Atmosphere

Chapter One Part 1, SoA:H fanfic

2011-05-20T11:18:00.000-07:00

A/N: Extra note for the blog reader(s)...because it's blogger, it took out all my italics again, sorry! It looks nice on the fanfic dot com version, at least. It's passably readable here, and that's all that matters.

Skies of Arcadia: Heroes

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Chapter One—"Angel's Awakening"

Shards of a voice echoed from her memory to her dreams, as if heard from a great distance.

Fina…you…replace…Rami…Moon Elder…are…hope…Don't allow…trust…the surface…

Thevoice faded away as Fina gradually became aware of her surroundings. She was lying on something soft, which was a surprise considering where she had last remembered being conscious. It was actually…soft and warm. Maybe I'm in the afterlife…no…I'm probably still in the clutches of some enemy…I should probably open my eyes and see where I am now. She slowly opened her eyes, fearful of what might be out there.

"Looks like she's starting to come to."

Two faces peered down at her, hardly a hand's breadth away from her own.

"Oh good!" The other one said in a voice barely below a yell. "How do you feel?"

"F-fine," Fina said reflexively. Actually, she felt like a sack of moonstones that had been carelessly lugged around all night and then tossed into a corner, and she thought she had a bruise on her head; but she didn't have the presence of mind to give them the full synopsis.

The two heads backed up to let Fina sit up , letting her see the bodies they were (thankfully) attached to. Fina's head spun a little bit as she sat up—uhg, definitely not fine.

The one the first voice belonged to spoke. "My name's Vyse," he said. His voice was kind, and his gaze didn't seem to betray any ill intent. He had a glass eye patch over his right eye, and a long scar ran horizontally under his left. His hair was dark brown and hung down around his ears in the front but was neatly trimmed in the back. A red bandanna contrasted with his blue uniform.

"And I'm Aika!" The one on the left said. The girl was dressed in a bright yellow one-piece uniform that flared off in a daringly short skirt that seemed to contradict her innocent face. Her bright red-orange hair was braided in two long pony tails on both sides of her head.

"You're on board our ship, the Albatross—" Vyse said.

"We rescued you!" Aika cut in.

"Yes," Vyse said, unfazed by the interruption. "The Valuans captured you, but we stopped them before they could take you away."

"Th-thank you," Fina said. Ship? Albatross? Valuans? She wondered to herself. Oh, the Valuans must be the people who ambushed me…

"It was my pleasure as a Blue Rogue! " Vyse said, tossing a carefree salute.

"Um…What's a Blue Rogue?"

Aika's eyes grew wide. "You've never heard of the Blue Rogues?"

"Um…No," Fina said, embarrassed and wishing she had kept her mouth shut. She might have just insulted them, and the last thing she needed was more enemies in this place.

"The Blue Rogues are a branch of air pirate, I guess you could say," Vyse explained, seemingly not hurt by the girl's reaction.

"I'm sorry, but what is an air pirate?" Fina asked, since they seemed to be happy enough to answer questions, although she couldn't restrain an embarrassed blush.

"You were out traveling and you didn't know about air pirates?" Vyse asked slightly incredulously.

"I…don't get out much…"

"Air pirates are people who attack other ships and steal their cargo," Vyse explained.

"Oh, my!" Fina gasped, reevaluating her two "rescuers."

"Don't worry!" Aika said, seeing her obvious consternation. "We're 'Blue Rogues.' We only attack armored ships, preferably Valuan ones."

"We steal from the rich," Vyse continued. "And we use the money to help keep the skies clear of bad guys like the Valuans and Black Pirates."

"Yup!" Aika chirped.

"But Black Pirates—they're another story," Vyse said. "They will attack unarmored ships unprovoked, and are constantly looking for a fight."

"They're bullies with no sense of honor," Aika said.

"The Blue Rogues fight to protect the innocent people in their airspace," Vyse smiled. "You're safe in our care."

"Um, thank you very much," Fina said. The two teenagers called themselves pirates, but they didn't seem to be dangerous.

"No problem!" The pirate girl said. "So, what's your name?"

"Fina," she said and then flinched, mentally berating herself as she recalled the Elder's warnings. Why did I give them my name? I can't allow myself to be tricked into a false sense of security by these people.

The girl's discomfort didn't escape Vyse's notice, but he chalked it up to her still being disoriented after the earlier ordeal. "Fina, huh? That's a nice name. It's so…feminine."

His attempt to cheer her up was a massive failure. Fina stared at him blankly, having completely missed what he said during her contemplations.

Vyse shook his head. "Yeesh…you try to complement someone, and nothing…"

"Ahahaha!" Aika laughed. "You call that a complement? Looks like you have a lot to learn about women!"

Aika's laugh was infectious, and Fina giggled too despite herself. Vyse sighed helplessly at the fun they were having at his expense, but he was happy to see that Fina was beginning to loosen up a bit, at least. To tell the truth, while he could communicate fine with the opposite gender, he had very little interest in the intricacies of close relationships. Relationships and eventually marriage, in his mind, were something for the far future when he was "old" (as in twenty-four or five). As long as there were new things to do and learn and discover, love was not high on his priority list.

"Vyse! Aika!" a slightly tinny voice reverberated through the room. Based on where the other two teenager's eyes went, Fina guessed it came from a metal tube in a corner on the wall. "How long are you going to stand there chitchatting? Report to the bridge immediately for your duties, over."

"We'd better go before Dad goes off the deep end," Vyse said, starting towards the door. "Come up on deck later and stretch your legs if you want!"

"Nice to meet you, Fina!" Aika said, waving as she closed the door behind her.

Fina mustered up a small smile and nodded. Fina stared at the closed door for a few moments, then flopped back into her pillow. She suddenly felt really tired.

o0o0o0o

Fina sighed and sat up again. She had tossed and turned for at least an hour, trying to catch up on the sleep she had missed during the last night's adventure, but met with little success. The stress from the ambush, as well as the uncertainty of her current situation, combined with all of the curious new sounds and disconcerting motions of this new vessel had her mind running anxiously. Unable to think of anything better to do, and not quite ready to venture out of the relative comfort of her bed, Fina peered around curiously at the small room. Unlike the Valuan ship that was primarily steel and muted grays, the walls, floor, and ceiling of this room were made of some kind of wood that filled the room with a nice smell, and creaked occasionally if the ship made a turn or someone walked down the hallway. Fina noticed the faint sound of wind whistling by beyond the wall behind her. Getting up on her knees, she turned and looked out the port hole above her bed. It was blue as far as the eye could see, dotted randomly with white puffs. Every now and then, they passed an island—they seemed to be passing through some kind of relatively small, floating mountain range of disconnected islands. One island they passed at the end of the range had a pile of stones on it that looked like it could have been put together by man many years ago, but Fina couldn't guess what it had been used for. It didn't seem like a building—it was much too small for that, probably only a couple feet taller than her. She thought she could make out some writing on the weather-worn stones, but it was too far away for her to make out. Fina watched it as the ship went by, then brushed it from her mind. Her curiosity about the rest of the ship had gotten the better of her- she turned and swung her legs out of bed.

Hesitantly, she tried to stand. Stiff, but no pain—that is something to be thankful for… She glanced at the door. Is it really okay to leave? "Sigh." Why am I being so hesitant? They invited me up to the deck when I was done resting. I am done. And they seemed friendly enough... She put a hand on the door to the hallway. What do I have to lose at this point anyway? I had thought my mission was over last night. Fina nodded, coming to a resolution, and turned the knob.

Fina poked her head into the hallway and looked around quickly. She could hear muffled voices from further down the hall, but everywhere in sight was still. Feeling a little more adventurous now that it was clear she wasn't faced with the prospect of communicating with anyone right away, Fina tried opening the door across the hallway from her own room. A tidal wave of delicious aromas was the first thing to greet her senses. The second was the dim glow from a yellow moonstone on the ceiling that provided light to the otherwise windowless room. It was also noticeably cooler, Fina noticed as she took a step into the room. Much cooler—fog rolled out of the room as the cold air in the room clashed with the warmer air in the rest of the ship. Fina realized it must have been some kind of primitive refrigerator, using Purple Moon Stones to cool the room. She peered into the nearest barrel. Sure enough, it was filled to the brim with apples! And in another was bananas, and there were vegetables in another, and salted pork in yet another. She stared in wonder at all the exotic food for a little while, and then tried to figure out how they insulated the room for a little longer. Eventually, she decided to move on, reluctantly setting down the apple she had picked up to look at more closely. She had always wanted to try solid food, but doubted even hospitable pirates would appreciate someone taking food from them without permission.

A few steps down the hall was another door. On it hung a triangular-shaped sign with a picture painted on it that Fina didn't recognize. The background was bright red, and in black was a round ball with what looked like a string coming out of the top. The tip of the string had an orange flame on it. The door was unlocked, however, so Fina stepped inside.

The room was a weapons storeroom. An amazing collection of guns—rifles, pistols, muskets, musketoons—lined one wall. On another wall hung lines of gleaming blades—mostly common short-swords, but there were also a few claymores, a rapier or two, and even a cutlass. The rest of the room was occupied with metal canisters of black powder and huge crates of cannon balls. Most of the cannon balls were plain black, but one crate was special. The cannon balls in it were made of some kind of heavy glass or crystal, inscribed with old Arcadian runes, and they each had a Yellow Moon Stone set at the center. From her studies, and the lectures her friend used to give her, she recognized these as special concussion rounds, used to disrupt any mechanical equipment in ships they came into contact with and temporarily paralyze nearby crew. They weren't designed to cause damage to, but rather incapacitate, ships, and her friend had told her that, due to the care that went into making each one, they had always been very expensive. Fina figured that this was probably what she had been hit by when she was ambushed last night. If so, her ship had probably already sunk far underneath the clouds.

"Oh! If it isn't the guest we picked up during the raid. I see you found our weapons storeroom."

Fina jolted at the sound of the new voice and whirled around. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to intrude, I'll—"

"It's okay it's okay," the boy at the door said. He looked only a couple of years than Fina was herself, so probably around twenty or so. He wore a red shirt with the sleeves cut off at the shoulders, exposing sun-tanned arms that were crisscrossed with scars already. He was armed to the teeth too, with at least two daggers that Fina could see strapped to his legs, a cutlass on his hip, and a musketoon strapped to his back. "Between you and me, I was supposed to be guarding this room, so if you keep it between us that I left my post, I'll pretend I didn't see you."

"Oh, thank you so much," Fina said, still eyeing the numerous sharp weapons he was casually wearing.

"Oh, my name's Luke, by the way. Luke 'The Raider'," he added noticing her wary eye. "I'm usually in the first wave of a boarding party. With my melee skills and my musketoon, it's my job to thin the other side's defenses as much as I can so the main party can board more easily—that's why I'm so heavily armed."

"Oh I see!" Fina nodded. "That must be a very dangerous job, for you to be so badly scarred so young."

"It is, I suppose," Luke said thoughtfully, as if for the first time. "But it's a rush, too—being out there alone in the enemy's territory. Spells or even bullets flying around you. Almost so much of a rush that I don't realize I'm injured until after the fight's over…" Luke laughed self-consciously. "But anyway, while you're here, I might as well ask—did you notice anything different about this room?"

"H-huh? Um…" Fina wondered, looking around. Other than the high quantity of explosives and dangerous weapons…? "Oh, the walls and floor are all steel, or some kind of…"

"Yup, that's absolutely right!" Luke affirmed. "This room isn't just our weapons room, it's also where we stow the weapons and ammo and other dangerous things we pick up after raids. It's reinforced on all of the walls, floor and ceiling with solid steel, so if we were ambushed on the way back, between the outer wood frame and the inner steel reinforcement, the contents of the room can't be easily damaged or blown up. It's a common problem for all air pirates, so Captain Dyne designed the room himself. Oh, don't tell people I told you about that either please," he added as a side-note.

"That's okay, it is quite fascinating, actually," Fina said. "Your technology here is very intriguing-if I have time, I would be very interested to learn more."

"Sure—I'm not the best one to explain most thing, unless it's directly related to weapons, but the others would be happy to tell you all about what I can't. At least, what isn't a secret," he added with a slight embarrassed blush. "Vyse—you met him just a little bit ago, right?-knows these airships inside and out, so you should ask him if you have any more questions."

"Thank you, I may just do that," Fina said. "Um, for now though, could you tell me which way the deck is?"

"Oh, I'd be happy to show you—"

"Um, I could not take you from your duty…"

"Oh! I almost forgot again," Luke sighed disappointedly. "The door out to the deck is just down the hall. The big double doors—can't miss 'em."

