Laaaame

For some reason I'm feeling hopelessly lame right now. Maybe I just did too much yard work earlier today. Or maybe the two massive projects that are due in a week are terrifying the hell out of me... Except I just can't get my brain to cooperate and focus on them.

Birthday and Anime Update

Whoa, it's my birthday today.
Although a bunch of friends came over for a party yesterday (a crazy, insane party), I didn't really do much today. Considering how insane the last couple of months have been, it was a nice change to relax for a while. Dad took me out to lunch. I watched the last half of Nausicaa and started Princess Mononoke. I worked on my yukata a bit, but too. And I did some straightening around my room, but the pile on my desk didn't decrease by as much as I would have hoped.
But tomorrow I got to get back to work on the two big projects I have. Maybe I'll be able to short my short story for my fiction class. I've been looking forward to starting it.

So, I thought I'd talk a bit about the stuff I've been watching. I've touched on a couple things, but I guess I'll talk a bit more about it. Some stuff might be repeated from previous posts.
So, I finished InuYasha a while ago. I liked the first part of it (the first 15 or so volumes of the books) but then it started getting lamer and lamer. I wanted to know how it ended, so I read through the end. The end wasn't done very well. Considering how much I put up with to reach the end, I was expecting something significantly more awesome. A while ago, I watched almost up to the part where I got bored of the manga. Maybe I'll watch the last couple episodes eventually.
I read One Piece up through the Alabasta arc. There's some stuff I like about it, but I'm not sure I'll read any farther. Eventually, I will try the anime though. I'll see how far I feel like watching.
And since they have Naruto at the library, I've been reading some of that. I think I'm pretty much through the Chunin exam thing. Again, there's some parts I like. I might stop when it feels like I've reached a resolution, and I'll see how I feel later. Again, might try some of the anime eventually.
I read the original Yu-Gi-Oh manga because they had it at the library. It was okay. There was some interesting stuff in it.
I think I posted about Yotsuba. It's fun. I liked that one.
And I've read a little bit of Petshop of Horrors. I like parts of it, and I find it interesting. So far, I think it has potential.
At the library, I found this one manga called Animal Academy, and it sounded interesting so I tried it out. From my perspective, it had potential. It was this school where different animals went to learn how to be human. It's not that great though, even if do like the animal people.
As I mentioned, I am currently watching the anime of XXXHolic. It's pretty good, but I like the manga better, mainly because of the art, I think.
And I'm watching Rurouni Kenshin. I haven't watched any recently, but I've been going really slow on all of this because of other stuff. I'll give it a bit more chance, but the manga is definitely better.
And I've been reading Natsume Yuujinchou. It's pretty close to the anime. I think I enjoyed the anime more, actually.
Just finished reading Buso Renkin (they had it at my library). Way back when Ellen and Nicole started getting me into anime, I saw a button at the top of a manga website that you could click to get a random manga. So, I clicked it and got Buso Renkin. I read the first chapter or two and found it midly interesting. I figured I'd read more of it later. About two years later, I read Rurouni Kenshin to later discover that Kenshin is currently my favorite character. Then I discovered that that one manga out of hundreds was done by the same author of Kenshin. It was okay. Not amazing. The ending really bugged me because it was so rushed and crowded. Then I discovered that it was canceled so he had to cram everything into a short amount of space. There was some fun stuff in it. I liked Rurouni Kenshin better. Papillon is amusing.
And as you know, I liked The Twelve Kingdoms and managed to get the first book. And recently because of my increasing standards and from reading Limyaael's blog, it's become very hard for me to find, and even tolerate, a lot of the fantasy books I've picked up recently. Sigh. And fantasy is my favorite genre too. I think it had to do with me knowing the anime, but I finished the first Twelve Kingdoms book in about a week (thanks to long train rides and waiting in Dad's office and sitting in class before it starts). I haven't finished a book that quickly in a long time. I got the second book for my birthday, and I ordered the last two, and they arrived today. I wanted to finish the book I'm in the middle of (nonfiction, which I seem to reading more of lately, even though I read them slower) I couldn't wait and I started the second Twelve Kingdoms book. The fourth book surprised my by being incredibly fat. Anyway, glad to have a fantasy series that I'm happy with.
Haven't played many games recently. Haven't finished any since Skyward Sword. I forgot about Link's Awakening for a long time, even though I only had one dungeon left. I haven't played my Nuzlocke since I last posted about it. And I still haven't beaten the Elite Four in Pokémon White yet. I've been training for it VERY SLOOOWLY. I've made almost no progress on that weird Pokémon Rumble Blast. I haven't played Zelda Master Quest in ages. And maybe some day I'd like to finish the Original 2 Zelda games that I have for the Game Cube. And what I'd really like to finish is the game Crystal lent me: Golden Sun.
Sigh. All my poor, neglected games.

Welp, gotta finish editing my fanfic chapter, which I was hoping to have up last night. Except I got distracted because I found the new Fullmetal Alchemist movie online: The Sacred Star of Milos. It was pretty good. Not quite as awesome as I was hoping though.

