Weeeeelll….

Things have changed quite a bit from my last entry. As much as I’d like to ignore it and never mention it again in hopes that nobody will notice, I know that’s a foolish and improbably thing to happen. College stuff- well, it didn’t quite mess up as some plans became altered by my own accord. I’m not going to go into detail of that or anything, but things have changed.

Another thing: that Invader Zim phase? Yeah, that’s sticking around for a while. Plus side, I am now a member of a ZADR club on DevART and have started a fan comic titled The Stone Heart Trilogy. (WARNING: SPOILERS!!!!!) Three books, obviously: Catalyst, Defect, and Revolution. The last title is up for change if I find something I like more. The outline for Catalyst is already finished and I know the basics for the second and third. Defect is actually gonna take a lot of work and will probably have some reader interaction. I don’t want to introduce that too early though, just in case things change. I even started a new way of doing the comics that’s different from the way I’ve done them before. The scanner here is absolutely atrocious compared to my last one, so instead of doing it with pencil I’ve started shading it on the computer. Good or bad? No clue, but that’s how it is.

Also, Nataka Studio is getting a new layout soon! Be waiting!

I’ve started experimenting with video chat and video mail and such. The webcam on my laptop is kind of pointless if I don’t use it for anything. So far, well, it’s not half bad. Kind of fun, maybe? Not really. Writing is simpler, easy to do. Talking, even to myself while fiddling around with the things, is awkward. Note that I haven’t done an actual chat yet, when there’s someone on the other side to talk to it might get easier.

Oh! Dissidia Final Fantasy is fun. If I’m going to rant about that I should probably do it in a different post though. Hey, that’s something to look forward to, ideas for future posts. Shocking. Anyway, I feel like that’s all for now. More stuff later~

Final Days (in MA)

Well, the final days of being in Mass. are slowly slipping out the door. I’m leaving to Iowa this Wednesday, at four in the bloody morning mind. After that I’m staying with my eldest sister for a little while, then off to Chicago for college. Fun times. Kinda.

It’s that time where I think I’ve done everything I could possibly do to get ready for this, and yet I still feel as if I’ve either missed something or something isn’t going right. Not that I know. On the one hand, it could be just nerves with going away from everything and everyone I’ve ever known to some unknown and distant territory. On the other hand, I could have majorly messed up some part of my life and am now heading off to my unbeknownst doom in which no one can help me escape. Either or.

I really don’t have much more to write. I normally like keeping my posts longer and full of some type of content, however uninteresting. But as of right now, the only other thing I can say (while the Pirates of the Caribbean theme plays off in the background, setting some type of adventures feeling to my typing which would have been far more appropriate if it had come on during the beginning of my post) is that I recently re-joined DevART (nataka-studio is my new SN) and have gotten pretty far into an Invader Zim phase. I had a dream about an Irkin family living on some distant planet last night. Odd, really. I don’t think Irkins had “families” in the way my dream portrayed them.

At any rate. Sayonara~

College and Comic

So, what have I been up to in this past month that I've neglected to update? Well, bits of everything, really. High School's over (has been for a while), and I'm never going back. Which is pretty nifty, I guess. Of course, now I have college to attend (well, not now exactly, but it's what's coming) so I'm not really sure if that's any better. I'll have to wait and find out. And for all those interested, I'm going to Columbia in Chicago. I have no idea how I'm suppose to survive in a city considering I've lived in a small town my entire life, but I'll give it a shot.

Other than frightful school adventures in the making...
Well, I've been trying to finish Final Fantasy VII. Chances are I won't have a gaming PlayStation once I go to college, so I want to finish all of those games now. And I've already been guaranteed both FF Dissidia and KH 358/2 Days as gifts for graduating High School and going to college, so I'll have some PSP/DS games to keep me occupied. I'm also working on a new AMV (a mix of various FFs to Nickelback's I'd Come for You), but considering I've never published any of those that I've made, I guess it's pointless to talk about them.

