Yeah, no, you're 100% right that it's not healthy to do what I did there, haha. I definitely won't be doing it again x3 And I'm definitely staying away from jams for the rest of the year :3 But hooray for October :D Heck, thank YOU for taking the time to sit and write such kind words :3

And your support means the world <3 so thank you for that too ^-^ That sucks that you had to go through rough times in the first place >.< but I'm glad if SR could help a little :3 The thought that any of my games could help make someone's life a tiny bit brighter somehow makes them even more worth making! I never really imagined back when I was trying to make SR that anything I ever make could possibly have an impact like that x3 but I'm very glad it did. I wish there were ways I could help people more in general! But I'm not very good at it when I can't even look after myself properly >.<” haha.

You have a wonderful month yourself :3 You deserve happy times! ^-^

Aww, you're so kind <3 Yeah, I am still finding it a mystery as to how anyone manages to actually gain self-confidence and stuff x3 I don't even like making tweets because I feel so weird about trying to promote my stuff, like somehow I don't have the right to shout about it or whatever, haha. It's silly, but I guess it all comes from stuff that's happened in the past >.< I mostly blame it on school! I feel like my life was actually okay before I started school, and home videos of me prior to starting primary school are evidence that I actually did have confidence at one point in my life xD Heck, I do not even remotely recognise the girl on those tapes, haha. Pretty much everything went downhill from school onwards >.<

But anyways, enough moping about the past cos I can't change it, haha. Funnily enough, I actually am working away on something else new right now x3 Just a little side project that I haven't announced yet. It's gonna be quite different from my other stuff cos it's not a VN, but it will still have the same sorts of flavours, haha.

Man, that must be extremely frustrating to not be able to pursue your video editing after working hard on graduating :( And to have done it during the pandemic too! I feel so bad for everyone in education because it must've been so much harder having all that uncertainty and disruption going on while you've got lessons, coursework, exams, and stuff >.< I don't think I could've coped with that at all! Congrats on graduating though at least :3

It's sad, but it seems like a lot of people these days finish their education and then get stuck working jobs outside of their field to pay the bills because there's nothing more in line with their passion available >.< It happened to all but 1 of my cousins when they finished uni as well!

I'm so sorry you're stuck in a situation like that :( *gigantic internet hugs* you deserve better. No one should have to slave away in jobs that make them feel like crap just to make ends meet >.< It's one of those things I can't stand about the way the world works. When I talked about it with my mum once, (who works in retail and actually doesn't mind it all that much yet doesn't love it) she said that “That's just life. You have to suck it up and deal with it.” And I just thought, but why? Why should anyone “suck it up” and do something that actively makes them depressed? What's the point in earning money to survive if in the process you just become a person that's all hollowed out and not actually enjoying life? It seems like insanity to me!

I mean, I don't have the answers >.< and I get that jobs need to be done even if they're not particularly exciting or enjoyable, but is there not some way we can work things out as a society to make people's mental health better? For so many people, work IS life. And if that work is making them depressed, what kind of a life is that?! T_T

I dunno, maybe it's my ASD or I'm just not as mentally strong as other folks who do have the ability to “suck it up and deal with it” but for me, when I've worked jobs like retail in the past just to survive, it's made me suicidal, so kinda defeats the object really!

The way you describe debt piling up and a feeling of dread in the back of your mind no matter whatever your mood is on any given day sounds pretty much like how my dad has felt for years now :( He doesn't like his job, but he does it because it's all he knows and he needs the money, but it's slowly eating away at him; killing him. He can't even enjoy his whole weekend because, on Sundays, he's just dreading having to work again the next day. It's like being trapped in a cycle that you desperately want to escape but have no effective way of doing so >.<

Certainly don't blame yourself for not having the energy to work on your craft in your free time because it's not your fault at all. Working jobs that you don't wanna do must be draining on a person no matter what their mental health is like. There are so many things my dad would love to do in his free time, but he never gets to do any of them because instead, he's asleep, exhausted from his job :( So yeah, I can see how you would've lost motivation :( I really hope you're able to get it back at some point, and well, to just be in a better situation in general where you can actually earn a living doing something that you like and have passion for :3 I wish everyone could have the opportunity to do that!

