2022 Retrospective and 2023 Plans

Good evening everyone!

We're into the last few hours of 2022 here in the UK and so it's time to reflect.

It both was and wasn't an eventful year for me on YouTube. I only released one video, but it was a six-hour, 100-page beast. I'm still not really sure how I did it. The project sucked up about eight months of my life frighteningly quickly, and I'm very fortunate that I was able to dedicate so much time to creative endeavours. At the same time, it did drive me slightly mad, and I was very ready for the project to be over. Very ironically, I found out that I'd gotten my current job around April and was meant to start not too long after, but wasn't ultimately able to until July. It coincided almost perfectly with the release of the video, and I was very conscious that, even though I wanted and needed to start work, finishing up the video would've been nigh on impossible after that point. It was all very serendipitous, if bizarre, as though everything in my life had wrapped itself around getting that project finished. It is undoubtedly a huge achievement. In my mind, it's big enough to have been able to ever complete such an enormous video and have it make some kind of sense. The fact that I feel like the video is actually good, and that the feedback from others reflects that, is still crazy to me. When I went into the project, I was very conscious of putting minimal pressure on myself. I wanted to talk about Gou and Sotsu, and others had told me they'd like to hear my thoughts, so I told myself it was enough to just put them out there and not stress too much about how polished the video ended up being. I did keep some of that mindset through making the post-mortem -- I didn't stress too much about the editing side -- but at some point, without me knowing, it had morphed into what it became: a far more exhaustive and definitive endeavour than I had ever intended.

It would be easy to look at A Higurashi Gou & Sotsu Post-Mortem and feel like I've peaked. I certainly don't plan to make anything like it again, and I was definitely done with YouTube for a little while afterwards. I poured all of my passion for what I do into that video for day after day, week after week, month after month, and pushed aside almost everything else in my life to get it done -- even my health, to an extent. It did become quite a stressful experience in some ways, but paradoxically, I loved almost every second of it. I assure you that if I ever felt like I needed or had to give up on the project for any reason, I would have. I didn't set out to make something so huge, I did it because I increasingly felt like I needed to.

What that means exactly, I don't know. I needed and wanted to talk about the shows, but over time, Post-Mortem became a way to show myself what I was capable of as a creator, a space to think about all kinds of things, and I underwent life changes even as the video was being made that were reflected in the final product. It became a journey in itself, and I'm really happy I have it as a marker of that slightly feverish eight months of my life. Now that it's been a year since I was uploading semi-regularly, and three since I started my channel, looking back at my older videos, I'm conscious of how much they're capsules for the times in my life that they were made. I've flitted back and forth between the two and will continue to, but anybody who has seen enough of my videos will be aware that as many of them are diary entries as analyses. Increasingly, I find myself drawn to include at least a little of the former, even in videos that are decidedly the latter. I started my channel as a sort of library of tributes to series I loved and wanted to share with others, but now it's just as much a way to look back on my own life and the experiences, thoughts and feelings I'm having at that particular time, as they're reflected in how I talk about said series.

All of this to say what, exactly? A Higurashi Gou & Sotsu Post-Mortem was certainly a defining project and the one a lot of people will remember me for regardless of what I do next (if only because it's That Six-Hour Higurashi Video), but on the whole, it's left me refreshed, kind of like a hard reset. I don't at all feel like I've hit a ceiling, shared the best of what I have to share, or like I've burned out on what I do. So where have I been?

I've been working full-time for almost six months now (scary), and it's been a life-changing experience in every way. Most of all, very literally. I don't do too much overtime, although my job does sometimes call for it, but I am struggling to find the time for YouTube. I've tried to understand why. In theory, I have enough hours, but for all kinds of reasons, I've been filling them with other things. It's been necessary for me. As I finally felt like I'd found some time in my schedule for making videos, I went through some difficult times late this year that knocked me off track again. But with those difficult times, I remembered how important writing is for me and my wellbeing, and essays are no different. Those experiences planted a seed in me that's making its way into my first video of the new year, one where I'll explain a bit more of where I've been and what I've been up to.

This probably all sounds very bleak for my YouTube career, but it's the opposite. It goes without saying I don't have as much time for YouTube as I used to. I doubt I'll ever return to monthly uploads. But I never set out to have monthly uploads in the first place. My YouTube activity has fluctuated as life has called for it. Sometimes I have ten twenty-minute videos that demand for me to make them, and sometimes it's one six-hour one I spend the better part of a year on. YouTube finds its way to fit around my life and my need to create and I have no doubt it will continue to. Videos are often on my mind recently. I lie awake in bed thinking about what I want to convey the next time I talk to you all, or open my notes app at random to jot down bits and pieces of analysis. This has been happening more and more recently, and I've finally started planning my first project of 2023. It's a video on Tokyo Godfathers I mentioned last month, which will equally be a chance to share some of what's been going on in my life. Though I think the analysis and personal reflection will come together nicely into something similar to my other videos, perhaps for the first time, I'm focusing on the latter rather than the former. I just want to talk to the people who watch and find my videos, irrespective of what series or film or game I'm talking about. That's the place YouTube has come to hold in my life, like an old friend to check in with, and a way to check in with myself.

Concretely, what does this mean? Winter is the busiest time for my work. Put bluntly, the last few months of last year were some of the busiest, most stressful and physically and mentally taxing I've experienced, and the next few will probably continue to be difficult. But I've been lucky enough to have a break over Christmas. I've rewatched the film, taken notes and am reading a book I think will benefit the video now. I'm back to work next week, but I'd really like to get the final thing done and out in January if possible and will do my best with this and keep you all updated.

I'd also really like to make a Chainsaw Man video sooner rather than later, and there are of course the hypothetical Umineko videos that I wouldn't blame anybody for having given up on by now. I have plenty of other ideas down, but let's keep it at that for now and see how the year goes. The best laid plans...

Thank you for reading this rambling post! And thank you as ever for your support. My Patreon is obviously very quiet now and anybody who is still here is in spite of not getting much in return. It's not at all necessary to support me on here, but thank you. I don't take it for granted.

There's no saying what 2023 holds for the channel or anything else, really. 2022 was the most unforgettable year of my life so far, but I can still see 2023 topping it. I'm looking forward to sharing more of that journey with you all, bit by bit, one way or another.

Wishing you all the most wonderful 2023 from the bottom of my heart, and I promise I'll be back soon!

P.S. Here's a little MiiRena fic I wrote for a WTC Secret Santa that took place on Twitter! Though I never got my gift 😢