procrastination!

I'm doin' it! I should be reading Cicero right now. And I will be reading Cicero very shortly, but first, have a few doodly bits.

Anastasia

Anabeth slicin' up some spiderwebs in Mark of Athena

a pretty chick

Dr. Horrible color test

an elf lad with strange hair

more wonky hair

Ivy Dale from the steamverse mess

Genesis Pike, holding... something?

baaaaaangs

some kid whose name is probably Paco

a few faces

Holly Short, elfin badass

Sokka from Avatar sulking about his lack of cool powers

Mmkay, back to ze Great Conz. Later, all.

Oh, and Downton Abbey is killing me, just for the record. I have a few more episodes left in Season Two. Last night I ended up crying on Anna's floor yet again because FEELS. How can we care so much about people who are (a. not real and (b. perfect idiots? Because they're gorgeous perfect idiots, that's why.

Commander Kip
"If it loses, we eats it whole." *beatific smile*
Normal is overrated!

birthday, hobbitgasm, & other news

All right. It is actually, officially, and unfortunately my birthday. I'm getting sick of aging now. Can't I just be nineteen indefinitely? That would be a pretty nice indefinite age. 

So, I've seen the Hobbit twice, once at school and once at home. And OH. EM. GEE. I can't even. What. It is so friggen fantastic. Check it out, there's my friend Elinor in front of the hobbit door at the theater.

I shall make sure to always sit next to Leif in movies now, because the entire time he kept flapping his hands and whisper-shrieking things like "HOBBITGASM" and "DWARFGASM" and "ELFGASM" and "WIZARDGASM" in my ear. It was the greatest. But seriously, have you seen Thorin's FACE? He has, like, the best nose ever. He comes in the door of Bag End and he's all like "I am Thorin Oakenshield" and I'm all like "Good gracious. Since when are dwarves allowed to be hot?" Apparently, ever since Thorin and Kili showed up onscreen. Who'd 'a thunk?

Remember that snippet-of-a-thing I showed you several posts back? This was the thing. It's a forty-foot Smaug made out of cardboard and zip ties, jointly created by my sculpture class for the Hobbit-themed dinner in the Caf. Boy, did we have a blast putting that beast together.

There he is lookin' saucy amidst the Caf tables.

Hello, handsome. My art professor stuck a fog machine in his schnoz.

And there's me in my elf costume. Classy, I know. See, I knew I'd have a use for my pointsy earses in college!

Also, we had a bit of snow on campus right before finals week. Anna, JC Aly, Lil'nea and I built a snowman. The snowsquirrel on his head was Anna's idea, and a brilliant one at that. We also had a pretty epic snowfight once the rest of Kildahl got back from lunch. Lol, I think I had a studio class that morning that I didn't warm up for because I was too busy playing in the snow. Also didn't eat lunch, but that's nothing new. That's Aly in the picture. She's spectacular.

More snow pictures.

Because we live on a hill and the winds are of the prevailing variety, every snowman on campus was listing rather severely by midday.

We also went midnight sledding on appropriated Caf trays and acquired a nice assortment of minor (and less minor) injuries. Poor Sarah went home with a concussion and missed all her finals. Nothing that drastic happened to me, although I did come down with a cold.

Got a Barnes & Noble gift certificate for my birthday and spent it on pretty books, including The Fire Ascending and Rain and Fire by Chris D'Lacey and Princess Academy: Palace of Stone by Shannon Hale. I also discovered that there are apparently six more Merlin books (T.A. Barron) that I didn't know about, released after the original five? What? Can has?! Anywhoo, I continue to sneak more books back to college by wrapping them in clothes and stuffing them waaaay down in the suitcase. It's the bringing them back home in the summer that's going to cause problems, because I'll clearly have way more than I initially took with me in the fall. Whatever, we'll deal with that later. Oh, I'm reading Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell at the moment, in anticipation of seeing the movie eventually, and it's pretty fantastic. I'm enjoying the timeskips rather, although not so much the devastating cliffies.

