Month: August 2020

August – A Month of Changing Winds

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This month I gave The Tombstone Project some love; both to the project itself, and the actual Word file. Firstly, I went back and dug up some old poetry from my teenage years, some of which turned out to be surprisingly decent, especially given what I thought about it at the time. Secondly, I began writing more “journal” style entries specifically for the project, talking more personally about my life with the freedom of not having it made public until after I’ve, y’know, snuffed it. This doesn’t mean I’ve immediately begun spilling everything that goes on in my brain onto the page – people I know will still be reading this, after all – but so far, irregular, personal updates have provided me assurance that my autobiographical works aren’t entirely made up of phrases like “I can’t go into specifics”, or otherwise silent omissions of importance.

As for the Word file, well, I added page breaks after each entry. I won’t bore you with the specifics but it was a pretty unorganised mess before this. Anyway, now that I’ve done that, we’re sitting at 450 pages, although that’s at paperback size because I don’t know how to change it back. No, seriously, I am stumped, and not even Google is helping. It sounds like a simple problem but it’s not, okay? I’m good with writing and I’m good with software but apparently I am not good with writing software. Add it to the list of life’s great ironies.

Am I rambling about inane nothings? Sorry. I have plenty that I could talk about in terms of what’s happened to me this month, but at the time of writing, that’d fall under the “silent omissions of importance” I mentioned earlier. I won’t give a vague impression of what I’m omitting, either, because people jump to all sorts of incorrect conclusions. Instead, I’m just going to apologise for the low word count this month and jump straight towards the section where I ramble about my hobbies for a paragraph or two.

I took a bit of a left turn and streamed for 10 days in a row, after having not livestreamed anything for a few months now. The reason? World of Warcraft! We’re ramping up to the release of the new expansion, and anyone who knows me knows what the game means to me. I’m beyond in love with the world, characters, and gameplay of that universe, and I’m super excited about where the next expansion, Shadowlands is taking us: the afterlife. As you may be able to surmise by the existence of this project, I spend a lot of time thinking about death, and while that’s usually in more of a serious, existential way, I also thoroughly enjoy fantastical stories which explore what happens to use when we die.

Besides that, though, I’ve also enjoyed Gamescom this month (not least for the animated WoW short it premiered), dabbled in poetry, delved into the book Mythos by Stephen Fry in the hopes of better understanding Greek Mythology, and took a breath to appreciate the changing of seasons. Much of this month was spent in a sweltering heatwave, but in recent days the heat has broken and the coolness of autumn has taken its place. This time of year always makes me nostalgic and introspective, reminding me of starting school, or university, of taking comfort in certain fictional worlds; of rare quiet moments where I’ve sat and appreciated the breeze, the waning sun, the distant sounds of life in various gardens and roads.

There can be no perfect afterlife. It would always be autumn, but the winds of autumn are appreciated for their heralding of change, and perfection demands stasis, lest it be imperfect for its ephemeral nature.

It’s been quite a month.

My Current Creative Projects

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Okay, so this is partially a post to consolidate all of my ongoing creative projects into one handy place, and partially me patting myself on the back. But I figure that while this stuff is all well ordered in my mind, it might be nice to put it all in one place for all to see. Who knows, you might just discover something new about me.

Youtube Videos

I am on Youtube under the name of Kritigri, and I quite consistently upload three gaming-based videos a week. Would you believe me if I said I didn’t plan it this way? I have the one weekly video series but the other two weekly uploads just tended to fall in place by themselves. It was only when I noticed the pleasant symmetry of video thumbnails on my page that I decided to try and make it a constant in my life.

The Weekly Waypoint

Previously named The Weekly Deathmatch, this is my weekly video series where I ramble about whatever I please, though it’s almost always related to gaming, or whatever fictional media I’ve consumed that week. These videos typically aim for the ten minute mark, and are made up of pre-recorded gameplay and post-gameplay commentary. Tomorrow we hit episode 120, meaning I’ve been at this for well over two years, with no intention of stopping anytime soon.

Edited Gameplay Compilations

Basically, the videos with yellow text in their thumbnails. These make up two thirds of my weekly video content, and are compilations of bitesize clips taken from games I’ve been playing. This all began some years ago when I discovered the DVR function built into Windows 10 which allowed me to save the previous thirty seconds of gameplay at the push of a button. I started a separate (now repurposed) Youtube channel to dump these on, but soon began experimenting with editing these videos together, trimming off the seconds of silence and making them around 5-10 minutes in length. Given the extra effort and care, I moved these videos to my main channel.

