But She Saw Nothing There

The wall was blank. That was all she could see.

She frowned as her eyes flicked around the plaster wall she currently faced for any indication that what she was so sure actually existed here, well, actually existed. There had to be something.

But she saw nothing there.

"This can't be!" she'd love to tell herself, but recent events had made her question everything lately.

See, her memory was always perfect. Flawless. To the point where it was both a blessing and a curse. She preferred to think of it more in a positive light, however, because she had the constant comfort that she would definitely remember all the good people she had met and the great places she had seen and the fantastic experiences that changed her life for the better.

But, for some reason, regardless of her uncanny ability to recall past events, she absolutely failed to recall the previous day.

Why couldn't she remember yesterday?

Well, it'd be slightly incorrect to say she couldn't remember anything at all. Something in the hidden recesses of her mind had nudged her to this very spot she stood at now when she embarked on the very frantic and dread-filled journey to discover what occurred that removed her precious memory of practically a full 24 hours.

Her current position did not put her to ease, as much as she had wished it would when she initially followed her heart here. Staring at a blank wall never put anyone at ease, as far as she was concerned. That meant that someone could be right behind her, plotting her demise, holding a knife at her back, and she would not have the slightest clue.

She paused as she suddenly took notice of the dark turn in her thoughts. Where had that come from? She was never so paranoid before.

But that was before. Now, she felt so fidgety and fearful, and a ring of pain continued to slowly burn and throb around her throat, like a misplaced angel's halo. She had to resist touching it, due to the concern of irritating the skin even further. All she had allowed was the gentle application of an ice pack for a while.

That was actually the main reason why she was desperate to fill in the blank in her memory. Besides the implication that a severe injury and/or substance put into her body one way or another was responsible for her current predicament, there was another that made all of this even scarier.

Surely, she had met someone that only held malicious intent. Been at the wrong place at the wrong time. Done something she shouldn't have or just hadn't done something right in time to avoid this.

Why else would she have red marks on her neck?

Her heart had dropped to her stomach when she first spotted the fire-colored bruises in the mirror that morning. Even if she hadn't felt any pain, she was sure she would've still felt like something was wrong upon waking up. The wrongness had given her goosebumps the moment her eyes opened, even though she laid in her bed just like every other normal night.

She set off on her mission as soon as humanly possible, and all she accomplished was finding this ordinary wall. The side of the building that resided in a small alley. It appeared to just consist of stucco, dirt, and more stucco.

Perhaps whatever happened caused the memory she still retained to go faulty, she lamented, frustrated with herself and the wall and the world. Her hand itched to touch her neck, and her leg ached to kick the wall enough times for it to actually give her the information she desired. She gave in to neither, for the former would accomplish nothing and the latter would just result in a sore foot.

All she wanted was to remember. Was that too much to ask?

She sighed as she finished her hundredth study of the infuriatingly nondescript, commonplace, run-of-the-mill wall and resigned to the conclusion that she would not find anything of worth there. Her efforts were an absurd, useless endeavor from the beginning.

She began to turn away and walk out of the alley when a sharp, silver point made itself known, aimed directly between her eyes with a dangerous glint. One that suddenly felt all too familiar.

"Hello again."

Unmoving in all but her eyes, she slowly looked towards the wielder of the blade, who was a man with rather unremarkable features. The only thing that caught her attention was his pair of deep-set blue eyes, the color of a calm sea, but they only made her shudder.

They were soulless.

Suddenly, the dam broke, and her memories flooded back, all containing his dead-water eyes. Now, she could recall with unclouded clarity the terrifying experience that happened because of this man, in front of this innocent, unsuspecting stucco wall, and her escape.

Escape.

She didn't think she wanted to remember yesterday anymore.

Her face drained of color, because she now knew more than ever that this man was extremely dangerous, and she was so much of an idiot that she returned to this spot just to face him again. He must've let her escape, for he must've known she was stupid enough to come running back.

Surely, she wouldn't be so lucky as to still live on this time.

"It can't be!" she'd love to say to herself, but recent events are proving that it really can.

The wall was no longer blank.

(Sept. 4, 2016; based on 50-word story to Darkrai and “But she saw nothing there.” Finally got the guts to post it. On another note, I finally put tags for songs, posts used for my Faith project, and plan to do one for my short stories and other writings.)

