#i still plan to post art when i can manage to eke any out

[faeriegirl]

I'm having a baby, woah! I've been super busy making preparations to move and prepare for her arrival. Life comes at you fast!

I've had to close up my shop and Patreon indefinitely, which is a tough decision for me due to the fact I'll need to take unpaid leave from my day job. If you like my work and want to support me, please consider buying me a kofi or sharing this link!

I can do a quick traditional doodle in return, but it's about all I can manage to make time for! Msg me your requests if you choose to donate!

Thank you again for all your support <3 Stay healthy everyone!

[letting-them-take-liberties]

VolFes 2020 Shop Event Report

That got intense so fast.

Crossposted at Wanderlust.

Because of the current situation and the company probably not wanting to risk it, VolFes 2020 got cancelled and instead was turned into a pop-up shop so that they can sell the goods meant for the event.

Around an estimate of 99.5% of Japan events are mostly all about buying merch, so it felt like a bloodbath of sorts as everyone around me was spending money like it grew on trees (someone I know spent at least USD2,000 for merch alone). I’ve been attending Voltage events for three years now and it always amazes me how far the fangirls will go to spend for their favorite character (I’ll be calling them ‘oshi’ [推し]) from this point forward.

As mentioned in this post, it is always good to go to an event on the very first day to avoid disappointment and loathing when the merch you’re eyeing gets sold out.

I took a leave from work for Day 1 of VolFes 2020 Shop as I knew that it would get crazy; the last few merch buying events I’ve been to left me exhausted, even if all I did was buy. It can get pretty intense at times since the people I hang out with can really get wild with the buying spree.

It was announced in the website that they would allow a free-for-all-entry to anyone wanting to buy goods after 2PM. My friend Y and I took this opportunity to eat lunch and relax since it’ll take time; between her and I, she was more tense and kept checking Twitter for any announcements. As for me, I was a bit more chill, knowing that if they run out of goods, I could still buy online.

If you’ve read my past entry, Y is a huge Saizo fan, so she’s more into this merch buying than I since she has to compete with a lot of fangirls for Saizo goods. I’m happy that with Masamune and Ieyasu, the competition for merch for the both of them isn’t as tense as Saizo’s.

The Chara announced on Twitter that the free-for-all entry would be delayed by an hour, so we took our time to have some dessert, then head off to Ikebukuro Marui. While waiting for the distribution of the designated timeslot tickets, Y and I decided to go to the nearby bank so that I could get some money (thought to pay in cash to keep the expenses lower), and on our way back, Y met an acquaintance who was just on their way out as they were done buying merch.

The acquaintance started asking Y what she would be buying this time around, and Y confessed to not buying anything related to Ouji/Be My Princess series as she had gotten disappointed before with her merch pick. 

(Spoiler alert: her oshi is Ivan Chernenkov, she tried to get can badges of him by buying up to the maximum number of can badges allowed in one transaction (20 for that event), and ended up with no Ivan. That traumatized her that she swore off buying merchandise from that series.)

Acquaintance was with a friend, who then started asking Y if she could buy 20 (!!!) can badges from Ouji-sama no Propose EK (Be My Princess 2) 10th Anniversary art plus a bromide from MiraPuri (Kagami no Naka no Princess Love Palace), with 20 being the limit for can badge purchases.

At that point, Y turned to me, who was simply listening to the conversation, and said, “Kiyo isn’t buying any Ouji trading can badge merch, right?”

I gave her a confused look. “Yeah, I’m sticking to KoiRan and Ouji, with hardly any trading merch on my list.”

The acquaintance’s friend then straight-up asked me, “If you don’t mind, would you buy me 20 more can badges for Ouji EK 10th Anniversary art? I’ll give you some money to cover for the expense.”

I then took out my list (in Google Sheets); the acquaintance’s friend started dictating to me her wishlist. Upon seeing my list written in English, she gave me a look and then said, “Oh… uh, I can’t read English–”

“No worries, I got you covered and I wrote it down. So you want 20 can badges for Ouji EK…”

“Yeah, the ones with the grandsons! 20 of those, and one bromide from MiraPuri!”

Total cost of the merch was JPY9,020, enough for her to get three bonus postcards from MiraPuri.

We then promised to meet up after the buying so that we could hand over the goods, then off we went inside the building to wait for the ticket distribution.

