SEP2017: Wonderful World of Character Design Pt1, NZGDC & New Zealand adventures!

Fears, Feelings and my Brain are figuring it out ;DAlso a matter of learning about each other, acknowledging flaws + complexities and be accountable for them together as companions in life! 😉

But hey, I’m pretty happy doing all the learning like a slow sleepy bear at art & life too :0!

Not counting high school graduation either.I was completely jaded and feeling hopeless at this point. Note I only attended 2/3 graduation ceremonies because I didn’t see the point and it was pretty boring 🙁 I don’t want to celebrate when the future is completely uncertain and without any planning!!

I knew what I was getting into and it’s up to me to dig out of the unemployment hole…knowing how there’s several thousands of graduates a year and very few roles. It felt like a dead end.

Not that I knew what I was doing! :’)

As much as I enjoy learning, let’s say graduation didn’t feel terribly celebratory to me. It did feel however like: “This is the end of this chapter”.

I don’t find graduation celebratory but it’s the frightening & glorious: “hey welcome to reality” :0 So glad I skipped one – felt like a waste of time :<

Been making these jokes in the past few years ;DShe is *really* nosy…I do hope one day I’ll be able to not care what *anybody* thinks like she does!! I mean I care about what other people think & preemptively acknowledge things…and then I do what I want anyway + hope for the best!
I want to be better at skipping to the “do what I want” step! 😉

There’s so much things on a cultural level and in terms of love life I relate to .___.There’s so many wonderful charming substories and minigames in this brilliantly weird game 😀

I’ve been brought up on harmony and playing my role for my family or the group I belong to. My individual feelings, desires and voice is not as important as supporting the group as a whole. So it was conflicting when I’m also brought up and surrounded by a culture who focuses on individuality, speaking up and freedom. Essentially I default to the former depending on how much I care about a given group, otherwise I outcast myself, keep to myself and do my own thing.

It’s rare but you can tell how comfortable I am depending on how silly or actually talkative I am 😉 And if I’m able to ideally just focus on one person at a time :<
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With love though, I am a coward who bottles things up until my heart breaks into a billion pieces with hurt when I feel invisible, it’s unrequited and then that someone moves on.
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Now I’m striving to get better at just focusing on becoming friends from a genuine place [it’s still difficult with feelings in the way] and get to know people I like just as people. Friendships is still what I’m still learning to be better at! I do hope I become more brave and try or let things go, the more comfortable I become!

Thanks for reading my personal struggles with this thing called feelings ^_^ <3

Look I’m a simple person. I take simple tiny risks 😉

I don’t expect a conversation.

Not that I greet everyone all the time (I get busy and focused too!) so I strive to reframe it when others ignore or don’t see me, move on and save my energy :0

This is the point where I keep myself busy and/or accept that I’m feeling hurt. Allowing myself to feel it & comfort myself a while. Sit with the heavy weight of despair, hopelessness and the constantly asking myself why – let all the emotional wandering thoughts out somehow by writing or talking to myself with kind and gentle honesty.Forcing myself to ignore it and not allow myself to have feelings makes it worse in the long run; feeling not great and sad is completely fine.

Sometimes I’m just too tired of caring and hiding it away. Not being okay right now is fine. Allowing myself to feel this and take it at my pace helps. It hurts but it will pass.

Get it out of my system and stay kind with myself.

Strive to keep out of the cycle afterwards.

In time, I will slowly start to care less.

Believe I can pick myself up.

There is hope out there, just not where you expect it.

Grow and become stronger.

Eventually it’ll be okay. :’)

AFTERWORD:
It is true that things can hurt and eventually it hurts less…I’ve experienced that before. I doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt :S

But hey life comes with things that matter and you care about even more things again :’) Hey, we’ve all been feeling like this one way or another many times in our lives. Life is full of risk taking and with that comes the pain. It’s okay to sit with these feelings and talk to ourselves kindly out of that negative self talk as if we’re our own good friend.

