[link] <-- Seriously, spots open, go and see.

-o-o-o-

I have come to the conclusion that, regardless of the craziness, Eureka Seven is one of those anime that covers anything you can think of emotionally. After all, it does focus around "growing up".
I went to see the movie when it came out in theaters, and the beauty of the animation was enough to make me gasp in awe. The story was interesting, and kind of sad. Dominic was absolutely lovable in a tragic way for me. And Anemone first appeared as an old lady.
Talk about being AU, huh?

But anyways, I hadn't seen all the anime, so I decided to watch it via youtube. I've been laughing so hard at some things (Hap taking a piss naked is so ridiculous, and Holland not being concerned about being talked to while HE'S taking a piss is even funnier. Men are weird), and being totally wrenched about other things (Ray and Charles. Just their entire arc is enough to get me all choked up).

I still haven't seen all the anime, I just need to rant about Renton, Ray, and Charles.
Something about their interaction, the story, their emotions, whatever; it gets to me in a way that I don't normally feel. And I happen to get a whole bunch of feelings from the characters in anime/video games. I don't know, just seeing Renton be so happy about belonging to parent-like adults... It makes me just as happy. And on the reverse, seeing Renton struggle with the choices he has to make, and seeing Charles talk to him like he's a son (versus a kid they decided to pick up randomly/because he's Renton Thurston) gets me feeling Renton's sense of belonging to a family.

It's not that I've never had parents. I've had them, and I love them dearly regardless of what happens. But just... the thought of these three people, originally strangers, becoming as close as a natural family is something that both warms my heart and at the same time makes me sad. It's bittersweet.

Charles especially gets a whole bunch of time to talk with Renton; to tell him random things, to give him words of wisdom, to say "I'm not going to make your decisions" at the end. He literally accepts the role of a father from the word go. Ray is adorable. Her love for Charles, her kindness toward Renton, and her smile were just things I couldn't help but love. The things she gets to say to Renton aren't nearly as important as the "father/son" thing Charles was doing. Her interaction with Charles about Renton was much more telling.

Yes, I love their characters so much. I was so saddened when they became what they became after Renton left.
Freaking TERRIFIED when Ray went nuts though. Just freaking terrified.

Passing over that subject, I really don't focus too much on the rest of the cast during the Ray and Charles arc. Yeah, I keep track of the events, but it's not nearly as important as what Renton's doing/saying/thinking/feeling. Even the interaction between Talho and Holland (which is my OTP) isn't all that important while Renton's out being taught a few of the more adult lessons he had to learn to grow up.
Of course, during said arc, quite a few of the characters grow. I just was more focused on Renton.

Besides Eureka Seven, I've been thinking a lot about things. So far on my little vacation, I've just been unwinding the tight coil of stress I went through right at the end of Senior year. I've been relaxing, taking an occasional swim in the pool, staring out at the lake... Just doing stress-relief. I doodle a lot of things, I've been experimenting with SAI, and been acting like a kid.
Hopefully, when I do start college, I'll be over both the stress and the laziness.

I CAN'T BELIEVE IT THOUGH. My TWEWY game data is gone. I booted the game _{(which you just lost)} up yesterday, and it replied with "game data corrupted; deleting now."
I replied "FUCK WHAT IS THIS" and tried to avoid that by turning off the DS. I think I was thinking like the LPer of Kaizo Mario World.
"Maybe I was imagining it, maybe that didn't just happen."
To no avail; I restart, and the only option is "new game". Damn it, I had some emotional attachment to that save file for some reason. Now I'm totally bummed that it's gone. Bummed enough to not really get into the game _{(which you all just lost again)} like I did before.
I guess I feel like Shiki. "I wasn't feeling it."

Back on a character rant, I realized that Tidus is one of those characters who is voices SO DAMN WELL that it gets to me. I randomly discovered an in-between animation for Final Fantasy X and X-2 that showed the thing that got Yuna actively hunting for Tidus. And HOLY DAMN. The sphere-movie thing that Rikku shows her... even though it's really Shuyin (who I also love for reasons unknown), the voice actor was Tidus's. And him screaming was just... it got to me in ways I didn't know I could be jerked around in. I mean, we're talking about TIDUS here; the whiny bastard protagonist of Final Fantasy X that makes all the fanboys cry. I honestly like him still, even though he is ridiculously whiny, but that's not the point. I suppose that FF X was also a story about growth, if you think about it correctly (or strangely). Tidus DOES grow up somewhat during the course of his journey, even though he basically stays ridiculously self-centered throughout. (c'mon; it's HIS friggen story?! really?!)

