Ayarane Project

Hi.

Um.

What constitutes the parental management (mother and stepfather)? Well, that’s about to vanish into ether. Yes. Divorce. Oh my stars and 1up mushrooms, here comes a clusterfwegh.

On the upside, it means that hateful old man will be gone, meaning I can GO DOWNSTAIRS and even though for the moment we will still have bulldogs (they won’t be sustainable for much longer, though… as we downsize in preparation to leave this house eventually most of the pets will have to go, but Kestine is immune for reasons of my mental health. Seriously, you will have to pry that cat from my frozen corpse), I would much rather deal with CACOPHONY OF WOOF than the glaring eye of the evil stepfather.

The clusterfwegh is that without Evil Stepfather’s retirement income, being able to live in this house on the longterm? Uh, no. Not doable. There’d be no way I can accelerate my plot to fix myself and get my license in time. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get my glasses now, or if it would be more appropriate to fling the coins at whatever expenses pop up, d’oh… I hate being useless as an unemployed, partially-technically-disabled person in this situation.

I imagine there will be some parties coming along interested in helping, and for that I thank you. All I can think of is… well, if you have any commissions you’d like, I could really, REALLY use those. Not only for the coins, but just to keep my mind off the drama that’s going down here. :|

$20 for one instance / $50 for 3 (or a giant mob scene) / Name-your-price for any “special” projects

And that’s all, doods.

Hi.

Um.

What constitutes the parental management (mother and stepfather)? Well, that’s about to vanish into ether. Yes. Divorce. Oh my stars and 1up mushrooms, here comes a clusterfwegh.

On the upside, it means that hateful old man will be gone, meaning I can GO DOWNSTAIRS and even though for the moment we will still have bulldogs (they won’t be sustainable for much longer, though… as we downsize in preparation to leave this house eventually most of the pets will have to go, but Kestine is immune for reasons of my mental health. Seriously, you will have to pry that cat from my frozen corpse), I would much rather deal with CACOPHONY OF WOOF than the glaring eye of the evil stepfather.

The clusterfwegh is that without Evil Stepfather’s retirement income, being able to live in this house on the longterm? Uh, no. Not doable. There’d be no way I can accelerate my plot to fix myself and get my license in time. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get my glasses now, or if it would be more appropriate to fling the coins at whatever expenses pop up, d’oh… I hate being useless as an unemployed, partially-technically-disabled person in this situation.

I imagine there will be some parties coming along interested in helping, and for that I thank you. All I can think of is… well, if you have any commissions you’d like, I could really, REALLY use those. Not only for the coins, but just to keep my mind off the drama that’s going down here. :|

$20 for one instance / $50 for 3 (or a giant mob scene) / Name-your-price for any “special” projects

And that’s all, doods.

In other news, I needed something new to run while painting/playing WoW, and while wandering on YouTube I found Chobits. In usual Yoshi-ness I am nearly 10 years late in picking up on this (though I coulda sworn Chobits was MUCH older, I didn’t know it was an ’02 thing). I read the first manga volume back when I sorted for the library, so I’m familiar with the basic concept. I guess in hindsight this is why I got some lulz when others heard about the avatar versions of Blastoise, Dinah and Iggy. :P

Short version: country bumpkin-dood Hideki goes to prep school (I want to say equivalent of community college but it’s more like “night school to take the GED”) and finds a girl-sized PC in the garbage on his way home. Hilarity, double-entendres and considerations of man’s relationship with tech ensue. Did I mention Hideki is a massive horndog (and drawn to always look skeevy, with those tiny eyes and messy hair) and knows nothing about computers beyond “they can go online and give me porn?”

Also? For the dub side of things, lots and LOTS of Crispin Freeman (VA for Hideki) yelling, flailing and making a scene and everyone facepalms from second-hand embarassment XD Secondarily, you get lots and lots of Sandy Fox (Sumomo), which means my cat is all up on my desk or my bed and looking for the source of the cat-like noises coming from my speakers.