"Thank you, again, Mr. Luke. It was nice talking to you," Fina said politely, bowing slightly, and then headed off on her way.

"Heh, Mister Luke, huh?" Luke chuckled quietly, leaning back against the wall as he watched her leave.

o0o0o0o

The view out on the decks was enough to take anyone's breath away, but it left Fina particularly awestruck for some reason. For a little while, she just gaped at the blue canopy above and all around the ship. Brisk wind danced across her skin and tickled her hair. White tufts of…something hung in the air all around them, sometimes even getting obliterated as the ship stormed through them. When she had been flying the other night, it had been so dark she had hardly noticed a difference from her own home.

"So…this is the sky…huh," she said quietly. Looking down from above really didn't do its grandness justice.

The Silver Moon hung in the same place as always, a welcome sight among all of the strange new scenery. That, at least, was a small comfort for the girl.

Fina noticed the ship was rapidly getting closer to a small island in the distance. That must have been the destination those two pirates had mentioned—Pirate Isle, they'd said. Not exactly a welcoming name, Fina mused. She had heard countless horror stories about the violent nature of "Arcadians," as they apparently called themselves, and wondered anxiously what kind of city such a culture would produce. The airship drew closer to the island, and then went straight by, in order to make a wide circle. What she saw wasn't exactly what she expected—it was children playing. They were in a big group in a central clearing of the small island, chasing a dog and squealing loudly enough to be heard up in the ship. Not far away, women bustled around, hanging out laundry to dry in the midday sunlight, or just chatting together in pairs. The kids were the first to spot the airship, whooping and screaming in glee, trying to get the deckhands' attention. A few who had their hands free waved back, and the rest who were working the rigging settled for whooping back even louder. Fina smiled a bit at the sight, and even raised a hand to wave, but quickly used it to brush a few stray strands of hair out of her face instead. It may not have been what she was expecting, but she wouldn't let herself get carried away so easily.

"Hey, you're up," Vyse said, coming around to lean against the rail beside Fina. "That's our base, Pirate Isle. It's pretty, huh?"

Fina nodded, she couldn't deny it looked like a very peaceful little village. Much smaller and less…depraved than she had expected, certainly.

"We call it Windmill Isle around outsiders, actually, but you're in deep enough it probably doesn't matter," Vyse laughed.

"It…looks like a really nice place," Fina said genuinely. "Um…but where does the ship…?"

"Heh, just watch and see," Vyse said with a playful wink.

The ship turned wide and pointed its bow directly at the side of the island. Before Fina could voice any of her mounting concerns, Vyse pointed at the rock face of the island and shouted, "Look!" Three straight, hairline cracks appeared in the wall, and a drawbridge lowered to reveal a huge hole. The Albatross drastically cut its speed and slowly glided into the cavern, with some guidance from a sailor that had appeared on the drawbridge door. It wasn't until they were safely in the cool darkness of the cave that Fina realized she had been holding her breath.

"Come on—let's get off and Aika and I'll give you the grand tour," Vyse said.

o0o0o0o

"Weapons, armor, gold…Now this is a great catch! One of our best yet!" A pirate said, one of a group that had congregated on the platform beside the ship that was picking over the loot from the raid.

"Tonight, we should celebrate!" A female pirate said, holding a bottle up high. The rest of the group loudly expressed its approval, rushing off, eager to start the festivities.

"Well, Fina, this is what we do!" Aika proclaimed cheerfully. "What do you think?"

Having never ridden on a ship before last night, Fina never had to adjust to getting her "land legs" (as Vyse had called them while they were walking out) back. Her slight nausea, combined with all of the overwhelming sights and sounds that made up the dark cavern that was the Pirate Isle base, made it hard for Fina to concentrate on the conversation. "Well, it certainly looks challenging…" she vaguely replied.

"Ahahaha—challenging, huh…" Aika echoed. "Well, now that you mention it, it isn't easy. But it's fun!"

"This is the underground port inside Pirate Isle," Vyse said, gesturing around himself. "From the outside, this island looks like a quiet, peaceful village. But here, underneath it, is where our headquarters is located."

Now that the dizziness had receded a little, Fina cast her gaze around the cavern. The cavern-port was truly huge, bigger than Fina would have thought possible for the small island. In fact, the extremely heavy-looking wooden cross beams and steel joints on the walls made Fina wonder if the island was really more mad-made fabrication than natural. Behind her, the moored Albatross took up almost half of the underground space. In front, the wall was divided into three staggered floors that each had various rooms hollowed into its rock face. The whole room seemed to have a strange, otherworldly feel, of earthy smells mixed with sulfuric gunpowder, combined with the muted sounds due to the earthen walls and flickering torchlight.

"There are armories, shops, and even a tavern inside here," Aika added, although Fina failed to comprehend the meaning behind more of the words she said. "Come on, we'll give you a tour!"

"Vyse!" Just as Aika was about to march off, a stern voice stopped her and the others in their tracks. It was Captain Dyne, looking down on them from the highest floor. "Come to my office immediately…and bring the girl with you."

"Vyse…I wonder what that was all about," Aika said worriedly. "He sounded even gruffer than usual…"

"Ooh! Sounds like you—got—in-trouble Vyse!" Matt the deckhand crowed from where he was scrubbing the boardwalk nearby. "That's what you get for jumping out in front of everyone else~"

"I don't want to hear anything coming from the guy who slept through the whole raid," Vyse retorted dryly.

"Uhg," Matt grunted at the painful truth. "Hey—I'm just not a night person…or a morning person! Besides, Dyne himself said I wasn't ready for combat yet!"

Vyse rolled his eyes dismissively and turned back to the two girls. "…I'm not sure, but we'd better hurry, I suppose. You know how Dad gets when we're late."

"Yeah…" Aika said with a slightly grim smile, a shadow of some painful memory passing over her face for a second. "Engine room duty…"

"Grounded for a week," Vyse shivered violently. "No sailing for a week…"

Aika bounced back out of her gloom abruptly. "Come on, Fina! It'll be okay if we give you the abbreviated tour as we go!"

"Yeah, most of the good stuff's on our way anyway," Vyse seconded.

"Ah—o-okay," Fina stuttered, allowing herself to be half pulled along by Aika. The people in the base were positively armed to the teeth—everyone her age and older seemed to wear some kind of sword or (rarely) a rudimentary gunpowder rifle. Weapons were stacked in rows by the walls and under tents too, the most notable being a huge canon emblazoned with the Blue Rogues' emblem. The atmosphere was fairly laid-back though; everyone they passed greeted them warmly.

"Okay, first is our little tavern," Vyse said, leading the girls through a door on the second floor. It was just a tiny cave dug out in the wall, but it was packed to the brim with barrels, crates, and other boxes. A table, already crowded with drinkers, took up what little floor space was left.

"Cheers!" The men and women exclaimed, clinking their frothing mugs together. One of the women took a long swig from her bottle and then thumped it down on the table with a satisfied gasp. "-Pah! Nothing like a good bottle of Loqua after a successful raid!"

"AYE!" The group agreed.

"Or in your case, after a raid, and after any other time of the day!" A burly man guffawed, drawing the others into it.

The lady pirate laughed good-naturedly along with the rest of the group, then asked coyly. "But, Timnus, should you be with the rest of us bums when you've got a beautiful, hard-working wife waiting for you at home on the surface?"

"Yeah! Yeah! You ungrateful dog!" A few people in the crowd added.

"Hey! There's nothing wrong with relaxing with friends after a long day's work!"

This seemed to win the crowd's favor again, and they sloshed their mugs together for another toast. "Yeah! To a hard day's work!" Dropping the matter, they turned to the more important subject of imbibing more Loqua and shout amongst themselves.

"My, oh my… They're as noisy as always," Aika laughed. "Whaddaya think, Fina? This is our tavern. They serve all kinds of drinks here, juices, sparkling water, Loqua…"

Fina raised her hand. "Um…excuse me, but what is 'Loqua?'"

"WHAAAT?" Vyse exclaimed. "Fina…you really don't know what Loqua is?"

"Well, um…I don't know exactly," Fina said, blushing. "But…it appears to be a really good-tasting drink of some kind…Everyone seems to be drinking so fervently, it must be delicious."

"Want to share a bottle of Mur Loqua with me?" The female pirate offered Fina, winking in a way that struck the girl as odd. "It's made from Loquat Berries and Moon Stones. Packs a punch and tastes great!"

"Nononononono!" Aika said firmly before Fina could accept, directing her back around towards the door. "We don't have time to sit around right now! We have to go talk to the Cap'n!"

"Why?" Fina asked as she was ushered out the door by the other two teens. "Are we not supposed to be here?"

"Well, the Cap'n is always getting on our case about being late and stuff… No need to get him even angrier with us…" And Mable is not the safest person to get drunk for the first time around… Aika muttered under her breath, shivering.

Yeah, I made that mistake too, and when I woke up, she and Timnus had smeared makeup all over my face and someone had pulled a frilly dress over my sailing uniform… Vyse added.

Where does she even GET that stuff? She never wears those things… Aika added.

I dunno… "HAHAHA, but yeah, Dad can get pretty worked up when he's mad," Vyse said more loudly to Fina, who was wondering if she should tell them that she had heard every word they said. "We wouldn't want him to have a heart attack, now would we?"

"Haha, you're so mean to your Dad, you know that Vyse?" Aika said, tapping him playfully on the shoulder. "Come on, let's pick up the pace. Sorry, Fina, we'll show you the other stuff later, okay?"

"Oh that's fine," Fina said.

As they walked, a voice called out to them from a stall built into the wall. "Hey Vyse! Aika! Check out my wares! I got lots of new weapons in stock from the raid!" It was a small man with a shiny, bald head, who wore dark glasses despite the poorly lighted cave.

"No way!" Vyse said, as he went by. "Your prices are robbery! At least give a teammate a discount!"

"Heheheh, no honor among thieves, right? Not a chance!"

"H-hey, Vyse! Welcome back!" A girl called out from the next stall over. "You should come by and tell me about your adventure later! I'd l-love to hear it!"

"Sure! Later!" Vyse called as they went.

"Ahahah… Erinn's still crushin' on you I see…" Aika giggled after they had reached the third floor.

"Huuh? Whaddaya mean still?" Vyse asked incredulously. "You mean she has for a while?"

"Haha you're so dense, about these things, Vyse…" Aika laughed, shaking her head.

"I'm dense? Says the girl who—"

Fina listened to their good natured banter as they closed the distance to Dyne's office. The girl had never seen or heard anything like it in all her life. When she was with her only friend, most of their "conversations" had been her listening and nodding vaguely now and then while he ranted passionately about the "surface" and the "future," and showed her his dusty old maps he had found in some forgotten storage room. The friendship these two had seemed different though—both spoke to each other in equal proportion, and while their jokes were rough, they never seemed to hold any grudges. This was a new concept to Fina.

"Vyse and Aika reporting for duty," Vyse said as they stepped into Dyne's office. "And we've brought Fina like you've requested." Briggs the Vice Captain and Borris the Head Gunner stood at either side of Dyne, who sat at the head of a long conference table, adding to the formal air in the room. The expression on Dyne's face made it clear that this was a serious occasion.

"Hmph, you're a little late…" Dyne paused. "I'll let it slide this time, though. Come on over."

The three teens lined up just next to where he sat. Vyse and Aika had fairly serious expressions now, Fina noticed. She supposed they were as in the dark about what would happen next as she was.

"Young lady, I am Dyne, as you probably already know," he glanced at Vyse and Aika on either side of her, "I am the captain of The Albatross and the leader of this whole group that we call the 'Blue Rogues'. There are some questions that I would ask you—will you answer them for me?"

"O-of course…"

"I've been sailing for a very long time, and I've been to a great many places, but I've never come across anyone wearing clothes like yours. What country are you from, and why were you traveling alone out there at night?" His steely expression made it hard to tell whether he was angry or concerned.

Vyse shot a concerned glance at Fina, but kept his opinions to himself. Above all, he trusted his Dad's judgment and knew he wouldn't make a rash decision about Fina. He just hoped that Fina herself was as good a person as she seemed.

