Creativity without the means to make the idea as envisioned or even remotely close to it is truly a curse.

Because there’s this knowledge about a genuinely groundbreaking brilliant idea which you know would resonate with people, be a big hit, make them feel emotions, and really be seen as the genius they are...

...and the knowledge that as things stand, it'll likely never be made, ever. 

It’s a curse across multiple things. The other day, I actually wrote some in a story for farn--just not the story I needed to be. I was writing bits from the sequel to Records.

The initially planned second book in a trilogy, before I realized Records was too big for a single book. The book which would therefore require me to have written all of Records first.

And I haven’t touched Records of Farn for months.

I’ve also wanted to tackle further formatting my notes and transcribing them all in one or two places, bringing it all together in a single comprehensive place.

Haven’t done that in a couple months, either, although almost every time I go on a TVTropes binge I’m at least inspired to do a couple touchups. (Because Tropes are a convenient tool for describing characters and plot points.)

And now, I am plagued by THREE different cover artist band ideas for music. One would be mostly a meme, but technically the easiest. I’d just need to record my voice multiple times, then learn an editing program to put the recordings together and figure out how to format it for a YouTube video. 

The next easiest would require me to acquire a program capable of writing various different pianos and keyboards sounds/noises, and to properly educate myself on them, learn them, etc. My bells training as a percussionist never left me, so I would have a relatively easy time learning how to write the right notes, but tuning them to sound like the piano beat in my head might take longer. 

But of course, neither of those are the ones I am most called to work on atm.

The one which I want to work on is the one most impossible for me to do solo, and in general, would probably be incredibly difficult and grueling even for a small team to pull off. Because of course I would come up with an idea nearly impossible to be sustainable. 

This third cover song band wouldn’t actually be strictly speaking a cover band exclusively. 1 - 6 times per year, one of their original songs would be released. But the idea is weekly covers, as in, 52 songs per year...but presented in a way which is effectively four times as many.

The idea for this cover band is a Gorillazesque animated band with lore, both in terms of their characters and the actual setting. The world they’re on would have the aesthetic of partially post-apocalyptic, partially-dystopian, but would technically be neither. 

What makes it so hard to make is that each song would have four versions per week. On Mondays, it would typically be the member with a deep voice singing. On Wednesdays, it would typically be the one who belts out the lyrics without a care in the world as to accuracy, a free spirited voice in the spirit of a karaoke night where the aim isn’t to sing the song well, but to just have fun.

On Fridays, it would typically be trying to make an extremely faithful cover, matching as closely to a 1:1 as possible with my voice. 

And on Sundays, the three voices would combine, to form a fourth version, with the frontman and the background singers, kinda like a capella groups, but also still having the song's nonvoice parts too.

The art style for the weekday solo covers would largely be Sepia, often with a touch of lowfi aesthetic, but also heavily featuring black at the edges, and with splashes of color for the characters and important props. (For instance, hair and eyes always colored, and significant objects being held similarly so.)

This art style would frequently be like an animated digital oil painting, but also would frequently be like a thick, thiccc lines anime animation, kinda like the normal Sunday video. (See below.)

For the combined Sunday song, it can best be described as mostly Danganronpa cutscene with a dash of Scott Pilgrim. Muted colors for the background, mostly grays of a lifeless environment which progressively springs into life as the video progresses, with vibrant colors from the singers and their stage. Thick lines for the characters, but an almost lineless (and lifeless) background initially which becomes more animated as the song progresses.

The Sunday ones would be full musical videos, a la Offspring animated music videos or similar. They would do their best to mirror and parallel the original songs' videos, while still diverging into doing their own thing.

The weekdays would be more of an animated comic mixed with lofi vibe. With the focus on the band's members lore during their segments and the focus on the lore of the world and why it looks partially dystopian and post-apocalyptic during the Sunday videos, which would also gradually show the reason why things become more animated and vibrant as the video progresses. (Basically, the music of the trio is quite literally healing the land.)

