Contrails: Apr '26, Week 1

Minerva Murasaki
Apr 6
4 min read

Tried to find my footing this week, since I've committed to making a change to how I approach my "content creation". Strangely enough, feeling under the weather in the later half of the week forced me to slow down, allowing me to reassure myself of my plans and to feel okay with only being accountable to myself. 🥹

All in all, I think it was a good week! (Despite the physically painful later half, I mean.) ✨

🎞️ Projects 🎞️

Spent about 2 days working on a vocal tuning & timing commission. Technically speaking, I was just helping the person who was commissioned to do the whole package: vocal editing, mixing and mastering. But I felt better putting in the time if I made it sound more official. 🥹 Wasn't paid for the work, but I hope everyone involved will be happy with my contribution. 🥺💜

After sending off my work, it was time to focus on myself again! 🙃 It took me a long time to choose what song to work on next, because I needed to revisit songs that I've once dismissed as "impossible". But I've settled on one! 🎉 It's going to be a long and painful process, but I'm looking forward to it nonetheless! Feeling hopeful that it will become one of the more memorable music projects I've done.

I might also do smaller scale projects concurrently, but it will take quite a lot of determination to be okay with my silence on the internet. I feel so much better when I don't fill my mind with thoughts about things beyond my control, and I hope that my loved ones will also benefit from my clarity of mind.

I will also try my best to believe that there will still be people who feel some form of elation when I finally return with something. 🥹

🎮 Gaming 🎮

I've been contemplating committing a week to playing solo games during the daytime because I have a tendency to de-prioritize solo tasks (like chores, projects, listening to music, and sleep...) the moment my partner and online friends are off-work. I say "off-work" and not "back home" because being out of employment has taught me that not all jobs are equally demanding. 🤔 Maybe after I've made good progress with my next project and feel the need for fresh ears?

But for now, spending time with my partner and friends isn't too bad! 💜

Played a lot more Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds to balance out the monotony of Green Hell. There's an in-game achievement for winning 100 Grand Prix, which is a solo or local co-op. game mode. So I've been slowly chipping away at it whilst playing around with the rival/ NPC difficulty level for some challenge.
Maximum speed with Technical drift just to make my life miserable whenever I fail to make a tight turn. 🤣🤣🤣
Did I mention Green Hell monotony? I don't like to dally in survival games, because it feels like I'm dragging out my own misery when I should be busting tasks and making progress ASAP to push the game to "completion". It's also a reason why I don't min-max in games: I will do what is necessary to get the job done or to reach the agreed on definition of success. So with more friends picking up Green Hell and wanting to play together, progress (towards completing the game) has been slow. I had to drop out of some sessions because I simply couldn't stay mentally engaged enough to stay awake. 🙃 At this point, I'm holding on to this game because my partner really loves it, and I would like to see the ending of the Spirits of Amazonia game mode. I still think it's a good game... as a multiplayer RPG rather than a Survival-Craft game, because the survival game loop gets monotonous really quickly.
Finished the FFXIV Arcadion raid tier reclears AND Corvosi Brass farming (from Advanced Variant)! 🎉🎉 I realized this week that the Arcadion is the first raid series that I completed on tier. 🥹 Most of the credit goes to my static leader for trying to put together a team that work well together, applying what he learned from past experience. 10/10 would suffer anxiety attacks leading up to raid sessions again for the current team -- I'm happy just being here. 🥹
Half of us, commemorating a very lucky, last Advanced Variant farming session. ✨✨✨
Watched friends play the ending of Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair and the starting of Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony and No Sleep for Kaname Date – From AI: The Somnium Files. Ate a LOT of snacks as a result, but surely I'll shed off the calories if I refrain from snacks this week... right??? 🥺💔
I have a tiny gripe with the type of humor and banter in AI: Somnium Files, so I took this photo with VRoid AR when I started falling asleep. 🌙