Anyways, his english VA is someone who makes me happy. I accept, with a large amount of sadness, that the NA branch of Squeenix can NOT direct voices in ANY DECENT WAY, making a lot of the dubs sound horrible and make me cry, but Tidus's voice makes me happy. Actually, I think they weren't even Squeenix when X came out. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think KH and X came out JUST BEFORE the merge. And the voice acting in both those games is SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER than everything that came out afterward. I don't even LIKE Kingdom Hearts, and I'll admit that the voice acting in it was mondo good. Especially since there wasn't so much "Aeris is high" sounding voices in it. Seriously, the second game makes me sit back and throw up. Especially the way everyone said "Sora, Donald, Goofy" in a ridiculously mechanical way.

I'll say right now. Mandy Moore = awesome Aeris voice. I am not ashamed to say that. Also, Sephiroth = Superman still makes me laugh like nobody's business. Seriously, the english VA is the same. And when I heard it back when Advent Children came out in english, I had to force myself not to laugh as hard as I wanted to, because it sounded SO EPIC. Yeah, umm... I'm totally NOT fangirling/obsessing over voices right now at all. Not even slightly, you're weird for thinking so. >>;;;

Well, time for me to really shaddup.

[link] <-- Spots are still open!

So..... I haven't done anything in a while (nor have i signed out in a while) on dA, but that was mainly because I was more concerned with what was gonna be happening than with drawing serious art.
I do have some things I need to finish up in the way of serious art though.
...
...
Anyways, I am currently in Florida. I've never been off the west coast before, so this is definitely new. And it adds to my count of places I've visited, which still isn't a lot. I happen to like it here loads though; better than California. And the weather is awesome. Extreme humidity doesn't bother me as much as extreme heat a la Arizona. It's rained here all the days I've been here so far. And the place I'm staying at has a friggen LAKE right outside.
That's one thing I definitely like about Florida; ridiculous amounts of lakes. <3

Came here on the 31st of August, got more or less settled into my room, paid the rent, and then went to sleep right in the middle of a tropical storm. Dude, I did NOT know thunder could last an entire minute. FTW. Also spent some time admiring the lake (full of lilypads, the pool (which is funny considering there's a lake there), and in general the large amount of trees everywhere.
Amazingly, though, Georgia has more. I swear that Atlanta itself must be a forest or something, there was so much tree-cover! And I got to fly over the Mississippi River I think, which was also amazing.

Florida is very flat. Very pretty, but the landscape is flat.

There's gonna be some things that I need to get done sometime in the next few days (mostly involving plans to get my butt up to New York Anime Festival, which involves transportation and food and costume and stuff). I need to get on a steady sleeping schedule, I need to go and check out the university I came to check out, I need to have fun. Most concerning at the moment to me though is getting a job, and getting to know my way around the immediate area of where I'm living, finding out things about this and that (more travel plans), getting my passport so it's out of the way.......
And in general living more or less on my own.

More to come; I was gonna write a lot of stuff about what's happened, but I forgot it all. A random bumper sticker said this: "40% of the country's wealth is owned by 1% of the population". Another one said "Anything that can go well will go well". My retort to the latter is "if nothing does go well for you, are you just SOL?"

Sometimes bumper stickers are so stupid. xD

<sub>Oh man, what a trip. Flying by the seat of my pants on this one, that's for sure...

And, to Paru, my main concern is getting up to NYAF. If I can manage to do that but can't make a decent costume, then you'll have me in my hakama and some asian-like jacket I picked up looking for said costume.</sub>

because I fell for it without reading the rules. Thanks, Paru-Na~!

Ok the first 10 commenters will get a free sketch! In your comment state what you want- basically what I know or OCs or something. I suck at animals/anthro, still working out the kinks of kissing, can't draw anything too intimate (trying to avoid kissing as well) because of personal reasons. Friends know why I hope, and others...well, avoid nudity/explicit things okay? Other than, go ahead and shoot.

THERE'S A CATCH THOUGH!!!! If you request a sketch, you have to do this too!

1-Hiyori Tamura, from Lucky Star (by ~Sushizuzoru )
2-Diego and Mia as super heroes; Captain Caffeine and his sidekick Chief Justice (by *Paru-Na )
3-Original Characters Lali and Rino, who have [link] and [link] as reference. (by ~momijikk )
4-Something TBD (by ~wolfypup )
5-
6-
7-
8-
9-
10-

ALSO:
To *Paru-Na and ~Kaiami and ~momijikk !!!
I decided to change the rules about the gift art I am supposed to finish for you all. Paru gets the full complete art, background and all (which is killing me already since i've been on-and-off painting for a year now), Kaia gets art with simple coloring and nice line art, and Momo gets a sketch much like the ones I'm doing for this challenge.
All of these are in Photoshop since I have a tablet and all my reference is on my laptop.
I'LL GET IT DONE, I PROMISE!!!

