end of June wrapup

song+ Where Did the Party Go -Fall Out Boy -Save Rock and Roll
book+ nothing presently
quest+ finishing the 30 day photo challenge and queuing it all
upper+ productivity?
downer+ the internet may get cut off soon
attire+ denim skirt and a superhero tee
drink+ water

Kyu went with me on a walk yesterday to take pictures for the 30 day photo challenge Rory is doing. i didn't wanna go outside alone. between that walk and some efforts indoors i have most of my photos taken, now i just need to get them cropped and resized and draft up a month of posts since there's a pretty good chance our internet could get cut off soon. if they're all written and waiting at least there'll be posts for July. i have a few photos left to take, but finishing them shouldn't be hard.

i have a different challenge i'm considering starting up, but it's a slightly longer-term one. it's a 100 theme doll photography one, and it looks interesting, but i dunno how my attention span will fare with 100 themes to follow up on.

i have a few other things going on in my life lately, but nothing earth-shatteringly important. mostly things that i don't know yet how they'll resolve so i'm reluctant to discuss them at all.. which i guess makes for a pretty boring blog post.

really this is a post to say that stuff will get posted for July, but if our internet is cut off my weekly posts will be dead for a while. and just when i'd gotten regular about doing them too. xD

blerg

song+ Up In the Air -30 Seconds to Mars- Love Lust Faith + Dreams
book+ FFx guide
quest+ my slow trek to productivity
upper+ i got some fun things done this week
downer+ the dog's been sick again
attire+ starry pajama pants and a tank
drink+ water

the last week was mostly good with some spots of less awesome. the dog's been sick off and on, and there was that bit where i tripped on her and hurt myself trying not to hurt her, but there's also been progress with creative things, and my ongoing effort to clear out and streamline my wardrobe. i did a cute nerdy painting, and gathered materials for another i'm still figuring out in my head.

my downtime has been spent replaying games that i have pretty much memorized, because it's something to do, that i don't really have to think about. which game i'm playing has rotated but it's been some variation on Final Fantasies 7 8 and 10 for a while now. i was really enjoying Persona 4, but it's a little too cerebral a game to use it for thinking over other things. i'll get back to it when i'm in a less distracted mindset.

Saturday was a good day

song+ Miss Missing You- Fall Out Boy- Save Rock and Roll
book+ Cyborg009 intro oneshot
quest+ job hunting
upper+ Man of Steel was awesome
downer+ wonky sleeping patten and bad-dream echoes
attire+ starry pajama pants and a green hoodie
drink+ milk

still not okay per se, but i finally managed audible communication Friday. i'd been trapped basically in a panic attack since waking Monday-ish, with any words i tried getting lodged in my throat, i could feel myself literally choking on them when i tried to talk (or even breathe more than shallow breaths) but it receded a bit.

as a cheering me up, helping me out of my funk through socialization gesture Kyu took me to the mall yesterday. our primary goal was to see Man of Steel, but we also wandered and i picked up a few job applications to fill out, we'll see how that works out. the movie was awesome though. like there's not much i can say without falling into a nerdy ranty ramble, but i loved it and it was amazing, and everyone should give it a chance. i will disclaim that it's definitely the most realistic look at how people would probably react if a near-godly superhuman showed up out of nowhere, but it avoids needless grim dark, so i absolutely recommend it. it was more obviously physical than i was expecting though, and i honestly don't think it's a small-kid movie in spite of being Superman. there's realistic levels of death (mostly implied but absolutely obvious) and a family behind us was juggling crying freaked out kids near the end. it was obvious that they were expecting something fluffier from a Superman movie.

basically i loved that Superman was true to himself. he was strong, and insecure, and real and everything people forget that he is. Superman is super yes, but Clark Kent is who he really is, not the lie. i loved Jor El, i loved Pa and Ma Kent. i loved all the parents being different, real people that loved their son and wanted him to be happy even if what he wanted wasn't what they wanted. i legit cried at one scene touching on that, though saying which verges on spoilery, so i won't. i loved that (multiple Pulitzer prize winner) Lois Lane was a Reporter, competent enough to figure out an identity before a decade of working beside fake glasses. i loved that her decisions were respected, but she wasn't more powerful than her editor, and she was more than a damsel to be rescued because Lois is a a boss, and she's more BAMFy than Superman on any given day even without powers. Superman is humanity's hero, but Lois is Clark's hero. i loved that while there was technically a touch of Clark-Lois romance (as expected) it was in no way the focus of anything big. i didn't care that Lois was a ginger and Lana was brunette because honestly it's just hair. i liked that Pete Ross was a good friend to Clark, keeping his secret all his life (even if Ihop server is a serious step down from PotUS). i loved competent, morally honest, respectable Perry White (no i don't care that they cast a black man for him, it freakin WORKED). i even liked (perpetual ginger) aspiring photojournalist Jimmy Olsen being sweet (brunette) intern Jenny Olsen.