Pageant Girl Face, Dance, and KF

Hello world...

So, that was awesome. All that pain.

I woke up crazy sore after doing a two-hour KF class yesterday (dude, you should see my knuckles, because all we did was powerful punches and kicks!), and then when we were in church, I also started getting menstrual pain. It got quite bad.

But, with Advil and eventually a hot pad, I now feel better. I actually fell asleep for maybe an hour? I don't feel any less sore, but still a whole lot better because the pain was quite intense before.

Anyway~ let's get on with the post!

I didn't mention last week that... I broke the chain on my pocket watch. *facewalls in disappointment with myself* I seriously need to be more careful. I've never broken something like this twice, as far as I can remember!

This was the... Thursday(?) before, but I finally got to fix it on Monday, so I could return to wearing it to school. ...Did I actually say earlier that I planned to wear it as often as possible? My Chibi Al keychain never got that opportunity, since it broke at the Spring Dance years ago, so I figured at least my pocket watch should have that chance, right?

Since I mainly wear shirts and jeans, it's been pretty easy to keep that habit up. I just have to make sure the length of the shirt and waist of jeans coincide so the chain (and hopefully the pocket itself) are in sight. On the times I've worn a dress, I've instead worn the watch as a necklace (though one day I got annoyed by it being like that and wrapped it around my wrist as a bracelet-ish thing. And I once doubled up the necklace so it was short while wearing this really big Batman shirt that I got at Hot Topic around the same time as the FMA shirt (I think). It's surprisingly cool (as in temperature) considering it's black.

(Speaking of Hot Topic: we went to use our Hot Cash yesterday, and I found a T-shirt for my sister that had a picture from the dancing scene in Labyrinth on the front. As expected, she loved it. There's just the problem that she can't wear that sort of thing to work, so she probably can't put it on very often in general, but I'm sure she'll find days to rock it. We also got a Cartoon Network shirt and one with the photos from Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children on it. I haven't taken as good a look at the individual pictures as I would expect myself to do before buying it, honestly, but I'm assuming at least half of them are the creepy photos, since I know I'd already spotted the twins in there. They never really explained what was up with them in the book, huh?)

I'm pretty pleased about keeping up with the watch, cuz it feels like I have a thing now. There's characters on TV or in books that wear a certain necklace all the time, or always have suspenders (like in Austin & Ally) or always wear a hat, and I've always wanted to be like them in that aspect. To have something that becomes part of my description, if I was considered a character in the story of real life, ya know? I guess it sounds kinda stupid, but I really like that idea. It's part of why I like trying to wear hats so often! But now this is something that I can really do something with all the time.

Okay, so things that happened in the week, starting with Tuesday. For one, we hung out with my aunt again, and saw another part of Juan Gabriel's TV special with her. (I believe it was called Hasta que te conocí.) After that, I had my first official KF class. I think it was slightly less tiring than the first, but I still have a long way to go. I also have to make a habit of practicing at home, cuz... I haven't really done that, besides trying to go over the forms mentally.

The day after, the YW activity was doing a bit of FamilySearch stuff (though I was the only girl that showed up). It was nice, since I could get advice on how to handle some of the merges I planned to make and stuff with my one of my leaders, who is a total pro at this sort of thing. I found out two of the names I'd reserved before actually couldn't be done anymore, though, since they'd had duplicates that already had their ordinances done. Dangnabbit.

We did more dancing (plus some practice at home on Monday) on Thursday. Turns out we're doing the little viejitos dance (I was a bit nervous about using it, since to me the music is pretty outdated; everyone else participating seemed to love it, though, so that's good). There was practice on the next day, too, but my sister and I didn't make it there because on Friday...

We were part of my uncle's project to make a video advertising a group on FB (as far as I understood).

It was a professional shoot. So that meant being on camera with all the crazy bright lighting and nervousness galore and all of that.

There were many delays, so we were there for almost 7 hours. And all we had for food was some snacks. (I feel a little bad for my uncle, though, since he didn't even have time for snacks.) We garfed down some pizza when he took us home.