"Cap'n Dyne, you worry too much," Aika laughed awkwardly. "Fina's just a normal girl—if you spent any amount of time with her you'd know she was a good person—"

"Silence, Aika," Dyne slammed a fist down on the desk and glared at her fiercely. "Being a 'good person', looking innocent…doesn't mean she isn't a threat to your safety." He leaned back and looked steadily at Fina. "I am the Captain here—it is my duty to protect the security of my family and my crew." These words were meant more for her than they were for Aika now, Fina knew. "If this girl is a danger of any sort to you of any of my men, I cannot let her live." Fear gripped Fina, although it honestly didn't compare to the fear of leaving home for the first time. Surprisingly to her, though, she actually couldn't hold it against him—he was obviously only doing what he thought he had to to keep his loved ones safe.

"B-but…But…" Aika stammered, and looked pleadingly at Vyse for support, but he was stoically looking at the ground.

"Fina…" Dyne said, addressing her by name for the first time. "It is your turn to speak."

Fina was silent for a moment, her gaze drifting to the floor beside Dyne's chair. She knew it wouldn't be taken well, but she, too, had to do what she thought was right.

"Finaa…" Aika murmured, trying to find something to say. Vyse just watched Fina and Dyne carefully.

"…I…I cannot say."

"Why is that? Is it because we are airpirates? Is it that you don't trust us?" Dyne probed quietly.

"No—that has nothing to do with it," Fina said, her confidence building as she heard herself speak. "I thank you with all my heart for saving my life. You have shown me nothing but kindness even though I have been nothing but a burden on you. I honestly never expected such kindness from anyone... But I cannot tell any living soul about the purpose of my quest. Even if it means sacrificing my own life, I must hold my tongue. All I can say is that I have no intention of endangering any of your lives. If you believe anything I say, please believe this."

Dyne was silent for a long moment; but then a smile broke his grim face. "Alright then. Heh… Looks like I lost this one."

A smile finally cracked on Vyse's face and Aika flat-out cheered and pumped her fist.

"I understand your dilemma, I've been in tight situations at the mercy of others like this before too" he added, and it seemed to her like her really did. "And I see in your eyes that you're true to your word. While that still doesn't necessarily mean that you aren't a threat, I see that you're honest enough that it's not worth pressing any further. You're free to go on the next merchant ship that passes through if you wish—we were not able to retrieve your ship—or you can stay with us as our personal guest for a while."

Fina couldn't hide the shock that was clearly painted across her face.

"Although they call us airpirates, and even we've started as well, we have a strong sense of honor. You don't need to divulge the secrets of your quest. Understand that you now have my trust—be careful you don't lose it." Dyne's last words were almost drowned out to Fina by the joyful cheers of the two teens beside her.

"Yaaay!" Aika yelled in relief, glomping Fina in a big hug. Vyse smiled in relief and patted Fina on the shoulder, casting a grateful look at Dyne.

"C-Captain Dyne…" Fina said recovering from the shock to do a half-bow through Aika's hug. "Thank you so much. I will not disappoint you."

"Vyse, Aika," Dyne said to the two teens. "Take the girl—Fina—topside and give her a tour of the village."

"Oh yeah! That's more like it!" Aika yelled.

"Way to go Dad, I knew you'd come through," Vyse added as they walked for the door.

Dyne's eyebrow twitched in irritation. "It's not 'Dad,' it's 'Captain'… How many times do I have to—bah, I give up for today. You're excused. Don't be late for dinner." At that he returned to the book in his hands.

o0o0o0o

"That was a kind thing you did there," Briggs said when the kids had cleared out and the three adults were sitting idly at the table. "But are you sure it was…" He let it hang at that.

"I have my doubts too, but I know at least two kids who would hate me forever if I laid one finger on that girl's head," Dyne chuckled. "And I know my people here in Windmill Isle. They wouldn't be too happy if I kept an innocent girl here against her will either. They all take freedom very seriously."

"I guess that's true, sir," Briggs replied. "But just letting her go without knowing—"

"Peh. Stop your worryin', Briggs, you old codger," Borris "humph"-ed. "We ain't law enforcers, and it ain't our job to interrogate people. She has a right to freedom, and dat's dat. We can take care of ourselves."

Briggs glared at Borris and was about to retort, but Dyne overided him. "Your worry is noted, Briggs. It's good you're always sharp on these things. But there's nothing more we can do right now. And Borris, leave him be, he's only being careful."

"Aye," the latter said, dropping it easily.

"Yes, sir," Briggs said, leaning back in his chair again.

"How many years do I have to keep telling you, Briggs, not to call me 'sir'?" Dyne laughed. "Borris caught on quickly—maybe too quickly," he glared good-naturedly at the Head Gunner. "We're not in the navy anymore. I consider us equals—the titles are just formalities."

"Of course, sorry. Old habits die hard, I suppose," Briggs chuckled.

"Do you regret leaving?"

"Absolutely not."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A/N: Ahhh no flashback coming next installment, although I may do a short/medium followup story later... This wasn't in the first draft, but I'd been nursing a backstory idea for Dyne for a loong time, and I figured this would be a great time to plug it.:P

As for background notes, if I do them this time, it'll be in part 2 of this chapter.

If there are any grammatical errors, or practical errors in my world design, or you just *possibly* like where things are going, please review. Constructive crits are also welcome, although I may or may not take them into account.:P

Final Fantasy VIII Notes

2011-03-29T21:45:00.000-07:00

So I don't annoy everyone on facebook with my constant updates...

4/29/11
Somewhere near the end of disc two. Mainly just a big cutscene of magical plot advancement, with the garden attacking the sorcerous's garden, punctuated by an infuriating minigame fighting an enemy mecha pilot that admittedly looked cool, but got old really fast after dying five times...

My Game List 2011

2011-03-28T09:30:00.000-07:00

      Although its probably going to take longer than 2011 to finish all of them, here's my list for this year (3DS out yesterday? Maybe I'll be ready to move on to it next year. PSP 2 coming out? Haven't even warmed up with the first one!):
      1.Final Fantasy VIII-- Since the PS2 was backwards-compatible with psOne games, I went out and got this one right away. I'm somewhere in the middle of disc 2(of four!!!), and its awesome. Its like FFVII, only without the hideous language, bad translation, and wonky graphics.
      2.Final Fantasy X-- the game that actually made me want a PS2.
      3.Shadow of the Colossus-- part way through.
      4.Lost Odyssey-- got past disc one (of four!!!) with insanity, but not so far along on my file.
      5.Arc Rise Fantasia-- One of the ~~few~~ only rpgs worth playing on the Wii. And unfortunately, that ain't sayin much. I'll get to it eventually though.
      6.Parasite Eve: I've been playing it recently, but I really should beat some older games first before I go any further. Its like Final Fantasy...if you crossbred it with Resident Evil and set it in New York...yeah...
      7.Baten Kaitos: Actually, there were a lot of good rpgs for the gamecube. This is one of them.
      8.Metroid Prime Trilogy-- Possibly the best game on the Wii.
      9.Kingdom Hearts II-- Part of the way through this.
      10.Rogue Galaxy-- Cool game, but very veeery repetitive. Everything, fighting, environments, plot, its all recycled and repetitve.
      11.Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker-- Fun stuff, finally got past a major road block, but now I'm stumped again.
      12. Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria-- One of the prettiest games on the PS2, and very fun. Not sure about the story and the grind is endless, but its still an excellent rpg.
      13.Tales of Legendia-- Before they realized the PS2 could produce nice CG.
      14.Okami-- when they did.
      15.Ico-- silent puzzler, the prequel to Shadow of the Colossus.
      16. .hack//Infection-- also before PS2 games looked good-- fun concept, though.
      17.Beyond Good and Evil-- The original Gamecube version-- HD remakes are for wimps!
      18.Final Fantasy XII-- beautiful, well-made game. Don't know about the plot yet.
      19.Tales of the Abyss-- the language is truly from the Abyss, but the story's good enough, and the graphics are actually worthy of the PS2. Hard mode is hard.
      20.Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love-- the PS2 version runs better than the Wii version...sigh.
      21. Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories-- easy enough, not quite enough plot to justify such a blinking long game though...
      22.Dark Cloud-- not very easy on the eyes-- might trade it in for DC2.
      23. Odin Sphere-- he who said the game's plot was good obviously never played Tales of Symphonia. Or a lot of other games. Or he was bribed. Or drunk. Or all of the above. Its strength is in its gameplay and its graphics.
      24.Final Fantasy X-2-- Its at the bottom of the list...But its not least! Far be it from me to let the fanservice game sit at the bottom of the pile!

      After every two games I beat, I have given myself the ability to rearrange the list if I want. But before that, I have to beat two games. Then, I can't rearrange it again until I beat another two.
      I should also mention that hand-held games like Pokemon Heart-Gold, Phantasy Star Portable 2, Valkyria Chronicles, Sigma Star Saga, Cave Story DSi, Shantae, Chrono Trigger, and such are not on the list because they aren't played the same way. Since they're portable, I can play them in different situations than the console games, which you have to specifically sit down for a certain amount of time at the tv to play.

The Dream Cutlass-- 1.A Dark Passage in the Dark Rift

2011-03-26T08:14:00.000-07:00

Author's Notes: ALL of my indentations, bold fonts, and italics have been wiped out again, and I really don't care enough to do anything about it! It looks nice on fanfiction.net, and that's all that matters.:P

The Dream Cutlass

by

sorathecrow

A Dark Passage in the Dark Rift

“Hrm…I don’t know about this one, Vyse,” Aika said, leaning over the railing and peering down on the shipwreck.

The Delphinus hovered in place over yet another shipwreck in the Dark Rift. After running across a man still living in one of the shipwrecks that dotted the giant fungi there, the pirates made it a priority to check every odd-looking wreck for more survivors (not to mention all of the ancient treasure most of those same ships held). Now, Vyse, Aika, and Fina were on the deck of the Delphinus and looking down on another wreck.

“What do you mean? We’ve already been into a few ships like this one since we entered the Dark Rift,” Vyse said.

“But there’s some kind of green glow coming from this one—see the windows over there?” Aika pointed at the windows where the captain’s cabin would be, and sure enough, faint green light steadily poured out of them.

“They could just be uncovered Green Moonstones,” Vyse said, shrugging off Aika’s worried tone.

“No way! ‘Green light equals ghosts’ is like the rule for creepy stories!” Aika turned to Fina for support in her desperation. “Come on, Fina, you agree with me right? It’s not worth it…”

“It couldn’t be worse than anything else we’ve faced so far, right? And there might be another survivor there,” Fina said, genuine concern coloring her face.

Aika sighed in frustration. On one hand, she was so proud of how outgoing Fina had become since they first met months back, but on the other, Aika was not good with ghosts. Or creepy lights. Or freak fog banks. Or dead things in general. Either way, it seemed she was out-numbered two-to-one, though.

“Well, if you don’t want to go, we won’t force you,” Vyse said in that annoyingly guileless voice. “Shall we, Fina?”

“Ah, yes, thank you,” Fina said, letting Vyse cradle her in his arms as he hopped down onto the other ship’s deck.

Aika crossed her arms and whirled away in a huff. It was short lived though—a moment later her eyebrow twitched.

“Alright! Fine! Wait up, guys!” Aika cried as she leapt down after them.

o-o-o-o

The deck of the other ship was silent—the only sound was that of the creak of ancient wood as the trio investigated. It was clear that the wreck really was ancient. It was an old wooden ship that appeared to not even have the basic back-up engines most wind-powered ships were now equipped with in the event of emergencies. At first, they thought about exploring the other areas of the ship first, but the pressing mystery of the captain’s cabin was too much for the three to ignore.

Vyse put a hand to the door to the captain’s room and looked back at Aika and Fina. They nodded that they were ready and hefted their weapons. Aika held her enormous boomerang like a club—it would be useless for throwing in such a confined space. Fina called her sentient “bracelet” Cupil, which materialized into a blob of silver with beady black eyes in the air beside her head. It circled her head a few times then morphed into a silver short sword—perfect for close-quarters fighting. She wasn’t very skilled with blades, but she was proficient enough to hold her own in a pinch—more than enough for a Glist Arts specialist. Seeing that they were both ready, Vyse flung the door open wide.

What met their eyes was something no one could have guessed. Instead of the captain’s room, it was a long hallway.

“Wha-whaaaa?” Aika spluttered. “Bu-bu…the light…the captain’s room…”

“That’s weird…I’ve never heard of a ship layout like this. It doesn’t make any sense,” Vyse muttered. “Was the light from the windows we saw coming from side rooms off this hallway?”

Fina squinted into the dark hallway. Something didn’t feel right at all. Not ominous exactly, but very unnatural. Her gaze flicked to the doorway again. Something was definitely off. The door was a completely different style from the rest of the ship, and was so pristine it looked like it was installed only a few days ago. Fina wondered if it had really had changed since they had opened the door or not—now she couldn’t even recall what it had looked like before. Fina was about to point it out to the others when Vyse spoke up.

