niji to the bug

doodle dump doodle dump~

( 18 pictures under the cut )

They were supposed to be here end of July-beginning of August, but the post office screwed up and then proceeded to deny the existence of said posters for two months! D:

But they finally showed up this week o/

( poorly lit grainy photos of LoK: Dangerous Ladies posters up in my room )

These beauties are by awesomousse aka juneaddams aka mousse. Check them out in hi-res here on tumblr: http://awesomousse.tumblr.com/tagged/lok

Gintama anime coming back for a 6th season in October! And an original movie written by Sorachi slated for 2013! (I'm guessing in the summer?) I like how skeptical? jaded? troll-savvy? the fandom has become; the reaction was basically, that's lovely news and all, but we'll believe you when we have the new episodes streaming in front of us.

There definitely hasn't been much more new manga material since season 5. They might manage one more season out of it if they rationed and padded and stretched, but definitely not two consecutive seasons. Not unless they decide to animate the 3Z AU, which, personally, I would be camped out on the Sunrise Studio parking lot demonstrating for if I were in Japan.

( Fire Emblem progress, exo babble, and convention cosplay plans under the cut )

mousse's Korra posters still haven't arrived... I'm worried and beginning to think they got lost in the mail or maybe have been returned to sender. orz
I'm glad that pseudo_tsuga's arrived unscathed at least!

✈ I can't remember what it felt like to be dry. On the off chance that Bryke based Omashu off of Chongqing (I can see how; this city was carved into a mountain), they missed the part about how it rains like there's no tomorrow.

✈ Ever since we braved the contents of an entire authentic Chongqing hotpot (I will never be the same SNIFFFF), the small brother person has been referring to himself as the Mother of Dragons. I have to call him Khaleesi. Help.

✈ I'm going to talk about the Korra finale under this cut, those who haven't seen it yet, consider yourselves forewarned.

( Korra 1.11-1.12 thoughts under the cut )

☁ Yesterday I had vanilla ginger gelato for the first time and it was so good that I woke up this morning still thinking about it. But the earl grey tea gelato is still my uncontested favorite. (Actually what I got last night was earl grey, jasmine tea, and vanilla ginger together in a waffle cone. OT3 tbh.)

☁ Monoprice tablet came in earlier this week. I got the 5.5x4. To be completely honest, I like it. But there are certain things I don't like about it, such as the fact that the pen requires a AAA battery and it's really awkward to store, the weird shape of the tablet itself (that bump at the top, why??), and that decidedly 90's installation process. But using it feels pretty nice overall.

☁ I upgraded to Win8 release preview. It's like Win7 had a threeway with Windows Vista and a sidescrolling hipster tumblr layout. Everything is in Helvetica. It's a power-hog like Ubuntu but doesn't have the excuse of being Ubuntu. Because it crashes like a Vista. In short, I have made a bad decision and would advise you all to stay away from Win8 at least until they've made some significant improvements. I wouldn't hold out for it though? because this is already the stable release preview and quite honestly, Win7 runs like a dream. I don't see why you should switch unless you hate happiness. (Don't be sad like me.)

☁ Somehow I totally missed that the ToS United World OVA came out? I torrented it Friday night but haven't seen past the intro and opening yet, both of which were pretty tough to get through I gotta admit. artemis_elric and I know that this is an objectively terrible anime adaptation of the source material, but we watch it with a sort of sentimental obligation because ToS really was one of our absolute favorite games growing up and we're super attached to every character who isn't Regal Bryant.

( Tales of Symphonia anime babble and gifs )

TLDR; my verdict is just to read the ToS manga and not waste time on the OVAs sigh...

☁ If you haven't seen awesomousse's Legend of Korra posters yet, you should seriously take a gander (preview with clickthru links under the cut). She's doing a dangerous ladies series; so far there's Korra and Lin Beifong, and I suspect Asami might be coming up next. The roomies and I are ordering a set from her when she's done so we can put them up in the living room.

( They're gorgeous )

☁ I'm trying not to think about upcoming deadlines at work or I might snap. Tomorrow the roomies and I are going shopping and to see Avengers again! ♥ ♥ This time in 2D and sitting farther back in the theater so I can actually see what's going on haha. This is shaping up to be a good weekend (haven't had one quite as enjoyable in recent memory). Monday never come~~~~~~ 。ﾟ(ﾟﾉД｀ﾟ)ﾟ｡

× A piece showed up on tumblr radar today that I'd suggested for Daily Deviation back in 2009. I clicked through and read my written description; I sounded like a salesperson. I used to be really involved with deviantart back in high school. I would read into all the gallery mods and try to figure out how they clicked; what started as a way to get my biases recognized soon turned into a game of manipulating people with words. At first I would try to get each of my friends featured at least once as a way to show my appreciation (a moderately successful endeavor, in fact). It wasn't long before I started suggesting pieces I personally did not even like expressly because I knew what the mods liked and could pitch it to them in a way that would sell. And, unsurprisingly, it wasn't long after that that suggesting DDs lost its appeal for me.

