Milestones, Turning Points, and Activity Updates – September 2022

Starting off by talking about the sort of creative pursuits I’ve been spending the most of my budget on lately, I’m feeling more like slowing down on my music cover productions as well lately. Day job’s been busier, I got a phone upgrade courtesy of my mom that I need to pay off, and I want to go bigger with the covers in some way, with my cover of Tempus’s “Top of the World” being my top example among my two covers this month. Not like I don’t got confidence in my cover of Calli’s “Kamouflage,” but if I could handle a bigger budget, I would’ve had the visuals for that be more personalized like I did with the “Ijimekko Bully” cover (which is still rising up the ranks in my YouTube Channel for some reason). And covers aren’t the only music productions I wanna work on. And I wanna do singing collaborations, which are just covers at the moment, but still. And I think I should explore others’ music more, which I’ve been managing to do especially with the help of Spotify again. I don’t think I’ve felt like exploring this much since when I was in university, specifically when I would be listening to downloaded albums on the mobile app while in them long bus rides. I guess turning my daily handwritten religious reflection habit into a gratitude list really helped there lots, too.

And speaking of writing, I’ve made a proper fanfic writing comeback, and by that, I mean a safe-for-work fanfic release. As for the NSFW stuff, yeah, more happened. Again, I’m not gonna give you a lot of specifics about that here, but if you do find them for some reason or another, I encourage roasting me along with them, especially since they’re fantasies about real people, though if you like them, then I’d rather have your honesty there, whether I’d like it or not. Anyway, the safe fanfic is a work for Fire Emblem, though it’s for some installments I’ve never played before. On top of randomly wiki-walking about the franchise, some wonderful works of and chats with a particular writer who goes by the name of the franchise’s third installment pushed me a lot into actually writing and posting the fanfic. I think I’d rather play more Valkyria Chronicles than Fire Emblem right now, though.

And yeah, I’ve managed to stream a few times this month, with Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth2 and The Silver Case also continuing slowly but surely. As in, one’s made some grinding progress for its True Ending, while the other two have revealed to me some very major spoilers. And with how I’ve been wanting to practice streaming more on top of trying out some games I got interested in through Tempus like Dicey Dungeons and the Hitman games, I guess it would help that if I take it easier on the cover production. Plus, I’ve been getting the urge to read original fiction again, particularly in the form of light novels and manga, with the latest localized volume of We’re New at This being the last thing I read.

Now, considering how I’ve had lots of fun exploring others’ creative works before, even with few things among them being stuff I’d really like, I’m getting the feeling that what’s killing my sense of contentment about it is my desire to fish for praise from and connections with others while trying to dodge mockery and loneliness. Especially by posing as someone who’s good at confrontations, like in this new attempt at a meme vid. I strongly believe in the ideas I’m trying to deliver, but I’m very doubtful about how I’d rather deliver those ideas. Thinking about that some more, especially with the tiredness such posturing gives me, I think I’d rather make stuff more like and better than this new attempt at a vlog. Besides, I’ll still have to deal with obscurity and zealotry even if I didn’t, and even the best life, while certainly worth cherishing, isn’t anything to brag about. My two poems this month, one about apparently killing God and one about sitting on thrones, probably depict that struggle of mine best right now.

So yeah, for now, in terms of Tobbyworks, I’m basically gonna take it easier on the posts I’ll feature on this blog here at least, while meme vids and vlogs and streams might get a bit more frequent. I think I can say, then, that the covers are likely to be once a month for the next few months, and that Bear Lords It Over You will be more guerrilla like my streaming and my writing posts for now. Seriously, I’m finding more relief in my day job right now, yet I still want to be this artist and entertainer for some reason.

Anyway, however I’m supposed to go, praise and thanks be to God Almighty very much again for the challenges and guidance, and may He keep on helping us all. Also, as usual, I’d like to ask for honest constructive feedback.

holostars English -Tempus- – Top of the World – TOB Vocal Cover

I don’t think this production shows how much I’ve really been tuned into Tempus lately. I think my even more busted sleep schedule bent over to keep up with this combo of three US-based members and one Australian-based member and their streams shows more of that. Not only do they speak English, they cater just enough to my disgusting straightness trying to be classy, with example clips being this one featuring Al and Kronii trolling each other in Dead by Daylight, this one featuring Dez’s eye getting caught by Natalya in Destroy All Humans 2, this one featuring Axel getting teased like a schoolboy with a crush on a teacher, and this one featuring Gramps starting that string of public teasing the Axel clip I featured here is a part of.

