Scientific Writing

I think I subconsciously assumed that I was done writing stuff in a scientific format.
It's a bit confusing to switch back to it, since it's been a while, but it's probably a good skill to keep.

Now that I've finished, gonna try to get in a few minutes of editing before I pass out.

Chao and Chun

I've been wanting to draw Chun for a while. She's the older dragon that lives at the palace with Chao. She's quite a bit bigger than him. Probably more so than I've got on the page.
I like how her design turned out.

I keep thinking of new pictures to draw of people and dragons from Katani's story.
But there are still a couple dragons that haven't been drawn at all, so they're next.

Finé

I got my diploma in the mail today. That was a good valentines present.
Now I can finally feel like I'm done with school.
I don't think the sense of relief has sunk in yet.

Prologue

What sucks about a prologue is that is basically means you have write a first page two times.
If a reader picks up a book, they'll start by reading the prologue, so you need to hook them with that first page.

But if you're submitting your art to an agent or something, you don't necessarily include the prologue. You'd most likely start with chapter 1. Which means that the beginning of chapter 1 has to hook the agent.

Can you tell that I spent all last night working on the first line of chapter 1?
Well, a couple lines. But still.

Majestic, Graceful, Eminent

I've had something caught in the back of my head for a while now.
How do I refer to King Kazuhi in my story?

In English, the normal way to address a king is something like "Your Majesty" (though I swear, I cannot think of that phrase without thinking of Sebastian saying it to King Triton).
There are a lot of similar ways to refer to someone of high birth. Like Your Grace, Your Eminence, etc etc.

Except when you think of the meanings of those words, they feel so dramatic.
Majesty can mean amazing splendor and size
Grace: elegance, smoothness, and beauty
Eminent: high up and easy to see

There's nothing wrong with them. I mean, they exist because that's how kings and leaders want to be viewed.

But they just don't really mesh into the cultures of my world.
And when I'm using these words to refer to my own characters, I just can't take them seriously.
Especially with Kazuhi, who has two very distinct sides. Sure, he can be lordly and formal, but he also quite enjoys doing things that he knows full well will get him in trouble with some of his stiffer subordinates.

I love Kazuhi, and he's is my favorite character in the story. But "majestic" is not a word I can hold up to him. He's strong and wise, but not really majestic.

I've been overthinking this whole thing for the past two nights, wondering how people would refer to him. I've been through my synonym book too.

Luckily, those new Steven Universe episodes just came out, because they presented me with a different solution. They don't use "Your Majesty." They made up their own. They refer to the diamonds as "Your Clarity."



So I think I'll end up making my own.
I'm pretty close to an idea.

No wonder I suck at detailed rewrites. It takes me two freaking days to get a single phrase down...

Lack of Efficiency

Still working on a hyper-detailed edit of Katani's story.
And my efficiency on it truly sucks.
It took almost a week just to do one page...

Yeah, the first page is the most important, but still.
I hope I get better at this. I'm also hoping that the first page was just unusually hard, so it'll go smoother from now on.

I need to go back and read it again, but I like how it's turning out, at least.
Now I just need a critique group.

The World is a Strange Place

So, my cousin in Italy has a shop about half an hour outside of Florence.
He sells his awesome wood artwork there in that little country town.
I got this coaster from him.


A seemingly random shift:

Sometimes Dad and I go to estate sales nearby, since it's fun to look at other people's houses and old junk.
About a week ago, we were at an estate sale.
As I was browsing, I caught sight of something that immediately made me think of David's wood art style.


I snatched it up and flipped it over. The logo looked like David's and it had his initials on it too.
I couldn't really believe that one of his pieces ended up in an estate sale. Even if they or their parents had given it as a gift while they were visiting the area, what are the odds of finding it at an estate sale?
I bought it anyway.
And I compared the logos at home.
They were the same.

I sent a picture to my cousin in Italy. And he did really make it.

Sometimes I'm floored by the strange workings of the world.
My cousin makes these beautiful wood pieces on the other side of the planet in this beautiful little shop out in the country. And I find one in a suburb estate sale.

Wow.

Stuff I Hate About Videogames

Fair warning, this is a video game vent.

As of yesterday, I'm done playing Final Fantasy Xii. '

More or less.
I don't think I'll play any more Final Fantasy games, unless there's one someone specifically recommends to me.
It was so freaking looong... And I didn't get anywhere close to finishing half of the side stuff.
They were obviously dragging it out as long as they could.
I haven't had too much gaming time recently, and I've been stuck in this game for about a year? Maybe more?

It had amazing scenery, and some really nice music though.
The characters were okay, though the plot was pretty typical.

There was a point in the latter half of the game where I was considering just watching the rest on youtube, because the boss fights were driving me crazy. I stopped the plot for a while and did a whole bunch of side stuff - leveling up and getting weapons and everything.
After that, the boss battles were almost easy most of the time.
And I enjoyed it quite a bit more after that.

Until the end of the game.
I couldn't find a single freaking save point for the whole endgame. I bet there isn't one.
Save points are frustrating at the best of times, though I suppose they're important for certain types of gameplay. But when they're really scarce, they're maddening.
And that freaking final battle was impossible! Even though all the battles leading up to it being no problem for me.
I hate it when the final battle is so terrible, even after that much leveling.
There were three separate occasions where I was down to one character, and I spent about a dozen or more moves reviving and healing, only to have the winged mutant KO the guy who had just done the reviving, so I'd be down to one character again. Twice I managed to pull out of it and attack again. The third time finally wiped me out.
And he has this freaking move which makes him invulnerable for what feels like five minutes.
I probably spent half an hour fighting his final form.

I spent so much time getting to this point in the game, and it doesn't feel like I got close to beating him.
After that, I had no desire to waste anymore time on that game.
I watched the ending on youtube.
I've done that a couple times before, when I got too angry at the end of a game.

Plus, Vaan is supposed to be the hero of the game. But he pretty much disappeared during the ending. Yeesh.

Sometimes long games are cool. But it's frustrating when they make them long just for the sake of being long. I felt like I could have completed two or three other games instead of this one. I don't want to sink so much of my time into a single game that feels like it's dragging on purpose.



And on another gaming note.
The Wii U came out just over 2 years ago, I think.
And I bought it, even though it was really expensive.
And they're already replacing it with something else?
Nintendo, you're a freaking jerk. There are barely a handful of Wii U games that I'm interested in, and it does not feel like it was worth my money...
I almost don't want to buy their new switch thing. It'll take a really fascinating game to make me cave...

Lagging Behind

Almost every time I watch a TV show, I watch them after they've been out for a while. So I can see the entire show without waiting for new episodes to come out. Or I can at least see a full season.
I almost never watch episodes as they are released.
But I've been doing that with Steven Universe since I got caught up with it.

Of course this means that ow I have to deal with the full force of cliffhangers.
A month ago, there was a nasty one. Holy heck, Greg!



And of course the next episode wasn't for another month.
Why you make us wait that long?

The rest of the episodes in that arc are finally up, and I just watched all of them.

I'll keep my comments vague so they're not too spoiler-y.

I wonder what happened to all those poor humans.
Heh. I wish they could have brought some of the gems with them.
And thank you for finally mentioning the rubies again. @_@ I'd think that Garnet and Steven would be concerned about them. Please do something about them...

But it's exciting to be really into something that still a work in progress. For Avatar: The Last Airbender, Rurouni Kenshin, and so many others I only got hooked on them long after they had ended.