I guess it's pretty normal these days to either have a job you despise because you need the money to survive, or end up like me, where you have the free time to work on stuff you're passionate about because you can't get a job, but as a result, are forever poor because you have no income >.< To be in the group where you actually have a job that aligns with your passions seems like an increasingly rare prize.

You're absolutely right though that even people with “real jobs” are struggling nowadays! That's even more heartbreaking really :( If a person is working their ass off doing something they hate, that thing should at least pay well enough for them to live in relative comfort! I know at least one person who works 2 jobs and still has to use food banks to be able to feed her family as a single parent. No one working 2 jobs should be paid so little that they still can't afford to feed their family. That's just diabolical.

My dad is going to be one of those seniors working because retirement pension won't be enough to survive on. The worst thing is, I fear his job will have destroyed him before he even reaches retirement age with the way things are going. It's a physical job he does, and he's done it all of his life, but there are no allowances for that in retirement age despite the fact that working all your life in say, an office, is going to be a lot less harsh on a human body than spending your whole life doing demanding physical work! He's developing arthritis everywhere at this point :( Basically in constant pain with his back and his knees, and he's still another 10+ years away from retirement age!

But yeah, F conformity indeed x3 I mean, now that I know I'm on the autistic spectrum, at least I know I was basically born not to conform xD can't even help it cos my brain is borked, haha. I guess I shouldn't say that though, my brain is different, would be more appropriate I suppose.

It is a struggle though for everyone I guess. Cos like you say, we only have one life, so really all the time we have is precious and we shouldn't be wasting it. But at the same time, how do you escape needing money to survive? Because as long as people need money, they're gonna have to work shitty jobs where they're not valued >.<

I mean, thinking about it, it's kinda funny that I sometimes feel worthless now for not having a job, but then when I was working in retail, I felt worthless in an even worse way! Because I just felt like a slave that had to spend x amount of hours per day morphing myself into this version of me that I didn't even recognise just to fit the mould they needed to make money for their business >.> while the pay I got was barely enough to even cover the cost of transport to get to the stupid store, let alone pay for food and bills. I used to daydream about customers coming to the checkout and me smashing my head into the cash register, smiling with my face covered in blood, and saying, HAVE A LOVELY DAAAAAY!!! Not gonna lie, it got very close to that becoming a reality, haha. Had it not been a seasonal temp job, I most likely would have done that and then been promptly fired x3 but I just about managed to hang in there for the season.

As for finishing things, I mean, I have A LOT of stuff that I've started and never finished myself x3 Honestly, I find it to be quite the miracle that anything I do ends up finished, haha. I have all the intentions in the world to finish everything, but never the time when my brain won't stop coming up with other stuff to distract me with >.< For example, CiQ has been fully written for AGES now, I just haven't actually made the damn thing. And my DD progress has been horrifically slow >.< I think that's why I'm better suited to jam games! Because I can just about commit to a project when it has a short deadline, haha. I tend to lose focus when I'm left to my own devices because I just want to work on a billion things at once, but then tiny amounts of progress get made on a whole bunch of things with no significant progress on anything >.<”

“But also remember that your value isn't in what you contribute or do for society...”
THIS, is what I struggle with a lot, haha. My grandma used to try to tell me the same thing, bless her. I mean, it's so true! But I don't know how to actually feel that way, if that makes any sense >.< I have a bad feeling that it's probably social media and stuff that makes it a lot harder to sink in that worth isn't all about what you're contributing, because with that, you have it constantly shoved in your face how supposedly great everyone is with all their achievements x3 and it's really easy to start feeling like you suck in comparison.

