Contrails: May '26, Week 3

Minerva Murasaki
May 25
4 min read

I'm in a rather good mood today! It feels like the kind of Monday that would set the tone for the week, and I'm hoping for a productive one. 💖 I started writing today's entry earlier than usual too, and am looking forward to making progress in general this week. 🥹

🌙 Work as Minerva 🌙

Spent the first half of the week editing vocals, but I'm somehow not done yet. 🤔 Maybe it's because this song has a lot of words? I'll be getting back to working on the harmonies later, though it has become apparent that I will need to redo them before the final mix. For now, what I have should be enough for me to work with for making the arrangement. 🥹

I foresee this project only being completed at the end of the year, so it's better to take my time to do it well, I think!

Found myself wondering about the effectiveness of my work as a content creator's assistant. How much of my management/ administration efforts were actually a key factor to the project's delivery? How different would things have been without my influence? To what extent does my input add value to the creative process, or do I primarily reduce the impact of potential fires? But these questions are not for me to answer -- that's just the nature of the job, and I know that well. 🥹

At times like this, I am reminded that just because there are no fires to fight doesn't mean that I need to dig for embers -- sometimes it's okay to let time and circumstance determine if they will eventually surface, become exposed to the air, and get set ablaze. 🔥🤔

Speaking of problems to solve, Yuraia made a vocal booth over the weekend!

I only helped a little, so it was mostly his planning and effort! ✨✨✨ We tested out the booth and it works! I knew that the house had a lot of echo (🩵) in it, but recording inside the booth made it obvious. 🙃 So I have added motivation to redo my latest recording now. Haha!

Tiny downsides to this set up is that it's significantly easier to set up and move around with 2 people, can get a little stuffy, and difficult to do recordings alone as the person inside has no easy access to the PC. I'll probably try to hook up a portable screen to my PC and use a wireless mouse to see if I can manage the recording process on my own. 🤔 In any case, having the second screen inside would allow me to reference lyrics from inside the booth without holding a phone.

Looking forward to the first recording session in this! ✨ Thanks and good job, Yuraia! 🎉🎉🎉

🎮 Gaming 🎮

Dabbled in various games this week! From shortest to longest play-time:

Tried Restaurats with Ari, Mogu, and Yuraia over the Free Weekend. I don't mind "friendslop" games, but when our first run cut off abruptly after failing the work day, I lost interest in the game almost immediately. I'm no stranger to games that require you to keep replaying to get better, but the game left me feeling like I achieved nothing with my friends. ._." I learned how to play the game a little, sure. But one moment we were doing just fine, and the next a customer came in with a ridiculous request and our run ended within a minute. There was no struggle -- just an end game summary and getting ejected from the session (I didn't even get to finish reviewing the summary before the game closed). Well, thank god it was free-to-play! 🙃
Played a little Sonic Racing: CrossWorld because it's been a while! Just went a few rounds to enjoy sliding around with Technical Drift at almost max speed. 🤣
Got my ass kicked in Ratatan. 💀 I wanted to try doing a Formidable Foe solo run with Nyandola's standard Cobun lineup, but it was a struggle bus. Oh well!
Recleared Enuo EX Trial as Summoner and logged in to FFXIV just to do Allied Society Quests a few times. I enjoyed playing as Summoner, though I'm pretty sure that my DPS was trash for prioritizing moving for mechanics rather than my cast uptime. 🤣 Oh well! All good -- was happy! As for Allied Society Quests, I thought I had already completed all of them, but it turned out that I had forgotten to complete the latest one. 🙃 I have 9 more days of quests to complete, so I shall chip away at it over the next week or 2.
I am now a happy owner of a Frigate ship in Windrose. 🥹🥹🥹 My partner and I spent time gathering materials for upgrades and made a little story progress with friends. I wonder how much more content is left? I'm hopeful that even after reaching the end of what's available, that I'll still feel motivated to go back in to replay with friends -- after all, the game makes it easy to revert your character progression without needing to start with a brand new character.
Taken before I got my Frigate, so no, I did not name my ship Frid'ge (I named it... Brid'ge). 🤣 Sometimes when I look at the night sky in Windrose, I miss the night sky in Nightingale.
Progressed Divinity Original Sin! I'm now pretty confident that I have gone further than I did before as I'm starting to see things I have no recollection of. Yay!

🐰 IRL 🐰

My partner was unwell for several days, so I spent more time than usual doing housework to care for him and to keep the house clean to reduce the chances of falling ill too. Fortunately I didn't, and he's recovered now! On Friday I was doing chores for almost 12 hours straight. 💀 But things got done, and everyone's well, so all good! 🎉