Dios is going alright. There was a small lapse in posts right around Anime Boston, but it's gotten back on track. I don't intend for that to happen too often. Although, once I get to Chicago I need to find a scanner or something to keep posting them. That may prove a problem, I'm trying to think of how to handle it now. Supposedly I should check the library there to see if they have a scanner, but I still want my own. This is a small warning that there may be a missed comic or two when I get there. I'll try to: A.) get the comic done early and just post them later or B.) put up pictures in place of the weekly comic that I either have done or will do. Also, Glass Wishes is on a temporary hiatus. More of it will be posted later, but there isn't enough of it done for me to feel comfortable posting more chapters now. (Logic: when writing long stories, chances are I'll write something in chapter X, and by the time I write chapter Z something in X will have to change to keep consistent. These normally aren't big things, the overall story doesn't change, but small details generally relating to a small section of the plot will need ironing out. I don't want to have to dig through pre-posted chapters and be forced to alter things after people have already read them. That's annoying, so I just won't post more until more is done.)

I feel like there's more to write about that I've forgotten, but I can't seem to remember what it might've been. I suppose that'll be a reason to come on and post more if I remember.

Anime Boston 2009

Came home from Anime Boston kind of tired yesterday, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it might be. The weekend was great, but if you know me, you know I have no pictures to show for it from the actual convention. I hate cameras, although there were a few people who got pictures of me. A group of us stayed in a hotel, and we got there Thursday to avoid another LineCon that we had to wait in back in '08. Apparently it wasn't so bad this year, but I'm still glad we got there early. I also met some of J's online friends, Hachi and John*. They were alright, we actually hung out more than I expected. I figured I'd just be by myself for the weekend, which I was fine with, it's basically what I did last year. I did have plenty of alone time, just not as much as I thought. I also had my own room in the hotel, so that was privacy. It was called the closet.(*I don't like using real names while ranting, but I couldn't quite remember what else to call this one, and he has a common name, so I don't mind so much.)

To start things off, the Artist Alley table did alright. I made back enough money to cover the table, plus a little extra. Considering the amount I had I think it was pretty good. Flower Perch, a color pencil/ink/photoshop combination of Aerith (No, I will not call her Aeris, quiet.) from FFVII was one of my pieces which sold best. Artzy and J sold a bit too (they were my table mates), so I think it went well overall for our first time. It also dawned on me quite how nice and community-like being an artist in the AA could be. Everyone's very friendly, I had the opportunity to watch someone else's table for a bit while they wanted to run down to the Dealers Room. Despite being tied down to a table and missing some events I had wanted to go to, it was really fun. J's dad and Artzy's Mom and Aunt were willing to watch the table for us once in a while to, which was both annoying and helpful. Annoying, because when I say 'willing' I mean they were almost as excited (possibly more so) than we were to have an opportunity to sell things that were ours. Helpful, because we got to leave and see more things. Artzy wasn't there the first day, so I actually spent a lot of time by myself at the table Friday. Even then it was fun just to watch all the cosplayers walking by. We had to pack up early that day since there were things that both me and J wanted to do when there was no one to take over the table for us.

For the time I wasn't at the table, the rest of the convention was pretty cool. Friday I went to the Cosplay Court Case, Anime Unscripted, and the Yaoi/Yuri Anime Dating Game. The first two trials in the Court Case were interesting, it got kind of boring by the third one. In fact, most people left before it was over, and it ended a bit early. First two were worth it though. Anime Unscripted was amusing as always. A few dry bits, but mostly good. Then, for the first time, I was able to go to an 18+ panel, it was the only one I went to. I must say, the Yaoi/Yuri Dating Game was far more amusing than the main Dating Game I went to the next day. I think it'll become one of my main events if I keep going to Anime Boston after this year.