Korra and Katniss

So, Nick and I went and saw The Hunger Games today. It was pretty good. I'm glad they didn't screw it up (which would have been really easy to do with a book like Hunger Games). The book was still better, but the movie was pretty good.
The cinematography was a bit odd. It was rather bouncy in a lot of places, and it slid in and out of focus. They did it on purpose, and I think a little of it would have been effective. But there was a bit much of it. It was sort of hard to get your bearings.
(Spoilers)
They also didn't really tell you that Katniss DIDN'T fall in love with Peeta, and she only did it to keep the both of them alive. And I wish they'd given you more of Rue so that her death would be much more devastating.
(Spoilers end)
But you know, there will always be something missing when a book turns into a movie. It was pretty good.

And they released the first 2 episodes of Legend of Korra today! They're only up for the weekend, so if you want to see the first 2 episodes right not in high quality, hurry up!
http://www.korranation.com/
Even with 2 episodes, I'm already excited! Woot! Can't wait to see the rest! It looks AWESOME! Laughed so hard already!!

Breaaaak Finallly

Finally on spring break. I neeeed it soooooooooo bad too. This semester is murdering me. I barely have time to do anything besides school work. It's a combination of too much time spent in classes (I have classes 4 days a week during most of the day, and I volunteer and work on my group project on Fridays), and too much work from those classes.
And because of that "too much work," I don't even get much of a spring break. I have two REALLY BIIIG projects due right after break.
So, yeah. Complaining a bit to let off some "school steam."
Gonna work on my fanfic soon. I've been neglecting it.

The Lorax and Arrietty

So, I went and saw the Lorax today. I love the book, and the movie was pretty good. Could have done without some of the songs I guess (although I liked "Let it Grow," and "How Bad Can I Be" was interesting too), but overall I liked it. Very colorful. And it's a good environmental movie. Don't judge me if I cry when they cut down the last Truffula tree. TT^TT (Or knock down Home Tree).
I liked their view on big businesses. Especially the bottled air. It's completely true too. We just watched a video about bottled water. It's infinitely more expensive that tap water. The quality is no better (the standards for tap water are higher than for bottled water). And bottled water is TERRIBLE to the environment.
I liked the way they did the Once-ler. He wasn't a bad person, but he got corruputed by greed, like so many successful people do.
Made me want to draw a picture of the main characters from all the good environmental movies (mainly cartoons) like Princess Mononoke, Avatar, Pocahontas, Fern Gully, and so on. And Fern could be standing there, and the caption would say something dramatic like "I am Fern and we speak for the trees!"
There don't seem to be many good movies about the environment, especially ones kids can enjoy. And they're mostly about "don't cut down trees." Sigh. That's a good theme, but there's so much more than that.

Also, I don't think I ever wrote about seeing the Ghibli Arrietty movie in Theaters. I wrote about it when I watched it on the computer, but never about the English version.
Not a bad dub. It bugged me that they changed the names. And the original Arrietty theme is really pretty. Not only that, but the artist wrote an English version. And yet they put in some random pop song during the ending title. So, go listen to the REAL ending of "The Secret Life of Arrietty." Although, they didn't butcher this ending song as much as they did Ponyo's. That still @!$$#$ me off that they turned Ponyo's theme into a rap song. Not once have I been able to force myself to listen to the entire thing. I've tried to listen to it, but I can't stand it and always turn it off before I get to the end. Ugh. Damn you, Disney. Stop trying to change things.

With both the Lorax and Arrietty, the theater was full of kids, which made things fun. You got to hear them laugh and everything. During Arrietty especially, there was what seemed like a whole classroom. And when they rescued Arrietty's Mom, this tiny little girl cheered. It was adorable.
I guess the next movie to see is The Hunger Games. Hope they do a good job.

Pokemon Adventures Openings

So, my essay is due tomorrow, which of course means that I'm finding ways to distract myself. (Actually, I'm feeling pretty good about my essay so far, except today I just got a bunch more assignments. Anyway, I won't whine about homework anymore).
So, I like the Pokémon Adventures (Pokémon Special) manga. I think it would be fun if they at least did some episodes of it. The anime they have going now is realllly lame and repetitive, and has been so for a loong time. Why not tap into this manga that's becoming pretty popular?
Apparently plenty of people share this idea.
I actually discovered these a while ago. Some people actually designed openings for a theoretical Pokémon Adventures Manga. There' about 20 of them, but a lot of them are kind of still pictures. Here's some of the better animated ones.







Actually, there's a couple music videos i'd like to try making at some point, from Pokémon songs. Mainly based on my fanfic. One I've had in mind for a few years, based on the song "My Best Friends."
Then about a week ago, I was going though and playing a bunch of opening songs to some of the anime I've seen parts of. Eventually I got to Pokémon and found a couple Japanese image songs that would be fun to do. I'd kinda like to sing a sort of translation of them, twisting it to fit Cara's Pokémon and her travels, ex (I'm not sure I can fin the instrumentals of the songs to sing along with, so maybe play a flute version?) I could have a sort of drawing/animation thing to go along with it. One of the songs is called Lapras ni Notte, and I could have Cara riding her Lapras through the ocean, with some of her other water Pokémon, maybe.


