back from Lady Arin's

and just itching to post some pics, but can't because they're not on this computer yet. A couple of completely unrelated sketches will have to do.

You don't know this person. Her name is Genesis Pike, and she is SO HARD TO DRAW and I feel like an idiot for giving her such a difficult haircut. WHY WHY WHY?! This was my first attempt. As you can probably see, I failed. Although I do like how her wingpack came out. That blasted haircut. Slightly better this time, and poor Gen looks more like herself.

Third attempt, and I can already tell that her hair will be impossible to draw head-on; it's got to be from the side or a three-quarter angle, or there's no flipping way.

So then I wanted to draw all of her gear... I guess I have to explain who she actually is now. The weird steampunk thingy sprouted an entire military force overnight, you know (remember that giant gob of stuff about Keera Jenkins and the rest of her team?) and Genesis was spawned out of the churning molten mess that resulted. She's some kind of elite paratrooper-type person who's supposed to swoop down from above and mop up the hairier situations, hence the wingpack. So she's like, a flying ninja Marine or something. I gave her a pair of shock pistols that fire concentrated bursts of electricity, but they can also be loaded with pellets filled with knockout gas or whatever (check out the ammo belt.) Story-wise, she's kind of an older sister figure for Keera, who was only fifteen when she joined the military, and Gen took her in and showed her how things were done. Gen's got an interesting personality: she acts decidedly cool towards most of her comrades; she's level-headed and doesn't talk too much; she moves like a ninja or a panther or an amorphous liquid, whichever you like; she enjoys her job; she narrows her eyes and tilts her chin up when she's angry; she acts gentle most of the time but is seriously beasty in combat; and she can do flips. That's pretty much it.

Oh, and in case this matters to someone, I drew this picture on the back of a piece of history homework. During class. *sheepface*

And now the nonsense. I have no clue who this is, but I like his (her?) ears. Androgynous elfy for the win!

Very very bored with ACT prep work. As a result... things like this happen. I like floofly wings.

Random blue thing. Sorreh. Math bores me, and then spacegirls start jumpin around in the margins.

This actually makes sense (sorta.) My girl Xandria, the best friend of the guy who is in love with the dead person. You've met her, I think. She wears odd clothes. I changed her bangs; I think I might like 'em better this way.

ELLIAN RETURNS! Oh, my poor neglected Portals people. She came out looking WAY angstier than usual. But I guess I can't blame her, since she's supposed to, you know, save the world and stuff.

Percy Jackson. I've never felt the urge to draw him before, but I found an artist on DevART who draws him perfectly. (BurdgeBug. You might have heard of her. She's so beasty.) And there was a picture of him in a hoodie and swim trunks, with awesome shaggeh surfer hair, and I was like WHY YES THAT MAKES PERFECT SENSE. And then he hopped out right after I finished this gigantic heinous math review in my ACT book. Waving some skewed weapons, and whatever. But I was so happy to be done with the stupid math, I was feeling generous and let him stay.

Oh, I had a very frightening Idea with a capital 'I' for Portals the other day. Lady Arin's heard about it, but I don't think the rest of you have.

It wants to be a video game.

WHAAAT?!!! *falls over* How did this happen?! Oh yeah, because I can't seem to write a linear storyline to save my life, and the Portals plot follows all these different people all over the friggen place and it's just the biggest mess ever. But see, video game plots are supposed to do that, because they're open-ended and the player gets to choose where to go and what quests to take, so the writers have to make sure to follow every single plot bunny that crops up and write out every path the player could possibly stumble across. And my everywhere plot kind of does that already. Also, I have two main characters with very different feels to their storylines. Ellian is a ten-year-old kid, and has ten-year-old thoughts, feelings and mannerisms. She gets herself into ten-year-old sticky situations, but nothing terribly life-threatening or scary. There are no enormous gouts of blood in her story, nor are there impossible emotional conundrums that only an older person could experience. Yeah, she ends up with a lot of responsibility and has to eventually save the world, but she doesn't have to do it alone; there are a bunch of other people who help her out along the way. Because she's a ten-year-old kid. Anabeth, on the other hand, is nineteen and her story is substantially darker. Her friends (and enemies) are all older. There's a lot more drama involved with her, and although I haven't explored her story quite as much yet, I just know there are bound to be some fairly epic gouts of blood. So I thought, there could be a screen at the beginning with a picture of Ellian and a picture of Anabeth side by side, and a little blurb under each; like for Ellian it could talk about her a little bit and then say something like, 'for a more light-hearted and fun adventure, difficulty: moderate' and then for Anabeth, talk about her and then say 'for a darker, more dramatic adventure, difficulty: hard' or something like that, and then depending on which one you click, that's who you'll play. And there should be an option within the game that lets you switch back and forth between the two storylines just in case you want to play them both. I played a game like that once, where there were two characters and you could switch back and forth between them whenever, and the one you weren't playing would stay right where you left it, so when you came back to him/her, he/she would still be in the same place.

