Year of the Cat / 猫 with Catwalk god Kabegami / 壁神!

[Past Lunar New Year pieces of Celestial Brush Gods] 🐈

Here is messy reason why it’s the cat and not the rabbit for Vietnam.

I have no clue if the horoscope prediction for cats is any different!

My parents were born and raised in Vietnam with chinese heritage while I’m born and raised in Australia so I’m not too knowledgeable – I only have the Cantonese cultural experience + some Vietnamese food growing up :’)

For people who celebrate Lunar New Year it’s as huge as xmas! I don’t physically celebrate it anymore but I do appreciate the food that my limited experiences offered me.

Sidenote: I don’t like the peanut honey hard candy anymore because it hurts my gums and teeth eating those :’)

About the art and delayed speedpaint video; chúc mừng năm mới!

I did this piece mid January so I could have posted this around the same time but I needed to space things out to manage my workload.

Technically it’s still Lunar New Year celebrations, ending with the lantern festival on the 5th Feb. At the time I didn’t want to rush the video out for this one and also burn myself out trying to get two videos and posts done at the same time – that’s too much!

One post is already plenty of work to do!

So watch out for the speedpaint for this illustration when it comes out next week instead! The video took longer to make as I experimented and had to figure out some things! It is essentially now a blog post on as its own right plus audio commentary so I figured I should space it out and post it later from now on.

Growing pains :’)

Anyhoo Vietnamese peeps have the Year of the Cat instead ;D

This is the first/only year where I had to do two zodiac animals!

I decided to put in the Issun cat toy gag in there and I had to adjust Kabegami’s face and patterns later on!

In-game Kabegami looks like a puffy wild cat to me.

Leonie’s life notes and rambly update!

A low risk way for gaining intimacy with people – numbered levels to gauge past and current relationships/friendships

It’s a good video – there’s a worksheet too you can use at the video’s description to reflect upon your own spectrum of relationships!

I feel like I’m stuck at levels 1-2 with most people – I’m mostly quiet though.

I think I have a good friend that fluctuates at the middle levels 5-8 at the moment?

I don’t think I have levels 9-10 with a non family member because I don’t want to emotionally baggage someone *that* much nor do I have that much/complete trust with people who are not in my day to day life – which is not many.

There’s also times where I really wanted to build it further but I don’t have the reciprocating trust, interest and intimacy built up to actually feel safe to share my feelings honestly. This is normal for adult friendships/acquaintances I suppose.

Not being able to be honest, sensing how they’re distancing themselves and me being sensitive/hyper-vigilant to rejection – I pretend to have moved on from said feelings which makes the lack of trust, misery, insecurities, doubts, indirect rejection and hurt worse whenever I come across them at an arm’s length.

I struggle to be honest about said mixed feelings in turn. Because I feel like a burden, am projecting and expecting too much and too invested when I am super aware that they have their own closer set of friends, best friend(s) and loved one(s). And they avoid talking about or forget about serious topics when they can help it – I shall assume that the subtle/indirect social boundary and message that “this is just a casual conversation” is conveyed.

Gosh since my autistic brain needs to compensate much more – I spend so much time thinking, reflecting and struggling to understand other people and myself. And how I can do better while staying true to myself :’)

When it becomes too painful, anxiety-inducing and stressful to have them around in my life I end up giving up, letting go, cutting myself away and moving on from said persons entirely to emotionally distance myself. Probably as a coping mechanism out of fear of getting hurt further and because my own and their boundaries are important.

I’m an emotionally immature, sensitive low risk taker I guess :’)

I have mostly moved on with people that didn’t work out (plus I’ve been a hermit for years now) but it undoubtedly does come up as intrusive, annoying, hurtful, saddening thoughts and memories at times.

When I do push for Levels 5-6 (acquaintance level) most of the time the other party doesn’t feel the same, or it feels too intense for them. Perhaps I emotionally invested too much and/or my real preferences, opinions, judgement, not having a “socially acceptable” mask on scares/turns most people off and they start ghosting, emotionally distancing and/or lose interest.

And the tables also turn when some people are either too intense (too much pressure!!) or indifferent with me (does it even matter if I’m around them if they’re not putting in effort, interest and/or care?) You can’t force it yet it’s quite subtle, vague and confusing since many live within our own minds too much.

