Warrior, Wizard Rough Draft Preview

Hey, everyone!  Like I said, I’d be posting the rough draft of the opening scene of “Warrior, Wizard” when I finished it.  Keep in mind that this is still the rough draft of the scene, may end up only being part of the full scene, and probably has a lot of work that needs to be done yet.  This is solely for preview purposes.

So with no further ado, I present:

Warrior, Wizard

One kill.

That's all it was. One more dead body. One more outlander defeated. One out of dozens.

But that one kill was enough to make Jaren Manse sit down. To actually stop and think. Not to contemplate who the man was or where he came from or why he had come. No, he had stopped asking those questions hundreds of deaths ago. This man was important because he was not his kill, but Alera's. Jaren had held nothing back on this mission, but for the first time ever, Alera Quill had outperformed him.

Forty-seven. Forty-seven to his forty-six. It was one kill. Just one kill, Jaren told himself. It didn't matter. And besides, this is what he had wanted. The two of them stood on equal ground now. Alera could keep up with him.

He just hadn't expected to be so shaken by it.

He sat on a log on the beach and watched his partner lobbing fireballs at the outlanders' ships in the fog covering Lesaria's shores. Few discovered the land. Even fewer returned to tell the tale. It was, in large part, thanks to the League, a collection of guilds and adventurers acting as everything from mercenaries to postal service to military. All able-bodied peoples were welcome, and there were plenty of well-paying jobs, but there were few who truly gained glory and notoriety. Jaren realized that he and Alera now stood a very good chance of becoming a part of those few.

As the ships started to catch, Alera walked over and sat on the sand beside him. She was a pale-skinned lithe girl that Jaren thought of as short, though that was admittedly because most people were short relative to him. She exhaled deeply and brushed her long black hair out of her face. “That was a good day,” she said, looking up at him. The bleak mist really drew the color out of her violet-grey eyes. Jaren just nodded in response. “The mission went well, don't you think?” she prompted.

He nodded again. “Yeah,” he said distantly. “Yeah.” He managed to find himself again and turned to his partner. “You outperformed me today, you know. Good job.”

“What? Is that why you—you meathead!” She punched his shoulder, though he barely even felt it under his armor. “That's what's got you like this?” She gave a small chuckle and shook her head. “So how badly did I beat you?”

“Just one,” he said.

“One? Just one?” She laughed. “That's what has you like this? Please, Jaren, that's more of a tie than anything. Luck of the draw. Besides, we're being ranked together. It's not like the count even matters.”

He removed his helmet and let the cool ocean breeze dry the sweat against his face. “...Yeah. It's just...weird.” He looked over at her and saw that she was staring out at the burning ship, a distant look in her eyes as well.

“Yeah,” she echoed. “Weird. I'm as strong as you are now.”

“Yeah, it only took you eighteen years, too.”

She flicked a small ball of flame at him with a grin. “Oh shut up, Manse. Still,” she added as he swatted at the flame, “I'm really glad you stuck with me all these years.”

“I'm glad too. You know, I think we stand a chance of making the lists this year.”

“What, us? There's only two of us.”

“And Ezeo Nohr was only one man, but look at what he accomplished.”

Alera laughed and stood, taking Jaren's hand and pulling him to his feet. “Ah, yes, Master Ezeo. Remind me again, is he on par with the gods, or greater than them?”

He gave her a playful shove. “Shut up! He's an impressive man, you runt.”

“This runt beat you today, meathead.”

“Yeah, well, enjoy it while you can. You know that there's no way I'm letting that happen again.”

“As if!” She grinned. “I've tasted victory now. I won't let it slip past me so easily anymore.”

They joked and talked like that on their way back to the League. The organization had started as just a single, simple guild hall, but had grown larger as dormitories were added for adventurers. Additions to the hall were needed to accommodate the League's growth. Blacksmiths and enchanters flocked in to sell their wares. The League expanded as its fame and popularity increased. In the three years that Jaren and Alera had been members, it had finally overtaken the city. What had once been known as Amnestia City was now simply the League. Many of the same shops remained, but vendors knew their sales base consisted of two groups: adventurers and tourists.

“So the Winter's Requiem have invited us and Deadeye out tonight,” Jaren said as they entered the city gates. “Celebrating the outlander defeat today.”

“Really? Is Ashna coming this time?”

Jaren thought. The reptilos man wasn't exactly shy, but.... “I'm not sure. I wouldn't expect him. He's not fond of being around so many humans.”

Alera rolled her eyes. “Why doesn't he just invite some more repitolos? Does he not get any say? Anyway, I assume you're planning on going?”

“Of course. They're footing the bill. I'm not going to pass on a free meal.”

“And Deadeye will be there.”

He hesitated. “Okay, yes, and Deadeye will be there, but come on, Alera. Free food. You're going, aren't you?”

“Of course,” she said, doing her best imitation of his voice. “They're footing the bill. I'm not going to pass on a free meal.”

“Hey, Quill, remind me again why I didn't dump you with the first guild I could to go solo?”

“Because you know I'd make you look bad in the lists.”

He shook his head. “Don't get cocky, yet, Quill.”

“Don't get cocky yourself, Jaren. We did good today, but we've got a long way to go before we make the lists. Think we can do it within the year?”

He put on a great show of thinking hard about it before answering in his best imitation of her. “What do you think, meathead?” It was, admittedly, not a very good imitation. Water splashed out of a nearby trough as they passed to splash him as the mage took her revenge.

“Come on, Jaren,” she told him. “Let's pick up the pace. We've got dinner to catch, and I'm famished.”

He grinned. “Agreed. C'mon, I bet we can rack the bill up enough to make Drolm actually faint this time!”

***

Well, that’s how the story opens.  There’s a lot I’d like to change yet.  The whole scene feels a bit too dialogue-heavy, several of the names of things may change (though the names of the protagonists and Meela “Deadeye” Ran, Ashna Szil, and Arten Drolm will probably remain mostly the same), and I can probably write it much better once I’ve got the full story laid out in front of me instead of just half of it.

Thoughts, though?  How did you like it?  Any suggestions that I’ll want to keep in mind when rewriting?  Let me know!

Warrior, Wizard Status Update #3: Worldbuilding

It’s that time of the year again: holiday season.  The time of the year that pretty much guarantees that I’m too busy or too distracted to write.  However, while I haven’t been able to sit down and actually write on Warrior, Wizard, that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been working on it—or at least on the larger universe surrounding it.

Yes, I’ve been doing worldbuilding.  Here’s a bit of what I’ve got so far.

I’m focusing primarily on the human customs at the moment.  I’ll be delving into the reptilos, ogre, and gnome cultures more in the future (also possibly renaming the races as all those names are just working descriptions), but they don’t show up in Warrior, Wizard very prominently since our two primary characters are male.

The place I decided to start with my society was by bucking some standard fantasy conventions.  Fantasy is so frequently a genre that elevates the “fair” above all else.  Going by the four most standard fantasy races, the elves are prettiest and therefore the best, the humans are below the elves but run pretty much everything else, the dwarves are demoted to comic relief and get no respect, and the ugly orc knockoffs are savage beasts unfit for more than being canon fodder.

I really wanted to avoid that and did so by taking a different direction with beauty and race.  There are four main skin tones among humans.  I can’t exactly describe the tones since I’m not really an expert on skin tones (I live in a very homogenized location), but going with the Fitzpatrick Scale as my indicator of skin tone, the tones would probably be about 2, 3.5, 4.5, and 6, with the two middle tones being the most common and the lightest tone being the minority.  I want to give the world a more Mediterranean feel than the Medieval British Isles feel that most fantasy has.

I’ve also been thinking about “beauty” and what is and isn’t “attractive” in this world.  As we all know, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  It’s relative, and different societies in the past have had different standards of beauty.  This society favors the strong, so I’m trying to reflect that into the standards of beauty.  Neither the portly nor skinny are particularly valued: instead it is the strong.  With the physical fighters this is obviously seen in muscle, but with mages, it’s more a manner of how they hold themselves—and the apparel they wear.  A mage can get by on being slender (though being particularly thin would generally indicate malnourishment) because they wear robes denoting their strength.

Two practices are also fairly common: tattooing and decorative scarring.  Both are generally regarded as fairly ritualistic and are almost always done to commemorate special accomplishments, so it’s not like everyone is walking around covered in tattoos and/or scars.  Also, naturally obtained scars are considered highly attractive and sharing “scar stories” is a very common icebreaking conversation.

Which brings us to gender in society.  I specifically wanted to avoid writing a patriarchy, but also didn’t want to write a matriarchy.  I think a large part of why patriarchies evolve is because men generally have more natural strength than women.  So the men would hunt and the women would take on a social role, and men have ruled the world while women rule the men from that point on.  However, magic throws a wrench into things.  With a skill based on study and intellect that trumps pure strength, men and women have been pretty much on equal standings.  This leads to a lot more women who are actually physical fighters.  No one’s telling them they can’t.  Skill’s not a gender issue, and with enchantment and enhancement, it’s not like physical strength is the final say in everything. 

