on life and photography (Patreon)

"Now this is a story all about how..." it's been 35 hours and the long anticipated Cyberpunk video is exactly 57% rendered. Woe is me! In another day and a half, I may be able to publish the first version... but the one without music will take an additional 3 days. And that's if I managed not to make any mistakes. I'm sorry to keep you waiting so long. I was a little bit disappointed with how blurry the last video came out even though the camera produces a crisp and pristine quality. I found out I can change the quality of the degrainer in my software and put everything on the highest setting and now there's no end to the rendering... By the time this is done, I will likely have videos backed up for the rest of the month lmao. "What have I done? This was supposed to be a short one..." - me every time I have to edit a video. There may be a significant drop in how many videos I am able to produce in a month due to that fact - at least until I get a decent computer. Unfortunately, I can't edit something else while I have a video rendering. In fact, I can't do a whole lot while I have a video rendering. I can barely manage to run Chrome at the same time - either this laptop has just been faulty from the start or it's not as good as the stats claimed. For some reason, the CPU is always maxed out, even if I don't do anything. It's always been like that. I didn't know enough about computers to spot this issue soon enough and missed my chance to have it looked at. So these are my computer woes - a non-issue in the high-tech Cyberpunk reality this video ironically takes place in. You may look forward to nearly an hour long experience in a refreshingly different world full of tech, pretty girls and retrowave music. I have quite a few video ideas revolving around the same topic that still have to be developed, besides the druggy trippy one, which I don't feel qualified to do due to lack of experience, but still feel like it'll be fun to do. 

I sincerely hope the hard work I have put into this particular roleplay will reflect in the experience as a whole. I have a unique disadvantage as the creator of these videos, where I have a vision for the finished video and that's the standard I hold my work to - in ther words, I don't see what you see. I see what could be, what I want it to be - I see all the things that "could be better", to the point where I am unable to take in the experience with fresh eyes. I strive for perfection and try to get as close as possible and try to perfect every scene. If I could, I would take months just to work on one video, perfecting everything from the angle to the color to my acting. Though I think it's a good thing to introduce gradual improvement. With each new video I raise the bar for the next one. And I rely on your feedback to tell me how I'm doing. I may never create something I'm fully satisfied with, but I never ever want to take a step back.

 

I've spent the morning (evening) resting and eating, after effectively working myself to exhaustion because tired-of-looking-chubby-on-camera me insisted on exercising damn near every day on top of filming, editing and cleaning. I'm trying to walk 10k steps every day in a mission to get ripped like Chris Broad - he lost 5 kilos in the first month of doing that. I thought, 5 kilos... that's about as much weight as I've gained after I stopped walking my dog fucking 3 times a day (he died... that's why I stopped) and I kinda made a connection between leading an active lifestyle and being ridiculously skinny. Shocker, huh? So far I've effectively lost a portion of my breasts and my legs have inevitably turned into lead. I'm looking forward to filming the treat day vlog for the mega tier next week, maybe Tuesday or Wednesday, depending which day I get up earlier, because god knows I need that. (Thank you to everyone who voted that) I think more than anything I am enjoying the psychological effect of associating being sore and exhausted every day with being in good shape. Seeing as how I can't eat less (nobody's happy if I don't get enough calories...), tracking my steps gives me a sense of control over my body I am otherwise lacking. Even though it takes, well, an insane amount of time. 10k steps translate to about an hour and a half of walking... But it takes me a lot longer due to having stop frequently to take pictures like the one way up there. Just like my mother can't walk past chocolate without eating some, I can't walk past something pretty without taking a picture. It's a psychological thing. The reason why I'm prone to oversharing on social media has to do with emotional neglect in early childhood. To me, there's no point in experiencing something if I can't share it. It makes me loney to think that I'm standing here before this magnificent moment and no one else will ever see the same thing. I reckon some people find in that, a sense of their own individuality and value of their existence, but for me it's just lonely. I vaguely remember being a child and trying to show adults things that I found beautiful or fascinating, and being met with crippling disinterest or lack of enthusiasm. No one else ever saw what I saw. Sad and disenchanted, I quickly learned no one else lived in the same reality as me. Although lacking understanding of the emotion, this was the first time I realized that I was alone. An incurable aloneness. Because even though I may share pretty pictures and atmospheric videos to try and convey how I see the world, whether it is received or not is not in my realm of control. Sometimes the comments on my videos are quite discouraging in that way. I believe in some way I am still looking for the mirroring I never got as child - being validated by an adult through their acknowledgement and mirroring of my emotion so as to help me understand myself and feel connected. And that by sharing pictures and videos I am hoping that someone will mirror the intent and the feeling captured in them. But we are still separated by this wall of space and the closest I ever got to the connection I seek is the bittersweet comment "that's a beautiful picture" ...

Somehow, I am requiring more caffeine than normal today - or the instant coffee just won't cut it in terms of caffeine levels. I had my first cup and fell back asleep for two hours. Though, I found a lovely new coffee shop in town! On one of my walks, I decided to hop in an hour before the barista said they would "typically" close - and I put that in quotes because closing times in Germany are indeed extremely liberal. Said barista let me know that occasionally, when there's no business or it rains (yes, and I quote, or it rains...) they close up sooner. But even that doesn't mean a whole lot because even businesses that are by contract required to stay open until a certain time will start taking everything off the shelves, cleaning the shop and shut down the coffee machine an hour before they are technically closing, so they can rush out to go home at the sound of the metaphorical bell like every student ever who is forced to attend a place they hate and cannot wait to get out of for the better half of their day.

I checked the weather forcast and it's not supposed to rain next week, so I'm thinking about going there on my treat day. Their coffee is definitely enjoyable (and I am as picky with my coffee as I am with my entertainment) and they had lots of delicious looking cakes and treats that I would like to try. And yes, I sneakily snapped this picture while the barista was in the bathroom. The interior design I can only describe as "hipster chic" (and, I swear to the mother of all cats, my Sims have the same wood texture that they used all around the shop which you can't see in this photo.) ... I liked this place because it was fucking empty and the only other, like, three customers at 9PM were sitting outside. They also played chillout music, which is a hell of a lot better than mainstream German music. But, in the end, it all comes down to the coffee. *contemplatively picks up my nearly empty cup of instant coffee to stare at it with discontent before taking three big gulps in the hopes that three's the charm and this third cup will make a difference where the first two have failed* ... One of these days, I will clean the espresso maker, so I can at least go back to enjoying the lovely coffee you guys sent me. 

Who else is excited to see how the new camera performs in red lighting vs blue? I mean I've already seen it, you'll see it in a couple of days. It just really makes me want to film a red video. The red picture has been edited (it used to be a light orange tint from the street lights) but I reckon it will be 100x better than my canon,  ̶w̶h̶o̶  which struggled to pick up the dimness of the lowest visible light spectrum. I did promise a while ago to make a follow up video to "Chilling with your witchy friend" because I made a mistake and read a different crystal than the one you wanted. I shamelessly blame that on ADHD but that might be a lovely opportunity to test it out. Plus, people who don't like mood lighting for some mysterious reason get an opportunity to express their distaste for pretty things yet again lol. 

*nervously taps nails on laptop surface, inadvertently giving myself ASMR* I'm gonna go get some steps in while trying not to fall asleep with this not only ineffective, but rather counter-effective coffee in my blood. I hope you're having a good weekend and are looking forward to the new video. 

//Ally