JIIIILLLLLL




...Alastair has been approved. Time to talk plottings. :D


...PS C&Cers no peeking! unless we've already wargarbled over Alastair going evil in which case...spoilers may abound?

...gdit c&c I used to hate that word, now I keep using it.

So I'm 35. Woo?

But johinnabara gave me the most useful bday present at this place and time:

Alastair has 100 icons now.

BRB PHOTOSHOPPING!!!!!!!1111one excitedomg and they're just icons WOOHOO

( that RP meme that's been going around )

Beading on my pants is mostly finished, I finally got the design plotted for the front dangles. If I can sit down and BEAD then I can call those finished sometime this week. I really need to get cracking on this commission, though. The client lost his job so they may have to pay me in installments or something, but that doesn't mean I can slack for too long.

I have no idea what to do for my birthday. I feel like I should go nuts because hello, 35, but I just don't have any good ideas. The current plan I think is to bring a cake to the stitch n' bitch this weekend, and maybe go out to dinner on Monday. I got nothin, otherwise! God, and my face is starting to finally show its age...I may need a better brand of daywear makeup for cons because Alastair had eye-wrinkles at Archon and we can't have that.

...I had totally forgotten just how fucking sexy evil!Alastair is. His facial expressions, his snarls and anger and his taunting and....HNNNRRGH. He's beautiful. When I get some stuff done around the house and get these screencaps back to my desktop, I'll edit and throw up some screencaps to share.

But now I really really REALLY want to find some way of giving him the Oricalcos back. Even if it's for a one-shot plot and can get rid of it later. He's just not in a place to be that evil without the Oricalcos, not even if everyone he loves dies. well maybe then but I'm not asking to have Saitou, Kiryu, Bakura, and Kaiba killed for good or anything. But I also don't want him to be permanently evil, but I can see him embracing it for a time because he feels like he can't protect anyone without it.

...now, HOW to accomplish this? Aside from simply porting him out and back to add a power, because I want some logic to it. In his timeline the Oricalcos was destroyed two years ago, he wouldn't just show back up with it. But I've always operated with the assumption (headcanonly) that the dark power left a mark on his soul, through which someone could reawaken it if they tried hard enough, like when Dartz reawakened it for Raphael and pwned him with it.

Or maybe some villain in the City has a way of giving him a similar power, idk. I need to think about it.

Edit time for....SCREENCAPS!

( yeah no you guys are way too eager for this )

MY DVDS CAME TODAY!!

Alastair's best evil moments on dvd - for two bucks apiece.

Thanks for the protip, Fran - I am going to love, cherish, and screencap the shit out of these. Looks like today is going to be another unproductive day, aside from the bank and the grocery store.

DOMA HATERS TO THE LEFT! I am all over this. WOOHOO!



...Alastair needs an icon of him in the pilot's uniform. OH YES.

Cap is bored, it must be meme time. Stolen from ayekasong

( cut for length and some HOMG BELIEFS sigh no really )

ANYWAY. xlostgeishax IS COMING TO VISIT FOR THE NEW YEAR/WEEKEND AND I AM STOKED. Except that I have to get up fucking early to drive to Chicago to pick her up. We're probably hitting Vogue Fabrics and Mitsuwa on the way back though, so yay for making a fun day out of it! And then there's the MACS party and fabric swap on Friday, so double yay. I get to have another social weekend! That's two this month! I ARE AMAZE!

I know, I promised these ages ago. We only just found the cord for johinnabara's camera last week, and then she took her laptop away for a few days. SO FINALLY we have pictures.

Time for picspam. This is why we say Mai is adorable. Mai stops D&D (okay BESM) sessions instantly by walking through. Mai gets love from the pizza guy. Everyone tells Mai she's a beautiful kitty, so here you go.

( cut for HOMG PICSPAM )

I always fail at these but




So anyway.

A bottle of sake and a couple gift cards to Outback steakhouse are pretty good considering I asked for nothing and said I didn't want anything, besides help paying the electric bill.