The scope and scale of this project speaks for itself. It’s not impossible for a small team of artists/animators in tandem with producers to pull off a project of that scope. But it would be stressful to maintain that level of consistency in releasing four music videos per week, even if one or two of them are phoning it in.

And it’s actually not impossible for a single person to do it all! Just highly improbable, and requiring it to essentially be a full-time job. I’m a good enough artist to draw art in the caliber it’d need to be, but not a fast enough artist. I’d need to spend months practicing the styles and background details and character details to build that speed. We’re talking probably a hundred hours of practice minimum, and then teaching myself how to animate on top of that.

Not impossible, just incredibly difficult. 

If I could animate the Sunday video in two or three days, and draw the other three in one or two days, then I could have one to three for recording and producing. 

But producing, as well as animating, would require the coordination to make sure everything is perfectly timed and aligned, a skill taking additional work and labor. 

I have none of the know-how to pull this off at the moment. Yes, I can learn, but it would likely take me a dedicated 48 hours (not two days where it’s 8 hours per day, I mean 48 continuous hours across numerous days so likely a full month minimum) at least in order to build the foundation for at least stumbling through the idea to a workable level.

So of course this incredibly difficult project (not quite Phyrra and Cyrus in scale, but also not exactly viable currently) is what I am currently hyperfixated on expanding and building. 

A project that is brilliant, but unattainable without a radical shift in my life circumstances enabling a combination of finances and skills and time which I currently lack all of.

It’s still a nice idea though. 

I’m just forever cursed with the knowledge it'll never be made, just like the rest of my wonderful beautiful genius groundbreaking heartwrenching ideas.

A girl can dream tho.

And it feels like there’s a crossroads at hand.

Down the good path, years from now our future daughter will eventually look back at my lifetime of blogging before she came into our world and have a flood of emotions witnessing the struggles in these years, and how it kept getting worse and worse. 

But this good path, the one I seek, eventually would lead to my wife and I having a daughter together through some means. There’s a past blog describing it, but basically, my wife and I at the same exact time had nearly the exact same dream about a future where we were raising a daughter together. It felt like a much-needed premonition of the future we need to fight for, hold onto, and figure out how to manifest. 

And it is that future which is one of the few things giving me the strength to keep existing despite how much has gone wrong, continues to go wrong, all the injustices endured, the exhaustion, the hopelessness, the lack of clear path forward.

That I can still see her, at least some of the time, fills me with the hope she’s still a possible future for us, and that it’s not too late, we haven’t gone down the wrong/bad path YET, and eventually, by some means, she can come into our lives.

...But then there’s the other side of the crossroads. 

Where we just fail.

Where I can’t find the way forward. 

The reality I feel is closer day by day.

And this reality, the one where there’s the death of dreams, is the one which feels increasingly all-consuming.

I did write and perform a song about it (it's on my YouTube, but I can’t quickly easily link it so just look for the song Cry of the Soul matching the publish date of this blog), and I might even write more because I am inspired even further by my misery, apparently. 

But suffice to say...It’s not looking good for us.

It’s looking pretty terrible, in fact.

I can’t see how to manifest my miracle of miracles. 

I’m too tired to fight.
And fighting makes me too angry in ways I swore I never would be again.
And I am too exhausted to try.
And too filled with self-loathing for "wasting time" on a song nobody will listen to and a blog nobody reads, especially since even if people did listen and did read...all it would do is make them depressed. 

I've been isolating myself preparing for that final defeat, because it feels like I shouldn’t be burdening others with my suffering. All reaching out to them does is give them pain, or so it feels like. 

I'm trying to break that mindset. Reached out to one friend yesterday. Gonna try and keep reaching out to more, and reconnecting as best I can. 

It might not help me. It might not help them. It might even further drain me and be a further "waste of time".

But if I can’t find the good path forward, and lack the strength to fight for it...I don’t want to have died on the bad path sad, isolated, alone, in pain and agony, with all my joy dead and gone long before I go.

So, if I am to be in my final moments...then I at least want to try and make them good ones.

