Looking back: Apr '25, Week 3

This week was quite a strange one. I went in having things I wanted to work on, but by mid-week felt like I had nothing to do. 🤔 Maybe because I had completed/ handed off/ am waiting to start my current projects, so I was left feeling like I shouldn't start on anything new either? Well, hope to make this week a more productive one!

✨ New cover -- Blade of Words (Kotonoha) cover is out now!

Sometimes you come across a song that resonates so deeply with you that it starts to live rent free in your mind. This was one of those times.

I knew that despite this song being relatively recent, it probably wouldn't generate very much views. But I really wanted to say the words, so I covered it anyway.

It didn't take very long to finish this, but I felt a growing feeling of wanting to do something different from my usual full length covers. Since starting my YouTube channel, I've been trying to take on more of the production process because back then, Yuraia did pretty much everything other than the vocal performance. I was inexperienced in vocal recording (and singing) and knew little about what goes into recorded music. Heck, he even made the instrumentals!

Also available on Spotify! In fact, even videos were done by him in my past life... 🙃

But this was my channel, so I felt that it wasn't fair to Yuraia to put in so much effort into something, and have my name plastered on it instead. I know that's usually how music production is, but I wanted to take more ownership of my hobby. Taking more ownership also allowed me to do whatever I wanted - I didn't need to be concerned about forcing someone to listen to music that didn't excite them for hours on end.

What I've learned this year so far, is that having too much of a good thing is desensitizing. It isn't a bad thing, and I don't see myself finding ways to delegate away tasks, but it does take the joy out of making covers. I'll still do it because of the parts I enjoy and what it means to me to have a record of what I did floating somewhere on the internet.

But I should learn to be more efficient, I guess. 🥺💔

⭐️ We learn! ⭐️ All good! ⭐️ Onwards! ⭐️

✨ Handicraft -- Impulsively made a ditto... coaster?

To pull myself out of the loop of thinking I had nothing to do, I impulsively decided one morning to clear out some of the leftover yarn from older projects. So I looked at one of my ditto plushies and thought, "I'll make that!"

Went in with a plan in mind, but ended up free-handing it because I made the very beginner mistake of losing count of my stitches. 🙃 But I got something in the end!

It turned out kinda cute. 💜

I regret not recording what I did so that I can make more of these in more ditto-like colors. 🥺

✨ Gaming -- Got back into Baldur's Gate 3 and finished my outstanding Nightingale Sub-quests

I've never actually stopped playing Baldur's Gate 3 since the full game dropped in 2023. I always have an active run open, and was always excited to play with friends whenever an opportunity presented itself. In fact, there was a period of time when I couldn't get my friends to play with me anymore because they've had enough of the game. 🥺but guys i luv this game pls play w me

In recent years, I've made it a point to try to 100% my Steam achievements for the games I really love, so that if I ever looked back at them in my library, I can be reminded which games meant more to me. My active run in BG3 is currently a Dark Urge achievement run, and I already have 1-3 more runs planned for clearing off the remaining achievements, and for revisiting story content that I experienced on release that might have been updated since.

For the past maybe 5-6 runs (maybe more I don't remember anymore), I've used the same character appearance, and used the same IGN. I first used this name over a decade ago, around the time in my life when I was tired of being given unwanted attention (positive and negative) in online games for piloting a female character. Character customization options in games were really limited back in the day, but I had an image of what I wanted my online persona to look like.

My FFXIV character adopted most of what my characters back in the day looked like (but the way he looks now has a special place in my heart, as it is how I would want to look specifically in the world of FFXIV). With Baldur's Gate 3 having so many character customization options, I wanted to try to get closer to how I'd have wanted my character to look.

Anyway, I've blabbered on too long to get to the point: With Patch 8 of BG3, it was a good time to return to playing, and to fool around with the new Photo Mode to take a close up pic of my character.

My friends call him Thancred (FFXIV). 🙃

If you've played BG3 before, go check out the stickers in the photo mode! There are a lot of funny options. Be sure to check out the names of the stickers by hovering over them!

Being attached to this appearance made me panic when I realized that he was "stuck" in the world of BG3, which is why when I decided to buy Nightingale on Early Access release, I made it a point to try to help him "migrate" into Nightingale. 🤣

... But here's hoping that Nightingale eventually gets better quality hair, and more flattering hair color options. 🙃 Oh yes, I played Nightingale this week too! See all the good that not caring about FFXIV Savage Raid progress this week has done for me. 🙃 (Although, I did have a good week in FFXIV too.)

~💜~

Hopes for this week

♪ Create a plan for the next Discord community event... whenever it might happen. (Forgot about this... Oops!)

♪ Start a new cover project

☆ FFXIV: Savage raid week 4! Hope to have no expectations this week. ;D

☆ BG3: Try to progress my Dark Urge run (the storyline isn't really my jam and I want to get it over and done with)

☆ Look at furniture 🤔

Thank you for reading! 🌙🐰