So what's happening with Story?

Instructions

(VERY, VERY LONG - I might make a reading later) I've been less active for many reasons, mostly procrastination and laziness, but also for major reasons that lead to the aforementioned mishaps. Firstly, I put (or used to put) a lot of effort in these parts. I put aside animation memes to make _to_take_over_, which was my first ever attempt to write a story (which is buns, not gonna lie). Then I helped nurture The Corruption is Coming's lore, and now Project Ultimus. That's about three years of my childhood locked up in my room alone, first due to the Pandemic, and then having no friends in real life and needing a mental escape from my home life (I don't wish to get into detail on that). I'm quite proud of my work, even with the more embarrassing stuff. But there's change. Obviously there's no more pandemic, I've finally pushed myself to get the great friends I have today, home life.. hasn't really changed, but it's… manageable now that I've matured to handle things better. Both of my parents work now that they have two kids old enough to care for the younger ones. And I started high school with art, in the visual arts conservatory, and let me tell you, it's... not fun at times, it's sometimes as if the teachers don't know we have other classes (one teacher made us take notes on 12 full-article lessons as two-days-only homework, while the teacher wanted a fully rendered pegasus drawing in less than a week ToT). Real pain in the [butt] And most of all... Thing 1... I don't like Among Us as much anymore. I know that's very contradictory to my whole internet persona, my literal username is "story AS AMONG US," but that's the thing. I don't want to forever be the "Among Us Scratch kid," I only did that because I loved Among Us to the point of drawing it a bunch when I was 8. I'm 15 now. And I don't even think I want to do animation anymore, that's Thing 2. I started Scratch because I wanted to have fun making storytime animations. Along the way (almost only 3 months in) I gave that up for animation memes which I regret to this day. I finally put that aside to make my own story for the first time, which is how "_to_take_over_" was born. After the failed attempts to make it a collaborative ARG, I gave up, and tried making Solum Unum, which I only did two episodes on. Then I found TCIC, and it called to me, the idea, but mostly the story. I animated my ideas, put my heart into it, but the core idea was to push the narrative to be mostly smoothly-running. And yeah, when Isaac dropped the craziest OP weapon or character, I was usually the custodian in charge of putting it all in place… But animating took a long time, a lot of effort, and it was not being very supported. I tried to ignore that last fact, especially with Demon's gratitude, but it was pretty depressing. Which is mostly why my quality began to plummet and what led me to stop as a whole. Then I was called by Minty to help out with TCIC's sister story, Project Ultimus, and I was pretty on board. My quality was... okay. But again, my interest was the lore itself, and writing mostly. But that pressure of keeping up with animating and voice acting returned. I had set a high bar for myself that became more daunting to reach every day, which is why my quality lowered more. I felt disappointed that it didn't feel good enough, projects grew smaller or not even animations anymore, until I slowed to the stagnation I'm at now. When I was 8, I was just a carefree boy, probably with undiagnosed clinical depression, moving little sprites and costumes for fun, but as I've grown, I have responsibilities that eat up my time to really sit down and make something big, good, and something I'm proud of. And now, animating these stories has begun to feel more like a 9-to-5 job than a fun experience (no shade to Isaac or Minty). I've begun to consider leaving Scratch, but I'm still not sure I'm ready to make that big step.