Saturday was filled with more wandering, since there was a third person we stuck with the table most the day to make up for Friday. So sorry Artzy. Not really, but you understand. First, J, myself, Hachi and John went out to breakfast. Then they went to the Kalafina Concert while I went to the main Anime Dating Game early in the afternoon. Not as good as the one Friday night, but still interesting. Then I spent time wandering around the Dealers Room with said people, and went to the dance that night. We left early from the dance because Hachi started not feeling well and neither of them had a room key. At the Dealers Room I bought a few things that I'll rant about more individually on my 'Fandom' page of my website. But for reference, for the first time I actually bought two t-shirts. I've never bought shirts before from a convention, but I didn't find any good Doujinshi, and I had extra money. Both of them were Kingdom Hearts, a Heartless and Nobody design. After the dance we all went back up to the room and played cards for a while.

By Sunday I was ready to go home. I was still having fun, but I was beginning to get a bit tired. We set up the Artist Alley table, handed it over to Artzy, went out to breakfast in the Au Bon Pain near the Marriott that didn't have cosplayers running around it (oh, the looks we got) and finished up the Dealers Room. Afterward it was a mix between hanging out in the AA, packing up our things from the hotel, and wandering around. At the end of the day we went to Closing Ceremonies and left. Over the entire weekend there were a few things I had really wanted to go to but couldn't, and I'm kind of disappointed. I always look forward to the AMV showing and Final Fantasy and Philosophy, but they were unavailable to my time slots this year.

The final piece I want to point out was my outfit that I had made. Obviously, I've been talking about going as Squall from FFVIII for a while, so I shouldn't need to point that out. I didn't actually spend that much time on it, only a few days before the con actually, so there were things that could have been improved. My belts, for one. The legs belts came off the fist day, so I switched to black electrical tape for them. The other belts, that hung around my waist were alright, except one was looser than the other, so it resorted to me tapping one up a little while occasionally pushing the other down. The jacket was good though- a bit too long for Squall, but I think that's me being nit-picky. It was the hair I hated. The first day it was great, the hairstylist gel and straightener was still working, and it looked really good. The second day, after taking a shower, it curled a bit. I hate you curly hair. So I ended up nabbing some hair gel from one of my roommates, it worked a bit, but it still kinda stuck out. Same for Sunday. The first day it looked really good, then it failed. I'll try to find a pic, either from a post online or from J, and post it here, until then, you'll have to deal with just the description. And apparently the scar looked natural on me, so I'm good if I ever get my face cut up. O_o; There was actually a really nice Squall cosplayer I saw. His Gunblade looked awesome. I made a Gunblade, but it didn't quite work out like I wanted it to so I left it at home. If I do Squall again in the future, which I'm thinking I might, then the Gunblade will be made from wood this time, which is what I think he did.

In the end the weekend was fun, hopefully I'll get to do it again later. Even if Anime Boston's unavailable to me while I'm in Chicago I might be able to go to a different convention, I'll have to wait and see.

Preparing for AB

Life? Life is good. As good as it gets for me at any rate. Anime Boston in four/five days. Fun.

I don't have that much art for the Artist Alley table, but I knew I wouldn't (I've been saying it from the start) so that doesn't bother me. I'm seeing about getting some prints done today, my sis has agreed to pick them up for me during the week. I'm also going to get my hair cut Wednesday, hopefully have it stay in style for a little bit longer before I have to attempt to redo it myself. Damn you Final Fantasy characters, with your impossible hairs. And I'm doing Squall, who isn't nearly as difficult as some others. *cough*Cloud*cough* Ahem, at any rate.

Also, school's almost over, which is a good thing. My Senior Window for Studio isn't done yet, so I may have to stay after for that. I'm basically doing a self portrait with a bunch of little chibi characters from some of my favorite novels (Broken Sky - Kia, Ryushi; Harry Potter - Harry, Hermione; Artemis Fowl - Artemis, Holly; Circle of Magic - Briar, Sandry; The Bartimaeus Trilogy - Nathanial, Bartimaeus). Also, prom's coming up. I'm going, although I'm not quite sure how yet. I was thinking of asking my sister for a ride. Lots of love to her if she gives me one.

That's about it for now, just figured I'd throw out some sort of update. Speaking of which, my site's been updated. "Pig Hunting", a fanfic of the Three Little Pigs has been put up (it was a Creative Writing Assignment). I don't feel like linking it right now, so just go click my website link on the right and look under "fanfiction" if you're interested.

