I can enjoy a few small things that make me forget the insanity of the world and my current place in it – most are free and others have a monetary price – as these ground me most days. These take my mind off of whatever distresses me and I’m able to temporarily return to a baseline of calm and ease.
This isn’t a comprehensive list, though it is long, but it’s not everything that brings me joy. You know when you have a lot of interests and you have to narrow things down to fit on an index card? Yeah, I had to do that here. What usually brings me joy, the order is of no importance, is:
A walk around the neighborhood
A hot bath after a long day of working
A good book to read
A good pen to write with and a good journal to write in
Good music to listen to
A good movie to watch
Making time to sketch
Playing a good game (video, card, reading, or D&D)
Letting a YouTube “Let’s Play” playlist play in the background
Cooking a nice meal for myself and for family
Solving a problem that’s stumped me
Learning something new and interesting: be it a fact, skill, or a secret
Talking stories and listening to someone talk
Existing alone in silence
Visiting a bookstore and libraries
Going someplace where no one knows you
Collecting foreign currency
Being alive as a means for revenge
In these rare moments I focus on doing something or nothing is when I’m most free.
I’m not struggling to meet some arbitrary standard, not trying to impress someone who decides whether or not I’m worthy of something they have power over, not trying to do something that could benefit someone else through my work and efforts.
A brief reprieve, a moment to simply exist.
A moment to let the voices outside of me, and inside my head, to fall away, and I’m left in silence before the noise takes over again. Thank you for reading this one, I’ll see you when the archives opens again.
Welcome, Co-conspirators, the Stratagem’s Archives are now open for perusing. Today, I will be shifting the topics over to creative outlets and will be presenting a remastering of old sketches.
Not only will I be remastering a sketch and presenting them here, but I will also create a new sketch of the same source material that will include: shading, coloring, and perspective, using traditional methods. I will be using printer paper, a mechanical pencil with 0.5mm lead, and Crayola colored pencils.
I had taught myself years prior using references, watching YouTube videos (AKA Mark Crilley), video games, animation, and books. Although, I have always been highly critical of my work, I am willing to share my progress and the steps I’ll be taking to improve my current skills.
The sketches that I will be showcasing here can be considered fan art for a text based reading game called, “The Samurai of Hyuga” from Choice of Games LLC’s second app, “Hosted Games LLC” by Devon Connell.
Text Based Game Inspiration
The characters below are the potential romantic love interest(s), friend, enemy, or ex-lover of the player character. It depends on how you, the player, interact with the story and which kinds of relationships you want to pursue with the characters.
They each have their role in the story and, at the time of this writing, “The Samurai of Hyuga” has 5 books. I’m waiting to see how the story progresses, however, this is how I envisioned the following characters to look like.
Momoko Hayami and Junko Uesugi have confirmed sketches provided by the author and the artist that works on their projects. But my sketches were before those official concept arts were released.
From Right to Left: The Doctor, Momoko Hayami; The Ronin, Junko Uesugi; The Kunoichi, Toshie. Drawn on 12/23/2017
The following project will be using The Ronin, Junko Uesugi, as my reference. The picture above is Junko being introduced in the ending of Book 1 and in the beginning of Book 2. I do have another sketch of her, made three years later, with how I had imagined she’d appear in book 4.
There is a blank space to the left because I was going to include a background years prior. But I gave up on that because I liked how Junko came out here. I didn’t want to ruin this drawing by doing something I believed I was going to mess up on. However, for this coming project, that is going to change.
Several New Artistic Challenge to Undertake!
So, with these new artistic challenges, I’ll be showing my step-by-step process in creating a new “Junko Uesugi” with a dynamic poses, adding a background, including color, and shading. The first thing I will show will be the pose itself and how the baseline will be starting out.
The “skeletal” base for Junko Uesugi from “The Samurai of Hyuga”: 7/29/25
I’ve never used to use a baseline to draw before, but it felt appropriate here. I wanted to challenge myself, and challenged I was when starting this out. In the past, using shapes and lines to map out the body, proportions, and angles was strange and I thought that it wasn’t necessary.
You could probably tell that I didn’t properly learn art, but learned from watching anime, cartoons, and playing video games.
I’ve been searching on YouTube for tips and advice that could help me with improving drawing dynamic poses and came across “YTartschool” that mentions to use asymmetry because symmetry is what will throw everything off.