“Uhg, its pitch black in there too—Aika, can you give us a light?” He asked, trying to peer into the dark corridor.

“Ye-yeah!” Aika snapped her fingers a few times and a red flame burst to life in the air over her palm. Aika’s skill with Red Glist Arts had progressed so far lately that she could even call out simple flames without even having to speak the activation phrase.

The flickering light from the flame seeped across the floor, illuminating several yards ahead. “Seeped” being the key word, as the light seemed to be limited to the floor. The darkness remained, stubbornly clinging to the walls and ending strictly where they met the floor. If one stared really hard at them, you could almost see the outline of wooden planks under the gloom, but the nearly impenetrable darkness proved to be too hard to look at for more than a moment.

“Well, let’s go,” Vyse said, carefully stepping forward. Aika sighed resignedly and filed in behind him. The three walked single file, not wanting to get too close to the strange darkness. The passage went on for about twenty-five yards, with Aika grumbling every other. It finally ended with another door that looked just like the last one, Fina noticed.

“Finally…we made it through…” Aika tearfully said.

“Okay, one more time—you ready for this, guys?” Vyse said, hand on the door.

“Yes,” the two nodded.

Once again, he threw the door open, and they were blinded by a flood of green light.

If you wish to claim my power:

Realize your full potential

And with a single mind,

Step forward…

Author’s Notes: And so ends chapter 1 of my weird, random diversion… I have a vague purpose for this, but I really only wrote it ‘cause I wanted to do something random, and the Dream Cutlass-- in all of its overly-mysterious glory--seemed like the best choice. Note that this’ll be prone to large rewrites without warning and possibly full-scale deletion over the next few weeks if I decide I hate it.

Love note for Blogger

2011-03-24T21:56:00.000-07:00

I love you so much. So very much. I know, I cheated and went over to fanfiction.net with my story and left you here in the cold, but I'm sorry. You may wipe out all of my paragraph indents, but at least you leave what I copy onto you readable, unlike a certain fanfic site that rejects numbered lists by eating random words in said lists... You really are the only site for me, Blogger. Sure, I may copy my works onto other sites for advertising's sake, but you will always be my number one... I just...thought you should know that...

Final Inheritance Book Is Coming In November!

2011-03-23T20:21:00.000-07:00

You heard it right, the Inheritance series book 4 will be here this year! *head taped so it doesn't asplode at the thought* Guess what its name will be. Go on. Just try. You'll never get it.

Skies of Arcadia:Heroes Preview!Chapter 1

2011-03-23T17:09:00.000-07:00

Author's note: Just a preview while you wait...EDIT: Once again, italics and stuff have been removed by the blog in transition, for whatever reason . Its just a preview, so I'm not gonna fix it now.

Skies of Arcadia: Heroes

Chapter One—“Angel’s Awakening”

Shards of a voice echoed from her memory to her dreams, as if heard from a great distance.

Fina…you…replace…Rami…Moon Elder…are…hope…Don’t allow…trust…the surface…

The voice faded away as Fina gradually became aware of her surroundings. She was lying on something soft, which was a surprise considering where she had last remembered being conscious. It was actually…soft and warm. Maybe I’m in the afterlife…no…I’m probably still in the clutches of some enemy…I should probably open my eyes and see where I am now. She slowly opened her eyes, fearful of what might be out there.

“Looks like she’s starting to come to.”

Two faces peered down at her, hardly a hand’s breadth away from her own.

“Oh good!” The other one said in a voice barely below a yell. “How do you feel?”

“F-fine,” Fina said reflexively. Actually, she felt like a sack of moonstones that had been carelessly lugged around all night and then tossed into a corner, and she thought she had a bruise on her head; but she didn’t have the presence of mind to give them the full synopsis.

The two heads backed up to let Fina sit up , letting her see the bodies they were (thankfully) attached to. Fina’s head spun a little bit as she sat up—uhg, maybe not so fine.

The one the first voice belonged to spoke. “My names Vyse,” he said. His voice was kind, and his gaze didn’t seem to betray any ill intent. He had a glass eye patch over his right eye, and a long scar ran horizontally under his left. His hair was dark brown and hung down around his ears in the front but was neatly trimmed in the back. A red bandanna contrasted with his blue uniform.

“And I’m Aika!” The one on the left said. The girl was dressed in a bright yellow one-piece uniform that flared off in a daringly short skirt that seemed to contradict her innocent face. Her bright red-orange hair was braided in two long pony tails on both sides of her head.

“You’re on board our ship, the Albatross—“ Vyse said.

“We rescued you!” Aika cut in.

“Yes,” Vyse said, unfazed by the interruption. “The Valuans captured you, but we stopped them before they could take you away.”

“Th-thank you,” Fina said. Ship? Albatross? Valuans? She wondered to herself. Oh, the Valuans must be people who ambushed me…

“It was my pleasure as a Blue Rogue! “ Vyse said, tossing a carefree salute.

“Um…What’s a Blue Rogue?”

Aika’s eyes grew wide. “You’ve never heard of the Blue Rogues?!”

“Um…No,” Fina said, embarrassed and wishing she had kept her mouth shut. She might have just insulted them, and the last thing she needed was more enemies in this place.

“The Blue Rogues are a branch of air pirate, I guess you could say,” Vyse explained, seemingly not hurt by the girl’s reaction.

“I’m sorry, but what is an air pirate?” Fina asked, since they seemed to be happy enough to answer questions, although she couldn’t restrain an embarrassed blush.

“You were out traveling and you didn’t know about air pirates?” Vyse asked slightly incredulously.

“I…don’t get out much…”

“Air pirates are people who attack other ships and steal their cargo,” Vyse explained.

“Oh, my!” Fina gasped, reevaluating her two “rescuers.”

“Don’t worry!” Aika said, seeing her obvious consternation. “We’re ‘Blue Rogues.’ We only attack armored ships, preferably Valuan ones.”

“We steal from the rich,” Vyse continued. “And we use the money to help keep the skies clear of bad guys like the Valuans and Black Pirates.”

“Yup!” Aika chirped.

“But Black Pirates—they’re another story,” Vyse said. “They will attack unarmored ships unprovoked, and are constantly looking for a fight.”

“They’re bullies with no sense of honor,” Aika said.

“The Blue Rogues fight to protect the innocent people in their airspace ,” Vyse smiled. “You’re safe in our care.”

“Um, thank you very much,” Fina said. The two teenagers called themselves pirates, but they didn’t seem to be dangerous.

“No problem!” The pirate girl said. “So, what’s your name?”

“Fina,” she said and then flinched, mentally berating herself as she recalled the Elder’s warnings. Why did I give them my name? I can’t allow myself to be tricked into a false sense of security by these people.

The girl’s discomfort didn’t escape Vyse’s notice, but he chalked it up to her still being disoriented after the earlier ordeal. “Fina, huh? That’s a nice name. Its so…feminine.”

His attempt to cheer her up was a massive failure. Fina stared at him blankly, having completely missed what he said during her contemplations.

Vyse shook his head. “Yeesh…you try to complement someone, and nothing…”

“Ahahaha!” Aika laughed. “You call that a complement? Looks like you have a lot to learn about women!”

Aika’s laugh was infectious, and Fina giggled too despite herself. Vyse sighed helplessly at the fun they were having at his expense, but he was happy to see that Fina was beginning to loosen up a bit, at least. To tell the truth, while he could communicate fine with the opposite gender, he had very little interest in the intricacies of close relationships. Relationships and eventually marriage, in his mind, were something for the far future when he was “old” (as in twenty-four or five). As long as there were new things to do and learn and discover, love was not high on his priority list.

“Vyse! Aika!” a slightly tinny voice reverberated through the room. Based on where the other two teenager’s eyes went, Fina guessed it came from a metal tube in a corner on the wall. “How long are you going to stand there chitchatting? Report to the bridge immediately for your duties, over.”

“We’d better go before Dad goes off the deep end,” Vyse said, starting towards the door. “Come up on deck later and stretch your legs if you want!”

“Nice to meet you, Fina!” Aika said, waving as she closed the door behind her.

Fina mustered up a small smile and nodded. Fina stared at the closed door for a few moments, then flopped back into her pillow. She suddenly felt really tired.

o-o-o-o

A/N:This is still mostly my work that's been sitting around since early last year. I spruced up this and the prologue quite a bit, but its still kinda lack-luster, I think; especially after reading a bit of Strange Clothes-- another SoA fanfic. While there's a LOT I wouldn't do that its author does, like the OT3 paring choice (which, if you don't know what it means, you're better of not knowing, I suppose) and lots of mature content like language and sexual themes, he has a very fluid and natural writing style that keeps the plot flow of the games, but makes them read more fluidly like a real novel. That fluidity is something I still need to work on. I want to stay true to the original dialogue and plot of the game, but I've adhered so rigidly in the prologue that I think it came out sounding more like a script. The narrative left something to be desired. It had flow, but not spontaneity. Sigh, I'm rambling now. Let's just say that as I go from about the middle of chapter 1 (which will be about 1,000 words past this point) I'll try to bump up the quality to something more befitting a novel. I'm about 2/3rds of the way done with the first draft now, and then I'll need to take some quality time to rework something just after this part I posted, so I'll tentatively set the next chapter release at around early April.

Skies of Arcadia: Heroes, Prologue

2011-03-14T17:57:00.000-07:00

Author's Note: Well, I hope you enjoy the first chapter! It was fun writing it, and I hope its fun to read too! This is, obviously, a fanfic, but I want it to be something you can read and understand and enjoy without necessarily having played the game before. If there's terminology I don't have time in the main story to explain immediately, I'll post a little explanation after each chapter that will hopefully explain things clearly.  If there's something you still don't understand or you have any other comments, give me a shoutout in the comments section to let me know and i'll do my best to help. EDIT: A lot of my formatting was wiped when I copied this from MS Word, so if something is off, by all means, tell me.

Rated: T for violence, suggestive themes(later), mild gore(as is present in a lot of Fantasy novels, nothing excessive), mild language(later), loqua reference(wait,wut?)

Disclaimer: Obviously, I don't own skies of arcadia, and I neither speak for them, nor make money off of this. How could you possibly think I do? Why do people even bother writing these anyway? This is a work of parody, that I hope you will find amusing.
Prologue: Fallen Angel

Admiral Alfonso sighed dramatically and slumped in his chair. It was dark where he sat in the bridge of the air-battleship he commanded. Most of the lights inside and outside of the ship had been turned off, and the engine idled. Aside from the occasional creak from the metal ship or a squeak as a soldier’s metal plate armor rubbed together, it was silent. It was driving the snobbish young man insane.

“How much longer must I patrol this backwater place?” He complained. “It has been two weeks and we have not seen any sign of a silver ship. Blast Glacian and that mad Vice Captain of his! The First Admiral of the Mid Ocean Fleet should not be forced to do such grunt work as patrol.”

Yes, believe it or not, this aristocratic, blond haired young man with haughty eyes and a proud tongue really was an Admiral. An Admiral of the Valuan Imperial Armada, in fact. He was given the command because of his noble blood--unprepared for the position though he was. He was thoroughly, unbelievably spoiled, and had gotten it into his head at some point that the world owed him something. He had the utmost contempt for anyone not of noble blood, and treated the people under his authority as sub-human and disposable. Needless to say, he didn’t have many friends on this particular ship.

The much bemoaned assignment: patrolling the Mid Ocean for any signs of a silver ship that could appear in the area within the next few weeks. Normally, Alfonso would simply delegate the task to one of his men to carry out, but the Lord Galcian himself had ordered him to oversee the job personally. Thus Admiral Alfonso was forced to do this ‘menial task’ (as he would call it) himself.

“What’s worse is, the only people here are either common merchants passing through on their way to Sailor’s Island, or savage air pirates-”

“Admiral Alfonso!” The Vice Captain interrupted, rushing up to Alfonso’s side. Ignoring Alfonso’s annoyed glare, he saluted hastily and continued: “We have spotted the Silvite’s ship!”

“Wh-what? Really?” Alfonso asked incredulously. He hadn’t really expected to find anything. In the back of his mind he had wondered if Galcian had only given him the job to get him out of the way. “Well, it’s about time.” He said, recovering quickly.

“What are your orders, sir?”

“Uh…oh, right, right! Ahem- get us in range and prepare to fire the concussion shells,” Alfonso said. “But remember, Lord Galcian and the Empress want the pilot alive.”

