So I think I have a somewhat official-ish list of costumes for Katsucon:

Filia (Slayers): Definite!
Meister Kirisaki: (Yakitate! Japan) Definite
Belarus: (Axis Powers Hetalia) Definite
Eruka Frog: (Soul Eater) Definite
Mia: Golden Sun) only for photoshoot(s)
Kanda Yuu: (D.Gray-man) Probably (though I won't beat myself up if I don't finish him in time)

aaaaaand one last-minute addition to the list. which will only require me to find a wig, make a slightly different apron, and somehow find a bright green clog:



NO-ONE WILL UNDERSTAND, BUT I DON'T CAAAAARE!

Plus I'll have a Philip and a Shotaro to harass.

Seriously, though. I already own this outfit, I just need a short, dark-brown wig and enough cheap white fabric to make a different apron and collar. I don't really like Akiko THAT much, but this idea is too tempting to pass up!

...I'm gonna make some amazing 'tardfaces, you guys. =D

Also, I seriously have exactly when I'm buying fabrics for costumes planned out so that I get them when they're on the best sales. I feel like a complete nerd for it, but hey, I'm only going to end up spending $30 for most of the fabric for my costumes for ALL OF NEXT YEAR. Including Yaone and Miyako for AWA next year!

PS: Does anybody know where I can find GIGANTIC (Christmas) BALLS? I need them for Filia...

So last night after the NASHI meeting I got back to an awesome surprise: subs for the Den-O/Decade crossover movie! I was good, I didn't download the RAW of this and dutifully waited for subs. I-it's not even December! And there are subs! ;o;

ANYWAY. Yugi and I have concluded that out of the three post-series Den-O movies, this one is BY FAR the best. I could rant about how the villains are better than both Climax Deka and Saraba, or how they actually give Kotaro and Teddy character development and make them more likeable in this one, or yadda yadda yadda. I could give a plot summary. But I'm not going to, because this entry would NEVER END.

I do have to say one thing: this movie made me want to go back and watch Den-O. That's how I KNOW it was a good movie!
( Picspam and fangirling below the cut. Also beware of spoilers! )

Hmm. I haven't posted in a while. Mostly because it's the time of the month where I will spend every waking second fretting about money and bills and jobs and crap unless I distract myself. Fortunately I'm easily distracte-OH LOOK A KITTY. :DDDDDD

*cough* Anyway, aside from work, I haven't been doing much. I've got 3900ish words of NaNoWriMo done (I'm ignoring the fact that I technically need to have 6800 done la la la la la). Well, I should change that to be NaSho, which sounds really weird, but oh well. The full version would be NaShoStoWriMo? NaShoSto&FicMo? I dunno. (HAHAHA THAT RHYMED *shot*) I'm basically writing a bunch of fanfics and short stories or one-shots for NaNo rather than a novel, since that failed rather spectacularly last year.

I'm caught up in Kamen Rider Double, and I cannot facepalm at Philip enough. That is all. Actually, I cannot facepalm enough at the entirety of the last two episodes, but whatever, they were still entertaining. ^^

I'm working on plushies, Xmas gifts, and other stuff.

YES, ROB, I AM WORKING ON HAPPY. It's just taking me FOREVER. Not because it's a difficult plushie at all, but because every single time I settle down to work on the freaking blue cat, something comes up. EVERY. TIME. Like  CURSE. You have full permission to harass me relentlessly about finishing the plushie whenever I'm on AIM.

I've started buying fabric for cosplays for 2010. I got some really nice white fabric for Filia (for the cloak and hat), some stretchy red/purple material for Yaone's "shirt" (if you can call it that, xD), about 5 yards of cheap black Halloween fabric to make Kanda's coat and possibly the jacket for Meister Kirisaki, and I've been getting samples of fabric like MAD in preparation for next year.

Granted, I can't actually start on ANY of the costumes yet. But I'm getting the fabric together! That counts for something...right? 

