On the Internet and My Sister

            Okay, so everybody talks about my internet addiction in my family. Everyone knows that the moment the internet goes down, I will emerge two seconds later... 'Moooom.' and everyone will know why. Today, I have seen how my sister acts when this happens.
God almighty the anger issues.
Literally threatening the world at large and assigning blame to everything that moved, she stormed through the house, cursing under her breath, hitting inanimate objects.
            And I'm the addicted one. She was watching YouTube. YouTube. And she threw a fit like dad had cut out the internet as a big personal insult. Self control, kiddo! My reaction to a broken connection is a mild sense of disappointment and then I inquire upon the matter to see if it can be fixed promptly. If it can't well... tough. If it can... yay. Jokes are always made that I would crumple up and die without internet but my sister... my sister took all of .2 seconds to go on a little warpath. What the hell!
            The problem with Rose is she has no patience or ability to distinguish corrective criticism from insult. I suppose she'd rather wallow in her own righteous indignation and threaten life and limb of who dare question her evident perfection. She's lovely, yes, but often brawn over brains, like a little lion. I appreciate her confidence and take-no-shit attitude, envy it, sometimes, but like all siblings she can... be annoying. I love her though. No matter what she says out of drama-fueled theatrics.

T.Y.G.E.R.

So I Used To Draw Comics...

            Okay, so I don't sing often, it's not really a thing I do. So when I actually put my headphones on and completely disregard how I might sound and just enjoy the music, I do not appreciate being informed of how terrible I am-ROSIE. Not cool. 
            And on a different note, I have come to the viable conclusion that I either do something everyday or once in a blue moon. There is no in-between. So what I'm going to do is try to keep doing things daily again and not just crash when I miss one day. Yay, more promises of productivity! We all know how well those go. Sigh.
            So I've been watching a lot of vloggers on YouTube  (Instead of working.) And part of me thinks 'Oh, that looks fun.' But... speaking verbally... more planning involved... we don't have a camera... I am neither British nor funny... yeah, that's not going to happen. Plus one of them draws stuff that makes me want to just face-desk because the list of things I actually find difficult to draw is quite long. Pretty much what I focused on the most was drawing faces and didn't pay much attention to anything else. Looking back at an old comic I realize I couldn't draw cars for crap, but at least it was on par with everything else in the thing. The was also this one part where I completely blanked on how to draw faces and there is just a stretch where I don't show anybody's expression. I was also attempting to draw 'realistically' in that comic.
What I thought realistic was is quite hilarious.
Though I admire my younger self's ability to do comics and not throw the paper away in frustration or puzzle herself over elaborate layout frame things learned from Maximum Ride graphic novels. And to actually be kind of decent minus the occasional terrible line, plothole, or factual inaccuracy. (I.E. A 12-year-old driving a car and nobody noticing.) But most could be explained by magic and science and things not even I could understand.
I wanna try to do a comic now.
I'm going to do that thing!

T.Y.G.E.R.

Warning: Lots of Whining and Excessive Use of Caps Lock

            Yeah, so I broke the streak. I was watching Inception with my dad okay?! I can't do this, writing stuff every day is HARD. But it lasted for twenty-three posts. That's much longer than I expected! Let's try for every other day, just so I have time to let myself not worry about this thing. I started this for fun and I want to keep it fun, and lately things have just seemed to get crappier and crappier. 
And no one wants that.
On another note, I AM SO ANGRY I THINK I MIGHT CRY.
You know how I said my pen stopped working unless pressure sensitivity tests were on?
NOW IT DOESN'T EVEN DO THAT!
I replaced a pen tip. I put in a new battery. IT HATES ME NOW AND I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO!
It's a beautiful display of karma, or perhaps irony, that this would happen RIGHT after I whine about not having Photoshop, and my dad and I have this talk about working with what you have and he wants to see me drawing on it more before he starts feeding my 'give the mouse a cookie' nature and come back all 'Yeah! I'm going to do that thing!' All motivated and happy. And it doesn't work. As far as I know, it's not the Tablet. The tablet acknowledges that it is coming in contact with the pen. 
Admittedly, my first thought was 'ROSIE!' because she nudged it earlier and I was worried because the pen, sadly, is delicate and the whole big sticker saying LEAVE PEN TIP UNTOUCHED WHEN NOT IN USE that I left on there. But it's been knocked around quite a bit, and it makes a cruel sort of sense that they would make the pen that comes with it to break so you have to buy a new one. A replacement is only ten dollars or something BUT THAT'S A DODGY TRICK AND I DON'T LIKE IT.
(...dodgy...?) Nevermind.
Now I am afraid to ask if I can buy a new pen with my birthday money because I JUST AGREED TO A LECTURE ABOUT DEALING WITH WHAT YOU GOT! And now I've got a... yep, still not working pen and I tablet I WANT to use. UNIVERSE WHY TODAY?! WHY WITH THIS!? 
I genuinely hate everything right now.
And I feel bad for being mean to Rosie.
She takes that stuff way too hard.

