Greetings, Geeks! As anyone who regularly follows us is probably aware, we’ve been a bit off-schedule, of late. So I figure the monthly update is as good a time as any to fill you guys in on some of what’s going on that’s causing that.
So, What’s Going On?
Transparency is key in this… business? Profession? Whatever. When you do what we do, people expect to be kept in the loop. Obviously, there’ll be some secrets because… well… surprises are fun. But sharing is caring, and I care that you guys know we’re not just slacking or goofing off. We’re also crying uncontrollably and panicking as we run around like chickens with our heads cut off. We’re a well-ironed machine, we are.
But all jokes aside, there’s one fairly plain reason everything’s been so late, this month. We’re really, really, really busy. Myself, in particular. Between doing this, writing the books, dealing with some family and health situations, and maintaining a job (in a creative field, no less, which is even more intense), I’ve just been rather swamped. Nevertheless, time management has never been my strong suit, so I’m still dominantly chalking this one up to it being my own fault. It bums me out to keep missing stuff, and I’m sorry about that.
With that being said, I’m thinking maybe in the near future. Perhaps a month or two out from now, we may publish some sort of site roadmap. It’s not going to encompass absolutely everything, but it’ll detail things I think will be most immediately relevant. Possibly stuff revolving around new content on the site and the book’s progress. Oh. That’s going swimmingly, by the way.
Light Novel Progress
In fact, just to give you an idea, in that list of stuff that I presented, working on the book and its subsequent volumes (as we said. It’s a series) has become a massive time drain. We’re going to be lightening our workload on it soon to give us more time for other things. But to sort of paint a picture, Burning Sky is actually a massively ambitious project. Because we don’t know how to do anything else, apparently. A lot of what we’ve been working on is outlining for the next in the series, as well as reviewing the feedback we’ve been getting from the Beta Readers of the first one and making tweaks. Lots of excellent feedback, by the way. We do these things as a Writer Group in meetings. Lots. And Lots. Of Meetings. And said meetings are lengthy. But, as implied, we’re going to be cutting back on those soon as we come up on the goal we set for ourselves when we started them. And something tells me you’ll notice the productivity difference around here. At least until we move on to the next stages of getting the first book made. Artwork, marketing, book site, all that good stuff.
Reviews & Editorials
And now let’s talk about reviews and such. Actually, we’ll start with Editorials. “Voyager, where are all these editorials you said you’d be writing?” Well, for one thing, those take a lot of time to write. But, that aside, I just haven’t been especially happy with the ones I was working on. They were subjects I’ve kinda seen and thought about, but, oddly enough, they’re not ones I found myself all that interested in writing about. And I think that comes across in my writing to where it wouldn’t be all that fun or engaging to read. And this is our site. No one’s forcing me to write here. So if I have to approach a topic like I’m writing a dissertation, I’d honestly rather just write something completely different.
As for the reviews, themselves, apparently the One-Line Reviews did kinda well, for us? That was an unexpected one, honestly. Considering it was something I did so I could quickly catch up and still have some time to sleep, that night. It was fun to write, though. So I’d be open to doing that again. Maybe as a regular thing for a bundle of shows I’m not really interested in doing full-dives on? Le’me know what you think of that idea, I s’pose.
“Voyager! You promised Maid-sama!” Technically, I didn’t ‘promise’ anything. But yes. I did say that one was next. Actually, for the sake of context, when I do these full-series reviews, the plan is always to watch one episode of the show in question per day, then spend a few days actually writing the review. But some medical and family stuff (Nothing serious. Don’t worry) knocked me off course. I’ve not finished Maid-sama (though, to be fair, Maid-sama hasn’t even finished Maid-sama… probably for the best) and am currently something like 10 episodes off from where I wanted to be. So I’m gonna bump that to next week. But, as recompense, I’ll tell you the next two full-series reviews in advance. Tad-dah:
Yep. I’ve brought it up enough that it’s nearly reached meme-status, around here. So after I get Maid-sama out of the way, I’ll tackle the first season of Medaka Box (I’ll cover the second season at another time). Then, provided I still have the time, this month, I’ll take a jump into Kyousougiga – a series I started, yet never got around to finishing. Now. Circumstances beyond my control (Work, most likely. Though the medical stuff isn’t entirely over yet) may derail the timeline, here. But even if that should happen, these are going to be the next two reviews. If things remain timely, then we can expect the Medaka Box review on March 16th and the Kyousougiga review on the 23rd. But I’ll keep you guys posted.
