Little timelapse!

It’s Sailor Daisy with her Luigi keyring ✌️🧡💚

I’ve had this sketch for the longest time (yes when Mario Kart Tour the mobile game was still active).

I finally evolved it into this for Mar10 day ;P

Hey Daisy and Luigi are a thing…right????

She made huge statues of them together at her own Mario Kart circuit too!!

#MarchHotel26 day 3 Shadow shape figure studies

had shadow blocking stuff and paint in a weird shape quests
There’s also another quest but I’ll save it for another time

There’s no day 4, day 5 and day 6 is not fully done because work took over my life.

I was just too exhausted, sleepy, drained and not functional. I will get to those quests when I make it up in April. I will have a backlog of things I need to do in my own time…nooo

I stopped posting of lot of these at my own discord / thread because I didn’t have the time when work and life was demanding and I didn’t have the energy or consciousness to spare :<

I still don’t know if I’m doing Plein Airpril though – I do want to paint some studies but I don’t want to burn out…

I’ll probably do some but not daily?? I am not sure yet. Realistically, I will do it at my own pace and not daily.

I’m already struggling to do dailies here!! I don’t have lots of free time!!

#MarchHotel26 day 6A ecorche studies

Actually did the first one on the 6th March and the second today (9th March) but it technically belongs to this quest.

There’s another day 6 quest but I’m not done yet either!!

AH SO MANY QUESTS due within a day and I can’t do them all and I don’t have the time :<

I need to be more selective but it’s hard when you want to do a lot of them…

#MarchHotel26 day 7A Hidden figures behind the cloak

I felt more conscious/awake enough to do this one at least. I made sure I had enough (fake) coin to pay my daily rent because I couldn’t do art/studies on days when there’s intense work.

I’m a coin hoarder because I know I need to save up for intense work days this month :’)

#MarchHotel26 day 7B Flappypus in love

My entry for “create an illustration for the fishing gatcha channel” quest at the March Hotel server

Someone did a super cute gummy looking lavender flapjack octopus and it looked wonderful :0

#MarchHotel26 day 7C Hiding behind her black goo hair & 6 eyed yellow birds

These are 2 creature quests and I just made up things for the theme :’D

#MarchHotel26 day 8A scratchy figure studies

No erase challenge – it’s so hard and struggled to stop myself from undoing and a few times I forgot when I hyperfocused on the reference….

I think I hid some unwanted lines by colour but yes there’s a lot of scratchy uneven lines and moving lines about!

#MarchHotel26 day 8B catmat & catclock

I studied from a photo (please I hope it’s not genAI) and I did my own thing and colours with it ;D

Leonie rambles

• sharing my discord invite link only at my blog and youtube video description and not link it on other platforms from now on
  • I don’t want people joining too easily and I’ve been getting bots/scammer accounts in recent months
  • I’m tired of suspicious accounts joining and having to kick them out because the link was too accessible
  • there’s way under 40 peeps at my discord server at the moment
    • I don’t want it to grow too big anyway
  • I don’t know how I can manage it on my own if it gets too big
    • what is too big? I don’t know yet haha
  • though it’s usually me sharing things I find interesting, weird, concerning, thought provoking or cool ;P
• changed my footer of my blog posts because I realised REALLY late that it doesn’t link to anything anymore…or did it even link to anything?? I remember it did work when I set it up years ago
  • don’t want to acknowledge other social media platforms at the footer because ultimately I am here at my blog the most…when I post that is ;P
  • just patreon, ko-fi and discord mentioned there
• slowly watching Resident evil: Requiem (RE9) // early game SPOILERS ahead:
  • interesting with what’s happening with Grace and wondering why she’s being targeted
  • it’s not mind blowing as a story as it’s about how the virus has developed this time but there’s some mystery here
  • a lot of people thirsting for Leon haha
    • will we know what happened with him since it’s been 25 years???
    • do we have middle aged main female characters from previous games too???
    • I’m asking too much??
  • having two characters / two different horror game experiences prevents burn out from gameplay that overstays its welcome
  • interesting blood crafting mechanic here
• also slowly watching PARANORMASIGHT: The Mermaid’s Curse (really EARLY in game)
  • oooo mystery, supernatural visual novel
  • super compelling mystery so far and an actual diving mini game this time wow
  • seems like it’s chronologically a game that happened before the first paranormasight game :0
  • this is SO good, the first game is incredible with the story too
• work has been intense in the past week and I am still not great and relaxing my sore tense body 🙁
  • I think I need to extend my break better when there isn’t an art challenge going on
  • maybe I need to arrange a slightly longer break by a day every month or two…?
  • and somehow force myself to rest…
  • gah workaholic here…
• some jerk is stressing me out with his insults, anger, guilt tripping, victim mentality and whining
• some beetle/bug/thing stressed me out and crawling under things
  • it JUST had to invade my personal space of all places AHHH gross!!
• I tried trimming my hair, might need to adjust and do it again in the coming weeks