T.Y.G.E.R.

Okay, So That Thing I Mentioned Last Time...

            Me and a friend of mine are collaborating on a story. I have never done this before... It's for a mystery story writing contest. It is much harder than I thought, reason one being someone has to die, whether because of her insistence or the simple fact that murder mysteries are the simpler mysteries to write. We disagree a lot. I can't hold interest in a particular storyline. I like the first idea that we decided wasn't really a mystery. Mysteries are amazing to read, surely. Writing them, much like anything, is completely different.
It's waxing mildly frustrating.
Now it's very late and I am tired.
Sorry for keeping this so late... like anyone cares.
As you can tell, we didn't make much progress.
            My sister worried me today. Not the usual worries. A different kind of worry. A less funny sort of worry. A dreadfully common ailment for my generation and nearly all grownups of these times. It sort of snuck up on me.
            It was a simple enough start. She intruded my room muttering 'Mangas... mangas...' and began scouring my bookshelf. I have all of three, all based of actual novels. All merely holdovers from when I was teaching myself the style. On more of a whim than anything, I handed her A Wrinkle in Time and told her to read that instead. After all, I had read it around her age and I had loved it.
The little socialite outright refused, laughing.
I begged, I coaxed, I gave a vain shot at reverse psychology. This escalates into a scuffle. An actual scuffle between my strong, stubborn insisting she read the book or sit down and let me read to her and her 'I don't like reading, I won't!' attitude. For a considerable longer time than I would normally put toward any physical effort I was making a fool of my scrawny self trying to drag her away from the door. I kid you not. Finally I pulled the wimpy, effortless maneuver called 'Tell Parents to Force Her.' It is a empty win, sometimes hard to correctly enforce, but in the end I was reading it to her and she was listening and for a while I felt I had accomplished something. I didn't quite get the message across... according to her summary she was absorbing about as much as an infant could absorb the entire history of World War Two. After I let my disapproval be known she said many similar things that were denied to Mom two seconds later. "I don't have an imagination." "I have an imagination, but don't use it." and finally "I have an imagination, but don't want to use it now..." It's always an unsettlingly funny thing to watch Rose edit herself as she speaks, pretending the world has a backspace button and we all don't realize what a scarily bone-headed thing she just said. 
I am a reader, and by whatever god there is, my sister will be too. Comics and anime is tolerable enough. Fine in moderation. But they cannot, will not, if I have anything to say, be the contents of her entire literary background, with few exceptions. Sorry, enough ranting, it's nearly midnight.

T.Y.G.E.R.

Wattpad Stuff, Ahoy!

            Rosie got her hair cut short last night because Mom discovered lice eggs or something in her hair, my aunt and uncle now have two of the most adorable puppies, and I'm going to show you a bit from that short story series I wanted to do and haven't touched in a while because I'm not sure how I like how it's going.
Here ya go!