Especially if said good moments keep going as life finds a way.

No reason to not live life just because of the possibility of it ending. <3

Granted, quite poorly.

But this is a preview into the tragedy of Zeboel. Zeboel is a background character, and until I wrote this song I didn't really know their story other than that they're some form of nonbinary preferring They/Them or It pronouns. As one of the relatively younger Abundant Argon though, I knew Zeboel had to have once been a mortal, and would thus have a story behind how they became one of the 18 Demon God-Lords on farn.

I realized they caused the downfall of the last true claimant of the Toplan (read; Atlantean) empire, the Federation of Ramoan (read; Roman) Children, loosely speaking the farn equivalent of the early Franks in the Charlemagnesque era of the Holy Roman Empire, but with a modern flair where they were basically the modern United States of America ruled by capitalism, where short-term greed led to short-term gains but left a class divide where the rich were focused on getting richer and the poor were left suffering, left to die, and frustrated. It got to the point where all they needed was someone to follow.

Zeboel became that symbol by being representative of the issue. Part of the profession the backbone of farn runs on being profitized (an adventurer), and being a kind, caring, compassionate, empathetic person, a pacifist at that, who wanted nothing to do with violence yet wanted to help the people. When pushed to despair, desperation, and broken, Zeboel was left feeling there was no other options anymore, there was no other way, and embraced their charismatic side to become that symbol of revolution.

This song is the "point of no return" for Zeboel on that path, at the end of the two-thirds mark of the Musical, with the final third demonstrating the bloody revolution would topple the world order but then cause the wave of hate to turn on each other and destroy themselves because without a common foe to unite against and without a way for their hate to go away, they instead directed it towards each other leading to the death of basically everyone.

Zeboel had the chance to rule the rubble, similar to how Mastemo became a King, but Zeboel, thoroughly broken, just...had no desire to. They were left an empty shell, they were left with no purpose, so they just...left. Before the destruction had even actually finished, really. And that lack of a leader to fill the gap caused the farn equivalent of The Dark Ages.

...but I didn’t get a chance to post it here until now.

Rather, I had the chance to.

I just didn’t have the mindset to.

Heck, I'm only blogging about it now because my mental health just took a turn for the worse.

Today, I was doing SO MUCH BETTER Than yesterday. I was doing SO GOOD. I had relatively high spirits, and even the Muse to write a second song! Two in two days, that was too good to be true, right???

...as it turns out?

...yes, in fact, it was.

My Muse is gone.

I have lost my will to write again. 

I'm barely holding on to my will to live, again.

My fiancé keeps planning for our wedding, which will be a Halloween 2023 wedding. But...
...I am genuinely not sure if I will be making it to there with how bad I am right now.

For their sake if nothing else, I need to get better.

I literally saved their life. My friend(at the time) would've been dead if I did what others wanted me to do; when I say I literally saved their life, I mean I genuinely SAVED them. 

And later, romance blossomed. That friend became my partner, and that partner became my fiancé when they proposed to me. 

It would be the greatest disservice to them if I saved their life only to myself die. I helped save them when they were going through something similar to what I am now; for their sake, I need to also survive.

It’s just that right now, it’s difficult.

And that is the perfect time to post this song, because this song is relevant to my feelings and how I am right now. Writing it helped me cope, so hopefully sharing it today will, too.

Big Sad:

[V1]
Everyone knows of my crime my mistake,
My regrets have come but it’s too late.
Actions of mine are now what I hate,
All their consequences I can’t escape. 

All my wrongdoings sadly on display,
Doesn’t matter if I am ashamed.
It matters not what course I will take,
My harm still causes irreparable pain.

[Chorus]
I'm tired of the sickness,
The sickness is my mind.
I'm surrounded by darkness,
Why can’t it just be kind?

We're trained to see negative,
No matter its divide.
Why can’t I just discard this?
I just want to live life.

[V2]
Empathy has taught me life's not a game;
Even were it I don’t want to play.
I always feel I ruin the hangs,
Why can’t I just bring joy to all my gangs?

