so many Mass Effect 2

Much Collectors. Wow.

I've been doodling a lot of Mass Effect in my notes of late. However, this computer doesn't play nice with my scanner, so you get crappy phone pics of homework doodles yay!

mah femShep

whining about her scars (she's hovering right between Paragon and Renegade currently)

in N7 armor (wow, I suck at guns)

Garrus *excessive drooling*

Jack, who is also pretty darn hot

Garrus again (with reference)

Thane (reference)

Tali (reference)

Those last three are from a whole page of sketches - I was gonna do the entire team, but ran out of steam when I could't find the reference angle I wanted for Miranda. I might go back to it sometime.

Now I should probably go do things with my life.

Commander Kip
"Garrus, that's nasty."
Normal is overrated!

a lull

Random Pinterest-inspired doodles from my notes. That's it really.

In about two weeks it's gonna get crazy around here again when ALL the papers become due at once. Meanwhile, practicing like a madwoman because I am behind and it is bad. Off to do that now.

Commander Kip
"Nobody would give me a mirror. How bad is it?"
Normal is overrated!

*absolutely dying*

This, my friends, this is truly beautiful.



There, now isn't your life just so much better?

(Real post sometime soon, I promise.)

Commander Kip
Goethe's poetry: "Nature is great, but that chick is bangin'."
Normal is overrated!

Kelly, Kelly, Kelly, whatever shall we do with you

I swear, she's got the hotts for every crewmember on the Normandy. Well, she can have them all, except Garrus. He's MINE.

So you can probably guess what I've been doing with my week. Lots and lots of Mass Effect. Only a few more loyalty missions to go, then on to the Collectors, woo! Also, my FemShep is legitimately torn between Garrus and Thane. Apparently, hot threesomes are not an option. Unfortunately. There are just too many sexy aliens in this game.

Also, going back to chilly grey Minnesota tomorrow. Pity, it was just getting warm and pleasant here in Kansas.

Commander Kip
"Wow, that metaphor just went somewhere horrrrrrrible."
Normal is overrated!

Thing of the Day: 2048

Warning: addictive. Major procrastination tool. You will not get anything done ever again.

But it is such good fun.

http://gabrielecirulli.github.io/2048/

I just won the game, so perhaps I'll be free from the urge to play it for a while.

Commander Kip

"I quit." "No, you don't. That's the problem."

Normal is overrated!

impending

There are lots of things impending, actually, not the least of which are midterms and spring break! Also theory composition and aural skills test. Also Great Con party. But first, wasting time on the internet. 

Looksie, it's Suvoi being possessed by the evil consciousness of one of the Mages, Lotus. 

We are actually getting close to this point in the story, finally! Woo! It's going to be awful and everyone's significant others are going to either die or be horribly maimed, but I'm still really excited. The current plan is for Lotus to possess Suvoi's body and force Marcus to fight her, telling him that the only way for him to defeat Lotus is for him to kill his best friend. At the very least, she'll be losing a hand. At the very most, she gets run through with a katana. And meanwhile Erik will be watching them fight and having a meltdown all over the place. THERE WILL BE PLOT YOU GUYS. Muaa.

Luckily it's looking like Angarhad is going to survive after all, so at least that's good. *prostrates self at Anna's feet*

Commander Kip

*friends chew on name tag* "I'm sorry you can't have nice things."

Normal is overrated!

Thing of the Day: pillow poetry

Thought I'd inform you all of a strange but wonderful Thing my roomate and I have started. I highly recommend it.

Anna and I never really see each other except at meals or when we're asleep. She leaves the room before I wake up in the morning, and when I get back at night, she's already out. She often leaves sweet little notes on Post-its on my pillow, telling me how much she loves me or reminding me of something funny that happened that day. Recently she started leaving short poems instead. We've decided it's good practice, so now we leave them for each other. 

My favorite of hers so far has been:

Octopi are red,

Squid are blue,

If I had eight arms,

I'd devote two entirely

To hugging you.

And the other night she left a beautiful one, just a few lines, about snow and leaf-bare trees. And I left her one about being separated from someone you love. Also, being the creepers that we are, we have both left each other poems about watching the other one sleep.

This is why we are married. 

Commander Kip

"Whoa whoa, what was that Jedi magic you just did?!"

Normal is overrated!

MSG is actually a crippling guilt party

Storytime! 

