This year seems to have gone by really quickly. As I type this, it is already nearing the end of June, and over half the year has already gone by. How are your goals coming along?
Last year I think my only goal was “get a new job”. That has already been ticked off, in a somewhat unexpected way. I think I am just going to expand the wording of this goal to “holding down the job” as well.
So far, I am mostly enjoying this current place that I’m at. It’s been almost 2 months, and I hope things will finally work out here. It is very draining to have to worry about where you have enough funds to pull through the next 6 months. On a happier note, I am not waking up from panic attacks, drenched in cold sweat and with my heart pounding from some dream that my head has already expunged from memory.
Anyway… enough about life. Life is about work, as always. Let’s talk about streaming updates.
Stream Schedule Updates
First off – my work schedule has changed a little bit. My Thursday off day got switched over to Wednesday instead. Aside from that, my schedule is mostly unchanged. I still don’t stream Fridays, and my Saturday is a 50/50.
I am also contemplating some lifestyle changes, so I’m going to switch my schedule a little bit:
It’s now:
Monday: afternoon 2:30 – 5:30pm (May continue at night)
Tuesday: mornings (until 11am)
Wednesday: afternoon 2:30 – 5:30pm (May continue at night)
Thursday: mornings (until 11am)
Friday: No stream
Saturday: Check Discord; TBC
Sunday: 10:30pm till late.
As always, check my Discord for finalised updates.
I’ve been mainly playing Honkai: Star Rail the past month or so, and occasionally pulling out my Switch for Atelier Escha and Logy on my days off from work. Aside from that, I’ve not really had much mental energy to make significant progress on other titles that I’ve been playing. Who could have thought that even playing games is hard work?
Anyway, I’m going to quickly update the in-progress titles now.
Honkai: Star Rail and Genshin Impact
I have already settled into the usual Hoyoverse grind for the former. There’s a couple of quests still sitting around in the log. I want to find some time to enjoy them rather than rushing through them.
There was one major event some time back, which had you running the museum in Belobog.
I do think that one overstayed its welcome a little. Perhaps it was because it was a spiritual successor of a similar event that I had played in Genshin before. But it was far longer than the one I played before. I eventually completed everything in 59 in-event days. Based on some other people sharing their clear times, I’m guessing it takes somewhere in the high-50s to 60s to clear this in full. This did feel quite draggy, however. Reducing the entire thing to an average of 40 in-event days would probably have alleviated this issue.
I recently reached Equilibrium Level 5 a couple days back, so now I’m back to the grind to gear everyone up for the increased difficulty.
Ni No Kuni
I met a friend last Sunday and again on Monday, and on both days + through numerous text messages he has been haunting me about a perceived lack of progress in here.
I actually want to go and grind a little bit before the final boss. To make life much easier for myself, I need to go and grind on a particular mob known as the Tokotoko.
There is an evolved variant in the map that I am hunting in, however to efficiently catch it, I was tipped off to the existence of a spell that facilitates this. I think I’ll get this questline done on Wednesday, which is one of my days off work. The grand finale of an adventure is nigh upon us.
Atelier Escha and Logy
First off – this game has beautiful art. It’s not something I see often. I like the character interactions in the game as well. To me, it feels like a hallmark of the Atelier series. Half visual novel, half JRPG.
The music is also wild. This song with the most ominous choir was playing as I was fighting some slag (automaton) boss that came to life in the domain:
My only gripe is that I don’t know what happened when they were mixing the voices for this title. It sounds like it has been heavily compressed to the point of distortion. I’ll try not to let that spoil an otherwise-excellent experience.
Future Titles
While walking around with my friend I ended up buying two titles; I guess I’ll start on them down the road.
When my Ni no Kuni journey comes to a close, I think I’ll pick up Harvestella. I got it some time back from a sale because I really liked the vibes of how it looked, but have yet to get around to it.
I’ll also see if I can try to squeeze in smaller titles here and there, as always. With that, this monthly update (and a very uneventful one it is) is complete.
Before I go, I just have some parting words for you.
The Dangerous Habit of Comparison
As much as I try not to compare myself to others, or draw comparisons myself, the temptation and the instinct to is always there. I think it is something that is built into all of us. At the very most, we can choose how much we want to act on it. Taken too far, it can cause our well-beings to decline, and fester like a necrotic wound.
I hesitate to say the society where we live in is a toxic one, but a personal view I hold based on observation is that many people here stake their self-worths over things like salary, the size of their house. Even in the streaming field, you can see this in play, what with the obsession over viewership and all.
For myself, the answer to that isn’t “don’t compare” though. I think we do need some kind of impetus in order to move, in order to progress. The problem comes with the coping part. Some of us take setback less well than others, and cope with it in different ways, including unhealthy ones.
Comparing Myself To Others
I am not completely sure myself why I am making these statements here, as I can’t pin it down to any one incident. Perhaps I saw one too many people bemoaning falling viewership, and trying to cope with it by saying “views don’t matter”. Sorry to burst your bubble and be a wet blanket, but it very clearly operates on our minds to some extent. Take it from one streamer to another. Why would you waste your time and internet bandwidth otherwise? Even for myself. I can use my own metrics as an example – it is nowhere near the peak that I had in 2020 and 2021.
I think however, it hits even closer to home when you witness people around you going through this as well. I met up with a school junior some weeks back, and it was immediately clear that he had fallen on some hard times. This brat so nonchalantly told us that his bottle, instead of being filled with water, contained alcohol instead.
I think it was soju. I refused to smell the contents, despite his request, for hygiene reasons. That aside, he then admitted to us that he had picked up a drinking habit starting from a couple months ago, in part because an endeavour for a “big break” that he had banked on at the start of the year didn’t work out.
The only thing we (myself and another friend) can do now is try to break the addiction, but this is a severely uphill task as long as the root cause isn’t addressed. All we can do is to get him to log his drinking habit, and to change his job.
But as long as you rely on others to find your purpose rather than to find it within yourself, the cycle is doomed to continue.
Alright, I am going to wrap things up here. I’ve said all I wanted to say for now. Please take care of yourself, and I’ll see you on my next stream.
Catch a live stream on Twitch, check out my Instagram, watch me simp for Star Rail husbandos on my Twitter, and lastly, join my Discord for stream updates. See you all around. I’m going to hound this friend for his alcohol drinking log now, which I have been chasing him for since last Sunday.
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