            A blue Cinderella dress, all lace and frills hung on the door, untouched since the Halloween of age nine. The window was framed with translucent gray curtains and faded floral wallpaper. An absurd amount of teddies over-populated the bed and closet and childish etchings were pinned to the walls, gradually falling to the floor. The carpet was stained with paint and discolored due to years of continuous abuse. A sticker-covered stereo buzzed quietly at the very lowest volume that was still audible. A light-peg-design toy sported a half-finished outline of either a hippo with yellow legs or a crude depiction of a car. Propped up behind it was a cardboard sign advertising lemonade for 25 cents, a relic of a failed burst of entrepreneurship and an experiment with an old cliché that didn't apparently work. An old game of Monopoly was set up in the corner, the playing pieces replaced with bottle caps because everyone spent so much time arguing over the car that it just saved time to decide between flavors and brands. Other odds and ends scattered the ground, begging to be tripped over by the woman perched on the dusty pink bed sheets, frowning in pure boredom and scheduling the flight back to her apartment on her phone while doing the math in her head the absolute minimum time she needs to spend with her family before she has to get back to her ‘life.’ The window looked out into the snowy winter outside, and you could just hear the snow hitting the glass. The lady in the sensible brown sweater and black skirt didn't, nor did she recognize Persistence of Memory, which was her favorite song until it wasn't anymore, gradually getting louder.

I will also post Persistence of Memory to Wattpad... now.

{Ta-da!}

I post a lot of poetry to Wattpad... It's weird because I'm not a poetry sort of person. But it's quick to write and finish and doesn't stay out in the land of procrastination for eons at a time. And I finally got around to changing the cover of A Rant About Sonnets because the text on it was bugging me. I really wish the Make Your Own Cover thing Wattpad added didn't require you to scribble the title on it. All the little thumbnails my stories have are just a pretty picture. No writing. Nothing fancy. That's the way it's always been and that is the rule. My rule at least. It's a pity, because Wattpad's M.Y.O.C. thing has a lot of good pictures to choose from....

            Speaking of pictures, I pretty much changed all of my profile pictures to the little In the Margins Me drawing I did, which is more accurate than that Phoenix-y thing I had before. I might do another one to update it, since my hair's longer and my green hoodie's gotten too old and worn out to wear. In fact, I did. But last I checked the scanner was not working/plugged in/any good. So that's not going to be seen any time soon. Sigh.

So there's today's blog in all it's ramble-y unplanned-ness. See you all tomorrow.

T.Y.G.E.R.

Stat!

             I wanted to rant about this yesterday when I ran into it again. I like seeing that people look at my stuff. I like checking the statistics and find out where my views are coming from. So when I see 'vampirestat.com' come up with three slightly different URLs a bazillion times each, I click on one out of pure  curiosity. This was a mistake, as I was informed of after googling it.
Note to self: Look up websites instead of just clicking them.
As far as I can see, if you give it attention, it comes back a bunch more. Wonderful. Just fantastic.
            Let me spell this out for everyone once and for all, because I feel like I've said this a lot. I just want to be read. By people. I want to know someone-I don't care (I slightly care, 'cause y'know. Crazies.) who-has come across my stuff and either like or doesn't like it or is just 'meh'. I'm not really advertising any sort of product I'm just shoving something out into the open and saying 'now go look at it'. I also would like it if it was easier to find other people's stuff. I don't want any crap thrown at me from out of nowhere.
         All that aside, I am really no longer in a ranty sort of mood. I am a pretty calm person, as opposed to my sister's 'YOU BREATHED WHILE I AM ANGRY NOW YOU MUST DIE!!!' attitude. This is only made worse by her new-found interest in anime, which has thrown her into an emotional tizzy that we in the rest of the family really don't need. And she now has started calling me 'Grell' when I annoy her, which seems to be always. This same anime might also be behind her recently acquired tea habit. And don't get me started on her Hetalia thing. I never really went through an anime phase. It was more of a 'I want to learn how to draw anime because their style is semi-realistic yet still doable.' thing than anything. Couldn't stand the animated stuff (It's something about the voices and the voice acting.) and would get bored with the mangas. I actually surprise her friends when I recognize characters (I'm not totally ignorant, I come across tidbits on the internet.) but the simple difference is that I know of them, not that I actually watch the show. 
At least Doctor Who sort of bridges the culture gap.
         Tumblr sort of bugs me. I have this second blog for it that I barely do anything with. I started out with the impression that I could post stuff and tried to do like my cousin and reblog cool artsy stuff, but I just sort of lapsed into this sort of mind-numbed silence occasionally punctuated by a 'Link to My 'Real' Blog!' That gets buried under the massive output of what else I've followed. Everybody drowns everybody out with pictures or a small burst of text or GIFs. And that's the particular bin most of my day goes to.
Gosh, I just go on and on during these. This was just supposed to be one or two paragraphs.

