Background Action

So, although it's not really late, I'm sharing a room with Mom, who's sleeping about four feet away from me. I didn't think she got up that early, but apparently she's really tired. Though she wasn't the one playing volleyball in the crazy dry heat all day (though the heat could have been infinitely worse). So I'm pretty tired too. And staring at a bright laptop screen in a dark room really sucks, even when the screen's turned down all the way.
We're up in Nevada City, at the Ananda Village.
There's a professional film being made, with a real Hollywood actress as the protagonist, and some other professional actors involved as well. I don't know most of the details yet, but I'll keep ya posted. And it's too dark to look up the main actress's name. So you'll get that tomorrow.
Although I'd happily be proved wrong, I don't think this movie will be in most theaters. Again, I'll keep you posted. I'm sure it's got a ways to go before it's officially released.
Anyway, most of this film is being shot up at the Ananda Village. They needed extras, so Mom and I came up to help during the weekend.
When Mom was organizing things, she discovered that there is going to be a volleyball game taking place in the background during one of the scenes we're helping with. So she signed me up to play voleyball.
I was excited, because volleyball is one of the few sports I'm decent at, but I really only ever play it when I come up to the Ananda Village. The last time I took part in a real game (or at least, a full team of decent players playing mostly by the rules) was summer of last year.
When we arrived at the set, they told me that I wasn't supposed to be on the volleyball team. Apparently the guy Mom talked to didn't pass on the information that I was signed up. Which was really annoying, because I'd so been looking forward to playing volleyball. Even if it was really how and dry out, and the field/court had no shade.
But Mom and I checked in with a couple people, and they said that I could be on the team. So I went back and told the lady that seemed to be organizing the volleyball stuff.
We played a few games as warm-up.
And then the lady came up and said that I shouldn't be on the team because I wasn't good enough.
What the hell! I'd only hit the ball a few times! I know I'm not an expert! But none of the other players are either. Sure, I missed some and sent some flying in odd directions. EVERYONE ELSE DID TOO. Many times. And I got in some good hits too.
Really frustrated this time, since they'd already tried to kick me out once.
As I left to figure out what I should do now, I ran into Asha. She's one of the two head people at the Ananda nearest my house. I know her a bit, and was talking to her earlier about how excited I was to do volleyball. So she asked me why I was looking for a new place. I told her they kicked me out.
I went and sat under a tree to read a book, figuring that that was how I'd appear in the background. Then Asha came up and said that she'd get me back into the game, since I'd come all the way up here to play volleyball.
And she did. A few minutes later, another woman came up to me and said that I was to tell the "volleyball woman" (whose name I don't know) that I was going to play volleyball. She must have had significant authority. Because although the volleyball lady was reluctant, she let me join the team.
Thank you, Asha TT^TT
I got to play my volleyball.
And I'm not that freaking bad at volleyball. But I think that lady was doing some sort of silent protest. Because only once during the entire five-hours on-and-off playing did she directly pass me the ball. And she only let me be setter maybe once or twice. I admit that I'm not the best setter. But this isn't a profesional game! We're just background noise! And can't you be more subtle about trying to exclude me? Sheesh! What un-Ananda like behavior!
The rest of the team was good. And we got some really good games going too. And everyone made plenty of mistakes. Including me. But everyone made a ton of amazing moves. Including me.
So, yeah. I had to fight to get my yearly volleyball in. Though I couldn't have gotten it without Asha.
As to the rest of the film stuff.
Most of the people were sitting at tables in front of the market. This was supposed to be a simulation of the Friday pizza nights. Except it's Saturday. And none of it was at night. It was from about 1:00 to 6:00.
But the market was spruced up really nice.
Mom was standing under the porch during most of the shoots. Which didn't look fun. That area was turning into something of a greenhouse.
They had people timed to walk or bike past in the background. They re-shot the first scene a bunch of times. So these two little girls biked past us over and over.
They started cameras a ton of times for each scene. I guess cause they need so many takes. No idea how many separate scenes they shot. Since I was in the field playing volleyball, I didn't see any of the actual acting and scenes.
But at the end, they came and took a closer-up video of us playing volleyball. Which, of course, was after all of us were hot, sweaty, sunburned, and grass-stained. I had green smeared all over one of my favorite pairs of pants. --_-- And I was stupid and dumped a bunch of water on my head right before they did the close-up of us. So there were big wet spots on my shirt.
I smothered my shoulders and chest in sunscreen. I'd gotten my shoulders and neck pretty well burned/tanned over the summer, but I decided to be safer this time. Though I completely forgot about my lips, so they got all burned. They feel all funky and hot. Even though I've currently got chapstick all over them. Hopefully it'll help.
I think we had a lot more fun than the people sitting at the tables, eating pizza (especially because we got to eat some pizza too!).
We're going to help with a couple scenes tomorrow, so I'll let ya know how that goes.