Ian and I have been doing a side thread in Magical Steampunk Gypsies detailing the first meeting of Marcus and Suvoi, seven years before the current storyline. They're both trying to steal these plans for magic suppressants from a drug megacorp, and once they've made their daring escape with the plans, they're attacked by a Crimson Hand-employed freelancer who tries to steal their hard-won spoils. They knock his ship out of the air and bring him aboard. Turns out he's just trying to save enough money to retire and find his two daughters, who he left alone in the Ratways almost ten years ago. He's a reasonably nice guy, not to mention a passable pilot and a very good shot. Everybody, meet Enderos Thorn. 

 Marcus and Suvoi agree to help him find his daughters, and the party begins their search in a classy piloteer tavern in the Ratways. Enderos discovers that his younger daughter, Kaly, broke into a research facility several years ago, but that no one has heard anything about his eldest, Terissa. Moments later, his informer is quietly murdered by a hooded stranger. They flee the tavern, only for Suvoi to be stopped at knifepoint by the hooded stranger in the alleyway. As the two men bargain for Suvoi's safe release, the stranger lowers her hood and claims to be Kaly Thorn. Surprise - she's become a huge badass in her father's absence.

Kaly takes them back to her hidey hole in the basement of a hookah bar/brothel on the Promenade, a crowded strip mall and open air market in the Ratways. Despite Suvoi's repeated insistence that they're walking into a trap, they follow the girl inside, where they find a gangly young man who introduces himself as Teris, Enderos Thorn's transgender eldest child. As the hookah brothel floods with Crimson Hand mercenaries, the Thorn family, along with Marcus and Suvoi, make a spectacular escape that involves ziplines, hookers, electrocution, and the spur-of-the-moment theft of a Crimson Hand drop tank. Marcus leaps overboard to fetch the Composer, and the Thorn children confront their father about his whereabouts for the past ten years while Kaly evades fire, wrestling with the controls. They also fill him in on their backstory, including a bad experience with a gang of hired thugs that led to Teris's guilt over his failure to protect his younger sister and his subsequent gender change. That was why Kaly broke into the research facility; to steal the hormones Teris needed to make the switch. Teris aptly sums up the narrative with, "Now she's got skills and I'm a dude." Next on the docket - a spontaneous break-in at the Crimson Hand base in order to switch out the clunky (not to mention bugged) drop tank for Thorn's personal gunship, followed by some hiding out in the Grey while things quiet down.

So there's those guys. I'm really enjoying their group dynamic, because Kaly's all serious and badass and Teris is floppy and mildly sarcastic and Thorn's just shaking his head, all world-weary, and going what have I gotten myself into. It's a good time.

And continuing with our theme of crippling guilt, I did a doodle page of younger Verdigris and little fabrant Chiara on the back of a recital program the other day.

I wrote an excerpt for this scene quite a while ago cuz I needed something that would flesh out Verdigris's backstory and personality in as few words as possible, so Chiara (Ashes's older sister) became Verdy's reason to quit the Morfstarn.

“No, Chiara, you mustn’t bite,” she said, taking the four-year-old by the shoulders. “It will be over in just a moment.”

The girl’s teeth had grown needle-sharp since her second round of chemical alteration, and she bared them at Verdigris now, emitting a low, furious snarl. The heavy, curling ram’s horns on her head made her neck look spindly, like a dandelion stem. She snapped at Verdigris’s arm, strings of saliva flying from her teeth.

“Enough,” said Bastian, pulling on a long black glove made of thick, supple leather. “Hold her down. I’ve seen enough.” He picked up a syringe full of a bright blue liquid that glowed with internal luminescence.  “Verdigris? Hold her!”

But Verdigris had looked into the child’s eyes and seen the emptiness there, the animal absence of conscious thought. Chiara was lost, and Verdigris knew it well. They’d pushed too far. They’d broken her. She released the girl’s arms and stepped aside, knowing that she could never take back this choice. “No,” she said.

Chiara screamed, a high, feral howl, and sprang off the waist-high stone table. Bastian swore and brought the syringe to bear, like a weapon, but the tiny blonde girl’s leap carried her far enough to latch onto Bastian’s lapels, evading the syringe. She clung to the front of his bloodstained grey coat, snarling into his face with those awful teeth. Verdigris stood frozen beside the table, unable to stop herself from watching as Chiara angled her head and ripped out Bastian’s throat in one sharp yank. She rode the gurgling corpse to the floor and landed lightly on its chest, perched on all fours, wearing Bastian’s blood like a mask over her nose and mouth. Her eyes, black and hollow, showed no sign of recognition, though she looked Verdigris full in the face.

