The Site
Me
Writing
You
Credits
Welcome
Welcome to Rain Symphony (formerly known as Forgotten Hope), phoenix's weblog/personal site. Here you will find my thoughts about my life, as well as whatever other random things I decide to put on here. Enjoy your stay.
Hmm...
I saw that the spam comments stopped, so I'm (hesitantly) putting RS back online for now. Though, I don't know whether the spam stopped because I replaced RS's index or not, so...we'll see.
I was also away for a week on a cruise to the Caribbean. It was fun and very relaxing, though when I came back I was hit over the head with a deluge of AP prep. This past week has been fast, yet brutal. God, APs start tomorrow...I can't believe it...someone kill me now. (At least I'm going to be jumping for joy when they're all over.)
Due to my terrible luck (or fate), I also have to write a 500-word essay and revise my seven-page personal essay for tomorrow as well. Seriously, this sort of thing shouldn't be allowed!
I've joined the Axis Powers Hetalia bandwagon, too (and was doing APH fanart instead of studying for APs yesterday...shh!).
I have so many things I want to do after APs are over (even though I'm still going to have some schoolwork to do)--read a bunch of books, watch some movies, do more writing, maybe do some more artwork, play some video games... Hey, I can still dream before the APs are over, right?
Posted by phoenix on 2009-05-03 ~
Comments
SPAM??!
Edit: So I had to delete that entry, because the comments kept coming. Okay. I sure hope it doesn't happen again...
So I log on to find, like, 50 spam comments on one of my blog entries. I try to go to that entry to see whether these comments are actually spam or not...but the comments page to that blog entry has disappeared??!
I'm...unnerved. My blog script has been working perfectly for a long time, and now...I don't know. If this keeps up...I *might* consider moving to something like Livejournal...But I really, really want to keep RS...
Well, what I was actually going to talk about was more Assassin's Creed 2. We finally have a character design for the new Altair, a.k.a. Ezio Auditore de Firenze!
Here!
Oh my gosh, he looks so cool! Festive, just right for the Renaissance! I can't wait to see what'll happen in this game!
Posted by phoenix on 2009-04-11 ~
Comments
Italy?!
Homygosh, I just saw the teaser for Assassin's Creed 2 and am TOTALLY psyched. Never mind the fact that there was no gameplay and nothing beyond a parchment with vague Da Vinci references shown. Never mind that the last time I got hyped up over a game (Sonic and the Black Knight) it didn't turn out so well. And never mind that I haven't even played the first Assassin's Creed before (hopefully I'll be able to during the summer)--I'm now bursting with excitement and curiosity.
So apparently AC2 is taking place in Italy instead of the Middle East, which is pretty cool. Evidently the earlier rumors were true; the protagonist is one Ezio and the environments are more colorful, a la Venetian Carnevale. This, Dante, and Picolitrosso's Urn from Gaia are making me want to learn Italian now, haha.
Short week this week, yay. I'm now at the point where I don't want to do any work anymore. This week, then next week, then vacation! Huzzah! I'll be off in the Caribbean instead of studying for my APs, though. I can't wait to be done with APs. Then no more work, graduation, and--off to college! Whoohoo!
In other news, I've lost almost all of my faith in the fantasy genre. When it's not the terrible books making big bucks (Twilight and Eragon--have you heard Inheritance is now going to be a seven-book series? Oh, kill me now), it's books filled with either cliches and boring writing or books filled with gore or sex (heterosexual, homosexual, and/or incestuous, take your pick).
What happened to the age of intellectual books, for crying out loud? I'm reading Virginia Woolf right now in my AP Lit class, and I'm just blown away by her writing (even though the plot and stream-of-consciousness thing confuses me). Why, world, why??
Reading such meaningless books/short stories makes me rage inside and feel determined to revolutionize (or at least revitalize) the fantasy genre after college. (Except that if I write something that's actually good, I think I'd more likely end up as one of those authors who nobody knows. Sob.)
My creative writing class isn't exactly helping me out, though. It's occurred to me that I'd probably get more benefit out of writing during a free block than taking this class. I'm hardly learning anything and my teacher is annoying. The only reason I didn't drop was that I have a friend to talk to, but right now I'm unwilling to put any effort into the class. Guh.
Posted by phoenix on 2009-04-06 ~
Comments
March's a Depressing Month
Longest month of the year, no vacations or even holidays, a time between winter and spring, schoolwork, etc...
Today was kind of a weird day. My parents were arguing, my sister's sick, and I'm not used to being the only "stable" person in the house. I had my week of depression a couple of weeks ago, which might be why I'm determined to be at least semi-cheerful, but it was still a strange day.
So I borrowed three books by Elizabeth Bear and I was excited to read them because the premises sounded intriguing. Well, I started the alternate historical fantasy about Shakespeare and Marley (Marlowe) and was...probably scarred for life. Congratulations, Elizabeth Bear, for completely ruining Shakespeare for me. (Noo, my beloved Shakespeare!) I'm not going into any details, since I have a faint suspicion that my ideas might be taken the wrong way by some extremists, but let's just say I took issue with Shakespeare's and Marlowe's relationships in Ink and Steel.
Another thing about Ink and Steel that bothered me: Bear tries really hard to recreate Elizabethan England, and I respect her efforts, but in places she switches between "thou" and "you" seemingly at random. That was really irritating to me.
Okay, so... I'm still working on The Name of Mercy and brainstorming for its as of yet untitled sequel (I have some ideas, though). NoM is still in its second draft, but so far is nearly double the length of the first draft, which I'm happy about. (And the writing is still not that detailed.) NoM's sequel will follow the hero's journey format, I think, out of sheer necessity. It's been really hard to write, but what keeps my spirits up is the thought that while Paolini and Meyer took three years to be published, Tolkien, Lewis, and even Rowling took many more years, plus Tolkien and Lewis drew on a lifetime's worth of learning and research to create their fantasy worlds.
If you haven't yet, read The Stranger by Albert Camus. We finished reading it in French, and I recently borrowed an English version to reread. I love that book. A lot of people in my class don't like it, though...
Oh, and I added a poem. It's mostly in English, partially in French, which I'm a little proud of, but I really hope I didn't humiliate myself with my French. I wrote another poem which will hopefully be added soon. (Hopefully.)
Posted by phoenix on 2009-03-23 ~
Comments
Avatar/Icon Update!
It's been, what, seven months since I've made an icon? Anyway, I've been on a rampage this past week and made a couple of video game icons featuring Arc Rise Fantasia, Sonic and the Black Knight, and Assassin's Creed.
I'll confess that for some of these icons, I didn't do much beyond resizing, cropping, and lightening/saturating the image. And slapping on some text. The graphics of the console games of this generation never cease to amaze me, and frankly you don't have to do much to get a good icon out of those images.
Now, if I can find any nice MMO renders...
Posted by phoenix on 2009-03-17 ~
Comments