My dislike for wearing makeup really came out that day. My mom put some on my face in the morning, and I was a little... I guess mad that the foundation's color was pretty far off from my actual skin. It was too red. I couldn't help but think I looked like one of those pageant girls from Toddlers & Tiaras since it seemed like I'd put fake tan on my face, plus my sister had curled my hair, so... Yeah. I just looked so pageant, and it made me so uncomfortable. I looked so fake! And I seriously do not like looking fake.

I was self-conscious about my face about the entire day, and I got the most worried about how I looked on the video since that is going on the Internet. My sis said it looked better on camera because the bright lights evened out my skin tone, but my uncle sent me a pic he'd taken then, and... It's not as evened out as I'd hoped for. I feel like I still look a little fake. Like it's not quite me. I'd been against wearing full makeup from the beginning, so I was in a mildly foul mood because of all of this.

Okay, so like I'd said before, I had KF yesterday, and it got my hands looking crazy. Here's the best photo I've been able to get out of my phone, which I actually took tonight. It still doesn't show as much detail as I wish it did, but I guess it will have to do. Mainly, there's a bunch of dots along my knuckles like an intense case of freckles. Can you see them?

(Figured I might as well update on my cat thumb... pretty sure this is one of the smallest ones I've done so far. And I don't think I had put the last one, but I believe it was dark blue, a little bigger, and more on the right than on the left. That's... pretty much it. *sweatdrop*)

I'm actually... Kinda proud of this. I mean, I was intensely punching and kicking and chopping and palm-sticking for two hours. I broke boards! How boss is that?! I think I want my knuckles to stay that way so I can always remember that I'm accomplishing a lot and I can show off my kickbutt-ness to people.

Last thing to mention is that my whole family went to an India Fest at a Krishna temple a few hours later. I had gone to it with my dad years ago- I mean, probably 6 or 7 years ago- so my memories were very vague. Nonetheless... I feel like I might have enjoyed it a bit more back then than this time. That time, it'd been more focused on the actual Hindu religion, for one thing (as far as my memory tells me- I am quite sure there were statues of some of the gods and stuff), while this one was more about Krishna. Well, actually, I think it was pure Krishna this time. We saw several of the people who are actually part of this religion come in to worship, and it was kinda interesting, but also... made me a little uncomfortable. There's a few things that just feel off about all of this to me. I don't intend to bash people who do this, just... I dunno, I felt weird about the things they were doing. I think something that bothered me a lot was the chant. It's a little hard to explain why, and even if I did explain successfully, I feel like people would get really mad at me (as if people actually read my stuff), so I'm just gonna stop here. Probably should've ended this paragraph a lot sooner...

But hey! The food was good this time too (though one portion of it was not exactly warm), we got a mini classical Indian dance lesson, and I have a new bracelet! It's black, gray, white, and gold... if memory serves correctly. (I'm not looking at it right now don'tjudgeme.) Since it's got some of the same colors as that bracelet my friend made for me last Christmas, I guess this is sort of my replacement for it, in a way...? I still feel so bad about losing it. *just gonna go cry for a moment*

Well, that's everything. Let's pretend this was actually posted on Sunday, since it's all from the perspective of Sunday. K bai.

Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting~

Hello world!

Forgot to mention two weeks ago (because I'm a butt) that I got this in a fortune cookie when my family ate at our favorite restaurant after Comic Con:

That's... actually very deep. For once.

If I had done a post last week, I would've started with talking about 9/11, but it's a little late to do that now... Well, I probably should still.

How weird is it that I am part of the last generation in K-12 that had been born before that happened? I was seriously just a month old when it happened, so of course I don't remember it. But to know that kids from this point on will only consider it as a historical event, not as an event that we were all in the middle of... I don't know, that just seems a little weird and almost heart-breaking. My sister is more upset about it than I am, since she's older and is teaching the kids that were born after that.

Also... There's surely kids out there who were born right as 9/11 was happening. They must feel really conflicted about their birthday.

There was also a multi-stake conference last Sunday, and some of what they said I want to remember. So, here's my short list of what they said for future reference (this is to hoping that Future Me will understand fully what this stuff even means!):

Waddell: Scripture study is very important.

Oscarson: "Oh, I am very Mormon! I follow all the rules, and I find it very fun!"

Ballard: What even is this Pokémon Go?

What I love is that Ballard kept mispronouncing "Pokémon".