1000 POSTS

Wow, you guys! We just passed out 1000the post!
That's amazing!

And you know, some day I'm gonna clear out a bunch of the old, lame posts. So, it's conceivable that there may be a second 1000th post celebration! Hahah!

Eevee Family

I was so bad today. I did very little of the stuff I was supposed to do.
But it's nice to have an occasional slack-off day.
And I finally finished making Flareon! So I have the whole set now.

My first Eevee team from my fanfic. Flarga the Flareon, Jarday the Jolteon, and Vaardesh the Vaporeon. They're all siblings. Jarday is the only female, however.

Maybe instead of reading homework I'll write the last part of mt graduate application...
Or at least for a little while longer.

Comic practice

Lots of posts today.
I was gonna wait and upload a whole bunch together, but I'll just put these up now.
So... I draw in class. Probably too much. Sometimes I draw comics. I've got several comic ideas. But I don't draw them fast enough, so they build up.
I don't know if any of these are funny. That's okay. They're just practice.
The first one I finished probably near the beginning of last semester. It's based off Heart Gold. When I was taking on Team Rocket's base, I got soooo many phone calls from Crystal's mom! It got really annoying after a while.

Here's some stupid thing I thought when I saw these FMA figure.
Two pages.

Here's the second one that I finished maybe last week.
Nothing specific going on here. I guess you could set it on my Magic-Earth. The little girl was Touched, so she got her own wings.
Three pages

So let me know what ya think. I'm working on another one right now, from Katani's story. Art is much better. And It's funnier too. I'll make the dialogue more readable also.

Twilight

Hmm. I debated for a while, and realized that I should post picture of these guys.
Because Twilight is a character of mine, from my Pokémon fanfic.
I finished him a couple weeks ago. He took a while, but I looooves him!
My baby Mewtwo. :3

I have a few more, but I'll post those once I finish the 3rd in the set.

Mekki

Another late post. Heheh.
I went to a request stream by ShadeofShinon.
It was a pretty unusual stream, as you can tell from the bottom two pictures. But it was fun.

First of all:
"Awwww! Waka hugging Chii! Toooo cuuute!"

Second of all, recognize anyone familiar?
:3
She drew Mekki for me. ^-^

Twelve... years? More?

Confused and a bit annoyed.
I looked online to find translations of the Twelve kingdoms books that weren't released in America. I found one site that hadn't finished translating the next book in the set (which I believe is about the girl queen that Shoukei had to serve). I'll have to look around to see if anyone else finished translating that one. There's also a book about Taiki as he's stuck in Japan. Apparently it was writting before the rest of Twilve Kingdoms. Sounds Interesting. I'll have to fish it out.
Earlier today, I finished reading a web translation of The Shore at Twilight, The Sky at Daybreak. It's about (minor spoilers) Risai traveling to Kei to beg Youko to help Tai. Because, as is shown in the anime, Tai has lost both Taiki and Gyousou. Youko convinces the kirin from several other kingdoms to travel to her world to search for Taiki.
So, first of all what confuses me. I don't like reading stuff on the computer, because it makes my eyes feel funny after a while. And yet I kept returning to read this book. Why? There wasn't much action in this book. It was almost entirely people talking and explaining what had happened. A lot of the parts that could have been made really exciting weren't even given a lot of detail. A lot of stuff was explained by the characters, as opposed to being directly experienced by the reader.
So... why? Even though I kept thinking of this throughout the book, I still couldn't get away from it.
Sure, there was that whole element about "where's Taiki?" And I'm sure that contributed.
But I think they could also get away with it because all of the characters had been well established already. So instead of listening to random people ramble on, I was following characters that I was already involved with.
And another reason. One of the things I really admire about Twelve Kingdoms is the world-building. The author obviously spent a lot of time figuring out how people in this strange place would live and behave. And she definitely spent a lot of time on the government. She also doesn't let characters get away with stuff. For example (spoilers for this book) Youko fills her court with a lot of the people we met in Skies of Dawn (the one with Shoukei and Suzu). Which makes perfect sense to me. These were people that she trusted, that helped her and had her back without even knowing who she was. They were people that she was willing to trust her life to. Yet these people were commoners. Half-beasts. Rebels, even. Imagine what the existing court thought of the empress elevating so many commoners to be her closest companions? Honestly, I didn't give that much thought. But some of Youko's court were pretty mad about that.
Also, Twelve Kingdoms takes things that seem overdone, and treats them with more depth. For example, a girl is spirited away to some strange land. She has no idea why. And - gasp - what do you know? She's really the queen!
OK... so ordinary girl... spirited away... secretly royalty. Those two things have been done to death. But these things present so many problems that most books skim over, or just don't address. For example, language barriers and disease. Well, there's a reason those aren't an issue, and it's clearly explained. And while at the end the queen is finally able to achieve her throne, her problems sure aren't over. For a girl with no experience, even of the basic rules of this strange new world, ruling a country ain't no picnic.