In other, less celebratory news, my poor dear dog died two days before Christmas. It was sudden and horrible. None of us were expecting it. The emergency vet said it was probably an internal blockage, as if he swallowed something and it completely stoppered up his guts. In other words, his own dumb fault. He was whiny and smelly and stupid, but I'll miss the wooly lunatic all the same. He loved us. We loved him. Even my dad admitted it.

Back to cheerier fare. The Doctor Who Christmas special was, in a word, fantastic. I made the questionable decision of watching the tail end of Angels Take Manhattan right beforehand because that's what was on the channel, and I definitely watched the first few minutes of The Snowmen through a wretched trickle Pond-related tears. Also, disillusioned Eleventh Doctor is so very painful to watch. But Clara is gorgeous and cheeky and awesome, so it's all good. Lady Arin paid me a visit yesterday, and I was delighted to discover that college has transformed her into a true Whovian, hurray! And she also watched Smith before Tennant, because we're sisters and that's how we do.

Hokay, off to do birthday things. My goals today are to finish Cloud Atlas and play through Portal. We'll see how far I get.

Commander Kip
"It's smaller on the outside!" "Now, that is a first."
Normal is overrated!

Merry Hannukwanzmas!



Hey dere, peeps! Sorry for vanishing during the hollydays; finals happened, then break. I fail at internetting. Anyways, Anabeth and Thaelen want to wish you a merry Christmas, if you celebrate that sort of thing. And even if you don't. 

 

 

Do note that they're both wearing clothes. That's gotta be a first for them. Lol.

Break has been all right so far. There's been good stuff and bad stuff, but I'm gonna save all that for later. It's Christmas, and that's nice, so everything else can wait till later.

You're all fabulous. I don't think I say it enough, but you really are.

Also, guess what I'm going to my grandma's house to watch this evening? DOCTOR FREAKING WHO, that's what. Should be pretty great.



Off to chill with mah family. Later!

Commander Kip
"If it loses, we eats it whole."
Normal is overrated!

Captain Ripley's Portable Steam-Powered Communicator

Made this little beauty for class. The assignment was to make a product that would fit in one of those environmentally unfriendly plastic packages and create packaging to advertise that product. With my usual tendency towards over-complication and shenanigans, I made up an entire kid's tv show about steampunk aerial antics called Ripley's Dirigible Adventure and created a "prop" from the show. You know how they sell Thor's hammer and Hawkeye's bow in stores as kid toys? This is like that. Also, I made it out of found objects and Apoxy, because that's how I roll.  

So that was a fun assignment. Now, to practice. My jury's tomorrow. *freaking out*

Also, I'm just a ball of bruises from sledding. I have bruises on top of my bruises. It's spectacular.

Commander Kip
*garbled attempt at speech* "Yes, I English well." *mimes stabbing self* "Augh, right in the grammar!"
Normal is overrated!

beginning to look

a lot like CRHEESTMAAAS around here!!

(Okay, that was cheating, those last two pictures are from like before Thanksgiving, but it's snowing again as I speak and there will be pictures of it later. It's a lot more legit this time. Like, I spent my morning hurling snowballs at my friends and getting pelted in return kind of legit.)

Speaking of Thanksgiving, we took this picture right before everyone left for break:

Starting with the lanky dude on the left, this is Matt the boyfriend, me, Christopher the endearing one, Tim who is good at life, Mads the French one, and Phil of the magic hands. There are more influential Kildahlians, of course, but they didn't make it back from class in time to be in the picture.

For example, here's one: Josh the kilted Jedi. (Somehow, a good chunk of Kildahl's residents own ultrasabers now. Because we're that cool.)

Anna the wife. She was buried in a Great Con paper at the time.

A box containing the boyfriend, who was hiding from math homework at the time. He's very foldy.

 Speaking of cardboard boxes, we're doing a thing in art class and it's going to be awesome. More pics of that later.

