have to do any assignments anymore, don’t get me wrong, but I found that I no longer had the will to do things in general. For example, preparing a meal for myself now seems like such a hassle. What used to be “I’m going to go cook myself an egg” turned into “i need to get up, walk to the kitchen, open the fridge, find the eggs, pour oil on the pan, turn on the stove, wait for the pan to get hot, find some bread, put it in the oven, crack open the egg, wait for it to cook, check to see if it’s cooked, flip it over, wait for it to cook, check both sides to see if they’re cooked, take my toast out of the oven, put my egg on top of the toast, clean the pan”. It just feels like too many steps that I dont have the energy or willpower to do. I don’t have much motivation to pick myself up off the floor to go find a book to read, or to sit down in front of the TV to play some videogames, or to turn on Spotify to listen to my favorite music. It makes me feel lazy without cause and I can’t explain myself to my parents because I don’t know how to. How can I make them understand if I don’t understand myself? Perhaps the worst of them all is drawing. It terrifies me to see these words, but I am no longer enjoying the creative process. I do believe there are several factors playing into this, such as drawing being a form of compensation for me to take my mind off stressful matters (ie school), art block, the lack of motivation to do anything, joining and then leaving a disc(o party) server, trying to discover my relationship with my ocs, why I create them, who I create them for, and whether or not I draw for myself or for other people. I know it’s important to draw for yourself, and I keep emphasizing that to other artists, yet I suddenly find it much more difficult to actually do it. Some of these issues (such as my relationship with my ocs) I feel are matters too personally complicated to discuss openly on scratch. I am still trying to figure things out myself as we speak. Another large factor that has been hindering the creative process for myself is the recent controversy concerning Dandy’s World and BlushCrunch Studios. I do believe that the subject is much too sensitive and not appropriate for a platform like scratch, but in short, I am still very confused and I do not know how I feel about being associated with the Dandy’s World fandom. I have been trying to separate the art from the artist, if you will, and trying to still be able to enjoy the game and my DW ocs outside of the drama, but I simply cannot see things the way they used to be. I feel uneasy drawing my DW ocs and DW fanart, even though it was my go-to subject whenever I was in an art rut (like now). This also partially explains why i haven’t been posting much now, since I’ve mostly been drawing DW, and I do not know how people will react to DW content and I do not want to spark any arguments or hate. !! PLEASE DO NOT DISCUSS THE DW CONTROVERSY HERE, AS IT CONTAINS SENSITIVE SUBJECT MATTER. IF YOU ARE CONFUSED ABOUT WHAT’S GOING ON, I ENCOURAGE YOU TO DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH. MANY ON YT HAVE MADE VIDEOS AND POSTED THE DOCUMENTS DESCRIBING WHAT HAS HAPPENED. !!