Um, I think I'll just mention now that my mom and I have started doing stuff on FamilySearch since last Sunday- but for realsies this time. Like, we're actually finding things to do. And I reserved some names today, which I'm hoping we'll get to use next month. (I also went on a temple trip last Thursday, but few Young Women showed up.)

I already had a huge list of stuff I'd planned to write about last week, so I'm gonna have to skip quite a bit, I think.

I'll just start with that we watched When A Stranger Calls a few weeks ago, but I'd forgotten to put it in the previous post. And since I'm already on the topic of movies~ My sis and I watched Labyrinth in the movie theater! As in, the David Bowie movie that came out in the 80's, which is basically one of my sister's absolute favorite movies ever. It was the 30th anniversary on Wednesday, so they were doing a screening of it at the theater, so of course we had to go. It was pretty cool, even though I barely remembered any of it from my childhood.

Last Friday, I finally officially began filling out my Stanford application. I'm really hoping to put it in for Early Action, since I'm a little more likely to make it in then, but we were presented with a problem: the ACT with Writing is required to apply. And it says on the website it's preferred if you don't do the ACT in October because it's very likely they won't receive it in time by the time they look at your application. But, well, it's too late to do the September ACT, so I'm gonna do the one in October and pray they receive it in time and give me a fair shot at getting into the school.

I'm also signing up for random scholarships in my free time- mainly during school hours- that don't require tons of effort, but once I'm done with the Stanford app, I'm hoping to get into doing the scholarships that do require effort

Among the scholarships (all of which require creating an account in a certain website, often one that has to do with finding colleges and scholarships) I have mindlessly signed up for, there was one for DoSomething.org. Once I took the time to properly see what the website was even for, I was pleasantly surprised. It is mainly about service and promoting social change. A few of the projects seemed like something I'm actually willing to participate in. One I signed up for was #RealPrincess (though I'm not a big fan of the title). Basically, it's just creating a strong female character that could easily be a new Disney princess. There were already a few entries, but I thought some of them didn't really look like princesses. Like, the character was probably quite cool, but I kinda wondered if people forgot there was supposed to be a "part of the royal family" at some point in most of the Disney princesses' stories, which was why they were called Disney princesses.

So, as I was going to bed, my mind went back to that, and I suddenly had an idea for a princess- one with a magical power of a sort that could actually be used to cause a lot of positive change in the world. (The facts that my sister likes languages and I like writing definitely had parts in this.) What I thought was: what if someone could writing something that could be understood by anyone, regardless of what language they speak and their level of literacy? Like, she could write in English, and it could be understood perfectly well by a 3-year-old in... um... Nigeria? No idea why I picked that country.

But yeah, I thought that would be crazy cool. I imagine that she would write a lot of articles and such and spread them throughout the kingdom, and she would be way into social activism and supporting those who want change within the government system and sharing stories of people she's met in order to get them the help they need. She would have to do it all under a secret pen-name, though, because I doubt her parents, the flippin' king and queen, would particularly like the idea that their daughter is always siding with the poor people and being part of why there's been a lot of protests and stuff like that.

She would want to learn lots of languages- just because foreigners can understand her doesn't mean she'll understand them, after all- and travel a lot in order to put those language skills to use and just meet new people. She'd be a very social person, outside of the times when she holes up in her room to write to the public, so she'd take the opportunities to get out of the castle whenever she can. This would be how she ends up meeting a prince or something while in his home country, and she'd probably have some adventures with him... Once she's become a little fluent in his native language, of course.

For some reason, I decided that she'd have two older brothers and one younger brother, and she'd always have her hair in a ponytail on normal days and half-ponytail styles when at special events. The closest I have to a name is Valencia Everline. (Everline came from hearing the detective's name in Black Butler... which I'm actually going to mention now.)

