A Return To Forum Roleplaying

When I was around the age of twelve, I discovered a hobby that brought me great joy: forum roleplaying. I started out on a very lax forum called Tokyo Mew Mew Power RPG. I stumbled upon this site completely by accident. Before my roleplaying days, I used the internet mostly to play dress up games and MMORPGs, but once I fell down the rabbit hole of forum roleplaying, it was all I did. I loved playing characters that were vastly different from myself. It gave me a chance to be the person I wanted to be, without the fear of facing cruel reality.

Sadly, when I was around fifteen, I started gaining friends in the real world, and even a relationship. I quickly forgot about forum roleplaying, and started living my life in the real world. Like all good things in my life, this was doomed to come to an end. The realization that my friends all secretly hated me because I was just another friend’s little sister that stuck around after he left. Then there was the ordeal of my relationship, which lasted exactly one year, one month, and four days. I was torn apart for quite some time. I remember crying for at least a solid four months. I stupidly stuck around everyone else because I didn’t want to go back to the days of being alone. I also stayed connected to my ex for over another year, like a painful friends-with-benefits situation where one party caught the feels along time ago.

I’ve gotten over this now, though. I’m still not completely a normal person again, not that I ever was before. My grades have greatly dropped, my family thinks I’m insane, and my doctor put me on Prozac. But it’s all okay because I’ve found things that I can enjoy again. I have found two wonderful friends that get me in every single way. The three of us are practically the same person, and I’m so grateful to have finally found the, lasting friendships.

Along with the healing magic of friendship, I’ve also rediscovered my old love affair with forum roleplaying. Sadly, many of the old websites that I frequented have since closed down due lack of interest from the administrators or a sudden death of member activity. I set out on a quest to find new havens for my imagination to live in. While searching the advertisement threads on the Proboards support page, I discovered Realm of Ulster. It is a relatively new forum with an insanely kind staff. The plot is set in an fictitious world, similar to the medieval time period in Europe. There is an excellent banking system set up, and a wonderfully complex title system for characters. I strongly urge you to join us. The forum has few members at this point, but there s room for plenty. I look forward to seeing you there!

Fenders, Toilet Water, and Fried Cheesecake

I said I was going to post more, and here I am not giving a real update for over a month! There were many times when I thought “This would be nice for my blog!” but never actually updated. I am quite lazy. o-o’

It’s been snowing here a lot recently. It’s a bit odd since our snow peak is usually in early January, but we didn’t receive snow this year until January . . . Winter decided to come late! We had a good month long period of time where it would be warm for about three days and then freezing for three. Then the cycle just repeated. It was quite annoying, but the warm days were nice. I like the snow and I like that the thinner air makes it easier for me to breathe, but I can only tolerate Winter for a week or so. I really should stop calling Winter my favorite season, but oddly enough it is even though I hate it so much.

Anywho, I spent the afternoon with my friend since we were both off work tonight. We dropped her friend’s friend off at work, and as we were pulling out a car appeared out of nowhere as we were already backing out and halfway in the street and drove right behind my friend’s car. Since it was snowing so hard, we couldn’t see that well and didn’t know the car was there. We ended up hitting them, however it wasn’t extremely hard. My friend just pulled back in, grabbed the door handle, looked at me, and solemnly said, “Well fuck . . . Here we go again.”

The man got out and started screaming at her. (This isn’t important, but he was wearing just a short sleeve T-shirt and jeans.) After he stopped, she asked him and his passenger if they were alright and if they had called the cops yet. The woman said they were fine, and the man said that he didn’t think the cops were necessary. My friend gave them her phone number and asked if they wanted her insurance information. The man responded with, “No . . . I’ll just turn it into my insurance and that’ll be that.” He then left. We were both confused as to why he said he would turn it in without her information. It was only when her mother suggested the idea that we realized he probably didn’t have insurance. There is only a small spot of chipped paint on my friend’s car, so she isn’t concerned about getting it fixed.

