Okay, big news! That TAU thing I posted? IT ACTUALLY GOT POSTED ON THE TAU BLOG! I just... YES! YES!!!
I feel just about as amazed and excited as that one time that FB page "Finn, the human" posted my Marceline drawing! And this time, no one is even complaining about it! I know I probably shouldn't feel so honored that the mods saw my submission, thought "Eh, why the heck not?" and posted it, but I really do. I'm so grateful they gave me a chance. (So much so, I seriously sent them a thank-you note the day after.)
Well, that's certainly making me feel a bit better about sending them more TAU stuff! There's the one-shot that I wanted to enlist the help of a mod/author for, and a crossover with FMA that I've started a bit of work for (though, knowing me, I doubt I'll finish it). Since the FAQ on the TAU page says they don't post crossovers, I probably shouldn't bother saying anything about it to them, but it's an interesting project. I'd been trying so hard to bring Ed and Al to the TAU world, when- I realized this quite a bit later- it was so much easier to bring TAU Dipper to them.
How I managed to link the two worlds together is by redefining Truth as a demon instead of the god he claims to be. There's a few tiny things that you have to ignore- like the fact that he appears to not have taken anyone's soul, though I've seen a fantastic FMA AU story where Al's soul was taken instead of his body, so maybe the possibility's actually there- and, instead of appearing inside the summoning circle (e.g. the Human Transmutation circle), he takes the offender to another dimension. Though, I can imagine that being similar to the fact that, whenever Bill was summoned, he and the summoner went into the Dreamscape, shown by all surroundings going gray, and slowed-down, and reality being manipulated easily by Bill's hand. Maybe something much like that is actually happening when people (unintentionally) summon Truth: they're still standing in the same place as before- just in a different dimensional layer, separated from reality. The reality Truth likes to use is either his Dreamscape or a dimension of his own design that he reigns over. I guess the latter is a bit more likely, as far as my understanding of TAU goes. I've seen quite a bit of stuff, after all, so I know a lot of the "canon" people and events, and "canon" is very pliable, so maybe this interpretation is okay after all.
Anyway- the idea is that Alcor accidentally got summoned by an Amestrian alchemist, which Alcor gets excited over because he's a geek like that (as in this world's alchemy being interesting to him, not that he has actually read/watched FMA, as I'm just going to assume that the series doesn't exist in TAU). After quite a bit of information-exchanging with said alchemist (who I'm thinking might be a R!Ford), he realizes that "Oh poo, Truth has got to be fuming because I'm treading on his territory" (Truth's rather possessive of his humans), but he dares to stick around anyway- both to learn more about this fascinating version of alchemy and to figure out what that very alarming aura he's Seeing come from the ground is all about. He ends up giving a hand to FMA protagonists so that they have an easier time defeating the Homunculi. (He was more into one of his "inhumane" phases, I think- well, not deep into one; he was probably just barely getting out of it, in a sense- so he doesn't people all that easily, but he still has enough of his human side to know who he should be siding with.) Meanwhile, his trespassing makes some of the other demons braver about going into Truth's "property"... That's what I've got planned, at least. Not that I've actually planned it all out, like I should.
Okay, I think I should shut up about that now, since there's still plenty of news to talk about from these past two weeks.
Here's my most important New Year's Resolution:
I think I failed at the brainstorm web.
Well, not really, since I already had some in mind, and just wrote them as a list instead.
1. Update my flash drive with new writings every month. (The purpose is to make sure that I'm writing enough that I'll actually have something to add monthly. So far, it looks like this resolution is going well.)
2. Pray more often, set apart more time for scripture study, and really try harder to keep Sabbath Day holy. For this last part, I finally wrote down what exactly I'm gonna call my limits. I'm... struggling to keep to it, but I'm determined. (Later, I also added to do more temple work and family history work.)
3. Practice the drums at least once a week, and try new songs! (I got this done the first week- I practiced the normal stuff, then started on "The Pretender" by Foo Fighters- but not the second... I guess we'll see what happens with this one.)
