It’s been over a year since I last posted anything here on this website. I navigated towards my old blog instead and only will be posting special stuff – like right now I wanted to talk about Crypto Art.
Currently I have been curating a collection that I will be selling online as a NFT to help with the efforts of raising money for the game development aspects of Dark Zeta.
It’s been since 2011 that I started this endeavour in making a game series based of my idea I have been formulating since 1998. The art below I made back in 2016 to do that very same thing – to fund my game project. It has been really hard to do so all these years and I feel like this is another opportunity to make it happen.
This is only the beginning – I’m working on posting advanced crypto art works later when I can get some more time to do so. I currently work at the liquor store, holding my head up above water – making 20k a year and barely making it alive. I hope though that you’ll see my efforts in trying at least. The art above are real early models rendered in real-time for the advanced 3D game project I’ve been working on in parallel after Dark Zeta One. DZ1 is the precursor to the main attraction that is DARK ZETA Chronicles (tentative name). With the funds, I’ll be able to finally break free from the shackles of slavery and focus 100% development of the whole DZ project again. The demo for DZ1 you can find here –>>> DarkZeta.com
The website is being redone as well (since 2019) and will feature all the dev updates that’s been happening in the last year and a half. Currently those pages aren’t published to the public yet but are available online for a select few.
Please help my cause! You can see -here- the many folks who have helped me work on this project and many more do so now! By investing in me you’ll be helping many artist out, not just me. So hopefully I can finish this project up before this new decade ends with this new opportunity.
Thank you for taking the time and I hope you’ll be able to visit again!
I came across a new mindset of ideas for this site and the subdomain blog.gerardolegend.com tonight. I’m going to turn this site into a quick gallery of events, just like a blog but more general, while Blog.gerardolegend.com will again be my center for blogging everything once more as I’ll have twitter as my micro-updater embedded on to being the focal point to get more frequent data as I go with life twists.
This will unify both domains as one, and make things much easier for me to update more fluently.
That update will start late in October as it will take a lot of my creative juices to re-image everything and reorganize my data. It may even start in November, who knows! Because I feel October will be a really busy month for me since I first need to finish up on Mariolegend.com AND port my games and videos on to that site.
Dark Zeta development is happening for sure as I have new tools readily now. GridXross is being ported and enhanced with new gameplay mechanics as well in HTML5 that it’s mobile version never had. So that all will reflect back to here. Right now I’m making sure my bills are paid and I give ample time to my love ones first before going into my cave and start developing deeper into my projects.
Hopefully all products will be ready by January 2020 for Mariolegend.com. As for Dark Zeta, I’m pushing to get stuff done for it little by little, but hopefully much more fluent in developments as I go. If I get to 75% done next year, then I’ll have more of an idea when I’ll be done with it and post a release time for it. It will mainly start as a PC game, as before I was preparing it to be mobile, instead I’m going to focus on getting it ready for Windows PC. I have the tools for that to fast prototyping it and was looking into character creations speed up techniques like rigging and weight painting using a pro degree of quality and efficiency. I found a solution, but I’m learning how get an assembly way of doing it with many different characters I need to make out from it all.
To sum up my thoughts, everything will come together nicely in time. I wish I can get Dark Zeta out in 2020, at least get it at 90% done by this time next year, but it seems dire right now. I need more money and time to getting it there. What’s left now is a huge number of things, but I feel very confident now that I can, I just need help – thus more money to get some people to help me with content to double up the work.
But I’m confident I can do it on my own though.
With all that said, changes that are coming are good ones. I only ask for patience. If 2020 isn’t the year to show off, then 2021 will be then.
The video has the summary of before I cut my hours and then after I did. The reason I did cut my hours is because I really needed to focus and relax on updating everything online, as well as follow up with clients who reached out to me to work with them on web projects. Being creative is a mindset, and when I’m in high anxiety survival mode, I can’t concentrate even while my time is committed to something else. Thankfully my bosses granted me the reduced time to focus. I just wish I was able to control my schedule in a month by month bases, and not weekly. But working Sundays and two days out of the week has resulted to be a blessing. I also talked to my brother that because I have reduced my hours, I will only focus on paying the minimum of the bills, since to me it’s simply a black hole and getting my business up I need money for promotional material, advertising, and keeping my domains up and running. I’ve been doing what I can for a very long while, and axing that for the house I simply object to it.
Also side note – I looked into selling Life insurance and I quickly decided not to get into that since it was a beast all on it’s own. I need to stay focused on my projects and side hustle selling my services to business and individuals who need to get stuff done. I will also delegate/contract work to others who need it. My future 10 year plan is to create a studio of talented folks to do this sort of stuff, but I need to make it happen today first by making it work with my own talents.
The rest below I drafted it back in July, but after my meeting in August 12 with my siblings, then getting my wisdom tooth taken out, my mind totally changed. So I reworded a few things and now I don’t plan on moving until I get shit done here first. I need to push my business to the next level, then when I have enough money, move out slowly.
… I really don’t have much to say anymore. It’s been weeks and I haven’t been able to do what I listed to do. I’m just gonna repeat myself over again and my life is in a locked down state of affairs. People around me want me to be happy but shit is tough. I have no real motivator that says “if you feel ___ is holding you back, then move on”. This relates to work as a cashier, which is extremely limiting and redundantly monotonous. For the first time in my life trying that position out, after a whole year, I have to conclude that it really sucks as is but it has some good elements. It’s truly a dead end position though, there is no way around it. I have to complain about this because I’m burned out with it (at the time of this writing in July). Then the chain reaction of working so hard, standing up for hours on end, feeling the burn on my feet, getting back discomfort, just so I get so little from it and be short on bills, I get lost and feel what is the whole point of it? I truly feel I’m stuck. I try to look for other ways and places to work but that can’t be done either because of time needed and the level of uncertainty also disapproval from my family if I even try to rent out a spot in my dwelling.
