Fortress of Perpetual Midnight

So, it turns out that two of my regular buys are opening subscription services here. This is now apparently the only way to get the comics to which they're trying to restrict access. Unfortunately, they only allow addresses in Japan. If I use the proxy service, they'd be too far apart to allow me to combine them in one shipment, so I'd have to make twice as many orders a year. I guess there's probably only going to be one special per year, so if I use the subscription for one, I can get that, and I can buy the other one normally at that time to get it in the same shipment.

To go along with the fact that it's released on a slightly different date due to a holiday, the preorders are starting comparatively really early, too. Any requests?

It's that time of the season again. Anyone who wants something from amazon that can be shipped overseas (e.g. not DVDs, console games, or used) should speak now or forever hold her peace.

Here are a couple of issues that are crimping my style [hindering my acquisition of Japanese media]:

—Since Tōkyō Toshokan and its RSS feeds seem to have suddenly ceased to exist, I have no way of watching what raws are available in a timely manner. This would be significantly more distressing if I hadn't already had to give up watching full-sized series due to my lack of disk space.

—My next quarter's order is still a couple of months off, but this time, there are some other circumstances that will take some consideration. As noted before, "Mandalorian with a Mission" (see here) is second on my short list, and to script the Japanese dialog, I'm going to want some STAR WARS comics for reference. (There are some dōjin-shi listed at jpqueen, but they're unofficial and mostly 801, and I can't find their request form anymore.) As they're all at least 10 years old, they're not available from amazon itself, so that means buying from users. Although cheap, these are generally not shipped overseas, which means using POSTTY or testing out one of the other similar services I've found. The former gets me knowledge of how it works and small customer loyalty discounts, but I also know how it doesn't work. The significant point here is that they charge per package they receive and allow only three per order. Even if I could figure out how to find multiple items from the same buyer (which I once did for arifyn, but now can't figure out how to effect even in the U.S.), I don't know whether they would be shipped together. I suppose all that this means is that it would be expensive, really. . . .

Speaking of the first two on the list, I just realized that some Twi'leks have lumps on their foreheads just like ogres. Of course, our future-Mandalorian protagonist won't, because that just isn't cute. . . .

Selling stuff: Even less interest than I expected. I forgot to add my extra issue of Comic YuriHime, but it's there now for posterity.

Gaming: I've added some more information here (and in some of the linked pages). Discussion (what little there is) has brought up some further points:

*I would prefer if I could get three to five players for a session. (It's hard to judge the length of time that an adventure would take without play-testing it, but I'd prefer to have six hours.) In any case, from past experience, I can probably rope in a couple more people even if they're not actually interested enough to bother to touch the keyboard.

*A more immediate problem than scheduling is the choice of adventure (and thus game system), as I need to work it to a playable point. (Given my schedule, I'd prefer about a week to do that.) It occurred to me that using a game in a setting that you'll already know, such as Star Wars or WoW would be a good place to start for novice gamers. Of those ones, my commentary includes:

"Fools' Gold [Thicker than Water]": If I'm going to be on a computer anyway, I may as well update this to the current rules. This may affect the level at which it's set (as the new classes get the powers I want at different points), but the idea is the same.

"Into the Woods": I don't have much in the way of ideas for this one beyond hack and slash, although that may be better for WoW players. . . .

"The Moon! It's Asplode!": The first footnote discusses the main issue. I think blitzcon would like this one.

"Order 65": This is another one where I just thought of a lot of character builds to kick each other's asses. I think the current edition makes it simpler to run Force-users than its predecessor, but that also means I'd have to make completely different builds. . . .

"These Aren't the Droids for Which You're Looking": I've already tried this one out (and fit it into one session), but I'd want to edition-update it, as well, so it would take about as long as any other to ready. It also by default covers the same characters as "Moon" at a later time, so it may be better to play that first. Also, since lokodraucarn was in the first run, that's one less person I could dragoon.

Anyone who is willing to contribute to the discussion gets a say in which one I'd want to play. The others are also available, if you want to look into them.

*It occurred to me that if I'm hosting, MapTool may require more bandwidth than usual, so I guess I'd go without voice chat for starters, just in case. The parts I need to learn for GMing are pretty simple, so that shouldn't be a consideration when compared to the necessary work for getting the adventure itself ready.

