That's how many people are on my giftart list this year. Aaaaand I'm still sure I'm forgetting some people. 6_9; Only two people definitely get full blown shaded/colored things though...aww. XD

Anyway since I last got on there's not much to report O: Life as usual picking up after Thanksgiving...my extended fam came down to help redo our downstairs den, yay-ish xD~ We replaced the smelly carpet with laminate. It looks very...wood-y in there now. And I don't know how I feel about it because the sound dynamics of the entire downstairs area has CHANGED and I can't tell who's coming into my room anymore. D|< I spent a lot of time down here in dead silence doing nothing but listening to the house, and in like four days that's all gone away DB */whinecomplain*
Buuut seriously it looks a lot better minus the ugly stained carpet. xD;

Umm did I talk about getting a permit yet? |:
Nothing to report there really. Except me being a sucky-ass driver. e^e </whine whine whine>


Yeeep. O:
OH
And this, copy/pasted straight from my sister's journal for spamminng purposes:

Okay everyone, Clouded and I's secret Santa is backk~ 8D

As usual just note us to join, we are currently working on the layout, hopefully it won't fail like our Secret Satan. |D;
Since I'm sure some of you will be out of town around Christmas we made the deadline a little before Christmas.

Entry Deadline: December 13
Exchange date: December 23

I'll send out everyone's assigned person on the 13th so you can have 10 days to draw your gift. c:

I'll post a link to our webs page when the layout is done.

And regarding the characters you want drawn just send us a ref sheet, their name, and a description if you'd like. c8

So yes, Note either of us if you want to join!



Yep.
...
*goes to doodle on Space Llama*

<edit>
He finally died. I could see where the fin rot had started to eat his flesh, so I'm glad he didn't suffer for to long..he lasted through the night and into the afternoon, but was dead by the time I went to check on him at 4:30. ;__;

I'm still perplexed though as to why he became SO ill so quickly...I do have a good clue =^= _{Lol fourteen I already told you all this}
My mom, sister and I went to the Walmart fish department that I got him from, and that place is a fish care HELLHOLE. DB< Several of the fish in one tank had pretty advanced ick, one had fin rot as well and was about to die from it. At least one of their bettas were dead already, a few were on the way, and others had fin rot too. In their tropical fish section I could see that they only had three ^filthy_{possibly moldy} nets for about 27 tanks, and you're supposed to have one net per tank. x_X So they're sharing nets, that means that every fish in that department could potentially be infected with ick.

I can't believe I didn't realize the rotten conditions before...but if my fish was already fighting off infection from that place, then it's no wonder that the stressful transfer to a new place and cold weather to further weaken his immune system...no wonder he died. ;__;

But RIP FEESH
^{And I did cry.</3}

</edit>


Things to be addressed (AKA the shorter and less whiny version of this journal) :

I. Secret Satan Failure
II. Halloween
III. Drawing Failure
IV. Fish Care Failure
V. Fish Care Failure THE SEQUEL


So first of all.
Secret Satan.
WHY DID NOBODY CARE
I post a journal that gets no comments, completely neglect the site, then let the deadline(S!) pass for over a week and nobody says anything..? What like I just USUALLY suck that bad and you guys are used to it so you didn't say anything? xD;
So sorry for that being a complete spectacular failure, I had problems with the site and little time to fix them. x_x (PSST FOR FUTURE REFERENCE THOUGH, that's when you guys should mail me ass-kicks so I know when to get a move on orz; )


And being busy brings me to Halloween...
I completely put off preparing this year. o_o Like it totally slipped by. I needed to do a pumpkin, make a costume from scratch, and socialize enough to invite people to ~kinscin's party. O: All of that stuff put together would take like at least a week and a half...so I tried to shove it all into the day before. 8D
Pumpkin didn't get carved (it got gutted and sketched on, then the innards were left to mold in the floor while I completely forgot about it haha :'D)
And the outfit was a complete disaster. XD but whatever, I got to startle some people so it wasn't altogether a wasted experience.

So for drawing failuuureee...Idk I just haven't drawn anything I like in weeks. Which scares the living shit out of me because whenever I do that, it takes forever to get back to where I enjoy drawing X_X
And I don't exactly have forever
Because NNTM deadline is in four days ack */hide*
And I said* that I'd try to turn NaNoWriMo into a Personal Comic Drawing Month for the sake of this elusive webcomic I keep blathering on about, but that looks like a no-go at this point as well.
_{* I hardly ever actually do what I say}


...And the fish thing.
Oh my god the fish thing.
If you're one of those people who looks down on idiotic pet loving people like me then you're in for a good laugh at this one e-e
(Lol this is the longest and most boring section so go ahead and skip if you want orz; )

