Drawings done for the #RI community's Eternity Summer Swimsuit Spectacular.

( Behind the cut, yo. )

Been a while since I posted any art, mostly because my most recent pictures had to be held in reserve until one of my projects over at RI, the Eternity Swimsuit Spectacular, wasn't supposed to go up until all the pictures were done and sent to me.

I only did two drawings for this one, but I have to say, I think they're my best to date.  One is of Fever and the other of Sadie, two characters from the Eternity tournaments.
( and here they are )

Did my first 10-man raid today in Naxx. Got some spiffy stuff from that, and am learning the boss fights. The dancing part is tricky. Our leader said very bluntly that I was going to die, and lo and behold! Unfortunately, I hit "Release Spirit" instead of "Resurrect" (see how both of those start with "Re"? I SWEAR they switch spots ALL the time and I ALWAYS hit the wrong one since I'm trying to pop up quickly). I got some shiny loot, though, and that's always nice. Filling in the gaps in my gear slowly but surely. Apparently my raid task will be as a healer. That's good, because I want to learn how to be a better raid healer.

Also did my first 25-man raid today. We did Naxx, arachnid section. We only had at most 18 people available though, so it was very difficult. I have pretty much figured out how to heal the first boss perfectly, though (in the sense that, with our strategy, I know where to stand to hit both tanks and heal whoever is needed). So that knowledge is very useful - hooray!

If I was intimidated at the prospect for healing in a large group, I'm not really, any more. There are a LOT more healers around than I thought there would be, so it's generally not a problem.

Once Barahir gets his hunter to level 80, we're gonna rock. :D Now if only we could get Cydori, Yunchang, and Cehra playing on my server (or WoW at all)...

I am moving up in the world. Grimmbald is starting to become pretty beefy, and I am having fun with things.

Also, congrats to desant_chan and philia for tying the knot! May you have many happy elvaan that, uh, don't explode?

I guess it's harder to make that sound good when both people play FFXI and one of them is a ninja.

What is the plural of elvaan, anyways?

Title: His Guardian
Fandom: Tales of the Abyss
Characters/Pairings: Ion, Anise, implied Ion/Anise
Warnings: Ubetad
Summary: Anise tells Ion why she'll never let anyone besides her become Ion's Guardian.

I especially won't let Gloomietta take you away!

Mini-summer-dump. I don't need to explain, do I?

D.Gray-man:
-Desires of Emptiness (Lavi/Allen)
-Ourselves (Lavi/Allen)

Tales of the Abyss:
-Stay Blank Darkness (slight Asch/Natalia, slight Luke/Natalia)

Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core
-Koigokoro (Zack/Aerith)

All found here @ add_ict_ion

So semi-hiatus basically turned into actual hiatus, as this is my first time accessing the Internet in about a week. Busy program keeps me busy. This is not at all a bad thing. I feel like I'm learning so much here, and learning to see myself and my art in a new way, and I have met so many wonderful people, and I have taken classes from Anne Bogart. Life is good. Kind of wish I could've gone to Otakon, if only to see people, but I cannot be in two places at once, and I am perfectly fine with being here.

I'm probably not going to be fully online again until sometime on Sunday the 26th, so if there are any posts you've made or things you want me to know about/read, let me know in the comments to this entry, or PM or email me, as I am not even going to try to catch up on my friendslist backlog after a week of hiatus, let alone two weeks of it.

Also, seeing HBP is making me think of Harry Potter meta for the first time in god knows how long. It was a formative series for me, and even though I'm a lot more aware of its flaws now that I'm older and a lot less compelled by the books -- god, I think I've only read Deathly Hallows once, and only reading a Harry Potter book once would have been unconscionable when I was younger -- I kind of have to acknowledge the effect those books had on me. Anyway. Blah blah blah nostalgia, blah blah pacing issues, blah blah no chest monster THANK GOD, blah blah I want more Remus you whores, blah blah could listen to Alan Rickman read the telephone book.

So yeah. Today is my free day -- well, evening -- and hopefully I will be able to write things, or to amuse myself in the city. grumble grumble why are tickets to Les Ephemeres seventy-five frickin' dollars grumble grumble I hope you guys are doing well for yourselves, too. ♥

So my stepfather's family is having a 75th family reunion or something, I don't even know--they are very big on the reunions--and we're now hosting a dinner (more of a grill-out, really) the first week of August as part of the festivities. Originally about ten or twelve people were going to come, but now we're looking at thirty-one, and my mother is PANICKED. My parents are having to do a lot of stuff to the house, partly because our house is just a money pit like that,* but mostly because the dogs wrought hell on it the year they were puppies. So we're having to replace the den carpet (the dogs chewed it up), the kitchen wallpaper (the dogs chewed it up), the slatted door into the foyer (third verse, same as the first), and the ferns the squirrels ate (variety!). Also, we've already resodded the little backyard (again: dogs) and replaced the gardenia and camellia bushes they wrecked (the dogs used to run run run run runnnn around them in tight little circles, and then, when they were done, pass out and nap against them) with azaleas (MY PRETTY SCENTED FLOWERS NOOOOOOOOOOO). And, of course, the Angry Jasmine, which has been buzzcut twice and only come back wrathier, and the yellowjacket nest within that had to be zapped. Oh, and the countertop in the kitchen has a huge crack in it for some reason, and one of the burners on the stove died, so we're replacing both of those (hence the helpful delivery guy with the dishwasher advice). My stepfather's out back sanding out the claw scratches on that slatted door and repainting it, and my mother and I just got back from buying incidentals at Wal-mart--extra pans for the banana pudding, foil pans to keep fifty hamburgers warm in the oven, a few wooden folding table-trays, new towels for the hall bathroom...

