This...was not a video I expected to revisit, to be honest. The original "Ice Blue" was born out of terrible heartbreak and depression, and was a deeply personal project for me at the time. But sometimes, events just conspire to make one go back to something like that again, and sometimes, certain things are just meant to happen.

In the wake of a recent bout of depression (for other reasons entirely), I decided to go back and re-watch Gundam X for the first time in a number of years. And it seemed to be just what I needed to pull myself out of that and pursue new (non-video) projects related to it. But while working on one of those other projects, I got to watching the original "Ice Blue" for a little additional inspiration, and it kind of hit me out of the blue (as it were) that goodness...I need to redo this video. I had better source footage to work from than ten years ago, I had infinitely better editing software at my disposal, and I had both greater video experience as well as the greater life experiences and maturity to look at this from a perspective other than my own personal pain. And dammit, I was tired of having to turn my head away from my screen every time the message at the end of the original video would appear, something I couldn't remove without destroying the already low quality of the video itself. I tried to ignore the feeling, thinking it wasn't that big of a deal, but it just wouldn't leave me alone, and I eventually gave in to that need.

As a result, while there is a lot about this video that is still very similar or even identical to the original, there is plenty that is new. In many cases, I swapped out clips for something that I felt flowed better or to reduce repetition, and I added in additional ones in many places to reduce the "static" feeling that many scenes in the old video had. There's also a lot more use of overlays, something I couldn't do with the original, and some other subtle visual effects to give them a more dream-like/nightmare-like feel. Furthermore, the focus of the video has been able to shift more from using first mate Sala Tyrrell as a stand-in for myself and Jamil as a stand-in for the person who had hurt me ten years ago, to instead more of a story of a young woman's unrequited love and a man too broken by his past and too consumed by his feelings for another woman to notice her. I still don't like them as a possible couple after all these years, but it's still a fascinating subplot of the series nonetheless.

Overall, the entire editing process took the best part of two days, compared to about five for the original; this can be credited to being able to use the original as a "base" I could plan around, as well as an unexpected couple days off of work (and thus a lot of time to myself). It kind of surprised me that it took so little time, to be honest, given all the additional work I put into this. I guess that was further proof to me that I needed to drop everything and do this.