As of today I have spent 330 hours of my life playing Osu. It’s a fairly natural game for me to have gotten into, given my many, many hours of listening per year on platforms like Spotify and YouTube music. Music is a form of therapy for me. I make playlists for different eras and seasons of my life, collecting the songs that most resonate with issues I’m dealing with or a certain feeling I often experience. It’s warming and encouraging to know that there is some other person out there that feels similarly and feels it enough to write a song about it. In the moments that I am listening to their songs, we share a special connection.
A few months ago, I extended this hobby into scrolling Pixiv and finding beautiful artworks that I feel embody a certain feeling or mood for that day. As someone who sometimes struggles with being in tune with their emotions, this practice has evolved into a type of meditation on the events of the day. Sometimes a certain song and image will blend together in my mind and produce a daydream of an almost sacred nature, transporting myself away, fully submerged in the fictional world and emotion of the piece. Here are some examples:
Additionally, playing Osu, if you look past the game’s competitive side, can be also seen in this light. An image paired with a song. Both complimenting each other. And you, the player, interact with that pairing by playing the beatmap as you contemplate life.
To the various expressions of the common themes of music and artwork in my life, I owe a lot. Countless times music has helped get me through a rough day or deal with loneliness and countless other things. As an expression of these feelings, I have created a frame for one of my favorite artworks I have discovered on Pixiv, using various effects in Godot. You can view it here: (it’s meant for desktop and might look weird on mobile)
Play! ‌
Click the CD in the bottom right corner to pause/play the song.