* Did I ever tell you that we recently found wadded up newspaper instead of insulation in the house walls? Yeah. I remember when this street was being developed and the houses were being built--my best friend at the time moved here--and apparently our neighbor's ex-husband cut all damn kinds of corners. There's a reason he's her ex now, let's put it that way. God bless this house, I love it to death, but we've had to redo it by brick and stick over the last eight years.

And then... we went to Hobby Lobby. Mom needed to replace some of the raggedy silk flowers by the front door. My God. That is one of the most dangerous, terrifying places I have ever been. We wanted to buy everything. I wanted to start doing crafts I had previously not even known existed. All I needed was craft-safe sealant/varnish and some cheap paintbrushes to improve the sparkle* of a certain vampirus scintilla minimus; I was very good and only splurged additionally on some Glue Dots, but I had to be forcibly removed from the doll furniture aisle if we were ever going to get home. In theory, my mother only needed silk flowers and artificial moss for the artificial tree** (guess who tore up the old moss). That... is not what she left with. All I know is, I hope my stepfather likes $10 Murano glass giraffes, because we've got some now.

* As a point of ever-so-little interest, here's what the previous Secret Life installment looked like before our sparkle got rained out (I never actually tried to take the pictures described). Honestly, I think the version posted turned out better, but there's a nice mental image that got left behind.

** Every single time I pass the fake tree, I make sure to greet it à la Wahlberg. "Hey, tree... you're looking good. You been working out? Say hi to your mother for me."

Meanwhile, I tried the new full 200 mg Lamictal dose on Wednesday. Mid-afternoon, I suddenly felt like crying. Not a good sign. Sounds like it's time to start cutting the pills to get some approximation of a 175 mg compromise--which I hate, because you lose some of the dose what with the crumbling and all. Maybe I'll just cut a bit of the end off (it's a diamond-shaped pill) and call it a day. Right now, though, I've gone back to my normal 150, because I've got something that has to be finished ASAP and I don't have time for this crying shit. On the other hand, I've been feeling a bit manic, which can't be good either. Maybe it's just the panicked OMG REFURBISH energy in the house right now, I don't know.

Is home!

Screenshots and more detailed walkthrough of The Adventure of Shigan 2009 upcoming.

Final Stats:

LVL: 58 (Number of cities, monuments, museums, resturaunts, lakes, mountains visited + neat people I met along the way)
HP: 5280/5280 (Number of hours on the road x cities visited)
MP: 1068/1068 (Number of museums visited x estimated number of art/statues seen)
Skills: Cooking +4 (Number of hot meals prepared), Packing +8 (Get ready to leave in 30 minutes), Negotiation +15 (Parla inglese? ;D), Kicking Ass +29572957 (Don't ask)
Endurance +4 (On behalf of Etna and the Alps)
Agility + 2 (lost weight)
Dexterity +2 (on guard against scammers)
Constitution +5 (hoo baby, lotsa walking done)
Wisdom +3 (lotsa reading done in preparation)

Quest Log: 100% (all planned places visited)
Armor: Old shirt (Blue, left-over of my father's. To big on me but easy to wash and perfect for the weather)
Weapon: Various 2 litres waterbottles
Accessory: My trusty omega seamaster wristwatch, accuracy +4

Mods, feel free to delete it if it's not allowed.

★ coloured stuff - 6 icons
★ basquash! - 42 icons
★ neon genesis evangelion - 27 icons
★ fullmetal alchemist - 26 icons
★ sailor moon - 12 icons
★ tales of - 27 icons
★ misc - 14 icons



here @ kivat

The next time I'm up against a big boss, I totally want a protagonist who yells, "STOP TRYING TO IMPROVE THE WORLD IN A SOCIALLY UNACCEPTABLE MANNER!!!"

Hey guys!

It's your favourite webmaster with too many hobbies coming around and once again swearing that she's going to update Tales of Tales. As long as nothing catastrophic happens, I WILL FOR SURE UPDATE BEFORE THE SUMMER IS OVER. OR I WILL HATE MYSELF FOREVER.

Anyway, so Tales of Tales is a fanfiction archive for all your favourite Tales fics! Unfortunately, we have a fantastic collection of Symphonia work, and almost nothing else! So please, please, please, reccomend all of your favourite Abyss (or even any other Tales-related) fics here to give them the recognition they deserve! I reccomend sending out your favourite fics, but if you have ones of your own that you're particularly proud of, you can send those out, too.

You can send all of these recs in an e-mail, or you can just post them in a comment right here. If you wanna be my super-de-duper bestest friend, you can fill out this chart while reccing!

Title:
Author:
Game:
Genre:
Rating:
Characters/Pairing:
Spoilers:
Summary:

I LOVE YOU GUYSSSS~!!! YOU ARE ALL MY HEROES FOR HELPING ME OUT HERE~!!! <3<3<3<3<3<3

64 ICONS
[16]Celebrities: Emma Watson, Sophia Bush
[15]One Tree Hill s2&3
[13]Pushing Daisies s1
[20]Lost s3

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