Daily Art - Lelouch Trace

I traced a screenshot from Code Geass in an attempt to study all the layers of shading and how everything is put together. I learned that it's way more than it looks like. :P

Bizarre Things Old People Think

Occasionally, I hear something that's so off-the-wall stupid, I can't wrap my head around it. Sometimes, I hear those things from multiple people. The biggest offenders, I think, are the older people I meet who often have no idea that it hasn't been the '70s in decades. You young people who give me this stuff just make me want to lock our generation up in a school for a few years to teach them how the world works.

"Picture" = "Photograph"

It doesn't. I picture is an image. They're synonymous umbrella terms for visual media. It can be a photo, a painting, something drawn in the sand, anything. I've shown people photographs and had them ask, "Is that a picture?" Well, yeah, duh it's a picture. "Is it a photograph?" is always what they're actually trying to ask.

The Internet is Tiny

My family is notorious for this one. I told my aunt at one point that I bought some stuff online. She replied, "I should do that...get stuff online, and then it comes to the house, right?" She (and the other relatives) can't grasp the concept that you don't just "shop online." You go to specific sites, look through tons of stuff or whatever, pay for shipping, and then it comes to your house. They all think of the internet as this single entity rather than this mass of sites. They always ask me things like, "Can you read about that online?" They're totally oblivious to the fact that any given movie might be referenced on thousands of sites.

Anime is Porn.

It's certainly not. My mom has this mindset, just because she sees a lot (like, 2%) of books in her one book club that are half-naked Japanese-style characters. She's good at making unreasonable generalizations, though. It's what she does.

Books Are Very Educational and Informative.

I'm not going to tell you there aren't books like that, but when I say I'm reading a book called The Time Paradox, don't immediately assume it's about quantum physics. That actually happened with my boyfriend's dad. In case you don't know, that book is actually an Artemis Fowl book, part of a series that follows a teenage criminal mastermind and his adventures with fairies. Tim's parents read about 5% fiction, 95% books about people converting to Christianity and how it saved their lives. It's like recreational reading just doesn't exist to them.

Online Stores Steal Your Money

Just because you're not physically handing someone cash to take your waffle iron home doesn't mean the thousands (if not millions) of internet stores are going to take your money and not deliver. It's usually pretty easy to tell which sites are legit and which ones look like you're buying stolen merchandise from a drug dealer.

The News Said It! It's True!

Maybe in the 80s. Nowadays, you're lucky to find an article that doesn't withhold information from you. Plenty of news out there today is based on half-truths, misinformation, poor studies, etc.

Inexpensive Stuff Saves Money

Like hell it does. The more we figure out how to save on electricity, water, etc, the more stuff we put out that's just a little more expensive. Those funky spiral light bulbs pay for themselves, considering how long they last and how little energy they use in comparison to the incandescent ones. Same with LED Christmas lights. A lot of places, like Books a Million and GameStop, have cards you can buy for $20 or $15 a year that save you money. If you shop at those places enough, they'll pay for themselves and then start saving you extra, not to mention the coupons, magazines, flyers, and other perks.

I Read Death Note Out of Boredom

So there's an artist on DeviantART that likes drawing fan art. She's good, too, so it's nice to see lots of her work on the front page every day. She recently got obsessed with Death Note, so I was seeing lots of fun Light and L pictures constantly, and it sort of renewed my interest in the series.

Keep a close eye... by *moni158 on deviantART 

I watched it a while back, and I generally enjoyed it. I enjoyed it a lot less once Near and Mellow were there (because I really hate Near and Mellow), and I think the last episode was pretty much the worst thing ever, but it was generally good. The first half was really good. I'm a Light fan, and L added some entertainment, and Misa is dumb.

I may have enjoyed the manga a little more in some aspects. The ending was better in some ways and worse in others, I think. It was easier for me to follow the side characters and such because I'm really awful with Japanese names, and seeing them rather than hearing them made it a lot easier for me to understand what the hell was going on and who Light wanted dead.

On the downside, the translation I read switched translators often, and sometimes there were drastic differences in names and such. One translation kept using question marks in place of commas, and it really threw me off. I also got a few interesting mistranslations, like L saying, "You can make love outside," when it was supposed to mean either "make out outside" or "make love out of this building." Either way, it was just sort of amusing. 

So I guess those are my thoughts, and totally spoiler free thoughts, too. Yay, me! 

Daily Art - "Fear the Reaper"

I made this using a gradient that I made from a picture of Light from Death Note. I think it was fitting that it turned out to look like a lot of little scythes.