4. Stay positive about school, no matter how stressful it gets! (Man, this is gonna be tough.)
5. Hang out with my family as often as possible. That means less holing up in my room for hours on end. (This is because of the fact that I'm going to college and my sis is most likely moving away again. ...I've been failing at this resolution.)
6. Figure out what stuff really matters to me to have the least amount next time we/I move. (My mom and I have started working a bit on this one. Even though my mom says I have the smallest amount of personal belongings of anyone in the family, I still feel like I have way too much, though, which was not helped by seeing the size of the dorm closet at the U. More on that later.)
That's pretty much everything, besides a final "Wishful Thinking" paragraph about wishing I could get myself to do a small daily exercise routine, now including some practice of KF forms. I'm pretty sure it's just not going to happen, but one can dream.
Since I forgot to post it earlier: here's a golden potato I drew. I'd asked the three boys that came over what I should draw, and one said "Potato." And so he received a potato, and more.
This is what all my maturing as an artist throughout my 17 years of existence has culminated to.
(One of them asked, "What's with the heart?"
I replied, "It's because he loves the golden potato so much, of course.")
We had the Stake Conference last Sunday. At this point, though, I can't remember if there was something I planned to say about it...
That same day, the mom-and-daughter duo family friends came over with a rosca, which is a big sweet bread eaten as part of the Reyes Magos celebrations. I'd never done this stuff before, but the bread wasn't that bad. I enjoyed moreso listening to the conversations at the table, and my dad's shenanigans about taking out all the little toy skeletons and sticking them all back into the remaining pieces, which we plan to give to my aunt and her friend. Their reactions will be hilarious.
On Friday of that week, I did a Utah State application. It's not really the school I want to go to, but my parents are like "Better safe than sorry, bro." ...Besides the "bro" part, I mean.
I believe that was also the day that I started trying new titles for WFAM. I really don't have the heart to part with the acronym, so I'm thinking of just using new words for it. Though I have several written down, the best I could come up with was "With Flowers and Matches". Though I'm not 100% set on that title, either, I kinda like the idea of using all these various titles as chapter titles. Heck, maybe the title could be WFAM, and the chapter titles all fill in the acronym with something different. The only problem is that this acronym doesn't actually have any significance to the story itself... maybe I can come up with one, somehow? Or is With Flowers and Matches indeed better? It sounds more like a book title than When Friends Are Magnets, at least.
I passed into green belt two Saturdays ago! This week, I started working on my green belt material, which is proving, once again, to be more difficult than the previous stuff, but at least this stuff looks cool. (There's one form with a short stick- the precursor to using swords, I've been told- and you do a lot of spinning. It feels kinda like a dance of some sort, moreso than many of the previous forms.)
After that, we went to the dim sum place- again- but my sister's friend came with us this time. Besides some of the normal dim sum items, my sis also got us a dumpling soup to share and special-ordered this one dish where it's eggs cooked in a tomato soup/sauce? It was like eggs with ketchup upgraded five times. I'm a little surprised that this sort of things isn't made more often!
Okay, that's the end of that week, besides that I watched The Shining with my mom at one point. (Goodbye, Winter Break! I miss you already!) On Monday, we came back to school, and I started my new classes.
I like my math class quite a bit. It's so far the class I get the most excited about, which feels a little weird. I mean, I rarely hated my math class, but I usually didn't enjoy it so much either. I think I have math camp and not having an actual math class for a whole semester to blame for this. Unrelated (or maybe related after all?), my teacher is Russian. Definitely unrelated to my liking of the class, the textbook feels more boring than my previous math textbooks (jeez, if that doesn't mean something, I don't know what does).
My English class is with the same professor as last semester, and a bunch of the same kids are in my class again, so it doesn't really feel different so far (besides the change in rooms and having Isaiah instead of the girl I'd talked with the most during English 1010).
Chem is... a different story. I'd been pretty psyched about it before starting, but then I felt pretty angry and confused about the homework after the first day, and now... I just don't know anymore. I really hope I feel psyched again, even if it turns out I'll continue to be frustrated with the homework. This class, so far, is the one to strain on my "stay positive" resolution.