so yeah, there's further socialization plans for later today (like when things are open and the sun is up). we're gonna walk over to the nearby thrift store and see what we can find to expand my wardrobe, which is pretty exciting for me. xD i have a few things in mind i hope to find, but i'm keeping an open mind so far as possibilities go, because you can never really go into a thrift store expecting to find anything in particular. i'm hoping for a few certain silhouettes though, and i have a general color family i'm thinking of in mind. i wanna expand my neutral palette without relying on black all the time, so that's the goal.

that's it for now though. i'm just wondering if 3am is a good time to set up my easel and maybe paint some. i've been working on components for some mixed media pop culture things lately, so i'm kinda excited to see how they work out. xD

feeling shaken up

song+ nothing
book+ nothing
quest+ figuring out talking again without tripping on my words
upper+ i'm awake now
downer+ dreams messing with my mind
attire+ starry pajama pants and a grey tank
drink+ milk

all my life i've dreamt along multiple timelines, peeks at possible futures and could-have-been pasts. i've never taken a dream as a SIGN i need to do anything, though when the same one repeats multiple nights in a row i'll look and see if there's something different i could do in my life to be happier. there have been constants, when i've dreamed my kids there have always been two, a daughter and a son. for a long time they were twins, then they weren't, and now i don't dream them anymore. when i was dating Kyu he was in most of my future dreams, part of the reason i considered talking to him about breaking up was i hadn't dreamt an us-future in a year. we're both happier now, so it was obviously the right choice. sometimes the almost-pasts screw me up though.

last night (last time i slept? whatever) i dreamed a terrible dream. i don't know when the timeline splintered from the one i've lived, but changes were considerable. i didn't make friends with Kyu or James, and i lost touch with Aimee much earlier, i don't know if i ever dated Lindzi in that line, but i know where i dropped into the dream i was alone and 19ish. for a reason that was unclear i was in a car with Rose and Jenni and there was a terrible accident, i recall a horrible screeching noise taking over everything, feeling like the noise was dissolving my mind, then there was nothing. something happened and i lost my hearing. otherwise everyone involved was fine, with just minor bruising, but the last noise i ever heard was that unearthly wailing tear of metal and then a heavy echo of silence forever.

the worst part of the dream was how long it had me trapped hearing ghosts of melodies that i'd never be able to get out of my mind. when a song gets stuck in my head, i listen to it and it goes away, without a sense of hearing i was condemned to phantom songs following me for the rest of my life. i had to relearn how to communicate. i could still speak, but unable to hear myself, i was even more self-conscious. i had to learn lip-reading and sign language, and for the lip reading to work at all i had to work constantly on my aversion to making eye contact. it didn't really help my already crippling social issues and general dislike for social contact.

i was stuck in the dream watching myself struggle, feeling so alone, because i had my family, but i didn't have any friends. i was aware that i was asleep, that i wasn't really there going through that, but nothing i tried woke me up. i was stuck for six hours watching my life pass a day at a time for about a decade. there was nothing good to take from it on waking, and even though i've been up for 8 hours since i did finally wake, i'm still so shaken that i've been unable to speak. the memory of being trapped helplessly deaf has left me effectively mute today. while i'm aware that i can hear, and i can speak, i'm still remembering almost a decade of not being able to tell if the noises i made were the slightest bit intelligible. it's harder than you'd think trying anyway. i'm not in a good place, and i don't know when i will be again.

i started painting again

song+ Holy Ground- Taylor Swift- Red
book+ the Iron Druid series
quest+ moving all my crafty stuff downstairs and rearranging my room
upper+ i did a whole painting and organized a bunch
downer+ i still can't find some stuff i KNOW i still own
attire+ starry pajama pants and a green tank
drink+ milk

this week i did like, zero all week, then suddenly felt motivated when i woke up Saturday. well, i did get ice cream with mom after her dental visit, but other than that i didn't do much of anything all week. my biggest accomplishment was getting all my painting stuff (and a few other arty things) pulled together and organized in the living room. all my paints are lined up chromatically by their various lines. it looks pretty nice overall, and it's a system i can work with well, as i learned when i (finally) got around to painting on the huge canvas i was given a few months ago. it's seriously like 3x5 or something. possibly bigger? i never measured it, just used it. it's still wet so i haven't taken any pictures yet.

i've been struggling extra hard to feel anything at all for a while now, and then when i do feel something i can identify it's generally this intensely ugly mass of ick, so i think i may be painting a lot for the next bit to just get it all out of me in a healthy kind of way. even at my darkest i never really considered self-harm, because honestly if i feel like shit, how is bleeding or whatever gonna make that better? purging negativity through aggressively garish colors in explosive patterns works better for me overall. i just feel like if i look at enough bright, i can forget that most of what i feel is so dark. if i ever start painting really dark, ya'll should probably worry. as long as i'm working bright and shiny, i'm still trying.

