megalodon823

I should have known better than to think a LiveJournal would expand my world or anything.  I might be back, but for now, I'm tired of posting and getting no replies.  I can talk to myself without a computer.  So I'm done.  Good-bye.

No-Show Hero may or may not continue to be updated, but it'll be on my website, not here.

I used my free afternoon before work today to go see Where The Wild Things Are.  That's all this post is about.

( My review of Where The Wild Things Are )

Hello?  Is anyone there?  I miss having friends.  Somebody say something?

Here's a post that has nothing to do with me, so you guys might actually care! For those who don't watch me on Y!Hosting, this was a list that was sent from my mother's boss to my mother, which my mother then sent to me. And now I share it with you. Perhaps you've stumbled across these before. If not, ENJOY! (I think my favorites are 7, 16, and 17.)

What was sent to me:
Every year, English teachers across the country submit their collections of actual similes and metaphors found in high school essays. Excerpts are published to the amusement of teachers across the country. Here are last year's winners:

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a thigh Master.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E.Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.

16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.

18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap - one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

19. Shots rang out, as shots are known to do.

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either,but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

Well clearly no one gives the tiniest hoot about my opinions on anime, so here, have strip # 21 of No-Show Hero.



Aaand the sun has set.  End scene.  Next strip: more llamas.  Briefly.  And then they actually LEAVE this ridiculously idyllic setting and venture into the great unknown world beyond.

Also, Dagmar should be entering the story very soon.  In the next three strips, I think.  I dunno.  This thing isn't scripted out.

Hello?  Is anyone there?

Maybe you've noticed like me, or maybe you've simply taken it for granted and stored it in the back of your head, the oft-repeated pairs of opposing characters found in anime over the years. 

I mean specifically.  There is a distinct pair of molds I'm talking about.  One the one side there is the brash, hot-headed, spoiling-for-a-fight character, designed with warm colors.  (Messier hair, too, usually.)  On the other side, there is the prissier, haughtier character in cool colors who acts like he's too good to fight the first character but always seems to want to fight them (repeatedly) anyway.  The two are main characters, and whether or not they fight on the same side at some point, whether or not they also fight more important things than each other, they do for a good long while act as each other's main, or at least recurring, opponent.  Is anyone else a little tired of them?

( Examples behind the cut... )

Now maybe these character designs were unconscious decisions, simply easy fallbacks and easy to set against each other, and maybe they were deliberate.  I'm not sure if either is better or worse.  But to be sure, I'll notice them anywhere now, and I'll probably have a bias against them because of it.  They're just too easy, and I prefer characters with more thought put into them.

Erm...

That said, I absolutely adore Samurai Champloo, and you will never change my mind.

Right, so if you know of any others, possibly from animes I haven't seen, do fill me in.  Although keep in mind my list of attributes.  I would not include, say, Vash and Legato in this list, since Vash is not a hot-headed twerp, and Legato was not much of a recurring opponent.  I would also not include, oh... Raito and L, from DeathNote, even though the anime tried so hard to hint at those archetypes by casting them in red and blue.  So if any other battling pairs come to mind - perhaps not even from anime, just from anywhere - that fit the descriptions I put in the second paragraph there, I'd love to know about it!

This concludes another installment of the ramshackle workings of Meg's mind.  You may now return to your usual internet perusal.

Ha!  That was the first thing I thought when I saw this trailer.  It made me laugh, so I share it with you.

www.youtube.com/watch

Between re-reading the Harry Potter books (for various boredome-related reasons) and random introspective thoughts, I came to the subject of Patronuses, and the happy thoughts that produce them.  Now I'm sure lots of people have given a great deal of thought to what animal their hypothetical patronus would take.  (I think mine might be some kind of monkey.)  But I wonder how many people ever stopped to think what their super-awesome-happy thought would be.  And I took a moment to try to think of mine.

And I was stumped.  And then immediately downhearted.

I cannot think of a single moment or day in my life when I was just unbelievably, outrageously happy.  Which isn't to say I didn't have those moments, but the point is that I can't think of any.  I don't clearly remember any of them.  There was just a general mild fluxuation of good days and bad days, good moments and lousy ones.  My upbringing was predominantly a happy one.  Perhaps it is too difficult to find a brilliant sunburst in a sea of twinkling stars.  Do too many happy times lessen the impact of a REALLY happy time?  I remember some truly bad days, and some truly bad moments, often associated with headaches or my mother.  But if a dementor descended upon me right this second and began to suck the happiness from my soul, I could not summon a single wonderful memory clearly to my mind with which to summon my simian patronus.  Not a single memory in which I was blissfully, uncomplicatedly bursting with joy.

Can you?

And if so, what is your happiest memory?

