Felt like I was getting slapped across the head and something clicked into place simultaneously as I was reading this.
I've been struggling against the desire to quit posting my work on social media for like...the last 7 months now. The reoccurring thought in my mind was "the quality of my art WILL get worse if I stop sharing it with people," but without a follow-up thought as to why that would happen (apart from...precedence).
Number-based validation has never done much for me, even when I occasionally DO get Big Numbers, but "others' hopes" makes the gears in my head spin.
I want somebody to have hopes and expectations in my work, I guess! I know there are people who like my art right now, but "like" and that sort of "head over heels for" are different.
I had a couple of people who used to leave me comments that seemed so full of love and excitement that it actually felt that way for a while. Both of them stopped right around the time I posted my visual novel demo, and it's left me constantly going "damn, did I trigger them out of liking my work; what happened here."
Trying to think of a way to end this post that isn't distinctly negative. I ain't giving up; I'm gonna keep trudging through thissss and eventually maybe I'll meet new people who feel that way and tell me soooo but if they don't at least I've been making some great stuff in the processsssss.