Raise your hand if you're still awake. *looks around* *no hands* Hehe, thought not...

Saw the new Star Trek last night, and Sahara the night before. Such good movies, you guys!

Commander Kip

I've never beamed three people from two locations onto one pad before!

Normal is overrated!

FLAIL

Gaah, you guys, I cannot live without my LAAAAAPTOOOOOP. Seriously, I have the biggest headache right now. Although that might have something to do with all the horrid math I did today.

Point being, I had a sketch I wanted to post on account of Valentine's Day, but I can't at the moment because daddy dearest hasn't gotten around to moving my files to the kid comp yet. I can't exactly blame him, seeing as he's in the middle of making a living right now, but still. Meh.

Speaking of Vday, there was a dance at my school this weekend, which I quite cleverly opted out of. One, the tickets were ten dollars apiece, and two, you're supposed to have a date in order to go, or at least a group of friends. Since I had neither ten dollars nor a date NOR a group of public-school friends, I was like naaah. Let's go paint guns instead. So that's what I did with my weekend; that, and way too much homework. *cradles aching head*

Pointless post is pointless.

Oh yeah - I did get to watch Prince of Persia again. I still love all the freaking parkour, and Dastan's arms, especially, make me very happy every time I see them. For serious, he's got these muscles that are out to here. And I also adore his messy hair. It's funny; that's what I liked about Aragorn too. I have a thing for guys who are all beasty and sweaty and covered in blood/grime/hiking-through-the-wilderness stubble. Once you clean them up, shave them nicely, comb the dried muck out of their hair and put them in fresh clothes, you discover that they aren't nearly as sexay as you thought. So sad, how my mind works.

Commander Kip
"Bring a good movie to watch." "Oh, have you seen Inception?!" "No..." "I don't have it."
Normal is overrated!

Asian ball-jointed dolls.

I have just discovered them. AND NOW I WANT SOME VERY VERY BADLY. It's quite terrible really because they cost like five hundred dollars each, and that's just for the poor unpainted hairless naked bodies. And apparently they have a way of telepathically FORCING you to buy them many clothes and wigs and eyes and pretties and friends and families and pets and significant others to go with. So there's a slim-to-none likelihood of me every getting myself any, broke as I am.

But that doesn't stop me from ogling at their general gorgeousness on DevART all I freaking like. Which is probably a bad idea cuz it just makes me want them MORE.

I want this wig so I can make a Thaelen doll. He's dying to have this hair.
And this wig for Anabeth, only picture it kind of yellower.

Gah, just those two characters of mine... If I had them, I would pretty much be happy forever. But apparently it doesn't work that way; I can tell already, from browsing a few doll sites and thinking to myself, "hey lookit, that one has Kaelo's face" or "that red wig is perfect for Edana," or "yep, Tears probably has a messed-up ribcage exactly like that," and so on.

Snarl. This is my own stoopid fault.

*swats self with frying pan*

For reals, this post actually happened because my poor wonderful laptop up and died on me this week, blue screen of death and everything, and I don't know when I can get it fixed... or even if my stuff will still be there afterward (I have backing-up problems.) So everybody cross your fingers for poor Daedalus and hope he can be resurrected successfully. Until then, I dunno how much art I can figure out how to post. *heartbroken sigh*

Commander Kip who NEEDS to stop drooling over BJDs now

You gotta KILL HER, Jesse! You gotta beat her up into a MILLION PIECES!!!