Twitch VODs

The aforementioned repurposed Youtube channel is now home to on-demand versions of my Twitch streams, as well as highlights taken from said streams to be consumed in a more bitesize format.

Twitch Streaming

Okay, so this isn’t so much of a constant in my life as my Youtube videos are; the only schedule I have regarding streams is on a Monday, when I stream the live recording of my podcast with my friend Reece (more on that later). My spontaneous streams, though, which can occur anywhere between five times a week to once every five months, are of whatever games I feel like playing. Sometimes it’ll be a live service style game or an MMO like World of Warcraft, where I can hang out without the pressure of completing some arbitrary objective. When I do want to punish myself, however, I’ll start up a full playthrough of a game like LEGO Star Wars, which is a bad example given that it’s the only one I’ve ever finished.

Podcasting

This is a very new and recent occurrence. After many years of consuming podcasts while commuting or grinding out some achievement in a videogame, I’ve finally decided to start dipping my toe into the podcasting business myself, and so far, I’m having a wonderful time.

Pictures Without Pictures

Here’s the weekly livestreamed podcast I mentioned. The basic premise is that I don’t watch a lot of movies, but my friend Reece totally does! So every week we pick a movie, watch it through and convene on Monday evening to discuss our thoughts on it. Episodes are typically an hour to an hour and a half long and you can find it on proper podcasting apps like Spotify, and Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts! It’s well exciting. Out of all my projects, this is the one I’d be most thrilled for you to check out right now. Next week we’re discussing Jurassic Park…

Kritigri FM

Ah, okay, so, bit of a cheat, this one. I’m essentially using a podcast feed to upload audio versions of these very blog posts, once I get around to finishing up my monthly series. I also record audio versions of my gaming blog posts (featured below if you’re unaware), and the occasional podlet-exclusive candid review of a show, or a game that I’ve recently played, or, erm, the concept of achievements! It’s a bit of a grab bag, but don’t blame me, blame Anchor for not allowing multiple podcasts per account (though otherwise it’s a godsend of a service).

But I hear you asking… why bother with audio versions of these blog posts? Well, besides accessibility, I just think people are more likely to listen to a 3-6 minute audio version of a blog post than to read the 1000 words contained within. Plus, there’s bloopers, and they’re well fun. Also, it’s neat to practice my voice for future potential projects. And it’s weirdly satisfying to do!

Blogging

Ah. This is as close as we’ll get to a “writing” subheading for now, I’m afraid, but hey, it counts in my book. Hah, get it? Book? Totally an intentional pun that I didn’t just catch on the read-through.

Perpetually Perturbed

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Click here to- wait, no, you’re already here

Well, you’re already here, aren’t you, so I don’t have a huge amount to teach you here. You’ll already know about my monthly blog post series, which is autobiographical in nature and tends to discuss mental health, the state of the world, and my miscellaneous musings. You’ll possibly know also that this is a part of The Tombstone Project, my lifelong memoirs (god I hate that term) which intend to preserve some semblance of my personality long after I’m dead, if anybody cares to read them. Self-absorbed? Potentially. Morbid? Absolutely! But it gives me some peace of mind.

I’ve also recently re-committed to reading actual frickin’ books, and will attempt to review them as I go. You can already read my latest review, the newest WoW novel by Madeleine Roux, here. I’m currently working my way through Star Wars: Thrawn, but despite an interesting first third of the book, I’m finding the second third to be a bit of a slog.

32 Bit Brain

Did you know that I have a sister blog? It’s all about videogames, which, you may have noticed, are a bit of a running theme in my life. But if I love gaming so much, I may as well write about it, and while I don’t have any concrete weekly or monthly blog posts publishing over there, I have been experimenting with some new series, one documenting a journey to collect achievements, the other a retrospective of my oldest gaming memories. I may need to work on those titles, though.

I’ve also decided to start reviewing games that I’m finished playing, much in the same vein as I review books. You can find the first of these reviews right here.

What Else?

What, that’s not enough for you? Greedy…

I mean, there are smaller things which I don’t count as productive but I enjoy working towards as a larger task. Completing certain game series, and their achievements. Expanding my knowledge of history with podcasts. Educating myself on movies, which is what drove me to start Pictures Without Pictures in the first place. And there’s always actual, physical work which I attend five nights a week, if you want to be thorough about it. That’s certainly not productive, though. Reductive, maybe.

Thank you for taking the time to look at my creative projects, though. I’d be thrilled if you gave these a try, but if not, I’m chuffed you took time out of your day to give it a gander. Follow me on Twitter at @Kritigri for a glimpse at future projects when they arise.