Progress is being made. I've recently begun making small progress on multiple aspects in my life, those being the media expirences, video making, and most importantly being social. And it has truly all been thanks to a challenge I gave myself. Now I think in 3 seperate blog entries I mentioned a challenge I was doing to make myself productive, and while they did all work for a while it was always in small bursts and just not a ton of progress made that way either. But this one has been really different, and to obama self-congradulate myself a bit, I think it's really fucking smart of me to do this. So here's what the challenge is.

I start off with a really basic quota, 1 single hour in a calander day to do something "productive" to me that means playing a seminal game or one that I'm interested in that is not a passive expirence. So like no DBD, Umamusume*, or Fortnite (btw holy shit, my fortnite video aged like milk. I do not stand by my enthusasim for the game anymore) Or more basic stuff like, writing, drawing, working on videos, watching movies/anime, reading manga, general stuff like that. The point being that I want to be more active with how I engage with art. So 1 hour to all that, simple. But each day that passes I add 5 minutes. So for example I am currently at around 1 hour 40 minutes. And that time will keep adding up until I reach a breaking point, one that I do not know but I'll eventually see. So the consequence of not reaching this quota is also simple, I have to post on Discord.

Really pathetic sounding but hey that's just how I am, I've always been extremely socially anxious online, whether or not it's a remenant of the stranger danger days, or fear from when I got all my old Windows XP pcs malware, but I've always been this way. I hate texting and so I've never developed any skills in online social communication, and so this challenge forces me to confront that head on. I will literally sit and stare at Discord until I post something, and it actually works. I've done this 3 times so far and... yeah I'm not having any conversations but at least I'm cracking this anxiety of mine bit by bit. I don't blame myself since I of course wouldn't have any skills at this at all, so any little thing helps.

So the really smart part if you haven't pieced it together is this. No matter what option I choose, I will make progress. If I really dread being social, then I'll play or read a bunch of stuff, if I'm feeling lazy then I'll have to break out of my comfort zone and talk online. Either option is good. I can even decide against my quota if I feel like doing nothing or something else, although I make it where the time stacks up so I don't purposefully loose out on time. This all of course hinges on me actually doing the consequence though, it'll fall apart the moment I don't partake in my online social stuff. So that's where I've been at for the last two weeks or so. I'm going to try to keep this up for as long as possible, and hopefully reach a point where I can socialize online.

It's a little insane to have online social anxiety, like a couple of years ago when I searched for this type of thing I found very little, most people would refer to like job stuff and not just being social in communites. And it makes sense that I wouldn't see that stuff. I couldn't make a reddit post, so no wonder this stuff isn't out there. Well that's changed now, I found a lot of online topics about this stuff (thanks covid..?) and it's good to know that I'm not insane when it comes to this stuff. Like how is it easier to talk to IRL people but not anime girls online? I've luckily been able to join some really good discords over my time, I never talked there before, but I joined a youtubers discord, a couple of vn discords, and a yuri manga discord. I'm not naming them, but from what I gather, Discord is not as bad as most people say. I haven't seen the worst stuff for sure, but maybe I just got lucky, I've kinda been like that in my life where I get aqquantied with chill people. So thankfully I'm not in any right wing discord servers for vn fans or anything, since twitter makes it seem like the visual novel community is divided into camps like that.

Next is my channel update... I changed my profile picture... that's it. I'm larping a bit, I haven't actually played Persona Q2 but I've always had an interest in Hikari from that game, like for the overwhelming majority of people the reason the Q games are interesting is for the Persona 3-5 casts to interact. Zen and Rei have a few fans but I have never seen a Hikari enjoyer out in the wild. I have not seen fan art of her since Persona 5 Scramble first came out, and that just an obligation to make the "P5 spin-off girls" fan art. But from what little I do (think) I know about her, I think she's super cute. She seems to be a bit of a lonely creative girl who really likes movies and stories in general. I don't know, that just resonates with me. Especially the forgotten part. The credit artwork in that game is probably the best part since, oh my god, it's so fucking good! And I have loved this particular one for so long, I used to have it as a wallpaper years ago. It's this one.

I love this art. I love it so much. Having the happy little Hikari drawing her storyboards while Futaba and Kotone happily indulge her is just. Man, we all need an autistic and bisexual person to encourage us in our lives. This scene is so charming, from what I understand too is that it's the very last image shown in the credits which makes it a bit more special. The warm hue that makes it easy on the eyes, the cozy cafe, and nice girls. That's why I made Hikari my profile picture. I know pretty much nothing about her but this image makes me happy. I'm a fucking larper, jesus. Is this what Saya no Uta TikTokers feel when they see a cg? Ugh.

I always planned to change my cat profile picture to something more representative of what my channel will become, and I lucked out on vndb and saw thee most charming cg I've seen in a while. And I originally wanted to make this my pfp.