Getting better at this at a snail’s pace…rolling with the hurt and pain :<
Sitting with the pain together like a friend to take care of and be kind to is something I have to keep getting better at.

I first learned this when finally facing the lies I told myself & finally going ahead with my career change in 2011 [and blogging since then]
and finally dealing with my mother’s passing properly,
and now I’m always striving to get better with friendships, people, small risk taking, being who I am as a person and dealing with the fear of rejection and fear of abandonment I have. Get better at being kind and loving somehow.
This self awareness is empowering but a slow life long journey
We got this!! ^o^

Note I am not that experienced at all when it comes to people and I’m still learning about all this!

To you: thank you for reading my personal comics about my feelings :’D <3

Each time I post these, I feel scared – it’s part of the reason why I check once a week on social media by default so I distance myself some more :’)

I have mixed feelings with the word “shy”.AFTERWORD:
I feel SO conflicted with this word. I got described as such in my reports when I was a little kid already! It felt like a label and like I was an outcast…that I should stop being afraid & be like the other kids!!
I know it’s not out of malice but it feels humiliating & frustrating 🙁

I have attempted to “own” the word but ultimately knowing that I take ages to warm up & feel comfortable & have confidence with people [maybe I’m rude or just in quiet mode] makes me feel shame and/or looked down upon instead for being like this 🙁

And sometimes people haven’t earned both my trust & respect yet so I keep quiet and strive to listen and learn about people instead :0

It depends on previous interactions too (:

Oh noes :’)

I can’t help but bought these two adorable sweet cuties to take home
from New Zealand from Sky Tower and I only realised after the trip that they’re finger puppets!!

Aaaah! I can stick my finger up their butts to make them talk!! GASP :’D

I have learned that making & posting selfies is incredibly hard & a feat requiring self confidence D: Is this what posting selfies & pushing my comfort zone feels like?! D: I don’t plan to do selfies often! 🙁 Too self conscious about doing these unless I’m in a super touristy place like with the Sky Tower…maybe ;POr probably more likely with someone else [though I probably won’t show them publicly as I have several with Kalonica actually] 😉

My bro cheered me up some & gifted me this cutest, tiny, Sleeping Kirby Gashapon yesterday! 💕

He skillfully dug out what he wanted haha 😉

Another introspective ramble on one sided conversations
This has been bothering me in for several months but I am making myself remember that if people are just keen on talking about themselves or their opinions and/or are only answering questions you ask of them – then don’t expect them to listen back to you or ask about you. Just go with it.

Just learn about them if they’re willing to talk. Or stop checking on what they do. Or stop asking questions haha

Personally I have definitely answered questions when it comes to people I’m not interested in knowing more about so I am *not* intentionally trying to be passive aggressive about people. I do it too when I’m super energy deprived too. Just answering questions when people ask :0

I don’t want to guilt trip anyone in doing something they don’t care about doing anyway. Just let me grumble about my silly feelings in my safe online home please :’) People who read my blogs probably don’t do this anyway…at least that’s my assumption!

I do it with many people too when I don’t see common ground and/or don’t know them so well…and would like to keep myself at a safe social/emotional distance…for now. It takes a long while to warm up to most people and actually share things about myself…as in really okay in talking about all sorts of things and express myself in a silly way :0 Sometimes the other party aren’t the silly kind or they really don’t have much in common :<

I don’t really do this in groups because I need to feel comfortable with everyone in said group first…and in reality that doesn’t happen often at all. So I keep to myself even though I have opinions, people move on faster than I could formulate a sentence. And why would they want *my* opinion when I wasn’t in the conversation in the first place? ;( Plus all the more reason to save my introvert levels of energy, right?

