Smoke Reflection

Oddly enough, I got into Cable and Deadpool (based on the shipping manifesto. That makes two, with Eyeshield 21 with Hiruma/Mamori as the first), and even managed to find a site with scans: http://comic-skulled.blogspot.com/2009/06/cable-deadpool-006.html

It's pretty good in a kind of twisted way. (Eyeshield 21 ended...but Hiruma/Mamori looks kind of cannon, so yay).

AC meeting was pretty fun.

Hm...this seemed interesting, so let's see if it actually works.





[url=http://dragcave.net/view/LgNf][img]http://dragcave.net/image/LgNf.gif[/img][/url]

There's supposed to be a dragon...or an egg? Not too sure...

So, I got made AC captain. Although the shock has worn off a bit (I think I had a deer in the headlights look the entire time for the rest of dinner), it's still just sinking in. It's really different from being made news editor because while I was sort of expecting to become editor, captainship was pretty unexpected (I thought it was going to be Arronowitz or Randi, since she is editor-in-chief already). However, this opens up a whole new can of worms because Jimmy was pretty pissed off. But if he was talking to me by the end of the day yesterday, that's a good thing right? (Unless he's secretly plotting a coup...but that wouldn't even work). Either ways, now I have this fancy looking red tie that's way too big for me (it comes with the captain position much like the clue-by-four came with being news editor, except you can't kill people with it that easily), a banquet to plan, summer practice to somehow work out, and a possible movie night. And I have no idea what C team (soon to be B team) is going to think about me, and I suck at giving speeches. Not to say I'm not kind of excited at the exact same time, because it is AC captain after all. After going through hell with PACE, the local tournaments and teams look a bit like a breeze. I think we can beat them, but we still have gigantic shoes to fill (A team, ranked 24 or something like that out of all the teams at PACE, and there were some really hard teams there. I have no idea what we ranked, and I'm not sure I want to know.). (Sigh) We're really going to miss all of our seniors...

Okay, the more I type the more convoluted it's getting, so I think I'll just stop now. D.C. was loads of fun though!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! AP'S ARE FINALLY DONE! I CAN GO TO THE NEWS BANQUET, THE ANIME CLUB PARTY, AND THEN GO WATCH STAR TREK THE MOVIE! AND THEN I CAN GO READ MORE MERLIN FANFICS AND ATTEMPT TO FIND SEASON 1 HOUSE EPISODES! And then I'll have to go study pre-cal, finish up a Chinese project, and do god knows what for chem...oh well. At least I'm News editor and anime club treasurer now. And the D.C. trip is in just one week!

So...4 AP's down, 2 to go. Along with a nuclear chem test and a pre-cal test, and god knows what else. Compsci wasn't quite as bad as I thought it was going to be, Chinese was pretty easy (and I got to read Sandman during the break), English Lit was fairly easy except for the two rhetorical essays (and I lost count of how many seniors asked me what I was doing there. I've been getting so many strange looks...), and APUSH was pretty easy (although I could have written better essays with more time). Also, I became news editor (yay), and my co-editor seems pretty nice. We'll see how NHS elections go, but I probably don't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting an officer position. So tired...but I'm not as badly off as some people who decided to double up on APUSH and Euro, am I? (And I still maintain Monster smells, and probably tastes like what would happen if you took that disgustingly sweet smell in a candy store, solidified it, and then melted it down into a liquid. Disgusting).

Long story short, we didn't qualify for nationals, but we did beat St. Johns B and St. Johns A. Can I please repeat that again just to savor the taste of victory again? We, Bellaire B, beat St. Johns A. (We didn't even realize it at first. We had the idea that it was pretty close, and so when they got the last question, we thought we had lost. So we were shaking hands in a resigned fashion, when I asked for the score, and it turned out it was St. Johns A 250, Bellaire B 310. We probably incourteously squealed, but can you honestly blame us?) Unfortunately we lost to St. Johns C after lunch. ....I don't really understand either. We lost it by one question too...but Mr. Peek said that was the first he could remember that a Bellaire B team has ever beat a St. Johns A team. Anyway, Bellaire A won first against Kinkaid in a match that was basically a slaughtering. Bellaire C did great in the JV division as well.

I watched Watchmen again with Linlin, and now I bring fanfiction. ...somehow it's a bit sad. Oh well. Spring Break is nice.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4929474/1/Five_Minutes_To_Midnight

Oh, and here's an article I found. I think it's interesting....