I know the easiest way to deal with that is to not go on social media, which I've tried to do for most of my life anyways because it's really not for me >.< but sometimes, you just cannot escape from that stuff. For example, my local theatre, despite signing up for their newsletter and asking to be alerted to new shows, doesn't send me emails with this info. Instead, to find out about new shows, you have to follow them on social media. Okay, fair enough. But then say you open social media to see if they've mentioned anything, and BAM, you get hit by ads and promoted content that has nothing to do with what you're looking for, and once again, something is shoved in your face about how great x person or thing is >.< I feel assaulted every time I open social media with all the unwanted crap that gets thrust at me :( Maybe that's just an ASD thing again, I dunno, haha. Cos it doesn't seem to bother most people.

Occasionally when I'm outside if it's a populated place, I feel like a bloomin alien for being the only one in the space that hasn't got my face glued to a phone screen >.<

Sometimes I wish I could just get a herd of alpacas and go live in the hills completely cut off from the world x3 I'm sure I'd be much more at peace that way, haha. But I can't, because I don't have the money to be able to afford to buy a herd of alpacas or a home in the hills x3

“Don't burn yourself out as some sort of punishment...”

That right there, is some very solid advice, haha. I've certainly been trying my best to do that :3 It's partly why I've been dedicating time to the unannounced side project I mentioned earlier. My plan was to have Yandere Heaven Vol02 out in time for Christmas, which may still happen, but it's looking more unlikely with time slipping away. Initially, I beat myself up about it for not sticking to the plan I'd set myself. But now I'm thinking, well, no, I'm doing the right thing by working on the thing that's giving me the most joy right now! I can still work on YH after. But for now, I'll do the thing that's giving me pleasure because it would be pointless to push myself to work on something else when my brain is into this other thing right now x3

"You don't have to fit into some bubble or create anything in order to have value. Just exist and be the amazing person you are..."
As much as I struggle to believe in this, I do want to. And thank you for saying it :3 I think everyone needs to hear it sometimes! So right back at ya ^-^

It's funny because I was only just saying to my dad the other week, that I'm not sure I could quit game dev even if I wanted to because I fear it might be one of the few things keeping me alive at this point x3 It doesn't matter because I don't want to quit at the moment anyways. But yeah, I remember how I felt before I got into it, not having a purpose or a reason to get up in the morning, it was crushing >.< There are plenty of other things I'd really love to be able to do in life besides making these games, but I have no way of accessing them to even get started, so in a lot of ways, I feel rather stuck, haha.

And heck, you're welcome to drop me an email any time :3 Or contact me on social media or leave yours as you say! The only problem with a lot of platforms is... character limits xD Both Twitter and Discord do not like how much I type, haha. Thank fook itch doesn't have em! The people that I talk to the most online either email me and it's like having digital penpals cos we type so much that it takes us both a long time to reply x3 or, they have to put up with being spammed with message notifications on Discord because I've had to break my full message up into so many acceptable pieces to send, haha.

Sometimes I really wish that I could teleport us all to a place where we could actually hang out together in person!

That's very kind of you to offer anyhow :3 And the same goes to you! I wouldn't want anyone who is feeling that way or stuck in that place to feel like they had no one to talk to about it because suffering alone in silence is not the way to go >.< You need folks around you who understand and can listen and vent with you to be able to get through it :3

And it's funny you mention staying safe and warm because we finally gave in today in our house and turned the heating on. We were desperately attempting to refrain from switching it on until the beginning of December. I've been wearing like 5 layers indoors to try and cope with the cold, but today was just too much >.< We all decided it's just gotta be done because we're still freezing despite the layers. We were just trying to save on energy bills is all since they cost silly money these days! But I am now warm x3 well, semi-warm as I type this, haha. My toes are still kinda numb xD

But anyways, thank you for being such a sweet and caring person :3 The world needs more people like that! Man, just imagine if everyone were so kind and compassionate to one another! We'd be living in a much happier place, surely x3 I hope your day is good too, that your November is as good as it can be also! But mostly I hope you get to find a job that makes you happy where you can put all your skills and passions to use and not have to worry about debt and stuff anymore! Stay safe and warm yourself <3

Speaking of socials, hit me up on Discord (check my itch profile) and get yourself networked for some video editing work.  I know multiple indie devs and a few content creators who might be hiring for work, but I need to know if you're available as well as other details before I ping them about it.

Your kind words to 'Melanie' are appreciated :)