It felt amazing.
I actually came out to my counselor today! It almost doesn't seem real, like it was a dream, almost as if it didn't happen, but...it did! I actually told someone I know in person that I'm a girl!
It felt amazing.
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Just me wasting time.
There may have been something, but by now, I've forgotten it. For Red Hood Rider, when it comes to Gary's band, I did some thinking about it.
Basically, for a band on a typical song, you can have three to five parts, typically: percussion, bass guitar, guitar, second guitar, and keyboard. So add in the singer, and you get potentially six parts, if each is devoted. (Could also be more if backup singers are featured, or other instruments like flutes, violins, cellos, saxophones, trombones, or trumpets. Some of which are becoming increasingly popular as well.) So the lineup as it currently stands is that Ruby is handling percussion. (She can handle any instrument, but percussion is her preferred instrument.) D.D. is handling bass guitar. Gary is both the singer and lead guitarist. Whitney has a similar talent to Gary and is his backup singer as a result, while also handling whatever instrument needs to be handled. (She can play any instrument, similar to Ruby.) And I think that Vili handles the second guitar, with Amy maybe handling the keyboard. Which leaves Sally and Hannah as managers/producers for the band. (Dion funds them.) Dale along with Herald act as security. Meaning the whole Ruby Gang is involved, even if the band can potentially get by with as little as four members. (Ruby, Gary, and Whitney can handle anything even if they have their preferences, leaving them almost covered for most songs.) I think it's a fairly nice idea, even if it's not exactly much of a plot point. In this case, it's refusing to save my blog post whenever I exit the text field, like it used to. What this means, in practical terms, is that whenever I post a blog, it's blank. I then have to go back into the blog post, where the text which was invisible now shows like it should, and hit update, and then the changes stick.
There's a work-around, involving hitting save instead of post, but that takes me out of the editor because it's saving the whole thing as a draft. This has been going on for a while, but I just now am trying the work-around, as of today. So if there's some technical difference between a natural blog, an updated block, and a saved blog that can somehow be detected, and someone went through the effort of seeing which was which, well, that's the reason why. Anyway, stuff that I wanted to blog about yesterday includes an idea for inktober involving drawing Ruby receiving Reese's and the hilarity of it. (Reese's are my favorite candy, thus, are hers.) I'm thinking that'll be my day six drawing, in fact! (As in, what I draw next.) I might have time today, too, because my mom's hogging the computer which she normally never does on Saturdays (she's supposed to be gone, or if not, in her room), and that means I might not be able to do my normal activities. CF access is more difficult on my laptop, accessing mafia's something I prefer not to do on my laptop, and far more importantly, the stream for movie night doesn't work nearly as well: my laptop's far too slow to handle the stream smoothly, and even if it can, then often-times, the chat doesn't work...when the whole point of movie night in the first place was the socialization aspect instead of the movies for me. (Watching good movies was just a bonus.) Not really missing much, given this is October and a full month of horror which isn't my genre, BUTSTILL...not pleasant. I also did a little bit of backstory, involving how Ruby's predecessor, the last Rider of Darkness, was killed and utterly annihilated in one of the greatest battles of all history. A survivor of that battle informs Ruby of the event himself, telling her that her predecessor was a lot like her: she stayed low on the radar of others, and was explicitly not one of the main heroes of the battle. (This being a true epic tale, there were hundreds or even thousands of heroes fighting against equal or superior numbers of villains and mainly monsters. And, given this is in the past, that's basically the entirety of the then-superhero population.) She ended up being a critical role in the battle, though: her sacrifice was what directly led to the heroes' victory, even though nobody knew she had made it, except close associates and friends. Said battle is, incidentally, one of the main inspirations behind the legend of Ragnarok. It was a bloody battle where nearly every single hero died, and every villain and every monster was wiped out. The heroes barely managed to skirt by a victory, at great cost, but there were some survivors. This apocalyptic event is not unique, and in fact is far from the worst. The battle that inspired tales of Armageddon left no survivors on either side, in spite of having just as many combatants who were arguably even stronger than the combatants taking place in the battle inspiring tales of Ragnarok. The guy narrating the story came to Earth Ridge because it's the current nexus, checking it out thanks to his curiosity, and when he met Ruby, promises her a favor, that he will come to her aid at any time she truly needs the assist, thanks in part to the debt he owes her predecessor. That's the non-spoilery version, anyway; there's more to the tale, but I'll leave it at that. So I realize I probably didn't write a blog post for today, even though I had intended to and the content which I was planning I've somewhat-forgotten, albeit somewhat-remembering too.