still really like Pokemon (more than someone my age should likely admit to)

song+ Where Did the Party Go? (or) Miss Missing You- Fall Out Boy- Save Rock and Roll
book+ my Pokemon heartgold guide
quest+ figuring out my pokemon trainer cosplay, including properly scaled pokemon in semi-transparent pokeballs
upper+ i'm having fun going to that obsessively nerdy mental state
downer+ cosplay is expensive
attire+ black drawstring pants and my red and navy rugby tee
drink+ Dr Pepper

this week i absolutely got Kyu's jacket fixed up for him, and i made more progress on Heart Gold, which was fun.

while Kyu and Muffin were at A-Kon i was at home dealing with an ill Harley, which was less fun than their weekend. today she's doing better though. really when Kyu got home we talked about the different types of conventions we've been to together and apart, and we talked about our favorite parts of cosplay on a personal level. then we lost hours getting into how much time we've both spent thinking about what we'd be like if we lived in the pokemon world, and what kind of teams we'd put together. i've had a pokemon team figured out for myself since i first played (in about 1997). the second generation brought me the bulk of it and very little has changed since then.

when i imagined myself as a trainer, i figured i wouldn't be one of those lucky enough to magically know a professor willing to give me my choice of incredibly rare specimens to figure things out with, so my starter was always Dratini (which i evolved to Dragonair then put an everstone on, because Dragonite is ugly and i freaking hate looking at it). i supported it with an Oddish (eventually Gloom then Vileplume), a Pidgey (then Pidgeotto and Pidgeot) and an Abra (evolved to Kadabra, but never Alakazam because trade evolutions are stupid). i had a Lapras for my surfer and that was basically my team until gen2 happened. so basically: Dragonair, Vileplume, Pidgeot, Kadabra, Lapras (empty slot never really filled with anything).

with gen2 i decided to go for Bellossom instead of Vileplume (because the Oddish/Gloom move list is still pretty freaking great and i just had to use a sunstone instead of a leafstone) and i dropped Lapras added Houndour (then Houndoom) as my fire type, prior to that i had my Dratini learning flamethrower via TM35, now i used HM03 instead and it was my surfer. so basically: Dragonair, Bellossom, Pidgeot, Kadabra, Houndour (empty slot never really filled with anything).

gen3 brought another change, i dropped Abra (which has ALWAYS been a PITA to catch in the first place) for a Ralts (then Kirlia and Gardevoir) because it has a better movelist, it's prettier, and it's so much easier to raise effectively. because it was essentially unavailable, Pidgey was dropped for Swablu (then Altaria) as my flying type. i wasn't thrilled with this choice what with being four times as weak to ice, but it was my best choice at the time. this generation of games brought me a surfer i was actually happy with though, Feebas (a pain to catch, and a pain to evolve, but Milotic is tied for strongest non-legendary water type). i finally had a 6 pokemon lineup with this generation. so basically: Dragonair, Bellossom, Gardevoir, Houndour, Altaria, Milotic.

gen4 is the most recent i've played so there's nothing gen5 in my lineup. the changes it brought me really evened things out. Pidgey was still fuinctionally unavailable, and Altaria was still a risky replacement, but Starly (and subsequently Staravia and Staraptor) was plenty effective as a placeholder until i could recruit Drifloon (and evolve it to Drifblim gaining the ability to transport passengers). so basically: Dragonair, Bellossom, Gardevoir, Houndour, Drifblim, Milotic. with this lineup i can take out most types with effective attacks, and the one i can't really is electric, which isn't super common really. these six pokemon cover Dragon (with the capacity to also learn ice, thunder, fire, and water moves), Grass (with remaining Poison moves from its earlier forms, but not the weaknesses), Psychic, Dark, Fire, Ghost, Flying, and Water types.

that's probably way more Pokemon talk than most of you care about, but it's what i've been thinking about lately, so it's really all i can think to talk about. basically the introspection on the list is so i can effectively plan how to construct accurate chibis of the whole team to place in pokeballs as part of my trainer costume (the evolutionary levels i'm going with are the ones i bolded at first mention).

i wanna do balls accurate to the manga, where the red top half is translucent, so you can see what's inside. Kyu had an idea to make the translucent balls, so i just have to figure out dimensions for chibis that are still accurate enough to please my OCD. then i wanna do scale plushes of a few of them (mostly the smaller ones) to walk around with out of their balls. Bellossom and Drifloon are both only 1'4", full size plushes would be lightweight and super cute as costuming props. a fully-to-scale Dragonair would be 13 feet long, but wrapped creatively around my torso and a leg, with the head draped over my shoulder it could be freakin adorable. xD

forgive the blurry, but my phone was all i had on hand to take a pic. this shows the official heights of those forms. myself at a rounded off 5'5" compared to the following; Dragonair 13'1", Bellossom 1'4", Houndour 2'0", Kirilia 2'7", Drifloon 1'4", and Milotic 20'4".