“JustinArts” mentioned to use myself as a reference by taking pictures, which I’ve done in the past, though I hope I’ll be able to personally capture, not only the pose, the right emotion I want to create.
Hopefully, as I add more details, I’ll be able to figure out how to focus on depth and perspective. I’m so used to using a more forward facing profile that I struggled to get a side front profile. I’ve usually started from the head and neck down, but I started from the hips and shoulders, then worked my way upwards.
Adding details to the “skeleton”: 7/29/25
So much of this process is new to me: the pose, the body placements, just figuring out the proportions is difficult for me because I’m just used to jumping into things and going from there. If you were to look at my previous above examples, you could see that they’re all static, stiff, and lacks dynamism.
I’m seeing that this draft looks good so far, but I am doing my best to not jinx myself or criticize before I can get the details in.
More details to Junko Uesugi: 7/29/25
Okay, this came out better than I thought, but I’m getting nervous the more I work on this project. Besides anatomy, perspective, profiles, and everything else needed to make good to great art, I didn’t teach myself to learn clothing, fabrics, and how they crease or flow.
I could have used my own gauze to see how it would look wrapped around a person live, or used a blanket for the pants, but I went with an easier option. I just drew lines and made sure it follows the curves of the body, so I have another project to pursue next time!
In Conclusion
After not having drawn anything for what felt like years, I have grown pleasantly surprised with how this project came out.
Most likely I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but I can’t learn or see my mistakes if I don’t make things and see where needs work.
So, I’ll be making part 2 and post it at a later date. Very likely I’ll make a few copies of this sketch so that, when I work on the backgrounds, shading, and color, I have backups to use in case I can’t undo my mistakes like digital art can.
If you’ve been away from your creative and artistic outlet, then let me know in the comments below; what got you back into the activity, what did you make recently, and what your thoughts were from such a long hiatus?
Thank you for taking the time to look over my progress and reading my process. The archives will now be closing and I’ll see you in part 2!
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I’m curious about a lot of things and, like everything in life, time is in limited supply and high demand! However, I’m most curious about whether I’m capable of learning and applying new skills and hobbies. I have a whole list of things I want to see if I could do it:
Parkour
Rock climbing
Boxing
MMA
Playing an instrument: piano, keyboard, or guitar
Painting with acrylics (its what I have)
Coding/cyber security
Homesteading
Bartending
Game design or storytelling
Living alone without technology for however many days I can last
This is just the starter list. The last point is something that I want to try before I die. Majority of the things I could be curious about: quantum physics, engineering, robotics, architecture, history, and all those other advanced subjects I could thankfully learn from documentaries, museums, and other materials.
Maybe we’ve gotten so used to the saying that, “if someone did something, then it’s already been done.”
Of course someone did something, it’s something they’ve done, but could we turn the question onto ourselves for a second.
What is something you’ve always wanted to do, never did it yet, that you could eventually end up doing today or soon?
No more putting things off like months or years prior. Being a healthy nosy person lets you follow your curiosity and act on it.
You see a store you never heard of? Might as well take a look inside and ask around; Hear music and glass breaking somewhere, but no danger or distress around? Either people are ignoring the sound or it could be a rage room, who knows?
I did this at an anime convention this year, if anyone is familiar with the game because I’m not, with the cast of “Baldur’s Gate 3” were part of the guest roster.
Neil Newbom, Devora Wilde, Jennifer English, and Theo Solomon were present, there were a lot of the cosplays as Baldur’s Gate 3 was the new Homestuck blocking the fire emergency exit because that’s how much of them had, and it was insane!
I only knew of these people from watching YouTube D&D sessions from Wizards of the Coast channel. I’ve never played or watched anything Baldur’s Gate 3 related except those D&D sessions. I only knew, at the time, that I wanted to say hi to Devora Wilde because she seemed unapologetically chaotic and I vibed with that.
When at the convention, saw they were having their signings, went up to Devora Wilde’s table and straight up admitted that, “I didn’t know who she or her friends were, I didn’t know the game they were from, and I only knew of them from D&D, but I wanted to say hi.”
She was really nice, she was someone I had to look up to because she was taller than myself, and she took the pictures with my phone. It was a pretty fun moment and I managed to get a hug from her.
Sadly, I forget that I can’t always lift people up, especially strangers, because that’s how I show excitement: trying to crush the life out of you and lift you off of the ground, which I did do as a habit when someone lets me hug them. I’m also a grappler, but I digress.