On the other hand, I know I can’t always outcast myself as my defense mechanism all the time :< Usually I just presumptuously accept being a loner. I have a cat personality apparently. Or I allow myself to silently sulk and wallow in self pity for a bit before moving on haha And/or just do my own thing; stuff bothering to participate!! haha

Just saying that when it feels one sided, this is a wake up call to reality that the connection isn’t mutual [whether this hurts or not is another matter I’ll have to roll with.] It doesn’t hurt at times depending on whether I actually mind we connect or not.

During the times it does hurt, it’s when I’ve been listening/asking/initiating a lot but at the time I wasn’t sure why I felt terrible, tired and neglected afterwards. Turns out I do care with some people. But hey I’ll eventually move on. That I need to talk and focus on other people who genuinely care, have things in common and mutually ask questions too.

Hey usually I’m just someone who asks questions, learns and listen to others as the default. Perhaps my standards in who I listen to is changing. And it’s harder to distinguish and let go. Trying to be honest to myself about these things too. I’m not going to pretend I don’t care to myself but I hope to slowly practice and get better at this.

Trying to bond is hard and yes not everyone wants to, I get that :’) People or you not feeling the same way happens lots of the time! It doesn’t mean that feelings don’t get hurt sometimes. :’) I hate the times when I actually do care when people ignore me [or don’t respond mutually] consistently so I try to move on. Sometimes I forget and care again though…whoops :< Gotta just minimise emotional investment, move on but stay kind about it. Struggling at times.

When it comes to conversations I am in, I have been feeling incredibly tired of too much being in listen mode and question asking mode and having the consistent “no one cares what’s happening with me” and “why should I bother & participate” feeling. It’s making me care less about anyone who just focuses on themselves…it feels exhausting. If I think back at what I personally do, I go silent when I’m out of things to say or I’m conserving energy. I am not good at small talk but if I am interested in knowing how someone else is doing from a genuine place, apparently I’m okay with asking all the questions!

Sometimes a lot of networking or social events are like that…where you feel like you have to perform as a conversational extrovert in order to keep and impress them for them to stay in the conversation and I’m not always down for that. Because it’s exhausting for me in the long run. Sometimes I am tired of feeling invisible, insignificant and unappreciated for my time and emotional energy for someone who consistently doesn’t care or even treat you like a human being. I’d rather spend time elsewhere and do my own thing instead. Or keep dealing with it until I don’t care anymore. Or a messy mix of both. 🙁

Or I’m finding that I go even more quiet and retreat inwards towards myself if I realise that few people care anyway. Everyone is busy with the people already in their own lives. There’s no room for you. Resignation. Giving up on trying to connect. Allow myself to be sad awhile. Needing some personal space more than ever.

Perhaps I’m learning to distinguish things better.
As much as I want to learn about people, ask questions and I often end up listening to others rather than talk about myself anyway…when I do want a genuine connection, I don’t want just an interview with someone. Especially when it comes to *mutual* bonding. I want a mutual conversation especially when it comes to the 1 to 1 kind 🙁

I don’t want people to just dump what they want to say to me and then not actually engage with how I feel/react/think. And abandon the conversation right after dumping their opinion on me. Yes I’ve had that happen before several times. I don’t feel respected as a friend/person from that point onwards when it’s a consistent pattern. I lose a degree of trust from that point.

Genuinely slowly giving up on a few people and my stubbornness in “believing the best of others and that friendship/connection can still happen” is wearing down. I don’t want to care anymore about people who don’t seem to value me. I’m done asking them questions about their lives when they don’t care to know about mine. I’m feeling so done and want to retreat within myself even more. I guess this is what happens when you find yourself wanting something mutual but you’ve been one sided all along. It hurts.

Whoops. Why am I spending so much emotional labour on such things. I blame myself. I hate that I care. :'(

I mean I deal with that already with my own verbally abusive dad [I’m not respecting him much either to be fair]. Plus I deal with people I don’t mind just listening to without them knowing or not. There are people I don’t mind if they’re just talking and I’m just listening. They don’t even know me well and don’t even care to know. They just want someone to listen. Perhaps it’s a matter of power dynamics at play too.