Today I said farewell to my dear, faithful goldfish Ferdinand.  (You may remember I said good-bye to his buddy, Franz, a few months ago.)  Ferdinand was the one I had picked, with the long flowing fins and the slimmer, all-orange body.  He's been a good fish.  I worry that I should have used a new filter for his tank, and I worry if I fed him properly.  But today, he merely floated on his side across the top of the water, ignoring food, and though he was still alive, and still swam a bit when he thought crazy things were happening, he was basically listless, and I noticed that his long beautiful fins had a shredded, stringy appearance. 

So I took him in a tupperware container out to the pond behind my house, the way I did for Franz.  And maybe some kind bird or turtle will end it for him quickly, or maybe he'll survive and grow to be a foot long and I'll see him again someday.

*sniff*

The tank stands empty and silent now.  I am quite sad.  Sadder when I think that my mom will say, "Oh well, I'm sorry... But at least we won't have to see him wedged under plants looking like he's dead anymore.  And now you can get two new ones that act normal."

(If you didn't know this before, my mom is the type to want to get rid of something immediately if it doesn't do or look like it's supposed to.  Furniture, paintings, computers, lights, plants... fish... thankfully it's never extended to me, or I would be a true starving artist living in a miserable apartment somewhere with a crappy full-time job and no time for anything else.)

I'm debating whether or not to go down to the pond and check to see if Ferdinand is still there later.  If he's alive, I'll feel like a monster for giving up on him too soon, and if he's dead, I'll feel guilty that I killed him by putting him in the pond.

Sad.  R.I.P, Ferdinand, little buddy.

There is a very simple trick to it.  You just need to OBSERVE CLOSELY...


But... but they're all the same!  However can you tell?


Ah, yes...

Thank you, nature.  You've managed to one-up my biology class yet again.

Because I had such nice comments, and because it's been so long, and because my mom's been out of town and not available to breathe down my neck, HERE IS STRIP #20!  The story is finally attempting to get under way!



I dedicate this strip to Laura, because you love it most, I think, and seeing your comments is like getting hugged.

For Laura, and for all my loyal NSH fans, you few but highly appreciated followers, I would like to illuminate a tidbit about Fetchenhare's character for you.  He is naive, and idealistic, and totally out of the loop, but as silly and simple as he may seem, he possesses a very sharp mind.  He's just had absolutely no reason to use it his entire life.  When the story gets to the meatier bits, where Fetch is more proactive, his mind will really start to show through, finally being exercized the way it always should have been.  For after all, he was meant to be the hero of Eastphalia (EastFAILia by this point).  He was graced with all the qualities that would have made him a heroic and beloved champion.  He just utterly, utterly failed to show up.

And yes, for the sake of my color addiction and my boredom with the color palette I'd used for 10 strips in a row, that sun is setting AWFULLY fast.  You guys don't mind, right?  It's like my color theory professor taught us: color gradients are naturally pleasing to the eye.  Giving you panel after panel of saturated, jewel-tone color gradients is my little trick to keep both myself and you viewers suckered into feeling happy.

Also, this and every other No-Show Hero strip is, as always, up on my website, neatly in order for your viewing pleasure.
sleepingtigerstudio.com/index.php/NSH-11-20.html

Almost forgot to mention it here, but yes!  Random update!  Enjoy the changing sky and the llama tongue.



Llamllamallama...

Back to that problem I have with the Harry Potter movie castings... I've been repeatedly and firmly against their decision(s) to use tried and true British actors and squeezing them into the roles, rather than finding any of the hundreds of capable actors out there who would have looked the parts.  That's not a slight on the venerable actors they did pick, as I am a mild fan of Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman, Gary Oldman, etc.  I am also perplexed at why they decided to make some characters dead ringers for the books (Hagrid, McGonagall, Hooch, Voldemort) while making others bafflingly different (about 85% - I could go on for hours).  But my focus today is narrow and brief: the casting choice of David Thewlis as Remus Lupin.

It puzzled me for a while, to wonder why he bothered me so so much.  Yes, it was the duck lips, the mustache, and the jarring fact that he was taller than "Sirius Black" (let's not get me started on short, bearded, brown-haired, overacting-like-he-was-on-speed Oldman as Black...) BUT in terms of the acting job, I wondered if a different actor, who looked more like I'd expected, had acted those scenes exactly the same way, would I have minded?  No, not really.  It was passable.  (The werewolf's acting, on the other hand, was quite atrocious, I believe we can all agree, and that makeup job, am I right?)

So he did the best he could, I think.  And then, when I realized why he seemed so familiar, I realized why I could never accept him as a believable, trustworthy, kind and misunderstood mentor-type.

