March Madness (WARNING: Image heavy!)

So I think it's about time I updated again. I've been putting it off until I had finished my newly designed mascot and the new layout design but I forgot how much I hate having to do line-art and so it's taken me a lot longer to finish my mascot than I had initially anticipated. My trouble with line art is than I tend to draw with a fair amount of fine detail such as the eyelashes and hair, so I can't just use the live-trace option in illustrator like in most cases. Now I could just manually trace over the line art with the pen tool in Illustrator but I despise doing this as much as the other option which is to use a size 3 brush and go over the whole thing in photoshop. Despite it probably being the hardest and longest possible solution to my problem, it does give me complete control over how I would like the final drawing to turn out.

Anyhoos enough of that... Today's post is about my beloved Sims :)

So far I have all possible expansion packs from the base game up to Mansion & Garden Stuff installed, I have Sims Free Time but I uninstalled it after it kept messing with my sims likes and personalities. It took me a while to figure out what was actually causing it... I also don't have the H&M Stuff pack because I didn't think I needed any more clothes for my sims. I have over 7gb of custom content and last time I checked it took 15mins to initially load the game. It also doesn't help I'm running it on my laptop which has been emptied and its sole purpose is to run The Sims.

This is my sim family.

My sim's name is Shou and her husband is Takashima Kouyou (Kouyou Takashima in the western way) and her kids are (from left to right) Reila, Moena & Uruha.

Other than Moena you can see the GazettE influnce can't you?

This photo's actually a bit old now seeing as Reila has graduated from (uni or college as it is in the game) and has a family of her own now since this photo was taken, and Uruha is about to graduate and Moena has just left for college. Shou also has two more sons that are not pictured here. One of them is Moena's younger brother while the other is older than all three from Shou's previous partner who got eaten by the crazy carnivores cow plant... and I was cheap and didn't pay the grim reaper enough and when he was brought back to life they weren't in love anymore so I thought I might as well move Shou out and start another family.

Kouyou and Shou again.

Reila and her now husband Takashiro

This is Tamaki, he comes from my oldest sim family the Rohter family, which unfortunately I don't have any photos of the previous generation because I hadn't learnt to take posed sim photos.

This is Tamaki's wife Angelina Yagami.

Tamaki's first son Shoichi who I was hoping would be a girl... but I after opening and closing the game without saving three times in hopes of getting a boy I gave up and just made Shoichi look like a girl. He's named after a character from one of my favourite BL mangas.

Shoichi's younger brother Hayato

This is Tamaki's younger sister, Michiru

Tamaki's slightly older brother Zarek.

I hadn't realised up until I took this photo how much the two of them resemble Tamaki and Kyouya from Ouran High, I mean I knew Tamaki did hence his name. Tamaki actually has another older brother Edward who I don't have photos of because I've aready played his sim to the grave.

Zarek and his wife Gia Vanska, I went with a 19th century Victorian theme with his family.

After piles and piles of male sim babies Zarek was finally blessed with twin girls Sunako and Elizabeth.

This is Prince Luther Van Deine, well King now... he is the first of my family of Vampires.

This is his sister Princess Reyne

While Princess Reyne is now Queen, Prince Luther is the top Demon Lord.

Prince Luther's wife Ling YuXing (YuXing Ling in western standards) which means 'Raining Star' in Chinese.

YuXing is from an old witch clan and is well practised in the Dark Arts,

ie. she's an evil witch >:)

For some reason Maxis insists on adding green sparkles for witch sims which I can't seem to get rid of...

Well that's all the photos I have now, I'll upload more as things change and family's grow etc.

In total I have roughly 5 family lines that I play with regularly, and most of them I have played from cradle to grave, except my own sim family... I can't bear to see her grow old ^^;

Anyways that is all for now, I probably should leave it there before my internet explodes from picture overload.

So until next time,

Au Revoir my lovelies :)

Manga Review: Seven Days

“Seven days to see what’s in my heart… it’s short, but it’s enough…” or is it? Can a person really fall in love in just one week or is it just long enough for a good dream?

In the story Seven Days written by Tachibana Venio and illustrated by Takarai Rihito, Seryou Touji is one of the popular boys at his school. Every Monday he will agree to go out with the first person to ask him out. However there is a catch. At the end of the week he will tell his partner exactly this:

“I couldn’t fall in love with you, so let’s break up…”

For most girls, ‘one week is long enough for a dream’, but to Touji it is not a game. The truth is each time he seriously hopes to fall in love, but so far it seems to be hopeless. Although will things change when the first person to ask Touji out is none other than his sempai? Yuzuru Shino, a beautiful and talented archer who belongs to the same archery club as Touji. Yuzuru Shino is also a guy. Initially Shino only asks Touji out of jest but to his surprise Touji takes up his offer.