I finished reading the tenth book of Black Butler yesterday, which means I read the first 10 volumes in a little over a week. *pats my own back* Since I'd only seen the anime before, I'd expected the manga to be the exact same, but... it wasn't. For one thing, there's a lot more jokes (which I'm surprised to have forgotten happens in manga more than anime, which is part of what I like the FMA manga more than the animes, but it's just by a little bit that the magna wins out for me) and showing of emotions from Ciel and Sebastian. Everyone's favorite butler is always so calm and smiley in the anime, so I was surprised that he acted so dang human sometimes in the manga, but I also like it. I might like it more than the anime too! (Though I'll have to thank the anime for giving me the great voices for some of the characters, even at the cost of the really annoying voices. *coughMeyRinandGrellcough*)

There's also a different order of events. Or example, the Circus arc happens a whole lot sooner than I expected. (I'm pretty sure my mind had erased the memories of the horrifying parts of Book of Circus, cuz I just remembered a few things about the main characters- mostly Joker and Doll- and that there was some very disturbing things that happen. I didn't remember particularly what, and now that I've read it, I'm like "Oh yeah. No wonder my brain didn't want me to remember that, because it's quite traumatizing." So~ I think I might just not watch Book of Circus again once I get all the way through the first and second season of the anime again. There were some cool things (like the opening song!!!) and cute, funny things, but... I'd rather not have to see the horrible stuff all over again.

Since I already mentioned earlier one of my new story ideas, I guess I'll mention another: Set lives in my pocket. Basically, I had a conversation with my sister where she said something about something living in her pocket (can't remember what, but she'd said it sarcastically). For some reason, I'd misheard her and thought she said Set- as in, the Egyptian god that's all evil and stuff- lived in her pocket. So now I'm thinking a weird, but funny and interesting story could come out of the premise of Set or Hades or a similar god just... being shrunken and living in somebody's pocket. (Now that I think about it, I'd fancied the idea for a while in 10th grade of if I kept my Lego Batman and Zane in my pocket, and they ended up coming to life... and so I carried around mini living Legos and I'd have the time of my life. As long as they didn't require to breathe, eat, and poop, of course. If that was the case, it wouldn't be as fun.)

I'm beginning to do a lot more serious exercise lately. There's doing the dances (which are all exhausting as heck), and on Saturday I finally signed up for the Kung Fu classes! ...And, well, hopefully, I don't regret it. At the very least, I think already having an after-school schedule and something to aim my energy towards may be very useful. Exercise relieves stress, as I am told, and exercise is definitely something I need to improve on, but only can manage to have short bouts of managing successfully. The warmups and starting exercises in my first class were really tiring, and I felt so lost with the sparring. I'm hoping that, plus learning how to defend myself correctly, will motivate me to work my hardest on this.

The thing is, I also should be starting to do the volunteering I'd wanted to do since months ago, but I'm worried it might feel like too much on my plate if I put that too. We actually went looking for opportunities that I might like and are relatively close to the house- none have to do with refugees, but it's still good stuff. The two best-looking ones are volunteering at the animal shelter (hopefully, they'd let me take care of the cats, even though I'm not 18!) and being a math tutor at an after-school program at an elementary just a few blocks away. I feel pretty unconfident about my teaching skills since 10th grade, but my mom and sister apparently think I'd do perfectly fine. (Side-note: starting this week, my sis is now doing more work in the office than the math classroom, so I hope she feels better about her new position and doesn't get as stressed out as she did before. A lot of stuff was piled onto her when she was mainly a tutor, especially this year.)

Anyway, I'm thinking it'd be best to at least wait a week to see how things go with my Kung Fu classes before adding in volunteering. If I do, I'll need to do it soon, though, if I wanna have it on my college application. (I'm worrying that putting both Kung Fu and volunteering might make it seem like I'm trying too hard by putting a lot of activities? I already have down drums, dancing, writing, and will likely vaguely mention doing service at the temple... Or am I being too paranoid?)

On Saturday, we tried out a Filipino restaurant. The food was good (though not quite what I expected), but what absolutely blew me away was the dessert. It was banana fritters with magnolia ice cream. That's right, magnolia. And it was purple! Each were interesting on their own, but a little bit of fritter and ice cream in the same spoonful... Oh my gosh, I felt so mindblown that something could be so frickin' delicious. Amazing.

Since I should've ended this a long time ago (took waaay too long to finish the post this time), I'm just gonna mention that it was ¡¡¡Día de la Independencia de México!!! So, of course, we wore Mexican shirts and dresses and stuffed our faces with Mexican food and snacks. We did not get enough snacks. *tear*

Aand~ last Thursday, right as we finished putting the (Mexican-themed) groceries in the car, my mom got a call from my cousin. She announced that the doctors finally determined for sure what was my Abuelita's problem, and it definitely wasn't cancer!!! It hadn't been very likely in the first place, but just to have the official news was such a relief. I don't remember if I ever even mentioned this earlier, but it was a few months ago that we were told she might have cancer. So, getting on with everyday life with that possibility in the back of our heads... Not fun.

