Hello everyone!

I’m starting early with the end of year / new year talk regarding ambitions and goals for the new year as well as reflecting on my current content and how I do things. Previously I’d put this in a video but this year with my life changes, I worked right up until I left for holidays so I didn’t really get the chance to make one which I am sad about, so HUGE ESSAY IT IS!

THANK-YOU!

I can’t start off my letter without thanking some particular members of the community who have stood out and helped make my community the place it is, but most importantly when they show up to my areas of the internet, they are what keeps me going when it comes to making content whether it be on YouTube, Twitch or TikTok. The people I’m going to thank are always in my chats every day when I am live on Twitch or always comment on my videos when I upload to YouTube/TikTok.

Before I go into this list: This is not just exclusive to these people that I want to thank. Honestly, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU WHO COME TO MY STREAMS, WATCH MY VIDEOS, COMMENT ON MY SHIT POSTS ON TWITTER - I want to thank each and every one of you for helping me feel like someone.

TWITCH VIEWERS:

There is nothing I enjoy more than streaming on Twitch and just playing games with an audience whether it be just 1 viewer or 30, it feels nice to not be alone and these people have always been there - from the moment I start to the moment I end the stream. Thank-you so much for being my core dinos:

Booomynote37
RaptornekoSenpi
barbatoslupusrex1995
Battleship_Colorado45
MashMan30TTV

I cannot express it enough, I really appreciate you guys coming in and chatting with me. Thank-you so so much!

YOUTUBE VIEWERS:

I honestly enjoy YouTube so much even though it is a pretty expensive hobby as every video (minus my final fantasy videos which I edit myself, sometimes I don’t even edit them) is edited by my amazing editor AlphaWolfPaw who honestly I wouldn’t be able to do without him. So thank-you so much Narv for everything you do to make my hobby a reality for me!

This list is a thank-you to the viewers who not only watch every video but also take the time out of their day to comment on almost every video and post I make on the platform, and it always makes my day to see them return.

Stevenanthony2482
Kittehgo
Inquisitorichijou883
AeroWraith901
Kristophersy773

I cannot express it enough, I really appreciate you guys watching my videos and letting me know what you think. Thank-you so so much!

TIKTOK VIEWERS:

I have been very inconsistent with my tiktok videos, and a change in the content I uploaded on there has changed my community as I am more uploading clips from my live streams than doing skits with my models. I thank those who continue to watch my clips that I do put up on Tiktok, but especially the following that stuck around when I switched up:

Ghost

You are the one person who keeps showing up and commenting on my videos despite the change in content and it really means a lot, thank-you so much!

Again, if I could put EVERYONE on this list I would. I have just as much love for everyone who comes in and interacts with my content, it makes my day and really I do mean it when I say thank-you to you all!

THE COUNCIL / FRIENS:

Lastly I have the people who help make my content. Towards the end of the year I announced the disbandment of the Council due to the group going off in their own direction, but we all stayed in touch. Even so, we also welcomed more people into the friendship circle and so now the streams just include my dear friends.

I want to thank my friends who have been there and helped with my content decisions and ideas, and what help make my content the content it is.

Ole
Seb
Maeve
Taura
Descendant
Con

I love you guys so much, you are the best friends a girl could ever have!

I also want to say thanks to some new (but also not really new since they are familiar faces from multiple communities) friends we made thanks to Pax and Destiny FANZ events:

Brotherhood
Stumpy
Midget
Rumi

It has been so fun hanging out with you guys and I look forward to future memories we make together!

2024 RECAP:

2024 has been such a huge year for me, from successful events and so many amazing opportunities, here is some of the stuff we have achieved together!

You all helped me out of debt with my subathon at the start of the year!
Raised $640.67USD for Doctors Without Borders - Gaza Medical Aid
Received my very first sponsorship with Hello Fresh
Broke 10,000 followers on Twitch
Raised $100USD for Hurricane Milton Relief
Did my first pilk shot (never again) for my Birthday Subathon
Broke 5,000 subscribers on YouTube
Became a partner with A Kinder World
Invited to take part in Baron Bingo with Destiny 2 / Bungie as an official creator
Had 763 hours played with over 16k streams of my music

I would never have been able to take part in any of these events / do these things without you guys. I owe you all my love and again, thank-you so so so much for helping me reach these achievements!

PLANS FOR 2025:

Previously I used to make goals based on what other content creators were putting online and honestly, a lot of it was just not achievable at my level with both my reach and my finances. So here are some of the things I’d like to do in the coming year starting off with ambitions:

AMBITIONS FOR NEXT YEAR:

Collab with 5 new people (make new friends)
Collab with 5 people I have played with before, but outside of my friendship circle
Finish off owing rewards from previous events
Complete 10 games from steam library
Be more consistent with Tiktok uploads

CONTENT CHANGES:

With this next year I’ve been having a long think about what I want to do to change up my schedule, but also not change it so much that it pushes people away. While the games and times I stream will stay the same, I wanted to cover a few of the things I want to do.

COMMUNITY FACTIONS

Move over Dead Orbit/Future War Cult/New Monarchy - there is a new faction war in town. I have had this idea for a very long time and with an upcoming model debut I am bringing in a new element to the GRIAverse community: factions!

These will be based on the community mascots:

Roboraptors: your allegiance with Genesis and her futuristic dinosaur hybrids - your mascot will be our lovely little Wren!

Jade Rabbits: your allegiance with Iris and her moon astronauts - your mascot will be an upcoming character to the GRIAverse, a little moon rabbit (design coming soon to match Iris’ OC outfit), with the Jade Rabbit being both a homage to Iris’ origin in the Destiny universe but also relating to the Eastern Asian story of the rabbit on the moon. (I love rabbits and space!)