There's a good thing about my chemistry class, though- I've made a new friend! He's a concurrent student from another school (and I recently found out there's a concurrent kid from another school in my math class, too), and he's looking like a really cool kid so far. I think I'll call him Marki, since his name is similar to Mark, and Markiplier's cool, too?... I've never been very good at this.
There was a stake activity for the youth this week, which was quite fun. Basically, it was much like speed-dating, but you're attempting to just become friends with the other youth and leaders rather than choose a date. I don't remember everyone's names, and I probably don't remember all the things I was told, but it was fun talking to everyone. I felt a little more... outgoing, I guess. Like how I usually get with my cousins. Everyone was so loud, and I couldn't help but do the same. (They typically found my reading hobby and strong dislike of typos rather weird. Most of my friends don't have the same reactions to stuff like that, so I suppose I should be happy to have friends that are more accepting or even share stuff like that with me.) In the end, though, everyone had zwooped back to their normal friend groups, and I wondered if anything that happened in the activity would actually mean anything to anyone...
I'm just gonna briefly return to TAU, and math, in one shot, by mentioning how I tried to crack ciphertext an author had put at the end of her chapters for this TAU story that's so far looking pretty cool. (I also listened to some TAU 8track playlists, while I was at it.) Since she'd given a key, I figured it was Vigenère, and- though I suppose it isn't really difficult to decode by hand, just a bit tedious- I saw the chance to pull up my codes from summer math camp and see if those would work. It took me a bit to remember how to use the codes, but I used them and they worked! Man, I'd been waiting for the day I could use them. I mean, I barely remember how I wrote the code, but the code itself is still useful, right?
There's one line, though, that I assumed was supposed to use the same code, but it looks like it doesn't? Or there's some kind of mistake with it? I spent hours on this one line of ciphertext, and I still have no idea what it's supposed to say! I've been trying to uncover a substitution alphabet, since it's not Caesar shift and I don't know what key it'd use for Vigenère, even though it's unlikely that it's that, either... But with such a short line, it's even harder to figure out a substitution alphabet! This has been painful on several levels. I've been contemplating sending a frustrated rant to the author for putting me through this.
I was a little more useful on Friday, as my dad and I took another trip to the U- this time, to ask more specific questions as to what kind of major/undergrad work would be better for trying to get into a genetics grad program, and to ask more about the college's housing (my dad found the website to be a little confusing and not as informative as he hoped for). We ended up taking the whole campus tour instead of just looking at housing, so we were there even longer than expected. A lot of it I'd already seen due to our previous visit and my time in math camp, but there was still some new tidbits besides the housing section.
The day after, my letter from the U arrived, confirming that I was accepted. We knew I was just about a shoe-in, but it was still a relief to see that. I have some department-specific scholarships I hope to apply for this week, but besides that, all I can do is just wait to hear about how much merit/diversity scholarship I've received. Man, I really, really hope they tell me soon, so that we can know if Plan A is a bust!
Netflix finally added some more seasons of Ninjago, including my favorite season! The one with the tournament and finding Zane and stuff! I started rewatching it on Saturday morning before KF, and I still love it. I wish they'd added the season(s) after this one, though, because I haven't seen those yet! I hope I get through this season fast and just get myself to just watch what comes after on KissCartoon or something, because I'm so behind...
After KF, I ended up going with one of the girls there to her house. She's a little... much, as can be expected of a 13-year-old otaku, but I had fun. What she wanted to do, after all, was try to do a bit of cosplay together.
As you may remember, the few "cosplays" I've ever done were rather sad excuses for cosplay.
Not only did she say she wanted to try having us do FMA characters together- which is, of course, one of my top choices for cosplay- she said she already had wigs and makeup! (Apparently, making cosplay is her thing; though she didn't have the red coat finished, she still had other cosplay items that we could use.) And even better, she wanted to dress me up as Alphonse Elric.
I just... This was insane. I never thought that, as much as I had once daydreamed about doing stuff like this, I would actually do it, much less have someone else just invite me over to do this with them. Like, what?!
