This comic is unable to proceed because its contents reach the present moment. Right now. If I were to go further, I would be revealing the multiverse of futures upon your unsuspecting eyes and it would surely melt your brain into blue Jell-o. Not green. Blue.
That being said, I'm not actually panicky and crazy and OMFGASFEGJIRANGRVAEM. I'm just sort of waiting for the mess to die down. It's interesting to note that I think Square is underestimating their game, as they're opening FFXIV with only 17 servers for a worldwide release, while FFXI had 20 for just a JP release. Ah well, there might be (literally) OVER 9000 people on the Mysidia server now, but as the weekend is just about over, populations should drop off a bit, at least enough for me to sneak in. Various servers have been popping in and out as their populations fluctuate, so it's only a matter of time.
Wha I have been doing is playing WAY too much Pokemon! =DDDDDD I went on a crazy-hyper-level evolving spree over the last few days and have now increased my Pokedex to 334. While I might be forgetting some, I think there's only 7 more Pokemon I can get without connecting to other games. Technically there's a whole buttload in the Safari Zone that I haven't caught, but the Safari Zone can go rot in hell and die forever. Pa-tooie. Anyway, finished up the Kanto Gyms and got more training in, so I've got a full team of Lv65's, ready to try vs. the Elite Four Round 2. After that...we'll see if I can take on RED. =D
I checked my Diamond game to see how many I could transfer over later on to help out my Soul Silver Dex, and gawd I sucked at Sinnoh. D: Srsly, I was in the Postgame stuff and I only ever caught 63 Pokemon. Looks like I'll have to play that some more to get most of the 4th gen. Might play Emerald too if I don't feel like abusing the GTS for Gen 3s.
Up to Chapter 11 in FFXIII now, and I think the game's 'opened up' now? I'm not sure. I just found a Cie'th Statue in a big field, and then I saved and went back to Pokemon since my DS finished charging. I'll probably get back to whatever it was that I'm supposed to do after my Pokefever dies down a bit.
Finally got all of the Higurashi question arcs, in manga form! Happyhappyfunfun. Need to read Himatsubushi-hen, since the anime was only 2 episodes and probably cut alot. (The game probably has more, but I'm so lazy about reading those >_>; Still on Umineko 6)
And more or less nothing happened at Reitaisai SP. Lame.
Comic right? Holy carp! It's like a mountain of needles in your face! Don't worry, my friend I have just the remedy. UPDATES EVERY SUNDAY! Or Monday. Usually. Unless I forget. Or get bored. Or asfljanfLSANVKAJGNAWKLJVBAKLJmkjnsldkgnaejrn. But expect it!
Why did this happen? Because I made monies, and bought this: It's a tablet! So I updated! Like I said I might! Aren't I thoughtful?
Out of nowhere except right here! It's a HeroQuest update! Because I actually got off my arse at the end of summer and finished painting the couple dozen or so I still had sitting around. Here's the 5 metal girl figures I ordered back in winter: Overall there's close to 150 figures I think. I didn't count. I have even more, but they're not really needed right away. With the set I have now, there's no problem playing through the main Heroquest game, and the Kellar's Keep and Return of the Witch Lord expansions. I'll need to buy and paint more if I surprisingly actually ever find a group to play with and even more surprisingly they last through that far to get to said quests. But for now the game's finished, aside from minor things like a method of transport for the minis, or a DM screen, or something.
I ended up going to Otakon anyway in Kogasa mode (BEROBEROBA~!), even though I was only able to attend for two days. I still had quite a lot of fun, and spent far too much in the Dealer's Room, as opposed to my usual nothing. I bought a Marisa Nendoroid plushie to sate my Touhou needs, and a slew of Higurashi figurines. Adrienne was also awesome and got me a Rena plushie, so now Rena and Marisa can enact plushie warfare throughout my room while I'm in college. Saw a few things like Axis Powers Hetalia (a bit confusing, but better than I expected) and Welcome to the Space Show (Not quite Ghibli quality, but a very fun movie).