Last night was our last session of D&D this semester, and the end of the campaign. And I am so furious. My character exploded! And it wasn't even a heroic death. Okay, so there was this guy, Gravelord Nito, who convinced us to help him fight the Ancient Horrors that were threatening to take over the world. Nito needed Arturus to use his necromantic powers, and half of us were like heck no and half of us were like why not, so we did as he asked. Consequently, we did get to use some of our old enemies as soul sacrifices, which involved Ileana finally getting to punch that stupid brain surgeon in the face a few times, but then Arturus turned into a portal and started spewing minions everywhere, except we didn't know they were minions. We thought they were Lesser Horrors, because that's what the DM told us. Because he's a liar. But anyway, Alaura had the Stone of Ultimate Lightness or whatever, basically the Holy Hand Grenade, and she was refusing to throw it because she wasn't convinced that all the Horrors had emerged from the portal yet, so Ileana used her badass amber blood powers to stop time for ten seconds, grab the grenade from Alaura, and wipe out all the minions, potentially saving several people's lives. But then the actual Horrors started coming out and we'd used our only weapon. So Makazee and Boobs McGee both turned into dragons and started squashing the actual Horrors, and there was much sloshing around of Goblin Gear Greaser and just barrels of it flying everywhere, and then suddenly we were surrounded by Greater Horrors and everybody started dying. Boobs McGee went down first, and Tyler blew himself up in the same turn because he was her Rider and he didn't want to live without her. Makazee committed suicide and squashed a bunch of Horrors with his huge dead dragon corpse, and then in the very next turn Ileana (who had 78 hit points) took over a hundred damage and also exploded, taking out five Greater Horrors with her. This was after blowing an Encounter on switching places with Arturus-the-portal, thinking that she could use the portal as a shield, or possibly turn into the portal, but no. She just exploded and that was that. Basically, our party lost miserably, the Horrors took over the world and terrorized everyone for five billion years, and the thri kreen were only able to resist them because apparently they stole some of Ileana's amber blood while she was unconscious during the last session. Rude. Alaura was really the only one who survived in her original state. She got to go get married to Gavin and live in his secret tower and have adorable children and lead the resistance while the Horrors were doing a number on the rest of the world, Makazee was resurrected as a Dragon Horror in charge of several demonic legions and gave her and the resistance no end of trouble. Arturus, meanwhile, continued to be the portal for the remainder of the five billion years, at the end of which he regained his true Shardmind form and found himself the only magic-user left alive in the entire world. He then ruled as immortal emperor for the next five billion years. And Tyler and Ileana were just exploded in the corner because they friggen drank too much Goblin Gear Greaser. It was terribly unfair, and basically it was a reenactment of the last fight scene in Avengers, except there was no way to blow up the portal. Trust me, we tried.

So poor Ileana is dead. In this campaign, anyway. I might resurrect her for other purposes if I feel like it - she was a blast to play, and her amber powers still have potential.

Now, finals. Better go deal with those.

Commander Kip
Skeletons: Only in D&D to you have to specify whether they're dead.
Normal is overrated!

screamy face

Forgot about this one too! It's Thaelen, being his usual melodramatic self. What a surprise.

One more day of Christmas Fest! Then back to regularly scheduled life. My boyfriend was ushering last night, so he got to hear the concert, which was nice. My family's listening to the audio stream today. *kettlesquee* Christmas!!!

Dude, Friday night was marvelous. I was up until 3am geeking out and talking about superheroes with five other dudes in the basement lounge. I missed this. Yay.

And then last night was marvelous as well because I more or less finished Chapter 5 of Birthright! It's come to the point where the premeditated plot has dissolved entirely and I'm just letting the characters run the show. We'll see how that goes.

Off to read some Job. Later, peeps.

Oh, oh, and Anna made me the best Christmas present evar because she's awesome and she loves me. I CAN'T WAIT TO SHOW YOU GUYS. There will be pictures. Count on it.

Commander Kip
"Hang on, I need to go take off my cupcake." "Your choir robe?" "No, my cupcake."
Normal is overrated!

I made a purchase

And it was Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor! It's sitting on my desk right now, and I am exercising massive amounts of willpower to prevent myself from reading it in one sitting. Because I have things to do. Like Christmas Fest. Yeah. I did read the first few chapters, though, and it's already shaping up to be fantastic. 

And while I was home, I took the liberty of borrowing my family's scanner to document some of the doodles I had sitting around, and I found this drawing in my old sketchbook.