Either way, that was my experience; I don’t know if I should regret it, cringe over it, or cry over what I did, but I have to accept that I did that. I got to meet someone that other people were so excited to meet and had my time with someone who I could live vicariously through her work, but wouldn’t want to trade my life for hers.
I don’t know if I met the actual person or her character, but I’m glad I did it anyways.
Bit by bit, I’m building up my own reservoir of story material and life experiences. The only way to achieve this, despite our fear telling us otherwise, is to follow our curiosity one check marked off our, what I call, a “bullshit bucket list”, at a time.
Physical movement has given me a sense of contentment; maybe not outright joy or elation, but rather a sense of being present and small doses of dopamine. When I’m strolling around, working out, even doing chores, I’m focused on the task at hand than ruminating about my mistakes or anxiously fearing the future. I’m temporarily present in the moment and I feel a brief relief from life.
More often, I’ll take short walks around the block to collect coins and cards on this app called, WeWard, my family got me into using it. Like any fitness tracking app, it’ll count your steps, (total) distance, and how much calories you burned for the day.
The difference, and this is my assumption, is that WeWard lets you compete with family and friends that you’re following, are being followed back, you are rewarded coins for hitting milestones that can be converted into real money, you can gain experience points while competing with people in the same league as you, and it practically incentivizes you to keep walking consistently.
You could walk the dog, take a stroll, do chores, walk to the store, very likely even using a skateboard, a hoverboard, roller skates, gliding, using a wheelchair, an electric scooter, or floating in midair, whatever you have available! Seriously, if you work on an airport and you drive the tugs, it counts! I’ve tried it at work when driving because I’m allowed to have my phone in case my radio is out of range and I can’t reach my job.
As long as you are moving, and the app is able to calculate your distance traveled, you are able to benefit from this app. It also, like many things that gamify our real life progress, it has a consistency streak that keeps track how engage you are per day. I’m going on to being consistent with submitting my steps for 85 days now, I don’t want to break this streak, and I’m going to keep collecting experience points, coins, and cards to progress in my app and until I have enough coins to convert into gift cards.
Quick Mention
I’m not an affiliate of this app, I don’t benefit financially from sharing this app, unless it’s for referral then I’ll get 50 coins per referral to the app. I’ve found it very useful since I was against it initially – thought it was going to be something my family would try then stop using, but its going to be close to 3 months, so its being used for its intended purpose.
I would benefit most if people gave this app a try, found it useful, and if they could share how they fare from using it in the comments below. Thank you for reading this one!
If you could bring back one dinosaur, which one would it be?
I had browsed through the other answers provided for this prompt and, I have to say, I agree with the people who said that they wouldn’t want to let Jurassic Park become reality; I wouldn’t want to let that movie become reality either and that would be a nightmare to experience. I’m still haunted by the scene from the first “Jurassic World” movie where that lady was grabbed the Pterodactyls and then was eaten by that large aquatic dinosaur whole.
I’ve also watched “Attack on Titan” and remembered season one when Eren Jaeger was eaten by that one random Titan whole and he was just sitting, while alive and conscious, in the Titan’s stomach acid. Even another person was sitting, being boiled alive by the stomach acid, for a moment before she died a slow and painful death.
That is pretty much what that scene from the”Jurassic World” made me think of, except that lady wasn’t the main character, let alone a secondary main character, and the writer’s killed her off in one of the most gruesome ways possible. She was swallowed whole and very likely died slowly and very painfully, alone and afraid and rather unnecessarily. I get that it was probably for shock value, but I had nightmares when I saw that scene.
I refuse to rewatch that one movie only because of that scene. I’ll watch all the other installments, but I refuse to watch that one particular movie. You couldn’t pay me enough money to sit and watch the movie. Not even for one billion dollars! I could tell you what I would do if I had one billion dollars in this article, What Would You Do If You Had 24 hours to Spend 1 Billion Dollars? And I can tell you right now that watching “Jurassic World” IS NOT ONE OF THOSE THINGS!!!
Thank you for taking the time to read my rants. I’ll see you in another one!
The food I’ve always found comfort in is usually sweet, especially if it’s chocolate:
Milk chocolate
Dark chocolate
Dobash cake (I just learned this is the Hawaiian variation of a Hungarian cake, then adapted in New Orleans, called, “Dobosh torte. I didn’t know this was a thing and I grew up with Dobash cake!!!)