Look, we all are here to enjoy life in all aspects of it. Be it with lots of sacrifice/investment in getting to our goals, so that it will feel much more meaningful, but we all know that the most valuable thing in this entire universe is our time. In of itself is finite, and having to earn for the fiscal year $8,000 all then just to see so little from it, living paycheck to paycheck, for months on end, to work for days doing something you don’t feel happy in, simply feels like life is wasted even when all you have earned disappears in a snap. I have so many goals set that I would love to reach them, but right now my challenge to stay on course has been truly hard. Thankfully I am blessed with things and forces beyond my own, giving me the chance to roll out as much as I can. I have a wonderful Girlfriend now that understands me, that motivates me. I have a family that will back me up if issues arise. I got it. No questions ask. It’s also a blessing that I have a job to begin with. At least it makes me look at things with contrast between it being bad as it is and also helping just a bit to live day by day.
What I am saying here is that I don’t want to spoil my time. I got stuff to do. That’s why I have a secret milestone. It’s just a measurement from the first day of the year to today. How much I can save for just 2 months worth and how much I pay for bills in the grand total scheme.
It’s all to see my options. The big prime objectives are constant though, in which I want to save for my game development stuff. I managed to do that with a job as a cashier, holding up in being a “homeowner” (really I’m just a stand in, in an awkward stance about it that nobody can ever understand but my family). My plans initially in the summer was to move out of “my” house. That plan was gonna roll out and take 4 months for me to accumulate what I need to get everything together but at the end I decide against that because my real goal was not yet fulfilled, which is my game developments and projects. Originally everything was going to go to storage, which will be my motion when I do execute it after I’m done with my current developments and financial goals.
Now you are asking, why? Because family drama. Everything was alright until a member stepped in and pushed his ideals on to everyone else, starting in 2014. Things have been slowly shifting towards the plans of purging everything new in “his” image. I don’t share such an ideal because mines have been consistent throughout all time, which is basically work on my projects and keep things as is. I want to maintain historical elements but since my parents gave up on the house long ago, it’s pretty much just for him now, because “there isn’t any other options” that feels lucrative than to set it up how he wants it. So, to get out of his way and not waste his energy, after I’m done with what I have to focus on first, I’ll move.
Getting away will help psychologically and emotionally. There won’t be any need of him plotting for me to leave and I won’t have any more anxiety attacks or overthinking about that. Years of work won’t be threaten like the way it has been, and it’s basically me fighting to protect my life’s work. All the art and development will be placed in storage containers and other extra stuff too once I’m able to do so. I just feel stuck and the best thing to do now is focus on my talents and keep searching for leads to get to my goals.
Anyways, now I have someone I promised a future with. This means letting go of the past. This exchange of value will only yield me, with hard work, something way better than just this house. This is my belief.
Another thing is that I’ve been largely dormant on actions I must execute to save my ass. I’ve been dependent on my sibling for a very long while in the midst of this transition, oddly. Is because of all the paperwork that has been processed without any detail passed on to me to see. Just like the electricity winter fiasco, where i didn’t know who was controlling the account and why they were charging such a high premium, I solved that issue by calling and changing things up under my name. There are other things still I don’t know what’s happening at all, and that unknown is the root of my siblings anxiety attacks. So I can’t blame him for being so rough, it is because shit gotta get paid or the house will be taken away. This is why I’m alright now to sell it, but my brother has other plans.
Again, some of these things are communicated in high anxiety arguments when things haven’t been talked about before. I’m pretty much walking in the dark here, bumping into walls. This whole experience has sucked me dry from doing anything creative and has delayed my projects. This is when I realized, when I was in connecticut with my girlfriend, that I have to do some drastic changes before winter comes again, and now we start the fall season. Shit is gonna get hard.
With all that said, I’ll do what I can about the content and website. No deadline set which means no promises.
Thanks for reading and caring about the matter. Next update will be when I get a chance. Right now I enjoyed my hours being cut down to only work on weekends, which is actually working well as a good strategy to keep me afloat. It’s giving me time to focus on my projects big time, but I’m low on cash so I recently requested more hours again, but that will be just to get enough money to invest so I can then focus on the next campaign and await for potential leads to come.
I wanted to be clear first that this is my personal blog and want to warn you guys that my grammar isn’t going to be professional. I am always learning new english techniques from folks who do know more than me and I will always try to be better every time I can on each post I do. Sometimes I will rush things so I apologize in advance. The whole point is to clearly communicate my thoughts to the reader through this page as transparent as possible. As for Mariolegend.com, that I will get an editor to help me formulate better articles going forward. This is only a heads up note just in case those who do wander in here, and have an english major under their belts, know that this shit is what it is – me.
With that said let’s go on with the actual stuff I gotta tell you guys about in this post.
First I want to apologize for not posting at all for the last few weeks. It’s been very transformative to say the lease. What had happened is that I got myself in trouble romantically, but financially I’ve been in “Grit & Grind Survival Mode” which basically means work hard in silence and save every dime I can for the future. All of the month of May I’ve been also trying to pre-produce the setup of my stop-motion animation project. I hit a few snag(s) but I’m still sort of on track with it. The reason why I’m uncertain is because I have a few conditions that are prioritized for that project, in which I don’t know if I’m going to successfully pull it off, before my brother decides to face me about working on the house. So what I’m doing is focusing on the story and environment I have (like a toy story narrative crossing with my original stop motion project from 20 years ago) to be able to fully tell my tale.