Normal is overrated!

this is the post that never ends

because I constructed it over the course of a week or so; it's February sixth today. Lawl. I had three snow days last week on account of the EPIC BLIZZARD we had. Which makes me vereh happeh, cuz I didn't at all feel like goin' to school on any of those days. Yaay, blizzard.

Here's that huge stack of sketching I promised y'all. This isn't even all of it, but I was getting tired of waiting to scan the rest, so here's most of 'em.

When I get stressed about homework or whatever, stuff like this happens. My head people get stressed too. I was trying something, and it wasn't supposed to look like this, but I'm not complaining. I think it's one of my faeryn ladies from Portals. It must be. Look at all that hair. That, my friends, is a hot mess.
And then there was Lizby stuff. Lots of it all over the place. I imagine little Silence will actually be quite pretty when she gets older, see?

And Ben Lander is as girly and schizophrenic as ever. Even when he was a little kid, he was girly and schizophrenic. *hugs the little blighter*

And you've seen Fiera before, but this is a better picture of the front of her, despite the lopsidedness.

And lookit, I think Tears just had some sort of brilliant idea. Gaw, that kid is messed up.

Hokay, on to more randomer thingies. I dunno who this faerie dude is. I know nothing about him except that he is smirking at you.

Say hello to Shoal. He lives in my room cuz he's just that awesome. His door wouldn't stick to my bookcase without some serious coaxing. But I love him because he stops Irk and Tide from getting into TOO many fights. All he has to do is make epic puppy faces at them, and they stop. Like magic.

No, I have no clue who this is. Some androgynous Asian person with a mysterious tattoo/birthmark thing on his/her neck. *helpless shrug* See, this is what my brain throws up when it's had enough history homework for one day.

And this happened because we were talking about industrialization in history class, and I was like STEAMPUNK HECK YESSSS and this person suddenly popped out of my pencil and quite startled Godfather, who made the mistake of sitting next to me and was all like WHERE DID THAT THINGLADY COME FROM??! Whatevah, I liketh her boots.

This is Damien. I have a feeling you've never met him before. Gaw, what a terrible first impression. Quit slouching, kid! He's the one who went ahead and fell in love with a dead person, 'member I told you guys about that? At least, I think I did. And he has an actual BODY and stuff, omg wut!

Designing exercise for metalsmithing class. This class makes me happeh cuz all you do is draw and set things of fire and bang on stuff. Best ever.

Project sketches for abovementioned class. When I get the actual ring done, y'all can see it and stuff.

So, you nerdy people, d'you know what Mole Day is? Anyway, the science club at school asked me to design a t-shirt for their Mole Day celebration, and the theme was Moles of the Carribean. Hence this monstrositeh.

Weirdest thing. I scribbled with a pen on this piece of paper to see if it was working, and the scribble turned into a flower, which stuck itself in this person's hair, and then there was this person looking all worried like she was on death row or something, so yeah I'll just stop now.

Mr. S. has this voice that's really nice to listen to. Makes me want to scribble random crap whenever I hear him talk. I want this necklace, by the by.

Went and saw Tron with Spud and the grandaddy; yeah, I grant you, the effects were cool. Way cool. *drools over light cycles and glowy frizbee weapons of doom... you have NO IDEA* But the plot - ha, what plot? - the nonexistent plot was... nonexistent. Ha.

And now we get to the good stuff. Like Thaelen and his messed-up face. Every time I see this, I dislike it more. Although I'm still quite fond of his HAIR. I tried something on his nose that I will clearly never try again, because it makes him look rather evil.

Oh yeah, this has no relevance to anything whatsoever. I like Batman. So does this gap-toothed kid, I guess. *stares absently at the ceiling* This kind of thing happens when I'm not paying attention (in class. Ahem.)

No, I don't know what happened. Some people popped out of my pencil and started kissing. As if their lives depended on it. You know how that is, right?

Mmkay, better save some for later, I think. This post is getting retarded.

Just a heads up, people: if you've read the book Dorian Gray, and you're planning on seeing the 2009 film adaptation, CANCEL THOSE PLANS IMMEDIATELY because that movie is one of the most odious, terrifying, gore-soaked, inappropriate things I've ever seen in my entire life. Seriously, it will RUIN your brain. I've taken to sleeping with a pistol on my bedside table, and that's only when I can actually sleep. Gaah, don't watch it, guys. It's awful.

