Cranky. Old. Man?

My contributions to the previous year are:

- I'm a Free Bitch a fanfic for Lady Gaga's video "Bad Romance" as a part of the Yuletide challenge. Yes, I did write fanfiction for a music video. And it was awesome. Hilariously enough the only other Bad Romance fic in the archive liked the same line for the song title, though it was more abbreviated.

- The fic year in review meme. Cause I do that every year now.

Among other things. XD Later I'll finish up reverb10 and more Yuletide recs.

In the process of doing my monthly fic backup to my wordpress, and the yuletide reveal is up (and I still have no idea if my recipient read theirs...). So I might as well get out what I've been writing lately, so that I can clear my head for writing this month. Especially considering that imaginarybeasts is due the 10th and I've switched ideas AGAIN for it.

So I wrote/finished this in the last bit of December:

- Part 3 of my trippy They Were Four FF8 story. Only one left to write!

- Skips a Generation for my grandpa. I started this last Christmas vacation, figured I should finish it.

- Vertigen, next in the Liquid series for spoony_bards. I think I may actually finish this challenge! Eventually. I suck at theme challenges. Figures, the weird depressing one is the one I can finish. XD

- Jack of Clubs (The Breakfast Club) Ah, yeah. What I wrote for Yuletide. Wrote in this fandom last year, going to hopefully do something new next year, since I'm not offering it again. XD I need change, and I don't think I could think of anything else I'd want to write, since I got to write for my two favorite characters in it already.

And is it just me, or was the traditional fairy tales section of Yuletide REALLY good this year? I may volunteer for it next year, sounds fun, and I've been wanting to tackle some old tales for a while. XD

Working on "The Great War". I adore Rooks. They're so underrated. Also changed my layout (prolly will add a header at some point, for now I don't care) and switched up a lot of icons. I'm very into the switchover thing. I even went to a new Tiny Useful Notebook. I'm hardkore like that.

Cosplay stuff:

- Found a nice pink fancy fabric remnant to go with my continually evolving Terra costume. Should I bring that costume along, even if the wig sucks?

- Need to cut out those damn buttonholes on my steampunk!Auron coat already.

- Have the fabric for my white mage cape, which might become part of some mage!Cecil costume. At the very least, it'll be badass, since I'm using SHINY white fabric, and sparkley red for the triangles. So iconic.

- Need to be on a lookout for a jacket for the gunner!Aeris getup. Have the skirt, the shirt. Oh and I need a wig, or else I'm using a cheap one I already have. XD

I'll be bringing some random props and accessories, since I'm a magpie like that and have tons of that. Will be sure to dig them out of my bins before I head back to school.

~Cendri

P.S. Oh, and I've decided to use my tumblr to help with my "see something beautiful" everyday resolution. So yeah.

Weird dreams persist, but they're not disturbing, just vivid. I like that, actually, it fuels a lot of what I write, so. XD Not good when I have to work, though, as I am tempted to just sit and write about crazy stuff instead of work stuff.

indianconundrum is highly tempting. Might give me an excuse to revise Caricature and um, finish it. As I like the style of that story (an immediate story combined with character backstories that lead to the whole) and like, two people have read it, so I don't feel bad going back, revising a little, and then continuing (I mostly want to fix the first line on the first chapter and a few little things here and there... continuity errors. Considering that I started writing it back during the Lost Year and forgot about it for two years and came back and all that, there is a bit of all over the place feeling. That and I got an idea for the next chapter (my Paladin! FINALLY. Karen is so cool. and I get to use Eliezer, for creepy kid effect. and I get to use the line "The Hero is dead." EXCITEMENT). Then again, I'm basically excited because I got into my first imaginarybeasts issue (August 2!), so I could just be freaking over that.

Much as I love fanfiction, it's nice to be able to make characters fail (or not fail!) in ways I want them to. And I think I've matured enough that I can handle worldbuilding (or not, as I have a tendency to fuck around in normal settings with crazy shit going on in the background... I kind of prefer that). Or I know to complain at drakonlily until it makes sense. One of these days, darling, we'll write something super awesome together and get you published.

