Recent updates: rusty creation, a new car, and constant change

It’s been almost a year since I wrote a new article. Of course, I also haven’t made any VTuber-related creations for a long, long time—my last activity on GitHub even stopped in January this year.

Since I stopped making new creations, I’ve actually encountered a huge number of new things. But over the past year—especially after openclaw appeared—I feel that both my working mode and my creative mode have changed dramatically. There were a few times in between when I wanted to write about what I had been doing during certain periods, but I always felt that no matter what happened, simply “telling it on the internet” wouldn’t help solve the problems at all. At least to me now, “talking about it” has become something with almost no benefits, and “hiding tears in the heart” has become the norm.

Still, people should record their feelings a little—because after this period passes, it’s hard to recall them clearly. So I decided to push myself a bit and write some updates.

A rusty creative state and fading desire to share

As I said above, “creating” has become something close to a “rusty” state for me.

From a creator’s point of view, publishing a piece of work feels like throwing a tiny stone into a lake—so tiny that it might not even make a splash. I want to be liked, but I also know my abilities are limited. On one hand I have many ideas I want to do; on the other hand I can’t help thinking, “What if nobody watches it?” “What if I get outperformed?” The result is: a pile of half-finished works, and none of them get completed.

Right now I have no idea what to do. Should I keep grounding myself in freecodecamp—strengthening fundamentals while contributing to the community? Should I write some small toys and put them on GitHub? Or make some VTuber trash clips, go live and do something? Or retouch my cosplay photoset and publish it… Every direction feels hard for me to imagine creating something I’d be satisfied with, and in every field there are countless people who do far better than me.

I often think about the “siphon effect” of top creators: the better they do, the more attention, feedback, and opportunities they get. But they also started from zero and got there through constant trial and error. That’s a necessary path, but it requires a lot of time, energy, resources, and passion—things I clearly don’t have right now.

From a viewer’s perspective, I understand this anxiety even more. When I browse channels myself, I’m only willing to keep following those who steadily output high-quality content. Once a few episodes in a row feel “just okay”, I start hesitating about whether to unfollow. So when I become a creator, I can’t help thinking: is what I post this time really worth someone clicking?

If creation is meant to bring people laughter or help, then when I’m in an extremely depressed state, what kind of feeling will my output bring? Do those contents really need to be created and made public?

On the other hand, I suddenly found that my desire to share has gotten lower and lower. There are more and more things weighing on my mind, yet I’m less and less willing to post online. I have hundreds of mutual followers, but only a few dozen actually interact; and the number of people I can open my heart to is probably only three to five. Making an account bigger—besides commercial value—doesn’t seem to mean much.

So one day I suddenly stopped, and then I realized: not continuing to create actually became an easier thing.

Bought a new car

Buying a car is probably the biggest and most adventurous decision I’ve made on my own so far. On New Year’s Day this year, after riding in a friend’s first-generation SU7, I felt that the car met my requirements in all aspects. So when the new generation launch event happened, I placed an order immediately with two other friends. Based on my estimate from my friend’s delivery cycle, I thought I’d be able to pick up the car around July—by then I would definitely have my driver’s license.

But I didn’t expect the delivery to be so fast. On April 4th, I was notified to pick up the car. So I went through a bunch of processes, paid purchase tax, insurance, and so on, signed a four-year car loan, and found a shop to apply paint protection film and window tint.

Deciding to do a itasha wrap happened not long after. I had two plans: one was using my VTuber persona, and the other was Arknights’ Penguin Logistics (Texas and Sora on both sides). At first the colored-illustration designer introduced by the wrap shop was too hard to look at, so I found another shop to consult. The design draft I got was beyond my expectations, and after the pre-install steps were completed, I successfully applied the itasha wrap (of course, later registering it was another story. Registration itself wasn’t complicated, but since I had a car loan, getting the vehicle registration document was more troublesome).

After buying the car, my range of movement really expanded. Many places that were inconvenient to visit before can now be reached by driving. Driving to work on rainy days also feels very happy. And since I started driving on the road the day after I got my license, I’ve driven more than 1,000 km in two months—at least now I’m familiar with driving.

Everything changes in an instant

My social circle, relationships around me, and all kinds of things that happened over the past half year or even year have been reinforcing one fact: very few things are truly unchanging. Even if you stand still and quietly observe, changes can still catch you off guard.

During this time, I witnessed two of my close friends going from getting along well to becoming bitter enemies; witnessed a booming business entity playing with fire and burning itself; witnessed some people leaving the internet and returning to real life; and also witnessed many newcomers emerging like bamboo shoots after rain. These things may have always been happening, but maybe because I’m getting older, I feel more and more emotional about them.

Conclusion

Whether I want it or not, as I grow older I will keep moving forward toward “being an adult”. I don’t have much ambition anymore. I just hope I can get out of this low-energy state and become a high-energy person.

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