This is the part when my friends and their other friends (at that point, I didn’t know them) got really disappointed and pissed at the free-for-all entry system that had a designated timeslot entry ticket.

If you didn’t know by now, if there’s one thing that sets off a local in this country, it’s the horrible queue/entry ticket system. It’s no exaggeration when someone says that queuing is a national sport/pastime, so if an event is crowded but has a good queue management system, a lot of people would be willing to put up with that.

However, if there are fewer people but the management is horrible, people would really criticize the hell out of it.

Which brings us to Day 1 of VolFes 2020: the website states that the entry ticket they will be handing out will be given at random, which means that even if you arrive late during the distribution of the entry ticket, there is still a chance for you to be able to secure an early timeslot.

Ex. Person A arrives at the venue at 1:30PM and has been waiting for the entry ticket distribution to start, which is an hour away. There’s a chance that they’d be given an entry ticket for the last time slot, which is at 7:40PM ~ 8:00PM.

Person B arrives at the venue at 2:30PM, the designated start of the distirbution of the numbered tickets. There’s a chance that they could get the earliest time slot to buy goods, which is at 3:00PM ~ 3:20PM.

What upset my friends was that when it was time to distribute the tickets, everyone made a run for it as soon as we were asked to queue, and when they gave us the entry ticket, we got a really late timeslot since we were positioned at nearly the end of the line. 

In other words, the entry tickets they gave us was based on how "late" we got to the line; the ones that got ahead of us got an earlier slot, despite the fact that the website mentioned that the time slot on the entry ticket would be shuffled and handed out at random.

Everyone around me was ranting about how half-assed (they all kept throwing the word 中途半端 [chuu’to han’pa]) the whole system was (they could have stuck with a full online timeslot reservation system for Day 1 and Day 2), and how they didn’t go through with the promise of giving out the entry tickets that shuffled the entry time of the attendees in the spirit of equality and fairness, while I figured out the loophole of the system. 

No matter how early you arrive, if you’re not fast enough to queue for the entry tickets as soon as they ask you to, high chance of you being given the last timeslot.

Since we had two hours and twenty minutes to kill, we all headed for dessert at a nearby cheap restaurant and just chatted with one another until it was time to go in.

Unlike last year, VolFes 2020 is smaller, more compact, and you had less time to have fun and enjoy.

Admittedly, the merch line up is better and much more gorgeous, but goodness, there’s just too many of them that it was difficult for me to decide which one I should purchase.

In the end, I decided to skip out on buying the maximum number allowed for buying random merch and stuck it out with getting 3 ~ 4 can badges.

To prevemt the spread of the virus, anyone who enters Ikebukuro Marui and the building had to wear a mask, sanitize their hands, and had 20 minutes to complete their shopping, from picking out the merch to paying at the checkout counter. They only allowed up to 8 people at a time at the shop so you had to plan your purchases. All of us shopping had a list that we referred to while searching for the goods because entry to the venue was controlled and you are not allowed to go back in anymore after paying. 

If you missed out on an item, you’ll have to ask someone whose timeslot to buy the goods is different from yours to buy your merch, you go back the next day, or you order online, which means there’s a three-month waiting period before you receive the item.

Day 1 of the shop was on a Friday so I still had another day to think about any additional purchases, so even if I missed out buying merch, it’s not really a big deal.

[I’m chill that way]

With the buying done, my friends and I headed to another cheap restaurant across the street. Just like last year, the majority of them used that time in the restaurant not to eat, but to open their merch in blind packaging to check and see who they got. If it’s their oshi, they keep it, but for the ones that are not their oshi, they carefully place both the item and the shining packaging inside a ziplock back so that they could trade it with the others.

After we ordered dinner, Y got a message that her acquaintance was at the restaurant we were at, which meant it was time for me to hand over the merch. The girl who asked me to buy for her was so thankful that I think I actually got really shy over it haha.

When I got back to my table, the food was there, so I ate dinner and continued chatting with Y, who also took the time to multitask by eating and opening the merchandise she got. Sad part was, not one of the items she bought for Day 1 contained Saizo, which made me feel sad for her. It’s really rough when you spend so much and end up with no oshi; it’s really the worst feeling in the world.

Y had an early day for Day 2 of VolFes 2020 Shop so we all parted ways early as everyone was exhausted from stressing out whether merch would get sold out on Day 1 and from simply buying goods.

