Of Swirling Skirts, Bells, and Kohl

There's a hidden piece of the human soul that yearns for mystery, for the delicious sensation of running through a dark forest barefoot...

A part of us that was always meant for transmutability.

For the complete freedom of dusty, unpaved roads and horizons you can never touch.

For symbols with indecipherable meanings, and treasures passed down from mother to daughter for more generations than you have fingers.

For companionship, laughter, and singing just for the joy of it.

For trinkets and baubles that jangle as you walk.

For time spent with the earth as your closest confidant.

For old, glinting bits of metal, to which you are inexplicably attracted like a magpie.

For release from restraining social conventions and the freedom to do as you please.

For brightly colored bowers, tassels that stir in the breeze, and dapples of tree-shade.

For flying tresses and skirts that ripple like wind as you dance.

For haunting images seen in dreams.

For the courage to chase those dreams with relentless abandon.

For lilting melodies coaxed from gut strings, for spinning in the firelight.

For living comfortably in your own skin.

For the spicy smoke of incense and and sultry candlelight.

For pure revelry.

For kohl-coated lashes.

For childlike wonder.

For wanderlust, for dark, curly hair, for slanted eyes, for dusky skin. For timeless intrigue, for mismatched patterns, for voices blended seamlessly with the purr of a painted guitar. For the magic of gypsies.

All photos courtesy of the Internet. So much pretty! I was looking all this up, by the way, because I needed inspiration for a character that you will definitely be hearing lots about. She is a serious badass. Also, gypsies are just cool.

But first, Renaissance paper. Awesome.

Commander Kip
"It's rubbish, but AMUSING rubbish."
Normal is overrated!

Valandra

I may have mentioned that I'm in two Kildahl D&D campaigns this semester. Well, I'm playing this character in both of them, and she's pretty awesome.

Genasi, for the laypeople, are apparently like elemental beings. Valandra in particular is a Windsoul, or storm elemental. Her backstory is that she was kidnapped from the sacred grove she was supposed to protect and sold to an arcane research facility by fortune hunters. They kept her in a five-by-five cage for several hundred years, prodding, examining, cutting her open and sewing her shut, and generally being horrible to her. She was forced to watch the creatures in the cages around her being hauled off for dissection one by one. Over time, she learned to harness her ancestral abilities and escaped from the facility by turning into a whirlwind of sand and pouring through the bars of her cage.

And then she joined a sketchy group of adventures, the members of which have all displayed varying degrees of insanity, and took up the kusari-gama. Because plot. Yeah.

I suspect she looked more like this before she was kidnapped. There's basically no way to make hide armor attractive.

I love running a tank. I can take all the damage! And I can fly 8 squares. It's pretty fantastic. However, I'm finding it weird to not have piles of charisma. Ileana could basically seduce her way in/out of anything, whereas Valandra can barely manage a civil conversation. She offends everybody every time she opens her mouth. I kind of love it. Ian has us fighting the monstrous incarnations of the Seven Sins, and his special combat mechanics are frikkin' cool, and we're all having a marvelous time bellowing at each other. Such great life choices.

So that's D&D right now. There's another thing we're doing in Kildahl right now that's even more fantastic (what, more fantastic than D&D? What?!) but that'll have to wait for the next post, because guaranteed I'll be spewing lots about it. Stay tuned for more roleplaying fun.

Commander Kip

"Kasha, you are noodles. You are MADE of NOODLES."

Normal is overrated!

Happy Fandom Shipping Day!

I promise it's a thing. My friends and I invented it for all those sad nerds with no significant others. Because you should always celebrate Valentine's Day for your favorite fictional couples instead of your actual self, right? I was very lucky this year to be not single on V-Day, but even if I had been, I wouldn't have minded because it was also Fandom Shipping Day, which makes it acceptable to draw pictures like this:

Whoa, haven't drawn these lovebirds in a while. They're still my all-time favorite TT ship, no question.

You know what was great? Katia and I spent Wednesday afternoon making origami heart Valentines for a bunch of people in our dorm. There were crayons involved, and it was such the best.

