*Coughs and splutters awake* AGH! Oh gourd, it's still going. I could've sworn we reached the final level. Well, okay, we're back in the saddle I guess! Another year of getting our proverbial backside in gear, setting up overt levels of self-organisation and then promptly forgetting the aforementioned organisation. Ooh, a shiny!
There are two big 'twixt-update highlights to thrust a large foam finger toward, the first of which being the release of the second and final Curse: Eye of Isis highlight video. This doesn't count as news so much since I've already made a patreon post containing it, but it's my update post and I'll repeat myself as many times as I like! Why? Because it's my update post and I'll repeat myself as many times as I like!
I also finally managed to flop out a newsletter on new year's eve, because what else are you going to do on that day? Comics, videos, puzzles, recommendations and the first in what I hope is a recurring entry of 'Do-alogues', scribbly journal-like doodlings of my attempts at trying something new. I did slightly nick the idea from Temmie, but by linking you to them I think I can be exonerated and/or you can be distracted enough to forget it.
From this point on I need to work out how to shepherd all of the little fluffball ideas I've been blowing around into something that's not too long and waffly. So here goes:
Between Crimmus and new years with family, I edited my seasonal card-making video ready for release when they finally arrive at their destinations (3 to go!). As two more videos got their start, my now-yearly bingo card of personal goals was forged and a little time was spent breaking my ideas for the year down into structurable data. Consolidation was the name of the game, as these forward plans, my myriad of desk notes, and all music for my long-maligned album THUNK got a proper tidy and sort-out. Taking time for myself a tad, I bought some cheap colour pencils and began notebook doodling, whilst also rendering a digital portrait for my Crooked Moon RPG character Saltarello and crocheting a small cactuar pin-cushion. Returning to work in the new year, I added a variety of stream functionalities under the hood - audio-balancing, streamlining asset creation, readying for future group streams and more !locked and !heckle nonsense - before diving foot-first back into commissions, going so far as to finally open up sketch, doodle and emote commissions on my Ko-fi page.
There, I think that was concise enough.
Bad news I'm afraid: It may be a new year, but I haven't yet forgotten entirely how to stream, so you're just going to have to keep putting up with it.
In the tumult of the season we've endured chops-and-changes between scheduled streaming. An abyssal undercurrent of Silksong holds us steady, intermittently interrupted with new year Tracks'n'Chat with friends.
Saturday friend games have been all in-a-tizzy, leaping from Archipelago randomisers, to Euro Truck tech-exploding nightmares, to hootenanny-straddling Cthulhu: Death May Die board game silliness. Going forth we've the session 0 for a new batch of little Grim Hollow RPG adventures, before we hop back into the lands of, uh... *checks wiki*... The Lands Between for some '"Seamless"' Elden Ring co-op fun!
And, naturally Sundays mark our chill doodlage, crossing the OC streams and giving our friends vicarious scribble-hugs and/or nightmares.
Right, that was a lot, but I'd like to spend a little bit of time at the end here reflecting on my goals for the year. My aforementioned but a-aft-positioned bingo card probably says a lot about extracurricular activities, but I'd like to emphasise my focus on whatever it is that constitutes my job around here. I'm nailing my hand to the mast, as they don't say, and declaring that this year my task is, as a minimum, to create 1 video, 1 full comic and 1 newsletter per month, alongside enough commission work and patreon income to actually cover my living costs, hopefully more. This specificity will hopefully give me some much-needed focus and coerce me into planning ahead, with a guide for how to adapt as things inevitably change.
The rest of my bingo squares are, I think, largely self-explanatory either now or in finished form. Some you may see in videos, some you may get in these updates, some may become physical rewards or gifts, some may become newsletter doalogue fodder, some you may never see again. I don't think you need to look at a small pile of mended shirts and trousers really, do you? I'm not waiting for an answer I don't want to hear.
Right, waffle over, I've got work to do! I hope the start of the year has treated you as well as you deserve (that's pretty gourd-darned well, let me tell you) and continues to do so despite how interesting the times we live in become. Thank you ever so much for yet another year of support, I am just as bemused as to how that keeps happening, so I'll just keep trying to make it up to you in my own inconsistent fashion.
Look after yourselves,
Crispy 💜