The other is called Minna de Arukou. Cara could sing about Polaris, and one of her other Pokémon (Maybe Charizard or something). Ben could do a verse about one of his Pokémon (Tauros or Blastoise, maybe). I'd need to recruit a guy to sing him for me, probably. Hari could sing about his Grovyle. I might be able to sing for him.


I those those two because they have the Pokémon actually taking part in the song. Maybe I'll try to do some of the Pokémon sounds myself. Heheh. I think my Caterpie call terrified Nicole, though I don't know if it was in a good way.
Anyway, it's something I'd like to try some time, though not for a while. Maybe Ellen can help. She's learning some animation stuff, I think. :3

Nuzlocke Update

Ehh. Wonder if I should even continue with this... No one cares about it. And the fact that I forgot to update for a week is probably a sign. Did defeat the Cianwood gym last week. Wednesday or Thursday or something. And caught a bunch of Pokémon before that.
Whatever. Maybe I'll just mention gym victories and if I change my main team and stuff.

Out of Print

It finally came! I got my book in the mail! After a couple weeks of diligent searching, I finally found a good copy of the first book of Twelve Kingdoms for only $10! Wahahahah! Can't wait to start reading it. I wish I didn't have so many projects due in the next couple weeks...
I don't think books should ever go out of print. It always seems very sad to me. I think as long as there are people who want to read a book, they should be able to get a copy without too much hassle.
They should also do that with figures and stuff. There are figures from older series that I'd really like, but they're insanely expensive because they're old. And not all of them are even high quality. They should keep a cast of them around in case someone wants to order another one. That would be awesome.
We should never let people discontinue making awesome things.

Fiction Writing

I'm not actually sure I mentioned this on the blog yet, but I'm taking a fiction writing class this semester. It was full, so I'm not officially enrolled, but I really wanted to take it and it will probably be my last chance, so I'm just sitting in. Considering this is a really busy semester, I kind of wish I was getting credit for it though.
It's a fun class. Until a couple weeks ago, we'd discuss different parts of a story, like character, setting, ex, and did different exercises about them.
There was a table full of objects and we had to start writing about one. We couldn't stop until our time ended. I wrote about a baby shoe.
We described the person who was sitting across from us. And we also wrote a description of one of our characters.
Then we all left the classroom and went somewhere to describe the setting (I went to the pool).
And we chose one of our characters and wrote five things they wanted, what was preventing them from getting it, and how they eventually got it (or didn't get it). That's an important part of a story, especially for stuff to be character-driven. Character-driven stuff can be really important. It's a lot more interesting than if a character just gets stuck in an event and swept along with it. We should be able to see how the character influences his own story (There are a few good stories that aren't necessarily like this though).
A few weeks ago, we started doing something different. Throughout the semester, everyone will bring in 2 or 3 short stories. A couple of us will pass out stories every day, and the class will read them before the next class. Then we'll all discuss them - what they're about, what was good about them, and what can be improved upon. I actually signed up for the first day, which was a couple weeks ago. I kept forgetting to post about it. So they talked about my story (and you're not aloud to talk when people are talking about your story). I might post it on the blog when I get around to fixing all the stuff people mentioned.
And tomorrow another of my stories is due.
It's one I've had planned for a while. It's going to be a longer thing, so I'm just working on the beginning. Except I can't shrink it too much without making it sound too sucky. It's actually based on a really vivid dream I had a while ago about this rich boy who s kind of ignored by his parents and really wants a friend. So an angel that grants wishes comes to him and helps him sort of make a friend out of shadows, and the shadows turn into a boy every night and they hang out and play.
I want to write more of it now... Gotta get out of this semester first.
And I desperately need to edit Katani's story...

So, I've also been reading the short stories of other students. I think it's helping me to read stuff and figure out what needs to be fixed, and what was done well. We've only had about 4 other stories so far, but I'm interested to see what the others will write when their turn comes.

Leopard Person Fern

It was only when I started seeing really good anthro art that I started wanting to draw one myself. I turned it into an anthro of Fern's clouded leopard Fern (I'm gonna make a sort of reference page for her leopard form because both pictures I have of her like that are from the one side, so I need to figure out what her other side looks like). Anyway, she's studying heiroglyphs, or something, on the mountain face.
I finished the lineart a really really long time ago, and finally finished coloring.

I like the bottom left corner.
I kinda started getting lazy on the mountains in the background, because that and the sky were the last things I did.
(You kinda have to see the full-view for it to look at all good, so I suggest looking at it on DA).

And it looks like I never uploaded this picture, even though I scanned it ages ago.
This is a circumstance in which Fern might make the "oro" face. And it's so funny when kittens fluff out their tails that I wanted to try drawing it.