(15) a dream come true!!!

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hey! so i am finally gonna talk about that personal project i've been working on for like a year now! it's been on and off and a lot of new things learned but i'm proud to announce that i wrote illustrated and wrote the translyrics for an english cover of one of my favourite vocaloid songs! i worked with one of the youtaites that i've been watching since i was a kid and i'm still over the moon about the whole experience!

the song in question is "ano natsu ga houwa suru" by kanzaki iori. ever since i heard this song around 6 years ago or so, i knew i wanted to hear someone sing it in english. i'm a fiend for english covers! but after four or five years, no one had made one. so i finally got brave enough to reach out to a youtaite i loved who had opened up their commissions for covers...it was a daunting experience because i'm quite the loner. but they were super sweet and great to work with! and somehow along the way it ended up becoming a collab?

here is the link to the cover on youtube!

i feel like i almost shake when i think about how far i've come with art and creative pursuits in general. i never imagined i'd ever be able to give something back to the vocaloid community. i have a complicated relationship with vocaloid as a community but i do know that the music has always served as a vital source of inspiration for me. i've been listening to vocaloid since i was around ten or so. my interest in it ramped up in the mid teens because i met some friends who were super into it. and now it's a vital part of my life! i listen to vocaloid music every day and it has gotten me to branch out into experiencing a lot of japanese artists' music i otherwise wouldn't have!

getting a little sappy mayhaps but growing up, i was always the kid that was kinda worthless.

a few weeks ago, i actually had a depressive episode learning that one of my high school classmates has worked for wells fargo and other huge companies as a financial analyst. one of my other classmates, younger than me by a few years, became a wall street journal writer. i really felt like my life had gone nowhere compared to my peers. that day, i was filled with an overwhelming sense that i had done nothing with my life and that like in high school, i will just continue to be left behind in the shadow of my peers, never worth anything of value.

i've always been pretty good at writing, but even with my biggest 'talent', i never did anything of note with it. i placed nationally for a writing contest and in the aftermath, it all kinda destroyed my relationship with writing for a couple years. i'm still recovering from it to this day. i knew i was good at writing. the head of my english department wanted me to work towards publishing. b but i never wanted to write things that others wanted to read. i wanted to write something that came from deep inside me. i wanted to write things that made me happy, that came from my heart. and it just so happened that what made me happy did not seem worthwhile to others at all. and in the end, i refused a future in writing and abandoned it altogether after years of working towards it.

it's difficult growing up writing things that don't matter to you and being praised for it. i was one of the best writers in the school. i knew that. but it always broke my heart to write something that made me feel fulfilled and have people shrug it off, only for me to turn around and write something "interesting and profound" in a single night and have people enthusiastically pour over it. the things that didn't matter to me, the things i put no effort into, were what made people happiest. and i guess something about that made me feel as if my happiness was 'broken'. the way i experienced happiness must've been fundamentally flawed because it didn't make anyone else i knew happy.

another thing was that i had always wanted to draw. ever since i was a kid, i yearned to draw. however, my childhood friend (now a popular twitter artist with 76k followers) was always the 'artist' between her, me, and another friend. i remember distinctly showing our parents a drawing i made as a kid and they just smiled awkwardly and told me that i should try other hobbies. then in my teens, the girl i mentioned before who now works in finance was always the artsy one. any time someone needed something drawn, they went to her. and then in 2019, when i told myself i was going to start to learn how to draw in earnest, i told my parents that i hoped to someday win an art contest like how i won a writing contest. they laughed at me and told me that there was no shot.

so the fact that i wrote translyrics for a song i deeply love and also illustrated the MV art really put into perspective what can change in a few years. i never thought anyone, much less someone i've looked up to since childhood, would give me the time of day and collaborate with an artist like me.

the song "ano natsu ga houwa suru" means a lot to me. from the moment i first heard it, i felt like it understood my emotions in a way few works of art do. to me, it's a song about the imperfection and blunders of growing up. it's about growing up as the outcasts, the unwanted ones, and trying to find solace in a world where there isn't any. and most of all, it's about how life goes on and we as individuals must also do the same. life is full of mistakes and poorly taken paths. sometimes, like in the song, the consequences can be devastating. but it's important to hold those experiences with you and continue to walk forwards: for the others you've met along the way, for the child you once were, long ago. i think we were all bright eyed children full of dreams at some point. it's important to not forget that youthful hope.

october is going to be a tense month for me. i think my work situation may not improve after all and it feels a little discouraging. but i know i can survive this. things will get better. and look at me! from when i started this job, scared i'd rarely make art again, i'm here still making art all the time, loving my ocs all the same. that part of me, that love for creating, is something i hope will never be taken away. i'm going to hold onto it as tight as i can, i want to promise this to myself and to everyone reading this.



spooky month from the ominous scary man...

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