I wore Eruka to NASHI last night, even though I had to wear the Liz boots instead, since my white ones are VERY DEAD. But it was a lot of fun, and I had people recognize me! (including a professor, of all people). Plus we randomly played Werewolf, which is like Mafia only with Werewolves, basically, and the fact that I was dressed as a witch was brought up a few times, which was funny.

I'll probably just wear Eruka again if any trick-or-treating is going to happen, otherwise I dunno. I might throw together a random costume at last minute, all the "Halloween accessories" at work are like 70 billion percent off and I have enough random costume parts to probably throw something together at last minute if I feel like it.

So in other news, Halloween is tomorrow. That means that November 1st is the day AFTER tomorrow. What's so special about November 1st? NaNoWriMo, which I'm participating in again this year. Only instead of a novel I'm going the lazy route and just writing a bunch of short stories and fanfics, most of which probably won't be tied together at all. I have a lot of fic ideas bouncing around in my head, and I have a lot of short stories too, but no concrete idea for a novel, so I figure this is the best route.

As far as cosplay goes, I've dropped and shuffled around my Katsucon lineup:

Filia (Slayers): I'm taking this costume, dammit. I already bought fabric for the cloak!
Meister Kirisaki (Yakitate! Japan): I want to do this costume! I'll have no reason not to once I get the Filia wig.
Kanda (D.Gray Man): I've got the hair for it and (sorta) the build. Plus I'm getting most of the fabric for this costume today for less than $10 because of the fact that it's 60% off right now. Kekeke.
Belarus (Hetalia): I've got the outfit done already anyway, and most everybody I know going to Katsu is doing Hetalia, anyway...
Eruka (Soul Eater): For one simple reason: I'm buying white boots for Filia, and that's the only (major) thing wrong with this costume currently
Mia (Golden Sun): if a certain Timecat is wanting to do a group to Katsu?
Roberta (Black Lagoon): I don't need a wig and I'll have the dress for Belarus anyway, so if we do a Black Lagoon group...

Dropped Meirin, because I've got two psycho maids to take her place and it's less work/wig buying/etc. for me. Dropped Riki for now because we're not doing Kiva at Katsu. Dropped Kintaros because, DAMN will it be cold in that costume.

I've been working on a bunch of plushies lately. I've got two more to finish, then I'll do one big picspam of them. ^^ 

Also, I finally finished watching Hana-Kimi (the live action) the other day. It was such a good series. Not just because of all the random crack and stupid stuff. It was just a really, really good series. And the pairing I was rooting for from pretty much the get-go ended up not even happening and I STILL think it's a good show.

And there were a TON of actors in this from other things, especially Kamen Riders.

Shun Oguri (Sano) was also from GTO, he played a wimpy kid who got picked on a lot. xD
Hiro Mizushima (Nanba-sempai) played Tendo Souji in KR Kabuto as well as Rihito in Mei-chan.
Kouhei Takeda (one of the Dorm 1 muscle-heads) was Otoya in Kiva
Nobuo Kyo (Himejima) was the spider fangire/creepy puppet guy from Kiva. The roles are eerily similar. oO
Keisuke Kato (one of the "eccentric" kids from Dorm 3) was Nago in Kiva. If this isn't a role reversal, I don't know what is.
Yuu Shirota (Kagarazuka) was Shinjo in Rookies. These two roles are both very similar and completely different at the same time.

The fact that I didn't even recognize FOUR of these people until recently is really funny. I watched 3 episodes a few months ago, marathoned Kiva and started watching Kabuto, then randomly decided to watch this again. And promptly went: "holy crap WHAT why is Otoya...is that Nago? IS THAT THE CREEPY PUPPET GUY? DXXXX". I already knew that Mizushima was also from Kabuto, so that wasn't too much of a shock. But the three from Kiva...

Hmmm. So Halloween is on Saturday. I probably don't have time to crank out a new costume, so I'll have to wear one of my old ones. It'll probably be cold, so that limits my choices on who to cosplay.