We still want to visit her as soon as possible- which may be during Winter Break- but at least she doesn't have such a scary disease.

Alrighty! Goodbai~

Panels, Watches, and Short Fiction

Hello world!

I kinda stayed up pretty late last night to binge-write an attempt at a flash fiction story (very short story), so I'm kinda tired right now. The fact that we were pretty active over the weekend isn't helping at all, most likely.

Since I've already mentioned it, I guess I'll just explain why I was attempting in the first place. I've started signing up for different scholarships and looking at ones that seem doable. So far, I've pretty much just done ones that require nothing but your name and address and winners are just chosen randomly, but I want to do a few that need a short essay or something. One I found is that you can submit a story- there's categories for different lengths and genres, so that's not an issue- and hope that it's good enough to win the money. My first attempt at the flash fiction category didn't really work out, since it came out to be over 6,000 words when the limit is 1,000... Oops. But I wanted to try again- not just to enter in that category (who knows if I'll be confident enough with any recet works to enter any categories at all), but to just try it out and practice writing works of different lengths. I tend to write stories that are a lot longer than originally intended, as is the case with many other writers, so I needed to try to do this. (Based on what I've got on my FFN profile, I can either write 300-word crack!drabble!Idon'tevenknow!fics, 2,000-word chapters, or 7,000-word one-shots. And the demon story, last time I checked, is gonna be about 20,000 words, which doesn't count as a short story or a novel. Insert deep sigh.

Anyways! I ended up signing up for Quora because of the scholarship rampage, and I found a question someone posted to tell a story in 5 words. The responses were very interesting, and have been giving me quite an amount of inspiration. I think I will be attempting to write flash fiction for some of them- or, if I just can't fit the whole idea in that, then a short story. Or, heck, maybe they'll actually inspire me for one of my longer stories! I've felt weird being away from WFAM for so long.

I plan to fix up the piece I wrote last night a little more- as of now, it's exactly 880 words- and then post it, and explaining what inspired me either before or after.

Alrighty, now onto other stuff that happened!

First off, I just wanna point out that one of our seminary subs taught the Maori people during his mission years ago, and likes to tell us about the language or culture or whatever. Last time he came, he told us that the Maori don't have actual swear words, but they do still have things they can say to insult others. The worst thing you could say there was "U poko ko hua!" which means "Go boil your head!" (It's one of those cultures that consider the head sacred due to being the highest part of the body, and probably the feet as the least sacred due to being the lowest. He didn't mention the feet, but I can assume, since that's how similar cultures are.) I haven't been into saying insulting things beyond "butthole", "pooface", and similar things for a very long time, but this is so fun to say! And I know it's not actual bad words!

I had appeared to be the only concurrent student in my specific Physics class, but last Wednesday, a familiar kid was sitting there looking nervous and confused. I think I'll call him... Isaiah. (It's close enough to a codename, so deal.) He's a student at my school who has awesome long, curly hair, and he had just entered into the class- maybe he was on the wait list or something. But he was 4 days late.

So the next few days, he's had to catch up on all our past assignments and chapters and try to cram all this info into his head in time for the test, which we turn in this Wednesday. I feel so bad for him.

I think it's kinda ironic that James's face structure and fabulous hair (though fab in a different way) had actually reminded me of Isaiah when I first met him, and now Isaiah's here too...

As far as I remember, we once went bowling with my little cousin in Mexico a few years ago, and after a few tries I proved to be decent at it. Maybe one or two strikes and a lot of almost-strikes. The YW went bowling this week, though, and I sucked. Like, even I myself was surprised by how bad I was doing. It was painful. Like I usually do when doing anything related to aim, I accomplished rather impossible things- I usually only got the pin that's all the way on the left or right side of the triangle- but not anything of worth. I was the worst player, even though I had the second-lowest score in both games. And that was because the girl with the lowest score literally didn't even wanna play, and so she wasn't trying.

So~ that was pathetic.

And just like that, we've reached the weekend! Not much interesting stuff happened during the normal week, honestly.

