Board Thread:Fun and Games/@comment-24187738-20151214152123/@comment-27434534-20151220114704

I was in a really bad slump for a few months. All of my motivation to do anything was gone. I did a lot of nothing for a few months, except bury myself in schoolwork and avoid thinking about how I was not pursuing my dreams. My husband and I live on an Air Force Base in California, and this was our last year until his contract was up. By the beginning of next year, we can finally move back to our family and friends in New York, our home state. This slump hit me at the beginning of the year as I thought about how I still had an entire year left until I could see my best friends or my mom again without spending a fortune on a plane ticket.

My dream is to become a voice actress. I could not express to you enough how much I want this. I dream about it, I live it, I breathe it, and I want it to happen more than anything I’ve ever wanted in life. But the slump hit me when I realized I had wasted three years of being in California, the place to be for voice acting, and I had not done a single thing to further my dreams. I was miserable. I hated myself for being “lazy” and not “doing enough.”

I was scrolling through Twitter one day when I saw that my friend had posted a picture of School Idol Festival. I asked her what it was and she told me that it was a rhythm game with cute anime girls in it, and I thought, “why not?” So I downloaded it. I immediately became addicted to it. I played non-stop for a few days straight, and immediately realized my favorite girls were Kotori and Honoka. I thought Kotori was the most precious thing and I admired Honoka’s determination and excitement that I only saw through the game’s stories. When I figured out it was an anime, I had to watch it.

I binge-watched the entire series in about two weeks. It was around the end of March when I finished it. I fell in love. All the girls had these admirable qualities and the moral of the series, to follow your dreams and “make our dreams alive” really stuck with me. Honoka never gave up on her dreams, even when she was sick, she still danced and sang and tried her best. That same day I finished the series, I saw that there was a voice acting workshop near me, and the motivation to get up and get my dream to come true hit me like a ton of bricks (or lovegems… preferably lovegems). I signed up, even though I was nervous beyond reason, and started practicing and recording again, all the while thinking about Honoka and the girls of μ's  and how they would not waste this opportunity.

             I went to the workshop in April and it was one of the best experiences of my life. At the workshop, I learned about an open casting call for a production company at Anime Expo. This made me more nervous than the workshop, since the casting call would be in front of everyone at the convention that walked by. I believed in myself, but this was such a big leap for me. It wasn’t that I was nervous about being in front of other people, but I knew I would feel defeated if I saw other people and saw how amazing they were. I went back into another slump for a month and sunk myself into tiering and playing School Idol Festival.

I started looking up streamers on Twitch and joined the SIF Reddit, and met the wonderful people of the community. I expressed at one point in an SIF streamer’s (OwlRemember’s) Twitch chat room about the casting call, and remember people telling me that I should go for it. It reminded me of that drive I felt when I first watched the anime and how Honoka had all of her friends behind her cheering her on whenever she felt like she wanted to quit. I knew I had to do it. I had to try.

<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria;mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:black;mso-themecolor:text1">So I did. And it was another amazing experience that I’ll never forget.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria;mso-fareast-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family:"TimesNewRoman";color:black;mso-themecolor:text1">I’m not sure where I’d be or what exactly I would have done if it wasn’t for my love of Love Live! To say it helped me get out of the slump would be an understatement. LLSIF and μ's motivated me to pursue my dreams and now I’m closer than ever. I cannot thank the LLSIF community, μ's, or Honoka enough.