Mind Drop #39 (01/25/2022) (Patreon)

   Woah, a mind drop on a Tuesday?
Well, today was supposed to be the next client poll but I want to make a change to it before posting it so it will be tomorrow and I have some updates so I figured I might as well put this out there today.
I think I'm going to ditch the old format for these. It was a little too difficult to write anything meaningful every week as sometimes there just wasn't anything to talk about and the format made me not want to expand and talk about more broad things.


  Update soon™
I'm aiming to put out a smaller update that's beta sized (probably 250-350 renders) either before this month ends or at the start of February.
I'm feeling a lot more able to put something out now but I do want to start off small just to make it easier on myself.
And then we'd have a fairly large update later in February. It will either be the entirety of Days 10-14 or just the rest of Day 10.
(Day 10 is by far the longest day of these 5 days. The rest are short.)


  Pausing pledges again?
Leaning towards yes just because I took a decent chunk of time off at the start of this month but if I get the smaller update out this month then I may unpause. I'll let you guys know before the month is over which one I decide to do so you don't get a surprise charge.


  Birthday renders?
I will likely stop posting these to discord. (I actually didn't know the patreon discord bot was broken)
So instead there will be a post near the beginning of the month that includes all of the birthday girls for that month.
I will either post January's girls soon (and include December in it) or just wait until the start of March and include Jan/Dec in it.
I also plan to have a singular post here that I update to include them all (similar to how the character sheet post is)

   Week 1 redo news?
So, a lot has changed in the planning of week 1. I'm scared to say too much because I don't want to confuse people between the two versions now. I'll keep it short here and just have a separate post talking about it so this doesn't get mixed up.
One staple of WVM is that every day has over 100 hours in it. 😁Which is fine since WVM is meant to be over the top and isn't meant to be realistic. But since days will start speeding up there's a big contrast between the first 10 days and the rest.
So? Week 1 is now technically weeks 1-3.
Timetable change. Same events just spread over 21 days instead of 7. (Day 9 might be split into 2 days as well.)

Before going further let me explain what the week 1(1-3) redo is again.
The redo is well... redo-ing it all. Story tweaks and character tweaks included. No more baseball bat dick in day 1.
All new renders / animations for the entire thing. There's a prologue and while the story is very similar with mostly the same plot points a lot of them are handled differently. There's slight character story tweaks like Rachael, instead of meeting on Day 1 in the redo they've met and been friends not long after the MC moved in with Azel. Tons of stuff like that.

I'm willing to go further into detail so just let me know whatever questions you may have about it.

I don't currently have an estimated release time for it. Not everything is set in stone and some things may need to be changed so giving a time is difficult right now. Though I'll keep you guys as updated as I can.


  That's it for game related news, gonna talk a little bit about a personal life change
So before I talk about it let me just give you some quick history. Last year I started seeing a therapist which led to me meeting with a psychiatrist and getting diagnosed with anxiety disorder. I was given the option to take meds but declined because I have a lot of family who were addicts and I don't have a good relationship with medicine out of fear.
I've never tried alcohol or any drug. I don't even take ibuprofen unless I feel I absolutely have to.
I stopped seeing that therapist since I moved and hadn't sought after another one until just recently when my mental health took a dip.
Things went well but after talking about everything that was bothering me my therapist once again referred me to a psychiatrist where I then took an assessment and was diagnosed with ADHD (inattentive type).

Which... made a lot of sense. In a way I always assumed I had it but there's a stigma around it. I always thought I was "lazy" and that's the last thing I ever wanted to be so I'd do absolutely everything I can to fight through symptoms.
After talking it all out I had no idea the amount of self-coping I was doing. I won't speak to personal life stuff but when it comes to WVM it helps explain why I was always setting deadlines. Even if it wasn't for a release I'd always set smaller ones like the 20 renders a day one.
They would "motivate" me and I'd be able to focus. I'm always most productive when I'm close to a deadline.
That doesn't go for everything. I only have an inability to focus on things I don't find all that fun. Rendering / posing / and writing, I can hyper focus on and get a shit ton done any day. It's things that I don't find very fun like coding, editing images, and compiling everything together, that I have trouble with.
I've talked about some of my issues with those things before. I've set aside an hour each day to work on them and that's helped me a lot to not procrastinate.

And that's just one example.
So, once again I was asked if I wanted to treat it with meds and at first I said no. I went home  that night and really thought about it and researched it and made a second appointment.
So, today is my second day on said meds. It's a low dosage to start me out on but I can't describe the difference. I always had the ignorant idea in my head that stimulants would do nothing but wire you up like a meth head but my experience has shown me the opposite.
I just feel normal... but not my normal. I feel functional and alert and able to do all these things that I'd have to force myself to do before. It's been awesome and I'm thankful I was able to overcome a fear of mine.

So why type all that out?
I don't know, I felt like sharing about some of my own personal growth. I've mentioned it before that growing up I didn't have any issues (besides lacking focus) and that led me to downplay any and all mental health issues.
I went through a really rough patch in 2020 that opened my eyes to it all.
There's a big stigma around mental health still and I was part of it and I guess I wish I read a story similar to mine before that might've changed some of that for me.
It's too soon to say about the meds but seeing a therapist was life changing for me and I never would've went to one without the guidance of the people in my life.

Welp, that's all for this week.
I'm feeling great and I'm excited to return to releasing updates instead of typing books all the time in these posts. 😁
Once again, apologies for the long wait but I am very much thankful for your patience.
See you soon, love you guys <3