It also led me to think about the family structure.  Since characters have both first and last names, who do they take their surname from?  What are surnames like after marriage?  I had several different paths I could have taken with this.  One was joint names like some couples do now.  Of course, this could potentially end up with someone taking both their parents names ad nauseum and after just a few generations you end up with a John Smith-Doe-Miller-Wayne-Anderson-Richards-Smith-Koerner.  Another option was for the males to take the father’s name and the females to take the mother’s name, like a family I know.  However, I didn’t really like that idea, and I had already given Alera and her father the same surname.  Those were the same issues with the child having a different surname from the parents altogether.  I finally decided, though, that a new surname was chosen upon marriage.  Sometimes one half of the couple would keep their name or a name would be chosen in reference to one of them.  After all, names and the standing they have can mean a lot.  For example, I imagine that there was a Manse Smith (the surname here isn’t particularly important), and his son and said son’s wife took “Manse” as their surname.  The name “Manse” was passed on for generations to Jaren Manse.  If Jaren gets married, he’d probably insist on keeping the name as well.

So yeah, those are some of the little pieces of the society that I’ve been focusing on.  And from the types of things they are, you might think it’s an attempt to be politically correct or “progressive” in my writing.  In reality, though…it’s not.  It’s really just my attempt to make a world different than ours, and different than standard fantasy.  Medieval Europe is far too stock, so I blended it with a bit of ancient Rome and Greece.  Elves and dwarves are commonplace, so I wrote them down on a list of things I wanted to do, crossed them off and marked them with a big “NO.”  Humans are generally limited to a single Caucasian race, so I made the lighter-skinned humans the minority.  Elves being held up as the standard of beauty just annoys me, so I went a different direction with it.  As for the role of gender?  That’s largely a holdover from early Fire Emblem inspirations that I wanted to keep.  In The Sacred Stones, I’d take Amelia over Gillam just as soon as I’d take Joshua over Marisa.  And besides, you’ve got magic in the equation.  When Lute (the biggest inspiration for Alera) is flinging fireballs around like nothing to take out enemies three times her size, it really makes you resent females in fantasy being reduced to the white magic girls. 

So I guess maybe there is a little gender equality behind that particular choice because turning all female fantasy characters into nuns is stupid.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been thinking on lately.  There have been a few other things, like some customary greetings (a kiss on the forehead between males), common forms of entertainment (theatre has grown very popular in the last few years), and the color of robes mages wear (a fairly simple system that will tell you what mage class and disciplines they are at a glance).  However, those are some of the more notable social things.  I hope you enjoyed reading about them, and I hope they excite you for that preview that I have coming!

Warrior, Wizard Status Update #2

Well, as you may have guessed, I was unable to finish WW this November.  It’s probably not even going to be finished this December.  However, I’m making more progress. 

I’ve finished all the “past” scenes, save for one that I might edit out completely (Alera’s Class I ceremony) because I’ve already written a similar scene (her Class III ceremony) and it may end up becoming fairly redundant.  At the moment, I’m in the process of writing the opening scene, which I’ll put on the blog as a preview when I finish with it.

Warrior, Wizard continues to be something of a struggle, but I think I’m finally getting into the flow of things.  Jaren and Alera’s characters are slowly starting to come together a bit more and I feel more comfortable writing them.  The writing still feels like a trainwreck, of course, but hopefully a rewrite will change that.  Who knows, maybe I’ll just alternate between writing the “forwards” scenes and rewriting the “backwards” scenes I’ve already written.

My plans now are less “try to get it published as a short story” and more “publish it as an e-book and see how that goes.”  While I would have loved to get it published by an actual publisher so that I could attach a name to it, I’m far more likely to find an audience on Kindle and Nook than to find anyone who’d publish this story (currently around 10,000 words).

While I haven’t had a lot of time to actually sit down and write or the ability to make much progress when I do, I have been working some on the world.  I’ve been trying to develop some characters from other guilds that we only get passing glances at, work on bits of the setting that are only implied, and develop races and other things that don’t feature prominently in the story.  I’d really like to revisit this world after I’m done with this story.  Maybe not write big, multi-volume stories in it like most writers.  Just write shorter stories, unconnected except for a few events that tie the world together.  Kind of like Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels, only shorter and not actually anything like Discworld.

Anyway, that’s the status on WW so far.  I’ll put up the opening scene when I finish it.  Look forward to it!

Warrior, Wizard Status Update #1

Things are not going as planned.

I thought "Warrior, Wizard" would be fun!  Because writing is fun!  I love writing because of how fun it is!

Naturally, I've spent so much time not writing that I've forgotten that writers only pretend writing is fun so that they don't go Coo Coo for Cocoa Puffs.

I think the thing that's getting to me is the length.  WW is getting daunting because it's a short story that's apparently pretty long.  I'm not breaking it up into chapters because, at this point, I can't.  I wouldn't even know how to since I'm writing it chronologically, a word that in this case means, ironically, out of the proper order.  Even when I finish it, I don't think it's going to feel like a "chapter" story.

This is different from pretty much everything I've written before.  Most of what I've written have been chapters for novel-length projects or updates for blogs (which are like chapters, only shorter and there's more of them).  Chapters are usually about 5-10 pages long in my usual style (12 pt Times New Roman, single-spaced--I'm an idiot who hasn't quite figured out how to measure length by word count).  The few short stories I've written have also been around that length. 

But WW?  I'm twelve pages into it.  I've just passed the 7000-word mark.  And here's the thing: I'm not even half done with it yet.  It is easily twice as long as I expected it to be.

That's not to say that I haven't made good progress in it.  I don't have time to write at NaNoWriMo speeds (and it's clear that even "finish WW" is going to be an unrealistic goal for the month), but at least half of that has been written this month.  And while I'm not to the halfway point, I'm close to it.  I only have a few more scenes to write.  And then a few more that I had skipped over.  But then I'm to the turning point, where Alera and Jaren are at approximately the same strength.

Which means that I'm finally almost to the beginning.  Non-linear order is weird like that.

I've also been brainstorming on the world some.  After some long, hard, consideration and weighing all my possibilities, I've come to the enlightening conclusion that it's all just a bunch of shit that doesn't matter in the first draft.  Sure, I can toss it ahead of me and slog through it, but all I've accomplished is that I've made a mess and everything stinks of poo.  No, what I should be doing is focusing on planting the story, and then taking that same crap and sprinkling it behind me afterwards to fertilize it.

But back to the length.  Let's say that, at my "not-quite-halfway" approximately 7000 words, I'm actually at half because I look back and say "there's a lot I can cut out."  Double that so that I've got 14,000-16,000 words for the finished product.  That's an awkward length.  For comparison, NaNoWriMo's goal for "completed novel" is 50,000 words.  The first Harry Potter book (i.e., the shortest) is about 77,000 words.  Meanwhile, flash fiction is about 500 words or less, short stories run from about 1500 words (pretty darn short) to 5000 words (pretty long).  Get up near 10,000 and it's hard to call it a short story anymore. 

So if I can't cut a whole lot off of WW (since I certainly can't/won't pad it to four or five times the length), what exactly is it going to be?  Apparently, that puts it somewhere between "novelette" and "novella."  And since I hope I can actually publish this story, who exactly do I go to?  Sure, you've read short stories in magazines or anthologies.  And I'm certain you've read novels.  But novellas and novelettes?  They're not exactly common.  As much as I'd like to try getting it published somewhere that actually has some repute, I may have to try to find a market for it on an e-reader.  Who knows?  Maybe it'll catch on.

Of course, if this whole story turns out to be a steaming pile of salvageable junk, I'll be upset.  Maybe a synonym for upset.  Livid, maybe.  Yeah, I like that.  Let's go with livid.

Anime First Impressions: The World God Only Knows

Who doesn't love dating sims?

What?  Lots of people?  Okay, that's fair.  But one the people who doesn't love dating sims isn't Keima Katsuragi.  Keima is a dating sim-obsessed sixteen-year-old boy who is known as "The God of Conquest" on the Internet.  There is no dating sim he cannot beat.  No heroine he cannot conquer.  No challenge that he cannot overcome.

Oh, and also, he doesn't even look twice at real girls.

Yes, Keima states that "reality is a crappy game."  Which is unfortunate for him, considering that he ends up accepting a contract with a cute little demon girl to help capture "loose souls" around the city by entering girls hearts to replace the evil spirits.  The boy who won't look twice at a girl now has to make them fall in love with him.

It's difficult to say how exactly I feel about this show after the first four episodes.  When I heard the concept, I was intrigued and wanted to check it out.  However, it actually seems kind of generic.  While I'm enjoying it, it's just doesn't really have that spark I'm looking for.  The characters aren't particularly memorable, it's not particularly clever, not particularly funny, and not particularly deep.  It's a nice little parody of dating sim tropes, yes, and I like watching how he figures out how to "win" each girl's "route," but I guess I just expected more from it.