I guess this struggle with friendships/people it’s just another way of telling me that a connection is not going to work anyway. It’s a two way dance.

Learn and grow from this right? They say only invest as much as they invest in you. I’ll add: probably a bit more or less than them to push forward or retreat back depending on previous patterns of interactions. Just don’t fall into the habit of doing more than you should like I did :<

I truly doubt the people I’m talking about will see/read this essay. They don’t care and I’ve lost faith in them already. I can ramble about my silly feelings here. I’m really not worried. :’) If it ever does happen I say to them: I’ll be keeping my distance from you to heal but I wish you all the best.

Rambling all this makes me realise how isolating, painful and lonely it all feels when you don’t have many people you’d mutually want to bond with. Because not everyone is on the same page with you right now after all. People don’t show all sides to them…even me! Everyone has different boundaries on how they express themselves, let alone if they feel mutual or not. That’s okay.

Learning to love myself as I am and not shame myself for these thoughts and feelings. And be understanding & kind to others.

And the world doesn’t revolve around you silly Leonie!
I *do not* deserve *everyone* to like me…there’s always people who don’t care or like you and that’s okay. People have drifted off. I’ll focus on those who do stick around.
As usual, you live within your own head too much :’)

Sure I don’t openly express myself in person haha
Taking things too seriously maybe :<

But it all makes me appreciate the few friends I do have! <3

This whole ramble is probably silly and repetitive to you but it helps me gain further clarity each time. It’s reminding me that it’s okay for me to express myself here…people don’t like reading right? 😉 I’m rambling for myself in these personal little blog posts of mine.

But I don’t care.

Being honest with myself and my feelings are important to me.

PS: If people do read these blog posts, I guess you understand a bit what’s going in the world within my head at this moment in time. I trust that you’d keep it to yourself anyway because these topics are quite personal and I don’t think people want to actually discuss these things with me [rarely happens!] Sadly for me, I don’t have many friends to depend on so chances is that I probably don’t know you well.

Regardless, I hope this helps you to be honest with yourself too. <3
It’s okay if you’re not sure about life too. I am the same.

Nintendo Direct: random things I’m keen to play

• Mario Odyssey!! 😀 So excited
• Kirby games!!
• Not played Splatoon 2 proper yet
• Snipperclips!! More content
• Lady Layton full game!!

Interesting/Notes:

• what is DOOM/Wolfenstein doing here haha
• Xenoblade 2’s money focused Nopon character oooh
• Square Enix’s Octopus game ;D
• No Animal Crossing for people waiting years for it
• Flip Wars? Morphie’s Law? Breath of the Wild Skins?

So bittersweet that they dedicated hiding Iwata’s first programmed game into the Switch via his “Direct” to you motion and a certain date :'(

See you in over a month; I’ll delay next month’s post for another week so I can do the mega blog post on MIGW again D: As I said, debating on how much I should film this time but we’ll see! Hey this time, I got a talk to prepare with a lot of pressure!! I probably won’t get to do a talk ever again.Aaaah :’)

You know, after all this is done…
I want to take a break. But the question is, can I?
I might have to make myself somehow.

Eventually I hope to make BurpDoodle art regularly again when I’m ready…it could even be during mid January? Who knows haha

Or not. I don’t know yet.

Social Media Hiatuses ramble cycle 
I really want to take a year away from social media and just focus on learning :< But I know how devastating it could be if you fall into oblivion…when it takes several years and years to organically grow an audience.

I probably have 5-10 regular people or less who actually check my work consistently?? Hey I know that lots of people who follow me [friends, colleagues and acquaintances alike] don’t actually check my posts because when I talk to them, they don’t know what I’m doing at all online haha ;D

“What? Are you still doing the blog thing?”
“Yes,” trying to hide my disappointment and disconnect and getting a humbling reality check. I’ve been blogging since 2011 and I haven’t stopped, I say. That was several years ago though; I’m used to people not reading these.