Day 2 wasn’t that eventful, aside from us buying more goods (I bought Ivan’s goods this time around as my priority was Yakov’s), and I ended up trading all my Saizo goods with Y for other characters. Nothing against Saizo, but I know that someone who isn’t me would actually cherish him more than I will ever do.

———-

Not sure if anyone’s interested to see what I bought, but let me know if you’d want me to post photos of my haul.

———-

More event photos:

[jasondilts]

When the Time is On You...

When the time is on you, start, and the pressure will be off.

That’s one of the 5 sutras for the Aquarian Age that Yogi Bhajan gave us, axioms for how we could live successfully in uncertain times. As exciting as it sounds to be alive during the time of a great shift, it’s also downright confusing and a bit scary. These words were given to us as a map for how to survive, but also to thrive. After all, we aren’t here to just buckle up for whatever bumpy ride someone else wants to take us on. We can and we should be writing our own destiny.

 But there’s the second season of Making a Murder on Netflix, the new iPhone we need to stand in line for 4 hours to buy, that guy on Tinder who wants to meet up, this psychedelically immersive 4-D art show to check out, and the new vegan soul food place downtown. All of that must be done first…

 Sound familiar? Your proclivities may be different from mine and perhaps you find other distractions, but most of us really aren’t living up to the full capacity of who we came here to be. That must change.

 Perhaps the greatest promise of the Aquarian Age is the notion that we are in control of what happens to us. We are the masters of our own fortune. No longer do we have to be at the effects of others nor are we held back by a lack of access to information.  We are free, if we want.

 At least that’s what my friend said it one of his rock songs. I think he’s spot on. We have to decide that we want to start living up to our potential. When we aren’t, we feel a lot of weight.

 I’ve been thinking about this particular sutra a lot lately, mostly because I feel a lot of pressure and I haven’t exactly been in “start” mode. I moved to Los Angeles 5 years ago, a driving force behind my relocation being the promise of living in a city full of creatives. I’d long wanted to write a novel, but I felt I didn’t have the experience to do so. I figured I needed to take writing classes, learn more about the craft, surround myself with fellow writers, and be close to the proximity of power players in Hollywood to be successful at writing.  Eventually, I found my way to all of that. The one thing I didn’t do though was the only action that really matters: actually START WRITING.

 I had lot of excuses…really good excuses. Exciting excuses!

 At first, I got bogged down by the office politics of my day job and decompressed with a glass or four of Merlot after work. I told myself that I’d write once things got more stable in my department. A year and a half later, I was successful in my role of being an event manager, but massively failing at being a writer—simply because I was drinking wine when I could have been writing! Or going on hikes, or going to museums, or seeing my favorite indie band at a concert, or sun bathing at the beach, or binge-watching  Scandal or whatever fill in the blank distraction I’d pursue every hour I wasn’t at working. I was having loads of fun, but something inside me was festering.

 At first there was this lingering suspicion that I should be writing instead of whatever I was doing. Then I started to wonder if I would ever write again. That created within me a gnawing thought that perhaps I would not, which soon turned into a constant worry that I would be forced to always work jobs I hated. I saw my writing talent as a golden ticket out of being a slave to the 9-to-5 life.

 While I wasn’t showing up to write, I was showing up to kundalini yoga class—5 or 6 times a week! I learned early on in my practice that the technology of kundalini yoga and meditation allow us to re-write our destiny, both how we experience the moment of the day and what we can attract on a larger scale. That first year in Los Angeles, kundalini is what anchored me into my potential. I wasn’t showing up fully yet, but each time I’d go to class I was growing in ways I didn’t totally comprehend. All that kundalini yoga eventually gave me the gall to quit my job to pursue something more in line with my passions: working at a spiritual community center.

 When I started this new adventure, I thought that my new business partner and I were going to write a book and get a TV show made. Finally, I could be creative! Then came the obstacles…

 My first day on the job all but one person on our staff quit and I realized the organization was in debt up to its ears. We were in serious jeopardy of being shut down within a few months. Suddenly I had to summon all the experience I’d garnered in the political and non-profit world to create revenue streams, organization charts, job descriptions, cash flow spreadsheets, and budget forecasts. In an 80 hour-work week, there truly was no time to write, or so I told myself. I soon figured out how to make ends meet for the business, and the team we built was rock-solid at running the place. Under the most challenging and daunting of circumstances, we were persisting with success. Yet I was angry inside—viscerally upset at myself for not figuring out how to do all that was on my plate and write. The silver lining for my desire to create was that the TV show we were working on was inching toward becoming a reality. That didn’t quite satisfy me, though, because the show would never be my creation. When you’re a writer you know that you have a responsibility to bring forward your own words to light up the world you see. You can’t find true satisfaction within the framework of someone else’s vision.

