#dolceupdate

So first off, I'll point out the elephant in the room. I'm currently on hiatus. The reason for it is because I actually moved to Japan! And because of all the paperwork, moving, life adjustments and just constantly being overwhelmed by life, (also not to mention my terrible internet situation) I had to put my Vtuber activities on hold. I do plan on returning, however it'll be a while before I can get back on the saddle.

There are still some things I need to do as a Vtuber like finish archiving my VODs, make art for the subathon that was done to help my move, and I still plan to be active on Twitter, just so people don't completely forget about me.

Because I don't have to focus on streams and collabs, I'm planning to come back eventually with YouTube video content/TikTok content for the time being. Just little guy stuff where you can see me having fun by being cringe on the internet. As for the YouTube stuff, it's going to get a little in depth about Vtubing and videos about tips or tutorials on Vtuber software or general streaming help. I have several scripts already written out, but unfortunately, my workspace is not recording friendly. It's a relatively easy fix, but in the mean time, I have back-end stuff that needs to get done which will make production a lot more engaging and pretty to look at. Trust me, once I get back fully on my Vtuber activities, I'll be coming back as strong as ever and I hope to push myself a bit more.

The first thing was that I was sick, so that was a huge upsetting part for me. I wasn't able to be 100% at full entertainer mode since I still had to focus on being healthy. That means a lot of the more physically demanding things were not possible. So no karaoke, no Ring Fit. I even had forcing push-ups/sit-ups/squats as an incentive. I ended up doing them, but it was the most I could do.

Another thing was that even with an active chat, I ended up feeling very lonely. I wasn't able to interact with my friends outside of the stream. The only few times I was able to was during BRBs and just before going to bed. Even on waking up, I immediately had to check on the stream to make sure it was still up or that no hate raids and trolls decided to cause trouble.

There's not much time for other people when tending to an "always on" stream. I was only able to speak to another person once through the entire 55 hours, which was after a friend raided my stream and I openly invited them to join since they weren't planning on going to bed afterwards. I didn't even speak to family at all during the whole thing.

Food was also a huge issue. From my experience with the stream, time was precious. Time away from the stream meant losing retention and potential contributions. I always felt like I was in a rush to get things done. Because I was sick, I also constantly needed water to refresh my system, even more than usual to help recover from whatever sickness I caught. I wanted to eat bit more substantial meals like pasta and chicken, but those are things that you can't just set on a stove and come back to. I didn't have roommates or family that were able to help or cook for me, so that was a huge struggle.

My advice if I were to ever do this again, and to anyone reading that's looking to do a subathon, is to make food ahead of time. Make a huge pot of chili in a slow cooker, get a rice cooker, buy family sized lasagna that take like 1hr30 to cook in an oven. Depending on the success of your subathon, DoorDash could be your friend. In my case, I wasn't able to justify DoorDash or any other delivery service. The only outside food I got was Taco Bell, which was an incentive, and not by choice.

Another huge issue was finding ways to keep the stream active with clear info. I definitely feel like I should have prepared a bit more beforehand, but I was unable to make the proper preparations due to being basically bedridden up until the day before the start day. I would have gotten a YouTube playlist set up for when I slept and set up labels that could let people know what the next incentive was. I think the worst thing was not having moderators able to help. Because everything had to be done by myself. Changing titles, tracking incentives and rewards, removing troublesome users. I also unfortunately had an issue with the marathon timer, where I had to manually add time. A lot of the workload made it hard to focus on providing an engaging stream.

However, I did manage to get some other stuff done before all this! I recently found an inspiration for editing YouTube videos. The style of editing I'm going for is very akin to Kizuna Ai and Kaguya Luna, the OGs of the Vtuber world. The idea is also reminiscent of Japanese Television. I have a few videos ready to be posted, but staggering them for long term interaction. One video is already uploaded onto YouTube and you can check it out here!

Additionally I have shorter clip videos that also try to encompass the Japanese vlog style videos. As I start to get comfortable with this style of editing, it'll only get more and more stylized. Here's another example!