You know what was not the best? Last weekend, Matt had a death relapse and was sick for a few days. I was simultaneously keeping him company and getting smacked in the face by a massive pile of Great Con. Friggen Augustine. Lucky we're done with him now. I was going to start burning things.

Been drawing lots lately. Might have something to do with all the RPs I currently find myself in. More on that next time. Exciting things are happening, guys. All the exciting things.

Commander Kip
"Marcus! Out. Now." "But we're winning!" "Marcus. NOW!"
Normal is overrated!

Universal Studios excursion

Brennie was feeling better today, so I brought him along to Universal Studios. 

Again, didn't get many pictures today, but we did enjoy ourselves despite our exhaustion. We did the Rockit coaster like five times, the Mummy ride twice, and the Men in Black ride twice as well. Dude, I am awesome at shooting aliens. I more than doubled Brennie's score. Maybe his gun was malfunctioning.

Funny story. So I saw this Land Before Time poster and wanted my picture with it. We lined up the shot, and then two oblivious Latin American ladies waltzed right through it. One of them noticed and yelled at the other one, who did a huge double take while shrieking "Disculpe!" which I think translates roughly to "Shoot!" It was hysterical. I am totally keeping this picture forever.

Then we all got expensive haircuts. Hooray. Makes my sunburn look good, right?

Anyways, I'm thinking dinner and then bed. I have to be coherent tomorrow for traveling, and the day after for... class. Frick. G'night, y'all.

Commander Kip
"Imagine propelling yourself on a skateboard by waving a Denny's menu back and forth very rapidly. That is how the sea-horz do."
Normal is overrated!

Return to Magic Kingdom + Epcot jaunt

The plan was to do Epcot all day, but Brennie's feet were killing him, so I went back to Magic Kingdom with my dad instead. There were a few rides we hadn't done, and my dad was nice enough to do 'em with me. Like the Haunted Mansion, for example.

And then while we were waiting for our fastpasses on Peter Pan's flight, Dad tossed me on the ferry to Tom Sawyer's Island because he loved it when he was a kid and Brennie didn't let me do it the other day.

And guess what, it was fantastic. Actually, I'm glad I did it with Dad instead of Brennie, because my father is actually a ten-year-old stuck in the body of an overweight, middle-aged man. We felt our way though some dark caves and flailed across the barrel bridge (from the wrong end - we went in the exits of everything.) We shot ALL the rifles in the fort, which made a very satisfying BANG, and then we escaped through the tunnel marked "Escape Tunnel." There he is, manning the fort.

In addition to that very satisfying expedition to Tom Sawyer's Island, we also did the back half of Fantasyland, which Brennie and I also skipped. Ariel's castle is super classy.

So is the Beast's castle, but you can't really see that one up close. Apparently they built a fancy restaurant under it, but we didn't eat there; we had a giant head-sized cinnamon roll at LeFou's tavern instead.

We also did a quick tour of the other sections just for funsies, so Dad could see what was different from the park in California. We ran into yet another street party on the way out and got to see Hatter dance around some more. I just love his enormous hat. And his prosthetic nose.

We then caught a bus to Downtown Disney, where we did a spot of shopping and enjoyed the pleasant evening weather. Also, giant Legothings.

I enjoyed the displays outside the Lego store, but my silly father didn't know who Maleficent was. He thought the dragon was male. Silly Padre.

Also, I feel the need to see Lilo and Stitch again. I don't think I appreciated it fully when I was younger. Because, dude, aliens.

We scarfed down a quick dinner, and then I traded parents and went to Epcot with my mom for the evening. It was already pretty dark when we got there, so I didn't really take pictures, but we had fun anyway. Did the whole back circle and a few of the rides in the front.

I liked the Japan store. Got some awesome geta socks there. Dude, my feet were built for geta. I have this big gap between my big toe and my other toes, probably because I'm a quarter Japanese. Anyway, the socks are super comfortable. We were basically sprinting between shops because it was pretty chilly after the sun went down. But overall, I thought Epcot was cool.