Hey the internet is a attention demanding place so why should I expect readers ;P

Or they don’t even respond when I tag/tweet at them…at the time I felt like crediting/appreciating people where it’s due but now I feel terrible and guilty that I’m annoying them now that I look back. Clearly they don’t want to interact and are ignoring me. I’ll back off from interacting and give them space forever? Who really knows and I don’t think I want to know/care. I’m not going to bother caring too much if I can help it. What does it matter.

Hey Twitter or even Facebook isn’t everyone’s thing because it’s so public/within friends circles but at the same time I’m trying to keep people who don’t even use twitter to engage with me to a minimum. If you want to be online friends, go with facebook since that’s what it’s for, for people I feel comfortable with and have met in person ;P Twitter is my place for my interests and interaction and not really because of friendship [with some guilt following]…I don’t know everyone I follow well at all D:

Online interaction =/ friendship. It enhances existing ones when you’re all doing your own thing and you want to support each other though (:

And back to the “going away for a year” thing. I don’t know.

I dream/idealise about doing a year hiatus rather than actually do it. Because I feel like I need to be present when things I support are happening…I can’t outcast myself completely like I used to anymore.

Currently I enjoy appreciating people in my own way whether they respond or not :< I don’t like bottling myself up if I can help it. Sometimes it does feel like they don’t care to interact with you on social media so that’s when I back off again…the dance! I’m learning :’)

Maybe I should hibernate from social media. Post things anyway but not respond to people [as much as that is against my own principles of appreciating people…but logically I know I don’t owe them my time]. Experience the extreme of isolating myself from other people and focus on in person shenanigans instead.

Seriously I have considered just distancing myself from social media even more than I am right now. I don’t like feeling insecure and empty afterwards sometimes. It gets addictive too! And I feel even more lonely at times. Pretty unhelpful and shows I have still a lot of self confidence to build within myself!!

But knowing that I’ll have to get back onto the social media hamster wheel eventually and the shock & abrupt adjustment that goes with that concerns me. I’ve felt it even after a handful of months away on hiatus. The rush you feel when you engage with people who care about what you post is heart warming and validating…no doubt.

Gahhh! I think too much again! As usual!!

The weekly [or so] thing is helping and putting the word “away” next to my twitter name worked for a bit but now I’m committing to my self blockage from social media!!

Tried the “only here Fridays” thing out again since NZGDC…and yet it takes the whole night to catch up the past week and then some from Sat morning. But it’s a wonderful session of checking up on how people are doing!! And then having the self control to break away once you’re up to date. It’s hard to break away again :<

Still I don’t want to fall into the trap and temptation of social validation through social media and wasting time there. I refuse to allow my self worth fall into this cycle :<

Taking social media breaks [as I am right now] is hard when you find that you’ve disappeared into oblivion and even more people don’t see/read your stuff by the time you come back! :0 Why should peeps care about silly ghost me?

See I’m not popular! :’) Who even cares about social media…it does not indicate success nor the number of real life friends. It does indicate peeps who are kindly interested [vaguely or not] and that I am grateful for.

But I need to take these hiatuses anyway! I’m going to miss out lots of things I’m sure! Still it’s genuinely humbling when you just feel grateful that people give you any time of day! Thanks for understanding and sticking with me ^_^ <3

Since people aren’t really interacting too much due to the lack of my immediate presence anyway [hey we’re all busy and social media is fickle], I might actually go for:

1) scheduling my posts,

2) “just lurk/interact/reply during timely shenanigans/announcements/etc”

3) keep away from social media/main feed indefinitely

Actually walk the talk.

Let things go more. Spend more time on art making instead rather what online people think on a regular basis. I want out from this hamster wheel of being “present” on a schedule. Stop figuring out this schedule altogether. Just be around or not when I want to.