“Yes sir!” The Vice Captain turned and barked orders to the crew at the controls of the ship, and they, in turn relayed the orders through the intercom.

As if a switch had been flicked, energy returned to the ship. Soldiers dashed around the bridge and the engine revved to life underneath Alfonso‘s feet. Lights flickered on overhead in the bridge as blinding white light simultaneously shone from the search lights on the outside of the ship.

The lights of the ship alerted the pilot of the one-person vessel. It tried to veer away to the northeast as the Valuan vessel began to pursue, but the ambushers were already within range.

Concussion shells rocked the silver ship, knocking the pilot unconscious and nullifying the power of whatever moonstones were powering the ship. The Valuan ship lumbered to a stop beside the other smoking vessel and grappling hooks flew through the gap between them, dragging the paralyzed ship close.

“We have retrieved the pilot, sir,” the Vice Captain said.

“Excelle-”

“One thing, sir-”

“What?” Alfonso asked.

“Sir… The pilot is an unarmed girl. Hardly older then sixteen years,” the soldier said.

“Hmm? That’s odd-- a girl sailing alone at night? On a mission that interests even the Lord of the Imperial Armada?” Alfonso wondered aloud. “These people that sent her aren’t the brightest chaps, are they. Bring her here.”

“Yessir.”

Alfonso could hardly keep himself from dancing a merry jig in front of all his officers. He settled for rubbing his hands together and giggling quietly in greedy anticipation.

“Once the Empress hears of my noble deeds here, she’s sure to be very pleased. I could be given a new flagship….perhaps even a promotion!”

A soldier cried out, interrupting Alfonso’s daydreaming.

“Ship spotted off the port side, coming down out of the clouds!”

The vessel jerked under an impact from the left, making Admiral Alfonso lose his footing and topple to the floor.

“Wh-wh-wh-what?” He sputtered from his spot on the floor. “Who would dare attack a vessel of the Imperial Armada?”

“Their ship bears the standard of the Blue Rogues, sir!”

o-o-o-o

From his perch in the crow’s nest, Vyse watched the unsuspecting Valuan ship. The wind-powered Blue Rogue ship the Albatross, lights doused, had easily crept within a few miles of the Valuan ship without attracting any attention. Now, using a bank of slow-moving clouds for cover, they waited for the opportunity to pounce. Any second now the signal to attack would go out. He gripped the wooden rim of the basket, drumming his fingers impatiently.

Valua had always kept up a minor military presence in the Mid Ocean, if only to back up its claims on the area, but due to the low amount of taxable traffic in the region and frequent Blue Rogue attacks, the Valuans usually stayed out of the way. In the last few weeks, however, the Armada had stepped up its patrols—battleships could be seen flying the Mid Ocean skies at all times of day. The Blue Rogues—freedom-loving pirates who already took every opportunity to hassle the Valuans whenever they could—naturally didn’t take this invasion of their privacy well. They had already held up a couple of minor frigates, but all along they had their eyes on a much bigger mark—a battleship. And not just any battleship-- the battleship of the Admiral of the 1st Ocean Fleet. If this raid was successful, it would permanently cement the Blue Rogues’ dominance over the region, as well as add a substantial amount of wealth and prestige to their name. Vyse drummed his fingers a little bit faster.

o-o-o-o

A gunshot shattered Vyse’s thoughts—The signal!

The Albatross’s back-up engines roared and the ship dived steeply. Before the Valuan battleship could even react, the pirate ship’s port side was rubbing up against it, cutting off immediate action.

Ignoring the tow ropes that were being cast onto the other ship, preventing it from peeling off and giving the pirates a bridge across, Vyse opted to simply jump from the basket down to the deck of the other ship. Despite the heavy landing, Vyse recovered swiftly and drew his two cutlasses in time to meet the first of the Imperial defense that began to pour out onto the deck.

“Hey! My name’s Vyse. I’m a Blue Rogue, and soon, my friends and I will be relieving you of your valuable,” Vyse said, bowing jauntily.

“Insolent whelp!” A bigger soldier said. He hefted his shortsword and approached Vyse. “I’ll silence—“ The soldier himself was silenced by a heavy boomerang caving in his oversized helmet. He tottered back a few steps, then tripped--unconscious.

A teenage girl with fiery hair jumped the small gap between the ships and caught the boomerang as she landed. “How could you leave me behind, Vyse? I can’t let you go and have all the fun!” She glanced at the stunned soldiers as if noticing them for the first time. “Oh—hiya! My name’s Aika, and we’re robbing you!” The girl’s childish greeting instantly negated any fear the soldiers might have had from her initial devastating display.

“Ha! Air-pirate scum! Let’s teach these kids a lesson!” The soldiers yelled in unison and leapt at the duo. The group was tightly packed, making maneuvering a challenge—Vyse and Aika dispatched two soldiers, but soon, their attention was occupied with just fending off the sword thrusts from all sides. Vyse brought his right-hand cutlass up around just in time to intercept the sweep of a shortsword, but before he could retaliate with his other blade, he had to block an attack on the other side. Nearby, Aika was having the same difficulties. The circle of soldiers tightened, forcing Aika and Vyse back-to-back. The two shared a quick glance and Aika wordlessly started preparing a Pyri spell to hopefully clear the ranks a little, the red-tinged metal of her boomerang glowing brighter.

A soldier chuckled and brandished his weapon at her. “Don’t even try it. We’ll kill you before you can chant the first word. Ha! What can the two of you hope to do against the five of us?” The soldier drew his sword back for a killing thrust.

Blam! A gunshot rang out and the soldier jerked violently, dropping to the ground like a stone.

“That’s funny, I only see four of you,” a deep voice deadpanned.

“Good timing, Dad!” Vyse said, turning back towards the ship.

The man that stood on the deck of the other ship cocked his pistol, keeping it trained on the other soldiers in the circle. Guns were a very recent invention, and only a few elite soldiers were even trained in their use yet. While they were unbelievably powerful, despite the Empire’s mounting efforts to devise an efficient way to manufacture them, they were still very expensive to produce. Such a rare weapon made the man look even more impressive. Along with his neatly combed brown hair, trimmed beard, and blue vest, the man hardly fit the image of a rowdy pirate.

“Go on, you two,” he said, his steely blue eyes never wandering from his targets. “We’ll take care of these guys. Make your way to the bridge and shut down the engines,”

“Okay, Dad--”

“And Vyse…” the man added dryly. “How many times do I have to tell you? When we are sailing, call me ‘Captain Dyne’ or ‘sir’, not ‘Dad’, is that clear?”

“Aye aye, Captain,” Vyse chuckled. He turned to Aika and grinned. “Now, shall we pay a visit to the owner of this fine vessel?”

“Let’s go!” Aika said, punching the air with her fist as she skipped past the soldiers.

“Hey, wait for me!” Vyse exclaimed, following her into the heart of the ship.

o-o-o-o

“How dull! Valuans have no taste in design,” Aika declared as she jogged in front of Vyse through a hallway in the Valuan ship.

Everything in the ship was purely practical. The walls and ceiling were a uniform steel grey, with exposed metal beams at precise intervals. Emergency lights shone here and there, suffusing the air with a red glow.

The hallway opened into a large, two-story room. Stairs at the opposite side of the room led up to a walkway that looked down on the floor below.

The two made it halfway to the stairs when a voice behind them said: “Well…Well… It seems Air Pirates have decided to…infest my ship.”

A young man with blond hair and a silky white jacket leered down at them from the walkway above them. A soldier with an unconscious girl slung over his shoulder stood just behind him.

“I am Alfonso, cherished son of Valua’s most distinguished family, and an Admiral of the Imperial Armada,” he continued haughtily, flicking his hair. “Normally, lowlifes such as yourselves would never have the opportunity to bask in such greatness. Consider yourself fortuna—“

“Yeah, right…” Vyse cut in, asking, “Who’s the girl? I never thought someone of your…stature would stoop to kidnapping.”

“Scum like you would not understand the ways of the Valuan Empire,” Alfonso snapped his fingers. “I cannot waste my time dealing with you.” A group of five soldiers came out of the door behind him. “Dispose of them,” he ordered.

Without hesitation, the soldiers jumped down from the upper level, landing in front of the two Rogues. As soon as they hit the ground, they whipped out short, yellow batons and began chanting slowly. It was a suicidal move that left them open to attacks in the mean time—they probably hoped that they would win by sheer numbers alone.

“Aika!” Vyse exclaimed. “They must be Yellow mages! We gotta take ‘em out before they finish chanting!”

“Okay!”

Vyse hit one in the gut with the hilt of his cutlass, following it up with a rap on the back of the head.

Since the soldiers were to close for Aika to throw her boomerang she was forced to wield it like club. She swung it in a fearsome arc, clipping one man and sending him to dreamland, and possibly breaking another mage’s ribs.

They could not move fast enough, though. The last two mages thundered “Electri!”

Vyse dived towards the mages, hitting the ground just as two brilliant lightning bolts arced from their batons. A bolt flashed over his head, narrowly missing him. With a quick stab, he dispatched the mage nearest him.

The attack caught Aika off-guard. She took the attack straight in her back. With a small grunt she dropped to the ground, falling over the soldier that she had just knocked out.

The man stood triumphantly over the girl, readying another spell to finish her off. The mage made the same unfortunate mistake as Aika, though: he turned his back on one of his opponents.

“Nobody hurts my FRIENDS!” Vyse shouted, bringing both of his cutlasses down to cleave the man’s helmet wide open. The soldier fell, residual energy still trailing from his baton.

Vyse kneeled and shook Aika gently. She moaned, but did not wake up. Her breathing was ragged and her pulse was thready—not good.

“Come on, Aika. Now is not the time to be taking a nap,” Vyse whispered. “Now…Let’s try this.” He dug a Sacri Crystal from a pouch at his side. Putting the fragile crystal in her hand, he curled her fingers around it and squeezed firmly. A vibrant green glow poured out of her fist, quickly enveloping her whole body, and then disappearing just as rapidly. With it went all of the minor cuts and scratches that were visible on her skin, indicating the healing light of the Green Moon imbued in the crystal had done its job. Almost immediately she bolted up into a sitting position and tried to gauge the situation. When she realized there were no more enemies at the moment she sighed and relaxed a little bit. “Thanks for the save, Vyse,” Aika said with an embarrassed smile. “I got caught off guard there.”

“No problem—hup, there ya go,” Vyse said, helping Aika get back up on her feet at the same time. “Alfonso must have slipped out while we were occupied.”

“That means we have no time to lose!” Aika said as she trotted to the stairway. “We can’t just sit by and let that creep get away with kidnapping!”

They quickly scaled the stairs and made their way to the door that Alfonso had exited from.

The door was made of heavy steel and was locked from the other side.

“No good—its locked—“ Vyse began.

“Move aside, Vyse,” Aika said. Her hand was raised, palm facing the door.

He stared for a moment, then his eyes widened in realization of what she was planning to do. He plugged his ears and sidled a healthy distance away from the door. “Just don’t overdo—“

“Moons, give me strength!” Aika interrupted. With a bright flash and a sound almost like a thunderclap, a fireball buckled the steel door like tin and sent it flying down the corridor. The recoil from the blast threw Aika to the ground a few yards away. Her arm was covered in soot and her face was streaked with it as well, but she was otherwise unhurt. Vyse had backed far enough away from the point of impact that he had been unfazed by the blast. He dusted the coating of soot off his clothes, ruefully wondering how long the gunpowder smell would cling to them. He looked to Aika, already skipping cheerfully through the burnt-out doorway. “You know, you’re really terrifying sometimes…”

“Ahahaha!” Aika laughed, taking it in stride. “What are you doing, Vyse? We don’t have time to stand around! Hurry up!”

The hallway ended in a small room stacked with metal crates. A heavy steel door even more secure-looking than the last one took up most of the far wall. Indeed, it looked more like it belonged in a bank vault than a battleship.

“Sigh…not another one,” Vyse said.

“I can…”

Vyse shook his head before she could offer what he knew was coming. “You’d destroy the ship itself before you could blow this one off its hinges.

“Let’s think about this logically—pirates have overrun his ship, and the battle seems lost. What do you think he’d do?”

“Probably make for the lifeboats…” Aika mused.

“Most likely. We just need to find another route to the garage where they’re usually kept. A big warship like this must have more than one route for maintenance crews and such…”

“Hmm…” Aika and Vyse looked around the room. “There!” Aika pointed at the opening of what appeared to be a side passage partially hidden by a stack of crates. The passage went off to the right of the steel door, but it was the only chance the duo had.