*ahem*

If you’ve ever watched any part of Saber Marionette, the concept of a persocom (“personal computer”) should be familiar, except in this world there are both male and female variants. (They are predominantly female, but you do see the occasional dude walking around in the crowds) Chobits is obviously less combat-oriented and more cute/slice-of-life. If you’re a tech-head, you might find all the Internet vocab being flung about to be a bit… uh, simplistic and “overdoing it” but it’s worth bearing with it for the punchline that is usually Hideki flipping out over some nonsensical detail. :P

You can watch the first four episodes dubbed (or all of it, subbed) on FUNimation’s YouTube channel. If you want to continue with the dub after the fourth episode, Netflix currently has it all available for streaming. :D

My piece for NSFW #150 is done, but I’m sitting on it until Monday. So I went ahead and started working on the next part of the roadmap.

I haven’t done any political artwork in awhile. As usual, I try to aim for equal-opportunity humor (or at least to not be outright mean to one side). Things like… Presidents and Congress-doods playing the video games.

Four years ago I did the original Senator Brawl piece and today it still remains one of my most popular. With the next presidential elections coming up, I’ve some big shoes (well, stretched big) to fill in the lulz department.

“We got this, right Joe?” “:D”
vs.
“I DON’T GET IT, IT’S NOT WORKING!” “Please don’t worry! We can still make it!”

In my headcanon, all major elections end with both sides taking up in 2vs2 Smash Bros. throwdown, and it would naturally be livestreamed over the internets. As you can see in the above doodle, the logistics don’t exactly pan out. I know it may look like I portray the R team as being inept with Wiimotes and video games in general, but… this does draw on what is observed in the news and inferences on the candidate’s personalities.

*ahem*

So, here we are. This is much easier than the unexpected mob scene that was the NSFW piece, so finishing before Election Day will be a non-issue. :D

Taking a break from painting to post (and eat dinner) is for winners.

Think back to high school English class. For many of us, it was mostly about English/UK literature. And unless your teacher was a rebel and traded the Cantebury Tales for Harry Potter or some shenanigans, you eventually had a run-in with gems along the lines of Tess of the D’Urbervilles. Oh yeah.

Emma: A Victorian Romance is what happens when Japan gets its hands on Tess and works its magic. Okay, maybe that’s not exactly how it came to be; actually, the manga artist is an Anglophile (and very obviously Did the Research, she hired a historical consultant to help keep things on the rails in terms of accuracy) and there’s nothing really indicating that the aforementioned novel had any kind of influence, but both are Victorian period pieces, so there’s going to be some parallels here and there.

If you are expecting something like Hetalia or, to lesser extremes, Fullmetal Alchemist or even Chrono Crusade (in that all 3 invoke real-world history as part of its background), do not look for it here, as there are no fight scenes or magic powers or much flashy effects of any kind. This is hardcore period piece material! Inversely, BECAUSE of that, the animation staff clearly had the extra budget to blow on minutiae like a five-second cutaway of, say, people walking down city streets, or a cat walking around a corner, or birds flying high in the sky at dawn. It sounds simplistic but it’s definitely delicious scenery eye candy. :D

Another thing of note: Emma is strangely a sub-only release. That’s right, an anime set in 1895 Victorian England is… Japanese with English subtitles. I guess for such a small-fry title it was deemed unworthy of being dubbed, even though this is something you would EXPECT to hear in English! (There IS a dub, but it was for south Asia/India and apparently that doesn’t count.)
Give it a spin, though: you can watch the first two episodes on YouTube. The whole “English doods speaking Japanese in Victorian England” stops being off-putting after the first 5 minutes. I think the entire series used to be on Netflix streaming but has since dropped off (boo), but can still be looted on DVD last I checked. Maybe someday it will get a BluRay release with a proper dub, one can only hope.

Obligatory VA nerdery: the titular character, Emma, is played by Yumi Touma. You might remember her as Sylphiel (Slayers) and Helba (.hack). As Emma, she veers more towards the Sylphiel end of the scale.