Oops. Ah, well. Anyway, there's a ton of stuff that I did today, and yet an astronomically larger amount of stuff I didn't do. So much work, so little time, lots of which I wasted browsing TVTropes. So I'm exiled to my room for an hour or two while shows are on. For once, that time is not going to waste, though! I finished two ink doodles in half an hour, that being, Ruby's mask, and her transformed mask for Dark Ruby. The next projects will be difficult, because they deal with the hands: her gloves are next and will be day six, and her spirit totem will be day seven, with the hairties also shown as dark arts.
I'm procrastinating, there, though, because...hands! Hands! Lots and lots of artistically baned hands! It's going to be a nightmare, even though it'd get me just one drawing short of being caught up. After that, the plan's to do her socks and shoes (day eight), her Dark Ruby shorts (day nine), her Dark Ruby jacket (day ten), Dark Ruby fingers (day eleven, though may change to be day eight to be with the other hands), Blood Staff (day twelve), Lord Ventrella outfit (day thirteen), and undergarments (day fourteen). After that, I've run out of ideas to stall, so everything I do from there is improvised. I think day fifteen will be Ruby in casual clothing. Then, I think day sixteen I'll draw Ruby in all her gear, but without Angel Wings drawn. Day Seventeen, I'll do one with Angel Wings. Day eighteen, I'll do Dark Ruby. Day nineteen, I'll do Ruby as a lifeguard. Day twenty, I'll do Lord Ventrella. Day twenty-one, I'll do a casual Ryan. I've run out of Ruby-centric ideas I could use, so from there, it's whatever I fancy, but 21 drawings will be a win in of itself, even if it's not the 21 I'm aiming for, so I'll take things one step at a time. In the mean time, I considered blogging about this tomorrow, but it's been on my mind for a while, and I decided I might as well knock it out today. Basically, all the characters need heights, and I don't think I have that info beyond, "is generally tall" or "is generally short", so here's me attempting to get some numbers. The tallest Riders are Gary and Whitney, both standing at an even 6' tall. Ruby, though 6'2 when Ryan, shrinks to be 5'10" when in her magical girl form, and she's the second-tallest. Behind her are Sally and Hannah, both coming in at 5'8". Vili's behind that, at 5'6", but the real prize for shortness goes to Whitney's partner in battle, D.D., who is 5' tall: basically, pint sized. Amy grows as the series progresses, going from 5'6" up to just shy of 5'11". As for Herald, he's 5'11" himself, whereas Dale comes in at 6'1". Dion himself is 6'2". That's not even close to all the characters, but it's the majority of them. Keep in mind, I may adjust this, but this is approximately what I was going after height-wise. Whitney's tall, Ruby's decently tall herself, Sally's up there with Ruby but not quite her height, D.D.'s petite, and the others just kinda fall into place from there. Today was an anatomical practice on Ruby, for Red Hood Rider. Which means, yes, I did draw her nude, but I figured I might as well hang a lampshade when doing so. (In a sense, she pointed out the rule 34ness of it. Ruby would generally prefer to be clothed, of course, but she's not the type to make a deal out of being naked, no matter the circumstances. So instead, she just points out in her own snarky way why it's incredibly improbable for it to happen and her to be naked; it'd almost never transpire because her powers basically allow her to materialize clothing as she sees fit, a secondary superpower that all Riders have but which she has stronger thanks to her vampire powers.)
I'm generally not that comfortable drawing my main characters naked just for the sake of drawing them naked, but clothing can and does get in the way of artistic growth sometimes, so I'm glad I did. In particular, while I did need a few reference images, I mostly free-formed it, going improvised. While I used my eraser a lot, I still took only about an hour or so to finish the sketch, which is ridiculously fast for me to finish a work...and I think I basically, within the reason of my chosen art style, nailed her anatomy, too! The post she's in is a bit of a stretch, but not unrealistic. I figured out one of the main issues in my art, too! The shoulders. This is true for guys as well to a lesser extent, but ESPECIALLY for girls, I've been drawing the shoulders too large. With the shoulders too large, the arms and the torso get thrown off, which throws the proportions for the legs and especially the hips off, and it all originates from that one spot. I was noticing I was failing to achieve my anatomy one moment, then I looked at the shoulders, thought they looked fine at first, then I decided to try shrinking them and otherwise maintaining the proportions I had, redrawing as necessary to make the connections, and...it just kinda clicked together. Admittedly, it's not absolutely perfect. I got lazy on the hands and feet, I'm not quite sure I nailed the breasts (especially her left one), and I think the neck's still slightly too long even for animesque work, and maybe I slightly misplaced her ears/eyes/nose to be slightly too high (or maybe not, I dunno, they could be fine), but that's nitpicky details. I basically think it's my best work ever. So while I still owe an apology to Ruby for making her go through with that (it's kinda undignified--remember, to me, my characters are alive, so if I draw them nude it's like me exposing a real person naked to the whole world in a youtube video or something like that), ultimately, I think it was worth it. So right now, I've got a mental picture of a merging of two songs.