On a happier note, I got to see Inception again, with the rest of the fam this time, and remembered how much I love it, especially the soundtrack, and the zero-g ninja skills, and Cobb's melt-your-corneas adorable children, and Arthur everything, and Eames and his creeping, and the psycho wife/murderess and EVERY SINGLE MINUTE OF IT ACTUALLY. But most especially the soundtrack.

And now I want to see Bridge to Terabithia again because we saw a lovely production of it at the Coterie and they used a real live puppy and it was way beyond awesome. And then they did little short spoof of the show afterward and I laughed until I was in pain. Gaah, so much fun.

My hands are cold. I'm done now.

Commander Kip

"Quick, gimme a kiss." *does* "They're still looking at us." "Yeah, it was worth a try."

Normal is overrated!

the aforementioned birthday present

for Nath, who may or may not actually like it. Because what's happening here is this:

"Andra, it's been a year now. We have to talk."

"Maybe tomorrow. I'm going to bed." I turned away from him and headed for the stairwell. He followed me up the steps and stopped me by one of those tall, arched windows. Moonlight streamed in, edging one side of his face with cold silver. The torches that lit the manor at night cast fireglow on his other side.

"Please, just listen! You can't avoid this forever."

"Watch me." The words didn't come out as steady as they should have. I sank my teeth into my lower lip and bowed my head, glad for once that he couldn't see me.

"You're crying," he said.

"No, I'm not." I answered out of habit; he knew me too well to believe me.

His hand went to my face, thumb smearing through my tears. I pushed his arm away, shoved at his chest, five seconds too late. His sightless eyes narrowed. His brows furrowed together. "Andra -"

I stumbled backward up the stairs, pressing the side of my fist into one eye. "Not now. I can't talk about it now. I'll see you in the morning." My voice was shaking hard, but it didn't matter. I turned and fled up the staircase, leaving him standing beside the open window, with the moon gilding his skin.

This bit takes place a year after the end of the actual story. I figure that after all the crap I put them through, Andra and Nath would probably be pretty messed up and have lots of post-crisis angst and issues. Muaa, I'm so friggen evil to them. But you guys know by now that's how I show affection, right?

So about the picture: I've been staring at it so long that I almost hate it now. It wants color, but since I'm absolutely terrified of dual light sources and also have zero confidence in my level of coloring skill, color is unlikely to happen anytime soon. But I left it unshaded, just in case. I was so sick of dealing with this, I didn't even clean it up in PDN after scanning. Happy Birthday to you, Nath. You'd better like it.

By the way, Thaelen and Anabeth have been inspiring lately. I can't get them out of my head. But that's a good thing, I suppose. Many many scribbles to come soon!

Commander Kip
"Turn around, man, you'll never make it!" *VROOOOOMMMMM... pheeeeeewwwww.... THUD* "Made it."
Normal is overrated!

news from the Commandah

Firstly and foremostly, I'm back from Sioux Falls, and I got an honorable mention at regionals! Which is about the equivalent of third place. Works for me! I doodled quite a bit while I was there, but none of the stuff is scanned yet, since I have to go through all my homework and find 'em all, but there will be a veritable pile at some point.

In other extremely important news, we have like a foot and a half of snow all of a sudden!!! Which means no school today. Please and thank you. My dad and I shoveled the driveway like five times last night. *squees epically*

Also, I was sick, but I'm better now. Waaait... that was like at the beginning of the year. Where in the world has January gone?! In any case, that was a while ago, but I'm glad I got it over with in time to go compete still.

I'm listening to the Tron: Legacy soundtrack right now, because somebody was playing it in art class the other day and I thought it was fairly epic. Still haven't seen the movie, but I'm thinking about dragging my grandpa over to see it with me this weekend.

Room remod is going nicely, but I have to wait till spring break to do some of the spraypainting I wanted to do. We got a pegboard for my weapons, but it looks like it might be a bit of an ordeal trying to get it hung, so that might have to wait 'till spring break also.

I finished The Chestnut King! *incogerent gibbering ensues, as the Commander's mind has been effectively blown* So much epic cannot possibly exist in one place. It offends reason. Converging plots for teh win. Thank you, Pippin, for lending us the preciouss, yesss, we likes it muchly...

