I usually come onto this blog to expose the deepest, darkest pits of my psyche, say some atrocious shit and leave. Other times I just reblog fandom stuff and leave. No context. No mercy.
I don't really care what you've come here for, what you're trying to find, or even how you found me, and this blog. Regardless of how you've landed here, in this barren wasteland of the internet, I do hope that you have a moderately entertaining time at least. And I'm being genuine, lol.
Ok yeah, the new pc is really good. I left the pc alone for about 20 mins, and it's already 40% rendered. Which is frankly unthinkable speed, in comparison to my last basic-ass programmer Dell laptop. I should be able to get the upload up by tonight, and schedule it for early tomorrow morning. I am so close to finally being unchained from "Dream's End Radio" mv production hell.
There's a Matsuri in town tonight too apparently, running throughout this last entire weekend. Other than for going to the vet - I quite literally haven't had the time to leave my damn hovel. Which honestly? Thank fuck for that. I am not opening up my schedule for shit, if it means that my dad/my friends are gonna drag me out of my cave to do shit outside. There's gonna be some fireworks starting really soon, so I gotta go close all the windows now, and check up on my dog.
Running on just about 5 hours of sleep atm. I've been finalizing everything with the last bits of text + patching up any additonal rendering quirks thay I've found. I'm tired as all hell, but work's progressing on time, at least.
Here's a random video editing tip, as a person that's generally mostly dealt (and subsequently struggled with) with pretty gpu processor heavy video renders in the past. The main thing I wanna say as a tip, that a lot of beginner video editors/animators miss - is that you shouldn't render everything in one go, as a final video. Not only will that take hours to do, if the video is long/is in 3D or whatever, but it will be a massive pain in the ass, if you ever find that you need to re-render anything afterwards. What I suggest you do instead, is to render every frame out as an image file (if you have the option to do so with your editor, ofc) and then load that back in to your video editor, as a seperate save/edit file.
What this does is that it allows you to first render all the video frames in a lossless manner, without audio, or video compression, or anything else attached. Then, if you need to re-render anything, all you'll need to do is to re-render that specific scene/set of frames that you initially found a mistake in, post-render. Because you aren't rendering an mp4 or avi video off the get-go, it's not only easier and quicker on your computer to render it out (also rendering animations/heavily editer videos out as image frames generally causes the render to fail less), but it allows you to re-render specific parts, and replace the faulty bits a lot easier.
For most video editors, when a video is rendered and exported as image frames, the frame number becomes the name of the exported image (which is usually a png or bitmap, but I suggest rendering in png for space purposes). So when you're going to replace a set of faulty frames after the initial render - all you really need to do is drag and drop the new images into the file where your old video export is. It's that simple.
Doing this not only allows for easy post-fix, before the finalized video render - it also ensures that you can prioritize the audio quality of the video. From my own personal experience - it's surprisingly common to see no issues with the video at all, until you hear the thing, and you suddenly realize that everything you're listening to is jumbled garbage. Which is terrible to deal with, as a person that basically only makes videos for music-related stuff.
In simpler terms? My advice to any beginner video editor/animator is to take the editing process in steps. There's this thing that professional animators do as a general rule - to basically do everything in terms of passes. The first pass being a rough idea/scene composition (so basically, "working on the vibes and only the vibes"), the second one being an animation tie-down of the first, the third one being lineart and finer details and such... and so on and so forth. The point here is to take everything in steps.
Attempting to do everything in one go, is something that I can guarantee is overwhelming, and also incredibly disheartening when something doesn't work out like it's supposed to. So if you're ever gonna try to work on something big (the way that I'm doing right now), my only advice is that you pace yourself, and understand that you're not going to get everything perfect in one go. And that's alright.
You will get better at understanding what needs to be done, the more that you work on your own project/skills. The point here isn't to create something groundbreaking or whatever, on your first few goes - the point is to get to a place where you won't give up on your projects, even if things don't seem to be working out like they should.
Geniuses are often just a flash in the pan. The only thing that will actually get you anywhere, regardless of your innate abilities - is resilience.
Good luck with your own projects, and don't break yourself on the way to the top. This is the only thing that matters, at the end of the day.