It's not bad so far.  I don't know if it'll get better, but I'm going to keep watching for now.

Gaming Reflections: The World Ends With You

I am not a Square Enix fan.  I'll admit that.  It's not that I dislike Square Enix; not at all.  It's just that I've played almost none of their games.  I grew up without owning a gaming console, and by the time I knew about Final Fantasy, I didn't have access to the games, as any Game Boy Advance ports were out of stores.  I've never had the chance to play Kingdom Hearts.  So how can I hate Square Enix?  But more importantly, how could I like Square Enix?

I really don't know what it was that encouraged me to seek out The World Ends With You, then.  Maybe it was Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw's favorable review of it, when most of Zero Punctuation is dedicated to accentuating the negative.  Maybe it was the "Player Pin" decal I kept seeing everywhere.

You might not recognize this, but it's pretty recognizable to certain circles of gamers.

But whatever the reason, I decided that I'd give this game a shot since I owned a Nintendo DS and everything.  And I was not disappointed.

I'll admit that I'm not a gamer.  I really don't play a lot of games.  But I'm a critic.  The hardest part of making a "Top 5 Favorite Games" list for me isn't deciding which games are better than the others.  It's finding games I loved enough to put in a Top 5 list.  But TWEWY?  It easily takes my #2 spot (second only to Majora's Mask, which I love enough to write a pseudo-dissertation on.  Nothing's usurping that).  Why?  I'm glad you asked.  What?  You didn't ask?  Well I'm going to tell you anyway.

First of all the game flawlessly integrates story with gameplay.  Of the games I've played, only Portal has done as well.  This is because the entire story is based around the protagonist competing in an otherworldly game.  The game masters force Neku to complete certain tasks to get to certain places, require him to battle monsters, etc.  This story seems to have been formatted to work best as a video game, since the story itself is also based around a game.  There are monsters you have to face called Noise, and instead of fighting them as random encounters, you scan for them and choose to battle them.  You can grind for pins/money and experience when you want to, and you can just ignore the Noise when you want to.  There are, naturally, some story-forced battles, and later on there are some Noise that actively pursue you (though these can still mostly be avoided), but for the most part, you get to choose when and how you battle the Noise.  In fact, if you're well-enough prepared, you can run through the game and only engage in as many battles as are absolutely necessary.

This leads me into the second point: the replay value.  If you don't need to grind, why should you?  Because Noise drop pins, which are, in this game, both your weapons and your money.  And there are a lot of pins.  304 different types, to be exact.  Most of these pins level up after use, and will either max out or evolve at a certain level.  Whether or not a pin evolves is based on what type of experience it gains: Battle PP (gained during battles), Shutdown PP (gained by turning off the game), or Mingle PP (gained by "mingling," where you gain points for either encountering other people using wi-fi or just random encounters).  Even ignoring the desire to strive for 100% completion that games naturally evoke in people, training and evolving pins is fun because you get to see their different effects.  The gameplay changes drastically based on what type of pins you choose to equip.

On top of that, there's plenty of replay value in the story.  I'm going to keep it as spoiler-free as possible, but there are a lot of different agendas colliding with each other, some of which you might not even catch on the first playthrough.  About five characters have notable goals that are all opposing each other and our protagonist, Neku.  After you beat the game, replaying the story will do two things: first, completing the missions for each level will unlock secret reports that provide additional information about the world and some of the characters.  Second, the storyline is filled with brilliant foreshadowing that you almost certainly wouldn't have picked up on the first time around.  The second playthrough will provide new insight on one character, but after you've read all the secret reports, the third playthrough will provide you with insight on yet another.

The third point reason I love TWEWY so much is its brilliant use of a learning curve.  The game not only allows you to select your difficulty (Normal as a default, and then Easy, Hard, and Ultimate after you unlock them in that order), but to level down.  Why would you want to level down?  Well, while adjusting the level nets you different pin drops (and consequently requires you to play on Easy at times to get certain pins), lowering your level increases the chances of a pin drop.  In fact, to get all the pins from the Gatito brand, you'll need to face some of the most difficult bosses on Ultimate difficulty at very low levels.  This provides a wonderful challenge even after you've mastered regular combat.

And while I've touched on the story already, I'd like to bring the writing up as the my fourth point.  Not only is the story wonderfully complex with memorable characters and great dialogue, there are also some wonderful themes and motifs.  The central theme of the game is, I'd say, opening up to the world around you.  But it's the motifs I'd really like to talk about.  Shibuya (the Japanese city where the game takes place) is, in this world, a very trend-conscious place.  You gain boosts or deductions in power depending on whether your pins and threads (i.e., clothes) are trendy or not in any particular area.  Hate unequipping everything all the time?  Don't worry; it's not too big of a deal, and enough battles in an area will actually make the trends turn in your favor. 

But I digress. 

Trends are based around thirteen brands: Mus Rattus, Jupiter of the Monkey, Wild Boar, Hip Snake, Tigre Punks, Pegaso, Natural Puppy, Dragon Couture, Sheep Heavenly, Pavo Real, D+B, Lapin Angelique, and Gatito.  Have you picked up on what these brands have in common?  If you're sharp, you'll notice that most of them (actually all of them) have animal motifs.  If you're very sharp (and have played the game to pick up on the more obscure ones (like D+B) through context), you'll notice that these animals are all the animals in the Chinese Zodiac, plus the cat.  This isn't really tied into the game too particularly much, but it's pretty cool.  Likewise, the seven "metal" pins (Scarlite, Rare Metal, Tektite, Adamantite, Orichalcum, Shadow Matter, and Dark Matter) all have a color and a number of gems on them.  Scarlite is red with one gem.  Rare Metal is orange with two.  From there, it continues with ascending numbers of gems as their colors move through the colors of the rainbow.  Again, not that important to the game, but a neat detail.

The more noticeable theme is the motif of music.  Neku is always wearing headphones, which he uses to shut himself out from the world.  But on closer inspection, most of the world of TWEWY uses musical motifs.  The person who created the Underground is the Composer, the one who runs the game is the Conductor, and there's a person whose title is the Producer as well (though going into that further spoils a few things).  Beings can move between different planes by lowering the "frequency" of their soul's "vibe."  And unlike the other motifs/patterns, this fits in much better with the story.

And speaking of the music, it's great.  It's maybe not my style, but it's still very enjoyable, especially the song that plays over the closing credits (don't worry, no spoilers--as long as you stay away from the comments).  Do yourself a favor when you play and wear a pair of decent headphones, which vastly enhance the experience.  The DS's speakers do not do the music justice.

Finally, there's the controls.  Lots of people think that the Nintendo DS is gimmicky.  I won't lie, it kind of is.  Every game seems to shoehorn in the microphone or touch controls when they're not necessarily needed.  Well, TWEWY makes extensive use of both the touch controls and the microphone.  But it does it in a way that's natural instead of gimmicky.  You can be using up to six pins in battle, and they all need different commands.  From blowing into the microphone to slashing an enemy to tapping an enemy to drawing a circle and more, there are plenty of varied and distinct commands that work well because you need that many distinct commands so that the controls are distinct and the DS can pick up on them.  Why not just use the buttons instead?  Well, because the D-pad or the ABXY buttons (depending on whether you're right or left-handed) control your partner, while the stylus controls Neku.  The combat is challenging, but insanely fun, and the touch controls work well instead of seeming obtrusive.

I've said earlier that Madoka Magica is about the closest thing to a "perfect show" that I've ever seen.  Well, The World Ends With You is about the closest thing to a "perfect game."  Now, this obviously doesn't mean that it's the best game ever (as evidenced by my ranking it second to Majora's Mask), but it's an amazing game that's worth playing.  If you own a DS, you need to play this game.  Buy it, even.  It's worth the price.

What's that?  You don't have a DS because you don't do a lot of handheld gaming?  That's fair.  I don't expect you to go out and drop about $100 for a used DS and TWEWY cartridge, just so you can play one game.  However!  Fairly recently, the game was ported to iOS as "The World Ends With You: Solo Remix."  You can now play TWEWY on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch.  While there are obviously some differences between it and the DS version (being short a screen will do that to you), and while I can't vouch for it myself, I've heard that they did a very good job with the port.  If you're willing to shell out $18, an admittedly steep price that I still think is totally worth it, you can play it too.  Seriously, play it if you get the chance.

What, you're not going out to buy it at this very second?  So zetta slow!

All other games are garbage!  CRUNCH!  I'll add them to the heap!

NaNoWriMo and Warrior, Wizard plans

If you haven't heard of National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, it's basically an attempt to write a 50,000-word novel during the month of November.  It's not about writing a good novel, just about getting the words down.  Quantity over quality.  Editing can wait until December.

