aviy

Grandparents rar.

Okay, it's not just my grandparents, but they're the most annoying about it.

Ever dealt with someone who has never in their life tried to draw? No one in my family outside my aunt has ever seriously tried their hand at art.

And yet they INSIST on ordering me to take it up as a career.

Note that this isn't encouraging "Oh, Krisa, you could make a career path out of this!" No this is that whole "you're 20 and doing nothing with your life so do this now" type ordering. My grandparents were okay with it when I dropped out of highschool a few years ago, but now they're both implying I should go back. I can't even begin to comprehend the point of going back to highschool when I'm currently taking college classes, but whatever.

But here's the thing. When you lack the eye for art... and I don't mean to sound superior in that. It's just true, if you try to draw, or even spend enough time examining other's art, you begin to see it. Thinks that looked impossibly complex start to break down in your mind and you understand how it's formed and so even if you can't actually draw you comprehend what went into drawing it. It's what ultimately allows you to stop seeing anime as one whole thing and let you see the lines and colors and shading and proportions and style. I think most anime fans have that ability to some degree or another. You watch animated stuff a LOT, you hear people talking about what is better quality, you hear people talking about artists style so you start to look for it yourself.

My mother and grandparents utterly don't have this ability. To them if I can draw a model standing infront of me and shade her decently with three colors than I should be able to draw anything. Seriously. When I doodle? I don't... plan anything out. I'm currently of a calibre where I can decide what I want to draw and then draw it, not even close. When I do have semi-decent sketches? It's entirely happenstance, they never look anything like what I intended for them to. And yet everyone in my family just sees these semi-decent sketches (which seems truly brilliant to them) and say that if I can draw one face I can draw lots of faces and thus why the hell can't I do my manga now?

It makes me want to beat my head into a wall.

I'm the first to agree that I do need to draw more. But I honestly think the hope of doing a crappily drawn on-line manga in a year is stretching it, even if I DO draw a lot more often. I think I'm probably two years away from that at least but hell, I'll try. So yeah, I need to draw more. But they aren't saying I should practice more and try to make money off art in five years (and seriously, five years is a very unlikely estimate in hopes of being able to make ANY decent money off art) they are saying I should get out there and do it now and argh. You just can't explain the different levels between me and anyone who makes money doing what they do. Or the fact that I know people waaaay better than me who are just as fucking broke because frankly unless you can get published there isn't a lot of money in manga style art. Infact I doubt there is much money in it even if you can get published because we're in freaking america, not japan.

And alsjdf;aa; I have to hear this every time I see them. And I love my grandparents but god I wish they would butt out of my life with their ever so 'helpful' advice. Insinuiating that I should be making money off my work isn't a complement, it's deeply insulting because I'm very fucking aware of how far I have to go to do anything like that, and yet they don't believe me. I'm a very lazy person, I don't practice as much as I should, but I'm not currently not making money on art due to laziness, it's just because I'm honestly not any good.

Ugh. Yes. I have rage. I'm not actually all that angry or anything, do'nt worry my christmas was perfectly good. I just... I HATE IT and after my grandpa and grandma bringing it up yet again today in that horribly condescending manner I had to bitch.

Otherwise, I did quite well. Mum got me... 13 manga. Trigun Vol. 1. Slayers Vol 2, 3, 5. Eyeshield 21 1-5, Saiyuki 1, Trigun Maximum 7, Petshop of Horrors 1, and this FMA novel that I was ironically talking to Chira about yesterday >D That I'll probably trade back in for store credit. I wanted the manga, not the novel, but didn't clarify that on my list cause I didn't know FMA HAD novels being translated.

Anyway! A great haul ♥ ♥ I love me some manga. Mm, she also got me this this that lets me play my console games on my moniter. I got one a couple of years ago and it broke so I'm happy to have it back.

Also got a Shrek Chia Pet Head (yeah, iono >DDD) Harvest Moon: Another Wonderful Life (WHY ARE THERE STILL MORE CUTE GIRLS IN THE GAME THAN BOYS? I WANT TO BE LESBIAN ARGH), another copy of Trigun Volume 1 from my cousin >D I'mma trade that in for Volume 2 ♥ a leather purse/backpack thing THIS TRULY AWESOME CANDLE ROCK FOUNTAIN THING FOR MY DESK ALSJDF;AD ZOMG JOY FIRE AND WATER YAY

Aaand, that's it~

I'mma go play video games now.

Hm, it seems like everyone I know is in some way depressed or discontent.

Turns out City of Heroes is finally coming out. I have to get that too x.x But mum is making me feel guilty about mooching so it'll have to wait a few weeks. Too many damn MMORPGS, why don't these guys learn to stagger release years?

I didn't mention it but I actually participated in socialness. I haven't mentioned alot of things lately, actually ^^;

Anyway, you know those dating service things? I think they are a bunch of bull, at least when used for the purpose of dating, but then I think dating is a bunch of bull too.