So, why have I been eating these books? Because the characters are so believable, and because the world-building is really helpful to me, as I build my own worlds.
This world is so... believable.


And now on to part two. Why I'm frustrated.
Because this book came out in 2001! She left us with (spoilers again) Taiki and Risai flying off to the broken-down and dangerous land of Tai, with each of them completely helpless! Risai is wanted, which will make it difficult for her to go anywhere civilized. Not to mention the place is swarming with demons. Risai only has one arm, so she can't even fight. Taiki's horn is still sealed, so he can't use any of his magic. And Sanshi and Gohran still can't appear. We don't even know if the two of them are continuing to go crazy.
And isn't Hou's kirin missing? And isn't Ryuu in the process of falling?
HOW CAN YOU MAKE US WAIT FOR OVER A DECADE to find out whether or not they find Gyousou? If Taiki is able to become a kirin again? If Gyousou is able to restore the court, of which most of the loyal ones have been killed?
What happens to Tai?
TELL MEEEEE!
TT^TT

Fact of the day: Burrowing owls don't burrow. They use burrows that were made by other animals, such as the California ground squirrel.

Split!

I think it's been at least two years that it's been sitting on my desk. Thought it might actually be closer to three years, come to think about it...
And I finally filed it away in with my old story stuff, so I don't have to stare at it anymore!
Now to explain what the hell I'm talking about.
A few years ago, I finished writing the first draft of the story, Shadow Split. This was the second of Briena's stories.
The thing was, all of it was hand-written.
And it's pretty bad too. But all that writing definitely gave me a lot of good practice.
I started typing it a little while after I finished. I got a big hunk of it done... two years ago. And then I limped along for a few more chapters. Then for a solid year and a half, it just sat on my desk, beneath my computer, usually with a bunch of other papers sitting on top of it.
And last night I finally told myself, "Forget it! This story is broken and bad anyway. What's the point of typing out what I have?"
I'm sure that some day I'll re-write some of Briena's stuff. But when I do, I'll probably change everything. When the time comes, I may reference my first draft for a couple things. But it's just a waste of time trying to work on that weird, random thing that lives in the red binder.
If I do rewrite Briena's story, I'll probably trash pretty much everything in the first two books anyway. It's her later stories that are more interesting. It'll take a lot of time to rebuild her. Since I've already done so much with her, it might be hard since that bad version of her is still in my mind.
I'll have to think about that some. Have some deep conversations with Briena.
Except I still haven't finished my application for the graduate program... So I haven't worked enough on Katani's story and my fanfic. Katani is my top story priority for the time.
But I've been drawing a bunch of character's from Katani's story! And I've got a much better image of some of them.
Young Tyra and Katani you've seen. And you've seen the one with Kazuhi and the (still nameless) lieutenant. I finished lineart for Tri and Selven a few days ago. And less than an hour ago I finished the lineart for Dominic and Nam. Next I have to do Saris and Samara. And then Kazuhi and Chao (and then all of the Green Team).
And I've thought of a bunch of things to change for the first three chapters. Though I might not go back to them for a while, since I've spent so much time staring at them recently.

You're too Big to Carry!

Another picture I finished.
Katani and Tyra.

Tyra's getting too big to carry, but she still likes Katani to carry her.

Dumpster Diving

I just finished a surprisingly fascinating documentary called Dive.
What was it about? Dumpster Diving.
I hadn't thought much about it before. And although I doubt I'd ever actually do it, I think the people that do have a good idea.
So much stuff is thrown away. Perfectly good stuff.
Grocery stores throw away bags of food all the time. Food that is completely edible. They throw food away before the sell-by date, or they trash a whole bag of fruit because one piece of it is starting to go bad.
the amount of waste is pretty disgusting.
With thousands of thousands of people not knowing where their next meal is coming from, or starving, we have dumpsters full of food which is in perfect shape.
Although many of these stores donate food to food banks, still a lot of food ends up in the garbage.
Dumpster divers go into the dumpsters and salvage this food. And the guy said he'd never once gotten sick from it.
When you think about how many resources go into making food, and how much some people need food, it's disgusting how much is wasted.
It's not just markets. Households waste a lot of food too. And restaurants. People throw away leftovers. People eat out and don't bring home whatever food is leftover.
I've been raised to not waste food. So I'm always surprised when I see how much is thrown away at restaurants, or in leftovers.
Please, don't waste food.