It looks like I was attempting a scene from Daughter of Smoke and Bone, where Karou wards off Akiva with her hamsas before they, y'know, make nice. I think I started drawing the picture in pen, and then the pen died, so I finished it in pencil. And I was clearly going through my crappy background phase, as indicated by the mess of dome-and-spire type silhouetty things that are supposed to be the skyline of Prague. Oh well, moving on.

Christmas Fest starts tonight!! Which is great and all, but it also means I'm missing D&D on Saturday, which sucks because I can't wait to try out my new and shiny dice. Guess that'll be next week.

More doodles to show you, when I'm not quite so swamped.

Also, Anna is in my room vacuuming dead ants out of her clarinet case. Somehow. Er.

Commander Kip
"Are you saying you don't love me? Because I love you. I think. Oh. No. Never mind. That's fear."
Normal is overrated!

the giving of thanks

Happy belated Thanksgiving! Hugs for everybody!



Right before I came home from school, we did a fun project in Kildahl where you make a hand turkey and write on it all the things you're thankful for. I literally covered the paper with the good things in my life, but there was a little space left at the bottom, so I wrote "ALL THE THINGS" just in case I forgot any. I truly am thankful for all the things. Aren't you?

'Specially being at home. It's so nice to be with my family, and walk barefoot in the bathroom and the kitchen, and sleep in a room by myself, and be able to sit all the way up in bed. It's the best. And real toilet paper! So luxurious. And real Indian food, and real Japanese food, and not just what you get in the Bowls line in the Caf. (Sorry, my grammar quota for the month got all used on my Great Con paper. None left for the rest of November. Oh well.)

Also, Assassin's Creed III. We has it. And it's pretty awesome. I've only watched my brother play so far, but it looks nice. Borderlands 2 confuses me, however - I can't figure out how to work the camera during fights. It just swings wildly everywhere and I can't see the monsters I'm trying to shoot. Stressful. Reminds me a little too much of the old 007 games we had, where I would just frantically Q-Claw myself into a corner of the ceiling and stay there until the end of the round. Dishonored, I've only seen a few minutes of, but I'm a huge fan of the human heart full of gears. No idea what it does, but it's super cool all the same.

Oh, and my family introduced me to Downton Abbey, and it's such the best. I've seen the first five episodes. The characters are all so loveable, or hateable, it's delicious. I still think Thomas should have run off with his slimy noble boyfriend so the rest of the household didn't have to deal with his crap. That would have been nice. *garrotes Thomas*

Anyway, happy Black Friday, and may you not leave your house at all today in order to avoid getting unceremoniously trampled. Love you all!

Commander Kip
"I expect he's to be flung at Mary during dinner." "Oh, I think Mary's quite capable of doing her own flinging, don't you?"
Normal is overrated!

Top 5: Hottest (Female) Book Characters

On account of being too lazy to take pictures of my doodles, have another Top 5. The girls this time!

(1. Zanna Martindale from the Last Dragon Chronicles by Chris D'Lacey

 Sorry, no official pictures of her. No one knows who she is, I betcha. But she's up there on my list of book hotties, because (a. She's powerful both in character and in actual magicky stuff - in the series, she's a sibyl, a kind of witch. And she gives all the boys what for, like when Tam Farrell comes nosing around her shop and she's all like "Dude, get off." She doesn't take crap from anybody. And in a series full of dark magic and nosy boys and creepy old grannies and talking polar bears and ancient dragons and stuff, she holds her own remarkably well. (b. She's not a skinny flat-chested supermodel, which I appreciate. She's got some shape to her. Also, pale skin and dark hair. Always awesome. (c. When she and David are doing science in the Arctic, she rocks the chunky sweaters. Gotta love a chick who can rock the chunky sweaters. (d. She's dating a brainy writer type (who is also magical.) Good choice, Zanna, good choice. (5. She (spoiler) has an adorable magic daughter, who I also love. And she never gives up on David, even when he's supposedly dead. Loyal to her family, both immediate and adopted. Love that in a girl.

(2. Russa Nodrey from The Long Patrol by Brian Jaques

(Sorry, again, I've never drawn her, but here's a drawing from Dekabristmouse on DeviantART.)