I've attempted to do it for a few years now, and failed each time because of distractions.  So this year, I've decided not to participate.  Instead, I'm going to push myself to finish "Warrior, Wizard."

I've been working pretty hard on WW.  Not the actual writing part, but the preplanning part, which is taking a lot longer than I've expected.  Once I started writing, I realized that I needed to know how my magic system worked.  And once I started writing again, I realized that I also needed to know how exactly my world worked.

At this point, I've decided that while the "Warrior, Wizard" I finally release to...wherever it is I release it will be a final draft, it's also not going to be the final final draft.  It's more like a beta release, or a pilot episode, since I plan to revisit the world of Lesaria.  Or maybe not Lesaria, since the name is definitely not final.  I like the world I've started setting up, and I'd like to refine it.  History, themes of racism, the world outside of the isolated island it's set on, the political dynamics, the different cultures and subcultures...these are all things I'd love to explore, but WW is not the story to do that.  WW exists to tell the story of Jaren and Alera, and in this case, brevity is the soul of wit.  A reader doesn't need to know who Caro Plith is or what influence he had on the study of magic since Jaren is our POV character and probably doesn't even know who Plith is.

So after I've gotten the basics of the world nailed down a bit more (which I've almost finished), the plan is to write.  Try to push out at least one scene a day until I've gotten the whole timeline done.  Put the scenes in the order I'd like them.  Look at how it works, then remove, add, and change scenes until I find something that works.  Tweak them to make them flow together better.  That should be the point where I can officially say that the story has moved from "rough draft" to "completed first draft."  Then I find some people who can give me feedback.  Get critique, edit accordingly, and rewrite until I'm satisfied.

What will I do when I'm finished with it?  I'm not sure.  I might send it in to a few places.  See if I can get it published.  Experience the joys of rejection letters.  I've only gotten one so far, so it'd be nice to get a few more before I can get anything published.  And then?  Then I set it aside for a while.  Work on another project.  Actually get some things written before I come back to Lesaria, because why on earth would anyone want to work on a single project?

I mean, come on.  That's just ridiculous.

Projects: DSTM Visual Novel Planning

Oh boy.  I'm starting to realize just how tricky of a project this is going to be.  Let's look at the "to do" list, shall we?

• Learn how to code in Ren'Py so that I can actually write the VN.
• Write the events up to Caper's death, since that's where everything will finally start branching.  Of course, since this is all from Poe's perspective, almost all of this will be made up of completely new scenes that will require me to work on developing at least one character who got virtually no screentime in the blog.
• Figure out the general storyline for each "path."  I have an idea for what I want for the paths, but no real knowledge of how I want them to go beyond the one that Don't Shoot The Messenger eventually followed.
• Work on a general progression of "scenes."  What scenes are involved in which paths, and what scenes are part of all paths?
• Figure out what choices will need to be made along each paths.  Basically, make a flowchart for the entire game.
• Write it.  And then rewrite it, rinsing, lathering, and repeating until I'm satisfied.

And that's just the scripting.  That's without even mentioning the music (which I probably won't be able to do) and the art (which I definitely won't be able to do). After that I have to code all the images and music and sound in, learn how to manipulate those elements better in Ren'Py, and again, rinse, lather, and repeat the process until it's done.

I'm starting to wonder if this is even worth it, considering that by the time it's done, DSTM will probably be irrelevant and I don't know if the story can even stand well enough on its own.  I think it'd be an amazing story, but it has the potential to be extraordinarily dependent, meaning that the potential audience would be tiny.  Oh well.

Favorite Characters, Part 1: Ensembles

There are a lot of great characters in the realm of fiction.  Characters that, as a reader, you think "Wow, I'd love to be someone like him!"  Characters that, as a writer, you think "Wow, I'd love to write someone like her!"  Since so much of what I've written is so character-driven, I think that I'm going to take this time to go into some of my favorite characters and why I like them so much.

When putting together this list, however, I noticed one thing: some of the characters that stood out to me the most were characters that, on their own, weren't people I could put on a list.  They always stood out in a way that was supported by others. Whether it was just another character that they played off of, being part of a collective, or part of a cast that I couldn't choose one person over the rest of, I couldn't make a list of favorite characters without having to amend a "this is cheating since it's technically multiple characters" to every other entry.  Consequently, I've decided to make this first list about some of my favorite character ensembles.


1. Isaac Dian and Miria Harvent (Baccano!)

"Say, Isaac?"
"Yes, Miria my dear?"
"Why do you suppose we're first on this list?"
"Hmmm...I guess it's because we're the characters this blogger likes best!"
"Oh, wow!"

The whole cast of Baccano! is wonderful, but these two in particular are standouts.  And no, Isaac, this list isn't in any particular order.  While I obviously love Isaac and Miria (otherwise they wouldn't be on a list of my favorite characters), I can't truly say that they're my favorite two characters.  That's a distinction it'd be impossible to make.  But they're still a good place to start, as they're maybe the best example of why I can't count them as individual characters.

You see, Isaac and Miria are characters who are always together.  It's near impossible to refer to one without referring to the other.  They're so similar-minded and play off of each other so perfectly.  Sure, there are some subtle differences in their characters--Isaac's the one who "masterminds" most of the plans, and Miria often manages to somehow be the more rational of the two--but overall they're both like-minded ineffectual thieves who spread happiness all around them.

So what sort of characters are these two?  Well, if it gives you any indication, they're the first thing you see of the series in the opening theme.  The two flip a coin, and after Isaac deflates and Miria rejoices at the result, the two dress up in Headless Horseman and Santa Claus outfits to rob a store of its candy bars.  They set out to steal an entire museum, but when they decide that they've bitten off more than they can chew, decide to keep everyone out by stealing the entrance.  They go gold mining to "steal from the earth itself."  They decide to redeem themselves for their past deeds by doing some good--i.e., stealing from the Mafia so that their families won't have to fight over the money.  When someone breaks down crying in front of her, Miria's first thought is that it means she "won" the conversation.  When Isaac asks that, in all their 87 robberies, if he's ever put her in danger and Miria responds with "only 87 times," he pauses before gleefully explaining "see, it hasn't even been 100 yet!"

Overall, the two are the most bizarrely ditzy and gleeful characters that it's impossible to love them.  It's hard to explain their charm through text, so here.  Have this demonstration of what sort of characters the two are.

2. The entire cast of LOST (LOST)

LOST is a show made amazing by the characters.  The cast is so diverse, so fleshed out, so sympathetic, so changing and dynamic that the question "who's your favorite character in LOST?" will vary wildly from person to person, especially depending on how far into the show they are.  You have the Iraqi torturer who's looking for his lost love.  You have the doctor thrust unwilling into the leadership position who struggles with feelings of inferiority.  You have the has-been musician struggling with addiction and trying to become a better man for the woman he loves.  You have the former invalid who develops a deep faith and becomes something of a mystic.  And that's only four members of the huge cast.  These characters' interactions, fights, and reconciliations are what result in the best moments of the show.  You feel for every single one of the characters, since they're all, well, lost.  Not just in the literal sense that they're castaways, but in the sense that they all need to find who they are.

No, you're not going to like every character.  You're not going to love the same characters the whole time through.  During the early parts of the first season, you will probably love Jack and Kate and you will hate Sawyer.  By the last seasons, you will probably love Sawyer and hate Jack and Kate.  It's a show that has a lot of great characters, but ask someone to pick a favorite character, and the answer will almost always be "oooh, that's a tough one."

By the way, the correct answer is "Probably Charlie or Hurley.  I can pick two, right?"

3. The crew of the Serenity (Firefly)

These Big Damn Heroes make the list with ease.  This, like LOST, is another show where pretty much the entire cast gets a spot, though I don't feel as bad since the cast is so much smaller.  Every one of these characters is loveable in their own right, but the true joy is seeing the family they form.  They all have very distinct personalities that compliment each other very well, and as a crew in general, they're probably the best one I've seen.  Sure, One Piece is kind of similar, having lots of colorful characters and a diverse crew with specific personalities and talents, but it just doesn't blend as well as Firefly's.

Every one of the crew members switches easily between playful banter and complete seriousness (save River, though that's due to the fact that she's mentally unhinged), and they somehow manage to be simultaneously very human and larger than life, resulting in something that is fully loveable.

4. Shishio Makota and the Juppongatana/Ten Swords (Rurouni Kenshin)

These guys are all fairly solid characters, and a lot of them have well-rounded backstories, but as an ensemble, they're maybe not as strong in the "character" department as some of the other entries on this list.  They're included here mostly for their designs.

I've talked before about the villain designs in Rurouni Kenshin, and while pretty much all of the villains are pretty fun, the Juppongatana are probably the best.  They're all highly varied in how they act and what they do, from the weak but loyal adviser, to the burly monk who can punch through stone, to the crossdressing guy with the giant scythe, to the blind assassin with superhuman hearing.  While I'm not going to go too in-depth into them, I'd also like to give special mention to the final villains of the series, who are pretty cool as well.  This pick for me is definitely style over substance, but that's okay at times, right?