But when you're desperately in need of real people contact they are actually pretty useful, which is what I've used this OKcupid thing for. Tako posted her results to their quiz on her lj and I went and took the quiz too, and in a fit of extreme boredom, plus the fact that I always like to talk about myself, I filled out their profile shizit and decided to see what would happen.

Been talking to a pretty neat guy over in Texas and a guy in Phoenix sent me a message and I've started talking to him and he's pretty neat too.

Anyway, in a fit of unheard of rebellion I went to see Kill Bill 2 with this guy (awesome movie, by the way and the next movie? Hero? Looks even awesomer) without telling my mother I was doing such. I had fun, I'm mostly pleased that for once me doing something that scared me out of pure willpower didn't backfire on me like it ususally does. I think if it /had/ backfired I would have been irrevokably scarred about the whole meeting people thing.

Got lectured by my mum when I told her afterward. She refuses to believe that hanging out with someone you've only known for a few days on-line is just as dangerous as it would be to meet someone at college and do the same with them. Ah well, maybe I am wrong, but it seems to me I have a much calmer head when talking to be on-line, and if someone is going to 'prey' on my general ignorance they'd have a much better chance irl where I'm incoherent most of the time. It's not like I haven't met plenty of creeps on-line, I can just tell.

Basically resulted in the "You're 18, I can't stop you, but I will disapprove strongly and often anyway" thing.

I guess I've hit another one of my depressed, listless stages. The last time I remember this happening was when I was a few months shy of dropping out of highschool and mum and I were fighting almost daily.

Ah well, I just need to make it a few more days, I can sign up for college courses starting the 29th and then college itself is shortly after that. And once I'm registered I can look for a job on campus, anything to give me something to do.

I'm vastlyd upset with the writing front, I don't have the willpower to do anything without encouragement or interest, and unless you're writing smut for the popular couple it's pretty damn hard to gain any interest in a large fandom like FMA. So I've pretty much decided that unless inspiration really beats me over the head I'm just going to give up on the fanfiction thing. I hear there are people who write for themselves, but I can't do it with fanstuff, fanstuff you do for fans and hope to gain a pat on the head, enough interest for some real CC. My original stuff I do for myself.

Which is the closest thing to a new 'plan' that I have. NA is going to remain pretty stagnant for a while so I want to work on something else.

Before 'something else' was Lunar: Darkside, but I've since decided that there are just waaaaay too many stories about schools with students who are in some way 'special' for my liking. Then I just went "Not nearly enough underwater/mermaid stuff, maybe Atlantis?" but that never went beyond that thought because I never got around to researching Atlantis.

But over the past few days I've been watching an anime called Juuni Kokki or Twelve Kingdoms. I don't like the characters, I feel the characters could have been much more impressive and it's almost a shame because the world and the concepts behind it are really beautiful. The basic front of the anime has been used in many other stories, Fushigi Yuugi, Escaflowne, Rayearth. Yanno, average school girl carried away to magical land type thing? Only this anime is based off a series of novels instead of manga and it shows. Many of the ways it shows is how things don't fit together very well. In novels you can focus on a world with the 'main character' switching with each book, but in anime they don't quite manage that very well, so they make the first main character into The main character and presentation suffers slightly for it. Anyway, the world is really neat and I love it, fairytale-esque. Tweleve Kingdoms each ruled by one man or woman, the emperor/ess is chosen by the Kirin, to which there is also one for each country, the kirin is a magic unicorn type beast which is born from the fruit of a tree on some mystical mountain in the center of the world. Everyone is born from fruit, actually, with these trees scattered across the land where couples will tie ribbons to branches and hope their god grants them a child. Sages, Emperors, Kirin and government officials are immortal, a thing the people of the world treat without much thought. The emperor rules the land as he sees fit and if he does well the land flourishes, if he does badly then the gods become angry and his land is afflicted, with youma (demons) attacking people and fields dying. If the emperor is especially bad then the Kirin is afflicted with a disease that will eventually kill him, and when the Kirin dies so does the emperor. The sky is actually a sea of clouds, on which you can sail a boat and it appears, from the ground, as another cloud.

For the world and the ideas I really enjoy it. I love the simplicity beyond making impossible things real and accepted in faerytales. I'll sit around and debate for an hour about how flat the characters are in this anime and never once question the fact that everyone is born from a fruit in the story. I like how even fantasy you need logic and rules but in faerytales all you really need is balance.

Anyway, it's inspired me to work on my own faerytale world, trashing the other stuff for now. I have some base concepts that have been puttering around in my head for over a year now. The beings War, Love and Justice who decide the relative chaos and order of the universe based on their daily actions and moods. And Mr. Deja Vu, a peddler of memories who debatibly doesn't actually exist because no one can ever remember his passing.

It's not much, but it's something, and hopefully I'll be able to add a few more somethings every day.

Now I'm quite hungry and seek to find food.