And that reminds me, I'm about due to watch LotR again, by my reckoning. Maybe not Fellowship of the Ring, since I've seen that like twice as many times as the other two put together, but definately Two Towers, cuz that one has all the best deleted scenes and Legolas and Gimli are hilarious in it. I love those two so freaking much. Extended edition is the ONLY way to go.

And, by the way, I got my driver's license. DON'T FREAK OUT - I still can't drive by myself, partly because I'm not comfortable with it, mostly because Mommie hasn't gotten me insurance yet... but I have the card in my possession, which must count for something. Those of you who've been nagging me about it *ahemREEDFROSThemhem* you all can just shut up naow.

You know what makes me sad? I had Chapter 12 all worked out with Lady Arin, and I didn't write down the friggen order of operations, so now I can't remember what we said. Gah, we just need to record every conversation we have... cuz now I gotta figure everything out all over again. Annoying short-term memory/Goldfish Syndrome...

Lastly, I discovered a new tv show on Cartoon Network that shows a bit of promise; it's called Young Justice, and it has Robin in it. And he pwns ur soul. Especially his new non-traffic-light-colored SUIT, and his hair, which lies down quite nicely (see, that's how you know the TT Robin is Tim Drake, cuz of his super-retarded spiky hair.) Howevah, we're apparently dealing with a thirteen-year-old Dick Grayson here, which messes slightly with my personal Batman/Teen Titans continuity, and he therefore has a hilarious snooty tweenager voice. Also, Aqualad looks nothing like Aqualad, although I actually like his design (except for his nasty costume - RED, can you believe it? RED for an Atlantean!) but I can't help but prefer the pretty-hair'd Asian Teen Titans version. Speedy, what I've seen of him so far, is a total jerk. But apparently he's not in the show much, so that's okay. I never really liked the Titan version of him either. And it looks like they pretty much kept the design for Kid Flash, which makes me happeh. I love that guy. He cracks me up. I have nothing to say about Superboy, just like I've never had anything to say about Superman. It would seem, according to the trailers, that Superboy's sole purpose in the show is to scream a lot and break things. See how I don't find that at all impressive? And I've yet to see Miss Martian in action, but from her bio, she's practiacally a Raven ripoff. Telepathy, telekinesis, flight, etc. I know next to nothing about her personality, but if she's anything like her uncle, I expect she will be rather boring. We'll see, I suppose. So yeah, bascially I miss Teen Titans now. I miss all the original characters and their dorky costumes and their equally dorky supervillains. I miss the spiky-haired, badly dressed, super angsty Robin with his Batman ripoff growly voice and his awesome bo stick and his ninja skillz. I miss Raven and her random tantrums and her daddy issues and her hilarious freaking deadpan. I miss Cyborg and Beast Boy and their slapstick best buddies relationship and the arguments they have over anything and everything. I even miss Starfire, with all her alien blondeness and her freaky purple miniskirt. Gaah.

Sorry, I'll quit ranting at you guys now. Bye.

Commander Kip
*computer lady voice* "Access denied." "Heh. Wanna bet?" *tapping keys* "Access granted." "Uh. How... are you... doing that?" *smirksmirk* "Same system as the Batcave."
Normal is overrated!

it snowed here

finally. About six inches, no school two days in a row. Thanks very much. I miss homeschooling.



Here, have some tasties.

Hokay, this is what I actually wanted to show you. His name is Magellan, and he is so fabulous. He lights up when you throw him on the ground or bang him against a hard surface. SO. ENTERTAINING. I cannot put him DOWN. Thank you, Brentalope.

I drewed this in history, because I didn't feel like listening that day. It's Princess Sarene and her Seon, Ashe, from Brandon Sanderson's first novel Elantris. Brilliant book, you gaiz. I liked Sarene because despite being blonde, she kicks some serious butt and gets the better of all the noblemen. It's hilarious. Oh, and she's married to a dead guy. Yay.

And here I did a little thingy for Zaraiah from the steampunk mess. She looks different every time I see her, I swear. Eh. Boring stuff.

Awright, that's it for the moment. Later peoples.