Weird Things You Probably Don't Know About Me

I assume my boyfriend knows all of this stuff (since he lives with me), and I imagine a lot of it has come up around our closest friends as well. For the rest of you, I make no sense. These are in no particular order (sorry), and some are much more serious than others.

I eat my oatmeal dry.

It's gross when it's warm and mushy. D: I use a spoon and eat it right out of the packet.

I went to court for truancy.

In 4th grade, I had a lot of really bad friend issues. The girl I thought was my best friend was sort of terrible, and then she was worse when I decided I'd had enough of her. On top of it, there was this other girl that wasn't mature enough to handle any of the stuff we were going through. They were pretty much the only friends I had, and I missed a lot of school. In 5th grade, it was a new school building with the older grades, and the four elementary schools are all put together and shuffled around. The grade is split up into two "teams" where each team has like, 5 teachers. You might move around in your own team, but you would never do anything with the other team. That means I have like, no friends in my classes (in fact, there was only one person in my class that went to the same elementary school as I did), no one to talk to at lunch, and an unfamiliar environment. Instead of giving me help or trying to set it up so I could work from home because I clearly had severe issues, there was a time when I was carried by the principal to his office, forced onto a school bus, and generally humiliated on a regular basis by my teachers. I missed enough school that I had to go to the magistrate and risk going into foster care, which probably would have led to me running away or committing suicide, to be totally honest. My own family has trouble dealing with my food habits and personal endeavors; a new family would have no chance. Anyway, it all worked out and the one girl I knew sort of adopted me, and even though she lives across the country now, we're still great friends. I obviously stayed with my own family and continued on in school, only to later drop out against my will (though I should have done it anyway). Still, the whole experience was a big pile of trauma that I really didn't need.

I taught myself how to read.

I used to make my family read me stories constantly. I would follow along with the words, and before I knew it, I recognized tons of words. I was able to read books by myself without any of them lifting a finger to teach me anything. As I moved into more advanced books, I picked up grammar and punctuation like it was nothing. English classes refined what I already knew. I knew college-level grammar rules by middle school. Latin really helped pull it all together. After all, we had to understand our own grammar before we could put it in Latin.

I play trumpet really damn well.

I picked up the trumpet for band in 5th grade. Needless to say, my frequent absences made me one of the worst. I stayed after school with our horrible teacher, and she told me to quit and pick up a different instrument because I had an overbite. My dentist, by the way, says I do not. Anyway, I somehow learned it all really fast, because by freshman year of high school, I was the best of my grade's trumpets. All that with minimal at-home practicing (and none after like, 7th grade).

Dogs kind of scare me.

I've been around cats my whole life. When I was little, we had a dog, but we kept her outside, so I never interacted with her at all. When I went to friends' houses, sometimes they had dogs that would bark at me and jump on me and lick me. It was the scariest thing ever. I've pretty much gotten over it now, but I still don't like jumpy dogs. I'm usually just worried they'll knock me over and drool on me. I also don't want to get scratched by them, even though I know in most cases the dogs mean no harm.

I've never done laundry in my life.

I've helped at the laundromat before we had our own stuff, but that was when I was like, 10 and younger. Don't make me do laundry. It probably won't end well.

I taught myself how to cook.

I never cooked anything other than the occasional baked goods before I was 17 or so. When I started having health problems, my sleep schedule got all screwy, and I was often up at night with only my boyfriend. I learned how to make tons of baked goods, and from there, I taught myself how to do meats and stuff. Now I'm totally self-sufficient and make better meals than the rest of my family. I even have my own way of making rice, which I had never even eaten until a few months ago.

October is my favorite month. 

Fall is my favorite season. I love the temperature - perfect for a light jacket - and the smell of leaves. October is pretty great. I love Halloween, my birthday comes on the 23rd, and it's a whole month dedicated to pumpkin bread, hayrides, corn mazes, and pretty leaves.

A good example of Octoberness.

I'm terrified of soccer.

I have next to no coordination with my feet. I was lucky I survived marching band. Add to that an incident where I got hit in the face with a soccer ball and got really swollen, and you'll find that it's one of the worst things you can ever make me do. I'm just not aggressive enough to like sports, and in soccer, it's aggressive or get yelled at my the teacher.

I hate guys who give me special treatment because I'm female.