After this sketchy altercation, we went out with her mother for sushi. I got a Red Dragon Roll, and my friend got a Snow Mountain Roll. I also usually get a Snow Mountain Roll, but I was feeling adventurous today. The Red Dragon Roll has fried shrimp and soft roe wrapped in seaweed and rice with tuna, spicy mayo, and crispy things on top. I have a new goal of trying every sushi that our local sushi restaurant offers. For dessert, we got fried cheesecake! I originally wanted the green tea mochi ice cream, but then my friend asked if I wanted to split a fried cheesecake with her.

The presentation of this place is always wonderful for the sushi, but I’ve never had their desserts before. The plating of the fried cheesecake was so pretty! They cut it in half for us, since we said we were sharing it, and stood the pieces upright like a triangle. The plate also had a chocolate heart around the cheesecake and a dot of some kind of spicy sauce that I don’t know what it was but it was nice. I know the sauces were there for a garnish, but I dipped my cheesecake in them anyway. The chocolate and spicy sauce were very good together, but my friend and her mother both looked at me a little weird.

After we got home from dinner and doing a little shopping, I went to the bathroom as soon as I got to her house. As I was in the bathroom taking my coat off (I don’t know why I didn’t do this before I got to the bathroom), my phone slid right out of my coat pocket and into the toilet. I quickly grabbed it, dripping toilet water all over her dog who likes to sit in the bathroom with people, and ran into her rooms screaming, “I HAVE A PROBLEM!” We used a random pair of pants she had on the floor to dry it off and then went to search for rice. When we couldn’t find the rice we decided to put it in oatmeal. She held out the entire container of oats and told me to shove it in. I was very apprehensive because I didn’t want to shove my toilet phone into food that they might later eat. She informed me that they hadn’t opened it in two years and that the expiration date was quite some time ago, so in the oats the phone went.Her mother then informed us that oats were a bad idea due to the small particles being able to get into every crevice of my phone and get stuck. She found the rice, and, after I dug the oats out of my phone with a toothpick, we ended the toilet phone fiasco.

Today was a lovely day, minus the frigid snow, fender-bender, and phone in toilet, but I have school in the morning (since our new superintendent doesn’t ever call off for snow days even though the roads are super dangerous right now), so I must end my lovely day here. Good night all you wonderful stargazers, and remember to catch the stars before they fall . . .

Uta! Project 2nd Gen Kirari! Keizoku Audition

Uta! Project is currently holding auditions for a second generation! This Kirari!Keizoku audition opened on Januray 11th, 2016 and will continue until February 29th, 2016. We look forward to every addition to the team, regardless of vocal ability. Uta! Project is a place to have fun and enjoy a passion for singing. We currently are working on many projects and encourage you to join us.

You can find more information on the audition page here. Make sure you mention that Star sent you!~ 😉

Happy 2016!

Happy New Year!! It’s a little late to say it five days into the year, but I’ve been very lazy about making this post. When I logged on today to make this post, I noticed that my last post was in July! I’ve been really bad with blogging over the past year, so I want to keep up with it in 2016. I don’t really like to make resolutions, but I guess you could call that one. Instead of a resolution, I think I’ll call it more of a goal, that way I’m more likely to actually follow it.

Another “goal” that I have for 2016 is to lose all the weight I gained when I started working and over the summer. I gained roughly 20 pounds since I started working, and I’ve been very open about it to everyone. However, lately its made me very sad once I started to be able to see that I had gained weight, and I wish I hadn’t told anyone. So, a big goal for 2016 is to lose that weight and get back to my former 110 lbs!

I’ve been doing quite well recently with eating right and exercising, but today was a really bad day, eating wise. I went out to eat with my friends. Actually, I’m the one who proposed the idea since I hadn’t been out to eat in a while. I knew it would be a bad idea, but I did it anyway. I ended up having half an order of mozzarella cheese sticks, a double cheeseburger with bacon and grilled mushrooms, an order of fries, and a caramel apple pie a la mode. I’m pretty sure the waitress didn’t even expect me to finish my meal because she came and asked if we were ready for tickets and then proceeded to look like a unicorn had just appeared in front of her when I said we were thinking about dessert. I was actually full by the end of my meal, but the apple pie sounded so good that I got it anyway. It was a really bad idea because now I am feeling slightly ill and the idea of food right now makes me want to vomit. I nearly tripled my daily calorie limit, and now my body is like “PLEASE!!! NO MORE FOOD!”