“How active are you on Cara? :0

Hmm for me maybe I shouldn’t say I’m active on Cara since I plan to scale it down to posting and checking properly whenever I have a blog post from here onwards (weekly or less) but I post/check enough!

I admittedly do the ‘post and hide’ thing because I don’t have the energy/time/interest to be more involved in commenting regularly as other online places is already a lot :’) “

[my original post]

I ended up deleting the Cara mobile app after posting this because I find myself checking it too much for validation and out of habit.

Just accepting I won’t thrive nor have huge audiences anywhere because I’m really doing my own thing here and doing what feels right for me. I am not an influential “industry leader”. I’m just a quiet, autistic artist over here trying to do my best :’)

Nor am I doing “follow for follow” as I’d rather follow if I genuinely am interested in someone’s posts. Then again I don’t check my following feeds on bluesky anyway (and Cara as well). It gets really distracting.

Now I’m just checking/posting whenever I do have a blog post to share (like today). Otherwise I’m keeping away from logging into Cara and Bluesky. I don’t even log into Linkedin but SOME industry people are there. But it’s not that great either…apparently a business version of facebook.

I’m already checking email, discord, youtube, twitch and work stuff a lot as it is so I’d rather not have more places to check and juggle with ;P

why obsessive love feels comforting – bazazilio

• I appreciate the feelings it brings because it’s so dramatic! Intense!! Encompassing!!
  • fiction that lets you explore and experience things safely within your imagination and mind rather than suffer real life consequences of it
  • a huge desire/need for people who don’t really feel romantically and intensely loved and cared for in that way by someone (coughcough I feel this…)
  • it’s a way for people to experience an extreme version of “love” and everyone has different boundaries/lines with what they’re comfortable with in their fictional stories
    • there’s some I just can’t tolerate
    • for example – when it’s super creepy, criminal, manipulative, controlling, abusive and/or predatory made to look like it’s a romantic thing
  • also an exploration on what you do and don’t want in your actual life
• it fulfills the desire and longing for someone that actually cares, protects and desires you at this intensity (and attractive because hey it’s fiction)
  • someone who accepts you for everything you are – even the ugly sides
    • no need to prove yourself either
    • because they know everything about you already
      • this is creepyyyyy, invasive and repulsive in real life
    • easy when someone knows all of you already and only has you
  • twisted loyalty
  • not feel lonely, someone’s always at your side and on your side
  • to be prioritised, understood, loved, seen, heard and worthy
  • no cheating, no doubts, no second guessing/confusion
• because real life was full of indifference, absence, avoidance, difficulties, betrayal, (white) lies, confusion, misunderstandings
• the whole “attractive looking people will never look my way in real life”
  • and people with attractive personalities and a good heart are harder to find
• obsessive love can be super toxic and terrifying in real life
  • when there’s horribly manipulative behaviours happening such as – stalking, controlling your life, manipulation, gaslighting, violence and restricting who you interact with by isolation and so on
• some just want deep obsession but with boundaries and respect in place with their fictional romantic interests
• fiction is where obsession can be controlled (hence it is a fantasy) but real life you can’t
  • it’s safe and there’s no fear of being used, manipulated, betrayed and not being good enough
• your mind is the only safe space you are unconditionally loved by people who will never see or know you in reality
  • true…so you can’t always use it as an escape from reality
• in reality, love and abuse cannot coexist
• I think it’s pretty thought provoking as I reflect what kind of romantic stories I personally lean towards
  • I’m not reading romantic manga anymore though because it was too addictive at the expense of sleep
• I was using it to manage and escape my own loneliness and longing too :’)
  • now I keep myself busy with all the other life, art, learning, work stuff instead
• I might watch more of their youtube videos – when I can get around to it one day

