Fortress of Perpetual Midnight

I was investigating a crime scene when I found Goren under the carpet searching for clues. Apparently it was also a crossover episode, as I believe I spotted Munch or Briscoe in the opening credits. Later, my investigation took me to a residential airship, where I was assisted by a young, female witness. The natives were rather hostile.

Meanwhile, Speed and Delko were visiting some sort of store on Stair Road, which was apparently on the coast of Florida due to the cornfield across the road flooding. A shootout ensued, resulting in the deaths of both CSIs. But I went back and tried again; in the second version, Delko survived.

Taking along a civilian toward the end of the first paragraph may have been influenced by CMs for White Collar. (Yeah, I watch so much TV that I dream about shows I haven't even seen.)

The latter paragraph's divergent realities were related to something else that I was considering lately. Back in my less realistic days when I thought about designing video games, one of the ideas I had (perhaps itself inspired by CHRONO TRIGGER, for all I can remember) was about a protagonist who hibernates, only waking during important turning points in history, thus seeing the long-term effects of her decisions in the past. I recently brought the idea back to mind after considering a freeware game engine for visual novels, which I discovered in the game I've mentioned here and here. The idea was to base it on the character of Lilith, a resident of "Earth" who is cursed due to her rebellion from YHWH to be hunted down and killed every time her followers reincarnate her. This would be intertwined strongly with Project AnthraXX, including subsuming the numerous background stories set in the distant past. Of course, an epic of that magnitude would be a full project rather than a shōrt, so I'm not sure how likely I am to make it. I also thought of a similar one set in the Grim Darkness of the Far Future. It would be a lot of work for something that's in someone else's universe and thus not something I can sell, but at least it would take less drawing than Abdiel.

[01] -- Go to IMDB.com and look up 10 of your TV shows.
[02] -- Post three official IMDB "Plot Keywords" for [each of] these picks.
[03] -- Have your friends guess the show names [preferably without looking them up].

It doesn't say what it means by "your TV shows," so I just randomly picked a bunch that I like and that had enough keywords.

1. Acronym in Title; Place Name in Title; Spin Off
2. Babe Scientist; Deoxyribonucleic Acid; Divorcé (guessed by blitzcon below)
3. Bleeped Dialogue; Explosion; Segway (arifyn)
4. Brother in Law Sister in Law Relationship; Evil Capitalist; Smartest Person (blitzcon)
5. Cyborg; Epic; Sword Fight
6. Disembodied Head; Pneumatic Tube; Tank Top (arifyn)
7. Docket Number; Female Boss; Twist in the End
8. End of Mankind; No Cast of Characters in Credits; Post Apocalyptic
9. Evil Brother; Impulse Engines; Positronic Brain (mizuno_youko)
10. Gadget; Insurance Investigator; One Word Title

On the topic of my last futile plea, as you can see, I can't figure out how to get the GIMP (which I like in all ways except the name) to use transparency (so you can see what the square is where the token is standing). I just used the method specified, and the undo log confirms that the clear happened. Is it something about exporting to .gif and .png formats? It says it has to flatten layers, but if that destroys transparency, then it kinda defeats the purpose of those being the formats that allow it in the first place.

(Y'arr, I be lucky it be not Type like a Pirate Day. Those kinds of pirates be not terribly tech-savvy.)

Continuing from my previous post about surnames, there was a new character in the summer finale whom I couldn't quite place. When I looked it up, I was surprised to find that she was one of the actresses at the center of what (from what I've heard) seems to be the biggest yuri fandom (as opposed to series having actual yuri characters) in American history. Her comment on meeting Ms. Parker: "You are cute." Too bad the actresses both appear to be extremely straight.

What film features two leading men who are both every bit as good-looking as Leonardo DiCaprio?

Of course, it does make it easier for me to address her. . . .

