What in the world...?!

It was perfectly fine (except for some Sheridan!fanservice) up until the final two volumes and then it did a complete 180 turn and I think my brain just exploded.

It. just. exploded.

This manga is now a complete and total AU...! Shounen-style.

...And also Legretta is 85% naked. You need to know this.

Hngh. Allergies. =_=;;

This is just me being a fangirl. I finally got "Senketsu no Asch" volume 2 in the mail today. It is LOVE. It's just a shame the second half of the game had to be crammed into so few pages. (About half the book is when Asch temporarily joins the party after Akzeriuth if that's any indication.) But the art is very pretty, and there's lots of Natalia and Dark Wings (and a little bit of Ginji), and there's a part where Asch faints and his little not!companions bandage him up and he's all bishie. Yeah. Will have to make icons eventually. Or scan a few pages or something.

Right now I need to clean and research different kinds of armor for my arts.

And try to resist screaming at my dad for being obnoxious.

I dunno why but today has just been blah. Nothing bad actually happened, but I've been in an awful mood and can't get any decent art done. I was making some headway, but the coloring turned out poorly and it just looks ugly. And then I couldn't concentrate. It's really frustrating to keep trying when things go like that and it's like "how do I get back to where I was?"

A big chunk of today I spent playing ToA. That was frustrating too! Lol. I picked a very nonstrategic party to take on the boss in Megiorra Highlands, so I had to do it over three times (and knock the difficulty down to Hard) because I felt like a jerk when the timer ran out. Gahhhhhhh Ginji.

Also I am worried I'm going to miss the cut-off points for Yulia City Help sidequest and the Ant Lion Man. Because I have no miracle gel. And no maces. And Chesedonia is sold out. Also Asch was being a major douchebag at the Desert Oasis. I didn't remember him being that big of a douchebag. It made me want to throw things. He called Natalia an idiot and was saying dumb stuff. I should rewatch it just to make sure I caught all the crap coming out of that guy's mouth. XDD Ugh. Also if you have no context, you'd swear the guy was crazy, suicidal, and um... crazy. (...)

But I got to canon review for Frings and Cecille somewhat. :D I always hated the war stuff so this is the first time I'm really paying attention and squeeing. So now it's very like OH THAT IS WHEN THEY MET I SEE. It's so cute they're both worried about the party. I will figure those two out yet. Also debating switching up party members and replaying multiple times for that to see what variations I get quotes-wise. I haven't seen much so far, but it changes a little - specifically which party you throw Luke in; also if Guy goes to Kaitzur he tells Cecille to be careful and that throws her off.

( On that subject, I've been wanting to be a tard and share my poster. )

Roleplaying... I am way behind again. I'm hoping to kinda start over with the de-aging event at GB and just keep the logs going. At Ad Lib and PX I just have a few things to reply to and that mod event log (or two) to start. I think the de-aging event is going to be fun. I have ideas for Asch already, and Meer should also be interesting since I'm going to try to de-age her to before her surgery, but keep her knowledge of the SS Thor. That's a theme I've really come to like with her - the whole "what makes a person beautiful" deal. I feel so bad, though, because everyone's like "you're pretty! :D" and she's like "oh! well thank you very much! ♥" and a little part of her soul cries each time. :/

Hopefully tomorrow will be better for art. Ironically the one thing that came out looking decent was a rough draft/thumbnail sketch for what my fox piece might look like.

This was supposed to be short. Honest.

( RL Stuff )
( RP Stuff )
( ToA )

Late, but, happy birthday skittlestemple! I'll send you something but it will probably be really late, because I don't know what to send you besides the one small thing I have already. I don't know. But I will think of something awesome!

ANN posted info on the Abyss fan disc that's coming out in December. I think I must be slow finding stuff like this out, but apparently it's going to have a chibi skit with "Doctor Jade" and another with Tear cosplaying as a maid. ...Yay!

On that same note, I also found another song sung by Yukana. *pumps fist* It's pretty catchy, but I still can't find her other albums/singles that aren't anime/game-related. I used to be really good at finding obscure music on the interwebs, but it's getting harder and harder to find music (with good reason, really) without paying for it and/or searching through stuff like iTunes. It also makes it near impossible to find said obscure music that no one has heard of.

Work is slow. I'm not sure if I should be happy about that or not. I totally worked out my AU!plot through episode 39 at work. Uh... um. I should not have that much free time. Really. Also, Cantabile totally has an actual role in my AU. Rejoice.

New favorite cutscene. Although the cake one was amusing, too.



Mieu Wings is the best thing ever.
And I totally called that "how cute" because I said it first.

In other news, my fish tried to commit suicide while I was cleaning the fishbowls. I always use a cup because I hate the idea of freaking them out using a net, but they don't like the cup either and Roy like... flipped the heck out and almost jumped out of the cup. Then I panicked. I think I was more scared than he was, but we made it. X_X!! And they are now clean. Stupid fish... agh!