Part of my losing weight goal is to not do ^that^ anymore, so I will actually lose the weight instead of gaining more!

Vans Warped Tour 2015

(This is a copy/paste of my post from DJP with some additons.)

Monday, I went to Warped Tour, and let me just say that my excitement still hasn’t died. It was my first concert, and I had six straight hours of them. I found so many new bands that I love, I got to go to signings, and I crowd surfed. I CROWD SURFED TO ASKING ALEXANDRIA!! My life is almost complete. I didn’t get to go to the AA singing because they had a sign up for it and by the time I got there it was full T-T I still bought two tank tops from them. I took $100 with me and surprisingly only spent $85. The signing I went to were for This Wild Life and Night Riots. We saw the Night Riots show completely on accident while waiting for another show, but we fell in love with them. When we went to the signing and got our pictures taken with them, Breanna looked at Travis and said “You’re the love of my life, I promise.” and then HE HUGGED HER and told her that was sweet and to tag him on Instagram about it. The tank top I bought at their merch tent is probably the softest band shirt I’ve ever felt. I bought 4 tank tops and a poster (that is ruined from being in my bag but its signed so its on my wall). When I bought the Metro Station tank top, the guy just gave me their new CD for free. Not to mention all the other people walking around handing out free stuff. We watched Being As An Ocean, Neck Deep, Blessthefall, Beartooth, This Wild Life, Metro Station, Night Riots, a little bit of Beautiful Bodies, and Asking Alexandria plus whatever other bands we passed by while walking around (also Black Veil Brides, but we weren’t really watching them as much as we were waiting there so we could get good spots in the pit for the Asking Alexandria show afterwards.

Being in the pit and crowd surfing is probably one of the most fun things that I have ever done. The pit isn’t a scary place at all. There are tons of nice people that can see if you don’t want to be there or are scared and they will push others out of the way for you, form a wall and a path for you to get out, or even just pick you up and power through the crowd to get you out if they have to. Also, crowd surfing is surprisingly easy. You just find a group of burly men and say something like “Can you give me a lift?” or “Hey, Can you put me up?” and up you go! At the front of the stage there is a fence with staff members on the other side that catch you and stop you from going on the stage or just being dropped. Well I got to the staff guy and latched on, but the crowd immediately started dropping me and the guy was like “PUT YOUR FEET ON THE GROUND YOU’RE GOING TO BE OK” I didn’t have a problem with that; I survived crowd surfing. I just had a bit of trouble finding Breanna afterwards because she was waiting by the fence exit for me where everyone else runs out from crowd surfing, but I wasn’t there because I didn’t make it over the fence. I also just couldn’t find her because I was blind (I gave her my glasses and my backpack beforehand so I wouldn’t break or lose anything).

I’m sorry for the big jumbled mess, but I’m still so excited and I’m dying for next year’s Warped Tour to get here already. I was dripping in sweat the whole day (and had other people’s sweat all over me as well), have a sunburn and killer tan lines from my backpack, and I spent all my money but it was the best experience of my life. My phone got water damaged so those photos/videos might take awhile.

Stepping on Roses | Haredashi de Bara wo Fume

A few days ago, I read the manga “Stepping on Roses” (Japanese: 裸足でバラを踏め; Haredashi de Bara wo Fume). As I was looking through my library’s manga section (I happen to be lucky enough to have a Carnegie funded library in my town. It has three levels and quite a selection of books.) and the title was the first thing that caught me. The words “Stepping on Roses” gave me the impression that this was going to be some sort of romance that needed a certain amount of carefulness to maintain the relationship between the characters. The title got me interested, but the cover and description of the story are really what hooked me. The art style really is lovely, in my opinion, and the story of a poverty stricken girl marrying a rich man to be able to support the orphans that her broke, gambling brother always brought home really appealed to me. To be honest, I don’t remember much of the description on the back, now that I think about it, but it was something along those lines.