Thoughts on doing personal art blogs!

I got reached out on how to start blogging like how I do it. So it was a sudden surprise.

Oh whoa, me??? I thought I was ignored by most people (and that’s fine because I’m not for everyone) :’D

There’s so much overwhelming resources out there too. Hey person who asked – if you’re reading this, you’ll do great! Ramble and experiment and keep iterating with how you want to do it! 😀

I’m writing this here too in case it helps someone. Feel free to link to this blog post if you want to share it.

I’m not keeping my own blog low key because domain and hosting costs aren’t cheap. So I do want to people to be aware of my blog even though only 4-6 people see this 😛

Ultimately for those new here – this blog is for me to document/journal and ramble about art, interests and life things.

Plus people tend to misunderstand me in person because I’m not verbally articulate nor am I energetic/talkattive. And I’m probably just bluntly talking and journaling to the void. It’s taken me years to fully accept that no one cares about me and what I post so I might as well post what I want :’D

And there’s plenty of “successful blogging” advice out there.

Years ago when I last looked up about blogging it was all about:

• making money,
• getting X figures,
• having ads and writing/making reviews for products/services you’d recommend,
• how it’s all about helping the visitor by targeting their problems/pain points,
  • doing how to articles and tutorials
  • or behind the scenes to projects and interviews
• not about blogging about yourself
  • how no one cares about the writer/creator themselves
• that I’m doing it all wrong
  • I felt poop about this advice and I just ignored it and kept doing what I believe in
  • I enjoy expressing myself and kept reassuring myself in my ramblings :’)
• how most people say blogging is pointless, no one reads blogs, “who reads anymore”
• how people just want microblogs on mainstream social media platforms with endless feeds
  • or youtube videos to get to know people instead of blogs
• short form content isn’t even a substantial place to connect with people
  • it’s just a doomscrolling space for the platform itself

Recently I looked it up again and came across this: “How to start a blog in 2026… or is it too late? (honest advice from a 6 figure blogger)”

• even she said it’s not really about making money
  • yeah. Where’s my majillion dollars of wealth, where’s my money for all my many years of work here?? ;P
  • I don’t even know how this person makes money as I didn’t bother looking it up…
• it seems like she uses Pinterest and youtube to link to her blog
  • Pinterest and LinkedIn is full of genAi slop and I don’t know if they’re cleaned up or managed well
• how blogging is not about “how to do X, Y, Z” articles anymore and making money from affiliates/sponsors about products and services
  • because search is full of genAI summaries now (YUCK)
  • plus people don’t really care to research/look deeper into their sources
• blogs are a supplementary thing to “build your brand” and for people to get to know you she says
  • it’s no longer about being an educational source

Now when I looked up where/how to start blogging nowadays,

• there a lot of people on youtube and their subreddit talking about creating their own free Neocities site
  • focusing on self expression and there’s a lot of freedom in how you want to customise it
  • it seems pretty neat
  • I have no experience in using it though so use your own judgement and read the experiences by people who are using it
• Other free platforms people have mentioned when I looked it up (please do your own research as I didn’t want to go too deep into this rabbit hole again)
  • Medium
    • people leaving it though, I don’t remember why
  • Substack
    • apparently has its own problems with the not great people who thrive and make money there
    • I don’t really care since I’ve been blogging before this company existed ;P
  • Wix
  • free version of WordPress (they have ads though)
  • huh Blogger is still a thing??
    • I left it because I feared Google would close it down at the time
    • I didn’t want to lose everything when they close it on a whim