Comiket 78 has come and gone, leaving us with many, many goodies. Umineko Episode 7 is out, which is good as the Episode 6 translation patch was just finished recently as well. It's predicted Episode 8 will come out this winter and wrap up the series. In a related Tangent, mangagamer.com has now released the entirety of the Higurashi series, Episodes 1-8~!
For Touhou, there's been a slew of new games. Officially, ZUN released 12.8, Great Fairy Wars. It plays like a standard Touhou shooter, but you can now freeze most bullets in ice, as you play Cirno. You face off with the 3 fairies Sunny Milk, Luna Child, and Star Sapphire in the order of your choice in a 3 stage run (as opposed to 6) Daiyousei, Lily White & Black (Official now! =D) and Marisa also make appearances.
Next up is the New Super Marisa Land. It's a Mario fangame that's *very* well done, even if a bit short. Enemies and powerups are similar to many things done in Mario games, but with plenty of unique stuff too. But you don't care about all that. You just want the Bunnycopter. Fine, have the damned Bunnycopter.
Touhou Pocket Wars EVO+ came out, but I tried EVO and...I dunno. It's good, but there's just not that much to do. Maybe I'll check it out when it gets translated. There was also an RPG named the Genius of Sappheiros that looks really good, but there's no point in playing it if I can't understand the damn story. =P
Lastly, Touhoumon v1.8 came out. Also, Drakuaza's Insane version too. Honestly, I haven't really bothered with either, as most Touhoumon games are just kinda blah. And Kanto's freaking boring, do something new gaiz.
Onto other stuff, I bought a PS3 and a good camera as well this summer, and hope to be buying an HDTV soon, so I can see FFXIII in the pretties. Already beat Flower and Soul Calibur IV. I really wanna start FFXIII, but it all depends on when that living expense check comes in.
Speaking of which, I'm back at UMBC now. Living in the apartments this year, and things are already looking alot better. First off, both of my roomies I've met are gamers to some extent, and I've enjoyed hanging out with both so far. There's supposed to be a fourth person with us, but as of yet, he's MIA. So maybe only three people? At the very least, that'll cut down on bathroom smell, hahaha. Here's my awesomely tiny room: Doesn't bother me since it's ALL MINE >:3 Still working out a few kinks with making my laptop more mobile around the room though. Bought a TON of kitchen stuff. We're actually mostly set now, and it wasn't as much a money sink as I thought it'd be. I paid for most of the non-food items too, so I can keep them and reuse them for future stuff. I fel iz gro'd up nao yish?
Got a major role in another of Erik's films! In what? You'll have to wait and see! I'm going to kill you with anticipation that you won't feel because you'll have already forgotten what I just said by the time you make it to the end of this very long run-on sentence.
Phantasy Star Portable 2 demo came out. It uses the PSU system again, but they're very much improving it. Of course, they also just announced Phantasy Star Portable 2 Infinity in Japan, so I might instead wait for that and just mess around in PS Zero more, heh.
FFXIV in 3 weeks! FFXIV Open Beta in 2 days! ARE YOU RAWRDY!?
My Dream Diary's seemed to started to work really good. I've had detailed remembrances (mostly) 5 times in the past week, which blows away the spotty stuff here and there throughout the summer. Hopefully my dream memory will continue to improve all the way to lucidity! >:3
And, I'll finish up with a song. Because you're not the boss of me.
So I finished Nanoha, and then I accidentally watched the first episode of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's, which led to me watching the other 12 in rapid succession. Fortunately I was still on top of my homework this week, haha. Anyway, S1's plot was a bit cliched, but what isn't these days? Still one of the better Magical Girl series I've seen, so I give it a 7/10.
A's was in every way superior though. It pulled off the 'conflict without any villain' really well too, which I was glad to see. That type of plot setup is usually too difficult to pull off, so it's very rarely even used. Vita was a great addition, though some of the other arrivals could do with some fleshing out of their characters. Nanoha StrikerS is next, and a full 26 episodes this time, so we'll see where things go from here. Looking forward to the rumored Psycho Nanoha anyway, heh. Anyway, Nanoha A's gets an 8/10 from me.