Food is not a luxury that can be wasted. It's a necessity for life. And we shouldn't waste what we have. But we shouldn't waste anything. Our society is built on waste. And we can't keep that up. Our world has limits.

It takes 7 pounds of corn and 2,500 gallons of water to get one pound of beef.
40% of the world's grain goes to feeding meat animals.
19% of our energy goes into making food.
We waste about 96 BILLION POUNDS of food every year, which is worth $136 billion.

565 Gigatons

I just read this article for one of my classes.
It's called "Global Warming's Terrifying New Math," by McKibben. If you can find it, I recommend you read it.
There was one rather terrifying thing he talked about in it.
Basically, that atmosphere can only take about 565 more gigatons of carbon before it starts going into irreversible feedback loops that mess up climate.
The problem is that oil companies have almost five times that much that they are able to extract and sell.
These companies have a lot of power.
And that oil is worth a helluva lot of money.
How do you stop them from selling over 2,000 gigatons worth of carbon?

Fact of the day: It takes 75 gallons of oil to raise a steer to slaughter.

Don't Be Too Good

Hey, it's been a while, but I'm returning to the book Poemcrazy!
Don't always be good.
That doesn't mean that you have to be bad. All it means is that you can be not-good sometimes. If you always try to do the right thing, to please everyone, you could suffocate. Look at Yoko from the Twelve Kingdoms.
So, maybe when no one's around, go tearing wildly through a field, flapping your arms and howling. Or get into a wrestling match with your dog or cat (or mom). Do something that would make those refined, ladies wearing frilly collars gasp in horror.

Now tying that into stories! What does your character do to be "not good" when no one else is around?

Fact of the day: Lactose intolerant - when a person lacks the enzyme lactase, which is necessary for digesting milk and milk products. Though it may be hard to believe in today's society, people are naturally lactose intolerant. Which makes sense. Animals don't need to drink milk once they're old enough to eat solid food. If a human infant continues to drink milk as he/she grows, he/she is less likely to be lactose intolerant.

People That Aren't People

As I have said before on the blog, I love animal-people. Either shape-shifters, or people with animal traits (ears/tail/ex), or animals that take on human shapes.
This can be expanded to include plant people too. Like Cheza, from Wolf's Rain. And today, Mom and I went to see The Odd Life of Timothy Green in theaters. Timothy is adorable. And I'm not sure if I think that mainly because he's a plant person. But there's this one part where he's practicing soccer, and he keeps tripping over the ball. He stands up and grins. And the coach demands, "Why are you smiling?" And Timothy says, "I can only get better!"
:3
But my love of animal/plant people can be expanded even further in some cases. People that aren't people. The best example I can think of right now is FMA. The homunculus. In this case, Wrath. I don't mean the Wrath from the books or from Brotherhood. I mean the Wrath from the first anime. I modeled Hari (the boy in my Pokémon fanfic) after him. I liked wrath before he got brainwashed by Envy.
And then Greed too. Both Greeds, I guess.
Or Kurama and Hiei, from Yuyu Hakusho. I like to count Kurama as a fox, because then I can call him an animal person. But Hiei doesn't fall into that category. So he's a non-human human.

Emperor Kazuhi and the Lieutenant

Another picture of some of my characters. This time Emperor Kazuhi, the leader of Reyu. One of the characters in Katani's story.
The woman doesn't have a name yet. But she's a lieutenant (maybe) in the army and she eventually ends up marrying Kazuhi. Throughout the first draft the story, I had absolutely no plans for Kazuhi getting married. Mainly because I wanted to be lazy and have it happen mysteriously after the story ended.
Which is a terrible thing to do. And it must be fixed! So, I started trying to figure out who he'd marry. Some people might consider 38 a bit old to marry, especially for an emperor, but too bad! He had to find the right person. The wedding will probably still happen after the book, but I'll be including some of this woman in the book.

In the picture, she's saying that she's got Kazuhi on a short leash. Since at the beginning of the story, Kazuhi's dragon partner, Chao (must draw him) teases that everyone wants Kazuhi on a short leash.
I made Mom and Dad pose for this picture. Heheh.

Fact of the Day: A while ago in China, if anyone besides the emperor wore a five-toed dragon on their clothes, they would be put to death.

Jade

I don't draw enough of my characters. I really need to do concept arts for a bunch of them.
Here's one I drew a while ago, and finally got around to coloring it.
This is Princess Jade, one of the princesses of Draykia, the western-most country in Soreina.

This is probably a picture of her when she's living away from the palace.
Three or four people told me that she was leaning too far backwards. So, I used the amazing rotation feature on photoshop! Now she doesn't look like she's tilting backwards.

My scanner always screws up the colors...

I need to fix Jade's story. Sigh. Gotta focus on Katani's story first. And my application.