Yep, I am currently living in Southeast Asia. The air is better today, but I'm not having high hopes that the haze is over and done with yet.
Sorry that I was away for 2 days to meet deadline.

I can see the connection there: insanity can be associated with chaos, which is often linked to destruction (hence, fire). However, I feel that this interpretation is more on the effect of insanity rather than the cause, so I thought that the ever-changing water would represent insanity better in terms of its chaotic nature, not the destruction that happens after that. (Besides, a tsunami can bring about as much destruction as raging fire.)

As for characters, take your time - I feel that RL should always take priority over a shared hobby and RPing is not a business job, plus this is a 1x1 so I prefer a laid-back approach to plan carefully rather than rushing into starting things and then drop later when problems/disagreements arise. I too have a shitty real life to deal with, so long as my partners don't disappear for months and not responding to my calls (worse, even bumping their interest threads totally ignoring my existence) I can be as patient as my partners whom I really appreciate them not turning RPing into another "work with tight deadline".

For CS:
= Basics like name and profile info - shan't elaborate on this;
= I have no probs using pictures for appearance (obviously anime given the premise) but usually I like to also include a brief word description, not just dump an image and that's all to the character's looks;
= History and personality can be developed in IC, but if you want to write them into your CS before the RP starts, by all means;
= Abilities can be left blank for now until it's developed in IC on how our characters acquire the powers from the Rias, but stat numbers are not required since the focus is on plot and character development rather than battle scenes;
= Any other trivial stuffs can all be put in a hider for organization sake.

For magical weapons - well isn't that one of the most obvious element to define the magical girl/boy genre? :P I'm thinking that the magical weapons would be something more practical similar to FF series (without the creative flair like Lightning's gunblade lol) rather than those fancy staffs like Sailor Moon.
I'm going with card deck for Lost/Air, but still undecided over sword or daggers for Betrayal/Fire.