As you guys know, I keep bettas. <3 I have five (...) bettas that I love to death _{SHUT UP YEAH I KNOW THEY'RE FISH} and (try to) take as good care of as I can. So recently I brought home my fifth fish and put him in a tank and set him on my desk, where he acted a little strangely, but I thought it was just stress from being in a new place. I never saw him eat, but after a while I'd notice that the pellets were gone, so I figured he just wasn't a ravenous eater like my other four were.
Well.
After maybe five days I wake up hearing what sounds like him swimming full throttle into the side of the tank. o_o Which is surely odd. But after a moment he stopped so I dismissed it.
Then in the morning I noticed him laying on his side at the bottom of the bowl, barely moving his gills, so I freak and shift the tank a little, and he gets right up and starts swimming around...but then after a while he lays back down. x_x So for liikee two or three days I guess he does that? I'd freak out and worry and get all anxious looking at him like he's dead...then he gets up and starts swimming around again acting perfectly normal. No matter what he was doing though, I could always see his gills moving steadily and the pellets kept disappearing, so as confused as I was I just thought he'd settle down eventually. _{WHICH WASSSS very dumb of me, but my oldest and healthiest fish actually acted weird like that when I first got him, so I thought after a while this new one would be okay.}
Then on day three or four of the odd behavior I noticed these tiny little pinprick white dots on him...and honestly I don't know why I didn't think to look it up then. D| But they were few and *TINY*, so I thought "umm okay" and went upstairs, then spent a day away from my desk.
And when I came back down *sniff*
HE LOOKED...AWFUL. Half dead and covered in dots with shredded fins like he could barely move */sobcry*
I looked it up online and figured out that he had ick. D|

This was aaaattt...about 1 am I guess? I was getting ready to go to bed when I checked on him and discovered how awful he looked. I was pretty tired, and I'd spent the past few weeks trying pretty hard to stay on a semi-normal schedule, like wake up around 9 and go to bed at 11 or 12 if I could.
But I would much rather flush that hard work than my fish u_u;; So I stayed up all night moving him out of the tank and sanitizing everything he'd touched and looking up fish diseases online to see what I could do. O: So when 7 am rolls around I get my dad to take me to the pet store so I can go get this medication that supposedly takes care of everything your fish could possibly have (fungus, bacterial infection, parasites, etc...) It's a five day treatment. So I started him on it, and the ick disappears by day three.
Today is day four.
And he has two new things.
The ick is completely gone, but the fin rot is advancing aggressively and quickly, and he seems a little bloated and his scales are raised, which are both symptoms of dropsy...and dropsy is *apparently* about 99% fatal. He's entirely uninterested in food and has lost a lot of color. And on top of that, I'm sure he's suffering.

and I am SO. UNBEARABLY SAD.
I mean I understand that this is just a $5 fish. And that I was dumb when the medication cost $6.45. BUT I LOVE HIM OKAY just because he's tiny and scaly doesn't mean I should care less about his health than something that's lap-sized and furry. I put a lot of care and effort into these guys, but I'm not sad that I wasted my time...He's a life that's dependent on me to take care of him, so knowing that I let him die because I didn't do good enough IS very upsetting. ;_; I'm sorry but it is. And I will probably cry when he dies. ... I will probably cry before he dies. Which may not be long, if this is dropsy.
The man at Petsmart said to change the water on day five...so I'll change it tomorrow and see if anything is different. I'm hoping on that 1% chance.

</this is the end of my fish's lament.>



So now that I've bored you all, how are things with you? <3 I finally just went and deleted all the comments/activity messages, journals and deviations that had been piling up...like 300+ for each. :/ Maybe one of these days I'll figure out how to stay on top of those.

Since I suck, you can mail to participate for another three days.


And if you want to, you can replace a description with a costume suggestion. o: Otherwise it'll be "unspecified" and up to whoever draws your character. :U


Yeah I know.
I need to be moreee...organized.
<sub>AND THE FLIPPING CODE FOR THE STUPID SITE FELL APART ARGGHHH SDLKFSJLDFKJSDFLJ


...Oh and I made it into NNTM. yay.</sub>

Because that title is about the very worst thing I've said about you in a few years. xD ♥♥ AND YEAH I CURSE, but nobody's forcing you to read it





...OHLOL sorry guys my dad googled my dA page (which is obviously bad considering all the cursing and such lol) and then he comes to tell my mom that I talk shit about them on here...which I really haven't for a long while. |D So either he found something so outdated that I don't even remember it, or is just screwing with me. *skip*


Secret Satan entries are due today! So be sure to note if you're entering. The site should be up shortly and notes will be sent out tomorrow to tell you who to draw for.

On an entirely unrelated and epic note, I found my KH1 soundtrack. |D The thing was like twenty flipping dollars but it's so worth it lol. The songs make me ridiculously happy. XD


...mmm not much to actually update. :U

>8D YESSS it is here. A few days late but that's okay! xD

The art exchange this season is hosted by myself and ~Meggzi. For the Halloween theme, we're going to have you guys draw your gift with the character in costume, trick or treating or slicing the heads off their victims or doing something else terrifying and gruesome, whichever is more in character. cB You can either design your character's outfit and submit it with your reference sheet, or leave it up to whoever is drawing your gift.

To participate, note me or ~Meggzi with your name, up to four references of whatever characters you'd like drawn, and short descriptions of those characters. You can design a Halloween costume for your characters or decide to leave it up to your Secret Satan. :k

The deadline to sign up and turn in your references is the fifteenth, so be sure to note us by then! The deadline to have your images done is the thirtieth, and the gifts will be available for pickup on the 31st. Just like last time, if you think you can't make any of those dates, just don't sign up. We had some people left without gifts last time and frankly that's just rude. DB

The site isn't quite ready yet, but it should be up shortly as I'm now heading upstairs to kick Megan into working on the layout :'D Yay. ♥♥

Happy Haunting cB<