 That realization gnawed insistently, coaxing me to START, inviting me to ease the pressure. But instead I kept on not writing.

 For the next two years, I was the executive director of the organization and also ran several Airbnb rentals. I maybe wrote like 2 blog posts during that time. The rest of my words were for delicately crafted e-mails, intricately thought-through job roles, and explaining to Airbnb guests how to turn on the lights. There was a lot of forward momentum in my life and the work I was doing.

 Then it all stopped.

 The TV show didn’t get picked up, though we did get one Real Housewife away from a network season! Soon thereafter it became apparent that our organization was going to close. When we did finally shutter, this strange quiet took hold. I had other sources of income by that time that didn’t require my fulltime focus, and for the first time ever I had no excuse not to write. The time was on me and I needed to start. This Aquarian sutra apparently doesn’t know how to quit me.

 Well, 18 months later I still haven’t started. I’ve tried. I created elaborate outlines for multiple books. I even wrote entire chapters. I started on concepts, scrapped them altogether, and then began something different. But I haven’t written a novel yet, and I’m not anywhere close. I run a successful business today, but I feel like I massively suck at being self-employed because I should have used this time to write my book. On a more fundamental level, I feel like I massively suck at being alive because I’m not putting my energy toward the reality I know I need to create.

 Looking back, I can see that I actually expended a lot of energy over the past 5 years NOT working on what I knew I needed to start. All of the circumstances that arose to “prevent” me from writing were really just manifestations of self-doubt that I called in. When we don’t do what we are here to accomplish, we create something else in its place. Usually that something will hold us back as powerfully as fulfilling our mission could propel us forward.

 My creation is a massive complex of anxiety and social-phobia. For the past 18 months I’ve been crippled with nervousness, worry, and unease. The slightest obstacle becomes a mountain of distress. I still go to class all the time, I go to the gym daily, and I hike a lot, but I avoid social situations as much as possible. I have this weird phobia of interacting with people. I go out in public all the time, but I do so in this impenetrable bubble. I wear an energetic cloak that puts out this gnarly “don’t talk to me” energy. I use my iPhone as a shield of having to engage with anyone. I get out of conversation as quickly as possible. It’s a strange dystopia for someone who ran a political party and 8 years ago had ambitions to be mayor of a large city. For the longest time I wondered why I had retreated so far into my own shadow. Then during a meditation recently, it hit me right in my third-eye: I avoid being around people because I have nothing of worth to say. I’m not doing anything creative with my life and so I don’t have anything of value to bring to a connection or a conversation. That has to stop and it needs to stop by STARTING something worth talking about.

 There was a partial eclipse this past weekend that amplified any actions we took. So, I wrote. I still can’t get into writing a novel, but I got into writing this. I am really into writing about how we can successfully circumnavigate these strange times. I’m taking at least a small step toward “starting” something by putting together this simple Tumblr blog where I’ll muse about what I learn as we collectively navigate this Aquarian shift. I already made one post before writing this and the plan is to do a few a week. I’m fortunate enough to live in a city where I can easily find the teachings of kundalini yoga and where conscious community is basically mainstream. This blog is a bridge to the rest of the world, and hopefully a way for me to learn more about the energies and activities that are happening in other places as we all level-up!  

 Besides, Tumblr banned porn last month so I figured it was a good time to fill up this space with something more productive J.

 No matter where you are, stasis is our worst enemy; so too is stasis’ best friend, elliptical motion. We never really want to grow or change anything, but every now and then we’ll eke out a victory by kicking a habit or starting a new routine. In my own life I’ve noticed that overtime I get comfortable in familiarity, though, and activities that were once growth become a circle of the sameness rather than a climb to a higher level. Right now, I know that the time is on me to write. That must become my new pattern—the action of each day doing something to advance my writing. I hope the pressure is soon off!

 More than that, though, I hope these words serve you. What aren’t you starting? What pressure are you feeling? Do you think that if you stopped making excuses or creating distractions that the pressure could soon be off?

 We’re in this Aquarian shift together so let’s START acting like we’re in charge of our own destiny so we can all be there more fully for each other!