On a side note about fan made projects, the landscape of copyright and fair use has been heating up badly. Just to cut a long story short, companies have been fighting to take down folks who use their intellectual properties with anything they can. Since this stop-motion project was produced 21 years ago (1998), I did not know anything about copyright stuff at all – I was just a kid who celebrated and loved being in the many worlds from the games and animations I experienced back then. The therapeutic and ritual aspects of this is that it helps me move on to the next part of my life. So when I did the stop-motion back then, it was saying goodbye to my habits of playing with toys in general and moving them in bins forever. Since Toy Story 3 was basically that part of my life, I instead made a huge and very impressive production from it that totals 3 hours long. The last 30 minutes of the video are lost (but I’m trying to retrieve it) since my digital 8 camcorder is defective and I need to see if sending it to a service that can convert the tape into an mp4 will help the cause.
But anyways, I’m redoing a lot of the production for Season 1 of Famicom Land. Season 2 is, in a different take, where I’m working on now because it’s the current setting of discovery since the schematics of the house has changed a lot and will drastically change in the next few months if I don’t put the pedal to the metal. As for the time it takes place, both seasons are 5 thousand years apart, and introduces M (Mariolegend, who is my alter ego/persona of another instance of space-time) that creates also a crossing between the Tribus Fabula universe into the game universe. Lately though for the story, I thought up that it will play out as a parallel universe that takes place in my own world but some objects are alive within my house (as if Toy Story was live action in a way) and my alter-ego is transformed into a Toy himself, rediscovering the world and unlocking the characters that survived the cataclysmic event in season 1.
So with that covered, I also wanted to talk about my G-Legend Specials that I’m working on now.
There are many G-Legend Specials I’m working on such as; G-Spirit Versus Omega-G: First Assault, GerardoLegend 2019: A walk for hunger, G-Journal Special: Green Summer Heart, and G-Spirit Vs Omega-G: Smash out! (A live stream event, 3 players against the CPU that will play as Omega-G)
The theme here is going to work as a pixelated retro look and I’m first working on the consistency as I progress through production of it but first I’m concentrated on the stop-motion animation project pre-production setup before I can go ahead with the other stuff.
Since the trends of my schedule now is having Thursdays and fridays off, I’ve been using them to draw out my plans and write down things, and as well my time has diminished greatly because I’m also focused romantically on a new person in my life. This I will save the tale to be told in G-Journal Special: Green Summer Heart.
As for my suicidal bad side, it’s mute now for the time being. I’ve been keeping it at bay, and my new love has helped me cope by giving me new hope, as well I’ve been staying very busy and feeling confident about things in general.
Another side note, my depression has injured me to the point where my intellect has lowered down. What happens is that the hippocampus gets damaged permanently from long episodes, and things get really frustrating when calling back to common knowledge. In a nerdy sense, I 404 all the time when people ask me about stuff, more so when I don’t get sufficient rest while going through the course of the week at work. I’m recovering now from burnout and using the projects above as therapy for myself to get back to it again. I still hate my circumstance at work but I am trying to find new ways to use my skills to help others and find new leads to establish an alternative set of income. It all has to do with patience and I discovered that I need to just keep up at it and focus on controlling myself from going off the handle. Success is simply around the corner if I stay the course, as I generally tell myself now.
I feel much more confident than the last 2 months before, after the tarot reading, thus confirming my success – is just all about patience and perseverance.
With all that dropped, I wish you, my awesome reader, a wonderful summer, until next time…
Update May 24 2019: So successfully my friends came through last night (May 23rd 2019) to help defeat Omega-G and ward him off my account. With this, my twitter account has been saved and unlocked. All my tweets are public again and I feel like a new beginning has started with this.
It was so much fun role playing with my twitter friends. This was an experiment on how I can make a “social” game run online without programming involved. It was also a testament to my mutuals if they cared to join my game. What was real here was that I was going to delete my account if no one cared to engage in time. That sense of urgency also helped to make this playthrough much more intense. The responses I made from both @Mariolegend_ & @Gerardolegend accounts were all done in real-time too. It took me 20 to 35 minutes to draw up the scenes of each attack dealt against Omega-G. I was so focused but it was so much fun! I wish I can find a way to reduce the time of each composition and post it as fast as I can. With this in mind, I’m developing the HTML5 RPG for Mariolegend.com in a toolset called Smile Game Builder, in which is a level editor/RPG maker engine that can extend to Unity game engine. Thus It will be a social media game experiment that will play out similar to the first event with a more efficient way of having the scenarios playout to maximize the fun!
You see, I was growing really bored of my account and I noticed that I didn’t have anything to show because game development really takes everything from me, and I don’t have the time I used to when I was better off. Right now I’m trying to solve so many problems, that part of my brain power isn’t focused on the fun stuff much, making it really hard to feel happy or content about my life in general. Thus I feel that a fusion of that and some make believe time with friends will make things better, and it has!!! It was so fun that now I’m going to make it something that we all can do beside playing Smash Bros, since that you require way more focus and timing. With this, we can include Smash Bros as a bonus extra and any other game that includes Miis. It can be played with just logging in Twitter and simply tweeting my account.
Therefore successfully, in which I’m forever grateful about, I got 6 friends to interact immediately the next day I summoned them to play this scenario out. I felt like a kid playing. It was reminiscent to Dungeons and Dragons, but anyone could do it at any time of the day without dice or paper. It seems I choose the right people as all of them were able to engage at night simultaneously. This has a more heighten effect in gameplay and it made it more intense and interesting. Once I’m able to get Smile Game Builder and all my art assets ready for the next event, I will see if I can then create controlled programmed scenes for everyone to play, and up the number of capable players into the fray.