Artist Alley Table

A forewarning: this is nothing but a rant. I feel I haven't updated for a while so I figured I'd come on here and post a little bit about things in general.

First thing's first, my website is doing alright I think- aside from me missing update schedules (why did I even attempt them?). There are still some empty sections, some of which will remain empty for longer than others. I think I can have the poetry section updated tonight. That's one section that's been put off, but I have stuff for it. Dios is beginning to actually exist, only one more character profile and I'm done with that section beside the comic. As for Glass Wishes, the actual part of the story that I have written is actually almost all done. That means what's going to start being posted soon will be written as I go. Which also mean updates might beginning spreading out, but I'll post that note on the actual site when it's necessary. All that complaining that I was reaching 50,000 words faster than my plot was moving back in last November? This is what I was referring to. The final main character isn't even introduced yet, and it's already almost 50k. Good for an actual novel I guess, but a story I'm suppose to crank out in a month? Not so much.

Surprisingly, I have a stack of games building up that I need to play now to. This is awkward, since normally I don't have anything new in the house unless I pre-plan for it to be there. Everybody decided to get me games for my birthday apparently, and now I have no idea when I'm suppose to play them all. I still want FF Dissidia and KH 358/2 Days when they come out, so that'll add a few more to the list. (The list, for the record, is on my site if you wish to see it for some odd reason.) Although once I actually finish the games I can post about them in my fandom section. Right now there's only one thing there, and that's me sqeeing over a Riku figure. I do however have a fanfic up on the site titled Vicis Vulnus, of the Harry Potter series. I posted it on fanfiction.net as well and it's been reviewed a lot. So far there are three chapters posted and seventy reviews. That's decent, isn't it? For my first fic I hope so. It makes me happy, at any rate. If you're interested in my fanfics, feel free to either go to my site or my FF account (which I'm putting up over on the left column).

And speaking of fandom, it's official. J, a girl I know, and I will be sharing a table in the Artist Alley at Anime Boston. Unfortunately I don't have much for it at the moment (which I warned them I wouldn't) so it'll be more their stuff than mine. Hopefully that means I won't have to be there as much as well, because I frankly don't feel like spending an entire convention sitting at a table. I'd much rather wander around. Cosplayed as Squall Leonhart from FFVIII. Hush, I'm not obsessed. This year I especially want to catch all of the AMV viewing, I feel like I missed a few of the first ones last year but I'm not sure.

Now that we're on the topic of anime, let me tell you a bit about my club. The Anime Club decided to try and make a movie. I'm damned on causing this to happen. All we really need is for J to bring in her camera and we'll be able to do that, everything else is outlined and ready (kind of) to tape. We tried using her not-video-tape-camera-meant-for-pictures last time, but it didn't do. I'm not that bad with video editing, so once we have the footage I'll throw it together and post it somewhere. I'm thinking of getting a youtube account to put some of my AMVs which I'll then add to my site, and if this happens the AC video will be there as well for the club members to access. I'm hoping the video will become the start if the year "Welcome to Anime Club!" thing, but that's really up to Jemo-kid, who'll be taking over the club upon me and J's graduation.

Graduation. Then college. Which brings up my next bout of life rants. I think I'm going to Bridgewater State, it's cheap, has already accepted me, and is offering me some money (once I finish filling out scholarships and such). But I hate having to stay so close to home, I was really kind of aiming to get away. There might be time for that later, but still. Not fun. I should take up my friend's idea and become a natural photographer. Go work for the companies that'll send me to dangerous wilderness places. That'd be fun, and I'd have lots to write about assuming I still have my hands after trying to get close to some wildlife or another. I'll have to think about that.

Talking about college leads me into talking about school. As of right now I'm actually taking some courses I actually wanted to take. Humor, Comedy, and Satire turned out to be a bit disappointing. My classmates are all pretty much the silent, we-won't-talk-unless-we-have-to types, the teacher has no idea what she's doing and has no modern sense of humor. Creative Writing I, which should give me a short story or two to post on my site, is rather interesting. Good class of students, fun teacher, love the subject (obviously- you haven't been paying attention if you can't tell that, even if you've only read this one post). Then I still have Studio Art AP, something I'm interested in, but it's not exactly the easiest course to take. Finally English- mandatory- and Orchestra. Again, things I've had all year.