Through these two characters that seem just like a pair of ordinary boys, we experience a whirlwind of emotions as their relationship grows and falters just like in any love story in real life. This is what really separates Seven Days from many other similar themed shounen-ai mangas. Unlike others, it’s simplistic and realistic, merely focusing on telling the story rather than getting carried away with fan-service and yaoi material. Having said that, the story would not have worked half as well had Shino’s character been a girl. There just wouldn’t have been the same awkwardness that gives tension to the manga that draws the audience in.

From an artistic point of view, Takarai Rihito’s unique drawing style is quite distinctive and has an unimaginably captivating quality to it that is easily likeable by most readers. In Seven Days the art has been drawn with much detail and depth, which is rare to see these today. Her drawing style is not the usual “bishie” or super masculine look that is commonly found in shounen-ai or yaoi titles. Nevertheless, the style does suit the story very well.

Overall, Seven Days is an honest and charming story that readers will find exceptionally gratifying. It’s well drawn, well written and has a decent plot that does not stray into fan-service territory. After personally reading Seven Days several times over now, there is no doubt that it is an easy all time favorite for devoted BL-fans as well as those who simply want a good read.

Return to Insanity

Yes I realise my last post was over two years ago now... but I have very good reasons and they are the following:

1. I had issues with the way blogger was cutting off my images.

2. I had intended to have a personalised blog created by the start of this year, but the dude I had hoped to enlist has pretty much fallen off the face of the planet.

3. I started uni again last year and that just swallowed up all my free time (not to mention my bank account with it)

So now that I have managed to get around problems 1 & 3, I shall probably resume writing on a semi-regular basis again.

So watch this space

Fill in the gap...

It seems I have managed to develop a bad case of writers block, thus the lack of posts lately. This is really just a filler post until I can somehow un-block myself. Nothing exactly -life-shocking- has happened to me as of late so the only big news I have to share this week is that I got an iMac. Yaaay! I’ve joined the bandwagon… and all I have to say is that it’s not as spectacular spectacular as everyone hypes it up to be. Sure it’s nice and quiet and it looks pretty, but so far it’s been a real bitch trying to adjust to all the different features considering I come from a long history of PC-using. Bah… it puts me into a bad mood just thinking about it so I’m going to stop. But as I have now obtained this piece of aluminum I shall have to deal with it, in the end it is just another computer after all. And now I shall leave you with some pretty pictures, as I have nothing more to really write about. Cheers…

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New nails, new lipgloss

Nails of the week

My morning routine

My anime collection, I've added more since this photo...

My dvd collection, which also has grown since this photo was taken

Latest fashion ensemble

Love Like Winter....

As most people have probably noticed it is now May and in the land of Oz the weather has finally changed from sunshine, lollipops and rainbows to windy, dreary, cold and wet and with the seasons my wardrobe has also changed. This winter I have left my skinny leg jeans to hibernate and instead have gone with the soft velvety feeling of patterned tights against my pale alabaster computer tanned legs, while paired with knee high boots and skirts of varying shortness.

Now before y’all get out your -you-must-be-crazy- faces and start throwing comments like 'I must be freezing...’ I would like to drop a reminder that I live in Melbourne, and the temperature here varies between somewhat nippy and fuck it‘s cold... and not forgetting the days that aren’t even cold despite being already fully clad in a big black coat designed for northern hemispherical winters.

And if I don’t point this out enough, I am Chinese, more precisely I’m from Beijing and it gets really fucking cold in winter. It’s so cold that I’ve avoided going back during winter since I was 11 until last year when I went back for Chinese New Year during March and my god I thought my blood would crystallize and this was with two layers of stockings underneath my über tight super skinny leg jeans.

That’s another thing; despite every other person’s opinion I find jeans are incredibly poor insulators of heat during winter. Especially super skinny leg jeans, which is the only kind of jeans I own and I absolutely loathe having to drag my legs through those steel cold tunnels in the morning.

So to save myself the drama and my boyfriend the whining this winter I have decided to opt for a more agreeable substitute. Thus I choose stockings. They give me the slimming effect to create traffic-stopping legs without the temperature drop, and this season, it’s patterned and or colored stockings that are the hip thing out on the streets, which is the perfect way to personalize any outfit and they don’t cost me an arm and a leg and that makes my bank account look happy too.

Okay, my eyes are starting tear up from sleep deprivation so I shall wrap it up.

Au Revoir my lovelies....

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Fashion Tip Of The Day: When the weather does get cold enough, pull on a pair of thigh-high or over-the-knee socks over your tights or pantyhose even for added warmth.

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Shirt & Cardigan: Portmans
Skirt: Shibuya
Stockings: The Sock Club
Makeup: M.A.C. Cosmetics & Dior

Retail's a bitch...