When I started reading, I was caught off guard that the story was set in the Meiji era. I don’t think the description mentioned anything about it. Either way, it was nice surprise. The author, Rinko Ueda, used real historical buildings and places to base the world off of, which made for some very lovely scenery in the story. She also did a good job at making sure the characters of different classes really appeared to be of different class. The rich women wore elegant kimono and had very ornate hairstyles, while Sumi and the children had very simple looking Kimono and even looked a bit grungy.

Very early on in the sotry, one of the children becomes ill and Sumi desperately looks for a doctor to treat her, but no one will see the child without payment. As she sits in the street begging for money, a very handsome, wealthy-looking man gives her a handkerchief with money to buy medicine for the child. He leaves without giving a name. Later, the landlady and burly men from the streets come to the house for payment on debts that the family has. Unable to pay, Sumi goes to sell herself.  very rude, yet handsome, young man agrees to her price and quickly takes her away. But little does she know she is to become his bride for show. a bit later, Sumi meets a familiar face, and things snowball from there.

It is quite a nice story with a few plot twists and “wtf” moments. I will stop here before I give any spoilers. I’m bad at writing reviews, but this wasn’t really intended to be a review.

Here is where I will take my leave, so good day to you all!~

The Pledge of Allegiance

A conversation on MM-BBS about the United States legalizing gay marriage in all 50 states (something that I am quite happy about) lead to a much more alluring conversation for me. I was commenting on how “truly equal” the United States is (not very, in my opinion, but I will elaborate more on that later if you wish) and a tumblr post popped back into head.

Since MM-BBS is a rather culturally diverse place in my eyes, I asked about it. I asked if it was true that other countries did not have to say some sort of pledge. Everyone who has answered confirmed that it is, in fact, true. Some fellow citizens of the United States also commented on this. One of them saying,

I was never forced to say the pledge. It was completely optional. Didn’t say either one, actually. It’s not legally required, it’s an old tradition that’s just never died out.

I never actually say the pledge anymore, but I was not aware that schools could not legally force you to say it or even just stand during it. My school does make you stand, and while you do not have to say it, teachers will get very upset about it if you don’t and they will make a big deal about it if they see you. They will go on about, “Quit being so disrespectful and disgracing your country and the men and women that fight so you can have all the luxuries that you do.” I choose to not say the pledge 1) because I do not believe that I should be forced to swear my allegiance to a country daily as if my opinion had changed any from the previous day, and 2) because I am an atheist and I do not wish to say “under God” as an indication that God is protecting our country when I do not believe in this person.

I found it very interesting that I am not required to say the pledge. Whether or not I want to challenge my school and have to deal with my family I am unaware of. They don’t know that I am an atheist, and its better for me if it stays that way. Also, dealing with the school is a hassle already and our some of our teacher do let their personal opinion of you affect their grade. (A certain teacher who also happened to be a girl’s basketball coach always gave out 100% on the basketball players’ homework even though they didn’t have it completed, yet another student who had everything done would be marked down for having a small error.) I just found this topic very intriguing altogether and though I would share a little.

Why are my hands so small?!

Last night, I stayed with my friend Alexis. We’ve been getting closer lately (same with Breanna) and its nice to have friends that I can hang out with and not feel like I have to hide part of myself.

At first, we sat down to watch a movie but the DVD must have been scratched because a half an hour in it started skipping and then got stuck on a frame. 15 minutes later it resumed and was at the end of the movie so we ended up not watching that one.

We took a dinner break for Spaghetti and I was so happy that her mom make the noodles and sauce separately to let you put your own amount of sauce on it. My grandma put its all together before she puts it on the table, and I would really rather put my own sauce on it so I can have the amount I want. We both alerted each other of our love of garlic bread. It really is a wondrous food!~

After dinner, we played Guitar Hero with her older brother for about the next three hours. I forgot how bad I am at that game because my hands are too small to hit all the buttons on the guitar controller. I had to play everything on easy because my fingers could only hit the first three buttons.