Since I won’t work on Monday, Memorial day, I will be using some of my time to figure out this stuff.
Also to credit, I have Nicole T Marie and Lewmoth original music tracks for the next event since this is my Tribus Fabula project and I have some cool works already in the mix, audio-wise. This means that once conditions are ready, I can stream on twitch with all of us playing in real-time, if it gets to that level of course! 🙂
…. I’ll detail more and update about this in the next coming weeks in a new post so stay tuned!
Hey guys,
So ~ here is the 411:
Story:
Omega-G has captured and sealed off Gerardo into a subconscious mental prison and you, yes you the reader, can help save him! The personification of Depression, anxiety, anger, and self-destruction is the demon Omega-G. How you can help is by sending this special artifact (symbol of ReBirth and Balance) on GerardoLegend twitter handle —-
Either copy “image address” (source) on to your tweet or this address:
This is an example of a tweet posted by my buddy Tael, as an example on how the game was being played on twitter.
With this, the symbol of Awen, and as many as 6 or more mutuals and or strangers, it can ward off Omega-G from GerardoLegend’s account and prevent it from shutdown.
When countdown reaches 0 (May 26), the account will close by the will of Omega-G. You must prevent such a tragedy from happening.
How did this even happen you ask?
Omega-G was subconsciously summoned by Gerardo in his moments of distress. It is the character of negativism that has been keeped inside for so long, and now it has taken hostage the very being it was born from. It doesn’t care about life. It only feeds from everyone’s sorrows and G’s own. The symbol above is the ticket to push it into a corner, but without friends to help, it is useless. The love of people who care is required for this symbol to work. By saying, “You matter G”, and using the symbol above in a tweet will save Gerardo from oblivion.
The fight won’t end there. It will only ward off the demon and manifest itself independently from Gerardo’s body. The next battle after is defeating it in a smash bros battle ( Level 9 CPU Vs 3) in an online match that will be broadcast on Mariolegend_ twitter account the next Sunday after May 26. Anyone who wishes to fight in this battle are welcomed. Omega-G will then be a Mii fighter at maximum difficulty, so the more skilled fighters, the better!
This also won’t end there as the HTML5 RPG game, Tribus Fabula: Nightmare’s end, will be available on Mariolegend.com later this summer as an episodic series that goes deeper into the lore.
Now that you know, the inspiration in going into this stunt is to symbolize the end of one year and rebirth of a new year for me. Instead of just letting things be as it is, boring, I wanted to spice up my space with a little bit of role playing here. With all the seriousness going on, it has gotten really bad and I really felt what is truly the point of all the things in social media if we can’t even do anything. Is there to interact with each other, but it can be more! It is our escape as well! And we all love video games! I even love Dungeons and Dragons, but I can’t even get to hang out with real folks because we are so busy. So I wanted to do this instead. We can all have fun and use our imaginations! The “power-X Artifact” thing is just a story item that you can use your imagination to empower you in creating your own special abilities.
This mean you can also cast magic on to Omega-G, as in just incantate a spell of your choosing and roll the dice on how effective it is – and post that on Gerardolegend’s twitter feed (or make it up). Use the power of your mind, and let’s have fun!
…. So now that you’ve seen a deeper degree of my madness, is finally time for another insightful talk.
How you guys doing today?
I hope you guys are well. I am well as April’s end has given me a great resolution to fill me with hope. Previously I have mentioned about how deeply my status was and now I got the good news. I’m Still here. Also that I have communicated enough with all the important channels to get progress done. That means I had a good and very needed talk with my brother as the insights helped to better manage my plans going forward. I also had an upswing in more time at work that will result in having enough to save for the important things, like fixing up the house and construction of my other projects although I’m still trying to find other economic solutions.
Continuing, I didn’t know about the repercussions of me exclaiming out that core immediate feelings inside, but it helped me to cope on it and make things better by writing it on my blog and making the April 6th video. I might have made people uncomfortable as hell, even made 20+ folks unfollow me on twitter, but it’s not about everyone else, it’s about getting out that bad steam out of me regardless if folks may think I’m crazy. It was such a crushing feeling when I didn’t get the job and I needed to say something and post the video as i was afraid I would snap and implode. I had felt so alone and It is my process to talk about it and let it out. This though manifested some real people who have come up to me and made me realize about the posts. It’s only words on the screen I tell myself but it’s deeply more, and I felt trapped not knowing what else to do. By writing it out, expressing it on video, it was something I really needed to cry out, otherwise things would have gotten really bad internally. When I was a child, a teacher gave me an empty booklet made out of construction paper and told me to write my feelings into it. Ever since, it stuck on me, and I continue to do so because it’s like putting these feelings on the shelves and internalizing them would mean a total descent into madness. I do have to apologize for making those who are concerned feel bad about it. I assure to you, I’m okay and things are alright now. I know I’ll have bad days for sure but I see I got people that care. It was just a really real low point at the moment I expressed it. A new video I just posted is up to help ease your worries
… The whole point of it was to let go of that thought – This is an open diary/journal of me, Gerardo, the being that is in this reality. Why hide the truth? I’m being real… … I guess those who don’t understand and are spooked I do recogn why they think and expect of me just plainly losing it. Life is all set with ups and downs, it’s inevitable but with what extremes I’m going through at the moment of writing and videotaping, they are just that, only hard moments that will float away, specifically when I’m battling with myself. This doesn’t mean the storms will ever stop coming, it just coping and finding in myself by accepting that they are just temporary. It just some moments are so extreme, alone, I’m trying to find something to let me understand why I do feel so bad. This is when I drop it in here so that the spotlight can take place and help to remind me of that moment. It’s to let me realize what is happening as subconsciously sometimes it sneaks up and I’m not aware that I’m really that bad until someone tells me. I’m super thankful of the true friends that have sticked with me thick and through, and I’m double appreciative that of new friends entering my life and expressing their concerns. I gotta give special thanks to Tito’s girl for that realization. The last thing in my mind is to make anyone feel bad. I felt that and I told myself I need to fix it.