I had kinda just decided to not bother with Comic Con anymore, since I had no costume nor any desire to go around spending my nor my mom's money all willy-nilly. But my mom and sister convinced me to go. I knew they would.

What convinced me the most was when my sister came up with an idea of what we could cosplay as- Wednesday and Pugsley Addams. We pretty much had everything for Wednesday already, so we just needed to get the shirt and shorts for Pugsley (and black knee-high socks for both of us, since they'd work better than tights and whatever socks I already have). Surprisingly, finding a striped shirt that would work for the costume was more difficult than we imagined, but we finally found it in the boys' section in Walmart. And it fit me pretty well, considering it was for 8-year-olds. So, that's where I am in my life right now.

The signs hadn't been very clear on where we were supposed to go to register, so my sis and I seriously walked a circle around the entire building until someone finally told us which door to go to. Thanks, Comic Con. Especially because my sister was wearing heels.

Once we were inside, though, we were delighted to see all of the cosplayers. We actually found another Wednesday and Pugsley, which was awesome! My sis said that just that moment alone made her entire day. (And her day at work had already been really sucky before the whole walking-outside-the-building-for-forever thing.)

We saw two panels, one right after the other in the same room: the first was about creating characters, which she basically demanded for me to go to. (Apparently, besides the fact that now we all know I like writing, she was interested by the specific subject, too, even though she isn't into writing for fun.) We took lots of notes, so I hope that will help me in my stories- specifically, WFAM.

The one after that was a psychologist talking about serial killers. What turned them into killers, what their mindset is, etc. it was rather grim, but we also learned a lot in that one. I didn't want to take notes, but I did give Coatrack a rundown of some of the most important information a while after, so it seems it stuck in my brain pretty good anyways.

After that, it turned out vendors were already starting to close up shop, but my sis and I stopped at one that had steampunk goggles, and chose to buy one that just covered one eye, just like in sci-fi movies (I think my sister had mentioned a character called Mad Max?), for my dad. (He loved it, by the way.) Once she had paid for it, I realized the same stall was selling pocket watches. I went on a mad search through them, and guess what I found~

THAT'S RIGHT! I'd almost gotten one of these babies my first time to Comic Con, but the stall had run out before we got there! But this one did! And it's not just one of the cheap plastic ones from the Internet, either, but actual metal! For $12! That's how much my poorly-made Alphonse chibi keychain cost! (I still love that thing, though- ooh, and guess what! I finally showed him to one of my friends, so she's now the first I have shared my secret Alphonse with since I put him in my backpack!)

(Even better, my sis actually agreed that this was the best watch they had, and she practically hates anime! She didn't even know whether it was a reference to something or not, but she thought it looked sick. Getting my sister's approval when I least expect it just... I guess it boosts my self-esteem a little.)

Here's a closer pic that looks so professional I can't even:

Note that it has Ed's name at the bottom, and it also has "Fullmetal Alchemist" written at the top on the same fashion. Unlike other versions I've seen, the lid has cutouts in it, so the clock face peeks through. Of course, that means they weren't able to put "Remember 08.03.11" on the inside, but I am perfectly fine with that, since the watch just looks so freakin' nice!

Even though it's on a necklace chain rather than a normal pocket watch chain, it's easy to use like a normal chain, and so I did just that the next day, when it turned out we were going there for a little longer. Since we didn't have a second costume prepared, my sis just wore a Harry Potter shirt and I got decked out in my Adventure Time merch. Ever since I wrote a bit for one of those cliche Ed-stranded-in-the-middle-of-an-anime-convention fics (from my perspective, so obviously it wa just or my own eyes only), I've wanted to do that. In the story, I wore this outfit- putting on my AT shirt, placing my BMO headphones around my neck, and carrying my little Finn doll around- but, now that I got to do it in real life, I could also add the dark blue jeans (colored solid, not like normal denim) my mom had gotten me a little before the 4th of July, since the color is pretty close to Finn's shorts. I felt so cool. (And I think I also enjoyed carrying around the little doll, since there's something so comforting about stuffed animals...)

Upon getting there, we went to another panel, which was about urban legends. It was fun to listen to the stories, and one of them actually has given me yet another idea for a possible story... But more like one for a novel, not a short story. I really don't think I can work on yet another big project right now, so I hope I can just write down all the details I can think of for it right now and be able to use them in the future...