For school today, actually, my Studio AP/III class, Studio II, and the Creative Writing II students all went on a field trip to The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Class assigned scavenger hunt not so good, I didn't have much time to actually appreciate the art. We ended up getting back early and playing Uno for the rest of the day. Mr. K must hate us for all the times we bust out an Uno game in class. Yay AP seniors! I should be going on another field trip in May to the Aquarium for CW I. Senior year has actually been very generous to me for field trips, I feel as if there's been many of them.

To wrap everything up, this week is vacation. I'll probably spend a lot of it typing up more chapters of Glass Wishes and Vicis Vulnus. Vicis Vulnus was born out of last vacation, when I sat down in front of the computer and typed for seven or so hours each day. My effort will go into GW more than VV this time around though. And I'm currently working on a new AMV: Kingdom Heart - Whatever it Takes, a Riku/Sora tribute. Hush, they make a cute pair.

New York

Just came back from a three day trip to New York with the rest of my school's band, chorus, and orchestra. We were there for a competition for our said music groups, which we had on the second day. The orchestra got a Silver award rank I believe (the categories were gold, silver, bronze), and it was suppose to be rated tougher than Great East which is the event we've gone to in the past, so I'd say it was good. Considering this is the last trip I'm going on for the orchestra, I'm kind of happy we did something a little bigger than a one day contest and Six Flags after. It was kind of annoying with the entire chaperon thing though, but I'll get to that in a moment. Glass Wished will be updated tonight, since I left early Friday morning and didn't have time to do it before than.

For the trip we rented out big motor coaches for the weekend (not buses, motor coaches, the drivers were very specific about that- some kind of motor coach driver pride I'm sure). We left the school early Friday morning, about 7am. We had to get to school at 6am though, and I ended up getting up at about 4:30. Yay. Actually, in all honesty, it wasn't that bad. I felt more awake than some of the people looked. The trip to NY was long, and we ended up popping in some movies to watch (Iron Man and the Incredible Hulk; first one good, seen it before; second one not so much). Anyway, we get to NY, go straight to the Statue of Liberty via ferry, then to Ellis Island, and back to Batters Park. Note that this day I chose to wear a spring dress with shorts, a thin sweater and sandals. Damn weather forecasters made me think it would be nice out, then it started snowing. Yes, snowing. Add that to being near water for half of the day. I ended up dragging out my sweatshirt. I'm complaining, but it really wasn't so bad. At any rate, the Statue of Liberty was smaller than I expected, but it was nice. We didn't get to go inside, just walked around the island and had lunch. With me was one of my friends who'd played GTA before (I believe that was the game), and he was a little freaked that he knew his way around the island perfectly without ever having been there before. What's the world coming to, when we can learn true geographical layouts by playing video games? *sigh* I should do that next time I ever want to visit someplace, check out if there are any games that take place in my desired destination, then I'll know my way around before even getting there. Anyway, we got back to the mainland, explored a little in our groups, and went to an Italian restaurant for the night, where there was music and whatnot. A lot of people said it was fun, I therefore feel like I missed something.