Accounting to a surprising moment, I stared in shock when I saw the universe truly answer my calls when a friend came in to my work. The way I see the universe deliver the message is through manifestation of repeated and amplified ways to tell me one thing and either warn me or just stuff happens. I witness first hand how blessed I am when my message of despair caught attention to individuals who responded back with love. Even when I felt so sad coming back from work one night, a stranger with a familiar face just walks me home, kinda like a guardian angel. I didn’t say anything about how I felt, but that moment just felt like a guardian angel came and saved me. That stranger only appeared once after.
These things have been happening to me, and it was a feeling like Santa came in and gave me a gift that i didn’t see coming at all. What did I do in my past life to have these things happen? It was just amazing. One thing I realize is true now – what you send out to the universe, it comes back to you, even when you’re not looking. It is just that one has to learn to see everything like glasses that see quantum particles manifesting at the speed of thought. It’s a strange world and I figure that one has to listen to oneself before one commits to sending that signal out. My mind was sending out the wrong things, to a point I almost got hit by a car in multiple occasions.
One example was a new friend, who I always light up when I see her come in the store, who I unexpectedly never have thought she would look in here and connect with my words. I saw her concern as a sign from the heavens. Yeah, corny I know but it’s true. It’s rare when that happens. This is not the only event either, much confirmative moments happened after. For instance, another new friend who I have connected in april, came with groceries to pass on to me that same night. This is not coincidental people, and this is why I see humans as humans. I see in every folk with potential of everything, and I believe more they posses to express compassion over everything else. I have been lucky to see a lot of benevolence from folks. That’s why you never know and must always treat everyone equal with love. It will come back to ya for sure.
That’s why I want to do more and become balanced so that I can too be able to give back and perpetuate out the good. Become better.
Seeing her for the first time after 11 years! And my Movie old school buddy (right) – Avengers Endgame Night
The best thing that happened in April was someone helping me understand what I have said in the past, like mentioning this blog. This is why I write these things out, so if someone gets it and it volleys back to me, I can finally see where I am stumbling and correct myself. I know it isn’t effective either and can scare away folks but I am not perfect and I only do it sublimily as sending out an S.O.S. This is why a superhero movie like Avengers endgame demonstrates the hero’s journey arc and why it is so critical as an element to use as reference of evolving through pain and obstacles that will be useful get to the next level. It’s not easy, and sometimes one will not get it the first try. Also, the movie is really that good. It gets down so deep. The message I got, since it’s subjective and it’s non-spoiler meta, is family. We are all family. That’s what I got from the film and it’s relative to the feeling of unity and how there are amazing people out there.
Furthermore I feel a need of apologizing because i don’t mean to make those people feel anxiety over me. The universe has always tried to reach out with many different signals. I just gotta listen to it and try my best to tune down the noise in my head. If I’m not, I want someone to slap me so I can snap out or just a hug will do. It’s hard though, and that’s why I feel blessed to my amazement that I got good people on my side.
Now moving along, the good news is that I got to see someone who I haven’t seen in so very long. 11 years? The point is I was happy to see that special person again. The meeting made me more grounded and hopeful. She was a catalyst long ago on how I had to wake up from a dream and realize things with myself. It was a start in trying to open up my eyes. She might not understand how important she was to me then, but like how the universe acts in strange ways, she was the herald that made me realize there was more beyond the walls. She made the virtual, real.
Going now into detail about how to physically help myself is that I also realize my internal fight is connected to my diet and lifestyle. I need vitamins and minerals for my brain. Sleep is also important but I’m not doing justice when I need to stick with going to sleep early in when I need to focus on my job. I do have a few other folks helping me with nutrition advice but I have to help myself first so it can be effective. I’ve been putting off eating normally and healthy since my income decreased this month and ever since I started working at the liquor store 9 months ago, just plain bad habits of eating unhealthy things fueled the downward spiral. Not to mention that I didn’t hit the amount I required monetarily, and the result of that I’m pretty much having a hard time but the good news is that my compassionate friends already have helped me survive <3
Continuing, I’m very much am a hard headed fool, and I already cut down so much spending in April that got me really emotional because it’s just generally frustrating. It feels like I’m floating in space with almost no food or power to navigate to my destination. But do you know what? I’m very fortunate to be present today that love me. I got to realize so many spectacular things, watched a fantastic movie, on top of having to see someone very special to me on that same day. Universe saying a lot in just 24 hours in which it has been building for some time now. Then the next day to even add to that with an eye opener second half start of my shift at work. Totally incredible. Pretty much I take the message as “be patient and keep moving, you will see…”. That message has always been repeated so many times, in so many forms, and again my mind blocked it and instead filled it with anxious thoughts that has taken me deeper into despair.