T.Y.G.E.R.

And Sudden Inspiration Strikes!

And actually stays longer than two milliseconds.
            I'm out of my writer's block! I started yet another story, but I'm not just staring at videos n' crap all day. I... crap, it's already one p.m. It's weird when you stay up 'til like three and you don't wake up until eleven. Usually I get up at, like, eight no matter how late I stayed up... I think my brain finally knows it's summer. 
            Oh, I finally got to ride the Sky Screamer at Six Flags. It was fun. I always liked the swing rides as a kid. As usual, Rosie went on only two rides. we spent most of our time running around whatsitcalled... Skull Island I think... it's this little water park with a playground and a couple slides. Way too young for me to be seen climbing on.
And I hadn't brought a bathing suit. I just had my jeans and hoodie and Doctor Who T-shirt.
I was going to be sensible. Fifteen minutes, I said. I'm not going to get wet, I said.
So they (Rose, plus one friend that had been brought along.) dumped their truckload of stuff on me and ran off amidst the running water and laughing children. The place was packed, but I squeezed into a nice dry spot next to the shoe cubby things and stow the rest of the bags and things behind it and I wait.
Then I get bored.
After carefully considering the chances of our bags being taken whether by staff or anyone nearby, I decide to start wandering around the climbing bit 'accidentally' getting occasionally sprayed with the many sprinklers on the ground. A little girl recognized Doctor Who and told her mother to tell me 'Geronimo!' from her. My day was made. Then Rosie comes up, upset because the lady at the slides said she can't go on without a swimsuit. I'm sympathetic, I know what a pest those people can be. She walks with me for a bit, and I see the red sprinkler hoop things that you run though. 'Dare you to run through it.' I say, trying to get her to stop pouting. She says no. 'Fine' I say, in a spastic burst of self-confidence. 'I'll do it.' And I did. Rosie ended up following me, I think, but she still wasn't happy to just walk around with me. I actually felt a little sad. And then she started begging me to help her buy a bathing suit. I had ten, she had ten. Twenty dollars was  enough. Now, I know my sister, and I could sense that this was one of those crucial decisions that determine whether she will love or hate you for the rest of the day. I reluctantly agreed. When her friend came looking for her, we saw her briefly choosing her outfit. She looked happy. A few moments later she was done and we looked around for her a bit. I was a little worried. I didn't know what she had picked out, didn't know what to keep an eye out for. It turned out to be orange and bright yellow. It looked pretty on her, and she liked it a lot. By the time we left, I was the only one unlucky enough to be stuck walking around in damp clothes. We had fun. Went home as tired and uncomfortable as heck, though.
            So there's a recent event in my life for you right there. I also discovered that I suck at actual video games. Oh, and when dad touches computers the internet screws up. Seriously. It's freaky. He's never borrowing my laptop again. Plus he doesn't have a clue what he's doing. I'm going to wrap this up here,make a sandwich, and get back to my story. Goodbye for now.

T.Y.G.E.R.

Productive?

I HAVE DONE NOTHING BUT WORK ON ONE STORY ALL BREAK.
            And eat and shower occasionally, as needed. Most of the time. I go to school Monday. Ew. I don't need school. I have a computer! But last Friday I was innocently drawing using ideas spawned from the Art of Alice: Madness Returns and a little of Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. (Which I had recently discovered through YouTube and decide I liked it quite a lot.) And suddenly my brain went MUST WRITE STORY. I had considered such a thought earlier, but had dismissed it for reasons of it wouldn't translate out of my brain well. (Being originally a Daydream, these things tend to end up having MASSIVE gaps in logic and flow.) It's   a twisted Vivia Drea story. And I'm not really good at horror, I don't think. It's just not happening the way everything I got done went the first day. Nevertheless, I have been a single-minded MACHINE. Well, after occasional breaks and if my flow gets broken I will have a heckuva hard time getting back into it. The main characters name is Jane Newell so far... but it shouldn't matter 'cause I'm probably not posting the story.
            So my sister revealed a shocking fact: SHE HAS KNOWN WHERE THE iPEN WAS ALL ALONG, dun, dun, dun! I feel so betrayed. After waiting, then demanding it back when she obviously wasn't using it, I did this.

