Milestones, Turning Points, and Activity Updates – June 2022

I think I’ve been around a month at my grandparents’ place already. And judging from my increased comfort thanks to having more room for me, my stuff, and my solitude here, I think my recent bout of slowness about going through life here, especially making my Tobbyworks, is me regressing into idle wanderings to the trivial and perverted as I sober up about and run away from how horrible a bunch of my current interests actually are again and/or me further experiencing growing pains as I learn and do better. For one, I left the few remaining fan Discord servers I was in, as I had to remember that I have a very low social battery. I’ve also been buying and reading more light novels and manga via Bookwalker. And then there are also games on Steam, like The Silver Case, which I’ve been streaming along with Valkyria Chronicles and Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth2, though I’ve been streaming games and even gaming off-stream less since the last monthly digest. After all, there’s also the matter of sleep, which I’ve been struggling to have some more, and that issue seems to have acted up further as I posted this month’s features on this blog:

1. an English cover of Jin’s (Shizen no Teki-P) “ZIGI,” another track from his Allegories mini album
2. “Just Proud of You, Never Loving You,” the start of a villain roleplay monologue video series called Bear Lords It Over You
3. “From Prison, The TV Killer,” a Persona 4 fan song and my first Bandcamp and priced release

I think the second and third make the first one look like light work, though. The first one’s a sort of thing I’ve sort of gotten used to doing, then I tried to crack open my thinking process for writing and acting the Devil in the second, and then I decided to go name-your-price last-minute in the third. All while starting the writing of the blog posts in the late hours of the upload days themselves rather than in advance. And while obsessing over being a schmooze as an artist, which I feel like I’ve been doing way more than I’ve been doing in my day job. I feel like I barely even schmooze at my day job!

I think the core issue here is, yet again, FOMO. The feeling of missing out. And considering stuff like my latest vlogs and meme vid, which might as well be considered my usual vent posts already, I’m desperately dealing with it as well. Again. Maybe I do have to catch up with some things, but no matter how many they should be, I really should go about them one at a time. I don’t need to fake it ’til I make it. I don’t even need to brag about it! The wonders of my life years before are proof of that, and I was also suckier back then, so what more will I get as this improved easy-to-miss guy?

So yeah, on the even brighter side, while I may be planning to stick to two music posts a month for the time being for the sake of saving up for stuff like original song production while keeping up stuff like them villain roleplay monologue vids, I’ve gotten inspiration to write stuff like fanfiction and Tobby’s Recommendation Yells again. If they don’t really materialize, then hey, I hope I take a good break at least, ’cause I want and probably need more of that. God Almighty keep on helping us all, alright.

And again, I’d like some honest constructive feedback.

From Prison, The TV Killer – A Persona 4 Fan Song

After a good while of working up higher-quality music productions, I’m now ready to drop more original stuff with higher production values (at least in terms of collaborators) like this one. And this isn’t really a cover or a remix. You know those works by nerdcore folks out there? And I still remember Circus-P’s “How to Pretend” as well. Does that one track I helped make in tribute to Uri’s The Boogie Man count, though? Anyway, they can be passed off as originals, but they are also explicitly shown to be in tribute to established intellectual properties. And while I wanted to release this for free via Bandcamp, as I’m relying a lot on the name of and even some audio samples from an established intellectual property here, I recently set up an artist account there and had my assumptions about its free download system dashed, so yeah, I’m gonna release it still on Bandcamp only, but as a name-your-price thing, though please remember that “Another obvious villain we can cancel anytime” isn’t just some ironic tagline. Sure, I guess those who’d pay me are folks who seriously like me and my stuff for one reason or another on top of having the money for it, especially since stuff like music videos are around to help them decide how much they’d support the stuff, but still, PLEASE, pay and support like someone with a life.

All that aside, I wasn’t really expecting the new Persona announcements when I decided on the upload date for this. What a coincidence, right? Anyway, Persona 4 has been quite on my mind again lately, what with stuff like my sucky and discontinued attempts at streaming it and my desire to accomplish all its Achievements on Steam plus my delays at doing so. As for how I still want to play it some more, I guess it’s also because I’ve been realizing how much of an impact it’s made on my life, especially my art. Maybe I should write up a TRY for it sometime? But I digress.

What, you want me to be more explicit about the identity of this song’s POV character? Well, I think the song’s done more than enough there already. And even if I were quite lax about spoilers, which I am, I’d still recommend playing the game for yourself. To give you an idea without wasting my TRY chance, it’s very story-driven, so much that it borderline overshadows the gameplay, but the story is way more integrated with the gameplay than it seems, and they’re integrated well enough to make quite the enjoyable game. The writing has its flaws, especially considering stuff like how this fan song’s POV character upstaged the heroes, but as a reflection of my actually questionable character, I find them pretty endearing, especially with how they come off as honest through stuff like a mix of personal and public perception being an essential to the formation of the boss Shadows. And I’m further digressing here.

Now, as for other stuff about the song, I did the lyrics and vocals and video. But before that, I commissioned and spoiled fellow “spiral tones” remix contest winner Recoyale into composing and arranging for me here. I don’t think I solidly knew what sort of sound I wanted at the start, actually, and I picked Reco because he was someone I felt I could approach easily enough. But once I heard what he got for me, writing lyrics and working vocals flowed more smoothly than I expected! The result is this crumbling structure that goes from rapping to singing and then speaking, all with frigid and somber tones that both emphasize and engulf the POV character’s personality, complete with the wonderful enhancement that is Shigeru’s vocal audio engineering! And now that I think about how I characterized this song’s POV character, I might’ve also subconsciously drawn influence from certain psychological elements utilized in Persona 5, elements involving some traumatized people, although I don’t think this guy in this song isn’t really someone we can call traumatized. Also, Reco being impressed by the final audio definitely helps my belief that he, Shig, and I were more in sync than we expected here! Now we’re talking, alright!