One other thing is, the universe doesn’t act on the ocean of low vibrating darkness quicker than the specks of high vibrating light that fills the void. Itty bitty specks of light fends the darkness away. Now Imagine if that lightwave is amplified, it can shine out the void. The thing is, everything in the universe is balanced out. What I figured is that my fear, the darkness that pulls me down, is of disaster but I have to find a way to overcome it. One of those things is to let life be, and not be bothered by the material momentos. Letting go of things I have no control of, and look on what I really desire to manifest in life. Tell the universe now what I really want and need to unleash the version of myself that I, at heart, want to truly become. Focus that energy so it can become clear, and have patience. The most important part is, have fun while doing all of that.
Google Plus account based from Myspace account
Now going back a bit to explain something in which i find relative to this, is the reason in the past I titled myself as “Lost G” was because the spiraling out mindset always surfaces when I get lost in my own noggin. I try to get out, but the only signals that help pull me from it are people who are nearby me that I feel connected to. I’ve been spoiled by being with my family, and now not being able to be united with them fills me with sorrow. I took it for granted for so long I never thought I would be alone. The reflection of my heart then pulls me back on my feet and I start dancing again. The desire to realize the dream comes back. The dream in being with my family together, showcasing my art to them. A reality now that I feel is just wishful thinking. If anything, family can mean other things and the universe can grant it in essence of that concept. This is when the universe transforms everything to accommodate and form that new reality. It’s hard to change and accept, and even though one wishes for it, I believe you have to take everything with that wish to manifest that new reality. That’s when help is needed to cope with that transformation because it’s gonna be really hard. You have to ex_change, which the ego will fight to find a middle ground for. Attachments will make it harder.
Now moving forward, for the final days of year 37, I’m gonna make it count by setting my creative plans and working with managing my time better. What I desire now is to be able to continue working on game development and get better at storytelling. Since my time is limited with one particular project, Famicom Land S2, I need to hurry up and capture my environment first before construction obstructs my goals for that project.
Anyway, I got lots of stuff to do as you already see and I hope you, the reader, stay with me. It’s gonna be good when everything finally comes together.
Tribus Fabula RPG
But quickly going back to a critical point, the mindset of self-harm for me only manifest when I corner myself in a deep feeling of defeat. That root of me, that I understand now, has to do with attachments. The special conditions why is because I want to protect those momentos. In the past how I dealt with it was to create something significant to remember it by creating an art piece. The first huge shift I had to let go was back in 1998 with Famicom Land. That was created in the premise to remember that time when my environment and state of life was and now no longer exist. The last one was when I moved to Boston from San Francisco. This again is repeating, and my plan is to create something that, artistically, can reflect and mark this time so when the highs do come, I can really appreciate it and feel I earned it and enjoy it.
Thus why now I need to make haste. I wasted too much time being paralyzed with fear and Famicom Land will be my project for the next few weeks. I just need to capture key shots for the video and write the next chapter before construction happens later in the summer that may obstruct this. I know, it’s a last minute thing it feels, but I have been planning for a while about it. It’s just you already know, depression can be a bitch.
So with that said, good things are coming along. It’s going to be hard, but I now see I do have heroes amongst me. The website Mariolegend.com is almost ready, I’m also getting ready my games to post on the site in the arcade section later in the year, as well working on the video section some more. The front page will change once it gets closer to the official launch time. Everything is going into Mariolegend.
Alright amigos, thank you for reading and caring. Catch you guys later.
So 2 weeks have passed now since PAX EAST 2019 happened. After the show, especially Sunday in which I wished to have gone, I fell into a bit of an unsettling feeling. The root of it all that I was trying to figure out for myself has to do with the overwhelming feeling of uncertainty. I have a quota I want to keep per month, and since 2 weeks ago my hours have been cut since I asked for time to go to the event, the schedule hasn’t come back to normality yet, where the lowest matching time would be above 16 hours per week, but this week I got 13 hours instead. Since I get paid bi-weekly, just calculating in this period in time, I will only get $371 after taxes (estimated), in which totalling from the previous check, $913, which is the estimated amount per month I get to cover for food, utilities, house tax, house insurance, and entertainment. This is not mentioning that I also have backed debts as well as I invest in my business side with the money I earn through my job. Thankfully I have my brother who earns way more than me to cover the big stuff and has a more consistent schedule than I do.
Furthermore, the pressure isn’t as high thanks to my younger sibling luck in getting more hours in. I still want to be able to pull my part but it has been really tough because I’m not hitting that specific number for the month. On average I get 900 a month, which I can’t even do much with it as 600 of it goes for everything I mentioned above, then contend with food. I might sound like a brat here but this is why I fall into a consistent cycle of depression. This is why I have started to pull back on updating because there is an ocean of bad moments, which sounds like complaining all the time, and only just a handful of celebratory moments that I can share. I wish I can, but life sucks for me right now that I can’t see it in the present. Hell I’m super numb about it that the only way to help it is to write it out here.
I’m putting it out there just to let you guys know that at this time of my life, it’s still very low even though it is way higher than last year. I still need to push myself to breakthrough this barrier. I have been fearing that once my crohns comes back, in which it has been in remission, that I won’t be able to do this style of work anymore. Overthinking as I usually do, I’m really concerned with the future. This is why I mentioned on social media that I need to do a big change. The main focus is to keep this site and my network alive for a bit longer before I can finish up on my big pies to start presenting next year. My motivation though has been at a stand still because of this overwhelming feeling. Trust me, It pains me to the point I had so many thoughts of suicide and just ending sounds so sweet and easy just because I fear disaster so much.