I can afford to right now since I’m not a struggling freelancer anymore [with much gratitude and appreciation and incredibly lucky to work with Mighty peeps]. I don’t want to feel empty, lonely, insecure during the worst of times after using social media. I’m tired. I do want to be around but sparingly so.

Social media can be addicting/overwhelming/exhausting and I want to break away from that and appreciate life, art and people offline better I guess. As I’ve said before, that’s where true genuine bonds form and develop.

I’m just drawing a new boundary line for myself right now so I can evolve and not care too much about what people think. Break away from my self standard that I *should* respond to everything and just “like” replies if I need to appreciate it (:

Hey, I will still post stuff! I’ll just be ninja posting!

And I will still ramble all the things at my own blog 😉

Phew! Let’s see how this goes! :<

I’m going to keep figuring this out…without outcasting myself too much somehow. Trying to find a balance of “away” and “hey I’m here”. :S

I guess this is all the “post NZGDC17” me speaking and getting used to limiting my social media usage again. And when MIGW comes around, I’ll have to be active again…probably because I’m starved for human interaction online D:

Perhaps I should be selective with who I reply to. It hasn’t reached that point though as I don’t get much tweets nowadays. Some artists only reply if there’s a question or some witty banter to be had. Perhaps I should start doing that… I do find my replies are a lot of hearts and emojis and thank yous…because that’s how I feel at the time. Maybe I’ll just have to just “like” posts instead to appreciate people.

UGH this is hard as it feels impersonal to me. If someone tweets at you kind words, I feel it necessary to return the favour in appreciation. :< If someone is being mean/creepy/rude/dumping information on me without asking, I’ll just move on. *flails arms* Nah. I’ll keep thanking people I enjoy thanking people too much! I know how it feels when people ignore you online and offline and I strive to not do that with people I feel comfortable with… 🙁

I guess I need to train myself to save myself somehow by ignoring some feeds and cull some things.

I know people move on and do their own thing with or without you anyway. You’re quite insignificant on the grand scale of things. Who cares about what you do and don’t do. Only you do.

Shall definitely ramble to my heart’s content here. But I’m not so sure about social media now. Facebook…I do have personal friend only rambly posts there. Twitter…I might need to tone it down after this GCAP related hiatus. Or not. Just only reply to things and not check the feed as much. And just keep away from it altogether randomly.

Trying to make social media less of a burden [I’m not popular at least pffft the numbers are a lie!!] but more of a place to share what I do and interact when I want to. But hey! Much of the actual personal and monthly content goes here at this blog so hullo! 😉

Thanks for bearing with me, as much as it might seem like I’m putting too much value on social media…I am. A lot of emotional labour here. I’m trying to let go of it more. I’ve been an isolated hermit for many years and social media is/was all I have. I mean without it, I wouldn’t be here today. I wouldn’t have kept the few friends I have today.  I mean since posting that essay last week, I got 2 heartfelt brief messages and I found myself teary eyed. People do care about me after all…as lonely we all are on our own paths.

Social media does have value to me along with its pros and cons.
I just don’t want it to control my feelings, sense of connection/isolation and self worth as much as it has anymore.

Right now I’m trying to find a new balance for me so when my current hiatus ends…

• I don’t want to feel tied down to a schedule,

• I don’t have to reply to everything if I don’t have further to add … if it comes to that

• I can get back some time for creativity,

• I can come and go whenever I need to…sparingly. Haven’t figured how often…loosely once/twice a month? Or just like my blog posts?

• I can keep my rambles over in friends only facebook posts and/or here at my blog :’)

• I can just reply to things in a timely fashion. I sorta hate leaving the conversation until it’s gone cold. I already deal with it with conversations at work where I can’t keep up at all haha

• ignore my news feed completely until I feel like I want to catch up! :0 I have to cull some things I follow!

•  ^ in that case, I can thank people because most people won’t even respond and ignore me anyway 😛 I’ll keep doing what I want haha

I’m just a silly hoomin trying to not depend on social media for human connection too much [again]! ;’)