Commander Kip

Woodwork is not supposed to talk. When I'm speaking to the woodwork, the woodwork is not supposed to answer back.

Normal is overrated!

Christmas/New Year/mah BIRTHDAY, and some floaty things

Happy belated all of those. Bet you thought I'd gone and died again. I seem to be doing a lot of that these days. Anyhow.

I tried so hard not to, but despite my bestest of efforts, I somehow turned eighteen.

*cue the horrified screaming and running and freaking out*

But I had an awesome birthday parteh, so that helped somewhat. Although Peter's refusing to speak to me now. See him sulking in the corner there? He's saying quite loudly that he can't see me because I've been banished for growing up. Bah. I'll get the better of him eventually. And to avoid confusion, I know two Peters: the good Commodore Pan, and my friend from school who goes by San Pablo. I'm talking about the Commodore at the moment.

So this was supposed to be for the art fair at school, and I totally only made this one and one other, which wasn't cutting it. So I'll just stockpile a bunch of them to sell next year. The faerie dude living here is named Tide. He rather dislikes the butterfly, but that's too bad, because I like the butterfly. So there. This didn't come out quite how I wanted. Pics of the other one eventually. Oh, and you might recognize this person. Remember that massive gob of wordses from that other post? Yeah, this is Private Jenkins again, because I can't keep my pencil off her lately. I just love her shiny HAIR. This doodle took place in the middle of my history notes, so it's about two inches high and anatomically impossible, but I really liked the irritation that came out of the general pencil swoosh, so you get it anyway.

And here she is again, and I was actually trying this time. I had this brilliant idea to try drawing her at several different ages, and this was like the only attempt remotely worth showing. I can't remember ever having a character with a real widow's peak before! A real one, not one of those six-inch-tall anime things. Yaay, I love Jenkins.

In other news, I saw some good movies over the break: The Proposal, which was a really cute romantic comedy; The Perfect Storm, which was amazing but horrible all at once; and Tangled (!!) which rocked my soul and forced me to see it twice in the theater, which I generally try not to do, but GAAH IT WAS SO BRILLIANT. In my opinion. My mom saw it with me the second time, and I think she fails to see what exactly is so brilliant about it. *trying to decide whether to spoil or no* Eh, I'll leave the spoiling for later. You guys, go see it. Those of you who know me really well won't have too much of a hard time figuring out why I loved it. I mean, come on, they have epic duels with a freaking frying pan. Gimme a break.

Got some good birthday presents too (and Christmas, but the birthday ones were particularly epic.) I have a picture of the one from Brentalope that I will post later - it's the beastiest thing in the whole wide world - but suffice to say, I went to Borders and felt like a kid in a candy store. A kid in a candy store with a really big wad of cash in her pocket and free reign to buy whatever she wished. Thank you, wonderful people. Gift cards are the way to go. Whoever thought of inventing them is clearly a genius.

Also, I'm still working on my room, and with the new bedspread and curtains, it's finally starting to pull together. We'll be hopefully painting some things over spring break, so pictures will happen then if I remember.

Reading Elantris by Brandon Sanderson right now, and just saying, the dude is an evil mastermind. For serious. I'm about halfway through and loving it dearly. The plotting, gaah, it's everywhere, and it's a little less intense than Mistborn, which is fine. And this was his first novel! *mightily impressed* Dang, if my first novel could be this epic, I would totally be set for life. Just saying.

I'm probably forgetting things... oh well, whatever's left, I'll pick it up in the next post. Love you people.

Commander Kip

"You know I can't swim!" "Yeah. Hence, the BOAT."

Normal is overrated!

Solstice time

which means it's Nath's birthday today! Yaay - oh wait...

Trivia moment: why is Nath's eighteenth birthday a bad thing? Points and cookies if you know. Lol. He's just a couple weeks older than me this year, but I'll be older next year cuz he has his eighteenth birthday EVERY year. Muaaa.

I have a picture that I wanted done in honor of his birthday, but no. I'll put it up eventually, once I figure out Andra's dagger sheath and stuff. Yeah.