I've always had friends who were male. In elementary school, most of my friends were boys. In high school, the main group I hung out with (and still often see) was a bunch of big guys who played video games and looked really damn intimidating. Despite the fact that I was like, a third of their size and hardly played games, we got along great. I've had lots of my guy friends tell me they think of me as just "one of the guys," and that means a lot to me. To contrast, I've worked with people on projects who think they need to be careful not to offend the girl of the group. They're nice to me so they don't hurt my feelings. They don't joke with me about the same things, or tell me which porn stars they think are really hot. It's frustrating. In ways, I think on a more masculine level anyway; I don't care about the petty drama that a lot of girls do, and I don't feel the need to flirt with every male in the vicinity to get get what I want. The guys I'm used to don't care about any of that crap either. Also, despite the fact that some of them look like they could and would break someone in half, they're there to listen if I want to open up about a relationship I'm in or something. That's what I'm used to. I don't want the mindset that you shouldn't hit girls, that girls are easily upset, that girls get offended if you talk about your man parts, and etcetera. If you're a guy that really wants my friendship, than don't treat me any differently than the other guys you hang around. Give me the same hand-reddening high fives and complain about your girlfriend.

My religious views are confusing.

I'm not a Christian, but I believe God exists. I refuse to serve a being who supposedly created life with a free will and expects that life to obey his every command. That being said, I think most of the Bible is a load of crap. I believe most deities exist, and I do not believe any one of them is omnipotent, or even close to that. I think they are simply immortal beings on another plane of existence who offer protection to their followers. I believe there is a measure of truth in all religions, but I don't believe any of them entirely. Pagan beliefs are the closest to my own, so I suppose if I had to label myself, I'd say I was a pagan. I believe in an afterlife, and also in a form of reincarnation. I don't believe in an eternal punishment for your actions in your tiny amount of years on this Earth. I believe sin is dictated by the people of the world, not by a deity. I believe that we are here to learn about ourselves and our spirit's past forms on our way to bettering ourselves, much like the concept of Nirvana. I will not dedicate myself to a being. I have respect for the laws of society and the people I interact with, and I am doing what I can to improve the world of the living. I will not offer praise to a being on another plane of existence. I believe in fate, but not in karma. I believe our origins are mostly evolutionist. I think everything happens for a reason, and that if we spend a lifetime working towards one goal, that is how we were meant to spend that lifetime. Perhaps we'll never see it come to fruition, but a century later, the work will be recognized; maybe it was all useless, but it will prevent others from following the same path. Either way, I believe everything coincides with other events, and everything is connected.

I am allergic to two specific laundry detergents.

Gain and Dynamo both have a chemical that makes me really, really itchy. I don't know what chemical it is, so I don't know what others have it, but those two do for sure. I think it's the only specific allergy I have, other than nickel, which almost everyone has.

I would rather be in a snake pit than have one spider on me.

I like snakes. I think they're really cool, and I also know how to not agitate them. Spiders want me dead. Every time I see a spider, I ask someone to kill it. If they don't, it ends up crawling up my leg sometime later on. Never fails. It's like they see me as this all-you-can-eat buffet.

I can't wear thongs.

I disagree 100% with anyone who says they're comfortable.

I've never watched porn.

Seems awkward. XP

I'm slightly lactose intolerant.

I can eat milk in my cereal, but I prefer 2%. Whole milk makes me a little nauseous. A lot of 2% will, too, but it's usually okay to have a bowl or two of cereal. 1% and skim are just yucky.

I have really, really dry skin.

If I dry off too much with a towel, I might just disintegrate. 

I like guys with either blonde or black hair.

Even though they're opposites, those two colors are the best. Style depends drastically on the person, though I made this thing on DeviantART and noticed that I'll probably really like you if your face is obscured by your hair. (Mechazawa is a joke. Pay no attention to that. XD)

Also, I apparently like guys who are sadistic and/or mass murderers.

I can't stand whistling.

It gives me a very, very bad headache. I don't know why. If it's low, it's tolerable, but I still hate it.

I love really soft fabrics.

This is probably because of my dry skin, really. I'm way more likely to buy a shirt because of how soft it is over how nice it looks. Luckily, there's Deb, and most of the shirts they sell are both. I recently bought a nice blanket at Borders that's pretty much the softest thing I can use to make myself into a burrito. Best $16 I ever spent.

I flip between being dominating and submissive.

There are situations where I'm totally fine with taking orders, mostly when I don't want responsibility or want to trust someone's judgement. Other times, I want control over every minute detail. Let's not even go near the sexual implications of this.

I have weird elbows.

When I extend my arm, the joint can go past 180 degrees. I can actually touch the insides of my elbows together. My friends say they look broken. It's pretty funny. I'm also able to lick my elbow. 