Chocolate ice cream
Triple chocolate fudge ice cream
World class chocolate
Chocolate with caramel (Rolo’s)
Belgian chocolate (I WILL go to Belgium for the chocolate alone!!!)
Chocolate Chantilly cake (Hawaiian style, not Mainland style)
Anything that has chocolate, as long as it doesn’t have nuts or mint or coconut shreds or is white chocolate, I’ll eat it. I’ve been made fun of for liking a “very plain” flavor and I just shake my head at people. Like, “Seriously? I don’t make fun of whatever flavor you like and you throwing shade at what I like? Forget you! I wouldn’t want to share anything more with you anyways.”
There might be other types of chocolate that I’ve never heard of, but as long as it doesn’t have any of the things I listed above, then I would like to try it. Everyone has their own way of making chocolate, so I wouldn’t mind getting diabetes (knock on wood) if I got to try the differences in other people’s chocolate!
That should be the reason I should travel, besides visiting the local libraries and bookstores in the area of whatever state and country I would like to visit; I should go on a chocolate tasting spree! I wonder where I could go after visiting Belgium being my first stop. Where else in the world could have really good chocolate treats? If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know in the comment section. It would greatly help me map out the destinations I could go. Thank you!
Some aspects of a typical day followed the same patterns that I barely noticed, though noticed enough, the disruption in said patterns. The day only becomes “atypical” if I believe something has changed, something shifted, and I experience a mixture of emotions all at once:
I felt dread and trepidation because my vacation ended, I have to return to my full-time job that drains me. Yet, I feel relieved that I can step away from the keyboard for a little bit.
I felt hatred and resentment towards myself because not much has changed since taking my vacation; I’m still working for a corporation that pays me well enough being a college drop out, offers great benefits, but kills me on the inside every second I’m present. However, I get to dictate what I want and can do in the day.
I’ve gotten curious to try something’s from Pinterest because I want to be proven right and wrong at the same time. At least, until I can work at my part time rage room job, then I’ll be hating everything and everyone at work. Unfortunately, that’s typical for me until I wake up without the help of caffeine or energy drinks.
I’d want to finish up the work week already, jump straight back to being my days off, so I get to decide how to spend my time without someone looming over my shoulder or dictating me: be it learning, experimenting, or pursuing new outlets and passions.
I feel dreadful that I don’t want to get out of bed, I don’t have much energy to bother, but I have to get up, follow my routine, or I’ll fall behind again.
The main difference from my typical day shifting to an atypical one is mostly from the small progress and projects I hadn’t done before, but gave it a try anyways.
Been working on my story telling and writing skills.
Read and finished 1 more book than the prior years.
Learned and advocated my needs and boundaries, even if that meant walking away from people I used to call “friends”, but they never really called me that in return.
Taking charge and accumulating wins from the moment I wake up to when it’s time to sleep again.
The list goes on and on, it provides a small silver lining within my usual pessimistic and neurotic perspective, yet I am grateful that things are slowly changing. Small acts of courage, even when I feel afraid, has given me another “second chance” I never gave myself years prior. Things can change, are changing, and are becoming something different that I can’t wait to see what and where it could lead to.
I’m terrified, although I feel more courageous to move forward regardless of that fear, and that is the most atypical of a day it could get for me. Wouldn’t that be one of the best feelings in the world to experience?
Slight Change in The “Typical/Atypical” Part:
Update: So, this became an atypical day because a few things happened today:
1) According to my coworker, we had a tsunami watch last week, even though I told her that I didn’t get a notification. She said a lot of people didn’t get it, but lots saw it on Facebook, which I don’t have.
2) The tsunami watch was supposed to have ended the same week it was announced, but it didn’t.
3) Now, the watch became a tsunami threat, so a lot of people were panicking, driving crazy, all because, and I understand, they’re trying to get home to evacuate the coastal areas and move to higher ground or further inland.
Thankfully, I made it home to my apartment, my family are packing everything to move to higher ground or further inland, but this has been the first ever tsunami threat in probably decades. We’ve been able to avoid a lot of tsunamis and hurricanes for a long time now. I guess Mother Nature decided we needed a wake up call, get us to set our priorities straight, and see if we are ready for her violent and vicious visit approaching in a few hours after this update.
I’ll just have to wait and see. Hopefully, everyone makes it to where they have to go safely because I’ve seen first hand how crazy people can get from small inconveniences. I know I would get upset and mad if someone cuts me off in traffic without using their blinker. That’s over an inconvenience.