Because David Thewlis:


was also Einon, in Dragonheart:

who was about as ruthlessly, selfishly, disgustingly, desperately evil as any villain I've seen, and he always freaked me out.

Never mind that he was also the voice of the Earthworm in James and the Giant Peach, he was Einon.  And seeing as HP, Dragonheart, and James and the Giant Peach are the only three samples of his acting skills I've ever seen, naturally I'm biased.  I think perhaps it was that I enjoyed Dragonheart (keep in mind I was young when it came out) and watched it many times.  I enjoy parts of it still.  (And that CG dragon of yesteryear could kick the ass of the CG Lupin werewolf of recent times without batting an eye.)  So it made more of an impression on me, and you know what they say about first impressions.  And a huge factor is his very distinctive voice.  Aged and styled very differently though he may be, I simply cannot like/trust/warm to a Remus Lupin who speaks with Einon's voice.

Huh.  I realized just now that when I described Lupin earlier as a "believable, trustworthy, kind and misunderstood mentor-type", I didn't include "sympathetic".  I almost corrected this, and then I realized that between the directing and the acting (which I blame on the directing), no one in the Harry Potter movies are sympathetic characters, with the possible exception of the main three.  (And in the latest film, four, since they shoved Ginny into every scene they could.)  Has anyone else noticed that every character in those movies other than the main three (four) have basically been walking, talking props?  They're there so that the main characters can do and say what they're supposed to.  But they never read as their own characters with lives and backstories and justifiable motives, as they do in the books.  This bothers me greatly, although it explains a great deal why I have no love for these films.  I'll give Draco Malfoy a pass in this last film, as he was an actual subplot, and they let him show some freakin' anguish, but you have to admit, the only part he played in the first five was a shallow, minor annoyance and comic relief.  Not a great starting point to suddenly be a tortured sympathetic character.

(Also don't get me started on Dumbledore.  I think this might sum up how I feel about his portrayal: kellywormtongue.deviantart.com/art/Comic-Book-vs-Movie-Dumbledore-51395716)

Alright, clearly I've fallen into that comfortable, pleasurable RANT stride, so I'm going to wrap this up.  Sorry, I know I said it'd be brief and only about Thewlis.  I think my point is made.  Einon =/= Remus Lupin.  Not for me.

Is it just me? 

Edit: No, I didn't JUST figure this out.  I figured it out ages ago when the film first came out.  I'm just mentioning it now because it occurs to me. 

Ciao...

Here.  Have an un-colored Tlaloc.  (I'll be coloring him and posting him in proper art galleries soon.)



And here's the original design I did of him on the back of a Bob Evan's paper placemat with a ballpoint pen:

Ciao.

Someone out there kick me off the computer and make me draw things.  I need a slave driver.  Any volunteers?

How do you keep yourself focused and productive?

So school started.  One figure drawing class, one Biology class, and one Anatomy/Physiology class.  The first two were yesterday.  Predictable.  Not difficult.  At worst, boring.  Today I went to a different campus for the Anatomy class.

I got slightly lost on the way.  Got there with five minutes to spare, instead of fifteen, like I'd wanted.  Parked on the wrong side of the building, of course.  Repeating the class room number in my head to be sure of it, I make my way to it.  I find it, relax for half a second, then realize that the classroom is dark and locked and no one is around.

Went to the nearest "we help students" office and bugged the first person who would talk to me.  Of course, she had to look me in the eye as I was waiting, walk away and stand behind her counter within my line of sight and talk to her coworkers about nothing, while DOING nothing, before deciding to saunter back over to talk to me.  When we finally looked into my schedule, she tells me that my Anatomy class doesn't start with the others, but on September 28.

Stupid college.

On the plus side, I introduced my figure drawing "professor" to the awesomeness that is Adam Hughes, and I am pleased.

Now that I have a job, and am about to start school again (Monday), suddenly I have people wanting to commission me.  Big painting commissions.  I also have a short-term logo job to do, for a company called the "PAYS" Foundation, and I gotta get to that soon.  Still haven't finished the VERY FIRST STILL LIFE of my portfolio (Read: MEG FAILS AT ARTING), and I've had no energy or inspiration for extranneous stuff like No-Show Hero or, sadly, Godlings.  No single illustrations, either, really, although I have been drawing Tlaloc for an internet friend.  I need to do work.

I want a boyfriend.

Scratch that.  I shouldn't find a boyfriend now, since I'll be leaving for another state if this grad school thing pans out.  I'd have to leave him behind.  What I REALLY want is an absolute guarantee that I'll find a man once I get to grad school.