And so- though it ended up a little disastrous, in the aspect of me accidentally missing a bunch of calls and texts from my family, making my mom super worried- I had a lot of fun trying this out and hanging out with this girl (who I'm thinking of calling Ninja). She put makeup on me, then a blond wig (which she trimmed up quite a bit once it was on my head- the length was still too long to be considered Alphonse's haircut, but the color was quite spot-on), and then I buttoned on a boys' plaid shirt over my own shirt, and... she said I actually made a pretty decent Alphonse. And just a pretty decent boy in general, which- strangely enough, to anyone I end up admitting this to- is something I've always wanted to hear.
I never really figured out how to explain it properly when I say this, because I don't want to be a boy (even if it sometimes seriously sucks being a girl), but... I've been curious for years about what I'd look like if I was a boy, and if I'd be able to pull off disguising myself as one. I think the reason behind this is the Zoey 101 episode where Lola acts like a boy for a week (or something to that effect) and the movie She's the Man. Those experiments, in all their funny and cringy glory, fascinated me. I wanted to know if I'd be able to pull off something like that myself, even though I never had a reason to. The closest, I guess, would be doing a male cosplay (like, for example, Alphonse Elric) and being a very convincing male. (I think I'm too giggly to properly act like a boy, but I could at least try to look the part...) Or, if I was feeling very adventurous, pull on a boy costume and go out in public, trying to look, for all intents and purposes, like a normal boy. If I could succeed, that'd just about be a lifelong daydream come true.
And so- though I wasn't as sure as Ninja was about my boy-ness being realistic- it was awesome to hear her say that.
(I also discovered that I didn't look as bad with blonde hair as I'd always thought I would. Granted, she'd tried to lighten up the skin tone on my face a bit, and tried to lighten up my eyebrows, which was near-impossible with my eyebrow hairs being so dark and thick. This was still a pleasant surprise.)
She wanted to be May (which is actually the character I'd always thought would be easiest for me to do, but, admittedly, with her actually being half-Vietnamese and quite a bit shorter than me, it made more sense for her to play that role), and so I tried to do May's hairstyle on her. It didn't work out as well as I hoped for, since I didn't do it quite right, and she had no bobby pins, for some reason...? We ended up just leaving her hair in pigtails with the little braids inside of them instead of the bun dealio, and she put on a sky blue shirt with a bow by the collar, and we started taking a few pics together.
I... have never really considered myself to be a good model. I tend to angle myself just enough to look awkward in photos, and my smile tends to look too big, but if I don't have it that big it looks unconvincing, and my hair is all wrong, and ugh. Since now, I was trying to emulate Alphonse, a boy whose smiles are a little shier but still genuine, I was struggling to soften up and it just wasn't working. And my eyes either looked crazy or dead. I'm not happy with most of the pics Ninja took of me, but there's a few that were pretty decent. I hope I didn't disappoint her with my lack of being photogenic. (I also learned just how bad of an idea it was to go running around outside with a vest instead of a proper coat, or even a jacket. By the time we'd gotten back to her house, my arms felt numb and a little tingly, and she had to unbutton the plaid shirt for me because I just couldn't do it myself in that state.)
So, some lifelong dreams were fulfilled yesterday, even if it didn't last long and I don't have the guts to show the pictures to barely anyone... I don't plan to forget this anytime soon. And though the whole thing wasn't much fun for my parents, and I know that she is usually a little too much, I kinda hope to do this again with her sometime.
All that leaves is that, the past two Saturdays, my mom watched a Pedro Infante movie with me. The first was A toda máquina, and yesterday's was its sequel, ¿Qué te ha dado esa mujer? I liked (and understood) the first one a little more, but both were pretty good. I like having this new thing to do with my mom of watching old movies. If I can barely understand anything in these, though, I don't know if I can handle attempting to understand a Cantinflas film without Spanish subtitles... Probably not.
Well, that's all! I have tomorrow off, since it's MLK Day, and... yeah, I guess we'll see if anything interesting happens. I think I already posted it a year or so ago, but I leave you with this Alphonse doodle I sent to Carter a little before I moved here! Caption: Masterpiece.
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