But when we feel our life, and our loved one’s lives, are being really threatened? That’s a completely different story. But the only thing we can do, especially what I can do, is wait and see. Thanks for letting me rant a bit, but things should be okay for now.
The kinds of food I make are simple and depends on how much time I have to meal prep. Since I’m living on my own now, I don’t have to make a lot of food as I used to when living with family. I wouldn’t want to waste a lot of food too often.The things that I like to make are:
Chicken long rice
Chicken or shrimp pasta with mushrooms, broccoli, and home made Alfredo sauce
Chook or Jook (Not sure how to spell it, but its a rice dish)
Spam, egg, and rice/fried rice
Boiled eggs
Saimen (sorry, Ramen) with egg
Tuna sandwiches
Fried/baked Salmon with asparagus
Chicken or beef (Japanese) curry/stew
Steak and hot dogs
Something simple, something fast, some things can be eaten cold, others are quick to heat up (without a microwave, stoves are good too). I can make enough to last a few days, have for lunch or dinner, and can last me during long work days where I have no time to cook. Adulting is tough, but it’s only making me tougher!
I used to think about this question often in high school and in university, exclaiming, “the world is messed up! It needs to change; politicians need to do better; If only things were done a (vaguely specific way without evidence or driven by assumptions).” You know the kind of rant I’m talking about, right?
I would love to make changes to (modern western) society, but I don’t know enough, let alone properly informed, about what changes are necessary. I don’t have social media, I stopped watching the news years ago, and most of my information comes from people’s opinions. Are they anymore reliable than FOX or CBS News? I don’t think so, but people do provide information to potentially look into.
Otherwise, everything from me would be to ask questions:
What is it about (modern) society that is terrible?
Am I projecting what I dislike or am unhappy with in my situation onto the whole society?
Have I taken steps to solve a real tangible problem in my power to change? If so, what, when, and how did I contribute or could contribute?
Am I listening to the opinions of others who, if asked to elaborate on why they think about X and Y, they would be able to provide clear and concise answers?
It’s likely easy for me to ask questions because, whatever is going on in the world, things haven’t impacted me as harshly as the people in the mainland. I live on an island, we have our fair share of problems, but it’s still problems that need to be addressed.
Infrastructure
Tourism
Homelessness/Available housing
Education
Although, trying to change society is WAY above my pay grade, even if a hypothetical. I’d rather, for now, donate my time, money, blood, and spare resources I could share. I can start small, set a goal for how much and what, research where to donate to, and simply do my part. That’s good enough and easier for me to manage – society is too vast – and engage with.
I wouldn’t know where to begin if I were to describe myself to someone, be it familiar or stranger. No two people would say the same thing twice. I could be anything to anyone at any point in time:
Friendly
Empty
Neurotic
Dull
Lazy
Bitter
Angry
Excited
Loyal
Curious
Inquisitive
Experimental
I could be everything in between or nothing at all to anyone. I could be polarizing, neutral, or static, but the answer changes and it’s never consistent. We’re all the strange phenomena of, “Schrödinger’s Cat” – we’re all walking paradoxes of being both alive and dead – we’ll never know the answer unless we open the box, right?
Even if my task is to describe myself to someone, I wouldn’t be able to. I, myself, have an insufficient vocabulary, so, I wouldn’t have much words to properly express myself well. I am whatever the other person perceives me to be and nothing – reputation or action – could change their mind. I’ve slowly have come to terms with not changing someone else’s mind. Trying to is a terrible waste of time, energy, and resources.
The one thing that I could share though, despite it all, is that I’m still here; I’m still navigating the complexities of life and seeking simple pleasures wherever and however I can. I know I’ve made strides from the person I used to be to be who I’ve grown into, but old patterns linger and have festered when I thought they were gone. Nope. Out of sight, sure, but never far from mind.
So, in essence, I’m still fighting to live, fighting to remain, the only word here is fight. I might not be standing on a blue mat, I’ve been thrown around by life, be it by choice or circumstance: surviving, battered, beaten, bloodied, even without obvious evidence showing otherwise. I get up against my severe need for rest and I keep getting slammed anyways. Eventually, I’ll be able to retaliate, I’m bidding my time and waiting for the chance to strike. I know how far I’ve traveled in my own journey, some people don’t need an explanation, only I do and that’s enough.