SO TERRA. GUESS WHAT WE'RE DOING WHEN YOU VISIT?

Okay, I had THE most awesome fandom dream last night. It was sweet.

( but you don't want to hear the details, do you? )

But I had something else to blather about. I've already written treatises on why I hate christmas, but I'm just in such an UGH mood about it this year and GRAH...

( more whining )

johinnabara ordered extensions from Cosworx, for her CC28 costume. They arrived today.

Me: You got a box of hair.
Her: oo! No, I'm going to open my box of hair first, and THEN the doujinshi.
...
I'm going to quote Oz now: "Our lives are not like other people's."

---------

Me: Shut up, I'm made of so much awesome.
Her: Yes, but it's evened out by a large amount of fail.

---------

Yes, this is my life.

fasfjhaldiuawhfewfeligef

just saw on the news - some pictures sent in by viewers of damage from the snowstorm. One of them happened to be from my old apartment complex - very recognizable buildings.

And then I noticed - realized - that it was a picture of the large tree that sat right outside my old apartment's window. The one with a huge fork in it that made me look crossways at it every time there was a strong windstorm, thunderstorm, or ice storm - I just knew that tree was coming down someday.

Yep. It came down. Right on top of a car that was parked pretty much where I always parked every day.




I love my roommate lots but never more than right now. XD (course it's been a year and a half but WHEW. LUCKY MOVE IS LUCKY)

The airport NWS measurement was 14.1" - I don't believe it. I would buy more like 16-17". The south suburbs got 18". My car is out and in a clean spot, and Junabi is pretty sure she can get hers out (it's mostly dug out, just needs to be moved). They were not kidding about this storm, homg.

ADKJSFHEDFKJSFHWKOEWIUYXC ELLE IS THE BEST YEAH YEAH YEAH

...and so is Ty for actually going through with it.

Sanji has paid icons and they are beautiful. I could almost start iconning anime screencaps just to fill it - but really, he only needed 30. I just needed to have the beautiful twirly heart dance icon and a couple more fighty ones.

I will consider this my Christmas present for now and look for secret hidden ways to return the favor or SOME favor to both Elle and Ty sometime in the future. God C&C people are just amazing sometimes. ILUguyz.


IN OTHER NEWS...it's cold and fucking snow is coming. Whee.

Why does every link on everyone else's costuming site link back to Saeru's moving wings tutorial on cosplay.com? I GOOGLED IT BECAUSE THAT TUTORIAL DID NOT MEET MY NEEDS. Goddammit. I can't use the pulley system because I won't have a hand free to constantly hold the wings open. I need a single-switch, preferably spring-oriented snap-loaded wing design, for ONE SHOT wing-opening. Once they're open they stay open until I'm off stage.

God, I pity the poor stagehand who'll be ninja-ing us offstage after our performance, they'll have to maneuver me carefully and get me to a point where someone can collapse the wings for me.

This, I might add, is why I'm planning to swap out the wing harness for a cloak in the hallways. johinnabara found this amazing purple splash-dyed fabric at Savers of all places that might make a nice cloak, if I can con her into giving it to me.

Dropped as much if not more on beads today as I have on fabric to-date. And it's nowhere near all the beads I'll need - I anticipate needing to restock on all the square beads I'm using for the broadcollar. Hope to hell I don't need any more seed beads than I got - 20gm each of silver, smoke gray, and iridescent white, plus smaller amounts of purple and green for accent. The purple cost more than the three packs of 20gms put together (goddamn Japanese seed beads).

But I'm trying to do the research on various methods of opening/moving/retractible wings before I go trying to design one of my own. I know in the past some of the hardcore Masters who present at CC and Worldcon have made wings of the kind I plan to have - but most of them probably predate documentation. ARGH! Maybe I'll shoot off an email to the Mais to ask whose brain you gotta pick to get wing designs.

The bodysuit is...constructed but incomplete. Needs some tailoring and hemming but for the most part it's together. So I feel like I'm free to start beading and embellishing, because certain parts fully need to be embellished before I can sew them together, line them, etc. GIANT PROJECT IS GIANT.