What do you guys think?

Poll #1476944
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 15

What should I wear for Halloween?

I've been pretty busy for the last few days, but it was a lot of fun! ...except work on Sunday. But oh well.

Friday night a bunch of us went to the state fair! I spent WAY too much money. We didn't actually ride any rides, we spent most of the time wrestling through the crowd, playing midway games (funny, I don't think I played any of those either...), getting food and waiting on people or trying to find them. Although the BEST part of the fair had to be:

"Sakurai Yuuto, please meet your cousin (Deneb) at the gigantic rocket. Sakurai Yuuto, please meet your cousin..."

I did get a plushie though! One of the guys with us who completely owns at midway games won everybody something. I got a Shaymin! :D It's adorable but...I'm gonna have to rip out a few stitches and put in some stuffing, cause...yeah. The nose and belly look like they're smashed in. DX


ISN'T IT CUTE THOUGH?! >////w////<

One bad thing did happen (aside from me going WAY over budget), and that was losing my Deneb gashapon. :( I went to check my phone and randomly he was gone! Sadness. I'm getting another one, but it just won't be the same...

But I didn't have long to dwell on it, because after the fair I had to finish Belarus! And by "finish" I mean "start". Fortunately I didn't have that much to do, I had to make the apron from scratch, make the collar, make the hair bow, brush out my Liz wig and do some minor adjustments. It didn't take me long at all if you don't factor in all the stalling and random distractions. DX

The next day was WORLD HETALIA DAY which was a blast! I was Belarus (of course) and I got to terrorize Zip, my Russia. We had a photoshoot type gathering but with food. LOTS OF FOOD. And we spent the entire time making cracks with or at eachother, it was amazing.

I'd post pictures but I'm lazy. A bunch of people from the shoot posted theirs here, if anybody's interested: http://community.livejournal.com/hetalia/4493444.html

But here's one of everybody, courtesy of THE HERO vin_faucon :



After the photoshoot we went to the Nashi Halloween party and just sort of...were there. There were a few games of "duck duck ninja" and the like. Afterwards we all went home, sort of. We went out late night for Sonic and I was stupid and got an ice cream cone...even though I was in PJs and no jacket and we walked and it was COLD. DX But I was amused by our England and America bonding over their mutual hatred of bad drivers as well as their love of specific kinks. I had an amusing "duck and cover" reaction when the words "teacher/student pairing" were uttered, and I got a "I have a glasses fetish" "omg me too!" *high five* bonding moment with the Taiwan/Hungary/Taiwan?/Hungary? (xDDD) cosplayer that was with us. ^^

So, yeah. Fun tiems. I worked yesterday, and today I just sorta relaxed and got sidetracked by pixiv again. FOR HOURS. It's not as bad as tvtropes, and on the plus side I come away with lots of pretty pictures to look at and put on my desktop background. xD

So I finally got around to watching the first couple of episodes of Darker than Black: Ryuusei no Gemini and...GAH. I DON'T LIKE IT.

( Spoilers for the end of Darker than Black and the first two episodes of Ryuusei no Gemini )
So, tl;dr: I DON'T LIKE THIS. WTF BONES. STOP SCREWING UP AWESOME THINGS.

Okay, so today I decided to be PRODUCTIVE and finally get a picture of the wig I received from cosworx, which I originally intended on using for my Sabrina cosplay. Yes, the one that I didn't get until a few days AFTER Anime Weekend Atlanta.



This was SUPPOSED to be dark purple. That's not a trick of the light...it's more like lavendar. Sheesh! Anyway, I originally intended to try to trade it or sell it or something, but when I was getting the picture I realized that it is the PERFECT wig to use for:

 
Miyako/Yolei Inoue from Digimon Adventure 02! Who, despite her obvious lack of fashion sense (orange helmet, blue shirt, RED PANTS, wtf woman, wtf?!) I've always wanted to cosplay as. Accidentally or no, I have a wig the PERFECT pigment of purple, perfect length, and it is even bang-less. And I want to make a Poromon. And a Hawkmon. And her Digivice. And... </rambling>

SO.  Can anybody think of any other characters this wig might work for? If I like the character/design/whatever enough I MIGHT be willing to add bangs or cut it (only after I've cosplayed Miyako a few times). Even if you think I don't know the anime/game/manga/show/whatever, suggest it anyway.