Sure we can be fickle, hypocritical, conflicting, indecisive, selfish, avoidant, flaky and unsure as emotional, flawed human beings but when it’s a pattern and no one is mutually invested/interested/bothered enough to be more communicative, empathetic, reliable, flexible, understanding, thoughtful, kind, honest and respectful about things, feelings and boundaries with each other (while things are changing too!) then connections just fade away and don’t work out.

It hurts when you’re on the side where you care more, are more emotionally invested and/or your needs aren’t being met so I appreciate people who still stick around! Thank you! :’)

Usually I don’t want to draw attention to myself out of conditioning and habit (as one of the scapegoats in my family who doesn’t want to be blamed/scolded/judged/insulted/nitpicked again for something I did or did not do). Now it’s a ongoing process of just existing and not caring too much about things out of my control.

As a hermit – in person I tend to conserve my energy, make myself small and quiet or mirror and mask myself until I feel safe and not as overwhelmed/overstimulated to just exist as I am.

I can’t push myself to power through a whole day and/or night anymore – I would have drained my energy/limited social battery to the negatives by then!! 1-2 hours at best!! But in a group situation, that leads me to being overlooked and forgotten since I’m not actively making myself known. And because I don’t want to “waste” the fact that I actually did a social thing in a long time, I push myself to stay longer than I can handle and burn out of social/emotional/mental energy anyway. Whelp.

That said I haven’t done a social outing since the pandemic so I’m overwhelmed and drained going out by myself regardless and in general. Yeah I push my limits anyway so I’m always even more tired out and about ;P

Digressing – there’s definitely times when people are trying to befriend me too fast, show me mixed messages (it feels insincere, confusing, weird and/or pushy), when I don’t feel like I can comfortably talk about what I actually want to talk about (they keep side stepping or glossing over it and focusing on topics I don’t really care about but I allow them to indulge in) and/or when I’m or they’re not interested so that it falls apart too.

I also tend to be low risk or silent about sharing my own opinions. When I do feel comfortable enough with someone, I talk about some personal/vulnerable information about myself or opinions to test the waters and/or when I have my guard down.

At least there’s also this blog where I mostly ramble what I want, yes ;P

I’m not good with the messy middle ground with intimacy and trust with actual humans. It’s possible but it’s not at all easy to have good, close, ongoing relations with people! I fluctuate between super cautious or give too much benefit of the doubt!!

I’m also terrible with community building because I enjoy keeping to myself most of the time and then sometimes connecting with people one on one. I don’t want the workload of managing a discord server either. What is a way that feels manageable and sustainable for me? Hmm :<

This is why I still consider streaming some day since communication is limited to a chat box. I do need to learn how to relax and not feel like I have to perform, educate and/or entertain though – they’re not my strengths at the moment.

Autism, uneven Productivity and reminding myself how to work along how my brain, energy, drive and emotions – definitely some chaos!!

(learning and reflecting below with my notes!)