In other good news, I was FINALLY able to get Beauty by Robin McKinley from the library. It's always out! But from the pages I've read so far... I totally get why. I think I may have to stalk this author. There's nothing I love more than someone that does setting without boring me. And well, re-writes fairytales. First story I ever wrote was actually about ladybugs and science fiction and basically proved I was crazy from an early age ("Earth Ladybugs Go To Planet Ladybug"... I wasn't so good at titles) but I did do a few (awful) fairytale rewrites. Which we all know are basically Critically Recognized Fanfiction (what, THEY ARE). But goddamn am I glad to find something fantasy that's not just barfing exposition at me. Yay!

Also, this TV Trope cracks me up more than it should. I'll admit, I have a weakness for intelligent villains (who usually aren't pretty), but I still laugh a lot. I also am vaguely disturbed that there exists Josef Mengele fanfiction. Seriously. Not cool. Read your damn history books, children. No one expects the Inquisition!

Omg, it's almost August. I need to do some HARDKORE costuming tonight.

~Cendri

I HAVE A DESK.

The Intern is still in a chair, but the minions and I have desks. This makes working so much easier, but it also means we're not all hanging around the same set of tables. The level of BS and shenanigans has gone down. Good for business, but I miss shenanigans already. I don't feel nearly as exposed, though, which was weird. We're all facing walls now, so everyone can focus. Considering all the work the minions have lately, this is prolly good for them.

Emailed Super Adviser, he does think I'm insane, but he says I know what I'm getting myself into. I'd rather the Fall suck than the Spring (because that's SENIOR DESIGN OMG) and really, I just want to fucking graduate already. I am very likely to be extremely cranky for the next year or so, just be advised. Nothing personal.

( my schedule, for anyone interested )

So yeah, it's going to be fun. And by that I mean slightly suicidal. But I have requirements left to meet, and I have no tech or liberal arts electives left. XD I also need to contact the History department and make sure that I get a minor, because I earned it, dammit. I also set myself a reminder to go see History Gast when I get back to school, because he still has my final project and I want to see what he thought of it. I have a feeling that professors are going to get sick of me this year, but hell if I'm failing anything. I am going to graduate in the Spring if it kills me. C means Cool and D means Done!

And some fun things:

+ I wrote stuff yesterday! A cute Veld/Iffy and a distinctly un-cute rated R addition to my "Liquid" series. The latter was mostly done for a while, I just had to add an ending. I may actually finish a claim somewhere! Figures, it's my crazy psychological crap that I finish. XD

+ I took a picture of my vaguely paganistic pendant I made for myself. I even like the hemp cord it's on. Wire wrapping and finding random polished rocks in my things is awesome.

+ Fashionista pic. Mainly because my lime green heels are awesome, if not made for walking very far in. I'm glad I have a desk job. XD

+ And a dorky poll thing.

I really need to do some sewing tonight. I've been so lazy lately.

~Cendri

P.S. Those who haven't submitted, you know who you are.

So a few good things.

- We got Phase II funding for sure now. Which means that the game is moving along and I won't suddenly have to learn how to program java to become as useful at work as I am currently. This is good, as I like my job and like being useful. Even if writing up mission logs has been like pulling teeth. People need to get back from dying and being on travel, we need to progress in other areas, especially now that we definitely can afford to pay our programmers. Also might be coming up with a job class system as while I was gone we apparently put in some grant proposal to put career explorations in, which means I get to bastardize all sorts of systems to come up with one that might be useful.

- Boxes that were taking over my room have been condensed down to one. Mostly because I realized my eighteen year old self was a raging packrat that had no idea the difference between nostalgia and junk. Also found some more artifacts that reminded me of the Lost Year, and am in the market for a new Athame

- That steampunk story I have due tomorrow is turning out rather cheeky and satirical and uses characters from a long since abandoned project that I wrote when I was thirteen. So far we've got an ex-aeronaut (because it's turning into fantasy steampunk, much to my surprise) zombie as a narrator who is strangely polite and a couple of kids that practiced necromancy in order to give this inventor girl a robot friend, in a way. It's giving me warm fuzzies about my childhood, as I was always a bit morbid and had a dry sense of humor from the age of eight. Hopefully I can get it to a point of some kind (likely some weird discussion on the girl's obvious thanatophilic tendencies) and have it done by tomorrow.