I don't like chocolate things.

Specifically, chocolate cake, frosting, and ice cream. I love marble cake, though. It's my favorite. I can eat chocolate cake and icing, but they're usually just too sweet for me. I only ever do so when PMS drives me into a chocolate-craving frenzy. I always regret it afterwards.

I hate feminism.

Dear women of the world: without men, you wouldn't exist. My mother is one of those women who jumps at any opportunity to say things like "that's a guy for you" or "men are worthless." It gets irritating really fast. It's a good part of why I generally like guys more. Sure, you have the occasional remark about how women make no God damn sense, but there's never this idea that the world would be better without them. Feminist women seem to think we'll be able to reproduce asexually one day and that the male gender will become obsolete (my mother believes this, by the way), and I'm sorry (I'm not), but that's just ridiculous. Plus, I love men. They can fit any need, from cuddly and adorable to sex god. That's more than you can say about most women, who range from petty ditz to sort-of-compassionate ditz.

Look how cute it is. Don't you want one?

I'm pretty good at real-time strategy games.

Age of Mythology is a fantastic game, and I'm pretty decent at it. My able-to-do-500-things-at-once mind is very well suited to the multitasking you need for RTS games.

I'm a democrat.

Plain and simple. My views are pretty moderate, but definitely lean more left. 

So I guess that's about it for now. There's tons of other stuff I could add, but for now, I guess you know a little more about me that you probably didn't know already.

Daily Art - "Murciélago"

Named for Ulquiorra Cifer from Bleach. His sword is called Murciélago. I used his eye for the colors on this. I don't really like Bleach, but Ulquiorra is pretty damn cool. :P

People I Don't Find Attractive

There are plenty of people out there I find attractive, whether they're celebrities, fictional characters, musicians, or whatever. There are also a bunch of people that have tons of fan girls and I have no idea why, or, at the very least, I really disagree. Warning: really opinionated opinions.

L from Death Note
L is adorable - but in a way that makes me want to give him a cookie, not have his love children. I was actually really surprised when I first learned how huge his fan base was. I seem to be part of the minority that prefers Light. L just doesn't seem like he should have fan girls; he's sort of creepy in a lot of ways, always sitting hunkered over and spending all his time thinking. Especially when you put him next to Light, who is much better looking, in my opinion, and seems to have no trouble with girls.

Light doesn't get it either.

Hugh Laurie as Dr. House
This just doesn't make any God damned sense to me. He's a cranky old drug addict who is out of his mind.

He's in your medicine cabinet stealin' your drugs.

Robert Pattinson 
I read Twilight before it was a movie. I enjoyed it for the characters and such, and in all honesty, Edward is a guy I would enjoy spending time with myself. I should also mention that if I had pictured him as Robert Pattinson through my reading, I probably would have enjoyed the story a lot less. I really don't understand why he got the part. He just has really odd features, like that large jaw and eyes that look like they're glued open or something. I think he's sort of gross looking. I'm pretty convinced the only reason girls like him is because they read Twilight and like his character. No one gave him a second glance when he was in Harry Potter.

This picture is certainly not helping his case.

Jeffrey Donovan
He creeps me out. He has squinty little eyes and a weird mouth. I feel like he's trying to absorb my soul. I know lots of people love him on Burn Notice. As far as I'm concerned, unless his character makes him drastically change his appearance, he'll be just as creepy and I will be just as likely to wonder why he looks like that while watching him act.

@_@

Ichigo Kurosaki from Bleach
There's nothing wrong with Ichigo...there's no reason for him to have so many fans, either, though. I mean, out of all the characters on that freaking show, why go for one of the least interesting ones? I don't like the show much, but I'm an Ulquiorra fan myself, and there are probably at least 5 others I'd place above Ichigo.

Maybe it's that orange hair. I hate orange.

Muscle Men
Just in general, I don't like guys that are super heavily muscled. A little muscle is nice, and I'm totally okay with scrawny twigs as well. You'll just never find me searching for muscle men on the computer when I think no one is looking.

This is an acceptable amount of sexy.

Daily Art - "Turbulance"

I like this one a lot. The colors are taken directly from a picture of Lelouch, a gradient I actually use quite often. I really like that dark purple.