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/post/71192-psycho-smackdown-watchmens-rorschach-vs.-the-dark-knights-joker/

So I saw the movie last night with Aveline, Joy, Joy's friend, and Patch (who I wanted to disembowel for being late and making me miss out on ordering a cold coffee instead of getting Joy to buy a hot one for me), and it was fairly good. Not good enough to make me want to buy it, but most likely good enough that I wouldn't mind having an illegal copy of it (hinthint Aveline). The rest of this section will have spoilers, so don't read if you don't want to.

Let's begin with my favorite character, Rorschach (who I actually like to call Mr. Inkblot, but I won't in this review out out of respect and the fact that I actually know how to pronounce his name now). Psychotic? Yes. Maybe a split-personality disorder? Yes. Borderline delusional? Oh yes, but we all love him for it anyway. (This is the point where we're perhaps carted off to the loony bin, whoopee.) To me, it's refreshing to see a character that sticks to his values, no matter how brutal they might actually be. I don't like his interrogation methods, but it's brilliant how he can use anything as a weapon (toilet). I wasn't watching the part where he "became Rorschach" though. (I was wincing at the squelchy noises, while Aveline was beaming at the screen, weren't you Aveline?) Plus, he's the only one to go against the evil plot in the end. What can I say, I have a really big weakness for antiheroes.

Next, Niite Owl II (who I will call Owlman, you Batman rip-off). His romance with the girl? Cradle-robbing and sap. Those two set off defiling every place possible, and if the movie just skipped or cut those parts I would have been able to see the ending...oh well. Also, he's pretty lame with the whole announcer "Please remain calm" sort of thing. And he goes along with the evil plot. The one redeeming quality of him to me is the fact that him and Rorschach act like a squabbling married couple (off to find fics...).

Third, Silk Spectre II (or the girl as I will call her). I don't care if your boyfriend is detached from all of humanity (why were you dating him in the first place anyway?), you still shouldn't rebound that fast with the whole "Oh, but John will understand." No. And the costume? Yellow latex doesn't look good on anyone, sorry to say. And she goes along with the evil plot.

Fourth, Dr. Manhattan (or Mr. Blue Glowy Guy as I will call him because it's so much fun to say). Let the idea of clothes enter our life once again please for god's sake. (My eyes were always focused at a corner of the screen during those points.) And he's a bit of a cradle-robber himself. Although, it was interesting to see how he viewed the world. (But his reason to come back to Earth too late was lame.) But I can't forgive him for killing Rorschach.

Last, Ozymandias (who I will call Alexander the Great because what sort of name is Ozymandias anyway?). I will admit, the actor is very good-looking, but the clothes? You're not supposed to run around wearing armor molded precisely to show off muscles (even if it's black and gold) or purple and gold suits (shudder). And I completely disagree with his idea to sacrifice millions to save possible billions. Ends do not justify the means. And he pretty much killed Rorschach, so I detest him.

Who else? Well, there's the Comedian (no nickname because I just don't have one for him) whose murder drives the story. I really think he was more sadistic than Rorschach in the end though. I liked the flashbacks to some degree. All in all, it was very interesting.

Since during my birthday I didn't bother to post anything special, I will just post this poem called Kate I found by Lord Tennyson.

I know her by her angry air,
Her bright black eyes, her bright black hair,
Her rapid laughters wild and shrill,
As laughters of the woodpecker
From the bosom of a hill.
’Tis Kate–she sayeth what she will;
For Kate hath an unbridled tongue,
Clear as the twanging of a harp.
Her heart is like a throbbing star.
Kate hath a spirit ever strung
Like a new bow, and bright and sharp
As edges of the scimitar.
Whence shall she take a fitting mate?
For Kate no common love will feel;
My woman-soldier, gallant Kate,
As pure and true as blades of steel.

Kate saith ‘the world is void of might.’
Kate saith ‘the men are gilded flies.’
Kate snaps her fingers at my vows;
Kate will not hear of lovers’ sighs.
I would I were an armed knight,
Far-famed for well-won enterprise,
And wearing on my swarthy brows
The garland of new-wreathed emprise;
For in a moment I would pierce
The blackest files of clanging fight,
And strongly strike to left and right,
In dreaming of my lady’s eyes.
O, Kate loves well the bold and fierce;
But none are bold enough for Kate,
She cannot find a fitting mate.

...it's actually probably very, very self-centered of me to post that, but I do like that poem.

Oh, and this. It's Silky Heart, the 2nd opening to Toradora (which is such an adorable show).

とらどラ! 『Silky Heart』♡ It seems my silky heart will break

Isn't it nice?