So I was not bothered at all by the idea of going to my sister's in Chicago for Thanksgiving instead of home to Wausau. My mom was weird about it - first she thought I would be disturbed or offended (by the way she kept asking me if it was okay with me) and then she freaked the fuck out about directions. Mom. I can use Mapquest. Really.

But now I get the news that we're not eating till later because of the Packer game. Now. I don't care about when we eat - I hate turkey anyway, I'm probably going to have like a nibble of meat, an assload of dinner rolls, and two pieces of pie and call it a day. Mealtime does not matter to me one bit. However...the idea that the family's schedule has to revolve around the FUCKING PACKERS pisses me off to no end.

This pretty much means that if I drive down "early" (hahaha like I'm getting my ass up before 9) I'll be sitting bored in a corner with no one to converse with while they all watch the game and get drunk. And then eat and go home. If I drive down to arrive just when dinner should presumably be served, I'll get the guilt trip about why I don't stay longer and really cats can be left to themselves for like 3 days and there's plenty of room on the couch...

I want to not go, now. I want to just tell them to count me out, and I'll stay home and eat ramen. Normal day. But then they're going to flip out that I was some how offended by the choice of Chicago over Home after all and Ellie will be the kicked puppy and...

GODDAMMIT. I HATE HOLIDAYS. I HATE THEM SO FUCKING MUCH.

I don't give a shit WHERE a family meal takes place. I really don't. But I don't want to drive two hours in ANY direction just to sit around in a corner, nibble half-heartedly at food I don't want, and be ignored while the conversation centers around Ellie's life and Jamie's marriage. But my dad had eye surgery not too long ago and he will fucking SULK like a goddamn emo teenager if I don't show up. FUCK MY FUCKING LIFE.

I'm bored. Therefore, it's meme time.

( taken from the marvelous ay )

Okay that wasn't nearly as interesting as I thought AY WE AGREE ON SO MANY THINGS.

Anyway.

Blew through the first 45 episodes of One Piece online. It's safe to say I have a new fandom.

So. Back from whirlwind trip to SR Harris. MACS might be lucky enough to see our fabrics tomorrow, I don't know. Depends on how lazy I am. However, it was a productive trip, thankfully. I didn't find what I thought I wanted, but I found some "perfect" fabrics nonetheless. Of course, since our not-so-secret-anymore CostumeCon entry is an original design, we can change anything depending on what we find.

I got a very strange but interesting black ribbed lycra for the bodysuit and a gorgeous green and black houndstooth-checked fabric for the vest, and some purple diamond lycra for accent pieces. And some dark purply faux linen with a rayon coating/sheen, it's hard to describe but it has a linen texture. I'm going to use it for a base of the pants, and applique stuff on top. I've decided what I want for other parts - like purple snakeskin-print leather, white-and-black geometric print cottons, and white fur - but I don't need to get them yet. Or I have to wait to get them. The Flik commission has bankrolled this costume for now, but come February I'll need to complete a couple more commissions in order to bankroll the wings.

I know what I want for the wig, and I have designs for the mask and armor. I still need to brain the wings, since it needs an armature that will pop open with one switch or pull, and EL wiring. I do know that the harness will be entirely external, and I'll replace the wings with a "cape" for hall wear. There's going to be a crapton of beading, and every inch of the costume is going to be embellished - etching, paint, applique, and couched beads. Of course, I can't show my sketches or design because that, at least, needs to be secret for the competition. Some MACS members have or will see it in my sketchbook, but I'm not throwing this thing on the internet for the entire potential cosplaying world to see.

...that means no updates from me, either. Well, I can't promise I'll stick to that. I may get excited and say something once in a while. But for the sake of trying to keep SOME part of this epic CC entry hush-hush, I'm going to refrain from full updates and definitely no schedule or pictures. Which shouldn't be hard - I'm lazy. But sometimes I get excited and it beats the lazy back for like five minutes.