Sinking down against the edge of the table, Verdigris hugged her knees to her chest as Chiara scampered out through the open door. A scream rang the length of the hallway, then another, then many, and Verdigris sat and stared at the spreading pool of crimson under Bastian’s body.

Back to real things now. Oh, by the way, we had a proper blizzard here over the weekend. Like, a foot of snow overnight. And then we went romping in the Natural Lands where the snow had accumulated to our knees and there were sixteen-foot drifts just lying around. It was way too epic. We tromped around and visited the windmill and looked at the stars and got very cold and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

Commander Kip
Bees?
Normal is overrated!

eargasm

We listened to the Mahler 5 Adagietto in my music theory class today. Homygod.



Right in the gut, man. In the best way possible. I think I'm gonna do this piece for my music history research project.

Commander Kip
"D'aww, you guys are adoraballs."
Normal is overrated!

scribbles: a variety pack

 First, MSG. Things are finally happening in the Asylum again, now that Anna and Alex are both posting with some regularity (although I am substantially worried about Angarhad, stop it Anna). I drew this picture of Suvoi and Ceridwen running and brandishing their respective weapons a while ago, but I just now realized Ceridwen should actually be wearing one of Suvoi's skirts because her own clothes burned off in the Nalucai fiasco. Oops. Continuity, who needs it.

Also, Mass Effect. I need more of it. This is my Shepard - brisk, no-nonsense, intensely loyal to her friends, with a strong sense of right and wrong. I am accidentally playing Holly Short. It's a good time. (Darn, I forgot her freckles.) And by the way, I have such a huge ladyboner for Garrus, it's not even okay. Have I mentioned GARRUS?

And here is everyone's favorite angstbunny, Nico di Angelo from the Percy Jackson series. My god, he just gets better and better and his life gets worse and worse. Poor baby.

Now, have some random doodles. 

Kay. Gotta go finish my abroad application now. Bye guys.

Commander Kip
Anna: "If we were Sherlock characters, I'd be Sherlock, you'd be Watson, and Matt would be Mary." Me: "Yeah, I can see it."
Normal is overrated!

Thing of the Day: Silk

Dude dude dude, I have the coolest Thing for you. 

http://weavesilk.com/

It's a site that lets you make stuff by drawing with strands of silk. You can mirror the image as you draw, or add up to six points of symmetry. It's frickin' awesome.

I have spent way too many hours playing with this over this past week. You can combine any two colors on the wheel, set the symmetry you want, and then save your work to your computer (to use as a desktop or whatever.) There's also soothing music on the site. It's pretty great. Of course, that means I have all my homework to do today. Woot.

Have fun playing!

Commander Kip
"'Lady of negotiable affections?' Who even says that?"
Normal is overrated!

Happy Valentines/Singles-Awareness/Fandom Shipping Day!

And if you choose not to celebrate, I hope you're having a lovely day anyway. I got a very sweet letter from my boyfriend, whom I am so grateful to have in my life. Also a Baman Piderman card from Mads, which was adorably fantastic.

Here, have some hot angsty Erik and Suvoi. I was planning on finishing this up all nice, maybe even coloring it, but there are bits of it that are screwy and I have no idea how to fix them.

She just wanted this man in her arms. She wanted him with a fierce desperation that both surprised and frightened her. She’d seen him spattered with the blood of innocents, a rictus grin on his face as he slashed about him with his knife. But the way he caressed her face and fondled her lips with his and called her darling… I could change him, she thought, brushing his bangs off his brow. I could save him.

Speaking of Erik, I miss Gideon. Last year before Valentines Day, we spent the afternoon lying around on the floor making Valentines for our friends. There was origami and crayons involved, and it was such a good time. Sigh.

Matt showed me a really cool thing on the internet the other day, so there will probably be another post this weekend about it. You know, if I don't drown in reading for my classes first.

Commander Kip
"Ack, there's nutritional yeast in my hiking boots!" #veganproblems
Normal is overrated!

never see a crash 'til it's dead on

Alaska will not leave me alone, guys. And the people I've talked to have all been like "yeah, it just leaves this hollow place inside you that never actually goes away. Isn't it great?" Ian just finished it as well, so the other night we all made bufriedos and shared a bottle of Strawberry Hill and played Best Day Worst Day and truth or dare and it was a great time. But the hollow place is still there and it's awful and wonderful and just *keels over*

Also, the other day we built a blanket fort in the lounge and flailed around in it all afternoon, and I drew pictures.