Edit (2009.04.10): Updated links

Continuing from before, here's a more detailed list of what I'm selling (in Roman letters, as the links can take you to the official titles and PNs anyway):

Kaiketsu Jōki Tantei-dan 1–8 (all) (Asamiya Kia)

Shin・Kaiketsu Jōki Tantei-dan 9 (Asamiya Kia) [Relationship with the original series described in the earlier post]

Hyakki Ō-koku MONSTER KINGDOM 1 (Ayaku Nī)

Comic YuriHime VOL.14 (anthology)*

Magical Antique Visual Comic Anthology (anthology)†

Comic Party 1 (Inui Sekihiko)

FLCL 1 (Ueda Hajime)

O-Takara Sagashi-tai (OMOIATARU) [Not the edition linked, but a later one, with a new cover and several other illustrations and commentary. Ms. OMOI didn't write the script for this one, so there isn't even any notable yuri in this one.]

WARCRAFT: THE SUNWELL TRILOGY 1 DRAGON HUNT (Richard A. Knaak, Jae-Hwan Kim) [Mentioned earlier; not to be confused with this edition]

MAGIC KNIGHT RAYEARTH 1–3 (all) (CLAMP)

MAGIC KNIGHT RAYEARTH 2 1–3 (all) (CLAMP)

Kami-sama no Iu Tōri! 1–2 (Konishi Aki)

Moe-Tan Magical Busters, please save the world!! (Takahashi Tetsuya) [Given this comicalize's illustrator, they at least throw out heart-marks when they touch one another, but there's significantly more tension with male characters (of which most are not even vaguely humanoid). When you consider him, it's likely that the "Nankyoku Penguin" is female, too, but it only has a cameo. Anyway, the review based on which I bought it was here.]

HUNTER×HUNTER 1 (Togashi Yoshihiro)

Cowboy Bebop 1–3 (complete) (Nanten Yutaka) [not to be confused with Shooting Star Bebop, the one with the weird character designs]

KIDDY GRADE REVERSE (Hiyo Hiyo)†

Black Cat 1 (Yabuki Kentarō)

Arabesque 3 (arc 2, first part) (Yamagishi Ryōko)‡

Ayashi no Ceres Tenkū o-Togi Sōshi? 1–2 (Watase Yu'u)‡

†These are ones I've described briefly here.

‡There are covers for these visible on the massive post where I got them. The one for this version of O-Takara Sagashi-tai isn't, but I like the new one better, personally.

You will of course be able to find more information about these on jpqueen and throughout the Web. If you're interested in any more specific comments, I can give those, too. As most of these are going to remain here to be in the next batch, I should probably put them in a more permanent place. . . .

[Edit (2009.05.21): Managed to sell some]

My orders for the second quarter will be going out pretty soon. Since the middleman didn't seem to understand when I asked him about combining orders, I'm planning on going back to amazon, as long as I can get it before Tsubomi Vol.1 sells out again. (If it consistently sells out faster, I'm considering moving the orders to the month that one comes out in the future. As non-periodical limited editions are by definition unable to be predicted, that may be a more usable criterion.)

I'm also going to be getting rid of some other old comics (none yuri, since I'm keeping those ones). As my job prevents me from being able to consistently ship things within the time limits that would be required for official selling, I'm hoping someone here might want them. Off the top of my head, I've got Jōki Tanteidan (the full eight of the original, plus Vol. 9 of Shin, for which the first eight were essentially just a reordering of the original), EARTHIAN (all five of the original series, which doesn't include the last few chapters or extras because the serialization ended in-between full volumes; I imagine you can get pretty much everything you miss here if you buy the last volume of the complete edition), and X (volumes 1–18, which is as many of the long-on-hiatus series as have been compiled permanently, although there were apparently a few more chapters in a special edition of Gekkan Newtype). I'm going to get rid of Hōshin Engi as well, but I'm keeping them for the foreseeable future since, as noted before, I'm thinking of using a speech pattern for which this is the only reference I recall having in one of my shorts. If you're interested in any of these, I'm sure you can find your own links (and post them here for our reference).

This time, I've got time before the deadline (as far as I can tell). However, there are a couple of things that concern me:

1. It says to pay by going to the bank and requesting a postal transfer (郵便振替). I imagine I can probably do this even from the States, but it'll be difficult for me.

2. There's a fixed shipping charge of ¥600, regardless of how much you order. Thus, I really would prefer to get more than just one volume. The specials from the other three mags probably contain side stories to other things I've tagged, but my wish list is so backlogged that I haven't gotten around to buying parts of the actual series of any of them. So, alternatively, does anyone else want a copy of SayuriHime Vol*.4 (¥1,000 a pop)?

Anyway, since it's a fixed shipping cost, they'd probably be ticked if I tried to ship it to this side of the (other) pond, so I'm probably using postty. This means that, at least for the journey overseas, it's more economical if I pick the full three packages to be combined. (Of course, since amazon has free shipping to postty anyway, they often split orders into smaller pieces without warning, so it's hard to say how many there will be.) As it's noted to be shipped toward the end of April, it should be close enough to combine with my next standard order (now three quarterlies and counting!).