As for the illustration, I commissioned (and not spoiled so much, I think?) this guy who goes by Riichu. I remember first encountering him when he was streaming with Koneko Monsi, and I eventually noticed his pretty neat art and his availability for commissions. Again, I don’t think I solidly knew what sort of visuals I wanted, and I was picking based on options fresh in my short-term memory at the time. But then again, I was wanting some visual obscuring on the identity of this song’s POV character, and in hindsight, Riichu’s skill at drawing slender figures works real well with the character. Special mention also goes to how he went above and beyond with the coloring!

And then comes the video, where I tried to emulate the Midnight Channel and the TV World as much as I could. Older closed captions here, high-level fog there, reprinted ripped TV World entry transition, weird scenery changes, TV static, all that stuff. Shig also boosted my confidence in my work here, as he liked the “WHAT YOU WANNA SEE” part and the glitching character art part, and speaking of which, my favorite part about my video work here is the intro. Also, I think I finally learned how to work up the typing effect in AviUtl, which I flexed in the chorus!

Now, honestly, releasing this has been taking a lot out of me, and it’s stacking on my other stresses, which I think are mostly self-inflicted, also leading to this being uploaded later than I planned, but gosh dang, I am happy about this. I mean, it’s a more original song with higher production quality than what I’ve done before, and I enjoyed making it with my fellow artists! It’s even got me more motivated to make more full-on originals AND learn further about how to do business properly, despite and through stressful situations! And of course, I’d like to ask for honest constructive feedback, so yeah, gimme that!

Just Proud of You, Never Loving You

Yeah, this is basically Lisa the Tearer but without the tryharding at being a VTuber. And by that, I also mean that these videos will be more independent of each other. I was thinking of not having dedicated blog posts about these, too, but I think I’d be underselling myself like that, so yeah, here’s me with a commentary, especially for folks who bother to check this blog out.

Now, yes, I attempted to do a Devil roleplay monologue here as a Roman Catholic. This may not be the last attempt at such, too. In fact, it’s pretty much the core of my villainous roleplaying here. I’ve been wanting to write villain protagonists this evil as well, but I feel as if I cannot ever meaningfully portray such characters through plain prose writing, and I remember how I would enjoy going through memorable clips and quotes of popular characters, so stuff like that led me to tell stories starring these evil folks through roleplay monologues like this.

And why call someone the Devil if they aren’t some scumbag like the guy in the above portrayal? Some of us would think that the Devil’s side is just in bigotry done in the name of religion, while others would think that it’s just in activism done in the name of irreligion, but all of us are ignorant of how the Devil actually plays all sides for himself and himself alone. Yeah, if you thought wrapping your head around the most infamous criminals’ behaviors is hellish, trying that on the Devil’s behaviors is going to be, well, hell. It’s pretty much by the grace of God that we can understand and fight him, then. And if this roleplay does help someone out there be a truly good person, then chalk that up to Him and His hilariously awesome grace and not me and my unfortunately convincing acting.

As for more technical stuff, well, I had this wonderful illustrator named Syd, whom I first encountered through the KoMETA Virtual Live fan community, do the character art in the vid. I was looking for a more effeminate design, actually, but fortunately, my attempt at even more toxic masculinity was foiled, leading to that character art that looks a lot more like yours truly and his fat bastardry. Also, as I want folks to better understand what the heck I’m saying, I’m having them speeches transcribed in the videos. I’d like to be more stylish about it, though, so yeah, expect me to fumble around some more with that stuff.

Further plans for this sort of content? Well, I got two more scripts ready, and I’m planning to release once a month. Now, I’d like some honest constructive feedback, please.

Jin (Shizen no Teki-P) – ZIGI – TOB English Cover

Looking up what the title of this Jin song can mean, it appears that “mere child’s play” may be the most fitting, considering the song’s themes. But that doesn’t look and sound as cool as “ZIGI,” so yeah, I left it as is. Anyway, distinguishing this Allegories track further from the rest of Jin’s discography, especially considering “Yobanashi Deceive” and “Imaginary Reload” being similar to it, I’d say that, well, it’s the creepy one among Jin’s dark groovy tracks I’ve known so far. I think I’ll even call it my favorite among them thanks to how it depicts adulthood as childishness rather than just adulthood as the enemy of childhood. The video description hype line certainly helps, too, as it goes like “A child who deceives another child is called an ‘adult,'” which I certainly agree with, especially as a manchild. Still, I also tried to make the original’s English segments more understandable in my translyrics. You know they had to be fixed.

As for other fun things I had with the production of this cover, it also included my first vocal recording at my grandparents’ place. It went better than I thought, and/or Shigeru worked on my recordings better than I thought. However it went, the finished audio got me figuring out my sound better, and so I have big thanks to give. For one, funk might be more of an essential in my sound than I thought, you know? And yes, this cover also brings me back to my two attempts at covering “Yobanashi Deceive.” And I’m happy to have outdone the me that did those, alright.

Also, yes, I did include upside-down subtitles to match the original video’s. You like it?

Well, here’s the mp3 and the lyrics sheet of this cover if you liked it that much. Do remember to credit and link me if you’re using them, especially with honest constructive feedback to me.