Still chugging along in FFIII. The game's a fair bit easier than I remember from the NES version, though I might just be better at RPG's now. Didn't need to do any training even until after the Fire Crystal though, and most of it's just been grinding Job Levels when I want to use a new class. Geomancers and Dragoons pwn. =D
Anyway, I'm probably going to start updating somewhat regularly again, but because I generally take way too long to make these, I'm only going to be putting up 1-2 per week. During breaks I might make more, but for now I kinda need to do homework and junk. Yeah.
Anyway, UMBC is going fine. I'm getting A's and B's, and Compsci might be >100% by now with all the easy arse extra credit, heh. I'm actually getting good at programming in Python! And by 'good' I mean 'Programmer Lv3 out of 100+', haha. I haven't even touched graphics yet, though we're supposed to start that next week. Unfortunately I can't just do all the coding for those assignments on my computer, because they have some sort of special graphics module on the server. Bleh.
Other classes are going well. Physics and Calc are the B's, because of technicalities and physics sucks. But it's better than Bio and Chem, so I guess I'll just have to go find Mr. Newton and have a little discussion about his laws of motion and stuff. I know he did Calculus too, but this stuff is mostly derivatives so far, and thus, really easy. Psych and English are just there, neither are really interesting, though I just have to pass the semester.
As for the campus itself, it's kinda boring. Then again, I'm a social recluse being forced in a triple with two guys I don't like, and no one on this side of the floor knows how to STFU before 2am, so that might affect my mood a little bit. Of course, I can just plug my MP3 player into my skull and everything magically goes away, so yay!
I beat Lotus Land Story! I really have no idea how, but I tried it on Easy since I don't play the PC98 games much, and I 1cc'd the whole thing with like 5 spare lives. That one's kinda easy heh. I tried Mystic Square after that, but I was getting pwned from the Stage 4 boss duo onward, and finally died at Shinki. As for the games I actually play, I've cleared several more shots in Shoot the Bullet, bringing me down to 8 total left. I've also almost cleared Subterranean Animism on Normal with ReimuA. Lots and lots of practice against Yuugi and Satori went a long way, and I beat Orin and got all the way to Okuu! Who then nuclear-blasted me in the face with her first spellcard. >_< Ah well, it was much further than I expected to get, and now I can practice Stage 5 (Which is not as bad as people make it seem, you just have to actually move around the screen more than usual.)
For normal video games, I just beat FFIV a few days ago...and it wasn't that great. I guess nostalgia makes things seem better than they were. All of the characters are really boring, they just have cool outfits. Maybe that'll change when I play through FFIV: After Years, but I don't know when that's going to be, because I really don't like playing my Wii or PS2 in here (I'll probably take all that stuff home soon so it's not just sitting around.)
I also played through an RPG Maker-made game called Yume Nikki, and it's unofficial sequal, Yume 2kki. (pun squad!) It's an awesome psychological game that is just awesome. I don't even know how to describe it properly, other than it went on my Top 10 of all time almost instantaneously. It's a SNES-looking adventure game that takes place in some messed-up/awesome dream worlds. There's no real threat, since you can always just wake up, and there's no real purpose except collecting effects and exploring everything. Apparently it's not done, but it's updated only every few years, so I'm looking forward to whatever else this guy has in store.
Anime-wise Pandora Hearts and Zetsubou sensei finished (though the latter's had two unsubbed episodes for like a month =/) Higurashi Rei finally got the final awesome retarded episode subbed and Umineko continues to be pretty awesome. We're on Episode 3 of the game, can't wait for the end of this one when my favorite character shows up! :3 Series in current are: One Piece, Bleach, Gintama, Umineko, Ghost Hunt, and Railgun. I should finish up Ghost Hunt right in time for Halloween assuming I don't slack. =D
Speaking of Umineko, the full version of La Divina Tragedia ~Makyoku~ came out while I was on hiatus, here it be!
Pretty nice, though I still can't get 100% used to it.
I'd love to write more, but I don't want to. More whenever I get around to it. I'll probably resume with Adrienne's photo assignments next week as well.