Daily Art - "Number 4"

I'm currently working on two Halloween costumes - one for myself, and one for my friend. He's going as Ulquiorra Cifer from the anime Bleach. We've spent so much time trying to find this single color of make-up for his face. XP

Code Geass - The Nightmare of Nunnally

I just spent the past few days reading all of the Code Geass manga. I don't know why. I just felt like doing it. Today I finished The Nightmare of Nunnally, which is among the most confusing things I've ever read. I'm not entirely sure what just happened. Lots of little details didn't fit, either. Apparently Lelouch can sprout wings? When did that happen? I don't know...not a fan so much. It was sort of messy and extremely difficult to follow.

What is this? I don't know.

The Twilight Issue

Twilight haters are everywhere. They're as obnoxious (if not more so) than the avid fans. Right here, in one post, I'd like to show each side the flaws in their arguments, because I really hate seeing stupid, incorrect, and poorly thought through attacks that the fans and haters have launched at each other.

I'd like to start off by saying that I honestly enjoyed the books. I've heard Stephanie Meyer's writing style criticized as being simplistic, but the story is told by a teenage girl, not a bard or a scholar. Simplistic fits. Also, the book was not written for the same audience as Lord of the Rings; it was written for teenagers. I think the writing style arguement should be scrapped.

I've also heard the argument that the characters are stupid, the plot is stupid, and so on. I think the characters behaved as most teenagers would in their situations. I think the plot was unique and not all that bad.

Then there's the vampire issue. Vampires do not exist in real life. They are fantasy. Most people think of vampires as pale, but the first vampire myths portrayed them as bloated and purple from drinking blood. Authors changed how we saw vampires over time. The Twilight vampires are definitely not what we usually see, but that doesn't make them bad. Should we be comparing World of Warcraft elves to Lord of the Rings elves? No. Enough said.

I was throughly disappointed with the movies. Robert Pattinson does not look or sound as Edward should. He slurs his words together and doesn't have the formal way of speaking that Edward has in the story. Kristen Stewart just kind of sucks at acting. Actors aside, I think the movies left out way too much of the emotion. in the books, you really see the love between Bella and Edward. You see Edward's humor, charm, and compassion, none of which comes through in the movie. The movie really makes it seem like they fell in love overnight for no real reason.

I've seen a lot of really dumb arguments against Twilight pop up recently, too. I found a group of people who called Twilight a rip-off of Death Note. Do you know what the basis of the argument was? The apple on the cover. Some people actually believe that Stephanie Meyer was watching her anime one day and saw Ryuk eat an apple, then thought, "I'm going to write a story about vampires!" Twilight and Death Note have absolutely nothing in common, and the apple isn't even the main focus of each story. How, then, can Twilight be a rip-off of Death Note? It's not like Bella found a death note, or the gods of death are trying to kill her, or anyone in the story is trying to play God.

Those are my thoughts. I just wish people would stop being so obnoxious without knowing what the hell they're talking about.

Caught up with Death Note...

Time to move on to Code Geass. I had seen more of Death Note than I realized, so that didn't take me long. I missed the vast majority of Code Geass, though, and since it isn't on TV at the moment, I'll be watching the whole series. This could take a while.

A Week in My Life

This week will give you a good idea of my life, and seeing as this is my first blog post, I'd say that's a good place to start. If you've seen my profile at all, I'm a craft fanatic. I've spent my life making everything from cookies to wreaths to wooden gumball machines. This weekend is the second ever Oddmall, a craft fair in Hudson, Ohio. I travelled six hours to the first with my mother and my boyfriend Tim. That was in May. I did well, met some awesome people, bought some cool stuff...overall had a great time. The website is http://www.oddmall.info/ for those of you interested in what the show has to offer. My business is Dragonistic, vendor #1.

On Monday of this week, my mother bought me a laptop as a belated birthday gift. Im typing from this shiny new HP now, as a matter of fact. Yesterday I used it to watch about 12 episodes of Death Note. I've never been one for anime - in fact, I hate the vast majority of it. Death Note and Code Geass are the exceptions. Congrats to the writers for creating something even I enjoy.

Just browsing the internet, I found some pretty interesting things over the past couple days. One slice of awesomeness I encountered was this comic book character costume. I have no idea who she is, but it's very well done. On the same site I found a link to an artist's website. Jeffrey Thomas has a collection of "Twisted Princesses," his take on classic Disney figures. Personally, Jasmine is my favorite. One of the most amusing things I found was http://www.regretsy.com/, a blog of horrible items for sale on the craft site Etsy. Before you check that out, be warned that there is adult content on the site. I love the comments of the woman running the site. It's hilarious.

I think that's about all I have to say. I'll keep finding fun things and writing about them as time passes. Thanks for taking the time to hear my crazy ramblings. :)