It's 2 am. I can't seem to get to sleep, and I can't seem to be able to calm down very well, either. I kind of hate the fact that when I overwork myself like this sometimes; I just end up thinking about her late at night, and I just keep rehashing how I've never felt wanted by anyone that I've truly loved. It's like I run to work because that's my only source of self-worth or validation - and I don't know what I'm good for, otherwise.
I keep thinking about her, and what she said to me. I kinda really hate that she's right about me - that I really am so utterly obsessed over her, for no reason, I guess.
She doesn't love me. She would never choose me, and she never once has. And yet I still... I still think about her, every night. I still catch myself fantasizing about her, rehashing memories that have long since passed. So utterly taken by her, even though she's quite literally told me that she's never once felt that same way back, for me.
...I sometimes feel like I run to work, because I've never once felt chosen by the things that truly mattered to me - aside from the realms of my own job. No matter what that job is; I'm generally fairly confident in what I'm putting out into the world, because I know that I'm capable of getting shit done, if I deem it to be something worth seriously working on. And a job well done is always a boost in confidence in itself, no matter if I do or don't get any recognition for it.
I don't have that sort of self-confidence when it comes to relationships of any kind (except maybe my friendships). Because I've generally never really been chosen, or have felt any love, from the people that I chose to love. I feel like I expend myself instead, wasting away just so I could give my loved ones a reason to stay. Grasping onto straws, grasping onto love with what I can provide to them, because that's all I'm good for.
I wish I was a robot, sometimes. I wish I didn't feel hurt. I wish didn't feel want, or need. I wish I didn't feel like I always ask for too much, and then break whatever little I had left with somebody else - just because I reached for something that I shouldn't have.
I feel worthless, as a human being, sometimes. I feel like "to be loved" and "to be worth staying for", is a different matter when it comes down to it - and the truth is that I've never felt worth staying for. I've never felt enough to ask someone to stay.
I'm always so scared of things breaking apart, and people leaving me to be all by myself; but the reality is that I don't really think I'm worth fighting for, sometimes. I think that everyone makes their own choices, and that if they choose to leave, and live a happier life without me - then it's completely in their right to do so. If that's what will make the ones I love happy, then I'm not going to fight back, or argue against that.
...I wish that I could honestly say that that didn't hurt me. I wish that I could send off the people that I loved with a smile, and not feel the need to cling so hard to them, within my own mind. I wish I could say that I don't still fight my own thoughts about this shit every night, that I don't cry, and that I don't fuckin grovel and beg for my own feelings to be reciprocated, where it quite literally can't be. I wish I wasn't like this.
She's completely right about me, and yet I still struggle to accept her words, head on. I don't know why. I know that I should let go, but I feel like I start to fall into a panic, every time I get even close to forgetting about her. Overworking myself just makes shit worse. Lack of sleep doesn't help me.
She's right about me. And if I could stop my heart from grasping onto the idea of her, every time I felt uncomfortable or sad, then I would. But...
I felt safe with her. Once upon a time, I guess. And I don't know how to properly verbalizd how rare that feeling is, for me. To feel safe with somebody, so much so that I didn't feel like I needed to talk. To feel safe with somebody's presence, so much so that I actually felt relaxed, just listening to her voice.
This is something that's only happened with one other person for me... and that other person didn't turn out to be someone who was really safe, for me. They weren't exactly somebody with my best intentions in mind. But they were the only other love that I'd ever known.
I felt safe around her. And just because of that, I fell so deeply in love with somebody that I could never have. And that's on me, truly. I can't fault her for forging her own path, without me in the picture.
She deserves happiness, whatever shape that takes for her. She deserves something better, and that's what I hope she reaches for, and obtains, regardless.
...I don't know if I'm worth fighting for, sometimes. I don't know if I'm worth staying for. Work often feels like it's the only thing that gives me any sense of purpose, or value, as a human being. I dive so deep into it, because it often feels like that's the only way I'll ever feel wanted.
At nights like these, when I'm overworked, overtired, and can't seem to calm the fuck down on my own - I have a bad habit of drifting into thoughts of her. Reflecting on shit that makes me feel like I've never been chosen, even though I know that that isn't true. Thoughts of her still make me feel safe... But I feel like I'm cracking my own heart in half, every time I do this shit to myself.