? what about Gilbert, Scampy and the other mascots?

While I have thought about it, I want there to be one primary mascot per OC of mine. Also to make it less confusing to just make two. There may be more in future, but for now let’s just stick with these!

MULTI-STREAMING

I’ve had a long think about multi-streaming and even with the responses I got through my polls on twitter, discord and YouTube being to not do this and to stick with just what I have been doing (which is streaming to Twitch and uploading the VODs to YouTube), I can’t help but feel like I abandoned a portion of my community and so with 2025, I will be returning to multi-streaming to Twitch, YouTube and Tiktok at the same time through Restream as my attempt at streaming to two platforms through an OBS plugin failed miserably when I attempted in early December.

BUT, this will be for only 1-2 streams a week, with the rest being solely on Twitch and TikTok due to copyright issues and that I know my community wants to vibe to my music. The streams that I do to YouTube will be with game music and most likely when I play through story based games.

DESTINY 2

I would like to say that I am not abandoning Destiny. The numbers have been terrifying to see but I am willing to ride this game to the very end. It was my very first video game and I do love it to death, even if I cannot play it as much as I used to because it just isn’t fun to play. So you do not have to worry, I will still be making YouTube videos on this game, and streaming it weekly on reset. If the game ever becomes addicting again, you bet it will be the only game I play once again!

FFXIV

Since Destiny has been put on the time out seat for a bit now due to lack of content, Final Fantasy has definitely filled that void and now that I have friends that are in the final lengths of the current MSQ we will be adventuring into the hard content with a brand new static so I am very excited to see where this goes!

I hope to do my own PoV videos of hard content soon, and with my friends I want to try being a raid lead which will be a new adventure too! There is so much to do so I am very excited to see where this goes.

MINDFUL MONDAYS - SOLO ONLY STREAMS

While I definitely enjoy my time streaming with my amazing and lovely friends, I do want to prioritise time streaming with my community too. So I want to start dedicating a day a week (for now I am thinking Mondays but this can vary depending on what happens each week) where I just play a game by myself and talk / interact with my community. With the theme of the game being peaceful and just relaxing. I’m thinking solo Minecraft, ARK (if I get a better PC set up), Stardew Valley, Story games, karaoke, and art streams.

ART STREAMS RETURNING

It has been over a year since I’ve done regular art streams, and my art output has been very stale due to solely focusing on just commissions and it has burnt me out of drawing. I would like to do my own artworks for fun and I feel bringing it back to a streaming schedule could help this.

DISCORD EVENTS

I’m very excited about this one - one of the goals I have is to be a bit more involved with my community and talk with you all and get out of my social bubble. So this year I hope to do monthly events such as game nights and watch-alongs with everyone from anime to movies. There has been a stage made in the event section ready for this and I am so excited!

THE RETURN OF RHEAS, ATHENA AND NYX

The GRIAverse is my world, my universe and I love all my characters. I removed Rheas and Athena from the brand and stopped using the models I made of them as it was becoming confusing for people to differentiate between the characters, especially for newer viewers.

While I have no plans to make models of Rheas and Athena to match my Iris and Genesis models at this current time (maybe down the line when I have no commissions - Rheas when I can stream ARK again), I do want to bring them back in the art I use during the schedules and branding.

UPCOMING EVENTS AND RELEASES:

Here is the most exciting part of the document! Here is a list of the planned events I have for the upcoming year so you can be prepared if you want to take part!

Game2Give Charity Event: Starting 24th January 2025
Answers cover release: Autumn (Australian) 2025
???: Autumn 2025
??? cover release: Winter (Australian) 2025
25th Birthday Subathon: Starting 7th July 2025
Art Auction / Streamerversary Charity Event Supporting R U OK?: Starting 8th August 2025
??? cover release: Spring (Australian) 2025

It is so hard to not go into detail about some of these events, I just want to tell you all about the projects I have been planning and working on over 2024 but just a little bit longer! I will also put updated dates to the releases once everything is finalised.

There is also room for even MORE events, but these are just what I have planned for now!

GOALS FOR NEXT YEAR:

Lastly, as much as I hate setting things like this as content fluctuates and games are very unpredictable (eyes Destiny 2) I think it’s nice to have something to work towards, plus “number go up make brain happy” - Seb 2k24.

Twitch: 12,000 followers (starting off with 10,273)

YouTube: 6,500 subscribers (starting off with 5,664)

TikTok: 30,000 followers (starting off with 27,298)

Discord: 700 members (starting off with 651)

Twitter: 4,500 followers (starting off with 4,065)

BlueSky: 1,000 followers (starting off with 229)

I didn’t involve subscribers (Twitch) and members (YouTube) because I honestly don’t care how many I have. You may say “But Shez, what about the subathon? You set a goal there so you must care?”, while I do put my sub record as the goal for such event, I don’t actually care if we don’t reach it. I am just so grateful that there are people that want to support my content through monetisation. It would not affect me if I had 0 of either.

TLDR?

And that is the end of my very long letter. To do a TLDR: we did so much together in 2024, I love you all so much and cannot thank you enough for helping me achieve everything I have so far, and look forward to what we will do together next year with some new ideas. Also I’m not abandoning Destiny anytime soon, and Final Fantasy is staying. YEAGH

I love you all! Please have a fun, exciting but safe new years and I will see you when I return to streaming!

Kindest regards,

Shez

GOODBYE 2024, HELLO 2025