Saturday we got up at 5:30am, got breakfast at the hotel buffet at 6:30am, and left the hotel for our music competition. We had it at some college, where we also ate lunch. We did alright, the judge said we needed to play faster for our fiddle song (for the record, we played Blue-Fire Fiddler, Chorale, and a Brandenburg). There was a lot of time between the three groups performances, so we ended up watching each other and going outside to play tag and other fifth grade group games for forty five minutes. Yes, that's MHS students for you. The woman who judged the chorus at the end seemed a little crazy, but that's beside the point. After that we went back into NY, to be given a tour of the place. Mister Mustache (no, that was not his name, but he said we could call him that- he had quite an impressive mustache) took us to the various places, we ended up stopping at some church place that helped out during 9/11 and the Twin Towers site. We started a little late, so we ended up cutting parts out of the tour and went to get our prizes at Medieval Times for the music thing. There were only three schools competing, smaller than I had originally thought it would be, and the MHS was defiantly the biggest group there. We were the only orchestra to compete, and we won silver, like I said. After we got out trophies we had our dinner and watched the show there, which was really nice. Personally I like King Richard's Faire jousting better, the players stayed in character more I think, but this was still cool. Some of us got to sit in booths at the top, me being one of those people, and it was nifty. It must've been karma that decided we'd be in the green knight's section- the green knight being the villain in the show (also, from the City of Leon <3= karma).

The final day we got to get up a little later had breakfast at 8am, and we checked out of the hotel at 9am. We went back into the city to explore more and went to see Marry Poppins performed. I don't really like Mary Poppins all that much, I always felt it was one of the worse of the Disney movies as a child. In that sense the show wasn't that interesting, but the performance was really good. It was nicely done and entertaining at the least. We sat up in the balconies (I disliked our sitting spots, height plus steep areas just don't do it for me, if the seats hadn't been so close together and steep I wouldn't have minded) where we could see everything well, and had an intermission after two hours. Once the show was over we got back on the bus and went home. We came back at around 9pm, having stopped for dinner at some rest point on the way.

The trip was nice overall. I feel like nothing impresses me anymore though, because absolutely nothing had a 'shock and awe' feeling to it. Kind of sad, actually. The best part was probably seeing the city and Time Square. I think I might be able to do descriptions of city scenery and art better now after seeing that. As for other parts of the trip (aka, this is where I complain about the bad stuff), the entire chaperon thing was really annoying. I suppose it couldn't be helped since a number of the students were freshman and such, and the school couldn't let younger students run off on their own. Being eighteen however, it was irritating having to be with a teacher I didn't even know for three days. Especially since J wasn't even in my group, instead there was some annoying freshman that I still don't know the name to. Here's how it worked: we all signed up to stay in a hotel room with certain people that we'd be comfortable with. For me that was myself, J, and one other girl we both know and are friends with. Then there was this freshman that none of us really knew who got shoved with us. Alright, that's fine. The kid needed to stay somewhere, we had three people when the rooms max was four. It's cool. We got off the bus at the area with the ferry on the first day and get assigned to groups. Our room got split up, J and the girl we know in one; me and freshie in another. Fine, not ideal, but fine. In fact there were a few other boys in my group I was friends with, so it worked. Apparently this other girl didn't have any friends though, because she immediately tried to make us 'buddies', y'know, because we had to stick with other people on the trip. Now, I am not a friendly person. I am decent, I am civil, and I will take the chance to get to know people- I will take the chance to be friends if I think we have something in common or if it could work. But I am not friendly. If a person comes up to me and starts acting really familiar with me, I'm going to become rather cold to them. I can't help it, it's just how I am, and thus it is what I proceeded to do. For the rest of the trip, all three days, this girl annoyed me. I didn't hang out with her ever, but normally if you brush someone off they'll get the hint and leave you alone. Not this girl, and that's a pity, because she was really annoying. I don't remember her name- if I did I wouldn't post it, but still. I think I'll post something later about all the things that really annoy me about people, just to rant, but she had many of these traits. The final problem, which is to be expected, was the food. I'm a vegetarian, and the two places we went to that were paid for were mostly for meat eaters. A little bit of pasta and garlic bread, and tomato soup and potatoes is basically what my diners consisted of. There was some eggplant in both meals as well, but after trying that at the Italian place I decided I really didn't like it. Independent lunch and such was better since I had more choices, but it didn't take away from the experience a little.

I think that's it for my rant today. The trip was a nice last event for my eight years of orchestra. I'm not going to school for music, so I don't know how often I'll be able to keep playing once I'm out of high school. I'm going to try and make time for it of course since the violin is something I really enjoy, but I'm not sure yet how well it'll work once I get busier.