 The Long Patrol was always one of my favorite Redwall books, mostly because of this character. (a. She just kicks so much butt. It's a little ridiculous. She's got the badass whacking stick and the whole stoic loner thing going on, and she's kind of a ninja. (b. Squirrels are beasty. Points for climbing. Long-eared squirrels? Even more better. And who hasn't wanted a tail? (c. She becomes the main character's mentor for a time and teaches him important lifeskillz. So obviously, she knows things. Smart lady. Love that. (d. She's got boatloads of fierceness and courage. Outnumbered? No problem. Gonna stand here and beat on 'em with mah stick until they're dead or I am. (e. Spoiler - she dies. One of the saddest deaths in the whole series, in my opinion. She's not even in the story for very long, but by the time she goes out, we're all in love with her and it's horrible to lose her so early.

(3. Johanna Mason from the Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins

(Again, don't have any drawings of her, so have a sexy picture of the actress instead.)

So, this chick. I hated her at first, but in the last book she totally grew on me. Why: (a. Much like Jace Wayland, she's a lovable jerk. A bitingly sarcastic, grouchy, secretly vulnerable jerk. (b. Much like Artemis Fowl, she starts out as sort of an antagonist and becomes a staunch ally and inherently good person by the end. (c. Short haircuts are hot. (d. This chick walks around naked. No shame. (e. She's got guts. She makes herself do the soldier training in the third book so she can storm the Capitol with Katniss, even though she's still recovering from being tortured. She does whatever it takes to get there, and then when she screws up the final test, she's so pissed because she really really wanted to go mess up the Capitol. She just doesn't give up. Ever.

(4. Siri Tachi from the Star Wars extended universe

 Possibly my favorite character in all of Star Wars. She just rocks hardcore. (a. Purple. Lightsaber. Stahp. (b. Dangerous blond chick. And again, short hair is hot. (c. She and Obi-Wan are my Star Wars OTP, closely followed by Qui-Gon and Tahl. Those two are so friggen adorable. And tragic. But that's part of why it's adorable. And whenever they're not secretly dating, they've got the best intimate friendship. (d. She's one of those rigid, no-nonsense types - but, under the hard shell, she's got some soft spots. We just don't get to see them very often. She doesn't take crap from anybody, though, and she expects excellence of herself and everyone around her at all times. (e. Even on the brink of death, she's teasing Obi-Wan for worrying too much. How wrenchingly adorable is that?

(5. Holly Short from the Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer

I think we can all agree that the graphic novel did not do our dear Holly justice. I've experimented quite a bit with giving her shorter, more utilitarian haircuts. Why she's awesome: (a. she's a sci-fy fairy police officer. What. (b. Brown skin and short auburn hair. And massive guns. Don't forget those. (c. She's something of a loose cannon when it comes to following orders and deferring to authority figures. She's also stubborn as heck and has a very set concept of right and wrong. (d. Fiercely loyal to her friends, but more than a little snarky and sarcastic to them as well. (e. The first  - and only - female elf to achieve the rank of Captain in the Lower Elements Police. Take that, Corporal Frond.

So there's those lovely ladies. Gotta love 'em.

In other news, I'm going home for Thanksgiving so I can chill with the fam, see some friends, live in a real house, play some Dishonored with the bro, et cetera. Also, I have a boyfriend now. Shut up.

In D&D last week: I was super tired, so Ileana spent most of the session roaring drunk. We did discover, however, that Aloura has a friend named Gavin who lives on a secret island and is outrageously in love with her. Our party went and visited him, and the sexual tension was hilarious. She was utterly oblivious, which made it super easy for the rest of us to make inappropriate jokes behind their backs. Also, Gavin had some very nice booze in the basement of his fancy mage tower. We had to end the session a few minutes early because Tyler and I had gotten our characters so incredibly drunk that we were being completely unproductive. Oh, and some plot things happened in there somewhere, but I don't remember what they were now. Something about corpses floating in regenerative sludge. Yeah.