This came about because I found the materials and writing bits for it in one of the multiple boxes I just cleared out, and it was kind of funny which cliches I kept up with and which ones I broke utterly. I've since renamed the characters because I had all the skill of naming that your average thirteen year old sue writer has, but the main girl is surprisingly decent even if she's Special (and from a tribal society, I think I was on a Native American kick then), and the side characters are enough to make me genuinely want to do something with it. Also, the "main party" is coincidentally comprised of 12-13 year olds. Luckily there's a snarky wizard boy with an inappropriately fierce name, an inventor type chick who is obsessed with death, and what on the surface appears to be an angsty sword kid but is actually the most well-adjusted of the bunch and writes home frequently. Haven't worked out all the villainy, but there is a lot of Strange Forces and children being kidnapped to serve as magicky conduits of Doom.

That was a bit of babble, but I find random shit that I've written/drawn because school bored the hell out of me once I got past the age of 11 to be somewhat entertaining. Especially my playwright phase (complete with costume doodles on stick figures and set design). The angst poetry is particularly humorous in its sincerity. Might actually make me want to start writing it again, as my ability to write it suddenly disappeared and was replaced with artsy prose writing. Still have the jury out on whether this is good or bad. Or nothing. XD

~Cendri

P.S. The movie 21 has a kickass soundtrack. Almost makes me want to see the movie now.

Oh god, FF.net went and screwed up my formatting again. Busy doing other Spring Cleaning to want to bother with it yet, though.

In good news, drakonlily and I finally fixed up and posted the end of a collab story we'd done like... a lot time ago. Chapter 20 and the finale of Fairy Tales is finally posted. I feel accomplished. Granted, as soon as we had it finished, Drak looked at the character spreadsheets, the map, and the five billion other resource materials we'd collected for it and are probably writing a sequel story (mainly because I want to play with the Princess trope a little, and drive Veld nuts with the fact his daughter runs off and becomes a pirate for a while XD).

Other than that, I've got laundry I'm ignoring and a patch I'm sewing unto my backpack, because it's a cool patch.

~Cendri

Did not sleep last night, slept this afternoon after class instead. I need to kick my sleeping schedule back to normal, because I haven't worked out in a couple days due to when I crash. I would like to be with the working out again! Gra. Stupid insomnia.

Results of insomnia:

- Wrote a Veld/Tifa in which Tifa meets his daughter and I play around with taboo a little.

- ICONS. Oh god, I forgot how much I loved photoshop. Some FF4, and some random silly Project Runway ones because I realized I needed some.

- Made a spoony_bards mirror on IJ, here, because I know some of you don't write on LJ anymore. I will be even lazier than Sev with it. As part of the deal, I now have a Lucrecia claim set to David Bowie's "Reality" album. XD I should know that enabling people always backfires.

- Watched half of His Girl Friday, had to stop because I went to class and then crashed.

Things still to do:

- Prelab for VB class.

- ESSAY for Dynamics class. Words cannot describe my GLEE than for an engineering class we have an ESSAY. I LOVE ESSAYS. EEEE. I'm probably typing mine, because I will likely ramble a bit, so I might share when it's done.

Alright, time to buckle down.

~Cendri

P.S. Sometime it feels as if my RSS reader is talking to me.

P.P.S. X-MEN FANS! The rumors are true.

Have not broken the chain on exercising yet! (and have determined to take weekends off, so I don't die completely) Running and walking is hella better when you're the one determining your workout. Sure, I'm not doing anything SUPER HARD (and yet, I am still a little sore... maybe I'm harder on myself than I thought) as compared to say, when I ran Track, but doing things at MY pace is way better than having a coach yelling at me. Since I'm not a long distance person, I do intervals. Really, fancy machines (except I use a treadmill when I can, so I can get readings on my heartrate and keep my speed fixed) are not needed.

Two tests this week, one's a lab practical (and Visual Basic is probably the easiest programming language KNOWN TO MAN, thank you again for the recommendation, Justin), and the other is a fifty question multiple choice. In say, a math class multiple choice would be doom. But it's my pilot lecture course, and half of it is stuff I've spent the last four years studying. Still, I've been going over the areas he said to review. Because that's awesome and responsible and stuff.

Eating breakfast, even if I don't want to get up, no matter what, has probably been THE best decision ever. Seriously, if you feel like the suck, eat breakfast in the morning. Or you know, regularly. Chances are your insomnia is partly because you're hungry after dinner. TRUE FACT.

imaginarybeasts's new theme is basically genderswap. Considering the people I know that read this, want an excuse to write awesome original fiction? Yeah. I missed "Science and Magic" last month because of well, EVERYTHING HAPPENING, so hopefully I won't miss it this round. You won't see the signup post, since you have to be a member (which is open, I think) to read it, so. But you will see the wonderful back issues.