Eventually, we laid down in the living room and attempted to watch Big Hero 6. She’s seen it before but said it was good so we wanted to watch it together. We were all curled up together in the same chair but she fell asleep really quickly since she had only had two hours of sleep the previous night. I didn’t want to lay on her and wake her up so I moved to the couch and tried to watch the rest of the movie but I also passed out.

My night was fun, and its the first time in awhile that a friend actually invited just me over to stay. I look forward to doing it again.

Until next time!~

I Waltzed!

I got almost now sleep last night because my cat would not be quiet. He was meowing so aggressively that it was like he was screaming. Although because of it I was able to be up before my alarm and had time to do my make up. I mentioned to Breanna that my liquid eye liner broke the other day and she gave me one of her many so I got to use it for the first time today. I really like it. It’s much better than the one I was using from the dollar store. (I hardly use it so I don’t buy expensive makeup).

Today was ACT testing day at school, so the juniors got to go home early after their test. And on top of that only 20 seniors showed up. It wasn’t senior skip day. That’s already planned for another day; they just decided to not come. Because of ACT testing, the entire freshmen hallway – which also functions as the English department- was blocked off so we had to be shuffled around to different rooms. First hour was fine because we could still get tot he sign on the door to tell us where to go…But second hour was a bit difficult. We all went to the normal room but a bunch of freshmen were in there and they just told us to leave. However, none of the administration told us where to go so we just wandered around until we straggled into the computer lab.

I also brought my lunch to school, but I saw that we were having cheesy bread sticks (I actually think they are called “Bosco sticks”) for lunch so . . . I bought a lunch instead of eating the one I brought. My inner fat kid really has problems -_-

I had to go back to the school tonight for play practice. We learned to waltz tonight, but half the people weren’t there because they were sick or skipped school that day. In our school its in the handbook that if you don’t come to school you aren’t allowed to come later or go out anywhere in town (they actually get people in trouble with this). A lot of the girls had to dance as the guy part tonight when they really needed to learn the female part. I danced with my friend Taylor, a girl. She couldn’t get it so I had to keep leading her even though I was dancing the girls part. I don’t mind leading, I actually like being in control, but I wasn’t supposed to be. My legs are so tired and I’m so sweaty now though. We aren’t allowed to have out heels on the ground when we are dancing to my calves and the balls of my feet are killing me. We did two straight hours of waltzing with three five minute breaks.

I really should go sleep now, but I’m going to go torrent the Berryz concert instead. (I’ll talk about my precious Berryz after I watch the concert!)

Badminton And Snow Don’t Mix

Today I went to play badminton with my friend and her twin sister at their cousin’s house. Their cousin is quite a bit older than them -probably 40something- but she’s still really good at badminton. We played it outside and we currently have a lot of snow so I was sliding and going into snow piles constantly. After awhile, none of us could feel our toes so we went inside.

We drank cola out of old honey bottles, the ones shaped like bears, which was adorable to me. Then we curled up in front of a heater and watched the last hour of Frozen. I’ve never seen Frozen, but I know the plot and it doesn’t really interest me a lot to watch it. It was mainly Jordan (the sister) and her cousin watching it while Alexis and I talked about anime. I also found out that Alexis and I want to go to the same college, so roomies maybe?

I’ve recently been watching anime again since Quentin decided to start watching it and I’ve fallen behind. He makes fun of me that I’ve fallen behind, but its not my fault he decided to start watching everything I told him to watch after we broke up.

*spoilers*

I finally got to the part of Sword Art Online where they get out of the game. I feel like ending it there would have been nice, but no there’s still more to the first season. Alexis informed me that the second half of the season is just shit, like I predict it to be.

*spoilers end*

I’m also watching Deadman Wonderland, which I only have a few episodes left to finish.

This isn’t anime, but I’m three episodes away from finishing the first season of Supernatural. Dean is my favorite, if you were wondering. Also, in Doctor Who I am toward the end of the fourth season. I’ll be so sad to see Tennant go, especially since I don’t really like the 11th Doctor from what I’ve seen of him on iFunny.