× This is the first year in longer than I care to remember that I've remembered the Sand Dance anniversary but let it slip past. I have forgotten it in the past, but I've always done something to commemorate it when I do remember (which is most years). This is the first year wherein I was so stressed out by other things that I purposely let it fall by the wayside. I'd originally intended to finish up a certain project I'd thought up in November 2011 and started in January. It feels like missing my children's birthday. The year's not off to a good start.

× Went out for hotpot with the roommates last night. It was really good. I haven't had hotpot in a long time. Last time the roomies went out for hotpot, I was too busy with either work or student org obligations (I don't remember). We really don't hang out anymore; lately it's been more just them telling me what all happened after they come back. We used to have inside jokes; now it's more like they have inside jokes and have to make an extra effort to explain things to me. Kinda convenient that I already find cheese fondue funny in a Gintama context, since that's one of the big ones....

× The Gintama anime could not have picked a better time to wrap up its current season. I'm a horrible multitasker (more like, I can't multitask at all). One fandom at at time is how I roll. The last series that had my heart so completely (lived for it from week to week, screamed and cried when it was over, wrote love letters to it) was of course A:TLA back in high school. I didn't get into it until the summer of 2008, meaning I marathoned seasons 1 & 2 during the tail end of the infamous one year hiatus before season 3 aired. I lucked out in a similar way with my Gintama experience. Anyway, you'd think that after waiting 4 years for The Legend of Korra, I'd be more adapted to waiting but nope, haha. The opposite. I don't know how I'm going to survive until April 21 for new episodes, and each week after that....

Burn out. Throat pain. Blade of the Immortal.
So cold. Runny nose. Sleeping. Laughter through closed door.
Soup. Hot tea. Toph Beifong pin.
Tissues. Cookie cake. Blade of the Immortal again.

So glad I don't have work tomorrow and no class till 2 PM.

Thank you to my roommates nota_lone and artemis_elric for taking care of me.

And no, the subject line is not sarcastic. What kind of person do you think I am?

Reactions to The Last Airbender are spreading through the internet like wildfire. There is no longer anything to hide or anything to hide behind.

I say this to all Avatar: The Last Airbender fans, because that is who we are, anti-racebenders and pro-casters alike. I am so sorry about the trainwreck that M. Night made out of The Last Airbender. I hope those who inevitably do go to see it get their money back.

And my deepest sympathies to the young talents of Noah Ringer, Nicola Peltz, Dev Patel, et al. The screenplay was just so poorly handled, the script so awkward, the directing of action scenes so amateur, it made a mockery of everyone's efforts.

This is a victory for no one. I am deeply, deeply regretful of it all.

When I was young, my parents wanted me to be strong. They taught me that racism was real and that I must learn to live with it.

When I grew older, I wanted to be strong. I learned that racism is real, but that it is my reality. I can choose to fight it if I don't want it to shape my life.

I have never used my skin or ethnicity as pretext for privilege. Self-respecting human beings are above that.

In turn, I have never attacked another with opposing beliefs, nor will I begin to conduct myself so poorly. I can fight you without hurting you, simply by upholding my integrity. All I ask in return is that you show me your moral equivalent of respect.

I am going to let my money speak. I am choosing to boycott Paramount/M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender.

This is my personal choice. I do not need to give anyone a reason.

Because ethnicity is real. Because culture is a living thing, even if it is not your own culture. You can kill us. But do not skin us and wear our race like a costume.

ssj10:
I find no strength in the prospect of seeing another white kid
parading around in the raiment of my ancestors,
pretending to save the world.

To everyone and everything that opened my eyes to this issue - thank you. Thank you for inspiring me and sending me down this road. I will never turn back.

If you watch either my deviantART gallery or sand_dance, then I owe you an apology in that you've already seen these sketches incorporated into larger, completed works. But I generally don't post complete works here to avoid redundancy, so here are the "works-in-progress" in their original form.

( Long time no Sand Dance sketch dump )

Apologizing again to my overlapping dA friends who saw this days ago...
So, after making Sailor Katara (see comments for Sailors Toph, Azula, Mai, Zuko, and Sokka!) on the spur of the moment, I couldn't stop until I had turned my brainchildren into Sailor Senshi, too.

( SAILOR SENSHI OMAKE! )