Anyway, everybody hug him, cuz his birthday is not going to be very fun. *huggles poor Nath*

On a completely different note, paintball on Saturday was epic as always, except that about half of us ran out of CO2 right in the middle of a major firefight. So then we ran around in the woods in the dark and did unsmart things. For example, I somehow got one of my contacts stabbed out of my eye by some tree branch or something while running from someone during a game of tag; that same guy cracked a rib jumping from one tree into another and didn't notice until like the next day... yeah. It was way awesome. And it wasn't even that muddy, although there were a billion stickerburrs all over the place. Yay.

Finally out of school for the year!! Woot!

Commander Kip who is very very mean to her characters
Start with the part where Jayne gets knocked out by a ninety-pound girl. That's never getting old.
Normal is overrated!

12 days of awesome

Go listen to it NAOW. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kYEK-pxs_A It will make your day, I promise.

So remember Commaner Greene? She was in the army originally, which is where she got her title, but she quit after she lost her husband... but anyway, all these soldier types are popping up all over my brain now, and this whole other storyline following that private there, Keera Jenkins, and the rest of her squad. The leering guy with the ponytail and tattoo is Colonel Amos Jackson, who served in the force most of his life before joining Greene's crew as munitions expert. He has delightful manners, even when beating people to a pulp. Private Jenkins joined when she was fifteen, neatly sliding in under the age limit, and can't seem to advance in rank due to her inability to keep her temper in check. She's been court-martialed more times than everybody else on the team put together. Her brother Nathan is some important man who eventually gets kidnapped by the - hold on, I'm not there yet. The Corporal with the messy hair is John Faber, and he can haz no idear what he's doing. He's only there because his mommy made him. And Commander Andrew Crawford is in charge of the whole division, but when they're moving Nathan Jenkins to an outpost near the edge of the Static Zone in the dead of winter, the Green Knights ambush the caravan, leaving most of the division dead or wounded, and head into the Zone with Nathan. Keera, being young and stupid, decides to go after him, Faber volunteers to go with her, and Commander Crawford, trying to salvage the situation, says that he will lead the rescue attempt himself, since squad captain Daniel Bingham just died in the attack. So off the three of them go, tracking the Knights through a rather beasty blizzard, and then the Knights figure out they're being followed and circle back to hit the squad from behind. Keera gets torn up pretty bad, and getting out alive doesn't seem very promising, when a government transport drops down out of nowhere and swoops them up. Unfortunately, the transport is full of Miasma district agents funded directly by Nocturn, and they take the battered squad straight back to Legislation in Baustirion and turn them over to Rivenwick, who promptly locks them all up. She likes locking people up. Oh, if you're worried about what happened to Nathan Jenkins at this point, just know that he's probably better off with the Green Knights than he would have been in Legislation with his poor shot-up sister. The part where my real main characters come in is where Brackolt and his psycotic orphans, who have already joined Mahogany's crew, team up with Commander Green and her people to break Keera, Faber and Crawford out of Legislation. It's an epic breakout cuz they end up starting a massive slave revolt as a diversion, which totally wasn't in the plan. Gaah, I wanna write this thing SO BAD... can you tell? And completely switching gears now - some Portals stuff for you. Thaelen and Anabeth in the Renegad prison. Anabeth got thrown in there first, and Thaelen had actually gotten away with some of the other Irlican rebels, but then the Renegades caught them after all and chucked Thaelen in the separation chamber with her. I flippin' love their hands, but the rest of the picture came out so skewed that I could barely look at it straight. So you just get the top half.

And switching gears yet again... Lady Arin and I took more pictures than we thought. XD We always do. And then there were technical difficulties of epic proportions. No srsly, I thought the poor Lady was going to have a heart attack. Her laptop and camera were both misbehaving horribly. *huggles the Lady* Love you, dearest. YAY NAKED TREES! Ahahahaa. I love that ravine behind my piano teacher's house.

And look at this tragedy. My paternal grandparents sent this little grandfather clock in the mail after spending zillions of dollars fixing it up, and this is what it looked like when it got here.

Tragic, isn't it?

But the GEARS are pretteh...

Okay, you are officially crazy if you read all those gobs of words. Just saying. Love you all.

Finals this week. *dashes off to study*

Commander Kip

I got bits falling off my ship. I got a crew that ain't been paid, and, oh yeah - a powerful need to eat, sometime this month.

Normal is overrated!