One being New Divide by Linkin Park, and the other being Zombie by The Cranberries. The fusion that I have more or less begins with the New Divide riff, which when the guitars hit adds in beneath the riff the Zombie bits, with them playing simultaneously, then going into the Zombie bit prior to the verses, and from there not quite sure because the mental map ends there but it would be AWESOME and I'm so incredibly sad that I can't bring it to life. I'm just not nearly that talented. Oh, well. So today, I finally did something I've meant to do for a long time. Saying what my favorite band is has always been easy, because I have a go-to answer (Muse--though that spot was at risk for a while). Saying my top-three has always been fairly easy too, albeit somewhat-changing with time. Top five, also no problem, in fact, a bit easier than top three, since there was some debate about the ordering of the top three and which was three and which was four, with only the fifth being a constant. (Ironically, said fifth is no longer even top-ten.)
But top-ten? Immensely more difficult. I went out trying to compile a list of the top ten, but while I thought I had initially succeeded, turned out that I had eight honorable mentions...which kinda sorta means I've more got a top fifteen or so. And it's more or less like this. 1: As stated, Muse. Now, it has to be understood: my introduction to Muse was through the some which right up there with Boulevard of Broken Dreams is among my favorite songs of all time, that being, Knights of Cydonia. Meaning, I was introduced to them at the peak of their career pretty much. When it comes to Muse, though, their first album, they were still finding their way. It was pretty decent, but they were a young band and you can tell. By the time of Origin of Symmetry, they had begun to mature, beginning to find their defining groundbreaking traits, but they weren't quite there, yet. Absolution is where they really hit their stride, with the whole album really telling a very clear story (whereas the story--while present--in the earlier two was harder to pick up on), and with many killer songs on there that were awesome. With their fourth album, Black Holes and Revelations, this continued: good storytelling, strong singles especially at the beginning, and of course the best song ever to finish it out, Knights of Cydonia. The Resistance, in a way, was them shifting a sound, not necessarily to be weaker, but to be different, so they lost a little bit of their magic, there, unfortunately. While the beginning of the album, true to Muse form, was filled with great singles, and you could see as the songs progressed and the story progressed the evolving sound in their music, and the evolved sound wasn't bad, it was just a little bit on the...I'm not sure what the word would be. Melancholic side? Somber? Basically, earlier Muse songs held power, and these songs were soft. Soft is not bad. Soft is just different. It's just that soft songs, when they make up the majority of a section of an album, are good for storytelling, not for captivating a music listener long-term. So while I enjoyed The Resistance, thoroughly, I think that it was at this point my obsession with Muse--and yes, it was an obsession at a point, with me still planning a fanfic crossing the tale of every album and linking it together--began to slowly fade away with the slowly fading music. The singles released for the sixth album were so much uninspiring to me that I'm not even sure we bought the album. Us, the ones who have a universal like for Muse, loving every one of their records, every one of their songs, not buying a Muse track. So at this point, Muse was mostly cruising by on the grandfather clause. (Same reason Wipeout took so long to drop down on my favorite song list from the #1 spot.) They were very dangerously close to being supplanted by the Black Keys, because I love every Black Keys song I've ever heard, even if I don't own any of their albums. I just know that the Black Keys have a very strong, magical musicality to them that makes their songs, even the weaker ones, be amazing. ...Yet this year, in 2015, Muse bounced back with their seventh album. Every single I've heard from it has proven that they're back in top-form. Even though I'm listening to singles rather than the entire album, I can tell the story's still strong and in full effect. The songs hold immense impact, strength, force to them, to be reckoned with and certainly being memorable. They've brought back some of the classical Muse elements that made Muse be big in the first place, while retaining the maturity of their later songs. In short, it's the best of every world when it comes to their songs, and I absolutely LOVE the sound of it, so Muse is back in business as my favorite band. 2: As alluded to above, The Black Keys. Now, originally, they weren't here. That's because when I first made my top-three bands list, The Black Keys didn't exist. I made the list prior to their conception, and even if I hadn't, I made it prior to them becoming a notable band. But once they earned it...oh, BOY, did they EARN it! Seriously, I love the Black Keys. Their songs are all fantastic, with everything I listen to being great. There's a lot of variety in their songs, and yet there's always a charm about them. 3: Now we get into the more contentious ones. Sitting at number three is the old number four: the Silversun Pickups. I particularly love Panic Switch, but all their songs, which I have heard plenty of, are great. I may not own an album of theirs, listening to them by radio alone, but every song I hear is great, and there's so many of them and so many of them are different in a good way. They're incredible. Plus, I don't think there's any band that has done as many End Sessions as they have, and each time, their end sessions are KILLER good. I just really, really enjoy their music. Like Muse, they risked going down by not having made anything and dropping virtually off the radar for a bit, but once they came back, they gave me a THOROUGH reminder of why they were so good in the first place. 