5. Pretty much all of Katawa Shoujo's side characters (Katawa Shoujo)

Katawa Shoujo had some really great main characters, and you'll get to see at least one of them again on one of these "Favorite Characters" lists.  But today I'm going to be talking about the side characters.  No, they're not technically an ensemble since most of them don't interact, but it's impossible not to love every single side character in Katawa Shoujo (except for Hideaki, who's very boring).

There's the paranoid, femenist-hating Kenji, who's pictured here.  He's easily become the most popular of the side characters, and for good reason.  There's Lilly's carefree and cool older sister, the suited Akira, who at one point in a conversation about how life can suck, casually remarks that she wishes she smoked so that she could look cool by taking a drag of a cigarette.  There's the perpetually clumsy and apologetic Yuuko, who works a few jobs in town to pay for her college tuition and, despite her hard work, tends to fail miserably.  Shizune's abrasive father, Jigoro, who will openly insult you and offers to "help you suck less."  The nurse known only as "Nurse," who will constantly hit on the protagonist solely to tease Emi.  Almost every prominent side character is a joy to encounter

While most of them are fairly flat characters, we get some glimpses that indicate that there's definitely some depth to them.  Yuuko and Kenji are subtley implied to have had a relationship in the past.  Akira's carefree attitude is largely a front that hides that she's bitter and jaded from essentially being abandoned by her parents.  Jigoro is implied to, despite his near-abusive behavior, actually love his kids quite a bit.

Also worth pointing out: despite Hideaki being about the most boring character in the game, he and Akira have a great dynamic together.  So much so to the point that I was shipping them...up until the point I found out they were cousins.  Whoops.


So those are some of my favorite character ensembles.  Be sure to stay tuned for when I go into more of my favorite (individual) characters at a later date!

Writing: Why I Currently Hate "Warrior, Wizard"

Step 1: Listen to audiobook that mentions elves/fairies/the fey/some other name that means the same thing.  Hear a reference in the text that mentions how the people are strong with magic, but have frail and physically weak bodies.  Think of the Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards trope.

Step 2: Think of how that form of development might cause some tension between a warrior and a wizard.  Begin to formulate the concept.  Decide to use anachronic order and solidify the characters a bit.  Smile as things start falling into place.

Step 3: Start writing.  Realize I have no idea where to start.  Start at the beginning and decide to go roughly chronological, at least at first.  Brainstorm and make a list of scenes that I want to include.  Smile as the plot starts to actually take form.

Step 4: Make it through the first scene and start on the second.  Struggle with it.  Spend a lot of sessions opening it but not making any sort of progress whatsoever.  Tear my hair out over it.

Step 5: Work on actually developing the magic system some more.  Get the basics down.  Take pride in the fact that the development is moving past "Fire Emblem class system ripoff."  Use the inspiration to launch myself back into the project.  Feel my excitement build as I open up the document.   ...Find myself moving barely five sentences forward as I try to slog through the thoughts.

Step 6: Try again.  Cheer as the world starts falling into place a bit.  Press through the difficulty of starting and get in the groove.  Find out more about my magic system as I write (like the entire empathy system, which I hadn't thought to add).  Finish the scene.  Stand up and raise my fists in the air in triumph.  Uncork the champagne bottle.  Drinks all around!  It's a time for celebration!  Take pride in knowing that, now that I'm on a roll, the rest should write itself.  Smile smugly while sitting in my fancy recliner, dressed in my most pretentious robe and smoking five pipes at once.

Step 7: Move on to the next scene and instantly experience a complete writer's block as I realize that I really have no idea what the missions my characters take on will be like and that I don't even know if I'm going to include non-human races in my world.

Yaaaaaaaaay....

Anachronic Order

I'm currently working on a short story/novella called "Warrior, Wizard," which is about two friends (who are, as you may have guessed, a weapons user and a magic user) who end up struggling with the growth of their strength at different times.  It's based around the concept of "Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards," or the fact that in gaming (and other forms of media, but this is most noticeable in tabletop and video gaming), warrior classes develop at a steady rate while wizard classes start weak but become insanely powerful.

This is a different discussion altogether, though.  I could go on about it, but all that's really important to know is that I'm writing a story where one character always feels like they can't compare to the other, but the balance shifts halfway through.

When I set out to write this story, I knew from the beginning that I didn't want to tell it in chronological order.  I wanted to show that, as much as my mage struggled with feeling inferior at first, my fighter felt just as inferior later on.  I didn't want a gradual shift but a side-by-side comparison.  And so I set out experimenting with anachronic order.

Anachronic order, or rather, nonlinear order, can make for a wonderful storytelling device.  It can be used wonderfully a lot of different ways for a lot of different reasons.  In "Warrior, Wizard," it's to show that the two aren't really as different as they think and that both have their periods of feeling inadequate.  It provides a sense of dramatic irony.  While the mage feels like she's a burden when she needs saving, the audience knows that she's the one saving the fighter a few years down the road.  It plays the two dynamics against each other.

I'm not entirely certain how I'm going to tell the story quite yet, though I'm leaning towards finding an important event near the middle of the timeline and working forwards and backwards from there.  How I'm writing it, however, is chronological order.  It's maybe not as fun to write, but I think that I'll need to in order to figure out what exactly it is that happens so that, when I'm working on the order of the segments, I can refer to past events that have happened in-story.  It'll be less fun, but will also mean less rewriting.

But let's look at some other bits of media that have already used the device.  Four, to be exact: a movie, a live-action TV show, an anime, and a book.  All from different mediums (though you could make an argument for television being the same medium, even though one is animated and one live-action), all from different genres.  All use the device in a different way, but all to wonderful effect.

The first one I want to talk about is Memento.  Memento is a movie about a man who, after an injury following the death of his wife, loses the ability to make new memories.  The movie actually has two interspersed timelines: one moving forwards that consists mostly of the protagonist giving exposition, and one moving backwards, which details most of the action in the film.  The timeline moving backwards shows us exactly what is going to happen, but since most of the scenes begin in medias res (or "in the midst of things"), we're not left wondering what's going to happen, but how it's going to happen, and how the current scene will lead into the previous one.  Not only does the narrative choice make the movie interesting, it's stylistic.  The story is told in anachronic order to mimic the protagonist's short-term memory loss.  In each scene, we only know as much as the protagonist does at the time.

The next one is LOST, that show about the people who land on an island and then there's mystery and more mystery and magic and science and what's that in the woods and time travel and so on and so forth.  As easy as the show is to poke fun at for its convoluted plot (and its inability to get around to answering questions and its constant dropping of plotlines and WAAAAAAAAALT and so on and so forth), I absolutely love the show for two reasons.  The first is the attention given to characters.  But the second is the narrative style, which was what most people love about the show and has been imitated frequently since.  Every episode of LOST tells two stories: what's going on currently with the people on the island, and what happened in their lives to bring them to that point.  It becomes clear early on that all of the survivors of this plane crash are connected in some way.  The flashbacks are all out of order, and it's used to give you the story piece by piece.

The next story I'm going to talk about is House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski.  While there is plenty going on in this story, anachronic order is used to provide a sense of confusion.  Most of the book is framed as notes on an incomplete dissertation on a documentary.  It's unclear whether or not the documentary itself uses anachronic order (though it very well might, especially if it's interspersed with interviews that reveal the nature of the house earlier than the narrative does), the notes and dissertation perspectives are fractured, with the dissertation being compiled of bits and pieces that may not have originally been parts of the same chapters or even intended to go in the final product, while the notes seem to jump around in chronology some as well.  In House of Leaves, this adds to the general surreal feeling of the novel, where it's hard to tell what all is true or real.

But perhaps my favorite example of  anachronic order is in the anime Baccano!, which uses it masterfully.  The show begins with a young girl working with a newspaper trying to figure out how to tell the series of events surrounding the Immortals.  It takes place over three years (1930-1932).  Each year has its own arc, with 1930 focusing on the (re)creation of an Elixer of Life and a few mafia families, 1931 focusing on a multi-party train heist, and 1932 focusing on the Genoard family, with the young daughter searching for her asshole of a brother.  All three storylines are connected through the characters, and even the individual arcs themselves are told out of order.  In fact, the very first episode shows scenes from the end of each of the storylines.  Baccano! is consequently very hard to follow the first time around, but there's a point to the order the story is told in, which is explained in the very first episode: as in life, there is no true beginning to a story (in fact, the 1930 storyline actually begins in 1711), nor are there main characters.  The jumping around from period to period focusing on multiple characters emphasizes this perfectly.  A character described as "main character-ish" is only the debatable protagonist to one story (in which he's no more crucial to the plot than many other characters), and the characters with perhaps the most screentime are connected to all three plots--but largely just tangentially.