Their song “Top of the World”? Well, frankly, the lyrics sound a bit too simple for what I expect from a holostars original, though the bridge does get me into it further. On the other hand, the on-brand bright and free pop and rock sound it has plus how it pushed me to use my power vocals and practice my vocal control more are the parts of this song that got me the most. And I feel pretty lucky that I got to work with this production’s audio engineer Shig, who resonates with Japanese idol music in particular, and illustrator Han, who has soft lines and warm colors that emphasize her great appreciation for Tempus. Also, I am not a Tempus member, just a creating fan posturing to hide stuff like his very low social battery, his very high cishet pervertedness, and his throat’s near death in the final chorus of this cover.

Oh, and yes, my AviUtl skills have leveled up. I have learned how to make those graphic animation effects, those direction-blurred sudden pan cuts to slower pans, and those flare effects that I realized I can only use with the camera control feature…the first and second being in the bridge, and the third being in the outro. Also, gotta thank Shig some more for pushing me to replace them sharp Viner Hand text moments, which I decided to replace with the softer Lucida Handwriting.

Now, here’s a link to the mp3 of this cover for your personal use or whatever qualifies as that to me and my wimpy ass. Also, again, I very much encourage and appreciate honest constructive feedback.

Calliope Mori – Kamouflage – TOB Vocal Cover

So Calli along with holoMyth and holoEN is going two years, and this cover of a track from Calli’s first major-label EP, SHINIGAMI NOTE, is pretty much my commemorative upload for it. And yes, I decided to use the presence of the lyric “‘Play the role of ‘bad girl”” as a way for my take on this to be sassier on top of manlier, because hey, that is how I look at Calli at the very least: a crudely badass woman I’d like to spend my time fancily bullying into further improvement. Of course, it’s fine if she doesn’t notice my stuff. I’d even call it a miracle, since she seems to have a tendency to fixate on worthless feedback, which I think my feedback usually is, even and especially with how I tend to write like a wannabe reviewer, which is a double whammy because I heard that reviewers are supposed to be snobs.

And speaking of snobbery, yes, I did do some censoring on my cover here. I’d also like to say that I am a firm believer in sounding more insulting without using textbook curses. Still, this song is my favorite off the EP, which, along with “MERA MERA” being my second favorite, definitely is also saying something about how I perceive the quality of the whole thing (Hint: It also has me down bad at best). Not like having alfonsomusic remake the groovy instrumental, myself work these intricate vocals, and Shig do the effect-heavy audio engineering weren’t a fun challenge to me, though. I mean, what is an ordinary Tobby day without him plotting to outdo the Grim Reaper’s First Apprentice? And I like to think that I’m styling on her with my finer vocal control and wider emotional range. She still has me beat at emotional power and audio engineering quality, though.

Now, before I go TMI some more, here’s a link to this cover’s mp3. Also, again, I’d love some honest constructive feedback from you folks. You might find yourself with more range than you think here, too.

I Killed God, Right?

I Killed God, Right?

a poem by The Overlord Bear/Jem De Ocampo

I killed God
But my suffering continues
Through my own hand
For God is as good as we fools are
As my best friend the Devil said
With these impossible growths we get
To end all of ourselves
Because we don’t make any sense
And we can only doubt
As our only faith and rules
That shouldn’t exist as well
But we keep on existing
With this freedom
We are cursed
So we lie
In a wakeful dream
Where we killed God
I killed God
Right?

Milestones, Turning Points, and Activity Updates – August 2022

You know, I guess having tuned into holostars English as much as I have so far filled my time even better than I expected, considering how stressed I was by traveling around for my work ATM card and having to deal with my immediate family’s house’s Internet connection being hard to work with in terms of streaming. Call me shallow, especially since the work I’m aiming to do with the practice isn’t really up there in terms of secure ways to earn a living, but yeah, been having the itch to practice streaming even more than I expected, especially with stabler hardware, as shown by my more recent Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth2 and The Silver Case stream episodes in particular, with the Valkyria Chronicles stream episodes being a contrast out of great luck as well, long stream times aside. Though I also found myself pushing myself too hard about participating in the fandom again while getting into Tempus, trying to commit to a fan Discord server until I found myself burnt out around a crowd again. Makes me wonder why I still try to do these attempts at making a name for myself when I could just shut up and game and read and watch with all this money I’m getting…Oh, yeah, I wanna have bros and rivals I can make worthwhile art with, which Tempus helped me understand and appreciate further along with other parts of my self. There’s also getting the girl, because hey, I’m actually cishet trash. I guess because of that madness as well, I’m feeling lucky that those meme vids and vlogs of mine didn’t get a single update before this post. I mean, I’ve been feeling like the creep I’ve been struggling to overcome some more with them, you know? And the moments when people actually have been out for my blood are way rarer than I like to think. Now that’s what’s truly the most frustrating thing about me lately.