And then Ian and I slept in the fort. Well, that's not what we actually did. We actually just sat around and talked about everything we could think of until 6:30am and then I slept from then until 11:30 the next day. He woke up before me. Somehow. That kid doesn't actually sleep ever. It was a fantastic time.

Also also, my Anna came back from England! *dances around gleefully* We've just been spending our interim break eating all the food and sleeping all the hours and telling each other all the stories and listening to all the Amanda Palmer.  She was impressively jetlagged upon her return, and woke up at like 5am that first night, just bolted awake, and was like "LEMME TELL YOU ABOUT LONDON" and talked at me about immersive theatre until I fell back asleep. It was awesome. I missed my Anna.

Now real school starts tomorrow and our other two roommates aren't back yet because snowstorms and planes don't play nice. I am not ready for real school. I need like one more week of break. But that's too bad. *girds loins, or something*

More pictures for you later. Meanwhile, song that just exudes Alaska.



Commander Kip
"Do I... bite?' "No, don't bite!"
Normal is overrated!

Braving Alaska

I finally worked up the courage to read Looking For Alaska. 

Oh God.

I read the first forty pages silently to myself, and then I read everything but the last forty pages aloud to Matt, Alex and Mads. I think the reading aloud gave me something to focus on and kept me from becoming a sad puddle, but it was still rough in a few places. It was fantastic. So good. In a different way than The Fault in Our Stars, which I read last year; that one was like getting stabbed in the gut repeatedly, while this felt like slowly starving to death. So, different kinds of pain. But so good.

Also, I kept picturing Alaska with the same haircut as my friend Amelia, longer in the front and pretty short in the back, because the two of them are remarkably similar in personality and mannerisms and also because Pudge talks more about Alaska's curves than anything else. I think it's more than halfway through the book before we find out what her hair color is. Teenage boys, whaddaya gonna do.

So that was a struggle, but I really enjoyed it and will certainly read it again (once I've had some time to recover.) I don't think I can read another book for a while. This one still hurts.

Meanwhile, I've been spending my weekends barricaded in the art building. This weekend I'm making a tree stump fairy house out of cardboard and zip ties. The plan is to put a live video camera in the bottom, so when you crouch down and peer in the front door, your eye is projected up to a monitor in the upper half of the stump, so whoever looks at the monitor sees what the fairy would see if she was looking out of her house.

Cheers all. Read Alaska. She's worth the emotional trauma, I promise.

Commander Kip
"It's my fox hat."

Normal is overrated!

THIS IS ART

Today my Expanded Media class is spending six hours (9am to 3pm) on four-foot-by-four-foot pallets. We're allowed to do whatever we want, but it has to be the SAME activity for all six of the hours. I'm working on Birthright, which feels good. I furnished my pallet for long-term comfort:

 

Some of the other crazy activities going on. My professor is cutting a pair of coveralls off of himself and stapling them down to his pallet.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=295791717212688&set=vb.270541553071038&type=2&theater

This is such the best. I'm so glad I'm in this class.

Loving my life right now.

Commander Kip
"A... meat... dagger."
Normal is overrated!

winter in the Surlinds

We haven't really planned out the seasons in the Surlinds at all, but it is certainly feasible that the nuclear destruction of the Mer could have an effect on the weather. Actually, I just wanted an excuse to draw Suvoi in the snow.

 

The loose panels on Suvoi’s copperwain clattered in the sharp wind. Clumps of snow mixed with grey ash whirled around Suvoi as she perched on the high driver’s bench, squinting into the unfamiliar white world. Her unbound hair tore about her head like a lick of dark flame. Weather’s all knackered. Snow in the Grey – there’s something I’ve never seen. Huiva, clinging to the low back of the bench, looked positively grouchy, the feathers around his neck and shoulders fluffed up against the cold. Suvoi felt much the same, tucking her chin deep into the thick scarf swaddling her neck. Neither of them had ever liked the cold, and now their home was a frozen wasteland instead of just a wasteland.