Basically, as confusing as it can be, I love anachronic order.  It's a wonderful way of framing a story, if done for the right reasons.  So now my job is to figure out what order to tell "Warrior, Wizard" best.  Randomly?  Jump around between relative stories?  From the ends to the middle?  Or, as I'm leaning towards, from the middle to the ends?  I'm probably going to go with that last one, since it will provide the most contrast.  Now I just have to write the darn thing.

Anime Reflections: Madoka Magica

Holy shit Madoka Magica.

I'm going to talk for a little bit about Madoka Magica, AKA Puella Magi Madoka Magica (full English title), AKA Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica (Japanese title).

First of all, let me say this: if you are into anime, you should watch Madoka Magica.  If you are only sort of into anime, you should watch Madoka Magica.  If you watched Sailor Moon or Card Captors when you were younger, you should watch Madoka Magica.  There's always chance that you might not like it, but it's definitely a story worth checking out.  If you have not seen it, you should, and you shouldn't read this full article until you have (I'll explain why in a bit).

I was looking for some anime to watch, and this was one of the recommendations I got.  I saw that, hey, it was available on Hulu and was only a 12-episode anime, so I decided to give it a shot.  In other words, I went into it knowing pretty much nothing about it, and I'm so very very glad for that.

The first night, I watched the first two episodes.  Basically, the story follows Madoka, a young girl (canon says she's 14) in Japan.  After waking up from an unusual dream, Madoka goes to school where the class gains a Mysterious Transfer Student (TM) named Homura.  This girl happens to be the same one that Madoka saw in her dream last night!  Wow!

Later on, she and her friend Sayaka end up meeting this Cute Mascot Animal (TM) thing called Kyubey that looks like a cross between a cat and a ferret.

／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼

 

Homura is trying to kill Kyubey, and the two other girls save the catferret with help from Mami, a magical girl who shares the same Japanese voice actress as Navi.  You know, the blue fairy from Ocarina of Time who's constantly telling you to "Listen!"  Kyubey tells Madoka and Sayaka that if they make a contract with it to become magical girls, it will grant them one wish for anything they want, no matter how impossible.

 

A quick aside to those of you not familiar with anime genres: the "magical girl" genre is a genre where young girls transform into girls with magical powers.  Sailor Moon and Card Captors are examples of the magical girl genre.  If you don't know much about Sailor Moon or Card Captors...well, think of Power Rangers.  Everyone's familiar with Power Rangers.  The magical girl genre is kind of like Power Rangers, only instead of transforming into spandex-clad ninjas, they transform into Disney princesses.

Anyway, at the end of episode 2, the girls had been off hunting witches with Mami, which is the duty of a magical girl.  They still hadn't made their wishes and there was some obvious tension between Mami and Homura that made you wonder which one of them was "right" and which was "wrong."  Between that and the somber and mysterious tone the show set with the art and music, I found myself wondering what was going to happen all of the next day.  I wasn't anywhere near hooked, but it was the first show in a long time that had me dying to know what was happening next.  It wasn't until episode 3 that I was well and truly hooked.

It's impossible to talk about the show past that without massive spoilers, so just a quick rundown before I do: Madoka has amazing music (do not under any circumstances read the comments to that video if you're avoiding spoilers), a lot of wonderful experimental art shifts, and an amazingly paced story.  Like I said, it's almost impossible to go into any sort of detail about the show without spoiling it, and that's because the story is paced so tightly.  There are twelve episodes, and just about every single one of them has some massive plot development.  There is literally no filler of any sort.  It's basically a series of plot twists (though I'm hesitant to call them "twists" since that implies that they come out of nowhere) that lead into each other.  It raises mysteries, and then answers them in a timely fashion.  You can't talk about one event without talking about the events that lead up to it, and you can't talk about that first major one without completely ruining one of the most impactful moments of the series for anyone who hasn't seen it.

Overall, the wonderful pacing of Madoka Magica's story, the new look at the magical girl genre that it provides, the beautiful music, and the gorgeous art shifts make it quite possibly the closest thing to a flawless show I've ever seen.  It starts out knowing its story, and it doesn't waste any time in telling it.  Now, when I say that it's "flawless," I don't mean that it's the best thing I've ever seen.  There are plenty of things out there that have multiple flaws but are just flat-out more entertaining.  Still, it's very much worth watching, even if you've never much delved into anime and/or know next to nothing about the magical girl genre.

Anyway, now onto the part of my reflections that contain spoilers.

Warning: Massive Spoilers Follow

Madoka Magica really tips its hand on episode 3, when Mami, a young girl in midst of her elation that Madoka and Sayaka will join her as magical girls so that she doesn't have to be alone anymore, gets her head bitten off.  After that, Kyoko is introduced to show that no, not all magical girls are as pure and selfless as Mami.  And after that, it's just a series of despairs after despairs for our protagonists.

Sayaka becomes a magical girl to heal the boy she loves.  A battle breaks out between Kyoko and Sayaka over whether what's "just" or what's "smart" should be the ideal worth fighting for as a magical girl.  Sayaka chooses justice, but after she's hurt by her friend competing to win the heart of the boy she loves and seeing some of the darker sides of humanity, she becomes self-destructive, pushing herself further and further into despair.  As it turns out, Kyubey (or rather, "Incubator") planned for this, as magical girls exist to become witches.  He reveals that the energy produced in that transformation is what keeps the universe from destruction.  Kyoko sacrifices herself to stop Sayaka's witch form.

The mysterious and confident Homura is revealed to have been a shy girl from another timeline.  After Madoka (a magical girl in that timeline) protected her and showed her kindness before ultimately dying at the hands of a powerful witch, she became a magical girl and wished for a chance to do everything over with their positions reversed.  However, doing so only serves to make things worse as it places an incredible amount of destiny on Madoka and making her the most powerful potential magic girl--and consequently most potential powerful wish.  Homura's desperate attempts to keep her from becoming a magical girl over multiple timelines only end up making things worse and worse.

 

With Mami, Sayaka, and Kyoko all dead and Homura attempting to keep Madoka from becoming a magical girl, Homura is left to face the witch that originally killed Madoka alone.  Homura herself is almost pushed into despair, knowing that she'll have to repeat the cycle yet again, and will only make things worse once more.

 

Then, the show does one of the most powerful things ever: out of despair, it creates hope.  Madoka shows up and wishes to be able to destroy all witches, past, present, and future, as soon as they are created.  This means that she'll take all the despair of those magical girls upon her, but it also means that she ends up destroying her own witch in a sort of paradox only possible through her wish.  This ends up relegating her existence to nothing more than a concept, but it makes things better for most all magical girls.  When magical girls fall into despair, they no longer become witches, but vanish to join together with Madoka, who is basically exists everywhere.  I guess what I'm trying to say is that because of Madoka's wish, God exists and she's a fourteen-year-old Japanese schoolgirl.  In the end, Homura is the only one who remembers Madoka, but for her, that seems to be enough to keep fighting.

This despair-out-of-hope ending is something I absolutely love in fiction.  It's part of why The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask is my favorite game of all time.  The despair only serves to amplify the hope, saying that yes, things may look bad, but they can always get better.  Madoka Magica was, as a result, an amazing series, and one that's, in my opinion, worth all the hype.

Project: Don't Shoot The Messenger Visual Novel

As some of you reading this might know, I wrote a blog called "Don't Shoot The Messenger," set in the Slender Man Mythos.  Basically, it was about an man trying to find who he was and where he fit in the organization he was part of.  I'm not going to really elaborate since those of you who know about it have read it, those who care enough will read it, and those who don't care enough probably won't even read this post.

Anyway, a bit ago, a friend of mine was playing Katawa Shoujo, which is an absolutely amazing visual novel with a terrible premise (dating sim/H-game about disabled girls developed by members of 4chan).  And then I thought back to DSTM and remembered how, early on, there were a few parts of the story that would be affected by how people shipped certain characters.  I jokingly tossed the idea of a DSTM dating sim around.

And then I thought a bit harder, and realized something.

While the Messenger was the narrator of DSTM, Poe was arguably the main character.  Most of the plot involved her somehow.  Unfortunately, due to her quiet nature and the Messenger's reluctance to go into great detail about his life, there was a lot of depth to her character that didn't see the light of day.  And many of the alternate story paths we were considering featured her.

So I figured, instead of making a dating sim as a joke, I could make a serious story told from Poe's perspective.  It would rehash some of the events of DSTM, expand the world some, and explore the story paths we didn't take.  And with those branching paths, a visual novel would actually be the best medium to tell Poe's story

And now...well, I'm stuck on the idea.  Even started writing some of it up.  It's not going to be easy, of course.  I have no clue who I'm going to get for an artist, and even less of a clue who's going to do the music (if I even include it).  AJ (Poe's author) insists on being involved.