Oh my own thoughts about blogging

• blogs are fun if you enjoy rambling lots and accept that people might not read it
  • and I mean really accept
    • it’s taken me a long time for my ego to accept and remind myself how much people don’t really care about personal blogs
  • most people are there to find answers to their own questions/issues or get inspiration or learn something and then move on
  • who really cares about some stranger :’)
• at the same time you appreciate the kind few people who do take the time to read 🥹
  • thank youuuu the small handful of long time readers and patrons!!
  • thank you past and present patrons for helping with the expenses, effort and time with keeping up this blog and website!!
• How I started:
  • Nov 2005 – journaling at deviantart
    • (before it was terrible)
  • 2011 started blogging at Blogger
    • (a great free place that’s still a thing??)
  • then I transferred what I had to the free version of WordPress
    • they put ads on your site so it didn’t last long
  • arranged/paid for my own domain & hosting with wordpress features until now
    • a lot of trial and error and iteration all these years with this blog – stressful too…
    • a lot of things to learn with css/html – I don’t remember what past Leonie did now
    • at least I can call this blog mine and not have to worry about platforms being terrible and unreliable
    • just annoyed at the spam I get
• I’ve been doing it free for a long while before many artists started doing the patreon “behind the scenes” paywall thing
  • when I got envious and FOMO I tried it a bit
    • it just felt icky and weird to me and I didn’t want that
    • why would people pay to read my thoughts anyway??? Who cares? :<
    • I’m not that popular nor an art god either
    • it’s not really enticing to someone who’s new either
  • nowadays my patreon and ko-fi is a tip jar with not much people and I don’t really push it
  • maybe when I have a secret project then I’ll have a paywall here so people can invest into its development instead
• it’s very time consuming to write all this and juggle it in
  • but also cathartic to express myself and process my thoughts and feelings
    • because I don’t have art friends I can ramble like this to
  • also most of the time I’d rather listen about others than ramble about myself
• I like typing my thoughts, not youtube
  • youtube is too time consuming to do and it’s too demanding and not worth it for me
  • I’m not charismatic nor entertaining enough for youtube
  • I don’t want to be a video making machine – it’s not something I can sustainably keep up
  • I just want to ramble at my own blog
  • even then writing at my blog can be time consuming too because I get carried away too
• I don’t really do the “making money” kind of blog
  • because that takes the joy out of documenting the journey
  • it becomes too clickbaity, only about selling products and doesn’t feel genuine if it goes too far
• Ultimately if you’re starting, I recommend sticking to a site you can afford / is free
  • get used to the blogging part first and see if it’s your thing
  • experiment, test your options
  • see where it takes you

I feel both reassured and bizarre with mixed feelings because all this time “I’ve been doing blogging wrong”.

And now because people want a personal connection, more agency and self expression, it’s now the cool thing to do and people don’t want to care about metrics or social media platforms anymore because the internet is really horrible right now. Personal websites are cool now?!! HUH.

I did stick to what felt right for me so there’s that!

People won’t know me just from this blog and my online stuff anyway because privacy and boundaries are important ;P Well one thing I do wonder about – I can’t use an anonymous online pseudonym now because nothing feels right to me when I started (and nowadays) and I am trying to make art a career as myself :’)

In turn, please do what feels right for you!! Ultimately blogging has to be for yourself.

Or it’ll make you miserable when you constantly focus on statistics and visitors or how readers think.

Okay I need to stop writing because I got other things to do ahhhhhh

I HAVE to write less for the coming weeks!! This took too much time writing and proofreading…

Thank you so much for reading!

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