My attempts bring such harm in a cruel fate,
Failures leave me in a sorry state.
Can the bad leave and the good please stay?
I want a coffin for demons to lay.

[Chorus]
I'm tired of the sickness,
The sickness is my mind.
I'm surrounded by darkness,
Why can’t it just be kind?

We're trained to see negative,
No matter its divide.
Why can’t I just discard this?
I just want to live life.

[Bridge]
It must exist,
A place where I uplift,
It must exist,
A place where I'm a gift.
It must exist,
A place where I cherish.
It must exist,
Why can’t I see it?

[Chorus]
I'm tired of the sickness,
The sickness is my mind.
I'm surrounded by darkness,
Why can’t it just be kind?

We're trained to see negative,
No matter its divide.
Why can’t I just discard this?
I just want to live life.

And that's the Johnny Cash cover of "Hurt".

Because surprise surprise, that's what I do to others, despite my intentions of the opposite. Because I suck.

I hurt myself every day, but in my case largely by knowing how many I have hurt.

Every day, I still feel pain, but my pain is nothing compared to the pain I've inflicted. I don't have the right to say I'm in pain when the pain of others which I caused is far greater. My pain is nothing compared to theirs.

I focus on the pain, though, because like it says.

The pain of others is the only thing that's real. Their pain is what's important. I can try my best to help them. To promote healing. To help focus on the positive, to help their pain. Give them good, so they don't have so much bad. But, their pain is still the most important thing.

Every time I end up hurting people, it's a familiar sting. I've hurt people for so long, and despite my efforts, I still do. Even when I think I'm better, that I've grown, that I won't hurt people anymore...I end up still harming them, and the closer they are, the worse the pain I inflict.

I know that it's somewhat confusing with plurality, in how I don't remember the hurt I cause because it was a different me to inflict the wound, but simultaneously, I also never forget. I always remember. I have it in me. How could I forget all the wrongdoing I've done? I'm trying to be a good person, so I can't forget all of my sins. I can't kill those harmful moments, no matter how much I would like to. My wrongdoing is eternal. It's there forever. Nothing can remove it. All I have is remorse for my wrongdoing, and the efforts to try and do better to help and promote healing.

I always ask what I have become, because it's an ugly picture.

And I always end up hurting my sweetest friends. The closer they are, the greater the harm.

Everyone I know does go away in the end--because why wouldn't they? I give them nothing. I provide them with nothing. I take and I take, and give nothing in return. I am not worthy of keeping them in my life, because I don't do the work to keep them in my life and end up doing things which warrant being removed from theirs. How could I be worthy of them remaining, when I always do that?

All I have built is an empire of dirt. Nothing of note. Just empty mud. That's all I am. That's all I'm worth.

I will always let people down.

I will always make them hurt.

I'm nothing but a liar.

I have plenty of, justifiably, broken thoughts. All I do is break things, so why wouldn't I? I am broken, I break others, I break friendships, I break family, all I ever do is destroy.

And I can't repair any of it. I want to. I try to. But I am a failure in every way which matters.

Time can heal a lot of wounds, but by the time it does, there's new ones to replace the previous ones. People change, and grow. But no matter what, I end up doing the same thing and being unworthy of witnessing their growth.

Countless times, I've started again. A million times and miles away, over and over again.

And I want to do it all again. But I would likely still mess up, because I will always find a way to screw things up and hurt others.

I'm so sorry to everyone who has had the misfortune of seeing that side to me.

I'll say that it's easy to focus on the negatives.

But one day, I hope I will be worth focusing on the positives.

I don't think I ever will.

​But I want to be.

I've just been struggling to stay afloat.

I've been so so tired, and been struggling so so much to do even close to the bare minimum.

Realistically, I should be cutting back on the things I do, but like...

...everything I do is something I view as necessary, pretty much.