This one I feel also represents how I feel about myself and my future work. I too am like a photographer, capturing the stuff that I find interesting and putting it out in the world. And this cg. The first reaction I had when I saw it was literally saying "Wow! What a fun cg." and damn straight. This is fun, great composition, great lighting, love the greens, love the exprssion, love the magical modesty skirt. It's all good. I am... I'm also larping this one too. Oh god, I'm not actually? No, this can't be what larping actually is, I wish I could engage with this game, and I will play Persona Q2. That aside, I feel this is a good show of my online persona, being an eroge cg screencap of a funny camera girl, I just like energetic girls. My 3rd favorite Touhou is Aya after all. (Youmu, Marisa are 1 and 2) and. You know what, this is my 2nd channel pfp. Goodbye Shizuku and Kaori from the hit yuri manga, The Summer You Were There, and hello Saeki Kurumi from Moon Childe.

Now that my pfp situation is settled, let me talk about my actual videos. I'm starting up writing again, which means if you actually read this. It's probably not going to be much better than this. Yeah, I hope that I make something entertaining and informative. I'm not going to able to produce something very good for a while, but I do want to improve, but more than that I just want to make videos, I miss it. My holdup is a computer, as I mentioned last post my old pc is super smoked out and is on it's last legs and I couldn't bare to make a video on that old guy. So I'm going to get a macbook Air. Why? I've been using a table chair as my desk chair for 6 months now and it's killing me, I wanna chill on the couch and edit videos in a more ergonomic way. 2nd is that I'm no crazy editor who uses blender and all those fancy davinci effects, I make really simple stuff so that laptop is good enough to handle that. And 3rd, I just think it would be interesting to have a Linux device (steamdeck), a Mac, and eventually a Windows PC. That's really neat and I want to see which I like best. And I'm not going to trick out my macbook either since I use my steamdeck just fine as a pc for the time being. And honestly the only thing I cant figure out how to run is RPGMaker games, so hopefully they work fine on Mac.

So going by my money and budget right now I can safely say that I will have this laptop by the end of July. I'm moving really soon but I'll be settled in by then, and I'm now using this time to engage with media, build up an otaku knowledge base, and practice my writing. So in the meantime I'm going to do a complete rewrite of my Anime on TV script and collect all the footage I need and once I get the laptop I'll voice record and edit it all together. So. I HATE making promises like this but. After this I will walk the walk instead of yapping, so... This video will be done in August. 100% no bullshit, nothing. I can afford the laptop by July, and I will have it by then too. I did not run the red light so I'm good on money. This video, WILL BE OUT IN AUGUST! I swear on everything. I will post my social security number if I don't make that date. I'm so serious. So, that's all.

I really want to make videos again. I feel it so strongly now, more than even when I was recording the footage for that anime on TV video. I've done it again and got inspired by youtube videos, the classic. This time is a bit different though. So I mean nothing bad when I say this but, Hazel (from Youtube) her old videos have such a unique feeling to me, and they really fit a similar thing as to what I want to make. Nothing against her newer work, I think those are even better, but the simplicity of these earlier videos and frankly the smaller and more focused scale on them is what I find fascinating. Very sunday coded videos. I've also been more taking a liking to making shorter videos. I wont lie and say that seeing a bunch of different youtubers who make long videos, post recently to low views has affected me. I think people in general don't want a passive 2 hour listen while doing something else video, and want a more active 20 minute long video. As I wrote that it kinda doesn't seem right but even if I'm wrong about what people want, I want to make shortish videos. I want to just talk about a lot of stuff, I got a lot on my mind and lots of thoughts I want out there. Of course I also have a LOT of thoughts on specific topics so they will need to be long videos, but working my way up and on my skills to longer videos seems like the smarter play for me right now.

And on that note, my 2nd channel. Right now it just houses the awful Gynoid video archive, which I'm embarrassed about. But that whole channel is going to be pure cringe. You see this kinda thing a lot with youtubers and how they make 2nd channels and just post there so much that it's almost like their main hub. And I see why. Because it's just like having a fully free area to just create. It's a free channel that you can just post there and not have to worry about external factors, so that's what AzurePS2 will be. Just low edit and lots of talking kinda vibe. I been thinking about just making like "reviews" of games I play, more like just giving my thoughts and stuff, and making amv's, collection showcases, really dumb ideas like Persona game blonde characters. Just an anything goes channel.

So that's all. This is a longer and more sporadic entry and for good reason. Anxiety really only builds when you do nothing, it doesn't become as strong when your busy. And it's been a long while since I made an entry so I'll probably make more in the future but, I just heard this today but. Saying your goals can give you a kind of dopamine rush that makes you satisfied even without taking a step towards your goal, so I'm going to mellow out on the promises and plans and more talk about what I AM doing. So yeah. This blog would not have been made without the lovely Trash Idol's daycore song edits Natsukage - air ost (slowed/daycore) That's about it, I got a busy day of playing Sono Hanabira ahead of me. And I gotta post on Discord again XD oh god, it still gives me adrenaline.