This week: Woke up naked on top of Tyler in a tavern somewhere. Whoops. Sam was gone, so Aloura's story arc was on pause, which meant Andrew had to scramble to come up with something for us to do for four hours. We ended up with a new tank, since Austin hasn't been to a session in weeks, and he's a thri kreen warrior with an unpronounceable name, so we call him Cricket-Guy. (It's not that weird. Tyler's gorgeous female companion is called Boobs McGee.) After we'd sobered our characters up sufficiently, Cricket-Guy took us to a thri kreen base somewhere, and all the Amber Alchemists were hitting on me because of my magical amber-infused blood. Apparently they wanted a sample of my blood in order to create weapons of mass destruction or something. (Matt and Eric were all for it. Tyler and I were against. I said no.) However, they did tell me that due to my unusual... problem, I could eventually learn how to manipulate amber into malleable weapons for my own purposes. How cool would that be, to have a weapon that could shift from a sword to a flail to a scythe in the middle of battle? Awesome. Anyway, we found an underground lab where many monstrous experiments were stored, as well as the necromantic orb Arturus needed for his questline, and we set a seven-dimensional fire in order to escape from the experiments (which Tyler and I may or may not have accidentally freed from their containment cubes by gratuitously pushing ALL THE BUTTONS.) It was actually a super productive session, even though we didn't have Sam there to keep us on track. I was proud of us.

Sorry, just needed to spill that somewhere. Now, Great Con paper. Yay philosophy! *torches it*

Commander Kip
"Why me, Space?" "Because you are the best." "I'm the best at Space!"
Normal is overrated!

Halloween debriefing

Yep, that's what's going on here. Some cool costumes of the day.

Joey's excellent Captain Hammer (he actually did Dr. Horrible also, for the Halloween Dance, but I stupidly didn't get pictures of that one.)

The Doctor Who pumpkin I carved, along with my package from home that finally came, yay! With my weapons in it, and my mistcloak, and some apples and stuff. Yay family.

Anna in her gender-bent 10th Doctor costume. I lent her my sonic for the occasion.

The hand thing. They always do the hand thing in the promo pictures for that show. It's kind of hilarious.

And lookit, I've been meaning to do this for years, and I finally went and did it! Raven from Teen Titans! Heck yeah!

Elinor was Hermione. The Doctor, the empath, and the bookworm, that's us!

And on a rather unrelated note, the Kildahl main lounge was closed this weekend so the JCs could decorate for the Kildahl Ahl Hahl Fahl Bahl, so we were all homeless. There we are sitting on the floor in the hallway. We seriously don't know what to do with ourselves when we can't hang out in the lounge. Also, Alex's face always looks like that. Just, all the time.

See, proof. By the way, that was the birthday cake they baked for no one in particular over break. The three of them just decided that there should be birthday cake even though it wasn't anyone's birthday. And holy crap, I ate one piece of that cake and I thought I was going to die. Easily the richest cake I have ever eaten. I had to lay on the floor for a while and devote all my energy to digesting it.

Anyway, Halloween was lovely, and Matt and Anna and I watched the next episode of Sherlock, which was the Hound of the Baskervilles one, and it was terrifying. I don't like seeing Sherlock unnerved. It freaks me out. Now they're telling me that I'm not emotionally stable enough to watch the last episode. They're probably right, but I still want to see it. Badly. But first, homeworks!

Oh, and the campuswide lightsaber battle was Friday, and it was freaking epic. Bruised several of the fingers on my right hand. Killed lots of Sith. Got mistaken for one several times because my purple lightsaber blade looked red under the blacklights. Whatever, it was awesome and geeky and I love my college, have I mentioned this?

Then Saturday was the Bahl, but first I opted out of the fancy dinner beforehand in order to not miss the entire session of D&D, which was a good thing, because Ileana got her memories back from an Altar of Restoration thingy and had an awesome meltdown because she remembered that she accidentally killed everyone who ever took her in and cared for her after she slaughtered the rest of her family. It was so epic. Too bad most of our party was gone, so they missed it. So after D&D, I went to the dance for like ten minutes, then watched Peter Pan in the basement, then went back up for the "last song" which lasted an hour because we're just great like that. Or maybe because of Daylight Savings. Whatever, it was marvelous.

Side note: Days of Blood and Starlight comes out today! *cannot wait to get hands on*

Commander Kip
"Tenors, you're obliterating the altos. It's not gentlemanly."
Normal is overrated!