And let me say, once again, for clarification, I'm absolutely not the type of girl who thinks herself worthless or her life wasted without a man.  I'm not looking to be someone's being little woman.  I'm lonely.  And I want a solid romance.  I'd like to believe I'm capable of falling in love.  (Never even had a crush.)  I'd like to believe a great guy can actually love me, honestly, loyally, and preferably without drama.  Or like me.  Or be attracted to me.  Or... exist, without being taken or gay.

Still waiting for it.  Getting really annoyed by every female coworker younger than me having a steady boyfriend.  REALLY tired of older people, learning of my unsatisfied, unapproached, virginal state, telling me "Pah!  You're young!  IT'LL HAPPEN."  Like it's just obvious that it will.  I'm sorry, but I have absolutely no such confidence.  I have almost zero proof of such a miracle.

I'm tired of waiting for some evidence.  I already feel waves of self-disappointment about the direction of my life all the time.  Waves of doubt.

I could get really personal and morbid and mention how I fear death, as I have no belief in an afterlife, and fear obscurity and nothingness, and about how a partner is not just a friend and companion and lover, but a witness to one's life, someone to acknowledge that you exist, every day, which is important if one sees their friends only rarely, never has children, never becomes famous or wealthy, never writes their memoirs...

But maybe that's too much.

I don't suffer from mood disorders, depression, or any other mental ailment, for the record.  And I try not to dwell on thoughts like these.  Sometimes it's difficult, late at night, to force them away, but for the most part, I manage to compartmentalize such thoughts and distract myself with pretend worlds and stories, like the child I'm sure I will forever be.  So I wouldn't worry about me.  This is just an expulsion of too oft-repeated thoughts and woes.  Tripping off the fingertips.

Here, have a happy mental image: two of my cats are staring each other down while half asleep, and the third fluff monster is balled up in a circle, snoring like the old man he is.  His snores are cuter than mom's.

Done now.  If anyone bothered to read this far, how was your day today?

I have decided to announce officially that Excedrin, though it makes my arms shake and makes me occassionally queasy, is a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful thing and that I love it very muchly, and that if it ever asks me if I'd like to make some bad decisions some night, I just might say yes.  Know why?  Because it remains the only thing that takes away my headaches, and today, after three cumulative days of running about on my feet in bad shoes, with my feet, knees, hips, back, shoulders, and head hurting, all the pain is gone.  I can move.  I can socialize.  I can not cringe when I open my eyes.  My life is restored.  Slap me on a cheesy ad poster, I'm telling you.

And in other news, mom's had us playing Scrabble to fight off the doldrums at night, and the other day, I got to make the word "AVATAR" which made me happy.

...

Holy shit, it is suddenly thrown into sharp relief that I am a crap excuse for a 23-year-old woman.  I think I'm going to go be depressed now.

Posting these here, too, for my own records, and because it makes me happy to think I can not appear hideous in front of a camera if I work at it.



Me, as Sandman's Death.  (With lots of makeup, a wig, a photoshop color editing.)  Sorry for the repeat, those who've seen these on DA already.

Nya-ha.

I watched The Closer with mom tonight, a regular occurence.  It's a good show.  Smart, witty, good cast.  It tends to have story arcs of running annoyances, though, and the latest one is the teenage niece that's come to stay with 40(+/-) police chief lead character and her FBI agent husband.

The girl is the most stereotypical selfish, self-absorbed, disrespectful, slap-worthy malcontent, constantly glued to her hand-held texting apparatus and rolling her eyes at anything done by someone else, and tonight, her condition was dismissed with a "She's sixteen!  What else is she supposed to be?"

I am offended by this.  You're allowed to be a selfish, disrespectful bitch simply beause you're young?  Bullshit.  I've heard this logic before, so it didn't come as a surprise, but I'm sick of it.  It's such a common excuse and far too many people just let it be.  Yes, my mother has a lot of her own issues, and there's lots I could go on about with her.  But she did raise me to be polite.  To be respectful.  Helped me believe that intelligence is a good and admirable thing, something to aspire to.  Didn't "let" me be my own person, so much as "helped" me to be my own person, and somehow she helped me be a good one.

I don't plan on dissecting and unraveling the intracasies of child-rearing, but I'm a rather big fan of nurture being a larger influence than nature.  (Though both play I role, I believe.)  The meanest bitch in a family of the meanest Rottweilers can still produce a puppy capable of being a loyal, non-vicious companion, if that puppy is raised in a loving and well-structured way.

In other words, I wasn't a selfish, self-absorbed, disrespectful, slap-worthy malcontent, and I am sick of that being perfectly expected in the average teen.  I may not be perfect, and my mother may not be perfect, but I am the person I am today because of my mother, and in terms of how I treat and interact with others, I am happy with who I am.  Proud of that person.

I say they should have arrested the little bitchlet.

Does this sort of thing bother anyone else?