This week didn't start off that pretty.
My stress has been building up, and the results were a little more disastrous than when I couldn't handle the beginning of 10th grade. That was already bad. The floodgates started opening on Sunday once we did Family Home Evening, because my mom started mentioning how stressed I've been lately, and went on about how she and my dad would love me no matter what career I chose and it didn't have to make a ton of money, but that wasn't my concern! She's always told me that! What I've been stressed about is making it into college in the first place! And I can't quite decide what would make me happy! I was not only staying stressed about it, but it was then feeling like they were misunderstanding me. So Monday came and I was just... Ugh, the headache is coming back just thinking about the headache I had. We arrived to school, and I was just getting out of the car when my mom stated that I wasn't okay and I just started crying. I guess you could say I had two or three breakdowns within that day. My mom took me home at that moment before I even entered the school for the day and I stayed home, basically either crying and trying to tell my mom what was really bothering me (and for a while, it still felt like she was misunderstanding, which only made it worse) or trying to distract myself with fics and other stuff. It was a really sucky day.
I will say that my mom made me change my classes so I only had English and Physics instead next semester. I'd liked my original schedule, and it was frustrating me that I had to change it, but it was true that having those three classes was worrying me because I wasn't sure how much time I'd have outside of them to, say, finish Financial Lit and PE, if necessary, and write, and maybe take that Kung Fu class. I wasn't gonna be able to do everything. I tried to pretend things would be okay, but they weren't going to be if they stayed that way.
I've gotten almost all of the first term and a little over half of the second term done for Financial Lit so far, so I'm hoping I'll get myself to do more of it this week despite not going to actual school. And I'm hoping I'll start to get myself to actually be serious about training to test out of the last semester of PE classes this week. I've only got a little over a month left of summer (which hasn't felt like a very proper summer, lemme tell you) and I can't leave this for the last few days. Like, no.
So a few years ago we went to Nashville with my aunt, uncle, and cousins who lived more on that side of the country. This week, my uncle had asked my dad to help out a friend who was moving to SLC, who I guess I'll just call John. He stayed at our house for a day, and it was actually kinda fun. He's a good guy who had a pretty colorful, interesting past, and he's also a recent amputee (I haven't often seen someone with only half one of their legs, but I didn't feel weirded out, just more like curious... I wonder if I have Ed Elric to blame for that). My sis and I talked with him for a while about stuff like writing (he's apparently written some books, so he gave me some advice that I'm hoping I'll remember) and the most important books you would give to a dying future civilization so they would be able to prosper... I had a hard time thinking of how to contribute to that second conversation, since the only books I could think of are things like Dr. Seuss and The Kane Chronicles... That wasn't appreciated.
I wish I didn't feel so tired, because I'd like to expand more on his stay with us, but I just kinda want to get this post done...
On Friday, me and a few other girls went on a trip with the YW 1st Counselor to visit different temples (and do baptisms for the dead in each) along with see her sister and nephew and get some ice cream at some place she and one of the girls were fanatic about. I wish it was easier to talk with the twins, because they just don't talk! They barely even talk to each other! They're honestly part of the reason I couldn't feel comfortable in this ward for the longest time... But, even though it was sometimes awkward because it's hard to have fun conversations with party-poopers like those two, it was still an enjoyable (and tiring) day. We ended up going to the Bountiful, Brigham City, and Logan temples.
I basically spent the entire day yesterday writing... And it wasn't even an actual publishable story- rather, it was a detailed description of events for an AU. It's one of those character-swap sort of things, but I wanted to explore how things would go from each character's birth in their new place all the way to as far as I could get. Ed was put into Mustang's place, and the first part of his life took up 3.5 pages, then I switched to Winry, who took Ed's spot, then Roy, who's in Al's, and finally Al as Winry. From there, it kept cycling through the perspectives of each as I tried to figure out how their reactions and stuff could possible have been to the important events and how things could've changed. It's a little more difficult for some, since I have to think in perspective of if that character grew up in the completely different environment, but they'd still maintain a few key characteristics of their personality. I think the most difficult to figure out has been Roy. I used to think I knew him pretty well until I turned him into Alphonse!
At this point, it's about 9 pages and it's describing some of what it's like soon after Winry has become the Fullmetal Alchemist, which I'm having a hard time with. I want to see how far I can take this brainstorm through the plotline, so I hope I can figure that out and keep going.
I know this isn't an actual story I plan to officially write and publish (though I wonder if I could pitch the idea and my huuuuuuuuge summary thing to another author who'd accept the challenge and turn this into something awesome), but I feel like it's still a good practice for exploring my ideas, and it could possibly give inspiration for a future story, just like some of my old works are doing for me now!
When I've run out of juice for this one, I'm gonna try to do more for another idea I started on, and then return to the demon story that remains unnamed...
Echo Gillette made a video with Butch Hartman (yeah, for reals!!!) about how to draw the style of Danny Phantom, and after some fails of trying to follow along on the examples he did, I tried drawing myself. I feel weird about drawing myself so curvy... And I wish I was better at poses, because I always end up doing poses that aren't quite right. The smallest change that could've been done on this one so it would look more natural would be popping up the hip in the back rather than the front (at least, it looks like that one is higher), though I'm not sure if I could have managed to do that. Eh.
I found it surprisingly difficult to decide how much detail to put into this so that it showed stuff that I actually wear or like without drifting too far from the DP norm. (I already veered off a bit with softening the line for the chest, and I wish I could have done the chest smaller, but that wouldn't have fit the style still). I also found I don't like drawing huge feet (I've always drawn feet pretty small), but at least I put in the most-simplified-I-could-bring-myself-to-be-version of my Converse (that have a zipper on the side), since I wear those a lot. I wanted her to be holding something, but a phone wasn't working, so I tried drumsticks instead. Her shirt (can't remember if they draw sleeves that way, but I do) seemed too plain, and I have a hard time with wearing plain shirts, so I resorted to a cat head.
I knew I'd have trouble with the face, too, because- while American cartoons are technically easier to draw than anime- I can rarely draw circle eyes without them being unintentionally creepy, which is why I've almost always resorted to anime eyes or just dots. I had to practice this (and also tried drawing inside of glasses lens, but, as expected, that looked worse) off on another part of the page before summoning the courage to draw the actual face. I think, if this was colored, the eyes would probably be just a lighter brown (than my natural color) without pupils. I realized at some point that they don't like using brown eyes, for some reason, but all the other characters in the show with dark hair have green eyes. I once drew myself with green eyes, but I think brown just suits me more, and it'd make me look a little more unique in the DP world, as weird as that sounds.
And I know, without a doubt, that I'd be one of the characters with thick, rectangular eyebrows. No question.
Last thing (yep, this has been a relatively short post) is that we went to eat at Brorange's house today. I told him a bit about one of my favorite fics, "Harry by Proxy", and he actually seemed amused by the idea! He didn't go all annoying about how horrible fanfics are! I'm hoping he'll actually consider reading it, because I think he'd like it, at least a little bit.
Wait, there's also that I finally looked at music from Steam Powered Giraffe (a friend had told me to look them up in 10 grade) and... I'm not totally sure how I feel about them. Some of it is cool, but they're also so confusing...
That's it for now! K bai!
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