Today I experienced the picnic from hell. There is no other way to describe it.

The funny thing is we weren't even going to "picnic" because my parents claimed the ground was too wet, yet our hardly-plans got changed into no-plans and rearranged and... I hate not having a plan.

So we get to the park and it's like EMPTY. On a pretty fall day, no less. We drive up the road and there are clouds of what I mistook for pollen... they were actually hoards of gnats. So we park and my parents decide they want to eat at the picnic tables near the lake. If anyone knows anything about ducks/geese... ducks + geese + food = ??? Yes, before we even settle down an old gander starts making his way towards us from the pond. A little while later the bandit mallards and other geese begin to follow. But is that the main issue? Ho no! The main issue now is the STINKBUG INFESTATION. They're buzzing about, flying around all dizzy and drunken and... ugh...

In case you missed it...

CHERRY HATES STINKBUGS!!!

With a burning passion!

So naturally they start flying at me and I let out a wimpy girly SCREAM and refuse to sit down at the table and eat very much. One had the nerve to land on me, too. Such nasty ugly things. Bleh. >:/

And then those stupid ducks are closing in on us and one even pecks at my mom's butt. Yeah.

Then there are yellow jackets (my dad's allergic to bees) and other insects. And of course there's the wind trying to blow the plates away... So my spoiled bratty self comes out and I clearly express my disapproval. "I am not happy."

I basically stand around drinking my tea and chasing the ducks away while my parents er... enjoy themselves. But then afterwards they want to go walking. So then I am forced to squish my way around the lake.

My parents wanted to hike the trail too but, eh.... I didn't. X_X So we get back to the truck and go through that cloud of gnats I mentioned? Well gnats like to cling, and the next thing we know, our shirts and pants are covered in gnats. Ewww...

So we drove home and I promptly change clothes. My parents scampered off to the flea market or something while I did a few chores, ate a decent lunch, and played on ToA. I actually finally caught the skit that Dynast's "biggestgun" username comes from so I finally GET IT. Man, it took me long enough. ^^;; It's where Anise is talking about ways to get the Sheridan scientists to cooperate. First she mentions Luke and Natalia's $$$, then she suggests she and Tear use their "sexy bods", then she's like "I guess we'll just have to leave it to Ion =D". Or something like that. It was funny, because naturally Tear's all "I-I can't do that!"

Ah... speaking of Tear... icons for a drunken!Tear would be easy because she looks drunk whenever she fangirls over cute things, but playing a tipsy Tear... XDD Ahhh...

Well for anyone in Memento Eden that cares about what I was thinking, Ren will probably get wasted and turn into the "king of the night", Lloyd will get drunk and start laughing and singing obnoxiously merrily (he sings with Zelos in Rodeo Ride Tour I believe). I plan to keep Tear at least halfway sane, although she will probably be uncharacteristically... "girly" and more daring than usual. That way I can cover the whole alcohol spectrum.

Well, I've never been drunk or even consumed alcohol before, so I really wouldn't know. XD I actually did research and found a lovely chart of symptoms of drunkenness which helped a lot.

I finally beat Arietta!! Heck yeahs! Killing a bunch of monsters and bandits to gain a few levels and you know, lending a hand to world peace, ganging up on her, and taking her out first and it was super easy. :D ♥

...but then there was the sword dancer. =_=; Screw this. XD

( Cut for Ad Libitum RPG and 'Tales of' Stuff. )

I also got a paid for fixmyresolve. I'm not sure why, but looking for prettyful Lloyd icons should be fun. I want to musebox kinda... Hey Jisu, would you want to musebox what we were talking about last night...? One of those three things? I need to mess around with my not-quite muses and see if they'll evolve. You know, like Pokemon.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PLUM!

(aka: thumbs, I'm an hour early but I want to be close-to-first. Ffff! D: )

I guess I owe a real life post.

WORK:
Work went through an evil phase of me doing a bunch of involved things that I really shouldn't have to do (it's not really my job to do them, and it's the customer/sales reps jobs to get us what we need to make ads look satisfactory, IMHO, but they don't). The sales reps keep giving me the "oh, but you do it so well~" cop-out and I have realized the short answer: I'm the one that will go above and beyond the call of duty. I'm the perfectionist. I'm the one who will struggle through an ad, rebuild from scratch if necessary, etc, etc... when everyone else puts a foot down and goes "Heck no, I ain't doing that!". Last week I rebuilt three jewelry wrappers (large pages separate from the rest of the paper that are bundled around the paper). This week I rebuilt a car ad with SIXTY-FREAKING-FIVE cars in it. And they had to be in price order on each row. And the boxes switch between black and white, so I had to change the colors back around on quite a few of the objects. I also had to open up all sixty-or-so pictures and convert them all to .tif, CMYK, 300dpi. WHAT. FUN~! [/sarcasm]. So, yeah. Basically I am the little "sweet" (not!) perfectionist who will get your ad done as nicely as humanly possible. Do I get thanks for it? No, not really... [sigh] But on the bright side, larger ads cost like THOUSANDS of dollars, and lots of people see them, so even though nobody knows I made them, I at least have an audience and at least the customers are pleased sometimes. And occasionally I hear about how pleased they were. I guess my employers can't complain too much.

