[Risa's Scrapbook] Tales of the Infirm

by **Risa Moontide** on July 27th, 2011, 5:01 am

Hello all! I figured I'd get into this scrapbooking thing and get some of my thoughts out. I'm going to keep it from getting controversial in respect to the rules, I don't want all my crazy opinions and theories to start pouring out.

First off I suffer from depression and I expect it to be frequenting my scrapbook posts in a rather severe manner. I'll keep it from becoming a rant but I expect belittlement. If you don't like sad soppy reading turn away now!

Feel free to comment on anything also, I don't mind. In fact I run off of other people's opinions of me anyway. That sounds bad, doesn't it? Hm. Also the stories are less likely to be coherent and hopeful, will probably be more like mixed up narratives.

I'm also going to kinda use this as a journal. My thoughts need an outlet or my head gets all muddled and I feel like bursting.

This should be good for me.

STORY 1: THE LAKE
So today my bf took me to the lake. He guilt tripped me into going, but I don't think he did it on purpose. He just said that he was going to the lake and that he really wanted me to go (because he knows I actually don't have anything else to do

) and that I don't have to go if I don't want to. My brother was going with him even. If I didn't go he probably wouldn't have minded too much; just would have joked about it when he got back and made me feel bad. <.<

Me on the side, nearly everyone else swimming :

The lake was what you'd expect. A big body of water, nothing too special. I wanted to swim but I'm a baby in water. I can't get in too quick or jump in or anything like that. He was having fun and it made me feel like I'm no fun. Like, I like sweet cream flavored ice cream and other boring things like that. He tried to assure me that I was fun but I think I brought him down the first part of the day ;_;

Not as happy as I look :

After I ate I felt better though. I managed to go swimming, even diving. I think I have swimmer's ear, it's really bugging me. I didn't learn how to swim until I was like 18. I'm still pretty self-conscious about swimming, not to mention when the water gets taller than I am. Meh. But I had fun, played in the water.

Happy Me :

Overall I don't regret going. We were only there for like four hours and I brought my sketchpad during the boring parts. My legs and arms and back and ears hurt. But I think I'd go again.

by **Risa Moontide** on July 27th, 2011, 9:26 pm

After the famously successful first post I find myself drawn back here, like a raccoon to an attic. It feels safer posting here than telling someone or even writing it down. I dunno. I just felt comfortable.

I think I'm going to make a habit of adding a disclaimer here: This is going to explore some of my depressive ramblings. I'm kinda driving myself insane, but we'll see how it goes.

STORY 2: LONELINESS
My bf wants to go back down to New Mexico next month to visit family. I have school so can't go with him. He's done this pretty much yearly, 3 times in the last 4 years, but I'm still going to miss him. His brother is back from boot camp or something and this'll be the only time he'll see him for a while.

Every time he's left like this I randomly fall into a spiraling depression. I forget to eat, sit online all day, and forget to talk to my other friends. I don't know why, I guess I just get screwed up. I dunno, I just end up feeling like my whole world is foggy. I'm really nervous about him leaving.

I couldn't ask him not to go, though. He needs to get back down there. Most of his friends are in New Mexico, most of his family. He doesn't have much to do up here other than work and spend time with me so he needs this vacation. I don't like feeling like I'm taking him away from the people important to him. Arg, am I crazy? I feel so crazy all the time.

I can't help but feel awful for what I do to him. He's so patient and nice, he deals with all my depression well (usually) and does his best to get my emotions and self-esteem up. He gets down on himself sometimes because 'nothing he does to cheer me up works' and that kills me. I just want us both to be happy. I love the life we have, I love him so much.

Now that he's planning on leaving I feel even lonelier than normal. I've been stressed lately because I don't have a job and I'm worried I've withdrawn from him. He walways blames himself for this stuff even though I know it's my own fault. He used to have a weak self-esteem too, but I've fought to show him he's a lot better than he thinks. I know his is better, but I wish I could fix me too. I'm broken.

by **Risa Moontide** on July 29th, 2011, 12:27 am

This post was inspired by the chat room, like many good things in life. I decided that I should probably use this scrapbook productively and post some of my art.