4: Originally my second-favorite band, Linkin Park has fallen down here mainly due to the same reason Muse did: lack of new stuff combined with their newest stuff not having appealed to me the same way their middle stuff did. (Their early stuff was alright, albeit a bit too rappy for my general tastes, but their middle songs are where they peaked.) I keep them at spot number four mainly because of the grandfather clause: they might have fallen down since then, but their music when I was listening to them actively was so good, it was THE reason I began writing poetry and later songs. No, dead serious, having Linkin Park songs stuck in my head is how I began most of my poetry. I've forgotten which songs did which poems, but there were a lot. They also had a big, BIG influence in my writing, with me choreographing entire fight scenes to their songs. I owe them a lot. 5: Right behind them at my original third is Green Day, who suffers from the exact same problem: atrophy, relying on the grandfather clause to stay this high. They also share with Linkin Park the honor of inspiring the majority of my poems and songs, because Green Day songs like 21 guns, Wake Me Up When September Ends, and, of course, Boulevard of Broken Dreams, got stuck in my head ALL the time. 6: My sixth-favorite band is a bit of an unusual choice, in that I've only ever heard two songs of theirs, and they don't really still make songs. They made a huge impact while they were here, though. In this case, I'm talking about The Bravery. You'd think that with only two songs I've heard, and them requiring the grandfather clause at that, they'd not be this high, but seriously. An Honest Mistake and Believe are easily both top-ten favorite songs of mine of all time. Easily. No other band holds that honor, not even close. Their songs are just...well, they make me wish I knew them by more than the radio, so they definitely get at least here. 7: Sitting at number seven is The Offspring. While some of their songs are more okay rather than stunning, they're great musicians. Some of their songs are hilarious, others depressing, most have brilliant reflections of reality, their skills are evident, I love how they sound...and Gone Away is THE most poignant song I've EVER heard; you can FEEL the pain. And it's only my second-favorite song by the band, beaten out by You're Gonna Go Far, Kid. I just think they're great. 8: And continuing a familiar trend while we're at it, let's just say that I love Rise Against. Their songs may lack the variety every other band thusfar on the list has, but it doesn't really matter when every single one of the songs they have is so dang good! Admittedly, they kinda dropped off the radar for a while...but then when I Don't Want To Be Here Anymore came around, I was reminded of EXACTLY why I loved them when they were still played. 9: At nine comes the Imagine Dragons. I don't really have a proper way for explaining this. I just think their music is very, very solid, and they continue to produce solid music throughout the years, which holds an increasing amount of diversity while never losing its strength. Honestly the main reason they aren't higher is because of grandfather clauses being applied TO the higher bands. Given enough time, they will probably rise through the ranks. I doubt they'll pierce into the top-five, but they could get up to seven, maybe six. 10: For slot ten, I have reserved basically what I'm going to call, "generic slot for local bands". Because it'd be a toss-up otherwise. My original top-ten wasn't quite like this (it had a couple of bands that're going to be slightly below), the tenth slot should remain a tie between these bands. Well, not quite bands per se. Basically, I love all music by Ben Gibbard, no matter what band he plays it in. Yet at the same time, I hold an equal amount of love for the Foo Fighters. (I know, technically not local band, but honorary local band, so close enough.) But at the same time, between Peal Jam and Soundgarden, there are a lot of great songs that I feel attached to which I think were important enough to earn a slot, yet not having one of their own, so here they are, basically a three-way tie. (Yes I know, Soundgarden and Peal Jam are two different bands, but they're tightly bound together.) 