So, finally finished something.
Link: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4895425/1/VirtueVice

Azula's part is really long...as in longer than all the other parts combined...oh well. My fic, I can do what I want. (Besides, this one isn't half as cracky as some of the things I've written out.)

I think I'll do an Ouran fic next...probably Haruhi/Tamaki

-When you only notice that your birthday is coming up because you scribbled it in your planner as an afterthought
-When you look up different types of mental disorders on Wikipedia when you're bored (and actually have time) because you're certain there has to be some reason you're putting yourself through this
-When you happily memorize pages of Hamlet for extra credit, because it's the most enjoyable homework assignment you have
-When you scoff at the SAT word list because you know them all
-When you're worrying about whether or not your GPA dropping 0.03 points really does bump back you back 10 places
-When you obsessively play Sporcle
-When you're deliriously happy to watch a movie in a class
-When you can grind out a Chinese essay and oral from pure b.s. and words that you asked your parents
-When your handwriting is too small to be legible
-When you start coming up with conspiracy theories in everything
-When you have a sadistic sense of humor that you cackle at the thought of messing up the lab equipment for the sophomores
-When any day that actually doesn't have a test/quiz is a miracle
-When your labs never come out right and all the numbers have to be somehow "fixed"
-When you feel like eviscerating the idiot who complains although he's only taking 2 AP classes daily
-When you sign up to take 6 AP exams (including English Lit even though that's actually for seniors)
-When you want to somehow vivisection the person who said sophomore year was the hardest
-When you come to school no matter how miserably ill you are, even if you're on the verge of dying
-When you want to scream at the sophomores/freshmen complaining about how hard their classes are when they don't have the Demon Lord of Chem

....hm, I can't think of any more (although most of those were just me ranting...). Ah well. That's basically life right now.

Just a question: when someone says to make a sentence out of the word lucid, which means sane, what's the first thing you think of? Because in my head it seems that the only time you'd be talking about sanity would be when someone is unfortunately lacking it. Hence the following sentence written for the English Ziplock bag assignment: During one lucid and sane moment, the woman found to horror that she was locked in a grimy, padded cell before laughing manically and tearing at her hair once more. (It might have been a little different, but that is the general gist of it.)

Was that really so strange?

Oh, and I took the SAT Lit test. It was alright I suppose...but the Pygmalion Galatea poem was just weird.

...hm, I haven't posted at all in 3 weeks... (and 2 of those weeks were Winter Break...I get really lazy...) Well, anyway it's the new semester (and there's already homework piling on, go figure, and a pop chem quiz the 1st day we got back) and at least I scraped by with an A in chem last semester (yay). I only managed to post one fic during the winter break...(and there's not many reviews since it's a Catwoman fic in the Dark Knight section whose fandom from the fics at least seem to be made mostly up of people who ship Joker/Batman which I still think is so disturbing. SO VERY DISTURBING, and this is coming from someone who watched all of Higurashi.) I'm working on an Avatar fic right now (and somehow Katara is the hardest to write for me. Considering how much screen time she had, this is frankly ridiculous. ...but she's just not as interesting as Toph or Azula...) and I think the 7 deadly sins idea is overused, but this is my first time writing one of those, so does that count as okay? (I even managed to work in the 7 heavenly virtues as well...) Well, I'll post something eventually (...watch it be a month later. My Bleach fic hasn't been updated in a long, long time...but at least they can't find ice illuser in person. Or else I would be yelled at...although I do get random PM's anyway.)

On another (less drabbly, scatterbrained) note, when we went to Starbucks, Newland and Mazzoni were sitting there drinking coffee as well. (Thank God Mazzoni doesn't remember yelling at Randi and me when we went to go interview National Merit people during his class last year...too many Asian girls. They weren't doing anything that day anyway.) It was kind of awkward. And Dillon nearly got us kicked off the 2nd floor in Borders (I think you can hear him yelling through walls.)

So, after days upon days of stress (thank you so much Linlin) I finally got the score report back: 227. Yay. I'm too tired to even give a Joker impersonation... (I'm serious, I actually developed a pounding headache Friday from pure stress about it. However, I have The Dark Knight DVD now, so I'm happy. Even if I can't watch it until Thursday. But there's Dark Knight fanfiction until then...although sorting through all of the Joker/Batman stuff is enough too make anyone shudder. Some of the Joker/Harley Quinn stuff is pretty good though, if twisted, which it's supposed to be anyway.) Maybe I'll post a fic up during the holidays or something in celebration... (Can't wait until Christmas holiday...)