Guys, What Happened To Your Patreon?
I doubt anyone really noticed, but yeah. We just spent some time observing a lot of other ones doing similar things and we came to the conclusion that there were better ways to go about ours. I already mentioned that we’d be revamping it, and we’re currently in the process of getting the new plan together. We’ve already updated the tiers, some of the goals, etc. We’ve also been working on how to incorporate our other projects into it, eventually. Burning Sky and all.
So How’s That Bulletoon Revamp Ya Promised Nearly A Year Ago?
Actually, it looks like that may finally be on its way to fruition. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I’m not going to attach a time table to it yet because I don’t want to be caught in another situation where someone disappears from the face of the Earth after we commission them for something. But I can say that, if all goes well, soon. Very, very soon. Soon enough that the current season of the show will, indeed, need to be clipped. As for what the revamp entails, I’m not going to go into everything, but I see no harm in telling you some little things.
For starters, the basic format of the show isn’t really changing, as I’d previously let on. Not technically. By that, I mean that the format that exists isn’t going anywhere. However, you can expect a few new formats to be joining it. You can expect a lot more episodes to be deeper dives into more specific topics and less of an overall emphasis on “news,” though they’ll still talk news, when something truly significant happens. I wouldn’t go as far as to consider what the show is to be video essays, a la Lindsay Ellis. As I’ve said, it’s more of a conversation between the twins and, of course, you guys. And the new formats will hopefully allow us to make those conversations much richer and way more fun.
This also has something to do with the lack of editorials as some things I was working on Editorials for, I thought would totally make better episodes of the show, once the revamp came along. And that, alone, probably tells you a lot. I expect that once the show comes back from the break between now and the revamp, it’ll see a lot more of an emphasis on anime. It may even coincide with a bump in content around Overwatch. Who knows?
So When Are You Gonna Start Streaming Again?
Actually, I’m personally expecting to be doing a few test streams relatively soon. But they’re just that. Tests. Actual, dedicated streaming will definitely be coming after the site goes through its own little update, as streaming is very low on the priority totem pole. I don’t expect there’ll be more than a couple streams a week, if that. But I have no idea how it’s gonna go, really. A lot of that aforementioned testing is going to be testing out times, but also refamiliarizing myself with… well… Twitch. Currently, I stream straight from my PS4, so it’s not really a big complication. But I recall there being some technical things when last we streamed (something like two years ago) and I never sorted them out. Also, we haven’t fully set up the actual Twitch page yet. Though I’m working on that, like, right now. If you wanna stop by while I’m testing, by all means, feel free. It’ll be pretty chill as I’ll likely just be doing some warming up in Overwatch. I’ll post about it on Twitter whenever that happens.
So Basically EVERYTHING Is Getting Revamped?
Pro’lly seems that way. Patreon, Bulletoon, Review formats, looots of things changing up. But I’m probably making it sound grander than it actually is. Yes, as I’ve noted, the site is going to be getting some significant updates. This is largely a product of what I’m gonna call the “Motivation Quotient.” For whatever reason, I’ve just been feeling a lot better, lately, and more driven to actually get some key things done. Not gonna get into the mental health implications, right now. But I’ve been in a good place, and I’d rather not squander that mood while I have it. So it’s as much of a revamp as one can take “This is what it looks like when we actually apply ourselves” to be.
We most certainly shouldn’t have waited this long to do that, but we did. Mostly a product of my own perfectionism getting the better of me in some places and my lack of motivation in others. I own that one entirely. But now that there are going to be some significant changes, coming in, suddenly deciding to expand before they actually take would be a terrible idea. Because then there’d be an influx of people who show up in the middle of a transitional period. It’d be confusing and messy, and no one we get the attention of during that phase would likely stick around long. So if you guys can just bear with us a little longer, we’ve got some really cool stuff on the way that I think you’ll enjoy. Because we enjoy it.
Conclusion
And that’s a wrap. Nothing else to really say except thanks for reading, as always. Keep up the Awesome!
Take Care,
Voyager
“Boop!”
Waiting is ok, because blogging should be the last thing you consider. Take your time :).