I always think this is going to happen when we work on piecewise functions.
Tomorrow is International Talk Like a Pirate Day! Are you ready to buckle your swashes and shiver some timbers, I know I am! I'm going to see if I can do it as completely casually as I can too, as if nothing is out of the ordinary. Of course, it isn't that abnormal for me anyway, but I digress.
HOLY CRAP BEST GAME EVER! Not really, but it's really awesome, creepy, confusing, and free! It's called Yume Nikki (Dream Diary) and it's a 16bit computer game made by the standard awesome/crazy Japanese people with too much time on their hands in RPGMaker (2003 I think). Anyway, I don't really understand the plot yet (if there is one), but you're a hikkikomori in your apartment (if you try to leave, your character just sits there shaking their head, I don't blame them). Anyway, you go to sleep, and then it's basically an adventure-based acid trip, like real dreams! Seriously, I can't properly describe this game, go play it yourself. Here's the download link. It's in .RAR, so make sure you can unzip that. Then you have to install the RPGMaker player(?) or something which is included, and change your unicode settings on your computer to Japanese. All the instructions are in the file, so it's not too hard to figure out.
So far, while I have no idea what I'm doing but wandering around mostly, I have found some items that can transform my character in the dream world. Namely, I can have long hair, blond hair, no face, be a severed head, traffic light, glowing neon, and a few other things. Notably, I can become a yuki-onna, who's pretty, and makes it snow wherever you are, which I used to put out a fire that was guarding a musical spaceship. No really. Why are you still reading my meaningless drivel, go play it already!
Nothing much to report on campus life. Half my classes are boring, my sink's been flooded for a day and maintenance hasn't gotten around to here yet, and the air conditioner keeps resetting itself. I went to anime club with Adrienne, but it was kinda boring since there was no anime and we were antisocial, but we did get chips and pizza and soda. We left early and went on an adventure, discovering the Rock Garden that has a bench with a journal full of stuff written in it. I might go back sometime and just sit there and read through some of the entries, it looks like it might be fun. Next adventure's going to either be exploring the tunnels or hunting down the duck pond. >:3
Splortastic. Saffy's always gonna get the short end of the stick at this rate, haha.
The fifth and final episode of Higurashi Rei is out! But the subs aren't! Boo! I'm kinda surprised how slow the subs for Rei have been, maybe just because they're released so erratically or something, I dunno. Hopefully it'll be up before Friday.
Back onto Umineko, I made a GREAT DISCOVERY! Was browsing around music and I came across the B Side to the Katayoku no Tori single that came out last week, entitled VII. It's now one of my favorite songs, and it's not hard to understand why:
I still don't know what my theme for this week is. Adrienne was being all vague about it saying I should know, but it's not like anything big has happened recently, or anything interesting happens at the end of August right? Ahhhh /headsplode. So, since I couldn't figure it out, I just used "You oughta know" as the theme at the last minute, haha. Not too bad for something I just whipped together in a few minutes. I wanted to use a different binder, but I think that might be the only one left intact in the house, haha. Ah well.
Not really alot going on, actual shopping and packing won't start until tomorrow or Tuesday. I've largely just been surfing around Gaia in a naive belief that I'll find somewhere that pekes my interest and actually makes me unlurk again. I did watch This is Otakudom last night with my sister and her boyfriend for the first time in quite a while, and it was wonderous.
So yeah, my summer's almost over, just another week until move-in to UMBC. Of course, it'll still technically be summer, we've still got another month until Shizuha and Minoriko show up. Doesn't look like I can get to a water park after all, guess I'll just settle for another thorough watergun blasting. Next summer though. Next summer I'm going to Water Country USA if I have to do it by myself. =P
The Umineko anime has been...kinda rushed recently. Not quality-wise (though one of Beatrice's faces in Episode 7 would beg to differ), but the pacing has been at breakneck speed, apparant even if one hasn't read the visual novels. I'm not really sure why they're rushing things so fast, they've still got 16-18 episodes to tell 2.5 chapters, not like how they tried to fit 6 games into the first season of Higurashi. It seemed to be getting better toward the end of the episode, so maybe they're getting things back on track. Or maybe they just want to spend lots of time on Ange in the fourth part. I'm totally down for that then, haha.
