The Pretty Blerd Guardian!

Happy Friday everyone! It’s been such an eventful few months that I’m not really sure where to begin? There’s been many occasions where I’ve wanted to write but any moment of “free time” suddenly became “nap time” and it became clear that I needed more rest! Moving into a new apartment, working overtime, health issues, training new people at work, helping family for the holiday weekend and then my birthday kind of stretched into two months of chaos. For a few days I was channeling major Deku vibes and just running on willpower and potato chips so I could help keep everything under control but just like our favorite broccoli boy- I kinda forgot to eat proper meals and take breaks so exhaustion caught up to me pretty quickly…

“Clench your fist, focus on what’s above you.”

As always, reading One Punch Man sets me straight with their inspiring quotes and excellent chapters! When I want to read about cool fights but also laugh a little, OPM always got my back. That’s probably why my brain immediately translated this to: “Close your eyes but maybe don’t avoid doing laundry today” but I got the gist of what they’re talking about!

I also wanna say thanks to everyone’s patience and birthday wishes, too! Honestly? It’s been so busy that I nearly forgot about it until the morning of when my phone woke me up from multiple messages overlapping each other. Obey Me! and other josei games actually vocalize their notifications in phrases so all you could hear coming from my room was multiple men speaking suggestively in Japanese at the highest volume. My cat hated the loud noises so he laid over it on the bed until my sister came in, confused and asking why hot guy voices were coming from our cat. Turning 31 didn’t really feel any different so I’m counting that as a good thing; I seriously didn’t want to have a middle aged episode every year..

Birthday shenanigans aside, it’s been a year since starting this blog! *cue firework noises* At the risk of sounding like my grandparents time seriously has flown by and so much has changed since my first blog post: meeting new people, seeing my twitter grow and actually feeling excited for what’s next instead of getting anxious about it. Thank you guys for being so welcoming and an even bigger thanks for my best friend Reese for being my cheerleader, consultant and support system. Seriously, if I’m the heart of Sailor Otome then she’s the mother-brain; she gives excellent advise about staying focused and also setting real expectations for yourself so that you’re prepared when setbacks happen.

Good News & Not-So-Great News!

Which is why it’s easier for me to talk about my first setback, the trip to Japan. I’ve been planning to visit for almost a year but recently with COVID cases advancing across the country and Japan not permitting any tourists right now, it felt best to postpone the trip until next year. I know there’s people still taking vacations, attending cons and holding public events with more occupants but personally it just doesn’t feel the same with all the restrictions that are coming into play. I’d rather play it safe so for now it’s back to hermit living for me!

That also puts a minor setback to my future YouTube channel as well. At first it was going to be a surprise and feature my first post being a vlog about our adventures in Japan but that will just have to come later. Now I’ve every intent of creating it still but I’m gonna take this opportunity to sit back and think about a new way to introduce my content for now. Hint: it involves two of my favorite hobbies!

Now onto better news! I wanted to wait until everything was set in stone but I’ve been given two raises at my job! My manager explained that they’ve appreciated the hustle I’ve been doing lately and felt like it was time to reward the hard work.

Besides just being able to save more money for future endeavors, this makes it easier for me to explore a few options I’ve been considering for awhile – like starting a Twitch! Maybe it’ll be that kick in the butt I need to actually burn through my ever growing backlog of games that I’ve been meaning to play..

I’ll be honest and admit that I didn’t really give a thought to starting a Twitch channel because it felt like this medium was slowly devouring everyone and everything in my life like some sorta internet induced metroid. My elderly co-worker? Now has a Twitch channel. Old family friend? Streams twice a week. Wanna play a game, Sailor Otome? Let me just get my stream going and we can start.

There’s more reasons why I avoided Twitch at first but maybe I’ll touch on those later to avoid rambling. What really affected my decision were my two best friends, Gideon and Reese. We live far away and she mentions all of these great games for me to play, saying that she’d love to know my views about it. Gideon on the other hand recently confessed to me when I was gushing about FF7R that he’s never played the original before but commented with him being a full-time parent, he wasn’t able to spend as much time with the game. So I offered to play it for him and add my derpy commentary to help explain the storyline (cos let’s be honest, it’s sort of a doozy once we hit disc 2).

And thaaaaat’s sorta how creating a Twitch channel fell into my lap? The idea of playing otome games, contributing to the blerdy community and challenging my comfort levels by putting myself out there just felt like the right choice to me. In the past I’ve always just ‘assumed’ that the community would fare well and my presence wouldn’t be needed, I’d just be one of many but the truth was that I was simply too scared and didn’t have enough confidence to even try.

So that changes now!

Okay, So What’s Next?

That’s great n’all Sailor Otome .. but what’s this all mean?
TLDR: I’m returning and will be writing content on a daily basis again.

A review will be coming up soon on a game that was graciously given for me to try, and I’ve a few more revisions to make. For example, I’m changing Self-Care Sunday to focus more on games that make us all cozy while also foregoing the long prattling and sharing pictures of my lawn. Let’s be real, it was sort of boring but my intent to cook has not diminished and will be popping up in a project here very soon…!

I’ve also decided to focus my energy on sharing content daily on two different games that I currently throw all my coins at and love every minute of playing: Tears of Themis and Obey Me! Talking about current events, reviewing the content, breaking down characters and showcasing selected merchandise are just a few examples of what I’d like to do. Maybe in the future I’ll select other games but my wallet is only letting me have these two for right now.

As for my Twitch channel – it’s still a work in progress! I need to desperately upgrade my desktop so it doesn’t ‘ker-chunk!’ every thirty minutes and continue working on these graphics I’ve been commissioning. They’re so cute! I can’t wait for you guys to see them. As far as what content I’ll be featuring; old school RPG’s, otome games with specific chapters I’d like to revisit, and also my favorite MMO FFXIV. I’ve played it since release and keep falling off the wagon due to my crazy life schedule but since SE’s curious line-up of streamers and discovering how woefully light they were in PoC content creators, finally decided that I want to throw in my hat too and see how things go. I’m super excited to start on these projects and if you’ve any suggestions for future content I should cover, let me know!

Until then, I hope everyone remains safe from this recent hurricane and still remaining healthy!