So since tumblr hates porn and 'female presenting nipples' O'm slinking back here to post things.

Happy New Year, everyone! Hope it was good for you guys. With it being the new year, that means cleaning out my gallery. I'll just be moving things into the scraps, so don't worry, you'll still be able to find it here.

And as always, you'll find more updates on my artblog ( http://tldartblog.tumblr.com/ ) and my kink artblog ( http://tldfattyart.tumblr.com/ ).

Ugh, I can't believe that journal was two years old. There's more frequent updates at mu tumblr. :) http://theladydracula.tumblr.com

Put some things I'm not too fond of anymore into the scraps.

I've opened xommissions again and all that info can be found here: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/9841930/

Well, gods damn, I haven't updated here in a while. Hm. Well, let me remedy that.

So ACen is over and I finally get to sit down to write about it, ha ha! Over all the weekend was a blast and the bad things weren't really all that bad so they kinda don't matter.

This is my third year staying at a hotel and I decided on the Embassy Suites this year and I'm glad I did. For about the same amount of money we received more amenities (they gave us a fridge to use and a microwave), a bigger room, and complimentary breakfast. WE had to walk across the street but who cares? It was worth it!

The bogus thing was they lost :devdynamiteknight:'s badge in the mail and couldn't find it when we were standing in line. :/ Thankfully he only had to stand in the Service line and didn't need to go into the registration line. Every year they have something that goes wrong for them, I feel kinda bad. :<

Friday was awesome although I could only stand being in my costume for a couple hours at a time, Andy was a trooper and stayed in his all day. o_o Halfway through Saturday he went casual though, lol. We had a ton of pictures taken of us! I was really surprised that anyone knew who I was, my costume was incomplete for the most part. I was missing the water gun and the air tank. Andy's costume looked amazing. He did an awesome job for two weeks worth of work!

Saturday we met up with some friends and ate at the hotel restaurant. It was delicious. I kept eating calamari and got a crab cake slider. It was expensive but it was totally worth it! I knew paying off my card was a good idea! :lol:

Sunday we did some more shopping and then went home. :lol:

I'm the worst at summarizing things, mostly because I don't gather my thoughts, but oh well. XD Here's a link to my Facebook with all the pictures. :) http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?.....379.303714.677

So There's 10 days until ACen!  amgplz I'm so freaking excited I can't waaaait!!! Although my previous numberings of how many days left was waaaay off. For some reason I had my countdown set to July 21st instead of May 19th, so that explains why the numbers are horrendously off.

With ACen coming up so quickly, I did something I've never done before and tried on my costume. :lol: Usually I just throw caution to the wind and never try it on before actually getting to the convention. Well, this time I wanted to be safe. This costume is definitely a lot tighter and more revealing than anything else I've worn and I wanted to make sure my flab didn't look horrendous, even if Bubble Man is the fat Robot Master. :giggle: And its something I had to piece together. I haven't made anything for this costume, I bought everything that looked like it would go with. The only thing I would be doing is spray painting a helmet green, but I'm sure :devjeetkune:'ll do that for me 'cuz he's a sweet heart. :heart:

So now I'm just waiting for my gloves to come in the mail. Hopefully it'll be the same type of green as the booty shorts and tube top, or at least not too far off in color. My flippers came in the mail the other day but they're kinda small! D; I got confused when I read the show size or something, but I never planned on walking around in them, that would just be insane. They fit well enough for pictures and that's all that counts! :lol:

Sooooo.... In all honesty I should have just waited and read the second volume of Street Fighter Gaiden because its more of the same. :lol: In the second one the stories are about Cammy and Akuma. And when I say Akuma that inevitably includes Ryu and Ken. More wonderful art, decent story telling, not a bad buy. :>

So now I get to what I've been excited for for a while now; Mega Man: Mega Mix.  excitedlaplz

So in these three volumes every Robot Master from Mega Man games 1 through 8 is present. I'm pretty sure, I'm ashamed to say that I've never played any of the Mega Man games. ;;;._. I played Power Battles and listened to The Megas but that's about it. I really am ashamed to admit that!

Anywho, this comic isn't just a rehash of the games, each story is different and I think thats what made this comic work. Shadow Man is pretty boss, I think he's my favorite Robot Master (asides from Bubble Man but us fatties need to stick together! ;P ). The comic gives the Robot Masters personalities, very much like how The Megas gave the Robot Masters from MM2 personalities, although they do differ greatly (Heat Man is a fucking psychopath!). Light's robots and Cossack's robots are recurring characters, considering that they weren't evil to begin with.

I think its very cute, and can be funny. Although at times it takes such a serious turn I forget that this isn't X, its regular Mega Man. The author even said that this may be darker than what we're used to seeing with Mega Man. Which I kind of agree becuse whenever I think Mega Man I think of how adorable he is and I think of Powered Up which is frikken adorable.

I have a complete nerdboner for the Mega Man series now and its because of a comic and a couple albums a band put out. :lol: I should probably man up and play at least <i>one</i> of the games. I am cosplaying Bubble Man, I should at least play his game. XD

So go out and buy these. Buy them now!! I'm going to wait until after ACen before I get Gigamix. :>

Speaking of Acen, its in two weeks! I'm so freaking excited I can't stand it! My costume is almost done. My flippers came in but they're kinda small. I never planned on wearing them except for pictures so I'm not upset about that. I bought a helmet yesterday and just need to spray paint it green. I bought some gloves and I'm just waiting for those in the mail too. :)

Along with buying Maleficarum, I bought Street Fighter Gaiden volumes one and two by Mami Itou. Apparently this comic was made in 1996. :lol: I loved it, the art is a little less refined in this volume, but I really can't get enough of Ms. Itou's art style. There are a seven chapters which deal with six different characters, Chun Li's story takes up two chapters. Each story is stand alone, so if you feel like reading Guile's chapter as opposed to Ryu's chapter then you can, the only one that needs to be read in order is Chun Li's. There are some sketches and two koma(?) in the back which is nice, I've always loved those and was super entertained when Gundam Wing included them.