So yeah.  A lot to do.  I have no clue what I've gotten myself into.

Rurouni Kenshin and Villain Designs

One of my blogs will be drawing a lot from Rurouni Kenshin at certain points, intentionally so.  One of the ways is that I'm going to be writing an arc with a group of ten villains, as a nod to the Juppongatana (or "Ten Swords") arc.  Of course, ten characters is a lot, and since I pride myself on creating strong characters, I started thinking about what exactly these villains are going to be like.  I realized that the job ahead of me was going to be harder than I thought.

You see, I want to pay homage to my inspiration, and that means creating villains in the same style that Watashi did.  And Watashi made some very memorable villains.  Almost all of them had not only a unique design, but a unique fighting style as well.

For example, the Juppongatana included Anji, a monk who knows a martial arts technique that can punch through stone; Usui, a blind, revenge driven man whose ears have become sharp enough to hear a person's heartbeat and sense changes in their body and emotions from it; Kamatari, a cheerful crossdresser who wields a giant scythe; and Henya, who has starved himself to the point that he can propel himself into the air with explosions and gain limited flight using his cape.  And of course, there's their leader himself, Shishio, whose skin consists almost entirely of second and third-degree burns after being burned alive.  In addition, he uses a serrated katana, which he sets on fire using the human fat that's accumulated on it.

These are only a brief description of just a handful of villains from one arc of Rurouni Kenshin.  Some are sympathetic (Aoshi, Anji, and Enishi come to mind), some are monsters (Usui, Shishio, and Gein), but they all have a certain flavor to them.  Something about them that's quirky or unusual enough or that just pushes the willing suspension of belief a little bit further (without breaking it) that makes them extremely memorable.

Now, let's compare this to another series.  One that's fresh in my mind since I'm currently rereading it: Shaman King.  Shaman King's villains seem similar to RuroKen's in some ways, at least in the terms I described.  But later on, when the villains gain more actual flavor and become more numerous, they lose a certain aspect to them.  You see, while they do have a lot of visual flavor, they lack the personality to be memorable.  RuroKen's villains always had a strong design and strong fighting method, and usually had strong personality as well (though some didn't get enough screentime to get to that point).  In Shaman King, the villains had a strong design, and not much else.  And unfortunately, a lot of these designs boiled down to stereotypes.  Sure, they were cool to look at, but they started to lose a lot of appeal when you found out that they weren't much past mariachi, cute witch girl, Gothic Lolita girl, or guy-who's-made-out-of-blocks-that-totally-aren't-legos.  They're good designs, but they lack the substance an the execution to make them good characters and, consequently, good villains.

So what's my challenge in this?  Well, I need to come up with ten characters who have a memorable design, and to make sure that I execute that design in a way that is memorable.  They all need to be unique, though.  Easily identifiable from each other.  Strong motivations.  And I need to do all of that without resorting to cliches or stereotypes.

This should be fun.

Project Updates

Just an update on what I've been working on lately:

Writing

Wandering from Death: My one openly ongoing Slenderblog.  I'm largely in the development phase for my plot at the moment, but I've got ideas.

Warrior, Wizard: a short story about, well, a warrior and a wizard (or, more accurately, "mage").  The two become close friends but are both forced to deal with their feelings of inadequacy as their growths differ.

Operation Stirling: A collaborative Slenderverse project that is currently remaining secret.  Let's just say that I'm finally starting to get to the meat of my part of the project, though.

I've also reacquired a ladybug bucket hat, so my "DaLadybugMan" persona can finally get back on camera and do some reviews I've wanted to.  I'm leaning towards House of Leaves for the first one.

In addition, I'm also occasionally working on A Terrible Fate, my Zelda fanfic, and a commentary for Don't Shoot The Messenger, though those are less frequent.

Reading

I'm currently reading Chronicles of the Black Company, a compilation of the first three Black Company books.  I'm also picking back up on reading the Trigun manga and have managed to find the first two copies of Video Girl Ai (by the same guy who did I"s, one of my favorite manga), though acquiring the rest of both series might be difficult as the former is fairly expensive and the latter is pretty hard to find.

Watching

I've finally decided on an order to watch the shows I'm catching up on in.  Top priority is ABC's Once Upon a Time, an entertaining (if not fairly campy) show about a town in Maine where storybook characters are living with their "Happily Ever Afters" taken away and no memories of their former life.  Kind of like LOST if LOST had magic OH WAIT

The next two on my list are Trigun, which is about a gunslinging pacifist on a desert planet, and Fullmetal Alchemist, which is about...a kid who's an alchemist, I guess.  A hotheaded alchemist working at his craft under the government.  There's obviously more to both shows, but that's the best I can put their concepts.

Playing

I finished Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, and was excited to transfer my info and launch into the sequel, Radiant Dawn.  Then I found out that my disc was one of the ones that didn't recognize Easy Mode saves (since the PoR "Easy Mode" came about when the translation was made easier; it didn't exist in Japan).  I COULD play Radiant Dawn anyway, but I want those few bonuses I get from transfering a PoR file over, dammit!  So basically, I'm going to have to pay through all of PoR again.

I've also gotten my hands on No More Heroes and No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle.  I've beaten the first three (of 10) bosses in the former, and so far I'm not particularly impressed.  I'll stick with it, though.  See if it improves.

Anime First Impressions: Upotte!!

This is how my friend recommended this series to me: "The girls are guns.  'Nuff said."

Of course, he had only seen the first episode.  I decided to check it out because, hey, the girls are guns, 'nuff said.  So I watched the first episode and was met by a show with a lot of promise.  A catchy OP, some fanservice and amusing innuendo regarding guns, an interesting premise....

And then, a few episodes later, I had sort of given up.

You see, Upotte!! contains girls who are anthromorphic guns.  Now, while some series would take this concept and make it ridiculous and fun, Upotte!! quickly makes it clear that it's about guns.  It frequently goes into explicit detail about the guns.  Now, maybe this is enjoyable to some people.  Maybe some people actually care.  But me?  I'm not a gun guy.  I couldn't care less about different models.  I think that an entry under Widget Series puts it best: "anime viewers who like moe [a sort of loosely defined "cute" visual style] will be put off by the guns, and gun fans will most likely be put off by the moe. Only those who can appreciate--or tolerate--both genres will be able to watch this show."  In addition, a lot of the humor is pun-based, and there are obviously some puns that don't translate very well.  There's fanservice, but it's almost not worth the time spent slogging through gun facts.

Really, I've come to the realization that it's basically Hetalia with guns instead of countries and yuri instead of yaoi.  If that's what you like, good for you.  Go watch your show about cute gun girls.  But anyone else will probably find it pretty boring once the novelty of the first episode or two wears off.

Anime First Impressions: Mysterious Girlfriend X

I know it's been a while since I've posted anything (not like my 2 followers have noticed), so I figured that I'd give my first impressions of a show I've been watching lately: Mysterious Girlfriend X.

When I started Mysterious Girlfriend X, I knew two things about it: that it was going to involve a mysterious girlfriend and that the title contained an X.  As a result, when I first started watching it, I thought it was the weirdest shit I had ever seen, even by anime standards. 

Basically, the story seems normal enough at first.  There's a guy (Tsubaki) who, as the protagonist, will naturally become the significant other of Urabe, the Mysterious Girl who is their class's newest student.  Of course, hints of the whole weirdness start fairly soon, as Urabe does several fairly unusual things.  First, she's extremely terse when addressing people, and second, she suddenly bursts out into hysterical laughter for seemingly no reason in the middle of class.  But that's fairly standard fare for anime.  The really weird part starts shortly after, when Tsubaki encounters Urabe asleep in the classroom after school, wakes her up, and then, after she leaves, um...tastes her drool.

It is at this point that my thoughts of the show went to "this is fairly mysterious" to "this is fucking weird."

So shortly afterwards, Tsubaki gets terribly sick (maybe because, oh, I don't know, he licked some random chick's drool), and Urabe comes to visit him at his house.  She tells him to open his mouth.  Then covers her finger with drool and shoves it into his mouth.  He instantly feels better, and she tells him that it was because he was going into withdrawal.  Why was he going into mouth-juice withdrawal, exactly?  Why,  because he was lovesick, of course!  From there, Tsubaki eventually asks her to be his girlfriend, and she says that the day she burst out laughing in class was because, while she glanced over at him in class, she heard a voice say that he would be her first sexual partner.

Um...what?

The theme didn't actually play until the second episode either, and once it did, there were three thematic images throughout: drool, scissors, and lemons.

Seriously, wtf?

Really, the thing that makes the show seem so weird at first is because, despite the elements that seem almost supernatural (the drool acting as a medium with which they can sense each other's emotions, the mysterious voice that comes out of nowhere) and strange premise, it is determined to play itself seriously and realistically.  Is it a science fiction or fantasy anime?  Nope.  It just has magic spit, and even then, that's treated as if it's a completely natural thing.  The tone of the show is also somewhat surreal and gives the feeling that something is slightly off.  Nope.  That's not it.  Although it's still enough to make me suspect that there's something otherworldly about Urabe that the show is going to reveal yet.

