The Let's Plays vs Essays Struggle (Preview & News Blog Post) (Patreon)

[above art was a cool surprise today from @crimsonann (18+)]

Sorry! I said there'd be more Hi-Fi Rush by now, and it's been a bit since the last Fear & Hunger update. For Fear & Hunger there's a bit of inertia to overcome because the next recording session has broken audio and I need to combine my recordings with Toaster's in order to fix it, THEN do the big editing pass for pacing because of how repetitive the game gets with all of the dying, THEN do the big editing pass to censor all of the more detailed nudity. It's a project, and one I've been regretfully putting off. Trust me, I'd love to have it done lol

Re: Hi-Fi Rush, I'm trying to get another script done for the essay channel because it's been so long, so I'm trying to maximize my writing time to mixed results. Since I stream with Bird on Thursdays, the larger group on Fridays and Saturdays, and then have the podcast and FFXIV on Sundays, I've been trying to get as much Let's Play recording done as I can on M-W night streams. I tend to put off the stream until late because I'm trying to wring more words out of my brain before it's time to give up for the day. Last week, a second HFR stream just didn't materialize.

Since the Early Access tier gives you content shortly after I record it, it ends up revealing how often I have underproductive weeks and then binge to make up for them.

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So, Essays! What's up? From what I remember, there were seven months of silence before the Legoshi video came out, then seven months before the Adastra video, which came out as I was about to fly to MFF at the beginning of December. And now it's June! Seven months again!

The first thing to address is that, no, it doesn't take seven months to make one of these videos. They ARE A lot of work, but that doesn't explain everything. The biggest delay is the massive graveyard of failed essays.

I go on a walk, my brain fixates on a particular idea, and sometimes I get really excited about it and try to write about it for a few days. And then I stop. Maybe I hit a dead end where I can't quite make sense of a point I want to make. Maybe I realize that I just really like the piece of media I was thinking so much about, but don't actually have anything to say about it. Maybe I look back at the last five thousand words and decide that I hate it, actually.

Most of the above scripts will never happen. A few might be combined into a more coherent idea.

I've actually been working on one lately that I think has a lot of promise, not pictured above, but I prefer not to mention things until I'm sure they're going to happen. I like what I've written, but I need to go back through several games and books before I can get much further, so I've set it aside for the moment.

Which brings us to PLUSH!

I decided to set my current plans aside and do a Thing Bad video, like the Monster Hunter one, because frankly, ranting and complaining is much easier than doing longform analysis. After the six hour gay furry coming out duology thing I feel like I owe myself an easy project. And the source material is short, so I don't need to obsessively re-read 22 volumes of manga to fact check myself!

I don't totally love this project, honestly, but if I can get it done I can reset the clock on how long it's been since the last video on the essay channel, which stresses me out. So at least there's that.

So as a treat, here's my messy, incomplete script where I'm very pedantic about a comic where an outsider tried to write about furries! I wanted to finish it in time for Pride Month, but even if I do, it'll probably come out late to the public since I want to give you guys early access to the finished thing.

Essay in Progress: "I Don’t Think Plush Knows What a Furry Is?"

https://docs.google.com/document/d/18uebwtAjR77b1I-f4lcpF3mc14eLTno8UFkz_VwlhlI/edit?usp=sharing

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I feel a bit weird about the essay channel in general, lately. I realized pretty quickly that I peaked with Legoshi is Gay when I got exactly what I wanted. It was a life-changing video that has impacted more people than I ever thought possible. If we're to call ourselves "influencers," then I think helping dozens or hundreds of people come to terms with their sexuality or gender identity was a way cooler form of influencing than, like, selling coffee or whatever. I'm at peace with the idea that that video is a trick I can't pull off twice, what with the coming out and whatnot.

My issue is that between Adastra, Beastars, and Annihilation, I've made things that are deeply personal, revealing, and emotionally raw. In some ways making those videos was healthy, and helped me at the time, but I don't think it's healthy for that to be what most of my videos are in the long term. I also think making three hour videos is insane and dumb and no one should do it.

So I'm currently trying to get a sense for what a "normal" video feels like. How long is it? What kind of topics does it delve into? How frequently do they come out? How do I get a read on when something is interesting and worth the effort, even if I'm not stressing myself out by not making it about capital-I 'Important Issues.'

I'd love to hit a point where I'm making a 45 minute video every two months. Every other part of the process is a lot of work, but the clear bottleneck is writing. If there's a takeaway from what I've said so far, it's that I'm pretty bad at writing video essays. The end result is pretty good! But I'm not good at the process of making them.

But I've certainly got incentive to figure things out! The Let's Play channel grew continuously for about a decade, but just doesn't seem to have caught the algorithm for the last year or two. The new Early Access tier has been wildly successful, but if the channel isn't growing then I'm not bringing in new people, meaning the whole operation is in a state of decline.

This is of course why I'm putting so much energy into the essay channel: its growth was explosive. So if my goal is to watch my income rise instead of fall, it's clear what I should prioritize. In a way, I've been viewing essays as my job and let's plays as this maintenance thing, a task I get out of my way as soon as I can each week. It's not that I don't like doing them anymore! It's just that I have these huge, long term projects I'm working on, and let's plays are this quota that needs to be cleared each week so I can focus on them.

So if you're ever wondering where this or that thing is, uh. ONE MAN. CAN DO ONE THING AT A TIME. Don't worry, I try to sleep eight hours a day and go for a walk. Cooking is somewhat less successful.

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Oh right, might as well mention that we're working on an Echo-inspired TTRPG series. We've been working on our characters, and will probably start actually playing in July after Toaster finishes his move. Ignore the stolen/placeholder art.

Kah, who makes my mods and Toaster and I'd VRChat avatars is DMing, and we've got Toaster, Illusory Wall, Marty, and McSkinny currently signed up to play. The ruleset is called Fear Itself. The Don Bluth-looking dudes in the frame are what some of the final art looks like, with Jet over on the left there being my concept doodle for that artist to work with.

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE ECHO ESSAY?

Yeah, it'll probably happen. But I'm not even going to think about it until Stephanie and I finish the game. She's extremely busy. Much like with Arches vs TJ, I don't currently know what's going to air next in the VN slot, but chances aren't looking great for Flynn at the moment.

But after that's done I'll then need to re-read the entire thing at least once while I work on the essay, so it's quite the undertaking. I'd like to have a few other videos out, first.

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Because I'm a madman, on top of running two channels and all these side projects, I also frequently consider trying to write fiction, and I'm trying to learn how to draw. Here's some Signalis fan art I did for Toaster's birthday:

More of my art can be found in my LinkTree, along with other links that are useful to have: https://linktr.ee/BoringKeith