And now for something COMPLETELY different...

I've figured out what breed of cat Mai is. No, really! We were watching Cats 101 on Animal Planet last night and they had a segment on the Norwegian Forest Cat. It sounded a lot like Mai, especially the ruff of fur around their necks and the weird tufts that stick out from between their toes. I went poking around online and the more I read, the more sure I am. She has the eyes, the tail, the face conformation, and the ear tufts too. And they say Norwegians are highly friendly and affectionate cats who purr like maniacs - yep, that's Mai. Except I didn't think she had the double-layer coat they describe, but if she's as young as we think she is, it simply hasn't grown in yet - they don't fully mature till 5 years, and the extra coat grows in around 2. I would be amazed if someone got rid of or totally lost a purebreed Norwegian Forest cat...and even more glad that we got her for the price of rescuing her.

...eh, I was bored anyway.

( meme time again )

And no, I'm gonna be a lamer and NOT TAG ANYONE because geez. Do it if you want to.

I'm feeling the November Gloom taking me over. Every day this week, once the sun goes down I've just been...disinterested in everything and ready to crawl back into bed. Hopefully going to MN to buy fabric and meet up with Zen will be a lovely bright spot this weekend.

When other people's lives are spiraling out of control and everything is suck, and mine is for once somewhat...stable, I can't help but feel wretched. I must subconsciously not like being happy(ish) when everyone else is in trouble.

That, and I have a headache. Dinner did not sit well with me. I think I'm going to go lie down for a while, and take a break from RPing for tonight.

So yeah. Hi guys. Con over with. Successful. Dead tired despite actual sleep and lots of caffeine. BUT...I am here, and tagging logs, and ready to roll. I got nothin' else to do until I actually do pass out (so don't want to go to bed before OHEY VENTURE BROS ON TONIGHT okay).

...I see my use of the english language has gone into complete fail. Nice.

Not a whole lot to report. Picked up some pencil boards. Missed the chance to buy a real steel replica of one of Zoro's swords. Wowed peoples. Had a well-run masquerade. Made lots of costume contacts. I think we are unofficially sister affiliates with the DOOM squad in MN (MACS is, I mean). This is actually a note to self to add Rae to the MACS mailing list. She wants us to be panelists at Marscon in the Twin Cities in March. I am...curious. It's a possibility.

So now that it's over I'm officially on a long break from costuming. My last commission shipped, so now I have a short time before I have to work on contract negotitations with the next one, but that means literally no sewing and no deadlines ahead for some time. I'd like to consider that a good thing, but it's actually bad, because I honestly need things to do to keep me from spiralling back into the "that's right, I'm unemployed and have no plans for my future" depression. I will probably go over to Ravenworks sometime this week to talk to Raven about contracting out some sewing work for the shop. It won't pay WELL but it would be extra money of a sort coming in, which I'll need at the end of the year to pay taxes on my unemployment.

...except that she almost tried to talk me into making satin hakama. SATIN. HAKAMA. NO. JUST. NO. *facepalm hard* I'll have to see what she has to say.

Oh, also got a Christmas present for Susan. Sorry, Rebecca, it's going to mean you have to fix up Dartz sometime. ;)

And I got the Yu-Gi-Oh stickers Fran sent me, so squee! Fran is awesome! *happy dance*

Yeah I got no reason to post, but I'm going to anyway because I'm kinda bored.

( here lies my pointless rambling, mostly about the upcoming weekend )

Well, I'm clearly not getting any notes done tonight. And the meme totally distracted me so I have no tags outstanding. I think I'mma go read until I fall asleep. And send Mai in to sleep with Junabi. So don't need cat hair in my flannel sheets.

Tomorrow I'll probably get those snaps in, and then sit on the couch prepping notes for the con. And by prepping for the con I mean making screencaps for icons from the Doma eps Fran gave me. :D Fran is awesome. And hi Toastbat and Jill! And anyone else who crawls on in from C&C. Luff you guys.