Anyway, I've been watching Ms. Parker carefully because of her habit of stroking female guests. (I thought she may have described the other leading lady as "sexy" in the first-season finale, but I couldn't quite make it out.) But it turns out it may just be because she, too, is suspected of being somewhere on the autism spectrum and has trouble knowing how to interact with people (although she tries very differently from how I do).

I decided to risk taking a shower while Mother was out.

As you may have noticed, I didn't catch up any on journaling. This is because I was too busy wading through the Penny and Aggie archives (thanks to Ms.? kyanited). It's not enough yuri that I'd buy it, but most of it is free, they don't try to be Japanese (much), and they have an RSS feed, so I may as well follow it. Still, I think I see more clearly why I had so much trouble watching the L word: because it deals with real-life issues and hatreds. I can deal with crime shows and action movies because they're so alien to anything I've ever encountered. (Of course, I've never had a confirmed sighting of a non-straight lady, either, but prejudices are pretty similar regardless of which minority they cover.) I'm thinking maybe I should publish all my stories set on "Earth" mainly in Japan, just to reduce the accusations of dealing with social issues.

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. . . .

Figure 1 is what I thought I might do next on Monday. A was originally intended to be a test for the heroine, but I intend to make her look older and more boyish than the protagonist, so I should have made her a bit less wide-eyed and skirt-wearing. I also didn't bother to think up a good design for her top or her pauldrons. As you can see, when you're over 10,000 years old, it's reasonable to expect you may have a visible battle scar. With B, I attempted to try out narrower eyes and a longer face (to emphasize how tall and slender elves are). I also tried making a design for bangs without obscuring the archetypal eyebrows. C was another attempt at a longer chin, but it looked so bad that I decided to give him a silly haircut like before.

Fig. 1	Fig. 2	Fig. 3

By Wednesday, I had further revised my idea of where to start. Of the two listed, "Final Exam" (thankfully) has no sex, or even female characters. Further, as skaven carry lots of things with warpstone in them and these ogres live close to the Great Maw, it'll be understandable if they look a bit deformed. (Interestingly, although this unsourced article claims that warpstone is common in the area, the Lazarghs are described in their army book as having their teeth and hair fall out as with radiation poisoning, contrasting with the usual Chaos warping, exemplified by the more northern ogre tyrant who has grown fingers on his head.) I may further avoid problems (particularly with cloth) by making the skaven a bit indistinct to emphasize their stealthy skills.

So, Figure 2 shows some ideas for the skaven themselves. The guys on the left were facial structure tests, but then I tried out designing a helmet and mustache. Neither is common among Clan Eshin adepts, but I'm planning to use them to distinguish certain individuals who lean in less usual directions. The one on the right is a test for body structure. As they're sneaky assassins rather than proud leaders, they're as hunched-over as any skaven. I also tried another hat for him, but not any footwear, as I wanted to make sure I can still draw the bare feet that most skaven sport. I wasn't thinking straight, so I gave him the sort of sword you may see on an old Warlord Clan rat-man. (You can see a more Eshin-style blade in the lower left.) All three show different attempts at the incisors. I think normal buck-teeth make them look a bit nerdy rather than scary, so I'm testing more fearsome designs.

As I have much more experience drawing skaven than other things, I devoted the rest of the page to weaponry. This is an important tool to differentiate the various Gutter Runners and their specialties. For instance, the kusari-gama is a compromise between the two-handed flail used by some Clan Eshin members in Mordheim (as seen in the boxed set) and a more versatile tool. (I don't know if there's any real-world background for using one as a utility item like in the original Seiken Densetsu, but this is supposed to be an over-the-top action comic, not historical fiction.) As skaven have no precedent for using kama in the first place, I added a slight hook on the end of the blade (to match typical fighting claws) and small spikes on the weight to make it more vicious-looking as per their style.