The front end of the wagon lurched down, throwing Suvoi forward almost off the bench. She threw the brake lever, gripping the long handle with numb fingers for balance as the wagon shuddered and teetered to a stop. Swinging down from the bench, Suvoi landed with a crunch in a mess of ashy snow that had melted and refrozen multiple times. The copperwain had tipped over the edge of a sudden but shallow slope. Suvoi held her hat onto her head and narrowed her eyes, trying to determine how far the slope went. It grew gradually steeper before disappearing into the whorls of snow. Ice stung Suvoi’s cheeks and brow; she could feel her eyelashes stiffening with it. This is the blast crater, she realized. The outermost edge of it, anyway. Stretching into my Grey. Those bastards.

She began picking her way down the slope, her boots punching through the crust of ice, dust, and ash, leaving her copperwain half-lodged in the raised lip of the crater. She didn’t call Huiva. He wouldn’t go anywhere near the Silver Forest. 

So yeah, no one has talked about developing that part of the story, but that doesn't mean I can't play around a bit outside of canon, right?

New Sherlock up online!! *freaking out*

Commander Kip
"Why are you being so nice to me?" "I can be nice. Sometimes."
Normal is overrated!

Round 21: FIGHT

My apologies, normally you would get a Christmas post, a birthday post, AND a New Years post, but I skipped the birthday one this year. You guys, I am so done with this bloody sinus infection. It just keeps rearing its ugly, snotty head. I completely lost my voice on my birthday, and today the fever came back and I slept through most of our family New Years gathering. I've been taking all kinds of herbs and enzymes and probiotics and I still can't kick it. The hell is the matter with my immune system? Seriously.

So yeah, I did in fact turn 21. Egad. And my resolution is never to drink, not even once. I just don't wanna. Can't make me. Did go to the antique mall with my grandma, and found a few cool things. Watched Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World with Brenticus last night. Want Ramona's hair.

Also, Brennie got me Mass Effect 2 for Christmas, and it is such the fun. I can't get enough of Garrus. Not sure how they managed to make a battle-scarred alien with mandibles attractive, but they did it somehow and I just want to give him a big hug. And maybe have his human/turian hybrid babies. What.

I did draw things this semester, I promise, and before I got really sick I scanned some things. Here, have a new character in honor of the new year.

Remember the hippie chick I drew for fun a while ago, intending on making her into a character eventually? I did it. This is Razma, a nomadic fire dancer from Magical Steampunk Gypsies.

An early design. For the Invartí (traveling dance troupes)of the Grey, I wanted a sort of post-apocalyptic earthy look; ragged, billowy clothes, sturdy boots for walking, and lots of fun shiny bits.

Did some more playing around with her and decided to give her white hair.

And then I decided to just go all the way and make her albino. She is known as the White Rose to other Romonians, which is ironic considering that she has a lotus tattooed on her shoulder. The rest of the arsura, or fire dancers, worship the sun god Solon, but Razma identifies more closely with Selen, the moon goddess. Self-conscious of her colorless eyebrows and lashes, she darkens them with kohl.

Razma dances with flaming poi, which can also be used as weapons if necessary, though Invartí are generally expected to be peaceful.

And then I had the urge to draw her in a thick cozy scarf. Because it was cold in Minnesota at the time and I couldn't help it.

So that's Razma. Her mother left their troupe, the Sovrana, when Razma was young, intent on making it through the twisted and evil land that was once the Silver Forest to the alleged paradise on the other side. When she left, she took the sacred fire of the arsura with her. Razma grew up ostricized for her mother's betrayal, mastering the poi and formulating a desire to follow her mother's path. She's sullen and withdrawn, but very good at her craft.

I have more stuff for you, but I should prolly sleep first. I have not gotten nearly enough things done on this break, largely because I have not spent much time out of my bed. I have got to kick this infection before I go back to school, or interim is going to suck.

I did, however, read both House of Hades and Clockwork Princess while bedridden. Both quite enjoyable. I liked Nico as a character before, but House of Hades made me really seriously love him. He just needs so many hugs. And a cute boyfriend. Meanwhile, all of the angsty problems in Clockwork Princess could have been solved by two words: hot threesome.

Also, Misfits continues to be delectably sordid. I will never not want to see Simon and Alisha being gorgeous together. My god, why are they so pretty?

Kay. Bed now. Maybe less snot tomorrow? Here's hoping.

Commander Kip
"You can't kill me, I'm lactose intolerant!"
Normal is overrated!