Where Are The Updates? – Writer’s Journal

Sigh…

The short version is that I simply haven’t had the motivation, of late. For much of anything. I’m just… boomed, really. In every sense I can be. I’m exhausted, I’m annoyed, I’m discouraged, and just about everything else I can really be on that scale. I’m not in an especially good mental headspace, right now. It’s killing my motivating, making my irritable like you wouldn’t believe, and leaving me in a place where all I want to do is sleep and play videogames. But sure. Let’s try for some updates while I have the time and feel the sense of obligation to at least maintain transparency.

Galvanic

For anyone who’s noticed, the last few TKO installments have been a tad late. That was mostly a product of Thanksgiving. The first time I’d been working a lot prior to Thanksgiving so I was tired and just needed to take some time. The second late post was just because Thanksgiving delayed our getting to hold our usual meeting in regards to the anime. So yeah. That said, this TKO’s been fun and all, but it’ll very likely be the last one for quite some time. I wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t produce one next year at all, let alone two or three. In fact, if I’m honest, we might largely forego anime coverage at all, next year, with the exception of Bulletoon. There are a few reasons for that. Some personal, some work-related.

As you know, our biggest project as a group is currently Burning Sky. Well, COVID happened and derailed us a bit on some of the aspects of that. Not enough to worry a ton, but still. We’re behind. So we need to catch up to our projections and the TKO just cuts too heavily into that. It takes up a considerable amount of time that we could be using to write. Especially for me, who’s working on a number of other things on top of that. So it looks a lot like next year I won’t really be covering any anime outside of the show. There might be the odd episode we put out that’s based on something newer, but yeah. Mind you, I can’t speak for Bob. I’m not really mandating his site content next year in any major way (I normally tell him what to cover and let him suggest/pick things to fill in empty slots). I think he plans on covering The Mandalorian, though. So there’s that. Good show, by the way.

On a more personal level… I’m starting to just not enjoy it, if I’m honest. Not that if feels like an obligation or anything. More that I just feel like I’m spinning my wheels. Most of what I aim to do is “commentainment.” But I think what I’m making is just turning into a waste of time. I don’t get the impression anyone’s really interested in anything I have to say (unless it’s about Medaka Box, apparently…) and maybe rightfully so. That must be on me. Maybe I’m just not saying anything worth anyone’s time. It’s not resonating with people for one reason or another. Perhaps it’s not funny enough. Perhaps it’s not conveying my thoughts efficiently enough. Perhaps I’m just not as smart as I’d like to think I am and it’s showing. Whatever the case, if I just drop the regular, seasonal thing, maybe I can dedicate more time to Bulletoon writing and improve on… whatever the issue happens to be while working on something I genuinely find fun to work on, even in a vacuum.

What I know is what I like. What I like is looking at things that are fluff or built around mass appeal, then analyzing them to pick out the nuances and such. I like breaking down the complicated storytelling mechanics in simple stories (any good story, simple or not, has complicated storytelling in there, even if it’s not obvious). I know my brand. So we’ll see if I can put it into action.

Bulletoon

This is an unfortunate update that I really don’t think anyone saw. But essentially the current season has been put on hold because the voice actress for Riley recently fell ill (no, it’s not that) and her throat’s been giving her trouble. I don’t know when she’ll be better, but I hope you guys will join me in wishing her a speedy recovery.

EXTRA/NORMAL

I’ve actually been keeping this one going for a while and I think it’s been going nicely. A new chapter up here every Wednesday or Thursday, then it officially gets published to Honeyfeed and Webnovel on Fridays. It’s nice. If anyone has any suggestions on where else I could post it, let me know. Beyond that, I’ve no real updates. I believe I’ve got something like 8 or 9 chapters pre-written (I’d have to check). So there’ll be uploads pretty consistently. On that note, if you have anything else you’d like to see in regards to “behind-the-scenes” style content, I’m all ears.

This Blog

I’ll probably change the URL. The longer this blog’s around, the more apparent it becomes that I just don’t want this to be purely an anime blog, so much as a directionless one that emphasized my creative endeavors and maybe occasionally talks about stuff I happen to absorb. Without the pretense of me acting in the role of a character – be it an overly chipper and clearly malignant one, or a sarcastic and irritable one. One where I just talk candidly about a thing I happened to watch/play/read, recently. I do want to start highlighting some OELN authors, but I think I’ll be doing that on the main site, just to keep expanding the main site’s reach. We’ll see what happens. As for this place, it’s cool. The only thing I’d need to change is the URL, luckily. So yeah. Should be all good. Maybe retool some stuff. Some things here do need minor updating. We’ll see how it goes.

Actually, on that note, would anyone be interested in my musing on videogames? I dunno. I’ve been playing them a lot lately. Figure it’d be interesting to talk about. Or perhaps I can just pick up streaming again. Well… I did plan on doing that anyway, I guess. But writing about what I’m playing could be fun, maybe.

[Mini-Rant]

I keep finding these conversations that are simply not worth the time investment. Detached and, frankly, irritating statements that seem to imply that people who like or don’t like a thing are somehow akin to bizarre and alien creatures. It’s just so dismissive and annoying and generates this vibe of self-importance I can’t stand. Plus it creates, for me at least, the impression that people simply don’t pay attention when I say things. Numerous videos (it’s usually a video, but there might be the odd article, in there) that explain – in detail – how I think about a thing, explaining rather plainly why I do or don’t like something… and it’s just handwaved away with that dismissive “I don’t see how you can like/dislike” X. It just tells me “Okay, well, you didn’t watch the video, then.” Overlord was a pretty decent example of this. A number of “How can you not like Overlord!” I was fairly certain I was extremely clear about this… and even then, I went out of my way to express that I fully understand how people find enjoyment in it. Their priorities and thought processes might be different, but I didn’t just dismiss their entire opinion. I took the bloody time to try and see where they were coming from.

It’s these. Conversations – or a lack thereof – like these that just bug the hell out of me. I’d love to have an engaging conversation without the flippant edge, for once. (And yes, I know about all the community-watches and stuff, I simply haven’t had the time for them. Or when I have, they were watching something I absolutely had no interest in.) I know I don’t tend to comment a lot, but I do generally read a lot of blog posts and if I have anything I want to comment on, my first instinct is usually just to make a mental note of “Oh, I’ll keep that in mind and reference it in my post later.” Honestly, I just tend to forget to comment or I actively don’t because I wanna save it for a post where I can fully gather my thoughts and elaborate on them without the confines of a comment section (it feels kinda rude to me to use someone else’s comment section to functionally write your own full blog post. That and I just do not like repeating myself. The redundancy irks me.)

Conclusion

Okay. That’s it. Sorry it was a bit down. I’m really not feeling particularly great. I probably need to just sleep it off or something. In any case, thanks for being patient with me and for reading, as always.

Stay safe, stay healthy, stay Awesome
Voyager