I need to work, so can't cut that out.
I need workouts, so can't cut them out.
I need dental hygiene and body hygiene, can't cut them out.
I need hair care, can't cut that out.
I need skincare, can't cut that out.
I want to blog, can't cut that out.
I need the vibes of places like ComicFury and streams and discord--I could cut them out in theory, but it'd tank my mental/emotional wellbeing. Those places replenish my soul.
​I need the mafia site for all of the things it gives me.

That doesn't leave a lot which I can cut out.

And yet, I can't maintain what I have.
It feels like the issue is physical--that what's dragging me down is a physical issue. So all I can really do is hope that my current pursuits help me get the physical issues be...less of them.

It's not much of a plan, I know.

I'm not sure what to do to be honest.

​Just trying my best to try my best.

It's actually setting me up fairly well for content creation. I've began my youtube channel, so now I feel like I have all the socials I need to update things. I need intertwining across them all.

Youtube to all;
My blog to all;
Twitch to all;
My fanhouse to all;
My tiktok to all;
My twitter to all.
Maybe facebook.

I've done a fair amount of the work but as of right now for instance only three of the five/six are on my blog for instance and the gaps are similar everywhere. Twitter needs an update, twitch needs a small tweak, youtube might need a tweak, fanhouse needs an update, and so on and so forth.

I also need to, in every place that allows it, update my discord info to have them all.

Progress is progress tho and I'm making a ton.

I feel like I am on the verge of a breakthrough in content creation.

Now, admittedly.

I didn't do what I originally set out to do during my free time today.

I wanted to make emotes for my eventual channel.

And on that note--I've got a lot of art on a lot of sites that needs to be updated with better art. Which requires me to actually make the better art.

What I have everywhere. From my stream itself to my youtube to my blog to my twitch to my fanhouse to my twitter, all of it is temporary. I need to create, and then upload, better art everywhere, and get better at being more consistent in my branding.

​Today basically in a few hours makes up for basically a full week of having slacked off.

Now, granted.

It's not all good.

I spotted either a very large mouse or a fairly small rat in my room. (Could be some other rodent obviously that's similar, but obviously didn't get a good look at it.) It's possible we have an infestation, but I can't sleep in my room, meaning that I need to clean my room, and I didn't do that.

The rat infestation might be just one which also moved to my parents' room, or it could be more. It's not a good situation regardless tho, especially given that we have cats and while cats are quite good at killing rodents, we don't want them to because our cats are inside cats and we don't want them to get sick from killing disease-ridden rodents.

So it's a problem we need to fix sooner rather than later.

​But in other news, I managed to write a song. It was inspired by Yungblud's Fleabag.
(parentheses denote original lyrics which I reworded outside of the parentheses, except for the bridge)

I called it "Passing the Clock".
While I did get a tune for it, I lack the means currently to record it (the above was all me working towards getting that gap closed more), so for now, all you have is the lyrics.

[verse 1]
Every attempt to live my life
Just an act, balance on a knife.
It's a struggle for me, but I must try
The world's crushing (pressure's strong), (so) I barely get by.

From a distance, I'm smiling
But close to the mirror, my heart sinks
(The) Imperfection's glares not helping
Cracks in my disguise, my armor's chink.

[prechorus]
I'm not hook, I'm not bait;
It's not easy, controlling fate.
How you look, what you say
Every move, you ever make

One mistake, is all it takes
For them to see,
The you you hate.

[chorus]
Passing the time
Is always a fight.
I fear the clock;
I wonder why?

One wrong sight
And I'm not fine.
I must block
The urge to cry.

[verse 2]
Every day brings new danger to me
The way I walk, the way I talk, all exposing
I'm not who they thought, a loss of peace
Or so they say, in their hate, all encompassing

Avoiding attention, it's not for clout;
I want to be seen, that's no doubt
But only as me, standing so proud.
A sense of elation, is that allowed?

[prechorus]
I'm not hook, I'm not bait;
It's not easy, controlling fate.
How you look, what you say
Every move, you ever make

One mistake, is all it takes
For them to see,
The you you hate.

[chorus]
Passing the time
Is always a fight.
I fear the clock;
I wonder why?