It's been months. I still don't know how to control this. I feel so sad all the time, and I still don't really know what to do about this shit.
Everything finished, except for the added text. Render will likely take more than a few hours, so I'm just giving up on adding to the video for now, and leaving the rest to tomorrow. All the basic compositing, 3D lighting, colors + shades are done, as well as any additional camera effects I was planning to add in beforehand. My body is kinda through atm. I really need to lie down.
I'm gonna try to walk my dog early tonight, and go straight to bed. I might've been going a little too ham on work, this week. It's a Saturday, and I've been on the job since about 11 am. It's 9:21 pm now, and I just quit doing shit. I really need to get some more rest, rn.
12 more shading scenes left for the video, then add text, then render. Afterwards I just gotta schedule the video for tomorrow morning (for my timezone) and then I should be good to go. I'm probably gonna do the release prep for the single itself, today/tomorrow as well. I am almost free.
That being said? This morning was mostly spent bringing lil Baron to the vet for the second time. Doctors were pleasantly surprised with his weight gain and overall progress. We left with some eye meds for him, and a few more refills of anti-tic meds for Myuto. Who apparently also had to deal with my parents randomly getting into the house unannounced while I was away. Both of them were tired as all hell by the time everything settled down.
Anyways, have some pics that me and my friend took of the cuddly creatures. I love them both. So much.
Bro you ever jack off, and then immediately start questioning why you were even born, the second that you finish? I have no idea why, but sometimes getting off makes me feel really fuckin emotionally unstable, and I kinda gotta look back on my actions beforehand and just blankly sit there, sometimes??? You feel me??????
Man this is why I try to practice celibacy, as much as humanly possible. I get caught up in the moment, and in my own head sometimes - but the second that I actually get shit over with, is when I look back on how fuckin uncontrollable these impulses are, and I kinda start hating myself. Porn always made shit worse for me, especially mentally - so nowadays I just tend to distance myself from it. I still sometimes kinda do that gooner shit where I'm constantly reading/watching/interacting with porn in some way for hours sometimes - without actually doing anything about it.
I'm lucky enough to say that I've never really dealt with porn addiction; in part because I really started hating myself whenever I "gave in" to my own hormonal impulses. But this shit still affects me. I've been trying to get better with it tho, slowly.
Bro the 'sexual release' or whatever; really isn't worth the dawning and absolute mental clarity of any post-horny endeavors I sometimes bring upon myself. This entire experience is absolutely shit, and sometimes I wish I didn't need to feel like this. Why the fuck do humans just have to 'want to' reproduce, man.
I sorta feel really uncomfortable with myself, especially when it comes to this shit, a lot of the times. I know that having these urges isn't necessarily a bad thing but FUCK!!!!! I really can't handle what follows sometimes, because all this shit does is make me feel fuckin depressed.
Kinda related/unrelated to my last post; but here's a couple of animation stuff that I like to look at for inspo and stuff. I love the vibes on these bro, shit's actually FIRE
Ok so... Yeah I'm actually getting kinda sick it seems. I might've been pushing it a bit with work... I get really dizzy if I sit up and continuously do work tasks for too long.
That being said? Flat coloring is almost 100% complete. I just gotta work on some minor flat coloring for the lipsync of the last, long scene, and then I'm through. Thank fuck for Blender's built-in features (specifically multi-frame editing) dude. That shit's been saving my ass, honestly.
I know I say this shit a lot, but Blender is a surprisingly legitimately good program for all types of animation work. All the animations are done in units of "grease pencil objects" (if 2D) and scenes, both of which are re-usable, and very easily adjustable after duplicating them. Not to mention, Blender has a built-in video editor, which has all the basic features you'd need for basically any type of simple edit (think scene layers, text addition, and video compositing). This means that basically anything you'd need could be done within the same project file, given that your pc is robust enough to handle all of that at once.
There's quite a bit of extra stuff that can be added with the help of community scripts + other types of assets, as well. Things like easier 3D camera navigation (basically the SFM camera system where you can manipulate the camera position by adjusting yourself in the world, like playing an FPS game), 2D animation tweening and rigging stuff (think Live2D-type animation models), as well as a lot of different types of brushes and other simple drawing resources.