I'm getting pretty good at this. Maybe I could ask for a Tablet for my birthday... probably wouldn't get it, but it wouldn't hurt to ask, right?

T.Y.G.E.R.

I'm Still Alive!

            Okay, so the reason I haven't written anything on here is A: Writer's block and B: School. I was going to write about how my first week at high school went... but... got distracted. By Ib. And Yumi Nikki. And weekend laziness. But yesterday my sister wanted to write a story with me. So I decide to break out my old-fashioned typewriter out and write something. The following really just consisted of me reading out loud what I was typing and her looting my desk drawers for stuff that was 'hers' that I 'took from her room'. Finally I wave her hands away from my messy workstation and demand she contribute. So she's just sitting there looking bored, but then she looks up. "Did you think of something?!" I said with exaggerated awe.

"I thought about eating the longest rope," Pause for effect. "In an Olympic competition!"

            Yes, that is what she said. Hmm... I just now thought of Sunny from A Series of Unfortunate Events. She did always play her character when we did the video game and our board game. On a different note: More of my story The Lost Rabbit:

                He hid behind the hotel room’s safe while the cleaning staff carried away the garbage. He didn’t fancy the idea of taking a trip to the dump. He had a different destination in mind. He followed the older people out to where the deliveries came. He hoped he wouldn’t get to dirty before he got to the established meeting place; Narcia should see him at his best.

                Narcia was the Mistress of Mirrors. The government of Vivia Drea worked as such: the Mistress of Mirrors talked to the people and the final decision was made by the Glass Jury. Both were advised by a set of four, those four being an Advisor of Swords, Pentacles, Wands, or Cups.

He was meant to be one of those Advisors.

                It was an important job, and just thinking about it made his little rabbit heart beat faster. He was going to be the Advisor of Swords, the one that was supposed to tell whether something was fair or not. It was the most important of the bunch. The member of the Glass Jury that was supposed to sponsor him when they finally decided to accept him officially was waiting with the Mistress. “Rainy Rabbit! Rainy Rabbit!” She crowed, her mousey face set in a childish grin. “You look like a storm cloud with floppy ears, coming out of the fog like that.” The ears mentioned drooped in embarrassment. He retreated back into the fog a bit. Narcia frowned reprovingly. “Ink, don’t be tactless. That is not how you make a good first impression.” Ink would have been hard-pressed to look more surprised. “But it’s his name, anyhow.” Rainy took a step forward. “She didn’t mean any harm. Don’t worry for me.”

           Yes, in my made-up world instead of the one person having the veto-power the largest group does. And the one person hears the problem first. How backwards! I wonder if that would work in real life... Also, Ink is the Page of Wand's assistant. He's in charge of this huge library and is usually working on his 'never-ending book'. He's an Advisor too. God. The dialogue sounds so awkward. Must fix!
            So much explaining! I hope I don't take weeks for the next update. So... in a word... Bye!

T.Y.G.E.R.

My Sister, Thorn

            I wonder if there's a way to get more than seven not-so-different fonts. Well, for now it's just those. So, yesterday I couldn't think of anything to write... And still don't have any idea of what to write. But I'm writing because A: rants are apparently popular so far on the poll. B: I have to, because I'll die of boredom if I don't (among other things.) 
            So yesterday absolutely NOTHING happened. Well, my sister's headphones shorted out so she was begging/trying to blackmail (me)/demanding (once again: me) everyone else to 'borrow' theirs. So mom let her use hers. Which she then lost. I found them ten minutes after I let mom use mine for her MP3 player at work and she left. No biggie, except I'm silly enough to hand them to my dear sister who thinks she's still entitled to unlimited use of it--at least till mom get's back. Dad bursts her bubble, she throws a tantrum, and once again shows off her supernatural ability to ruin everyone's day all in one go.
            The reason headphones are such a big deal is that our laptop speakers are slightly lousy, and we both prefer headphones. Only my sister, who will start arguments insisting she has a monopoly on a particular type of soda or cereal, would turn something like that into a national crisis. She's absolutely great, but she's like the girl with the curl. When she's good, she's very, very good.
And when she's bad, she's horrid.

T.Y.G.E.R