Once you get past that initial weirdness, though--once you've been watching it for a few episodes and can say "yeah, I'll buy that"--then the show becomes a lot less weird.  Mysterious Girlfriend X is a very appropriate title (minus the X; I'm not sure how exactly that plays in) just because Urabe is really the only mysterious thing about the show.  She doesn't seem to know how to conform to normal social standards, has a strange obsession with scissors (going as far as to keep a pair tucked in her panties at all times), and doesn't seem to know how to show affection, but it's clear that she does care for Tsubaki, and in Tsubaki's mind, it doesn't matter that she's strange.

At the heart of the show, however, lies something that I'm such a sucker for: awkward first romances.  Sure, the show's framing device is a mysterious girl who has a bond with a boy through drool.  But the show isn't really about that.  What the show is really about is the struggles both Tsubaki and Urabe have trying to figure out how exactly to have a relationship.  Not even big things like sexual encounters or even first kisses--not yet, at least, though the show seems to imply that both will eventually happen.  No, the show focuses on little things, like how to hold a conversation with your significant other, how to show your affection, dealing with feelings of possessiveness, and even something as small as whether or not to call your significant other by their first name (bit of a cultural gap here: in Japan, people know each other largely on a last-name basis).  It's about budding relationships and the difficulties.

So is the show any good?  Yeah, I think it is.  I picked it entirely randomly and I'm still watching it.  It's maybe just because it's the type of show that I like, but the show sets itself apart from others of the genre.  It's, if nothing else, an intriguing show, and one that's definitely worth looking into.

Thoughts: Circus Afro; or Madagascar 3's Genius Marketing

Yeah, you've seen this.  You've seen this fucking commercial, or at least this fucking clip.  And if you're anything like me, you fucking hate it so fucking much.

But here's the thing: people hated it so much that they began to love it.  It became a weaponized joke.  You'd start singing it or you'd post the picture of it, and everyone would rage at you because you got that fucking song stuck in their head and couldn't get it out.  It became a new Rickroll, and arguably a better Rickroll.

The Circus Afro dance is annoying, it is narmy, and--worst of all--it is catchy.  That is exactly what gives it so much potential for a meme.  And a meme it became!  A meme that, as part of a frequently aired commercial, became prevalent that even the people who don't know anything about memes can and will recognize it.

Madagascar 3 looks stupid.  It looks so incredibly stupid.  It's a type of movie that most people will look at and say "does there really need to be another Madagascar movie?"  It looks objectively bad.  And yet, the commercial manages to weaponize that badness.  The entire Circus Afro sequence, like I said, had potential to become a meme.  And that's exactly what the team marketing Madagascar 3 intended to happen.  They knew they had a pile of shit on their hands, and they knew that they could capitalize on it somehow.

You see, we live in an age where ironic enjoyment of things goes beyond a joke.  People will watch something bad for the sake of watching something bad.  That's what shock films like The Human Centipede and films full of bile like The Room are for.  If The Room wasn't so famous for how bad it was, would you even consider seeing it?  No.  But right now, there are people who are looking at this clip and thinking "Wow.  Madagascar 3 looks terrible.  I want to watch it so that I can laugh about just how terrible it is with people."

Yes, folks.  The marketing team at Madagascar 3 is selling their movie on the entire premise that it is bad.  The Circus Afro dance is an incredibly stupid trainwreck that makes you think "how could Chris Rock have fallen to this level?" and then makes you curious enough to entertain the possibility of actually going to see how far Chris Rock has fallen.  The catchiness ensures that you remember it and don't just simply wave the commercial off.

Madagascar 3 set out to sell a bad movie on the premise that it is bad by creating a meme.  And some of us will fall for it.  Some of us will actually go and watch Madagascar 3 for the Circus Afro, just like some of us watched Death Note for the potato chip scene or played Portal because of the cake and Companion Cube.  That, my friends, is genius marketing.  I applaud whoever made Madagascar 3's trailer.  You, sir(s) and/or madam(s), are brilliant.  I applaud you, but I will not fall for your wily ploy.

Project: A Terrible Fate

I know what you're thinking, considering that I write about the Slender Man and I'm a fan of that BEN Drowned creepypasta.  But no, this isn't another horror work.  It IS another Zelda work.

A Terrible Fate is a blog where I'm going to be posting a series of academic articles about Majora's Mask.  Think of it as a dissertation on Majora's Mask that isn't really a dissertation.  A pseudodissertation.  That's what we'll call it.

It's something that I'm really excited for, which is ironic since it's currently something that's driving me crazy.  I've been working on it for about a week, and I've finished the introduction and the plot overview.  I'm about halfway through the glossary, which will need to define characters, races, locations, enemies, Zelda terminology, and gaming terminology.  Basically, I'm hitting the tedious parts of writing it, which is unfortunate.  Necessary, but unfortunate.  At least I've finished the overview now, and while I wish it were better, I do like how I framed it.

Anyway, the next article I'm working on for it is going to go into the game mechanics, which is actually not boring since the mechanics really emphasize the theme.  After that, I'm not sure.  I'll probably cover either Link or the Bombers.

Project: Urban Legacies preview

I've been writing seriously for about seven years now, and in that time, I've grown to develop some rather nasty opinions of fanfiction.  Despite the fact that I know it can put new perspectives on things, that it can explore avenues not canonically taken, and that it's a great way to learn how to write (my first writings were fanfiction, specifically of Star Wars in 6-7th grade, Bionicle in 5th grade, and even some very short stories about characters from the Mandie series when I was just starting school), I have a huge amount of disdain for it.  In my mind, it's not "real" writing.  It's poorly-written self-indulgent fantasies about shipping and how things "should have gone" and is just overall lazy writing that is, by nature, worse than original writing.

I'm telling you this to let you know just how hard it is for me to swallow that pride and say "I'm writing a fanfiction and I'm very serious about it."  Urban Legacies (working title) is a three-part Legend of Zelda modernfic--i.e., a fic that takes place in a modern time.  I've actually been working on it on-and-off for two years (because it's mainly a side-project) but I've done a lot of work with developing my world and outlining my plot.  I do have a ten-chapter draft of the first part, but I'm doing a near-complete rewrite because it was basically the "diet" version of the story I wanted to tell.  This draft will both improve my interpretations of certain elements of the series and expand on the stories that were important but never had a chance to be properly portrayed.

Anyway, just as a preview before I really get into it again and start putting it up in readable places, here's the first segment from the prologue.

The din in the empty lot was growing, but not even the few who braved the night tried to investigate.  Anyone who dared to be out at that hour recognized the noise and, more importantly, knew to stay away.  You never, under any circumstance, risked getting caught in the middle of a brawl between two blin gangs.

This particular fight, faintly illuminated by the bright Malo Mart sign, was a territory dispute being settled by a bokoblin gang leader and a moblin gang leader.  The two were evenly matched, and a jeering circle of both their underlings surrounded them as the struggle went back and forth.  The moblin had dominance, his hands around the throat of the pinned bokoblin, but the latter was still fighting, his punches wearing away at his opponent.  Unable to shield his face or withstand the blows, the moblin released the bokoblin, and the two split apart.

The two were both visibly limping as they circled, locked into their deathmatch by the other members of the two gangs.  The bokoblin grinned as he rubbed his neck.  “I ain’t goin’ down that easy, pal.”

The moblin shot him a death glare, the hair lining most of his body matted with both of their blood.  “You’re on moblin territory, kid.  You’re not leaving here alive.” 

The sole outside observer, watching from the roof of Malo Mart decided that it was time to break the stalemate.  He stepped out of the shadows, his face hidden by a mask—its piglike features providing a mocking caricature of the blins—and drew his gun, measuredly and methodically leveling it at the two figures in the center of the circle.

A shot rang through the night, silencing the throng’s roar.  A bullet ricocheted off the cement, chipping out a mark directly between the two.

“Awww, goddesses,” the failed assassin groaned as the crowd below turned as one to his hiding place.  He dove backwards, flattening himself against the roof as shots rang out from below, indiscriminately rechristening the store “AL ART.”  The man swore, discarding the gun, and listened as the clips emptied and the blins began turning on each other.  Each side blamed the other for the failed interference, and while neither side had particularly high qualms about maintaining their own honor, they were quick to insult the other faction’s lack thereof.

The man, already long forgotten, took the opportunity to climb down.  Somehow, by some fortunate chance, things had turned out better than expected.  Both sides were enraged now.  It would be a complete bloodbath.

The masked man’s feet hit the ground, and he casually strolled around the building.  Yes, it was a chaotic, frantic mess.  And he, he thought with satisfaction as he drew the sword slung across his back, would help clean it up.