“It’s worth a shot…” Vyse said, going over to help her move the crates.

o-o-o-o

“The hangar door is open, the weather is fair, and the life-boat is ready for launch, sir. The preparations for your escape are complete,” the Vice Captain reported, saluting Alfonso.

When the earlier fight had turned in the favor of the two Rogues, Alfonso and his Vice Captain discreetly exited the room and made their way to his personal safe-room behind a heavy steel door, which also had a private entrance to the hangar where his lifeboat was stored. The expansive hangar took most of the back end of the ship, and had a large draw-bridge door that now opened the whole back wall to the morning sunrise and provided a runway ramp for the lifeboat when it was ready to lift off. The engine of the lifeboat in question purred quietly as it hovered in place.

The hostage was left, still unconscious, in a corner of the hangar by the maintenance door, largely forgotten during the preparations.

“Excellent,” Alfonso replied, turning from where he had been casually polishing his yellow moonstone-imbued rapier. “My preparations are complete as well…”

“Uh…What preparations…sir?”

“Preparations—“ Alfonso flicked his sword-tip to the Vice Captain’s chest. ”To dispose of a traitor!”

“Wha-wh-what do you mean, sir?!” The man exclaimed, unconsciously backing towards the edge of the hangar door. If it had been a fair fight, the soldier could have easily over-powered the young noble, but the shock and confusion from the out-of-the-blue accusation made it impossible for him to react.

“The Empress will not take my deserting ship in good humor. I need a scapegoat, and you will do quite nicely,” Alfonso said. He chuckled to himself as if it was some grand scheme, slowly backing the Vice Captain up with light pressure from his rapier as he spoke. “Now, if you’ll excuse me?” He lightly prodded the man again with his sword, making him jump back—and tumble off the runway, head over heels into the Deep Sky far below.

“Nooo!” The man cried out as he fell. Alfonso leaned slightly over the edge to watch him fall, sheathing his sword again as he planned his excuse.

“But, Your Majesty, when the air-pirates attacked, my own Vice Captain turned my men against me. It was all I could do to dispose of the traitor myself before I escaped,” Alfonso giggled like a child at this. “Heh heh heh. Even in death, he serves me well.”

“First kidnapping, and now killing your own man in cold blood?”

Alfonso jumped in surprise at the new voice, nearly falling off the edge himself.

Vyse stood in the corner of the hangar in front of the hostage, weapons drawn. Aika was kneeling down behind him, checking the white-clothed girl’s condition.

“Draw your blade, Alfonso,” Vyse challenged.

“You two again? You are persistent for Rogues,” Alfonso sneered. “Fine, if you want my ship so badly, take it. I can always ask for another one.”

“We’ll take the girl while we’re at it,” Vyse added. “You Valuans can’t have anything good planned for her.” He shifted into a fighting stance. “Now, prepare yourself! Don’t try and get out of fighting me.”

“Feh—“ Alfonso scoffed. “You are not worth the effort. If you are so desperate to fight something, why don’t you test your skills against my personal war beast? Antonio~?”

Vyse and Aika followed Alfonso’s gaze over to a pair of heavy double doors. The doors shuddered and bulged outward as if hit by twin battering rams side-by-side. With the second impact, the beast burst through, sending the mangled doors flying apart.

It resembled a bull in shape, but its skin was rough like a rhino’s. The creature’s most prominent features were two enormous horns that, at their bases, you wouldn’t even be able to wrap your arms around—not attached to its head, but on either side of it on its body.

“Antonio…” Alfonso purred. “Trample these pests, and make their deaths as painful as possible.”

“Looks like we got no choice,” Vyse said, glancing at Aika.

She gulped and nodded.

The beast turned towards them and lowered its head as if it was preparing to charge.

“Maybe if we use magic on it from a distance,” Vyse was interrupted by the distinct crackle of electricity.

The beast’s horns began to spark and glow with yellow energy.

“I don’t like the looks of this…” Aika said warily.

The monster jerked forward.

Vyse dived to the left, pulling Aika down with him. In the next instant twin lightning bolts arced over their heads. The monster tried to follow it up with a charge, but Aika cast Pyri on the beast, knocking it back temporarily. It reeled back from the combined shock of intense heat and light. After a few moments of snorting and shaking its head the beast turned back towards the duo, apparently unharmed. The beast began preparing another bolt.

“Looks like its hide is too thick for my magic to seriously hurt it,” Aika said as she dodged the incoming attack. “What are we gonna do, Vyse?”

Vyse racked his brain for options as he ran. I can’t get close enough to that thing to use my cutlasses—it would run me through with its horns long before I got close… Beyond stunning it for a few seconds, Aika’s Red Glist Arts aren’t powerful enough to… “That’s it! Aika! Attack its face with your Pyri attack again! While its stunned, I’ll hit it with my ‘Cutlass Fury!’”

“I guess it’s our only choice,” Aika said. When there was a lull in the lightning attacks, Aika thrust out her hand and intoned her normal activation key: “Moons, give me strength!”, and thundered “Pyri!” Another fireball blossomed on the monster’s face. It roared in confusion and light pain, shaking the flames off just in time to see Vyse bring both of his swords down in a crushing blow to its head. Out of reflex, the beast loosed another bolt of electricity, the charge short-circuiting between its horns and directly through Vyse. Although it was weaker than the previous bolts because the beast didn’t have time to prepare it, Vyse caught the whole of the attack and was thrown several yards back.

“Vyse!” Aika gasped, running over to him.

He was already struggling to his feet when she got to his side.

“Once more…just…once more and it’ll be finished,” he said determinedly.

“What are you talking about?!” She exclaimed, helping him to his feet. “'Just once more' and you’ll be finished!”

“Look, though…the monster can hardly stand now…” Vyse pointed. The attack had done a number on the beast—it was sagging on its stubby legs, and blood was pouring out of its wound in its face. “If I can hit it one more time—“

“In your condition?” Aika asked incredulously. “At least wait a second so I can heal you—“

“There’ll be time for that later,” Vyse asserted firmly, strength coming back to his voice. “Cast Pyri, now!”

Aika cursed something about meaningless heroics and yelled: “Pyri!”

The weakened creature crumpled under the force of the blast, its horns almost touching the ground.

Gathering the last of his strength, Vyse ran forward, swords blue blurs as they sped towards their target.

The monster anticipated him this time though—with a roar it poured all of its pain-induced fury into one mighty lightning bolt. Vyse’s momentum was too great to be stopped, though. He slipped between the beast’s horns and used the inertia to drive the blades deep in its unarmored neck. The cutlasses sunk down to their hilts, mindless of the tough hide and hard bone they cleaved. The electricity coursing through the beast’s horns abruptly cut off, and the beast sunk to the ground. Vyse followed suit, leaning against the fallen monster.

“Sorry…I had to get rough with you there…” He murmured weakly.

“Sacri!” Aika called out as she ran over.

The air around him briefly shimmered with a green glow. By the time Aika got over to him, most of his injuries were healed. Aika grabbed his arm and pulled him to his feet. “Now we’re even, ‘kay?”

Vyse pulled his swords out of the dead war beast. “Yup, sorry I kinda just jumped in there.”

“Well, at least it over,” Aika smiled.

“Almost,” Vyse said, turning to face Alfonso again.

Alfonso started when he felt the Rogues’ attention on him. He was in the midst of trying to figure out how to get the lifeboat off the ground when the two pirates turned on him. He straightened, trying to look appropriately regal again.

“Feh…It appears there is more to you Rogues than meets the eye.” He pushed a button on the control panel of the ship and it shakily rose into the air. It jerked, and then zipped forward off the runway. “We shall meet again!”

Vyse and Aika ran to the edge and watched the lifeboat dart off into the early morning horizon.

“Darn! What kind of Captain abandons his crew and runs without even putting up a fight?” Vyse said, glaring at the retreating speck in the distance.

Aika grinned widely and poked him in the ribs. “He may have been a coward, but he was a coward with gold!”

“I guess this means the ship and everything on it is ours now…” Vyse mused, a grin appearing on his face again. He looked over at the girl who was still lying on the floor, forgotten by the cowardly admiral. “I wonder why the Valuans are so interested in that girl…”

“Besides the odd taste in fashion, she looks normal…” Aika wondered.

The girl’s clothes were definitely odd. She wore a white dress, trimmed with a gold hem. Around her head was a gold circlet, and she had gold ankle bracelets as well. She seemed to be near Vyse and Aika’s ages—somewhere around seventeen years old. Her blond hair, splayed around her face, was about shoulder-length. Her skin was white, as if she hadn’t been touched by the sun once in her whole life, although it wasn’t an unhealthy color. An incomprehensible rune was drawn on her shoulders and forehead. Altogether, she was pretty in a delicate, almost alien sort of way.

Who is she? Vyse wondered to himself. And why do the Valuans want her so badly?

Background Info:

1.Islands and Airships

Arcadia is like our world, in that it consists of islands and continents, but with one major difference:

There is no sea.

Islands and continents alike float in the air, with nothing but air between and below them. Its theorized that the continents are held aloft by the moonstones embedded deep in their soil reacting to power of the moons above them to create a kind of magnetic levitation. Scientists have been unable to properly test this theory, however, because it seems to only occur on a large-scale. There is an old legend about a man-made island that actually harnessed this phenomenon, but it has been dismissed as an impossible myth…

All the islands and continents float within the “Middle Sky”- a region of the sky that is able to support life. Arcadia’s skies are divided into three zones based on habitability: Deep Sky, Middle Sky, and Upper Sky.

Middle Sky is the only region where humans can survive. This is the altitude where the clouds roam, and the swirling maelstroms called Sky Rifts are confined.

Below Middle Sky is the Deep Sky. This altitude in a constant state of chaos. Storms cover all of the surface of Deep Sky, making exploration currently impossible.

Above Middle Sky is the Upper Sky. The air is too thin for humans at these altitudes, making travel impossible. Clouds are nowhere to be seen up here, with only a few small, lifeless islands drifting alone.

Using the power of the moonstones, the Arcadians developed a way to cross these skies: airships. Airships ‘burn’ moonstones as fuel to power the great engines which hold the ship in the air. There are many different ways moonstones can be used to power airships: red moonstones can be burnt to power an engine, blue moonstones can be used to create wind on a quiet day(to power sail-boats), and yellow moonstones can double as a battery for an engine!

2.Moons and Moonstones

Arcadia has six known moons. The Yellow Moon hangs above the continent Valua resides on, and the Red Moon above the continent on which Nasr resides, earning them the nicknames the “Yellow Continent” and the “Red Continent” respectively. Each moon also embodies an element:

The Silver Moon embodies Light, or life and healing.

The Green Moon: Earth.

The Blue Moon: Air.

The Red Moon: Fire.

The Yellow Moon: Electricity.

The Purple Moon: Ice.

Moonstones often fall from the moons and land on the islands or continents below. These stones can be collected and refined to be used to power machines or imbue them with the chosen elemental. Moonstones can also be obtained through mining deep into the lower crust of the continents.

A single moonstone can also be used to cast magic, or “Glist Arts”. The more refined a stone is, the more powerful it becomes. Raw moonstones that have not gone through the refining process have very little useable power.

3.Nasr and Valua

About fifty years ago, a new king came to the throne of Valua. For the next decade of his reign,the people of Valua lived in peace and prosperity. However, the king eventually fell to the corrupting influences of such great power. He became greedy for more power and land. The king launched a surprise attack on the surrounding contries, overpowering them one by one and using their resources to strengthen his own navy. After five years of nonstop war and bloodshed, Valua controlled its entire home continent under the Yellow Moon. The king was not satisfied with just controlling the home continent, though. He now had visions of controlling all the land in Arcadia. His navy, now dubbed the ‘Invincible Armada,’ promptly took Sailor’s Island, a small but prosperous center of trade in the Mid Ocean. The king turned his gaze next to the desert continent of Nasr. The land under the Red Moon, though, unlike the other unfortunate countries on the Yellow continent, were prepared for the coming attack. Seeing the Valuan king’s press for land, the Nasrians amassed a navy to rival the Invincible Armada.

In a fierce and costly battle, Nasr pushed Valua back to the refuge of its fortified capital on the Yellow Continent. The thick, stone door of the fortress/capital, called the “grand fortress“, resisted all Nasrian cannon fire. Although the Nasrians kept up their attack for several weeks, they never made any progress on those huge walls. The cannons mounted in the gates eventually picked off so many of the Nasrian fleet, that they too had to call off the attack.