11: Hands-down, extending the list gives Jimmy Eat World. Frankly, the only, and I do mean, ONLY, reason that they're not higher on the list is because I don't hear their music often enough. (I hear The Middle a fair amount, and yes it's an AWESOME song, but that song alone doesn't represent their strength as a band; you need to hear their other songs. When I do, I love them. It's just that I don't get to hear them often so I don't have them imbued in me as much as I do people further up on the list.) Their songs are amazing. I love them, very much. 12: Now we get tricky, but I'd have to say my twelfth-favorite would have to be Jack White bands. Yes, I'm aware of the irony in liking both his music and that of the Black Keys given an incident I heard about on the radio. (I think it was between those two, anyway.) I've heard him in interviews, and he comes across as a fairly good person, though I personally hold a feeling that were I ever to meet him, we personally would not rub each other the right way. Musically, my feelings about him are about the same as that, actually. When he gets a little caught up in making something "awesome", then he loses musicality. For instance, I absolutely hated the titular song of the album Lazaretto, because it focused on doing 'awesome' guitars at the expense of actually delivering a good song...yet at the same time, Would You Fight for My Love, from that same album, is a GORGEOUS song, one of my favorite songs ever, because it's just so much of a pleasure to hear. It's true music to my ears. Then there are things that I happen to know he was involved with, like the song Steady as She Goes, which has gotten me through a ridiculously large number of days. Basically, while there are some things to have mixed feelings about when it comes to him, overall, I'd say that his music is great, and he's definitely a favorite. 13: Even trickier, but by a hair, I placed Metric here rather than at 14. Originally, I had Metric at slot seven, though that was before I remembered I loved Jimmy Eat World, Jack White, Offspring, and Rise Against. With those four added, I decided to re-evaluate, and they got bumped down to here. While quite the drop, I still love their songs. They did fade a bit into obscurity for a while, but made a comeback which I was quite pleased to hear. 14: And originally at slot number eight, before I re-evaluated, is Coldplay. I was thoroughly addicted to the album Viva la Vida, especially the titular song from it. The song Paradise has become one of my most life-saving songs (along the same lines as Steady As She Goes above, in that it helps me when I'm in a bad mindset to escape), and their other older stuff is good, too. Frankly, the only reason they're this low is because I decided that while I loved their songs a lot, as a band, they were simply lower than the other 13 slots...albeit not by much. 15: Tempting as it was to place them at an unlucky slot like 13, truthfully, I think this is the best spot for Incubus. I don't really have much to say on this one, other than that Drive was a great song, I think other Incubus songs are pretty decent too, and while they initially faded into obscurity, when they came back, I liked their new stuff, too. Now the first honorable mention (and thus, the honorable mention that started the whole top-15) is Nirvana. While somewhat covered in the 10-slot, I think they deserve a separate mention on their own. To this very day, all their songs still sound great. Given the passage of time, that is an INCREDIBLE feat. To still be relevant in a good way twenty years later. Most of the bands on the list, be it directly or indirectly, owe something to Nirvana, the groundbreaking band that they were, a big local hit that made all the difference in the world. And they're still good songs. The second honorable mention is a band that used to make the list, even holding spot number five on it: MGMT. Now, you might be wondering what caused them to fall. And that's mostly that my love for their songs faded with time (though I still like them), I don't have a large sample size (three or four), and there isn't a lot of newer music. All these factors combined meant that the grandfather clause wasn't enough to hold them in position. The third honorable mention is the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. This is an oddity on the list, in that it's not something spawned directly from listening to The End. That's one of the reasons they're not on the list, though. Basically, they're actually a proper orchestra rather than a true band when you think of it. The scale of their music and their performances extends well beyond that of a normal band. Their music, though, could easily place them as high as two or three slot-wise, because, yeah. Their music is awesome. It's just not in the same genre as the rest of the bands. I also wanted to make a couple of other honorable mentions, meaning the top-fifteen could technically be a top-twenty, but they're considered honorable mentions because I don't quite hold the love for them to be on the list in the first place, mainly through lack of proper exposure. The first of these is Garbage, because while I like the Garbage songs that I've heard...I simply haven't heard enough of them! Which is a shame, considering they are a good band. The second of these is The Cranberries. Basically, the reason why they're here is because I only know two of their songs, and while one of them--Zombie--is not only among my favorite songs of all time but also easily my favorite End Session song of all time, the other one doesn't give them the same level of prestige as The Bravery holds. Their songs are good, yes, but not slot-six good, not from the small sample size. Soyeah, that's my ramble on music. Four drawings to do, a fifth to scan and upload, lots of mafia stuff, a second check-in on CF again...I really wanted to do some Red Hood Rider work today be it script-work or artwork...
...And that doesn't even begin to go into novel-work. Yeah...... |
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