Many of the other weapons show simpler concerns. Skaven don't usually use scabbards, but one of them is secretly an assassin, whose trademark weeping blade constantly drips "corrosive venom" (presumably meaning acid). I've modeled it after a Japanese sort (notably the lack of a pointed end). I also don't know how throwing stars are supposed to be carried. (Perhaps a Pez dispenser would do.) The boomerang is another weapon that is not known to be used by skaven. I'm debating where I should put them in the spectrum between historical (based on their geographical counterparts in the real world) and original (made up or taken from elsewhere) fantasy.

Figure 3 shows my attempts at the defenders. As you can see, much of it is experimenting with proportions. (For some reason, I wanted to make it so the gut-plates completely obscure the breadth of their torsos from the front view.) The upper-right one also shows the lumpy forehead seen in some ogres (presumably knobs in the bone of the cranium?) and the fact that ogres have five toes per foot, like men but unlike skaven. The lower-left guy is the hunter, who is an outcast from the kingdom and thus hasn't suffered the radiation therapy the others constantly endure. Although the standard model has a full beard, I gave him a more typical ogre Fu Manchu and goatee to make up for the fact that the tribe doesn't have them. (Of course, I forgot to give the others no teeth, so the contrast isn't as significant.) The fact that he's wearing a cloak (with a very crude rhinox head showing) and helmet shows that he's on his way back from a hunt, not just getting out of bed as most of the surprised squatters will be (if they even manage to wake). I want to give him a fairly round skull for his plackart to match the usual ogre gut-plate style, but I haven't thought of an appropriate one yet, so I've just used a place-holder in this image. (The one obvious choice would be a giant, but those are for tyrants to enslave, not for hunters to hunt.)

The gnoblar in the upper right shows that these gits will not allow me to forgo the noses. You can also probably guess where he scavenged the shirt. The hammer shows a more distinctive variation on the classic ogre club than the one held by the upper-left fellow. As ogres are quite strong and don't mine, they often use stone weights in their clubs, with iron bands to keep them from splitting. I'll have to be careful about textures to show that. You can also see that I've put another pistol here. Although Clan Eshin use them in Mordheim, I suppose firearms are not very good for covert missions in the days before suppressors, but I'll have chances to show them off with the ogres.

I remembered the reading I had to do, but I still seemed extremely sleepy for a number of hours after I got up, and I thought up two new short ideas, so I ended up taking until evening to get that done.

As I had also determined that I wouldn't turn on the TV until I did that, I did very little this short day. Other than playing MARIO KART DS (boo Americanized) to try to wake up, I just got in a few hours of TV in the evening. I didn't realize that the episode was new, or why they didn't manage to get Javier and instead had someone with a more obvious accent (as the one in the original movie was noted to be intended to be unidentifiable). They always seem to be able to get people (except politicians) to voice themselves, but I'm not sure about their track record on actors who play existing characters.

Art of War one-upped BATTLES BC in goofy choreography as it not only had the featured general dual-wield (as did Hannibal, Joshua, Caesar, Jadis, Oreius, and the two main Gaulish warlords) but also armored soldiers jumping up and down and spinning around. I even saw one of them cartwheeling in the middle of a mêlée. I'd also been interested in watching another show (as I was inspired by a campaign to put Project Umbra in such a setting), but it never fit my schedule until then.

Nothing in particular, other than that I watched TRANSPORTER 2. It had some nifty fights, such as the one with the fire hose.

Other than being unable to get up, I didn't have many particular problems. I actually made sure to check my email before game time so I could actually tell that there wasn't going to be a session before I missed my show. Having to live in fear all the time is still making work rather nonexistent.

I'm thinking maybe I should start with "Final Exam" and "Mandalorian with a Mission" here, just to avoid giving a first impression of too much sex.

Well, I said that I'd be picking these up later, but with all else I have to do on the computer and how little I get to use it (to say nothing of the fact that I have about 30 minutes worth of stuff I'm required to do every time I use it), there's no way I'm going to be able to catch up with my backlog. Consequently, I'll just point out the complicated things that I missed:

*Overhearing Mother talking to my brother about racism

*Doubt

*Work

*Easter