But more on the bright side, I’d like to send thanks to AK Enoch for having me in a fun recent video of his, which is about the so-called “perfectly cut scream.” Been over a year since my playlist of others’ shows I’m featured in got updated, too. And I honestly haven’t been tuning into his content much, so yeah, I’m surprised that he still has that much trust in me. Then again, I guess I can make stuff like this Bear Lords It Over You vid. And then there’s how this blog is already nine years old.

Also being another confidence boost is the feedback I’ve been getting on my English cover of Izuru Kanade’s “Monologue in a row.” A freaking difficult production to work on, and I’m wishing that someone would outdo me in covering the song in English, but still. I’d also like to give a shout-out to RingNin, a skilled, hardworking, and modest Youtaite whom I first encountered showing appreciation for my Kagerou Day/Azami birthday commemoration release that is my English cover of “days.”

And hey, I got to post four poems this month! I got one with the love-and-war theme, one with the love-and-treasure theme, one with the death-seeking theme, and one about, well, words. And so far, there’s one more I consider ready for upload in my production queue, which, needless to say, will show up on this blog next month.

As for more talk about plans for next month’s blog posts, I’m also hoping to post one or two music uploads and, surprisingly, one fanfic! Even more surprising is how they all started out of impulse! Praise and thanks be to God Almighty very much again for that and more, then!

So yeah, I’m itching for some more honest constructive feedback again. And may He keep on helping us all!

Izuru Kanade – Monologue in a row – TOB English Cover

Long-winded thoughtful lyrics plus emotional vocals, so much that they sound too good to form an idol song, sounds like a combo I’d rock with real good, and what held me back from appreciating Izuru Kanade’s first original song along with the rest of holostars’ music earlier was, yet again, my lust for fame, among other things. And yes, holoPro cover again, and a holostars solo again! Still gonna be surprised if this blows up like my last holostars solo cover, too.

Also, yes, it was definitely tough working on this thanks to the length, and I felt it the hardest while recording the vocals with my usual insistence on the one-shotting recording method, where I record myself singing through the whole song as one sort of track (main or harmony or ad-libs or, in case of inevitable overlap, a mix of those) rather than line by line or stanza by stanza to be sorted later on. Even more so when I had to change up some lyrics after a recording session and submission, so yeah, big apologies along with the thanks to DarkHole, who I commissioned to do audio engineering for me again. Dude had to deal with stuff like my breath struggles in the choruses and in the bridge, too. And speaking of the bridge, to my surprise, it’s what I consider the favorite part of my cover overall, and that’s on top of the bridge being my favorite part of the song itself.

I’d also like to kinda vaguely point out the redundancy in a certain set of chorus lines, that one being the clearest evidence of how I wrote this translation to be more self-asserting than the original, as the limits of my brain felt like going more literal in parts like that would result in something a bit too pathetic for my localization-obsessed butt. As for the video, yeah, check out those long lines and them overlapping fades.

Now, if you want to squeeze more behind-the-scenes talk from me, do leave some honest constructive feedback at least, okay? Also, here’s the mp3 for this cover, and here’s the lyrics sheet. Don’t forget to credit and link me if you’re gonna use my stuff, too.

Godslayer’s Conundrum

For the first time in this series, it ain’t the Devil I’m roleplaying as, but it still has something to do with the divine and all that because I think as an artist today, it’s very easy to think oneself a god or a demon or whatever it is we fools like to call the ultimate being these days. And apparently, it’s all good as long as we ourselves don’t know that we’re doing wrong or that we didn’t mean to do wrong. It’s all good with copium and proudly endorsing it, in other words! Not some totally new problems, though, just some old problems with a setting update, and we seem to be quite inclined towards nostalgia, so hey, have this scenario that hopefully screams medieval fantasy setting to you!

Also, I had this idea of having my voice acting here be less hammy or more like cold ham, but before I realized that I forgot how to do it, coming across Keith Silverstein’s performance as Zhongli in Genshin Impact gave me a solid idea about how to give a voice to this character. As for the character art, some chats with indie Pinay VTuber Louri Chishino got me referred to Encore Jack, whose work here has me feeling more and more like I got more than what I paid for. And with this awesomeness, I decided to put a bit more thought into my video effects and editing.

Now, you might notice that this series has been updated monthly, and you might expect this series to be further updated monthly, so I’d like to say that I might do some skips here and there because of how I decide on using my funds, which is currently very music-oriented. You may offer to provide me scripts and/or art for this series for free if you want me to continue this monthly update streak, but as more pleasing that would be to me, please remember that you’ll also be adding extra burdens upon yourself there. That said, I’d more recommend giving me honest constructive feedback and/or a share of my stuff to other folks.