Valua had been delt a heavy blow- and her citizens, already dissatisfied with the war, had reached their limit.

Nasr had taken a beating as well- never again did it reclaim the glorious power its navy had once held.

Valua, its “Invincible Armada” completely destroyed, halted its campaign. In the unrest following the war, the king was assassinated. The Valuans hoped that the king’s daughter, Theodora, might bring peace back to their troubled country.

And for several years, their future seemed bright. The Queen was just and kind, and Valua began patching up its relations with Nasr (although it still kept the nations on its home continent that it had originally taken). The fragile peace that had begun to grow was crushed when the Queen’s husband died in an ambush on a diplomatic trip to Nasr. Although the cause of his death and who the ambushers were is debated to this day, the Queen blamed the Nasrians in her rage. She immediately withdrew her ambassadors from the country, and began building up the old Armada once again. Now, about ten years later, Valua routinely patrols much of the sky of Arcadia.

Although she has not declared war on Nasr, the rapidly growing new Armada, and increasingly aggressive actions of Valua, suggest that war is not far off.

4.Spells

Looking back over what I wrote, I figured it would be a good idea to give a brief overview on what specific Glist Arts have appeared thus far.
      1.The first spell we come across in the story, is Aika threatening to use a Pyri spell when she and Vyse are cornered on the Valuan ship deck. Pyri is the most basic of the Red Glist Arts, and naturally, uses a Red Moon Stone as a conduit. In this case, the "blade" of Aika's boomerang was imbued with Red Moon Stone energy, so she was using that to focus the power. Other instances, like where a fireball erupts from her palm, follow the same idea.  The caster first uses their magic-imbued weapon to focus the power, and then directs the magic where they want it to go.  You can cast Glist Arts without using a magic-imbued item to focus it, as long as you have a moon stone, but its a common tactic for novice spellcasters to make it easier for them in the heat of battle.

     2. The next spell we saw was directed at our heroes- Electri. As its name implies and you saw in the story, its an electric attack, powered by a Yellow Moon Stone. The actual chanting part of the fight, where the mages were left vulnerable, was actually fairly short, what made the scene feasable was that in real life, they would truly have been exposed. Generally, to cast a spell, all you need is an activation phrase, like Aika and Vyse's "Moons, give me strength!", "Let's try this!"  The words aren't really important, it just helps you focus while you gather energy (video game terms: Spirit) for the attack.  So, in that brief time while they were trying to blurt out their activation chants, Vyse and Aika were able to get in a few hits.

   3.Sacri-- we saw this one twice this chapter, and we'll probably be seeing it much more as we go on... Sacri is the most basic healing spell, healing minor cuts and scrapes and light internal injuries.  The mage's attack was fairly weak, actually, Aika just took it harder because she was unprepared for it, so Sacri more than did the job. In the case of Vyse getting hit first with a basic lightning attack, then pretty much taking Thunder of Fury head-on, its a wonder he was even breathing. Luckily, Sacri took care of the worst of the damage, although it just didn't have the power to heal him completely. Coincidentally, that was all the MP Aika had left anyway, so that's why she didn't do more...Right...  Harhar.

I Found a New Anime!

2011-02-09T19:40:00.000-08:00

     Ever wondered what you would get if you combined sherlock holmes and toradora!?    What, you didn't?? And you don't know what toradora! is?? I'll need to tell you about it sometime. Oh well, considering how little most of you probably know about anime, I won't use random anime titles to describe this one. In short, you get Gosick-- a story about a Japanese boy who goes to the fictional country of Saubure(or something?) in 1924ish to study abroad and meets a girl with a dark history and an obsession with mystery. The boy, Kujo, has the horrible habit of stumbling on the scene of gruesome murders...every episode... and was dubbed the Dark Reaper by his classmates for his bad luck.  The girl he meets is Victorique-- a girl who spends most of her time confined to the school's expansive library reading the books there literally wall-to-wall. She also seems to (unententionally) channel Sherlock Holmes most of the time, being able to see the importance in even the smallest details, and she even carries a pipe (that she pops in her mouth whenever she makes a point)!  Kujo has a fairly polite, inobtrusive personality, and Victorique is blunt and has the vocabulary and mannerisms of an adult. Despite their oposite personalities, Kujo's honest personality cracks Victorique's shell, and, combined with their joint interest in mystery, they become friends.
    I actually started on Episode 2, because I couldn't find Ep 1 on youtube, but it doesn't hurt the experience very much. The main focus of the show are the mysteries, so you don't need a deep understanding of the background-- rather, the background isn't really explored until later anyway. Epsiode two hits the ground running-- setting the heroes on a cruise with a lot of suspicious high-class gentlemen and women.  Right off the bat you can tell things are not going to go well (the ship is practically screaming "closed circle!!!1!!one!!" at you, and unsuprisingly, things quickly degrade from there. Its here that I'll tell you, this story is a Mystery/Romance/HORROR, so watch out for some creepy stuff. None of its really bloody, though, so its suitable for anyone over thirteen. Honestly, the mystery isn't all that deep-- frustrated by the fact that most of the facts and clues aren't revealed UNTIL Victorique's who dunit monologue. This isn't a big deal, but you have to think of it almost more as an action than a mystery as you're watching, because there's little hope you'll really figure much out beforehand. Despite the slight weakness to the mysteries, the over-arching questions a lot of things raise about what's going on with all of the murders and with Victorique's past are intriguing.  Overall, though, what draws me to the series is its unique charm, that sets it apart from a lot of other anime like it. The main hero is a bit of the stereotypical shy, pushover guy that's often paired with girls like Victorique in these shows, but quite often he shows he's actually pretty tough-- going so far as punching a crazed ax murderer in the face. Its bravery like that that makes him a legitimate character in my eyes. On the other side, Victorique looks like she's going to be the typically brash, abusive tsundere character, but she ends up being quite the opposite. Time'll tell if they remain human characters, or if they fall into the stereotypes they've generally subverted.
  Tl;dr-- bottom line: go watch it! Its quite good so far. I can definitely say I'll be following it as the plot marches forward.
LINK to episode 1... http://www.animeultima.tv/gosick-episode-1-english-subbed-video-mirror-128091-myspace/

Let's Play Skies of Arcadia: Legends 005 Exploring Pirate Isle

2011-02-01T09:07:00.000-08:00

Epsiode Five~ Descision point number two!

Let's Play Skies of Arcadia: Legends 004 Meeting Fina

2011-01-31T10:27:00.000-08:00

Another episode! Here we meet Fina, find our first decision point, and learn to fly! Also, we find out first discovery.

Let's Play Skies of Arcadia: Legends 003 The First Boss

2011-01-29T20:18:00.000-08:00

Episode 3 is up early! A little gift from me. A few more are in the wings, but I think I'll keep them as a buffer for next week if I don't have time to make more.

Something New!

2011-01-28T16:51:00.000-08:00

I've started a Let's Play of Skies of Arcadia on YouTube. I released updates about it on facebook for a while, but because its all public and EVERYONE is forced to see each update I thought it would be wiser to put it on here so that if someone is bugged by it, they don't have to read it all the time. Plus I didn't want this site to gather dust any longer! I love this place, I just haven't been working very hard at updating it lately. Either way, the first two episodes are up on YouTube, and many more are already filmed. Due to the sheer time it takes to upload it might be a while before they come around, but I'll try to keep a fairly light two-video-a-week schedule going.
Now, no more talking-- LET'S GO!

Episode 1

Episode 2

It's a lot of fun, so I think I'll be doing this for a while.

Government Efficiency in Action

2010-11-10T17:06:00.000-08:00

Sorry its been so long since I last wrote. I just found this so stupid I had to mention it really quick.

My Mom and I discovered recently that if something that you mail here in Salina is sent back, the return-to-sender fees are paid directly out of the pocket of the mail man who delivers your mail(who will then leave a note asking for the person to pay for the fee). Also, if you don't pay it back, he will not be reimbursed for his money. On top of that, if you write a check for the fees and address it to the postmaster, the check will often be cashed and never make it to the postman! Is this the way postmen "give back" to the taxpayers? Is there some fine print in their contract that states they must pay the fees for the people they work for, without expecting reimbursement? It doesn't make sense to me, and I'd really like to know more about how all this works. Its not huge amounts of money, but why does the mailman even have to do that out of his own pocket? With all the money we pour into the government, can't they spare a few bucks so their mailmen don't have to pay the fees that the people they deliver to incur?

Beyond Good & Evil 2 Teaser Trailer From Ubisoft

2010-09-11T09:41:00.000-07:00

You want this game. Insanity. You will buy this game, and then give it, and your xbox, to me so I can play it.

Funny video from one of Fred's live drawing sessions

2010-07-19T12:57:00.000-07:00

Watch live video from FredArting on Justin.tv

Miho kissing piro... then stabbing him... then a...teddy bear?0.o (From strip 1277)

Good dubs/Bad dubs (because I'm bored:P)

2010-07-16T20:34:00.000-07:00

English dubs of anime have a reputation for usually being either really good, or really bad... Here's a few of the ones I've seen, and what I think of them: (These are only the ones I've seen-- so its not a complete list by far)

THE GOOD (in no particular order)

1. Dragon Ball

2. Naruto--although I don't like this one, the voice actors are top-notch

3. School Rumble-- It doesn't sound right for most of the first season, but it feels like the actors get more into their roles, or something, by the 2nd season, and now I can't imagine it sounding any other way.

4.Teen Titans-- not sure if this counts, since technically its an American crossover.

5.IGPX--see teen titans.:P

6.Bleach-- the tv-14 language can make the ears ring sometimes, but the VA's are all excellent. My only problem is that Rukia's VA doesn't seem to have a lot of range-- she does the serious parts well, but she can't seem to switch gears for the random silly parts. But I've only seen season one, so she has a lot of time to get used to the part.

7.InuYasha-- all of the voice acting is solid in this one. Actually, I think Kagome's VA is the weakest of the main characters. I've only seen season 1 part 1, though, so there's a lot of time for improvement.

8. Samurai 7-- solid all-around.

THE BAD

1. Spice and Wolf-- now, I don't have much of a right to criticize...I haven't even seen a full episode of the English dub, but when faced with such a spectacular Japanese dub like this, its hard for me to sit through anything less.:P

2. CLANNAD-- I love this show. Maybe I'm a bit too attached, because the English dub is disapointingly weak. It doesn't help that the English production is so lacking in polish-- episode titles and other Japanese letters aren't even subtitled! Most people can guess what "To be continued" is even if they can't read it, but that doesn't mean its any less cheesy that they invested so little effort in their localizing.

3. Kanon 2006-- will make you claw your ears off.>.< Although the Japanese was nearly as corny too. Let's face it-- the show's just a lot of cutesy, squee-inducing fluff. Of course the production values were low.

4. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya-- sorry, no one can do Kyon like the original Japanese VA. The actors have a very limited range in emotions, making the whole thing sound stilted.

5. Pokemon Diamond and Pearl-- I'm a purist who grew up with the old VA's, so these new guys+ the low animation quality makes it impossible to watch.

A Not So Subtle Attack on the Tea Party

2010-04-15T19:03:00.000-07:00

Days before National Tax Day, it was already well known that once again, Tea Parties across America would be protesting the government’s unfairly high taxes. However, this Tax Day, liberals planned to launch their own counter-protests to those of the Tea Partiers. Some websites, like Crash the Tea Party even proposed infiltrating the Tea Party itself, and making its participants look like angry, out-of-touch, racists-- as many liberals like to caricaturize them. Knowing of these plots, it’s surprising that the first reported case of liberal interference is so… blunt.

According to the Salina Journal, Ken Cannon, “who is running an independent campaign for governor,“ walked right into a Tea Party rally at the local Salina library and began pushing a man, shouting expletives at him and threatening to “blow…[the other man] up.” Cannon was arrested later that afternoon.

I feel sorry for the writer of Crash the Tea Party.com—he crafted a truly cunning plan, and the media would have readily played along if they had pulled it off. But he obviously left one thing out of his calculations—liberals are incapable of subtlety. After all, they were the ones to first define the term “angry, out-of-touch, racists.”

Source: Salina Journal http://www.salina.com/news/story/Cannon-arrest-4-15-10

Free Writing on the Creative Process

2010-02-28T09:12:00.000-08:00

this was going to be a very interesting piece. unfortunately, MS Word glitched and destroyed the whole 524 word masterpiece. a whole hour down the drain. piece of garbage. this is why I perfer paper.