Speaking of Umineko, the full version of the OP, Katayoku no Tori has been released, and I love it.
The ending theme should be out next month.
New videos for FFXIV came out with Gamescon. One show scaled-back Alpha version gameplay, so while it's pretty (and it's very pretty), it's not a good feel for how the game's going to end up yet. The guy who's controlling the character looks like he has no idea what he's doing either, lol. The other one is high-definition emotes for all the races, and they're quite a step up from what FFXI fans are used to, haha.
I didn't see any actual new info on FFXIV though, just a bunch of rehashed stuff. What's the next big press conference, Tokyo Game Show? Dunno, but should get more info periodically, if nothing else than through Famitsu.
Healthy eating omgwtfbbq? Yup, ...right after this Ben&Jerry's! =D
I've been thinking for a while about doing one of these art memes in flash, since my strip style lends itself to it. I originally thought about doing a UFO/UNL thing, but there weren't alot of new characters, so I decided to try this out. And yes, using a mouse with your feet is next to impossible.
This week's photo assignment was 'Hybrid Rainbow', and I instantly had to delve back into my music folders, as FLCL is awesome. I actually like how this one turned out, pretty close to my original idea. I wanted more sunlight, but it seems the trees are too thick for that, oh well. I just have to improve my retouching skill a bit since this was a bit sloppy, and figure out if there's a way to make my camera take less grainy pictures. I can fix it with resizing and blur, but I want the 22mpx images I was used to before XD Ah well. These glasses are really great for random images, I just wish the rims were a bit thicker, since they dn't hold shape well if I get too designy with the shots.
So, like I said, two new Touhou games came out this weekend, 12 - Undefined Fantastic Object and 12.3 - Unthinkable Natural Law. UFO full is pretty freaking awesome. Byakuren and Nue are both excellent designs, and interesting fights, and I can't wait to hear the countless inevitable remixes of Heian Alien. I feel kinda unimpressed with Syou as a Stage 5 boss, and I almost felt that way about Murasa as a Stage 4 boss, then she starts chucking giant anchors at me, holy crap that was a fun fight. I managed to 1cc Easy mode on my second try, with like 4 lives left. Watch me get my arse beat to death in Stage 3 once I try Normal Mode just like Subterranian Animism, haha. UNL is kinda odd, since I never got used to Scarlet Weather Rhapsody. Other new fighters include Suwako and Utsuho (Where's my ORIIIIIIIIIIIN? :( ) There's only 1 new 'character', a giant unnamed catfish that Meiling dreamed up while she was on duty. It'll be fun playing if I ever get around to figuring it out, but for now I'll stick with Higurashi Daybreak as my Doujin fighter of choice.
Finally got through Umineko Episode 4 on Saturday at some point, jeebus that thing was long. Battler ended up overtaking me in thinking, but then again he actually got to interact with all that stuff, haha. The final scene in Alliance of the Golden Witch was really cool, and made sense, but then Lambdadelta had to go and be a bitch and completely throw all the details into darkness again, geez. Ange was also a great addition at the end there, and I certainly hope this isn't the last we see of her, though it probably will be. Chapter 5: End of the Golden Witch was just released on Saturday, as the first part of Umineko no Naku Koro Ni Chiru set, which is supposedly like the 'answer arcs' in Higurashi (Kai). I'll get back to that once Witch Hunt has enough time to translate through, until then I guess I can look around to see if anyone's translated the TIPS.
Talked to both my roomies now, and we've more or less arranged things out. Not that it really changed much I was taking, haha. According to Jose, the triple rooms are supposed to be bigger than a normal room too, and have a full 3 sets of furniture. That sounds good, I guess all that's left to do is go shopping for the last bit of stuff and wait 11 days. We'll all be moving in the same day, so that'll be easier for agreeing how to set up everything.