Now all of this art has been captured by my camera phone or created on my computer, seeing as I have no printer. It's not very good and I've been practicing for a long time. I get easily discouraged so I give up quickly.

I suck at hands and drawing scenes. I know it's just a matter of practice but I'm so bad at them both. I also randomly screw up perception and proportions. But you'll see in due time. Here we go!

ART POST 1: I'm not great, see?

Shadowy Figure :

Order of the Stick :

The next 8 pictures are camera photos of my sketchbook, so show you my poor art style. I'd like to say these are only the ones I'm proud of but these are actually the only finished drawings in the sketchbook.

Sketch Pad Pics: Part 1 :

Sketch Pad Pics: Part 2 :

Image Manipulation :

So that's the extent of my artistic ability. I'll definitely take any advice or anything related! Let me know!

by **Risa Moontide** on August 2nd, 2011, 4:28 am

I'm going to write a post about my characters finally! I'm going to be exploring ascets of their personalities here, figuring out where I want to take them. Expect the post to be brief, I figure things out pretty quick.

PRODUCTIVITY POST 1: I'm doing real stuff?!?
Risa
I'm not sure what I'm going to do with Zlakalia once I've mastered Mt. Skyinarta. She wants to experience different cultures. I'm probably going to Avanthal next then, spend some time with the Vantha. Risa isn't going to like the cold, but she'll survive. I want to get her to Sylira eventually but there's too much to see on the way. When Risa does reach the top of Mt. Skyinarta she's going to be disappointed, I can already tell. A little part of me wants to keep her in Wind Reach, but her spirit wouldn't settle in one place for long. Oh well.

Zlakalia
Her personality is going to take some work to get to the level of crazy she's at right now. I really want her achracterization to show realistic development from a young lonely girl to a jaded scholar to a restless traveler to at last a crazy woman with an impossible mission.

Her psychosis is going to hard to make realistic, since it's going to require two catalysts. The first is going to be her mental breakdown in Zelvita which I have to fully develop and the second will be a gradual catalyst introduced throughout Syliras, Endrykas, and Riverfall. She's only going to be in the last three for a few months so I have to find a way to make the three different cultures mold into a single ideology that warps her already broken way of thinking.

Bob gave me a good idea regarding that. The gods all had something to do with the Valterrian and Zlakalia has this determination/logic/order type of mindset that gets heavily warped. Maybe she believes disorganized gods only cause problems or something? It still needs work.

Overall I'm still thinking up new ideas on my characters. It's going to take a lot of threads to get them up to speed, but I think Zlakalia needs to take priority so I can get as many flashbacks done as possible before she fights/dies in the Priskil quest. Assuming I get into the Priskil quest. ^_^ Fingers crossed!

by **Risa Moontide** on August 5th, 2011, 4:00 am

I'm going to be writing on of my boring stupid depressing posts again. I just need an outlet. Psychologists and the internet have told me to write out my feelings on physical paper and destroy it, but that would be a waste of my feelings AND paper. Urg, my shoulder hurts for some reason. If the following is low quality I'll want to blame it on my shoulder but it's probably just bad prose and organization of said writing.

POST 3: DEPRESSION AND DRAWINGS
I don't like competition. When I was younger I used to think I was good at things. I used to like pool and foosball and bowling. My dad was a military man and the air-force bases I lived always had those three things. I played soccer and basketball. I was active and healthy. But one thing I never had was a good competitive spirit.

I hated losing. It made me furious. I would scream and yell and cry is I didn't win, if I wasn't the best at what I was doing. My family had told me that they hated playing games with me' because of my attitude. I dunno what happened, I just can't stand it. I'm still bad about it. My bf and I will play Call of Duty. I'm actually not bad, I have a positive K/D spread and I'm typically in the top half of the players. I'm better than he is even. But I scream and yell every single time I die, a rash of obscenities flood out of my mouth. It just makes me so mad to lose.

I don't even like cursing, as well. When I was growing up, I had a staunch rule against cursing. It just wasn't a necessary facet of my life, I believed cursing was unneeded to hold conversation. I was pretty strict about this with my bf also, I scolded him for cursing without reason. He started to get over it too, I always felt bad for pushing that onto him. But something changed when I got back in to college. My friends cursed all the time, ignored me if I asked them not to. At first it irritated me, but then I came to accept it. What's worse is I came to ADOPT it. I curse when I'm irritated, angry, even tired. I don't know what happened to my innocence.