*It has lower-case Roman letters, unlike the main mook, since it's "sa."

It's that time* again. Does anyone want anything? This one should ship around 2009.01.18 and take about a week to get to me.

*I have a lot of ranting to do about limited editions, but it turns out that they're making things even worse for me: the due date for buying last S's issue of SayuriHime was before the main mook was released, so I couldn't have gotten it unless I made a completely separate order. Since I don't have a home, I can hardly even justify one order per quarter, much less two or three (since the new mook doesn't seem to want to compete with either existing one). I really don't understand why people are willing to put the work into drawing comics that so few people will ever get a chance to read. They should at least put them in the compilations—which is another problem altogether.

I've been getting really behind on all my tangled Webs of plans, but here's something that's reasonably important: the next amazon order goes out circa 2008.10.18. The phones are open for your orders now.

I probably know the answer, but considering that the second-to-last item has been listed, it's time for me to ask again: anyone want anything? It should ship on 2008.07.18 or soon after (UTC+9).

Since Thursday was my one night off, I stopped by the other side of town yesterday. Unfortunately, I had not realized that it was the release date of 4th-Edition D&D, so the clerk at the desk immediately asked me, "Have you gotten your books yet?" I made the mistake of telling the truth: that I had gotten a better deal elsewhere, which of course didn't make him and Carlos happy. They made fun of me for the fact that my copies hadn't been delivered yet. I neglected to mention (as a comeback, one of my principal weak points) the fact that, as over the last few months the Wizards have revealed more of their master plan to tell repeat customers to go to hell (as mentioned here), I wouldn't be buying them at all if I weren't intending to use them to save more than the money I paid for them.

Due to the fact that 4th Edition is trying its darnedest not to be D&D, there's also the problem of the theoretical chance of publishing my campaign setting. I have no intention of retconning it to the point of being 4th-Edition-friendly, so the only chance I would have of using the d20 System or something similar is if someone else ends up producing the books and allowing them, such as the Pathfinder RPG. The reason for this is that the d20 System requires you to note on each book that it requires the 3rd-Edition or v.3.5 Player's Handbook, which Wizards will obviously be discontinuing if they haven't already. The Pathfinder RPG is designed to allow people to continue to use v.3.5-compatible materials, so it would work with that, but I don't know whether they'll allow me to actually tell people to use it. I could instead use the OGL, but that would require publishing my own basic materials. Since this was designed as a D&D setting, that would mean either (a) repeating pretty much the same stuff that's in the Player's Handbooks and Pathfinder RPG or (b) changing the setting so that those have something original worth printing as well. The latter means completely reworking the setting, which may be a good thing considering that it's not very original so far, but it defeats the purpose of publishing something I've already developed if I have to go back and start from the ground up. Of course, the chances that I'll ever have the resources (money and name recognition) to do this are rather slim.

By the way, on the topic of the subject line, DUNKIN' DONUTS® CMs have nifty tunes, but the first two* have really dumb lyrics. The "doing stuff [things]" one is pretty self-explanatory (as is the issue with this one, the one for which it's not the creators who are stupid), but as Ms. Maelwaedd noted, it's an odd strategy to tell customers, "We understand your idiocy and provide for it!" The thing about this is, as with every spoken language except English (as far as I know), French and Italian have simple, consistent rules for how every word is pronounced. (lokodraucarn once tried to defend his mispronunciation of "coup de grâce" by saying, "I took German and Russian! No silent letters!" Yeah (again, a very belated comeback), I took Spanish and Japanese. That doesn't stop me using an American English dictionary. When I play a game where I have to vocalize a term often, it makes sense to know how to pronounce it and what it means.) A more common problem is trying to figure out which language the word is, but that's often easy, too.

*As usual, I tried looking for the videos to illustrate, but apparently now Google™ Video BETA doesn't index them anymore and instead has hardcore pornography openly displayed. (YouTube had both.) I never got that before.

Edit (2008.07.31): Easier to find when I get the lyrics right

I found some more stuff I wanted available at jpqueen, so I decided on a whim to try yet another order. If you want anything, you just need to tell me by 2008.06.07 (in a time zone close to the International Date Line), and we can share the shipping. As ever, there's a chance that the items will be bought by someone else if you don't tell me quickly enough, but there's not enough turnaround for it to be terribly important (or for their recommendations to be useful—currently AZUMANGA is associated with yaoi and "Hentai").