I should probably do a little writing, but I've laundry and study and a homework assignment that kind of snuck up on me. XD I have ideas on the things I'm working on writing-wise, just having a slightly hard time finding that zone that I hit. I may need to do a little sewing to get my braincells flowing. XD Almost done with the second sleeve on the jacket! Once that's done I mess with the closure and possibly make it a little asymmetrical. Who knows!

Well, I know of ONE thing I could probably write without too much trouble. But to start the laundry first. Yeah.

~Cendri

P.S. Since I noticed several of you have been putting up your WIP/To Do/Projects, I actually have been keeping up recording mine. And I just updated it yesterday.

Wow, I don't know if it's the vast amounts of ibuprofen or what, but I've been getting a shit ton of things done today.

- Since first_seventhe basically dared me, and I've the constitution of an eleven year old in the face of a dare, I decided to take one of her prompts for the Rinoa fic-a-thon, which is turning into Carbon Made or, yet another longish fic. I doubt I'll take it beyond five chapters, as I like my sanity. I'm writing a lot of chick fic lately. Huh. Wonder what's up with that.

- Got a good start on "Last Call For Liquid Courage" in which I play with language even more and probably blur my already blurred line between prose and poetry.

- Got my prelab for my programming class done. Wow. Visual Basic kind of doesn't really require you to program at all. And I thought Matlab was easy. The only problem is all the clicking and making sure it's within the acceptable conventions (which I realized I forgot my header on my last lab, shit). So I'm starting on the lab itself now, so that I don't have to spend an hour just naming everything. It's a compound interest problem, and part of me twitched at the formulas they gave us (I've clearly been in Differential Equations too long, because it just looks WRONG compounding interest like that).

- Got my Aero homework done last night, after pestering Justin about my lack of math skills. You know you're over-educated when you blank out on how to compute slope from two lines. Oy. I'm going to look over it tonight and make sure I didn't make any other stupid mistakes. Wasn't a half bad assignment, to be honest. I'm a little weirded out by that.

- Read through some of the pilot's manual, I'm going to need to spend more time on that. It's full of craaaazy. However, the plotter is ridiculously fun to play with.

Some things I should get done:

- Thinking about doing some laundry. Best time to start it is right around dinnertime, because everyone's eating, not thinking about doing laundry. XD

- Check mail and mail off the thingie my insurance company needs. I keep forgetting.

- Put together my new wire shelf things. Extra space is always good!

- Wash mugs. Been drinking a lot of tea lately.

- Work on other sleeve of blazer?

~Cendri

Alright, so today is kind of odd. Not bad, but odd.

+ First off, after I went to sleep last night, I woke up again after the fragment of a very strange dream that is utterly indescribable in words, hell SOUNDS even. Which happens to me sometimes, the images are so... strange it's like my left brain can't keep up.

+ Upon waking up, I had the answer of how to end the next chapter of "Grow Up And Blow Away" (and I even put it on FF.net while I was at it). gonetoarcadia, that's the story with Theresa and Elena in it, and they're turning from cameo to an actual part of the plot. XD Also the a story in the Liquid claim, Breath Control, because I just wanted to get it out of the way.

+ I also sketched up my plan for my wings a little better, because apparently when one part of my creative brain is working, they all are. I need to check some of the plans with like, actual things out there, because I do not attest to being a mechanical genius, and I was kind of... half asleep when I put it together.

+ I've been voraciously hungry all day, even after having a decently sized breakfast AND lunch. WTF.

+ I finally visited the doctor today, since my back was having not nice spasm times, and she did some crazy chiropractor stuff to it, which for now hurts a little (she loaded me with Advil due to this) but will apparently get my accident-shocked muscles in my upper dorsal (I LEARNED STUFF) and my vertebrae up there to work properly. Makes sense, considering how I was jarred from being hit that it hurts there. So this is good, I didn't think it was serious, but I figured if I let it go much longer (because I have a pretty decent pain tolerance and tend to ignore these kinds of things) it might not be so good.

+ So I'm most of the way through the book about flow that I'm reading to help preclude my research paper (and maybe even source, I like getting a good basis on related stuff before I have a good idea of the specifics to research). And it's gotten me thinking about things, and weirdly enough sort of goes with the oddity of my day. Strange.

+ Expecting a phone conference with work soon, so I gotta wrap this up!

~Cendri