As you can imagine, I'm tired now. I'd like to just sleep for a month or so. But... Universal Studios. I'll sleep when I'm dead. Shouldn't be long now.

Commander Kip

"Space sword!"

Normal is overrated!

interlude

I'm falling behind on Disney World posts, so until I can get more pictures on my computer, have a drawring.

Because clearly, I needed more floating characters. Well, Severine's not floating exactly. At least, not by herself. I stuck her in the House of Arcane Treasures because someone needed to man the place and she seemed like a good fit. Also, I suspect she and Jack Adrian the treasure hunter would be good friends. Oh dear. Shenanigans will probably ensue. 

I'm still bad at drawing borders. I should probably stop trying. Whatever.

Back to regularly scheduled Disney posts!

Commander Kip

LasahBlastah!

Normal is overrated!

Islands of Adventure expedition

Okay, this has been my favorite park so far. It was super legit. And we got there pretty early, so for the first part of the day at least, there were very few people clogging up the streets.

'Sup bro.

Of course, the first thing we did was get food. Those croissants were literally bigger than our heads.

After brushing each other down for crumbs, we continued on to the Marvel Superhero street, which was totally my favorite. The only way it would have been better was if they had Batman. Also, my brother is a derp.

This ride was actually one of the best things ever. It was basically the teacup ride from Magic Kingdom, but X-Men-shaped and way more awesome. We did it four times.

I'm winning at Great Con!

Just kidding. Normal face now.

Why hello, sexy.

And again. Dude, Rouge is such the coolest.

We did the Doctor Doom ride twice, followed by the Spider-Man ride, which was brilliant. Seriously, I don't even like Spider-Man, but the 3D effects were spectacular and they shot compressed air at you and everything. It was pretty great.

Then we went to Jurassic Park and HUNTED DINOS. With a water bottle. Hey, blunt force trauma is a thing.

And then I crit-failed another selfie. Also, hair, what are you doing. Hair. Stahp.

We didn't spend a ton of time in Jurassic Park because we glimpsed Potterthings from afar. Check out those Hogsmeade chimneys!

And look. Castle.

Dude, the ride inside Hogwarts was my favorite. The interactive bits were wonderful, and then there were those giant immersion screens and I screamed my head off and it was totally worth the half an hour in line. When the dragon blows fire at your face? Dude. And the Dementors? DUDE.

We decided we had to get butterbeer. That's my brother's beerface. Pretty hot, right.

Hogsmeade!

I thought it was hilarious how there was snow on the rooftops but clearly none on the ground.

Inside Dervish and Banges. The broomsticks were actually hovering.

Moar castle.

After thoroughly enjoying ourselves in Potterland, we went on to the Lost Continent, where there were ruins and stuff.

We put in our names at a super classy restaurant and lounged by the water while we waited for the buzzer to go off. Awkward selfie.

Awesome selfie. I guess that's one thing the bro is better at than I am.

There's Superherothings across the way. Good stuff.

Then the buzzer went off (right under my stomach - I was lying on top of it, and I was nearly killed with shock) and we had some pricey but delicious food. Check out the ceiling in that place. We were feeling seriously outclassed.

We didn't spend much time in Dr. Seuss land, but I did get a picture of the Truffula Trees, because The Lorax really struck a chord in me when I was little.

By then we'd made it all the way around the park, and we had to ride the Storm Force Accelatron a few more times just to see if we could find the pod that spun the fastest. (It was number 4. Just for the record. The centrifugal force was throwing us around inside the pod by the end of the ride.)

"Congratulations, Magneto is retreating!"

We then proceeded to watch Argo in the cinema right outside the park, not realizing that it was not in fact a movie about ancient Greeks. It was about a guy from the CIA who helped six Americans escape from Iran during the hostage crisis at the American Embassy by pretending to be a film crew scouting locations for a science fiction movie. It was actually quite good. We both enjoyed it.

That was Islands of Adventure, and it was fantastic. I was a fan. Next, Epcot!

Commander Kip
"Unhand me, you foul - oh look, hands!"
Normal is overrated!