Addendum: Lullaby of Demonic Hell ~<3
The first one's simply amazing, the second starts after ~5min and is kinda okay.
Hahaha, after reading a doujin about Rumia, one thing led to another and I decided to try something more random than usual. There's a bit more to this flash than you might think at first. ^_~
Anyway, Higurashi Rei ep 4 was finally subbed! Thanks a bunch to the ASR group. Unfortunately, even if I haven't played the visual novels, I can tell there was alot left out of this arc, despite it being the majority of Rei. It still managed to retain a fair amount of weight, I'll give it that, especially this episode. I was a fair bit surprised at exactly how it turned out after the first two episodes. Well, just one more episode of Higurashi left forever (probably) T_T In August, we'll get the one-ep summation of Hirukowashi-hen, or the Daybreak Chapter. Granted, there's still a bunch of other arcs that weren't animated, I doubt they will be, if they only bothered to devote 5 episodes to Higurashi Rei. Ah well, I shouldn't be too depressed, the first episode of Umineko airs next week after all. ^___^
Also, I did manage to find Manazashi, the Higurashi Rei ED. It's a very peaceful theme, I like it alot. It's no Why or Why Not, but it still keeps a good feel to it.
Also, I ran across this the other day. Read it. I don't think I can add anything to that.
Since I'm trying to save some of my video games to alleviate boredom at college, (particularly my last few DS games) I started poking things in PSO yet again. I figure I can at least get this Redria Racaseal up from Normal to Ultimate mode so I can figure out why I made her (heh). I might also dabble in offline PSU as well, although I think I nixed my save files, so I have to deal with more Ethan before I get to unlock Extra mode. >___> I thought about switching it up with Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles too, but I think I'll save that one for now in case I ever actually meet someone who wants to play that with me. (haha) They really need to add an expanded version of the original FFCC into the series. I don't mind all the other games, but the DS ones aren't nearly as fun, and the Wiiware ones are kinda retarded. Ah well, maybe The Crystal Bearers will be an intensely epic game.
Dreams do funny things huh? In an interesting note, my roommates genderswapped after the rumble through the airport shopping center/security checkpoint, but they didn't really do anything after then so I didn't draw them. But yeah, the whole campus was decked out in Cardboard Victorian, it was pretty intense. I also went ahead and threw up Rei's profile, since she's inevitably going to be showing up more.
Anyway, Super Scription of Data finally came out today! That's the Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Rei opening, which is sung by Shimamiya Eiko and created from awesome, as are almost all of her songs. No sign of subs for Higurashi Rei Ep 4 yet, but today was the actual release for Episode 4 I think, so hopefully they won't be too much longer. >_> The ending theme, Manazashi, also hasn't shown up on Youtube that I've seen, though it was also supposed to come out today.
Nothing else really that I can think of, other than this awesome U.N. Owen was her? mix vid using Idolm@ster. :3
No flashblog today, I was much too busy not doing anything to come up with something of wit. Instead, I give you the luminous gift of dance!
So yeah, I ended up not paying attention to the image size of the first Rin Dance, and it ended up being kinda big, so I think the host took it down or it hit a bandwidth cap or something. XD I'll try reuploading it and only linking to it this time, hopefully that will keep it up, yes? XD
I didn't draw that myself obviously, that would take both talent and work. I got them from this video. The video itself is kinda off, but I'm not one to question the groove of the Rin. That's actually how I spent most of the afternoon, going from vid to vid on Youtube looking for neat stuff. Most of it's crap, but every so often I get something quite awesome. For example.
This one I made! Can you tell? :3 Orin again, stepdancing! I hadn't actually planned on devising two separate Orin dancing flashes, but then I stumbled across this version of 'Corpse Voyage ~ Be of Good Cheer!', and after spending the next hour in a deadlock between Subterranian Animism music and Irish stepdancing, how could I not make this? XD
In less interesting news, I finally got around to reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. (I've only had the book sitting around for a month or so, haha) It was actually quite interesting despite the short length. I'll probably go ahead and read Through the Looking-Glass tomorrow sometime and then talk about them both together in my next entry.