I'll link some stuff under the cut, because I REALLY recommend Blender as an animation tool, and the community plugins seem like they could be incredibly helpful. I will say tho - the truth is that I haven't really needed any of them. Not yet, and not for this specific project, at least.
This is still my first animation project with Blender. I kinda decided to rawdog a full 5+ minutes of animation, after following some random grease pencil tutorial and then subsequently realizing it's sheer potential. By all means, I'm still just a beginner at this, too. But there's a lot to explore here, and I honestly can't believe that this open source and entirely free 3D Modelling, 2D + 3D Animation Software, AND Video Editing Software is as underrated as it is.
Blender is an absolute beast of a program. Considering it's also been used in some very prominent Hollywood movies out there ("Spiderman: Across The Spider-Verse" uses Grease Pencil for their 2D effects and 2D + 3D style animation style)? I can't recommend this shit enough. Absolutely insane program to be able to use for entirely free. All hail our open source overlords. This kind of stuff needs to be more widely celebrated, and recognized.
Resources mentioned:
Note: I haven't needed to use these plugins, so I haven't actually downloaded or tried them out on my system. Blender updates pretty frequently (and also pretty drastically each time), so there's a likelyhood that these plugins don't even work on the newest version of Blender, at this point.
If you're really interested, you might be able to find updated versions of these plugins, either by looking through the creator's stuff, or by doing a deep dive on google, I guess. No guarantees tho, unfortunately.
Man I am. Definitely gonna have to take a few days/maybe even a week's rest before getting into any other project after the MV's released. I've actually started getting kinda sick because of how warm it's been here. With humidity included - the daily temperature of this area's been getting to shit like 39 degrees celsius.
I'm fortunate enough that I don't need to go outside a lot, and also that my aircon's working fine; but I'm still not completely healthy, and the heat's been kinda getting to me. I probably need to take an actual break after this work crunch shit.
It is lunch break. The tiny, black, impenetrable plot armor kitten finally has a name. Was talking to Buber Eats man about it (cause he didn't know if he should or shouldn't name the lil guy, considering he's handing him off to me in a few weeks time), but we finally settled on something for him. Turns out we had the same vision for the lil guy, and so I asked him to take the honors of naming him.
He's a really chill little dude, and very cuddly as well. I was gonna name him "King", and apparently Buber Eats man saw the same thing in him too - he said that the name that he was thinking of was "Baron". And honestly?? That's a fire name, and I really think it fits the little guy. Absolute designated royalty cat in our eyes, ig. The tiny man is extremely endowed (lmao) with undeniable protagonist energy. I love him so much, dude.
Have some pics and videos of the lil guy under the cut.
All the lipsync animations are complete. There's only about some 20-ish scenes left that need flat coloring done, and then all I have left to do is adding some additional shade, text, and video compositing. The Dream's End Radio MV is FINALLY almost done. After about 6-7 months of working on it. Holy shit man.
I'm trying to get the release done by this weekend, and everything seems to be going on sched. This is the first time I've completed a project this large, goddamn. Doing all of this shit alone made me really realize that this probably shouldn't be the workload of one singular person. Having ever only really worked on music or videos - I gotta say that making a full blown original song + animated mv for it, isn't a project that anybody should undertake completely alone, like I have. What the actual fuck am I doing to myself.
Honestly I'm pretty proud of how it's turning out, and I'm super fuckin excited to finally get this shit over with, more than anything. I got a lot more collab stuff I gotta work on after this - and then the completion of the album + the book on the side. Man I have so much work to do, but Imma be honest when I say that I really wouldn't have it any other way.
I'm trying to make good on my vow to the kids - to at least get to a point in my music career where they can show my artist name to their family and friends, without getting called "weird" and shit for liking my music. I'm mostly just trying to get out of being a 'virtual nobody' in the online music scene, honestly. So many of my friends, colleagues, and people that I've held dear to me for a long time have made a name for themselves and I... I don't exactly measure up to them. Unfortunately.
It's been years coming to this point, but I want to rise to the occasion. In a way that feels proper for me. The reality's that I've never once been able to call myself an equal to the people that I've dearly loved in my past, for so long - and I've never felt enough to stand by them, because of this. I'm not very secure or confident in myself to begin with, so me being an actual nobody, despite the people around me getting recognition and praise for their work... Has honestly been something that I've looked down on myself for, for a long time now.