Something I should've noticed a long time ago, but one of my favorite parody comics is now out of commission.
*sigh*
Secret of Mana Theater, which was funny and brought a smile to my face while a secretly watched it in my middle school library is no longer active nor will it be resumed. This happened a few years ago (2007), but I only learned it now.
I'm gonna miss the wackiness. But 311 episodes of insanity is pretty awesome.
_{...I wonder if I can still get one of the shirts...*PhantomOfOz knows what i'm talking about at least.}

WELL, consider me late to the party then. This shouldn't be news, but it is. That's another part of my childhood memories that has disappeared. How I'll miss Gomi Day and Meat Day...
Best holiday tributes ever.

To add something else to this (so I'm not just talking about flashes), I finished Cowboy Bebop finally. I was about ready to cry at "Hard Luck Woman", for serious.
I mean...this is another "late to the party" thing. XDD
But still, Edward is my favorite character, and I was totally going crazy by the end of the last episode and yelling in my head "SPIKE AND JULIA IS EPIC LIKE DIEGO AND MIA!!!!" And I got obsessed with "The Real Folk Blues" even though I didn't care for that song at first.
I realized it literally IS Spike's past melancholy translated into music/sound.
Yep.
But I love that series to death, and it's short, and I finally finished it.
So yeah. Two endings to talk about today.
...
Not much else, because I say a lot on my deviations/scraps.
I'm probably going to be spamming Miego pictures into my gallery to avoid finishing a background on a picture I drew for Illusion of Gaia, and I'll begin my Secret of Mana art again as soon as I get over my fear of failure.

*sigh*

Secret of Mana Theater... what good memories...
...
Hey Riyou, do you still have the "Gomi Meat Day with Chocolate" comic you drew randomly? With all those old OCs you have, like Keihaku? (I REMEMBER HIS NAME?!?!?)
xDD Revive Keihaku! He was awesome!
...
Although he still looked like Yoh. Might need to fix that when you revive him...

FIRST OF ALL BEFORE I START, pay your respects.
[link]
This guy is no longer alive, and it's so strange to have a person-less dA page around, but do it anyways in case he can check his mail in the afterlife.

Now to the other business.

My ticket for AX was numbered OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAAAAND! (no joke there.)

And I ACTUALLY spent ALL FOUR DAYS there, including an extra day! Which is made of awesome!

But... this year was kinda disorganized. For starters, none of my friends had the time this year to assemble more than one costume. One of my friends didn't even get to GO this year because her dad got in the way and whisked her off to Sacramento or something (I forgot exactly where). I took pictures and hugged a lot of Vash the Stampedes for her though.

And this year didn't have as much going on as last year that I wanted to see, so I spent A LOT of time in the Artist's Alley. A FRIGGEN LOT OF TIME.

SDKAJLFAS though, I got to meet some people from dA, and made some new friends, and met the AWESOMEST Mike Meekins cosplayer in the history of ever at the Phoenix Wright gathering, so I'm not too disappointed.

Besides...

I GOT TO HUG FREAKING KAZZU!!! WHO WAS IN GODOT COSPLAY!!!

is amazing~! And I got to hug him~! And I was a total dork~! And I'm still being a dork~! And I've probably scared him as well as everyone reading this~~~!

But I don't care.

*ahem*

Anyways, went to see Gunbuster, a panel about the history of Otaku, another panel about Zelda myths (and actually learned something at a con, wow) and bought me a yukata that I still think I'm putting on backwards. Oh well, I'm directionally challenged.

AND OH MY GOD, THE PHOENIX WRIGHT GATHERING WAS FUN.

Stand by for photo spamming.

...

And is it just me, or are Asians REALLY FREAKING PRETTY? My sister had to keep stopping me from fangirling all the time.

And you KNOW you're a nerd when the whole point of you wanting to go to a panel is because it's titled "Zelda Mythbusters".

I frankly underestimated the popularity of those two words in a title together.

But I still had fun (and I'm not putting pictures of me in costume up online again), and I totally forgot everything I had been thinking before the con.

It was great therapy, I feel totally back on my feet now. 100% cured of all the anxiousness and sadness I was feeling due to panic and graduation.