My sister had to leave soon, and so we just wandered around for a bit, and then I was left on my own to fulfill a mission: get autographs.

I haven't even said how we got the tickets in the first place, I believe. See, A, B, and C had wanted to go to Comic Com when they were here, and so they actually bought multipasses. But, as you know, they decided to move away even though this state is awesome. (Just saying.) And they weren't able to return the tickets, so... They gave them to us. And those thangs are worth a lotta moolah.

So, at the very least, C had asked us to get her an autograph from the guy she'd wanted one from so badly: Ian Somerhalder, who was the lead in Vampire Diaries. (Did I even spell his name right?) I'd also learned that it was possible I could get an autograph from Vic Mignogna (KYAAAAA!!!) and Jeremy Shada (voice of Finn the Human)! There's very few people I'd bother getting a signature from, but those two are within that group of people.

Unfortunately, they weren't there that day... And I turned out getting an autograph from Ian cost $70. No. No way, dude.

So, when that didn't work out, I texted my sis, wondering what to do. She told me to try to find at least a souvenir from the show to give to C. I frantically searched for quite a while, and I only found one stall with anything from Vampire Diaries, and... The only things they had left weren't very convincing. I pretty much gave up soon after that.

I couldn't really find much I wanted to buy for myself, either. The pocket watch was what I wanted the most and had the most decent price compared to, say, the T-shirts and stuff like that. A few of them were cool, but not $25 worth of cool, ya know?

I did get $5 worth of little buttons, though. I was really picky, so I'm pretty pleased with my selection. I pinned them all onto Finn the Doll's little backpack.

I had originally intended to buy all four Avatar elements, but they didn't have the round buttons for all of them anymore. (There were all four in square buttons, but they cost more.) So, I just got air, since that's the element I like the most anyway. I then found the AT buttons, but I liked the Finn button the most. Since it seemed I was going to run with a theme of just one button per fandom, I kept that  going, and just got the one I liked the most for Gravity Falls, and ended by taking the Doge button. I still Doge. Doge is forever.

I kinda wished there were anime buttons, too, but they had only stuck with American pop culture in that booth. What a shame.

In case you noticed the chain by his backpack strap: Finn's currently wearing the pocket watch, and lookin' oh so cool.

(And look! My dad combined all the drums together, since they'd just been lying around in my room for a few weeks. I'd been kinda mad about my dad buying more drums in the first place, but I actually really love the result. I am so excited to try out the new set tomorrow. Sorry I ever doubted you, Dad.)

After that, I went to a panel about horror books and movies, even though horror is definitely more my sister's thing than mine. (I like creepy and suspense, but rarely horror.) We'd agreed it'd be interesting and filled with potentially useful info, anyways, even though she wouldn't be able to go. (After all, it's pretty difficult to truly scare people through fiction and film, and they'd be talking about how to accomplish that.)

Unlike the panel about creating characters, I'm pretty sure I was the only one taking notes. They probably thought I was texting someone during the panel or something.

After that, I was only able to go watch a little bit of the cosplay contest going on... There were some pretty cool costumes, but I, of course, got the most excited for the FMA:B group cosplay. There was an armor!Alphonse (I've only seen one other in person, but they'd just barely been leaving the con the day before with the rest of the group they were cosplaying with, so I couldn't get a picture with them! That FMA cosplay group was sooo cool, though! *tear*), an Envy (who I'd spotted several times in the halls over the past few days), a Scar, and a little kid dressed as Ed! Like, he was probably only about 7 years old! It was so awesome and adorable, especially because they did a short battle choreography once they got onstage. The little Ed just made me so happy. (He did a rather impressive front flip at the end, except for the fact that it made his wig fly off. I'm pretty sure Scar also did the splits...?)

I guess I'll just mention that it appears I will be performing a dance with the Relief Society a few weeks from now. I've seen the dance being practiced and performed several times over the years, so it didn't take too long to catch up, but I'm still nervous about doing it right. I don't want to let the hermanas down!

I think that's everything. Have a nice Labor Day tomorrow, and I hope life is okay for you! (That goes for you, too, Merm! ...Wherever you are... Seriously, Mirror and I have been freaked out the past few months since we haven't heard from you at all. We just need to know if you're okay! Please?)