The true path, in which sounds way better money earning wise, I should have saved up to get my Adobe Pro certification. It cost $180.00 to register and take the exam. There are other cost layered on top of that, but if I get it, then I can actually share my achievement on social media and on freelancing sites like UpWork and Fiverr. This is only just a start, as I need to focus on finding a physical job that does graphic design or user design/experience. They are classes for those subjects that I can focus on after my certification, but in the meanwhile from all of this, the main passionate directive is still my game project. The problem is that I need money and developing my game takes a lot of time and focus to do. Developing a product won’t yield me any money at all until it’s ready for market, to even have that risk. In that time I need a secured income to cover the costs of living, breathing, and utility to make this real. Depression has hit me hard and uncertainty fills me with anxiety.
Financial security is number 1 on my priority right now. This is how I can pay my music and graphic artists as well as programmers. No monetary incentive, no game folks. Plain and simple.
This is why my despairing feelings feeds my depression and anxiety. I just want to know that for the meantime I’ll be alright and that I can continue without progress being interrupted. Is that simple. The quota per month that I require is $1300, that’s all. Nothing big in 2019, and I can finally feel fine and focus without having to complain about it. This is why I was saddened that I lost the spot at Seaport for the night shift as security. That would have lessen the physical pains and would help me enter a more balanced state.
Recently I’ve been feeling aches under my belly, the spot where the doctors took out 2 feet of intestines. This could mean my crohns is coming back from remission. I’ve only had 2 remissions before because I could control my shit, but the past 9 months have been really bad, habits wise. So I’m not surprised but a bit scared about this. I don’t want all my guts to get cut out. I want to restore my health again. This means taking drastic measures in avoiding smoke and alcohol (specialist recommendations). This includes cutting back on junk food too, and make my lazy way to making healthy meals. If I don’t adhere to the signs (discomfort before pain), then I’m gonna be in really bad shape.
So with that expressed, you guys already know. I need to get into shape and push away whatever negativity that may be. Sadly this only means less social party meet ups because they would normally include smoke and alcohol. This is why I only party as if I was a kid, playing video games, because I’m not a normally functioning adult that booze up and watch sports to ease up. Unfortunately I have to be picky about this or the quality of life for me will be shit going forward if I follow the crowd. Is that understandable?
In between all of this, folks also ask “why not do programming?” in which my reply is basically I’m stupid emotional. I terribly hate looking up on the screen and stare at code. I do it because I need to realize a concept, but doing it to help others I won’t because I don’t have the patience. If I don’t even have the patience for myself, why even go in the direction to teach anyone. I’m not even competent about it though in which I tried to learn for 10 years now.
One bad thing about being in a depressive state of mind for so long, for me, is that I noticed my brain is starting to forget everything. Complaining becomes a thing that happens a lot in my head. You then become indifferent, and you just float in space unable to react to things you have to do, but you don’t do because now perception of time has gone crazy fast. Anxiety is the results of snapping back to realize the time and then an overwhelming pressure of thoughts comes flooding in, paralyzing you. You then go numb and processing things suck monkey balls. Reaction is slow, and procrastination happens as the mind is trying to get back that energy wasted on pushing back on those thoughts. This cycles happen so fucking much that I just write off the next day. This also happens when I don’t go to work. I start fumbling and doing mistakes after a long break because my brain has been fighting itself throughout that time adjusting to the time of solitude. On that note it is why I’m really mad about the inconsistencies of my time schedule because I have to set my mind for it every week. Thus the “off days” I usually am here trying hard to figure out how to work things, worrying about tomorrow. I just want something consistent. Because after this low activity week, then there would be a high activity week afterwards. If not, then I know I’m in trouble.
Another note to consider is that at my job at the liquor store, seeing regulars and stressed out clients, has made me feel really sad about the position. Selling them their vices is like trying to comfort them to sleep with poison. All of them are loveable human characters. One of the rules in movies that make people not care for others is the fact that the characters have less screen time to find out who they were. In this scenario, the regulars and stressed out customers, come in from time to time and make you feel apart of their lives. You start caring for them. You want to comfort them but you know you can’t. It gets complicated.
This whole scene makes me feel like the world sucks. The world doesn’t suck, it just that the people are really fighting hard to live. This causes the drama and all of those emotions. For instance, there was a young lady who was purchasing a just bottle of wine but I noticed something was wrong – so I said in jest “don’t worry, you will be alright now going home with this” indicating the wine bottle, and she couldn’t hold her tears, so I asked what had happened and she said that her dog passed away as I finished the transaction. That made me sad. This wasn’t the only instance as there was another customer who brought his big greyhound in last year, but then later in winter had also passed away. You see, this is a lot. I can’t help but to grieve with them and to process this on my own.
It’s a hard job emotionally and psychologically. One wouldn’t think of it, but like water, the droplets of emotions start to errode that hard front one sets up as time goes by. It’s really tough, as I already been suffering from an emotional depressive state. You simply realize you can’t help but just do your job and go home.
Setting my mind away from all of that takes an enormous effort in my part so I can focus at home on getting in my projects. PAX EAST pretty much is my mecca and example of perseverance celebrated. The closest thing to seeing physically what I’ve been trying to do all these years is expressed on the show floor with many who have successfully punched through this wall I’m in. I was at the happiest state of mind there but I only knew it was just for that moment. Going back to my own reality…. Yup.
With all of that said, thank you for reading and hopefully I’ll have another post coming down sooner than later. I’ll be working on slowly in that PAX EAST special edition video for my GerardoLegend youtube channel in a few days so check back in or subscribe to it.
It’s been a month since I last updated in here so here is the stuff.
Last month I had faced many challenges and have totally dominated in getting back on my feet again, at least a little bit to the positive side. After that I’m now working on my counterpart persona website, Mariolegend.