• make alarms/notifications when it’s time to do something like a meal/break/mindfulness/etc when life gets busy
  • I do this already wow but not too well with the tiny breaks themselves
• communicate about your patterns of behaviour
  • definitely learned to do this so misunderstandings/misinterpretations are minimised
  • still conflicts and feelings of neglect and me getting irritated/grumpy/ignored/melting down/stressed out happens due to miscommunication or lack of communication or the chaos of life
  • need to schedule times together to make quality bonding times happen! Ask and talk about it if genuinely interested! Not because you feel obligated out of guilt.
  • I verbalise sometimes that when I’m quiet it’s just me zoning out since my face and body language is not that expressive – I try to reassure others when able so that they get some feedback but other times I’m just mute and can’t speak up because I’m experiencing a little shutdown or meltdown that I’m suppressing :’)
• allow yourself a buffer zone between focuses/activities
  • I don’t think I do this well, sometimes I go straight to the next thing when I’m on a roll/in the zone
  • other times I feel bad that I take ages and procrastinate to get my mind ready to do the next thing so I need to be more patient and kind with myself and my autism inertia
  • I definitely need a buffer zone switching between the chaos of life versus work and art. I can’t context switch well at all :’)
• make sure you can transition in a sensory-friendly environment!
  • how does one do this when you’re outside? Ah well I’m a hermit and I refuse to work on overstimulating open office spaces that force me to mask and drain myself all day so I’m good :<
  • I don’t have a black hole/space to rest at though…hm
• do body check ins – ask what your own body, emotions, mind are trying to tell you right now
  • how are you feeling? Muscles? Forehead? Eyes? Jaw?
  • I don’t do this enough since I just hyperfocus, get in the zone and forget about myself and my needs
  • I do have time blindness and I need to be better and mindful of body awareness
• black hole rest
  • if I need a long rest as a blob then let go of the guilt and plan for it
  • consider your schedule, days of the week and the number of spoons you have
  • I can’t go back to excessive, tense hyper productivity at work though – I just shut down and have no energy a lot of the time
  • at best I just breathe and close my eyes so I should do that more? It’s hard to do because of autism inertia/my brain refuses to drop everything to rest when I’m supposed to. I just do it when I finally listen to my notifications/reminders…
• batching is great!!
  • focusing on one big task a day if able – just one?! This is a dream world haha
  • so at best 2 tasks…
• stimming to get the energy out
  • I need to do this more to loosen up my tense sore body
  • fidgeting, swaying, rocking and walking around
  • I bounce my leg a lot which leaves my upper body stationary haha
• how doing the bare minimum and focusing what is actually effective (as demonstrated by others) is good enough
  • slowly move the bare minimum and goal up a bit if you’re able
  • the hard part is knowing what actually “moves the needle” and then actually executing – I tend to be stubborn doing the long and hard way of doing things!! I need to self analyse my approaches more
  • other times I want to do the thing properly and I don’t want to min/max things, plan and second guess all the time :S
• focus on skills, values and how I want to spend my time – over results
  • this is a welcome reminder!! I feel slightly less obsessive over metrics as long as I keep managing my headspace and mindset
  • I’m just happy that some people commented, liked and supported my stuff – thank you!
• figuring out attention, drive and energy levels for times of the day and around events/deadlines
  • not schedule yourself to do things – I feel resistant to time slot schedules/tables
  • I am still sorting out my spreadsheet that gives me a loose kind of structure – one day I’ll have something that works for me! :’)
  • I need to be better at stepping aside to check what my mental headspace is at and if I’m even able to force myself to do the thing I planned to do :’)
  • I will work with it if there’s external, hard deadlines
• how youtube/social media are temporary and just ways for me to reach people
  • this blog is my home after all! Especially how lots of platforms cannot be depended on and keep changing or even work against you and your mental health
  • ie artstation, deviantart, instagram, twitter, tiktok, youtube, twitch, most social media platforms, etc

In closing…

For my Patreon, now I have merged tiers into one “pay what you want” tier and am offering optional patron shoutouts at the end of my main youtube videos (new patrons, please message me if you don’t want to be included. Current patrons, please message me at patreon if you do want to opt in).

Since I did two art posts in January (where I was supposed to take the month off and paused Patreon), I will only do one new art piece in late February. I have yet to properly start on that ahhhh

I’ll post the dedicated speedpaint commentary video next week so as to not overwhelm you and so that I’m not burning myself making two blog posts in one anymore (eg: this whole blog post + the commentary at my speedpaint video is it’s own mini blog post!)

Now I feel less bogged down and stressed with workload and feel much better! Learning how to better slow and pace things out! Ah the growing pains of this lifelong journey :’)

Thank you for understanding as I practice not burning and forcing myself to make content/something, actually slow down and how I need to make up for what I’ve done in January. I need to get back to courses, plan/make art, learn/make videos, do studies and things. I’ve neglected to do other things so I need to get back to those :’)

Patrons/ko-fi definitely help (thank you so much!!) and at the same time I do not make a living from what I do here in my spare time. Regardless I need to keep this sustainable, slow and fun for me to keep going, learning and creating. I am not a content nor art machine – I’m just on my path, learning and furthering my skills! Reminding myself because I get bombarded by content creator advice of many kinds.

Struggling to get a good balance so that I don’t fully disappear from the internet’s consciousness.

I’ve been having a tough time with eczema, mild pains, low sleep/energy, monthly cramps, drama, food restrictions and productivity hence I’m procrastinating in these productivity deep dives and rabbit holes to understand myself better. I don’t want to waste time resisting as I struggle to fit myself into time slots and schedules of my own design.

Always learning to go with my own flow as I test what I’m able to handle on a given day and situation :’)

Anyhoo please take care of yourself and thank you! (:

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