But first!


That is a picture of my TV from the last time I played Legend of Dragoon. Not photoshopped in any way. I wasn't kidding when I said this game is MUCH more perverted than I remember. OTL

Anyway, on to the memes!

( Cosplay meme )

And now for a change of pace, a meme stolen from vin_faucon :

( Meme of sexy )

HOLY CRAP GUYS I GOT MY LAPTOP BACK. I missed you Avocado! T___T Although there ARE some merits to this old piece of crap Cucumber here, but, really, it's good to have a laptop back that is fully functional. ^^ And now I can stop griping about it and you guys can stop rolling your eyes and going "oh geez, that beatch Artik is complaining about her laptop again

ANYWAY~

Fall for Greenville last week was fun! It was like a reverse con, seriously. I slept really well, ate really well, and we weren't constantly running around going "omg we'll miss suchandsuch panel or whatever photoshoot if we don't hurry! DDD: "

Very refreshing change of pace. Also we didn't really cosplay. Much. On Saturday we did "casual Den-O", in which I was a very girly Kintaros, zipchan was a very in-character Ryuuta, yugikitsune confused people about her gender CONSTANTLY as Ryoutaro (complete with rainbow gun shirt and wig), and hcumuoyevol was sort of Deneb with us. Kinda. We also had my friend Kat with us, who doesn't really know about Den-O and instead was calling everybody by Hetalia names. xD

Anyway, the food was awesome (though I'm sure I spent too much money), and getting to troll around Greenville was fun, too.

Work has actually been...well, I can't call it fun exactly, but it hasn't been bad. I think I've just accepted the fact that I'm going to have to be the cashier most of the time, so when I DON'T have to it's almost like a treat, whereas before I was thinking like it was punishment.

Yeah, I don't really know. Cashiering isn't so bad when there's stuff to do, at least. And I've gotten very good at making small talk with customers to distract them from the fact that OUR COMPUTERS SUCK AND ARE SLOWY MC SLOWFACES. :/

I've been watching movies lately! I downloaded the director's cut of Saraba, hoping that maybe with extra footage to fill in some of the questions, and with actual readable subs I might like the movie more. I like it a LITTLE more. I can at least stand Kotaro now. His bad luck inherited from "grandpa Ryoutaro" is actually kind of adorable. And I'm going to echo someone else's statement about the movie, because I'm pretty sure they added some of this in for the DC version, but what was with all the Ryuuta abuse? It seemed like Momo was the only one being nice to Ryuuta for the whole movie and that's just not right. DX It was like they were trying to throw off the Kin/Ryuu shippers or something, goodness. They were like "hey guys, this pairing is so not canon. Look, Kintaros doesn't even like Ryuuta, he's throwing him on the ground and slamming his head into majhong tables!" But, oh well. All the Momo/Ryou and Ura/Momo ship teases were worth watching the movie. And seeing the suit actor for Liner Form falling off of the horse during the credits. And...yeah. That's about it.

Here's hoping Onigashima is better!

My roommates and I have a large and growing list of movies that we need to watch, because one or two of us haven't seen them and the person who HAS is like "but it's the best movie ever!". So far we've watched Wimbledon and Memoirs of a Geisha, both which I actually liked. Wimbledon was basically a generic romantic comedy injected with a ton of British humor and snark. So it was a fun movie. Memoirs of a Geisha was...well, Memoirs of a Geisha. Basically my thoughts were "ooh, pretty costumes" and "god dammit why do I think the chairman is hot? GAH."