Reading Ryu's story, he's typical Ryu. :lol: The next story is actually about Eliz, Ken's wife (girlfriend?). Ok, so she's really just talking about Ken the entire time. Why's the chapter named after her? Chun Li's story is her in San Fransisco hunting down a new street drug because she believes its connected to Shadaloo somehow. T. Hawk vows to fight against Shadaloo and beats the snot out of Balrog in the process. Fei Long's story is very Bruce Lee, and Guile beats the snot out of someone to keep them from joining Shadaloo.

The only thing that bothers me about this comic, and Maleficarum, is that the Japanese characters for sound effects are replaced with English words. I've been reading manga for at least 10 years now. I started when manga was flipped, edited, names were changed, and any Japanese character was taken out to the point where they are how they are now, in the original format, romanised names, and sound effects left where they are with a little side note as to what it means. So upon reading this book, I honestly thought we were past that point. I was under the impression that these volumes haven't been released previously in the US, but you wouldn't think so based on the sound effects, ha ha. Kinda dropped the ball there, Udon. ;P

So now onto Volume 2!!!

So I bought Darkstalkers/Red Earth Maleficarum a couple day ago from Amazon and got it about a day later in the mail. :) I also bought a couple Street Fighter comics by the same artist, but that'll probably get its own journal.

On a first flip through, there are two sections of colored pages. <i>Colored pages!!!</i> Ugh, I love those, so much...! And the art is gorgeous as well, although sometimes I get lost with what is going on. The artist, Mami Itou, draws kind of messily. Her style is very sketchy so some scenes, lik in the Red Earth sections, were very confusing. I wasn't exact;y sure what was going on but since I played the game it wasn't too bad.

The first chapter is an introduction of Morrigan and why she has the Aensland name. I think this is the stry from the third game since Jedah and Lilith are also in it. I'm not exactly sure on it because I haven't really played it. The second chapter is the start of the Red Earth segment. This gives a better story for the game but the ninja kinda gets the shaft. :/ He's not in it at all. The comments at the end of the Red Earth story explain that Ms. Itou made this before the game came out and that actually does explain it.

The rest of the book is Darkstalkers but I'm confused as to whether or not there are more chapters to this or not. There isn't a number on the side of the book and the Darkstalker's Wiki page doesn't mention any other volumes. This comic was made in 1997, so if that's it I'm pretty sure that's it. :lol:

Over all this is a good buy. I got it off Amazon for maybe less than ten bucks. Its a decently sized volume and I think totally worth it. The art is beautiful, the colored inserts are just gorgeous. If you're a fan of pretty art and Darkstalkers, I don't see a reason to pass this up.

So, for this week's essay I decided on cartridge games and how the younger generation pretty much has no idea as to what those things are.

I was born in the late eighties and grew up a nineties kid. I was fortunate than most, having a Nintendo, a Super Nintendo, <i>and</i> a Sega Genesis. While I never had many games for any of the systems, I loved them, I still do. The first game I remember playing religiously was Super Mario 2. I would ask for the game with the princess and get mad when my dad put in Donkey Kong. :lol: I played the ever living shit out of Super Mario 3, in fact, that's th only one I ever beat. That feeling of triumph was amazing. To see Bowser fall and then the curtain right after him? Amazing. We even had the NES cartridge that had Super Mario, Duck Hunt, <i>and</i> Track & Field on it!

The next big even I remember was when I got The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past for my birthday. I want to say it was either my fourth or fifth birthday. My mom and I would stay up late playing it together, trying to figure out if the character you played was Zelda or Link, and if you named your character 'Zelda' would the NPCs refer to you as a she? Well, they didn't. :lol: That was my first introduction into the Zelda universe and I've been obsessed ever since. To me, ALttP is the best Zelda. Ocarina of Time is excellent, don't get me wrong, but I think it suffers from what Final Fantasy 7 suffers from; since its the first 3D game in the series its the most popular. Either way, love at first sight.

Our Sega was neglected for the most part, we had Sonic the Hedgehog one and two, Eternal Champions, and this Mickey Mouse game. I do remember, however, going over to my cousin's house and playing Splatterhouse 3. That shit was violent and it blew my mind. My cousins at that point were younger than my brother, I want to say they were five or under, so that had to be my uncle's game. Either way, it was hard but I wouldn't give up until we had to leave or I was kicked off the system. :giggle:

I remember when Final Fantasy 7 came out. I really wanted it but my mom said we could get a Playstation if we sold our older systems. My brother and I would have nothing of it. Like hell we'd give up our Nintendos (and to a lesser extent, the Sega)! So I went Final Fantasy-less until I got a PS2 in I want to say 2000? But that's rambling, that's not the point of this.

Wandering through Memory Lane I remember a bunch of fun times I had playing these games with my brother or friends. I'm not saying that kids these days are missing out, I guess I'm just kinda sad that there's someone growing up not knowing what it was like to have to blow into a cartridge to make it work, or getting a funny colored one, like how the Zelda games came in gold. I honestly wonder if the twenty somethings in the nineties felt that way about arcades when I was growing up. Arcades were barely around when I was little. We could go to the mall or PGN or something.

So I suppose this really turned into me rabling about how awesome these older systems are, but hell, I tried! I could never write essays to save my life! XD