Summer night's magic

I'll let myself be until the sunrise

There's just something about a good song that sends me off into my own imagination. It's difficult how explicitly certain things are tied to music in my head, but I'll give it a shot. Take a look at the image below:

When I see this image, I hear the track that accompanies it in the anime, Hanezeve Cazedina. However, the reverse is not true. I've listened to this song in a lot of locations and while doing a lot of things. When I hear this song, it takes me back to all those locations and the things I was doing then. I wrote a bunch of short stories while listening to this and I remember the ideas, the 'images' of those stories in my head like a scene playing out on a screen because the music is playing. I remember the walks I've taken through parks and forests while listening to this and the greenery and the light and the damp that go along with it. The smell, the sight, the sound of music.

A more intense example would be Route 120 from pokemon R/S/E in particular (not the remake versions). To give you an example of how many times I played and replayed through those three games, I once ran through the elite four with a team entirely made of Rayquazas in Ruby. Registeel was my favorite pokemon, Route 120, specifically where that cave and route 121 meet, was my favorite place because of the pools that reflect the sky and the trainer sprite, and I would always, always, always make my secret base there. It reminds me of being on the playground in 4th grade when I'd managed to sneak my gameboy into school. The woodchips on the ground, the color of that castle tower, the sun on my skin, the way my purple GBA had gotten sticky from being out in the heat for so long. I think about it when I see playgrounds like that one, and even when I'm listening to something else and the same three notes just so happen to line up. songs that play on my internal radio tend to blend into each other like that.

I'd been thinking about why I can remember all the early pokemon game songs so well, but I can't remember the themes and melodies from later games even though I listen to those soundtracks more often and arguably spent more time in those games. What I've deduced is that it comes out to how strong and how simple those melody lines are portrayed. E.G. if you played pokemon from 1998 to 2010, you'll notice that from generation 3 to 4 and there after, the music of these games begins to get very, very complex. a similar route song from DPPt would be the most famous one from those games, Route 209. We've got flourishes that lead into an opening main theme, swelling up into the big trumpet blast of the main melody that comes in after a few bars of sprinkly sparkly harp and xylophone riffs. Those few seconds of intro, while pretty, don't throw the melody right in your face, which I think makes them less memorable. Most of the songs that I do just remember off hand and at random times start with their melodies. Even some of my favorite songs like Funny Bunny by the pillows, I remember best because a cover of it that I also like, opens with the main melody of the song. I can recite those words without hesitation, but the actual intro of the song I still get confused on and need to look up the lyrics when I haven't heard it in a while.

The memories contained in Funny Bunny in particular are all over the place. In Texas, in Japan, during shows, during stories, hell, chapter 4 and Volume 4 of both Star Overhead stories are named after it and contain my own rewrite of the song lyrics. I wouldn't be myself without all the music that makes up me, and I think I can immediately understand the mood I'm in just by the music I start my day with. Lately, I've been in a not great mood. I'm pretty sure it was mostly to do with a really bad headache I had for the past two days, but I just got to that point where I didn't want to do anything I like to do and play low effort games like TFT or Genshin. E.g. Yesterday, I was not feeling it, I played some soft japanese indie rock all day, and I got to the point where I would rather grade homework than try to write anything. It was bad.

On the other hand though, I've been doing all my Japanese practice every work day, and I've added Duolingo to the mix. While it's more review than teaching me anything, it is some daily exrcise and listening practice that I can do from my chair while I'm pissing around in TFT or talking to my friends in the morning. Of the many things I attempt to do daily, it's the only one I've actually kept up for more than a week straight. I practice guitar frequently now, but I've gotten to the point where I can do more complex stuff, so I spend more time practicing which makes it harder to 'schedule' so to speak. I try to draw daily too, but I'm like three weeks behind now and it's going to take a lot to catch up to where I want to be. The big lie I tell is when I date the pieces I draw in that book because, man, anything I post now has the date of when I was supposed to have drawn it. sometimes I twas the genuine excuse of 'I'm not addicted to instagram/twitter so I don't open it every day,' but for the most part, I'd either made something too complex to get done quickly, or I straight up couldn't think of what to draw.

I was writing a part for Pearl (Rarity's daughter in my bright future series) in this upcoming story, and she says something along the lines of, "I'm not an endless well of creativity, I can't keep this up forever all the time." Between that and Dash (43) complaining about not being old and Rarity just being ironic and bitter about it, things have been a little too real. I also broke ground on Volume 7 of Star Overhead which is a good sign for the fact that I'll actually write the damn thing. I didn't get far into it, but I was struggling to do anything the other day and figured I needed to redirect my attention. It didn't work for very long, but it was something, at least.

The last thing that's been on my mind lately is the over for Volume 6. The issue isn't my artist being booked or not having the money to get it made or anything like that, but the actual content of the cover. A lot, and I mean a lot happens in this book for several characters. Who they are in Volume 2 (As everyone has been introduced by then) versus Volume 6 are basically totally different people. I've had one Idea of Poppie being in the car looking out the window with a guitar in the back seat and the driver off to the side, but the 3D space of the idea isn't lining up in my head. A big thing about Poppie is that she smokes and 100% should not be able to get cigarettes at her age, but I'm not sure I want that in the picture. There's also another scene of her later on in the book that I've actually drawn already for my daily drawings but I can't say if that being the cover would be a hook or a spoiler. The other covers are all totally detached from the book they're in. e.g. Solei just kinda standing there in the evening, Rebecca hiding from the rain under the bridge, Amethyst rocking out in front of a broken picture of her parents because symbolism, Shy walking home with the shadow of a butterfly behind her, Jacklyn standing in front of her parent's graves. These are all things that 'happen' in the story, but not literal scenes like my ideas for the V6 covers are.

One thing's for sure at least: the book may come out on May 30th, but there is effectively no way the audio book version does. My recording space is now a closet I barely fit in that I have to huddle into with my laptop, mic, and audio set up, and 80K words worth of a story takes about 14 hours in total for me to record. I've already got a line that I flubbed and need to rerecord just from what little I've already edited too, so that's a thing to worry about as well. It is going to be a royal pain in the ass to get this done, and I legitimately don't think I can do it in under three weeks. The future is yet untold, but I know myself. If I burn my voice as much as I did the first session, it's probably not getting done quickly.

Anyways, that's enough rambling from me. I'm going to try to be more consistent about this in the future. Fingers crossed.
Until Next Time~
-KCZ