STORMS:
The storm last night? It was actually pretty severe. Rain dumped on us in torrents from like 10-something for the next hour straight. It lightning/thundered pretty bad and didn't end until 1 or 2 AM at which point my dad sawing logs in his sleep woke me up. Seriously it got really bad as soon as I logged off. But no, I didn't hide in a closet like Haruhi. Although I did lay down on my floor with a book until it calmed down a bit.

BOOKS:
So, book talk. I finished the Jane Lindskold book I was reading which turned out to be pretty good, if still feeling too much like a summary of a book. Interesting plot twists near the end. One was obvious, the other not-so-much, but it's pretty common as far as plot twists go.

The book I'm starting now I've had for a while and got as a Bargain Book at Books-a-Million. It's part of a series (one of the later/last books and completely readable on its own, although now I'm kinda interesting in reading the others). Anyway, the interesting thing about "Singer in the Snow" is that it has a lot of things that coincidentally remind me of Tales of the Abyss. Pfft! I'm not kidding, okay?

So they have these people called Singers/Cantors/Cantrixes who sing/use an instrument (filla/filhata) to create music. This music then creates light/heat and can be used to perform magic (healing/calming/light stuff mostly). I don't know, but this reminded me a lot of Abyss' Melodists (for the uninitiated: Tear Grants is one) and the whole fonon/fonic hymns thing. The Oracle Knights in Abyss also have ranks that are ranks in the system in this book (which are music terms)... ie. Maestro/Maestra and Cantor. The other coincidence? There's a character named Luke. XDD Only this one is a stable hand and basically a normal person whereas the Abyss one is a noble. Maybe I'm just easily amused, but either way, I find the music/magic relationship cool, and the book is quite good so far.

TALES OF THE ABYSS/ROLEPLAYING:
Before I get off the Abyss topic, I know some people on my Flist here follow the Abyss manga... Do any of you know if there have been chapters with Tear flashbacks yet? I'm still looking for a few more younger!Tear images for a roleplaying event over on memento_eden, although I broke down and got a paid account/extension for her and have like 93 icons. Well, I kept switching icons out and realized I had made about 50 out of anime caps, so I went ahead and got paid for the next two months.

VACATION/MORE TALES:
Well, one week until my Niagara Falls trip! I'm really excited! Although I think it's a shame that most of the time will be spent riding in a bus to Canada. Only one day actually there. (I'll be gone next Saturday thru Monday.) I went by Gamestop last weekend and was going to get the first Star Ocean game for my PSP, but then I decided to ask if they had a used copy of Tales of Phantasia... and they did! So I got it for like $8. =D Only thing is it's hard going back to piddly little Gameboy games and a really sloooow battle system. But I love what I've seen of the characters so far, so I think it'll be all right. I still plan to get that Arche figure eventually, but not until after I get back. I also need to finish off the Abyss trading figures... >_>;; Poor Guy's surrounded by women.

ROLEPLAYING:
Still roleplay-related. I have decided I should research the other canons of characters I roleplay with that I don't know (and luckily I know some of them already). Like today I watched a fan anime project for Touhou Project to get a better feel for Aya and Reimu (since I have interacted with both of them), and my mind's vision was completely off. I had watched an episode of Soul Eater like a month ago and I realized I was a little misguided there, too. So I'd like to experiment with watching some of the other canons so I can read everyone's posts correctly and with a little extra insight. You know when you read a book and you get a vision of a character that's completely different from a movie version of the character, and sometimes completely different even from the book's description of the character? It's like that. Like in Firekeeper I never imagined Sir Jared ("Doc") looking as he is described. In my brain his hair is not black (I believe I read a few books ago that it was black anyway x-x). And I don't like beards, so I imagine characters without beards even when they supposedly have them. Stuff like that. Seriously. Give me a canon to check out if you want.

Still roleplay-related. Five-year-old Tear and three-year-old Lloyd at once... I still say I'm crazy for that one. But at least I'll be crazy all at once and not have to go back and forth between serious and moe!/kiddie. I'm... I'm looking forward to playing the moeblob. OMG. You have no idea.

So yeah, I'll end this essay...
....
....

MEME:
And I'll steal this from regalblaze while I'm at it.

Ask me a question about my roleplaying characters in context of the game. It can be any question, about relationships, history, plans, what they're doing right now, romance, what they want to do, their favorite comfort foods, anything. It just has to be about the character in game context. I will do my best to answer the question in as much detail as possible.

(Tear Grants, Lloyd Irving and Ren Tsuruga in Memento Eden; Anyone I have played in Kokoro; Yuan, Martel, Lloyd and Tear in Ad Libitum.)