Contrails: Mar '26, Week 2

First and foremost, I spent pretty much all my waking hours this week either actively working on the upcoming cover, or thinking about it. I think I only ever unplugged when playing FFXIV with my friends since it required my full attention. So I'm quite grateful to these gaming commitments this week. 🥹💜 Consequently, I didn't take a single screenshot or photo to share here... 🥺💔 I could write about other things, but I'm still quite mentally drained (and probably a little sleep deprived) after working on the project for almost 2 weeks (14 days) straight, so...

... there's no better time to try something new! ⭐️

🎮 Gaming 🎮

1. Started playing Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth with my partner! Love Gumshoe. 🧥

2. Watched my partner reach the ending of Metaphor: ReFantazio... and felt grateful that I didn't pick the game up myself. All in all it was a story about a vibrant world driven by lackluster forces. It seemed to me that the unexplored lore was deeper than the depth of the characters assigned with plot armor. Am I being too critical of a story clearly catered to admirers of the strength of the human spirit? 🤔 Maybe. On to the next story it is!

3. Played a little Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds to keep my energy up at the start of the week, and as a reward after I submitted my work!

4. Did FFXIV savage raid reclears and cleared the 2nd boss of the Criterion dungeon! I really enjoy progressing through fights blind with people who are able to keep up with the strategy changes, so I thank my lucky stars for having such friends to play with. 🥺

5. Got my hands on Solasta II (early access)... only to find out that multiplayer isn't ready. 💔 My friends agreed that we'll just wait for it to be ready in Q3 to play together. From the first hour of play, I can tell that I'm not going to love it as much as I did the Larian games, but what's there not to love about rolling dice with friends and trying not to die? 🙃🤣

6. Tried Green Hell with my partner! We spent way too long being lost and not knowing how to do things in our first few hours, so I think our game snowballed into a huge struggle to keep up. But considering that we didn't read up how to play the game, I think it wasn't too bad for a first attempt. 💀 Looking forward to giving the game another go.

Been feeling like playing Disco Elysium all week. Maybe I just missed being engaged on a deeper/ higher level. 🙃

🎞️ Projects 🎞️

It's becoming a thing where I work very hard on a video request from a friend for about 2 weeks straight, then not want to make videos again for a year. 🙃

But I can finally announce that I've collaborated with Nagi (なぁぎ) for the upcoming cover! 🎉

When Nagi first reached out to me last year and asked to cover a song together, I was so honored. She's a multi-talented individual who had gone further than I ever did, so it was nice to be remembered and asked to bring my skills to the table. (But we don't speak of our sorry pasts. 🤣 Best to look forward!) I didn't want to disappoint, so I tried my best with the time and energy I had. 🥺 I hope she truly likes the end product.

This is the first cover I've done that truly felt like an art exchange: Nagi chose the song and did the key visual, while I did the vocal editing (tune & time) and video production. I'm not great at mixing, so we enlisted Yuraia's help to pull the whole cover together. 🥹❤️ It's been 6 months in the making, and I can't wait for the world to see Nagi's first cover on YouTube! 💙💜

As for me, I need a change of pace, a clean house, and several deep breaths before the next project! (I worked late into the night and woke up early to work on the video several times last week... 💀)

~💜~

Hopes for this week

♪ Looking forward to sharing the cover when its released on Saturday! ♪ Take a day or 2 to mentally reset, then start working on the next cover! I'm really looking forward to working on it! But my eyes, ears, mind and emotions need the time off. 🥹 ♪ Time for April planning, which might see some changes. 🤔

☆ Week 11 of 7.4 Savage Raids: Will I finally not die on a clear run? 🤔🤔

☆ More Criterion dungeon prog.!

☆ Enjoy the birthday weekend 🎂 I'll try to take more photos this week!

Thank you for reading! 🌙🐰