In this site I’ll mainly focus on multimedia stuff and as well use it as my main portfolio spot.
Times are tougher than expected now. Things have gotten out of control financially and currently I’m trying my best to sort things out but the next few weeks will be an interesting hard one nonetheless.
First let’s talk about my current ills.
I’m currently trying to communicate with the power company to fix the complex issue that my parents left me to do. The accumulation of debt had triggered the power company to want to cut the electric cord has my attention. It’s due to the neglectful act way back in September when my parents basically ignored the fact that me and my siblings were trying hard to keep things working. I JUST started my job and I get this avalanche of responsibilities hit me like a train. I went into depression right after seeing the mountain of crap I have to process. It almost feels intentional because my parents really want to sell the house but their bad financial habits of burning cash like water had us all in really bad shape at the end of the year.
This has yanked me away from making anything new.
Creatively it’s just been hard to continue doing my projects, so I cancelled them all until I can get back control of the situation.
Right now I’m looking at $1,300 in electric bills and $1,700 home tax that is due at the end of this month. I’m currently at $19 dollars in my account making 12 an hour and getting a paycheck every 2 weeks while my schedule is so inconsistent but average at 20 hours per week, maximum at 35 hours and the minimum at 18 hours per week.
So continuing, the power company is basically done with my “dad”, because the cumulative balance hasn’t been paid in 5 months, but the record shows that I, Me the son, have been putting in a total of $900 since. It’s all in the house account online. Even with that, they ignore it all. I have been cutting down on electric use since my parents left to florida by $150, saving enough so that my maximum that I can give to the bill, $300, can cut the big bill down. That’s the strategy, but again – the power company doesn’t want to have it.
So now I’ve been trying to call them but just the robot answers and I was told that all reps are only focused on emergency calls only at this time of writing.
This is just driving me up the wall and I want to resolve this as quick as possible.
With that said, in which is taking my energy away from being creative, I have to let winter freeze all progress down until I can. Financially I’m in really bad shape and I can’t do anything because it’s on my mind 24/7. Trying to buy food is hard too in winter, as I don’t use a car to get to places. I instead been walking to the grocery store and grabbing as much as I can hold, to then walk all the way home, 1 hours worth, so I can then make dinner after. I’m alone in this part of my life, but occasionally i get help from family and strangers, but not always. This is why I miss how my family used to be before 2018 happened. So now I see that all my time is tied up in living.
To explain more on what I mean about my time being all tied up in living, before 1 video would take just 8 hours to make, now it takes 5 days to do. Creating just 1 image, drawing or pixel, what used to take 3 to 8 hours now takes 3 to 7 days. It’s this I feel that everything I wanted to do is now near impossible. The time I have to set versus trying to get that concentration to make something is way more crucial to me, and any interruption can fuck me up big time and set me back.
When stuff like the electric company trying to pull the plug on me happens, I fall into depression and can’t concentrate anymore. I’m constantly scared about it and simply I can’t find a way to put my focus to do anything but to find a solution to face the situation at hand.
This is why I’m not going to make games, because again, time is way more important now and I’m being drained away with these things that is basically making me suicidal because I find doing my passion mentally satisfying but I have to push it aside. I have to be responsible and my passion isn’t paying the bills.
I’ve been going down this slump for the last 3 years now. It hurts. I thought maybe I can get an investor interested in my project, but nope, it isn’t enough. This was a factor why I tried to go into bitcoin and cryptocurrency, and that just made things worse. I went also into Forex, that killed me because I wasn’t mentally ready for it.
Trying to put together this post is also just bad emotions because of trying to line up what’s going on with me is just painful to think.
Folks, really, I’m tired. I’m tired of hitting a wall all this time. I feel so desperate right now.
Thus my next plan of action, when I get my check, is to reconstruct all 4 sites with a tool that will replace Adobe Muse and implement ads to them all. I really tried to keep things ad free, but at this rate I’m going to lose it all. I don’t want to lose it all – which means imminent suicide. I will self-terminate if I lose it all. Basically is all or nothing, and I don’t have energy to repeat shit again since my crohns is a hinderance and may complicate things in the future. To do this I need help from working with things like ads. I might even ask for help if things really get bad but I have a little bit of faith in myself that I can get over this shitty chapter but that doesn’t stop the negative thinking.
Continuing about my plans, I will have less invasive ads so it won’t be annoying but accumulation of time and combination with content that people will feel satisfy is key here. That’s where finding the money and time to do that is expensive now but not impossible. Expensive because of time, which is, again, much more valuable than money here.
I first must pay out of pocket to get things rolling, but after that I would have to find strategies that can help me get traffic here and my other 3 sites. I’m also going to plug-in an online shop for common goods that people can get that I can get commission from as well. ALL IN DUE TIME! That’s why this stupid energy situation is costing me my time.
Time, I repeat that word like crazy here. It’s something that cannot get back and I’m learning through this part of my life that I can’t simply waste it with this nonsense. 2019 I want to accomplish balance in many things. I want to be able to keep the things I have built. All I have created cost so much time to do, and to lose it all will be extremely devastating to me. So even though if the electricity gets cut, I will have to find ways, like journey to the city library to do my work on my off days, which are now limited due to priority in getting money to pay bills.
This winter I might get all of this bad shit happening and paying for utilities is even crazier this season. So it would slow me to a crawl but stop me. Cutting cost is the game here through this moment, which will end in 2 months, hopefully.
So if things get better in those 2 months, then expect me to return back to making anything big again and finding a programmer to help out, otherwise I project that this year it’s gonna be another 2017 until the end, and I’m really trying to make it better.