"KotOR Remix" Role Play-- Chapter Four

2010-02-09T16:38:00.000-08:00

   As the title implies, basically Knights of the Old Republic with a new cast of characters. The general plot is intact (as in, they go from point A to B like in the original), but everything else, backstories, relationships, characters, are totally up for change. We still haven't really done a lot, so, ignore the size-- its not much, when you read it-- join in if it looks interesting. Check back with this page every week or so, I'll be updating it frequently below if the main game keeps moving.

   ________________________________________________________

   Previous Chapters

    Chapter 1
    Chapter 2
     Chapter 3

   Links to other reference material on the game. Got questions about the game (you don't need to have played it)? Go here first.

__________________________________________________________

    Story overview

      Chapter 1
       Enter Sora and Richard Ral. The Endar Spire is attacked. Sora and Ral fight their way to the last escape pod on the ship, guided via comlink by Vyse Onasi, and escape with him to the surface of Taris.
   Sora is knocked unconscious by the landing, and has a vision of two jedi lightsaber-dueling to the death. He wakes up to find himself in a derelict, one-room apartment, with Ral and Vyse crowded around him. The group decides to search for Mana, and then find a way back to the Republic.
     Chapter 2
        Eventually, they enter the Undercity of Taris, where they fight their way through the sewers on a whim(badlybadly written part, you don't need to read anything there), and are stopped at the door of the Vulkar base by a giant ran'cor monster. Sora uses his stealth skills as a scout to sneak up on the beast, then uses Ral's lightsaber to dismember it. What follows is an awesome fight for the ages that turned out pretty darn well, for one night's stream-of-consciousness writing, if I do say so myself. They go a ways into the base. Ral accidentally makes friends with one of the guards, who he then drop-kicks.

      Chapter 3 and on
      The team fights through the base, hacking down everything that they come across...which actually only turns out to be a few old 'droids. They just miss being blown to pieces by an overloading terminal, when they learn that someone else had taken control of the security system, and wiped out most of the gang. They learn that the person who killed nearly everyone in the base was Mana, her powers out of control in rage and Battle Meditiation. She attacks Sora, and Ral uses his ancient vibroblade to knock her unconscious. They steal a speeder bike in the garage, and zip away to their apartment building after a few more badly planned chase scenes... Otherwise, it was a good chapter, trust me. At the apartment, the group unanimously elects Sora as leader. Even though it was kind of a joke, Sora takes it seriously, and gives the group a swift kick in the butt--verbally, that is--to get everyone to work together. Afterwards, Sora tells Mana about his dream, and she acknowledged that it was a vision of her battle against Revan a few years back, and concluded that he might have some amount of Force sensitivity!  Before the team retired for the night, Mana promised that they would talk to the elders at the Jedi enclave Dantooine about it.
    The story opens on our heroes, split in two teams on different sides of Taris.  Although they are divided, the heroes are linked by a stronger sense of unity then ever before.   Team one, featuring Sora and Mana, is at the Upper City Cantina's arena in the hopes of making it big in arena matches. Team two, consisting of Richard Ral and Vyse Onasi, have their sights set on conquering the bounty hunter's guild in the cantina of the Lower City. Have our heroes finally bitten off more then they can chew here?  In their quest for credits, will they be discovered by the Sith? Or will they overcome and find their way off the planet?  Why the heck am I asking YOU all these questions??   We may (or may not) find all the answers in... Knights of the Old Republic Remix!

   ________________________________________________________

       Game Rules

     This is a role playing game, but don't let the genre name turn you off. Its actually a bit different. This is a special variation in a major way: its acted out in the comments section. Read below if you don't understand. Also, instead of traditional rpg's, there are no dice, there are no HP, and there are no MP. This...you could say, is a writer's role playing game. The story has a direction, but I'm pretty open about changes, you don't need to define your character before play (although I need some assurance you're serious--ie, a good idea for a character, with a solid possible tie-in.), and you actually write for your character! Each post is written from the perspective of your character.  Again, just try and follow the example of the people already in the game here, I can't define what the limits of this are.   Basically, try and keep other people's intentions for their characters in mind when you write. If you, like me, don't want to think of your own character, there are a lot of game-original characters that will be open eventually, like T3-M4, Canderous, Jolee Bindoo, possibly the Krayt Dragon Hunter Who Remains to be Named, Juhani...there's quite a few.

_________________________________________________

   Cast

     Sora-----------------Sora

Insanity--------------Richard Ral

Sora-----------------Mana Morimiya

Insanity--------------Vyse

________________________________________________

Story comments from the Grand Mod....

   Okay, I've got a lot of funny ideas (all clean...mostly) after seeing some of Juhani's wierd scenes from Knights, and I may very well include her in Dantooine. If someone expresses the desire to write for her, she's still open, tho.
I really think the Krayt Dragon Hunter Guy could be a good future character. I'll talk to R about it later and see if he wants in. Do you want Hk-47, by the way, Insanity?

_________________________________________

   Update 2/11/10
    Fixed the story synopsis, so it should be right now. Tell me if its still wrong somewhere...

   Add this to the list of universe breaking changes: Hutts can now be mind-tricked. Wee. Also recall Ral's relation to the Old Sith that aren't the same Old Sith as in the original story.

Update 2/20/10
    Insanity breaks the record for longest post, and remains unchallenged by Sora. Also note that the character limit per comment post is 4,096.

Update 7/17/10
    I don't think either of us are ready to quit this yet...but summer is actually the busiest time of year for us...

    Here's Revan's location in KOTOR 2!    http://www.swtor.com/info/holonet/timeline/jedi-civil-war

Other Super Bowl Commercial Notables

2010-02-08T10:29:00.000-08:00

You notice I spend no time talking about the Super Bowl itself?

Awkward?

If you think this is too morally outspoken a commercial, you've never seen a PETA TV ad.

"Green Police"-- Super Bowl 2010 Audi Commercial

2010-02-08T10:14:00.000-08:00

Is it funny, or eerily prophetic? I report, you decide.

Random Fanarts 4! Megatokyo

2009-12-17T16:37:00.000-08:00

I thought I should post this here, since I did on the MT forums. The proportions really need work though...

Random Fanarts 3!

2009-12-07T18:38:00.000-08:00

I'm afraid the scanner scanned it badly. It turned out all grainy-like. ;_;

HK-47 gets a Protocol Pacifist Package

2009-12-07T16:46:00.000-08:00

This is what I was talking about, Insanity.

Also funny:

Moe Stuff Winter 2009!

2009-12-06T15:41:00.000-08:00

I've searched the interwebz far and wide for the best moe stuff in the world. I managed to find a lot of really really bad stuff... but I also found a lot of really cool pics too! I'll only make you suffer through those, 'cause I value my readers.^_-

(I might do this every season, depending on how much p4in it causes Insanity. *evil laugh*)

Win for chibi Haruhi and Mikuru. And yeah, that's a pretty good rundown on the series' relationships.

Kimiko, of Megatokyo.com. Win for looking freakishly like CLAMP's Sakura for a split second.

Aisaka Taiga, Win for teh cookiez. They aren't a lie this time.

I have no idea who this is, and if anyone can tell me, go right ahead. Win for teh Taiyaki.

Win for being my favorite avatar. Don't ask why, I'm not sure myself, honestly. Not sure who this one is either.

Hehe. Its just too cuute not to pass up.

Shiori, of Kanon. Win for the context of the scene.

Uguu~ ^~^

No, I don't watch Bleach. Never will. I'm waging a personal war against the show. No real reason, and nothing against the people that watch it, of course.

Another impossible to pass up.

Do robots dream of....is that... uh,Gradius? o .o

(These characters are the properties of their respective owners, etc, blahblah)

Random Fanarts! 2 HK-47

2009-12-05T19:56:00.000-08:00

Sugoi! Two drawlings in won dae! Itsa new record!

This one is HK-47, personal assasin 'droid of the old Revan. Made famous by his tendency to call sentients "meatbags," his naming the context of a sentence with a discriptive noun ("Statement: You are only a meatba- I mean, human, Master. Conclusion: And thus, you have mental limits."), and his pure resiliency (he manages to last 4,000 years from the beginning of the fall of the Old Republic, to apparently the dawn of the Galactic Alliance, although his last known sighting was just before the fall of the Empire). These things make him a very interesting (albiet extremely creepy) character.

Random Fanarts!

2009-12-05T11:18:00.000-08:00

It looks pretty good when its small and you can't see all teh fuzzies. You should be able to click on the image to enlarge it, if you want a better look. That's the nice thing about the new Blogger posting system, all the pictures are enlargable now. At least, that's what they say...

The guy is Revan, hero of Knights of the Old Republic. He's also Sora, my main character in the KotOR "Remix" RP. He starts the game an unknowing amnesiac, but he was actually the Dark Lord of the Sith during the Mandalorian Wars. He was betrayed by his partner, though, and was taken captive by the Jedi. The Jedi replaced his destoryed memories to make him think he was a new recruit to the Republic army, and nursed him back to health. They hoped that the buried fragments of his memory would show them where a giant superweapon that he had found while he was still the Sith Lord was located. Of course, he eventually is told of his past, and regains much of his old memories again, and he is forced to choose either to side with the well-meaning jedi that had essentially brainwashed him(but also saved him), or once again walk the path of the Dark Side, and take revenge on his former partner who betrayed him.

I'm afraid he looks waaay too young here, he's really supposed to be in his mid-thirties. But I did mah best.

Now, to decide if I should try to draw Richard Ral or not....*evil snicker*

Christmas Gamelist-- 2009

2009-12-01T10:11:00.000-08:00

This is a big year for video games- big enough that even I(the one who gave up on Nintendo for over a year) am starting to get excited again. Here's a few of the games I'm looking forward to:

   Fragile: Farewell Ruins of the Moon

   Slated for release January of 2010, I still consider this a winter release. I've heard the action/rpg battles are a little sloppy, and some have said the fights feel tacked-on, but the atmospheric/cinematic style of the game is intriguing. I'll, at the very least, rent the game as soon as I can, and you can bet I'll review it as quickly as possible.

     Shantae (DSi download)

     Another possibly good/ possibly horrible-looking game that piques my curiosity. Since its for DSi, I can't rent it, so I might not buy it immediately.

   Pokemon: HeartGold + SoulSilver

      Okay, so it won't be out 'till late spring. I WANT it for Christmas though.

   The Legend Of Zelda: Spirit Tracks

     This one is iffy, since I wasn't too thrilled with the previous DS adventure, but this one looks like it might be a possible rent.

Pardon the mess...

2009-11-23T11:03:00.001-08:00

Atmosphere is going through some changes again. Hopefully things will be in order again soon.

Memorable Quotes and Sayings of Atmosphere

2009-11-20T10:45:00.000-08:00

I decided it was about time I started a list of the better quotes that have graced the header of this humble blog over the past year.

The first is one that holds special meaning to me, being the first quote I ever put up on the blog. It also probably best conveys the overarching motto of Atmosphere.

1. “Heaven is always above us, and we must ever be looking up toward it…”

2. “I want to grab young men by the shoulders and shout ‘The Battle! The Battle is raging for your hearts!'”

3. “When you’re through changing, you’re through.”

4. “You kick the computer. Your foot hurts.”-- Knights of the Old Republic

I have many more than this…but unfortunately I have lost them all. From now on I will keep a better record of them all.

the mission

2009-11-16T16:49:00.000-08:00

      The room was cold- as cold as the room was dark. And it was pitch black. I knew that, if I tried, I wouldn't see my own hand waving at me in front of my face. And I had tried many times before, so there was no point in trying it again today. I had been through this little process so often that it was like a natural part of my day. The ninjas grabbing me in the middle of my morning walk and taking me, blindfolded, to some secret government bunker nearly every day was now as natural to me as tying my shoes. It was almost strange when I didn't have some ninja holding a throwing star to my throat at 4:45 A.M. The metallic voice that greeted me in this cold room was now a fixture of my daily life as well.
"Agent S," it said matter-of-factly.  There was no warmth, or any kind of emotion in its tone. The voice had no organic origin- there wasn't some scrawny guy hiding behind a cheap voice distorter, although that was my first guess. No, from what I had managed to glean from the ninja that abducted me every morning at 4:45A.M. sharp, the speaker was strictly inanimate.  What the creature was, I have not yet managed to figure out, but I suspect, from the little the ninja's revealed to me, it is some embodiment of the combined knowledge of all electronic, data-holding, computing technology on planet. You know the theory that all life is connected? Well, it really isn't, but this is kind-of like that. Only for computers. