Just Some Biz That Happened This Week

Hai world! (thanks to Broranges, I've gotten into the habit of writing 'hai' and 'bai' a lot)

So a friend of mine, who I've seen before but never actually talked to face to face, has been my e-mail pen pal for a while now. Something we discuss is anime and manga, and also we talked a little about fanfics. She told me that she was writing one, and I said the same back. However, don't remember if I've mentioned it, now the setting and stuff is all wacko in my story. I told her that, but she insisted that I at least give her a little piece of it, so I gave her the very first chapter. She told me that she's hooked! So it's already boosted my confidence, although it's still gonna be a while before I edit my book enough to give her more.

I have a sewing class, and for a few weeks we were working on a class quilt (and my square is beautiful, just so you know). At the end, she had us all use a quilting machine. But since the school has only one, only one person could go at a time, and so everyone else had to just sit around and do nothing. I couldn't take it anymore and started to draw. A girl who I think is my friend (she is such a complicated human being) was hanging around and we talked while I doodled. I took the opportunity and tried drawing her, cuz I think drawing real people helps my technique. She was really happy I did that, although she got annoyed it was smudged. (The only eraser I could find was really sucky. I wish I had remembered to get mine.)

(I learned from Fullmetal Alchemist and a drawing book that putting a little line for the eyelid makes it more realistic. I think it does look better, but to others it probably seems like it's supposed to be her eyebrow...)

I also tried redrawing the guy. He ended up looking a little better and nicer, but the hair was still freaking bugging me to death. I'm just too used to drawing girls, I guess. Then the second day we were there (this time I came prepared with my own pencil and eraser), I realized the hair just needed to texture. So I drew him again, this time adding more fly-away chunks. He looks so much better!!!

The thing is that although he seems much more like a guy than a girl, those are still big eyes. I can't get myself to draw smaller ones that don't look just plain wrong. So for the moment I'll just let people in his world call him a baby-face. (My sister has a friend who she calls Baby-face all the time, so that's where I got it. He really does look really young, so it throws you off when you hear his deep voice. I think it's almost as deep as Vin Diesel's. Almost.) I decided to base his first name off of my sister's friend, but it's not the same name, just similar. And my friend(?) drawn above just named off some last names and I felt like this one sounded right. I think I will have to change it, though, because I just googled "Justin Maller" and he already exists...

Oh, and I've already decided to name the girl Mausu Mumei, because it just seems to fit. (And another friend approved.) And so I guess people will just call her by either, like in a lot of manga.

Speaking of manga, a few weeks ago I checked out a book that had summaries of pretty much the most famous manga ever. I found some that I decided that I wanted to read, and so I've started on my list. I read some Astro Boy, which was cool, but I think I actually like the backstory on the movie version they made a few years ago. In the original, his dad sells him because he's all "If you were really my son, you would be able to grow!" That guy really pissed me off, even though he was only on few of the pages. 

I also read some Black Jack and loved it. It's by the same guy who did Astro Boy, but this was started in the late 80's, not early 50's. I highly recommend it.

I had noticed Case Closed on the library shelf, and that it had over 50 volumes, but since it had only a little boy on the front, it didn't seem interesting. Mystery novels are fun, but with a little kid as the main character, it seems like it's meant for little kids. But the book with summaries explained that it's NOT for little kids. So now I plan to read every single one available, cuz they are quite good. I'm just confused, cuz for some reason my county library system doesn't have #5... guess I'll have to skip it.

Psyren is new, unlike those other ones. In fact, I think #13 came out this year, and I'm on hold for it, but it'll take a while. I have a thing for reading books about people with powers. Something different about this is that all of their power comes from their mind. It's still things like blowing up stuff, healing, super speed, making stuff float in midair, and all that jazz, but it's done by them using more of their brain at one time. It has quite an interesting plot.

Last one for today: The friend who approved Mausu's name is the same one who told me to Netflix. (She absolutely loves Black Butler, so maybe her codename will be Grell?) She also told me that I should watch Fairy Tail, and I started last Thursday. I like it a lot, although there's something about it that's stopping me from obsessing about it like her, but I don't know what. However, something that I noticed is that they have a lot of terms said in English, not Japanese, like the name Fairy Tail, and their magic. ("Ice Make: Cannon!!!" "Dude, where'd your clothes go?!" *girlish scream*) I think one of my favorite characters is Gray. I just love that now that I've watched the episodes that give his backstory (gotta love dem backstories) I just laugh every time his shirt disappears. Although I think he seriously should've gotten rid of that habit by then...

Jeez, this post was long. I'm done for now. See you hopefully Friday or Saturday, cuz I don't really like using Sunday.

My Mom's Back!

Hello world!

Yep, after almost 2½ weeks, she is back. I know, I didn't mention it before, but my post was already long enough...

So, my mom needed to go to Mexico. We had a house back there from when my mom and dad just barely got married, and it still didn't sell. The paperwork just getting too hard to get done when it's done in another country, so she went to be there in person. She just got back on Wednesday, and it was so relieving. The longest I had ever gone without my mom was the 5 days at girls camp.

Literally that entire time I was eating pure microwave meals. I always have at least one per day, but one for three meals? At a point I felt like I was running out of options for food. And we had to do some chores. I rarely have chores, unlike most households. There is just that occasional "people are coming over, will you fix up the couch?" or "I have too much to do today, can get the rest of the plates into the dishwasher?" So we had to do more than usual, and even then I didn't clean as often as I probably should've.

Another two events. On Sunday, I read an entire book. I feel so horrible cuz I forgot to write down the name. (I'll probably try to find it again at the library and put the name/author on a sticky-note.) But it was a full-length novel. I haven't done that since I reread the Kane Chronicles books. It made my sister especially happy, because she doesn't really like anime and has been pissed off at me for reading pretty much Japanese comic books all the time. "That's not even a real book!" (An omnibus is probably as long as a novel, so whatever.) She still thinks I read too fast, though.

And last night, I watched the second half of all the Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood episodes they had. Earlier this week, I finally asked my dad for the login to his Netflix account, because a friend told me there was a lot of anime on there that see liked, and I didn't want to have to ask my dad to download so many series. So I watched a few episodes for a few nights, and I got up to about halfway through the second season, I think.

And yesterday was a half day. I started watching pretty much the minute I got home. I decided that to make it easier for everyone, I finally decided to use our sucky blue laptop for this, considering it was already in my room and no one uses it. So I was inside my room from around 1 PM to 1 AM watching Ed and Al. Even crazier than my Black Butler marathon! The dif in this one, however, is that I was moving around more often. I was switching between my bed for a few hours and then a few hours at my desk so it can charge. I was also switching between having the lights on or off. My eyes didn't end up really hurting as much, probably because of the fact that I got up more often.

I'm kinda mad, though, that they stopped at 4th season even though there's more after that! Apparently Netflix takes a long time to upload newer stuff to the site. (Like I think they had just barely put the 1st season of Adventure Time over 2 years after the series started. Sheesh, that was delayed.)

Ok, so I didn't really get as much time as I was hoping for to use the book to draw our Little Alchemist and his brother ("DON'T CALL ME SHORT") because we took it back to the library a week later. And I just wasn't really feeling like drawing in general, because I didn't really have ideas. (Drawer's block?) But on Wednesday morning, I became determined to learn how to draw a guy. Like I'm pretty sure I've said before, I am not really able to draw guys, especially their hair (or hair in general.) So I was practicing different eyes that I saw on teen boy drawings on Google Images. And yesterday, I figured how I wanted to do it, and attempted at the full head!

This is pretty much the first manga guy I've done that was my own character. I realize how belated this step in my career is, but at least it came. I figured this might be the guy that was wondering about my girl with the hat I made a few weeks ago. I'm guessing I'll make some adjustments to him and make a name too.

Speaking about names, I have decided between two names for my female. I think that giving her a name in JAPANESE will really make her sound unique and cute, since in my world most people have names in English. It will be either Mausu (Mouse, like I was talking about a few posts ago), or, to be ironic with my situation earlier, Mumei (Nameless). Maybe in the end her full name will be Mausu Mumei, and I guess at that point I just have to decide if people call her by first or last name.

Since When Were Fanfics GOOD?

Hello world!

And Happy Halloween!... last week...

I know, I'm still being pretty sucky about doing this weekly. I'm so close yet so far.

So, on Wednesday (or was it Tuesday?) I was extremely bored and just felt like searching up something random. I Googled "fullmetal alchemist fanfictions." This is weird for me because I am almost AGAINST fanfics. Why?

I had talked about a few weeks after starting the blog that I just get annoyed by love stuff. Bleh. And I already knew for a fact that a lot of fanpics and fanfics (rhymey whimey) have to do with shipping characters. I mainly know that from Finn, the human on Facebook, because now that page is pure Adventure Time pictures. I totally get ones like where in the show two characters actually had a relationship, like Finn and Flame Princess, but beyond that they can get... creepy.

And besides the fact that people's minds are weird in the way that they choose characters to hook up, they also tend to be PERVERTED. The older I get the more I feel disgusted by humanity.

So, knowing this, I just didn't even try to find fanfictions and etc. I would actually be interested in.

But for some reason, I felt like searching them. It redirected me to the Fullmetal Alchemist section in fanfiction.net. I was actually kinda pleased with what I found! The descriptions say what kind of story it is so I can just avoid the ones that say "Romance." I was amazed to find that there are actually really creative people that write well and know how to use certain characters and make up an original plot and make it interesting and be overall awesome. These are the kinds of stories that I try to sneak some time in to read on my phone during school. It has to be good for me to do that, I suppose.

After reading a few that I wanted to follow, I decided to make an account on fanfiction.net, and since then I have been getting on at least once daily to find more stuff to read.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is one happy customer. Especially because I don't have to pay.

Also, I later remembered that I'm writing my own... based off of another one... am I being a hypocrite?
I'm pretty sure that publishers wouldn't want to publish a book with Slenderman, considering I've never seen any at the library. So what if I post my book on the website and see if people even like it? Maybe if it becomes quite popular, it might help to boost my confidence on what the public think. And if not, then I know that I suck at writing. Plus, it would be good to get reviews from people besides myself on how to make it sound better and stuff. Is that a good idea?