Basically what brought this up is my bf was playing basketball with all his family and friends today. He told me he was going to let me post all day, but something about it hurt me. I felt like he still should have invited me, even though I hate competitive sports. He was just trying to be nice by caring that I didn't like those kinds of things, but I got depressed and angsty. I hate feeling like such a teenager sometimes, I just want to grow up.

And then there's the whole cocky thing. I hate anything cocky, I can't stand arrogance. My parents taught me that being cocky would just attract attention to myself, get me stabbed or raped or something stupid like that. I don't know if I don't like cocky things because I actually don't or because I believe I shouldn't. Take rap music. It makes me mad to listen to most rap songs because they're so much more arrogant than other music. I can't listen to rap music without critiquing it and labeling it as bad in my mind. My friends say I'm stupid for it, that I judge it too much. I don't know if the beats are inherently pleasing to my ears because I don't give it a shot. And I can't.

Basketball and other physical sports are the same cockiness. It's outright saying, "I can do this better than you." It annoys me. But is it really annoying me or am I annoying myself and placing teh blame towards whatever I believe I'm too good for?

I also hate that I judge myself constantly. I'm overly careful about what I type online. I don't what to give people the wrong impression, make them think I'm some huge fat chick who's working out a weight problem or a perverted guy who plays girls or something weird like that. I don't been know why, there's nothing wrong with those things on their own, I just don't want to feel downgraded. It's tired of judging myself but I can't stop.

DRAWING, THE SECOND POST
Now that the long depressive rant is over maybe can show off my two newest drawings. I really am not bad at drawing if I have a model to work with, I just wish I was great. I judge my drawings so much that I can't focus on the positive. Regardless I'll show you my new ideas.

Zlakalia :

This is a more current picture of Zlakalia. I used a picture of a model to get the proportions correct and angles correct. I can't help but feel like I'm copying it a bit, like it really isn't my art that you see here. The shadowing is all I'm good at still, i did the shadowing and lighting effects myself. Her proportions were done TOO well, actually, I wanted her to look more warped, skinny, and busty then she does here. Oh well.

Younger Zlakalia :

This is a picture of Zlakalia when she was a child. I imagine her hair basically surrounds her most of the time and this is after having the hair pushed back. I'm not satisfied with this picture, its quality wasn't close to the first. I tried to make her recognizable as Zla while still being radically different, so that the mental breakdown would show an obvious change from this to the drawing above.

So that's how I'm feeling, some art, and some characterization (barely). If you've read through this I commend you, it must be the most boring depressive crap you've read all day. I feel bad for using this like a diary, like I shouldn't do it or that I should do it in a different way. I'm trying to ignore that voice and just post what I feel like though. So there.

by **Gossamer** on August 5th, 2011, 4:24 am

I stalk your ramblings because I really enjoy how reading your scraps reminds me of taking a long relaxing walk along a trail that changes its scenery every five steps. I never know what we are going to get out of an entry but I do know we all can so easily relate to your thoughts and feelings. Thanks for sharing so much of yourself with us.

by **Bolden Denusk** on August 5th, 2011, 4:51 am

Everyone needs to hear it: you are not alone! It's good that you're getting out what you feel, and how you feel it. And you're drawing to express yourself! that's great Risa! You just keep on trying to find you and what you want outta life and sure enough, you'll find it! *hugs* It's so nice of you to share this with us! <3

by **Faroul** on August 5th, 2011, 2:40 pm

Risa, your art wins the universe. Seriously, it looks great. I love the banners you made for Risa's posts, and Zlakalia is beyond awesome. The figures are so stylized and clean. Keep it up!

P.S. Have a spectacular day.

by **Risa Moontide** on August 13th, 2011, 1:22 am

So life has been alright. Therefore I've decided it's time for a happy post, greatly encouraged by chat. Basically a post to show a lighter, not uber-depressed side of me. This should be fun.

