Appa's Thoughts

So! My friend had her annual anime party yesterday/today. A smaller group this time (11, including my 2-year-old nephew), although it's still bigger than the original seven or eight at her first which was just a simple sleepover. It's just feels smaller after a couple times when there were 20+ people in attendance.

Anyway! We watched anime. I got to sample some I had been curious about but never saw, but what I really enjoyed was Hetalia. XDD Another friend of mine hadn't seen it before and we were roaring in laughter at any little joke. Granted, I fear how this might be received in certain countries, but as an American who has spent the last two semesters revisiting and revisiting and revisting the lasting effects of World War II... well... I can't help but find it hilarious.

Also, it wasn't cosplay but I dressed up.



( You want to see more of this thing on my head )

Ah, the Hetalia theme is so stuck in my head.

I also have some art to talk about. It was neat seeing people's coloring renditions of the lineart I made, and while I was watching anime I drawing drawing at random things that seemed stereotypically "anime", and then I told them to think of a plot for it. I'm curious what, given an anime group shot, people would come up with for a synopsis. I'll post the picture at some point and give people a go at it, and maybe make a little contest (with a prize) for what people come up with. It'd be interesting to read.

Ow, my head. Not enough sleep.

Hellooooo all my wonderfully creative LJ-friends!

I'm going to be drawing the line art for the coloring contest at my friend's annual anime-themed party/mini-convention again this year. The only request she gave me was for it to be fantasy themed.

Now, I'm sure she wouldn't be opposed to elves or what not, but last year her definition of fantasy of a dragon boy or a mer-boy (I combined the two into a generic bishie pic aimed at a general anime-loving audience). This year, I'll treat everyone to a group of characters (so they get to have fun picking out more colors). I'm thinking one central bishounen, looking a little annoyed carrying an arm full of chibi cat girls.

So!
What kind of fantasy creature should the bishie be? (And what kind of clothes?)
How should the chibi cat girls be dressed?

This is aimed at a sizable group of girls, mostly in their teens and twenties. My friend is a big fan or things like Dragon Knights (this is where I'd most like to get ideas for the bishie, but I'm not very familiar with it) for Final Fantasy or Aquarian Age or Magic Knights Rayearth. Because the overall theme is cute, I don't want to go too frilly with the outfits--it should be balanced out by something a little darker in nature (but I don't think he'll be a vampire ^^;).

I'm not limited to this, either. As I'm sketching I'm finding that I can't do chibi's on command. ^^; Just any idea for a fantasy bish would be great!

Any ideas, pleeeeease? :D I'd like to start sketching within the next couple days.

Last night I took 5 hours to fall asleep. Auugh. Usually it only takes 2. I got to bed at my usual time anyway...

Anyway, last night before that battle with insomnia I watched Kung Fu Hustle, like a couple friends had been bugging me to do since I showed any interest in kung fu movies. Oh, my gosh, it was so corny, but so funny! What really, really makes me happy is the part when the landlord and landlady are meeting the super martial artist. To paraphrase:

"Are you the destined couple?"
"Paris."
"And Helen of Troy." (introducing themselves)

But if you listen to what they're saying instead of reading the subtitles, you can hear them say "Yang Gor" and "Xiaolongnu". Condor hero reference for the win!!!

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What is it with Japanese people and being famous? (By this I don't mean to say anything about the unfortunate occurance in Akihabara today, although I feel very upset whenever I hear about those kinds of demented people where ever they are, and I do believe a lot of it is that they want attention.)

The two words in kanji that my first sensei would never want us to forget were "sensei" and "yuumei" (famous). She'd always tell us that we would be famous someday. I think she wants us to get famous in Japan so she can take some credit for it. She'd get it, definitely. XD I'll keep working on that, Sensei...

( High school friends: The rock star, the actress, the manga-ka )

*wipes tear* Wow, I wish the best for all my friends there, including those whose names I don't remember for the life of me. I had such a great time going to school there for a week (sans losing my voice and having to insist I didn't always sound like a frog).

Now it's time to try to fall asleep a little sooner tonight. *zooms off*

I love the internet, and have loved it since I was 13 or 14. I still have friends I made from back then! While I have plenty of friends in real life and don't consider myself anti-social, my Internet social circles are very important to me, and unfortunately, in real life that just sounds weird.

As a society, though, I think we might be too dependent on the internet for contact, and the freshmen out here last fall made a play to demonstrate what would happen if someone decided to shut down the internet because they weren't popular enough on MySpace. XD Of course it was exaggerated, but we got to watch the real scene last month when the internet on campus went down for nine hours. Nine hours of isolation! People were so freaked out! XD

I don't touch MySpace, but I do use Facebook, and I like that it helps me keep in touch with real life friends. I don't like how it becomes a substitute for real life contact with people you'd see everyday anyway. u_u;; The same goes for text messages. It is not appealing to me when a guy sitting right behind me has to text me to tell me he likes me or to ask me out, and it is not appealing when a guy has to ask me out on my Facebook wall instead of asking me face to face. Geez, the internet should not replace our lives!!

Anyway, I'm just musing about all this because I've always been the type to day dream about meeting all my online friends. I have met a handful, though, and had fun with them all, but some are still startling when you finally meet face to face. XD (Of course I don't meet anyone under unsafe circumstances, though. Let's just get that straight.)

Recently, I've been talking with a couple people and it's like, "oh, when you're there, I'll be there, too. Let's do this" and I think, "Sure, that'd be fun, I haven't seen you in a while. No wait... I've never seen you. I don't even know what you look like." Sometimes I just forget that these are not face-to-face friendships! XD

So I guess I'm just saying that I get tired of people saying that internet friendships are worthless. Not true. Of course they have limits and dangers, but they also have other possibilities that real-life friendships don't. Like it's less embarrassing to open up to them sometimes, and when you move away, it's not as if you can't have the same relationship with them. And I'm not discounting real life friendships, too, as those are so entirely rewarding and I would never trade them for my internet friends, even though some of them have become internet friends instead just because of distance or time circumstances.

So yeah, even though I don't know my friends on this journal as well as on my other journal, you're all still cool people and I'm glad I know you. I'd just feel like a huge sap saying this on my daily-life journal and just babbling "I love you guys~~~~!". XD

On that note... I still have plenty of time until my ride gets here. *sigh*