One wrong sight
And I'm not fine.
I must block
The urge to cry.

[bridge, sung by a backup singer]
(The way you do your hair,)
(The way you sit in a chair,)
(The clothes that you wear,)
(Your life's not fair.)

(The way you do your hair,)
(The way you sit in a chair,)
(The clothes that you wear,)
(Your life's not fair.)

(the bridge then repeats, simultaneous to the prechorus)

[prechorus]
I'm not hook, (The way you do your hair,) I'm not bait;
It's not easy, (The way you sit in a chair,) controlling fate.
How you look, (The clothes that you wear,) what you say
Every move, you ever make
(Your life's not fair.)
One mistake, is all it takes
For them to see,
The you you hate.

[chorus]
Passing the time
Is always a fight.
I fear the clock;
I wonder why?

One wrong sight
And I'm not fine.
I must block
The urge to cry.

Passing the time
Is always a fight.
I fear the clock;
I wonder why?
(song abruptly ends)

​It is, quite obviously, a song about a transgender individual. I kept it reasonably generic, but, yes, it is a bit about me. I've been working a fair amount to try and be more feminine in every aspect of my life. I can't do voice that well yet but I will do what I can there. I'm working on my walk, I'm working on how I sit, I just want to try and be seen as more feminine, and I might be progressing there? But it's a constant struggle.

Still, though. I feel like I'm making progress there.

So good day overall.

But the thing is, it isn't an existing song. I got a made-up Broadway Musical song stuck in my head, one of my own creation.

So I figured I should share it.

I feel the need to reiterate: this is not a song written about anyone I know.
This is, explicitly, a fictional character, singing about a fictional person. I don't even know anything about the singer or the person they're singing about. The singer could be a good person or could be a total misogynistic jerk or anything in-between. The person being sung about could be a total manipulative bitch or a literal angel or anything in-between. They could be close, they could be enemies, I don't know, all I know is that I got a rather catchy tune stuck in my head with some rather humorous lyrics and that the style of them is of a broadway play musical.

I'm not even sure if this is the entirety of the song, or just the choruses of the song.

But I figured I may as well share it:

She's a bitch! (she's a bitch!)
A real-life witch! (real-life witch!)
She's got no respect for rules 'cause she's rich!

She's a bitch! (she's a bitch!)
I really wish! (really wish!)
She wasn't so seductive with her lips!
---
She's a bitch! (she's a bitch!)
A real-life witch! (real-life witch!)
What was I thinking when I gave that kiss?

She's a bitch! (she's a bitch!)
I wanna ditch! (wanna ditch!)
But she's so hypnotic with those tits!
---
She's a bitch! (she's a bitch!)
A real-life witch! (real-life witch!)
She's the type of person I shouldn't miss!

She's a bitch! (she's a bitch!)
She gives an itch! (gives an itch!)
But she's so magnetic with those hips!



Obviously, the parts in parentheses are sung by backup singers, to support the lead singer on this song. The last three syllables on the long lines are emphasized, with the same emphasis as the short lines.

I find it a rather humorous, but apt, song.

I may not have played League today, but I did just about everything else! Including some minecraft time, but notably. I actually did Phyrra and Cyrus work. I only finished 2/8 of the songs I need to (the opener/closer of season 1), but that's still huge! Writing two songs in one day is a huuuuuuge accomplishment. Smaller than ideal since one was partially written and there's a BOATLOAD of stuff I need to get done for Phyrra and Cyrus, but this was something that did need to be done.

Sooooo.

​Success!

...I figured I'd mention it here since might as well.
I wrote what's a bit of a jingle. I didn't write a full song even though I wanted to, but this is about really good nutrition:

Oooo
You're so good it's lewd
I wanna eat you
Delicious delicious food

Oooo
You're so good it's lewd
I wanna eat you
Delicious delicious food



​...I feel like I could flesh that out into more, but I thought of it while I was eating dinner and thought that it was something that was remarkably entertaining so may as well blog about it even though I didn't flesh it out into something proper.