You know there is one thing I utterly loathe about shopping sometimes. Snotty, ill-mannered, bitches of sales assistants. I can’t stand them. The amount of times I have walked out of a shop because I have been treated beyond poorly by a sales assistant is just unjustifiably phenomenal. Like yesterday I went to Boxhill Shopping Centre in search of an anime store and while on the lookout for the store I poked my head into a few Asian run clothing stores just to have a look at what they had to offer and I came across one store that took my fancy. Admittedly the clothing wasn’t terrible but they were severely over-priced but I spotted a pair of shoes that I had been trying to chase down for a while now but every time the store didn’t have my size. So I picked up the shoe and carried it over to the sales assistant who was busy on the phone jabbering away in Cantonese to her invisible friend on the other end of the line. I stood there for a good fifteen minutes waiting for her to acknowledge me. Then another girl and her boyfriend came in and the sales assistant immediately gets off the phone and walks over to help her... Dude that’s just so uncool.... So I just put the shoe down and walked out. She just lost $100 in sales that day because she was being a bitch.

Other places that have made their way on to my blacklist are:

Rosemin (Chapel Street Store)

Versace (Used to be in Crown)

Gasp Jeans

Most Asian clothing stores

Gasp Jeans has a notorious reputation for employing the worst sales assistants. They’re all overly pushy and if they think you don’t have the money they will kick you out. I was once got told by one of the sales staff, indirectly of course, that I was basically too fat to fit into the dress I was going to try on. Ironically I worked there for a month, out of pure desperation of course but at least I wasn’t a bitch and they fired me for no apparent reason anyways. Asian clothing stores are the other I have problems with. Despite sometimes having the better selection of clothes and they usually fit me for a change, sometimes I just want to smack the sales assistants in the face with a snow shovel. They are just so rude I can’t stand them, and they think I can’t understand them while they mutter away in Chinese right in front of me. Well I’ve got news for you kids... I’m actually Chinese believe it or not.... if my face doesn’t give it away then I don’t know what does. So yes I do understand you when you’re talking amongst yourselves. And telling me that it’s just retail and I should just accept is not going to fly either. I work in retail too, and have so for a good 3 years now and yes I’m tough if you try to fuck around with me but I can safely say I am not a bitch and I work in one of the most demanding retail positions out there so there is plenty of potential for me to be one.

Well there’s my rant for the week. Don’t mind me... I’m just sleep-deprived and grumpy.

Brain Stew

I apologise for this extremely delayed entry... I have been rather tied up the last few days, ever since my mother flew in from China about two weeks ago. And let me just say... O...M...G.... It has been one sleepless mind-fuck... She has this crazy habit of going to sleep in the wee hours of the morning like at 2 or 3am and then wakes up again at 6 or 7am. So now I’m sleep deprived, overworked and brain dead and can’t string together a coherent sentence but I shall do my best, just forgive me if it all of a sudden doesn’t make sense, now on with the blog. This week I have been forced to go hunting for a new wallet. I am wallet hunting because my current wallet decided that it would like to irritate me by producing a hole in the coin compartment. This is probably the worst possible thing I have ever had to go through in my entire shopping experience (the second being shopping for a new diary). And I’ve now done it twice. Last time as sheer dumb luck that I just happened to find the perfect wallet in the 20th or so shop that I walked into, which just so happened to be a Guess wallet.

For me a wallet has to be something super special because of how much I will be using it and I will always see it so being exceptionally visually appealing is a must but without being too gaudy and tacky. It needn’t be a major designer label I just needs to look good, and amusingly enough there was only one out all the Gucci’s and Prada’s and Burberry’s that was worth even a second glace was a hot pink patent leather purse by Louis Vuitton. The wallet was cute and I would have bought it if it wasn’t going to cost $1090... Might as well sell a bit of my soul with it too.... It’s not the price I have issue with; it’s the price for that particular sweat shop manufactured piece of cow’s hide that put me off. Sure it looked wonderful but nowhere in my headspace could I justify shelling out one grand for it.

So after running around all afternoon from shop to shop to shop to shop... you get the picture... I finally returned to Guess and chose another one of their wallets that showed some potential. Now most wallets come in three sizes, small, medium and large. At first I purchased the longer one out of the three but after careful scrutiny I came to realize that it was really ugly and so after staring angrily at an unwilling sales assistant I changed it to the medium one. It wasn’t until I was sitting down to and sipping at a cup of tea that I tried to transfer over my stuff from my other wallet and to my shock horror nothing fit. The word frustrated comes to mind when I try to think about how I was feeling, but somehow that doesn’t quite cut it.

Old wallet on the left, new wallet on the right

So today I ran around all the stores in Melbourne to see what else was available and finally came across this little red patent leather wallet sitting under the glass in some Korean clothes store in Melbourne Central. Of all places... It’s a bit fat for my liking but it’s cute at least, and everything fits in very comfortably so it will do for now until my bid on eBay for that awesome Chanel Leather Cambon wallet goes through.

My new beloved wallet

Christ that was such an ordeal just to find a wallet. I don't understand how something that potentionally was so simply turned out to be one of my worst shopping nightmares. So I decided to spoil myself and bought a few other things to tickle my fancy.

I love Pucca ^^

Awesome Japanese Magazines that destroy all remaining pieces of a disheveled self-esteem

Anyways my brain hurts and my eyes feel like they might bleed so I shall head to bed.

Auf Wiedersehen

Tschüss!