Technically I should be going off and giving myself a heart-attack about PSAT (I know it's really bad when I can feel my blood pressure spiking when I hear that people are getting their scores. I'm going to die or kill something before I ever see my scores, it's so sad...Damn you CollegeBoard. One of these days someone will give me a commission targeting you, or I'll just go and and inhume you anyway...and inhume is a word. It's just the opposite of exhume which is "to take out of the grave"...) but really, who can think about that when it's SNOWING? Really, it is. As in white stuff blanketing cars, the roofs, and the grass. And I wasn't here last time when it snowed (It just has to be karma that I was in rainy Florida at that time. You wouldn't believe how I shrieked when Linlin sent over the pics.) so I'm currently jubilant. (Okay, I'll admit I'm also stressed as always, but whatever.) If there's enough snow left in the morning (I can't believe I'm saying this) I'll go make a mini-snowman! (Which could also substitute as a voodoo doll if I'm in that mood again. Which I actually might be since the thing I detest with every fiber of my being is cold weekday mornings. There's nothing worse than dragging yourself out of your warm and cozy blanket-cocoon in the morning to go to school.) Or maybe a snowball! (It was so fun pelting my dad with snowballs in the Forbidden City, back when I was 9.) We'll see if we have school tomorrow anyway.

Volunteering at the West U Haunted House was the best volunteer hours I've ever spent. (No, seriously. Scaring people for volunteer hours? It doesn't get much better than that.) So they basically turned this house (I think it's usually an office or something) into a spooky little place with black plastic covering all the walls (and as makeshift walls) and filling the place with some sort of smoke that smelled weird. There was a jail room, a vampire room, a snake room, a rat room, a white mask face room, a dissection room, a demon chef room, a hanging room, and a barn room. (I think I'm missing one, but oh well.) They gave us costumes, so I turned myself into the girl from the Ring with a ghost costume (basically this long white thing that went all the way down to my feet and covered my arms) and my hair hanging down all over my face. At first I hid in the corner next to the snake room, and just scared people that way, but that wasn't that much fun. (First hour had one set of brats dressed as fairies who came through 5 times singing and nearly sticking their glowstick in my mouth. I "accidentally" swatted the queen bee of that group with the back of my hand. Then there were two kids who needed me to guide them back, so I did.) So then I positioned myself at the entrance. It was great, I scared so many kids into crying and running straight out of the place without even going into the rest of the haunted house. (Which is kind of sad since all I did was walk in a sort of swaying motion with my arms out in front of me, and hair blocking my entire face and entire view. But it really says something when the lady running the thing told me to hide for a little while since one boy really wanted to go in but was too terrified of me to actually go in. Hehe.) In the second half of the thing I teamed up with Aveline dressed in a red skeleton costume, so that everyone would focus on the Ring girl walking down the hall to them and then scream out in terror when the red skeleton popped out of the wall. (The Scream guy was funny though. He would basically stalk people across the place, until they turned around and realized he was following them, and scream.)

There were a lot of brats unfortunately though. Besides the fairy group, there were this group of boys who basically ran through the place 5 times screaming that they weren't scared of us. At the end they started screaming at me, so I screeched as high and loud as I can go at them. That shut them up neatly. Then there was the kid who was like "They can't touch us!" and grabbed my arm, so I twisted my arm around and sank my nails into his arm. He let go pretty fast after that. Then there was one kid who kicked me in the shins, and his dad didn't do anything about it. And there were god knows how many brats that were like "Go away!" or "If you touch me I'll kill you!" or "You're just a teenager, you freak!" or "You're not scary at all!". Why are you even paying to go into a haunted house if you don't want to be scared? And I'm not the only one who had deal with them, we all had our share of brat problems. One girl got punched, the clown girl got spit on, one guy nearly got his eye poked out, and we all got kicked/shoved/yelled at. Spoiled brats.

What was actually pretty funny was how the parents would walk in, be like "Come on, let's go! See that girl isn't scary at all! She's wearing sneakers!" (My costume unfortunately didn't cover my brown shoes.) and the kid would be blubbering, "No daddy, I don't want to go in. Let's leave!" but the parent would still drag the kid in. I did creep out some adults though, with mutterings of "God, she's scary." (But then I had to go find a machete some kid dropped in the place with a flashlight. That took awhile.)

All in all, that was the most fun I've had on Halloween in awhile. I want to do it next year too!

....heheheheheheheHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! (Ahem. I need to get over doing that eventually...and it won't help that I'll be buying the Dark Knight DVD to watch over and over and over and over again...) Well it's Thursday, the topic up there is what it is, and obviously I'm not utterly miserable and dejected (see Joker impersonation 3...or is it 4? Too lazy to go back and count. I think it's 3.) so what do you think my much anticipated/dreaded SAT score (that gave me insomnia issues again) was? 2310. Now I don't have to go through a sleepless night, drag myself up at the crack of dawn (okay fine, 6 a.m., but it feels like the crack of dawn), sit around waiting for where to take the SAT, scramble to find the room, sit through ID checks, contort myself into a twisted position in order to somehow fit a test booklet, scantron, eraser, and graphing calculator on a desk that is half the size of the desks at Bellaire, develop a crick in my neck, and starve until nearly 2 in the afternoon again! (Unless I want to up the score...but do I? Not particularly I have to say...I've never wanted 2400; I would have been happy just with a 2300.)

And since I'm in a good mood, have a high quality video of the Gundam 00 S2 opening (by Uverworld).

So it wasn't actually my first tournament (that happened last year, and was...well, not pretty to say the least. My self-esteem was dented quite a bit.) but I still considered today's tournament my first official tournament. (If you disagree, oh well. It's my LJ, so I can say whatever I feel like saying on it.) Either ways, I think it was an improvement. First round was bad for me since I didn't answer any questions at all (like last time) but in the rounds after that I answered at least one question per round (which was still better than what I did last time.) I have the opposite problem of most people, I think. Instead of hitting the buzzer too often and too fast, I don't hit it often enough and not fast enough. (But I still managed to power on Dostoevsky and Tale of Genji, and maybe some others? All literature ones, anyway...) You should have seen me twitching during the LASA B round that I had to sit out on, though. I could have powered on Modest Proposal from the second they said Psalmazaar and his American friend (see, it does pay off to obsessively annotate), but oh well. (There were so many Jonathan Swift questions, it was ridiculous.) We did pretty well overall though, I think. (We actually were very close to beating Bellaire A at one point, before we got decimated...)

Of course, the most awesome win was Bellaire A's against St. John's A. I was keeping score, and it was stressful to just do that. They won by 10 points, with Nagasaki and the galaxy bonuses. All in all, the whole thing was very fun.

Ah...I think I'll either feel a little better when I get my SAT score back next week (which will lead to another Joker impression, and a jubilant post with probably another video posted) or I'll be filled with doom and despair. (I seem to never be able to be in a normal emotional state when it comes to these things...it would be nice if I could.) Either ways, stressing out about both PSAT and SAT is a very bad idea. Your stomach fills with acid, and you have to twist and stab the cute little pirate voodoo doll (that really is adorable, thanks Aveline!) in order to calm down. (You know, this could actually be why some people consider me scary...but I don't do it in front of them...and I really doubt that I project an aura of menace...except when Dillon irritates me or the thing talks. Hm. Will need to consider that some more, later.) And tomorrow's the AC tournament that will hopefully not lead to me making any very embarrassing mistakes. Ah well, at least I have all my various animes to go and watch. (Ga-Rei Zero is kind of like Higurashi! Everyone ends up dying in every episode! Skip Beat is deliciously good, Soul Eater is always fun, and hopefully Black Butler will have cool fight scenes to keep me occupied. And I need to start Gundam 00 sometime soon...)

So I went on an anime binge yesterday night since there were so many new shows that came out that I hadn't had a chance to look at yet. Let's begin with Black Butler or Kuroshitsuji: the first episode wasn't that impressive, but the preview for the 2nd one does look good. As long as it follows the manga and has cool fight scenes it should be fine. Next, Skip Beat. Maybe it's because I love the manga so much, but I really did like the first episode. The characters look a little funny in anime form, and the opening is a little strange, but it has the same quirky off-beat tone that the manga has, so it'll probably be the show I keep up with the most. (Plus, Kyoko's evil laugh that terrified Dillon so much? Lovely, simply lovely. I started laughing too when I heard it and saw the little demons pop out.) Finally, Ga-Rei Zero. I knew it was completely different from the manga, but I'm still really confused. It had brilliant fight scenes but *spoiler alert* why did the guy who I thought was the main character get his head hacked off? Everyone died in the very first episode. Is this going to be like Higurashi or something? (That would be really cool.) And it doesn't have an opening or closing sequence to give you clues either... *end spoilers* Why are there so many good anime out; I can't keep up with all of them... (There's still Gundam 00, Jigoku Shojo, and Code Geass that I need to catch up on as well...)

Driving lessons were terrifying. I hate turning in the streets; I always feel like I'm about to swerve into the curb or into the next lane and get myself ignominiously killed. It's so very sad...