I've never felt like I was enough. For anyone, or anything. Even then; there's some dumbass kids that I've seen grow up in some dumbass discord server that I made for them, that wants me to succed with my music career. And I can't thank them enough, for seeing some hope in me, where I'd never feel confident to fully bet on myself.
At the end of the day, I'm doing this for them. This music thing. And that's why I'm putting my best foot forward, with every project I got going on. Because even if I don't believe in myself - some kid, somewhere - does.
So there's this really interesting passage in the book "The Science of Love and Betrayal" by Robin Dunbar (yes it's the same biologist that wrote the "Friends" book that I've been praising quite a bit recently), that I thought might be beneficial to share here. It's about the neurological connection between physical pain, and social rejection.
...
Some further evidence that social and physical pain are one and the same thing comes from evidence that children who have recently been injured express distress in response to seperation from a caregiver more often and more intensely than children who have not. Similarly, adults who have chronic pain disorders also experience more anxiety about their personal relationships than healthy individuals and are more likely to have an anxious attachment style (one in which they constantly question the commitment of a partner). ...
I've known (quite a number of people now), who struggle with BPD and anxious attachment, while simultaneously dealing with chronic pain disorders, through rather significant portions of their life. What I want to mention here, because I feel it's important; is that all of these people have invariably been AFAB. I recall some things I learned in the past about existing as a woman, and the almost equivalent experience of having to deal with more chronic health conditions, as a result. Which... Kinda makes a lot of sense to me as to why more people with anxious attachment styles tend to be women. In my opinion.
It's something that seems to work in the opposite direction as well - and Dunbar in the book describes the phenomenon as: "people who experience less social rejection and have healthier relationships fare better against illness, and recover quicker from injury". But coming at this from a strictly personal perspective; I am a person that doesn't seem to experience pain as severely as the others around me seem to feel it. Injuries and illness tend to take a long time to heal for me, and when I'm down, I am completely bedridden; but the reality of the matter is I don't really feel it as strongly as others seem to. Same with the idea of social rejection. Which again - I've been clinically labelled as a "Youth Psychopath", and I likely still display behaviours typical of secondary psychopathy. I wonder if these two concepts might be connected, somehow??
From what I understand; women deal with a lot more chronic health conditions compared to men. Just as a general concept. These are conditions that aren't entirely debilitating, necessarily - but require constant attention, and treatment, to alleviate pain. I've heard quite a bit about the horrors that is heightened allergen sensitivity and the experience of having hyperactive immune systems that just attack your own body for no reason, embedded into the daily realities of being female. Regardless if women have higher pain tolerance levels than men or not - the reality is that that's a lot of pain. Semi-constant, if not constant pain too.
It makes intuitive sense to me then, as to why women would experience higher sensitivity to rejection and inter-relationship troubles, than men. Pain just adds to pain, and already dealing with pain on a constant basis, probably doesn't make that experience of possibly having to deal with more pain because of relationship shit any better, I would think.
I don't think I really experience human relationships to that deep of a level as most people around me (in general) do. But I've grown enough to realize that some relationships really do hurt. Like, in a physical, absolutely uncontrollable way. March was probably the first time I've had to deal with heartbreak in such a gut-wrenching, honestly kinda life-changing and very painful way - so I think I understand better now, how physical pain could be so directly intertwined with the feeling of social rejection.
This is all really interesting information overall. Honestly it kind of strengthens my belief that it's probably one of the most important things to build a body that is healthy, and as much as possible pain-free - in order to create and maintain a healthier sense of mental health. Because if lessening your load of physical pain means that you then increase tolerance against rejection, and are then less sensitive to relationship issues; that means that you'll be better equipped to deal with the other people in your social circle, and whatever trouble (or unexpected drama) that may happen in it.
I've gotten a lot better myself, thanks to better health and a stable set of friends. There's no doubt in my mind, that both my friends and my physical health boost each other. My overall well-being is probably the best it's ever been in my life - and this is undoubtedly because I've been able to heal on both ends.
It's kinda nice to know that I'm doing the right things for myself, and am on the correct path with my own recovery - backed by science, nonetheless. Lmao. Very valuable information overall, I'd say.