HAPPY POST 1: Teh beginning
So I got a job! Finally! I've been unemployed for the last two months and at first my grades improved, but they're starting to suffer. I've also been sort of losing my mind for a while. It's nice to have some structure this week, even though I've had to wake up so early.

And the third day on my new job I somehow won a phone in some office-wide drawing! It was actually a nice phone, the new Blackberry Style. I don't like Blackberry's nor have service with Sprint, although, so it made much more economic sense to sell the thing. I also sold it really quick. Someone offered me 300 for it if I'd hold it for two weeks, but I told him I couldn't hold it. Then someone else offered me 250. I know I should have waited but I figured it would be safer to just accept the 250 offer now than wait for the other guy to change his mind.

Regardless the $250 bonus was awesome. I was able to get a birthday gift for my nephew (Plant Vs. Zombies for X-Box and some books), put gas in my junker car, buy some burgers and soda, and other tasty stuff. It sucked being so fatigued and poor all the time. I has cash in my pocket at last. This job rocks my socks.

A new friend of work wants me to make a webcomic with him, like he was looking for an artist to collaborate with and I carry my sketchbook with me and doodle and do artistic things in class. He wants me to play Starcraft 2 with him as well, but my copy is bootleg and I can't play with other people. I need to get my other friend to give me his copy already

Also another guy at work wants me to play WoW with him. I'm more charismatic with people than I remember being, I guess. I never got into WoW, I played it for a month and gave it up. I might give it a try, but probably not. Oh well.

Also also I was bored so here is Risa's front page of her own personal CS

Secret :

There was something else. I'm trying to remember what else I wanted to talk about. Hm...

Don't remember. Oh well. I have a lot of threads I'm currently in and I have a lot of threads left to start so that's going well. Again: Life is good!

One last thing to say: Thank you so much for your encouraging words, everyone! I've thanked you all in chat, I think, but it's worth saying again. You're really helping me feel like people aren't all horrible, that there are good people like you guys out in the world. It's enlightening. I love you guys so much!

by **Risa Moontide** on August 18th, 2011, 11:08 pm

Nervous Heart
So I just got an email for this guy. We used to be best friends in high school my freshmen year. He was great and exactly like me, I had a huge crush on him. Unfortunately I dated the first guys who asked me out, the second boyfriend I ever had was his brother. i didn't realize they were related because I had just skipped a grade and they had different last names and I was easily confused. Either way, it pretty much ruined my chances with him. When I left New Mexico it hurt a lot to say goodbye, even though I was with my current boyfriend (who I do love so much, just to throw that in

).

He gave me his email when he left. So we could keep in touch. Everyone, even my current bf, said that the guy had a crush on me back and neither of us admitted it. Like one of those bad romance movies. Regardless at some point in the last 5 years since I've seen him, I only wrote him three times. The first two were regular, and I just never replied back. I cut the connection, tried to forget about that part of my life. I was happy NOW. But at some point, I think a year ago, I sent him an email trying to apologize for dropping off and explain the feelings I used to have, get some kind of closure. He never wrote back. Until Today.

When I cut the connection I wasn't trying to kick anyone out of my life. I just figured I'd forget to write eventually, I'm bad about that kind of stuff, and did it preemptively. I still feel bad about it, I had a lot of friends down south who cared about me. I just... I dunno why. I regret doing it, I was a stupid kid. I wish i could take it back.

Regardless I'm just writing my thoughts here. My chest is pounding and I'm nervous, I don't even want to open the email. It just says, "Re:Hi, it's Sarsar." I know I have to open though, it just feels so weird to now get a response. The feeling is so peculiar, I had to write about it. I guess I'm just freaked out. I'm going to open it now, I guess.

EDIT:

Apparently the email I 'sent' with the confession never arrived. I looked through my sent box and I had accidentally sent it to the wrong person that year ago. What happened is my bf was trying to be nice and reconnect me with an old friend so he sent the guy a new email this week. Even though he's a pain in the butt for doing it without telling me, it was so nice of him.

So I was freaking out for no reason about something that never meant anything. My emotions are all out of whack now. Grrr. Oh well.

To Clarify: The former crush never got the confessional email. My BF was being awesome and sent him a new email this week. The reply I was freaking out over is not to what I thought it was.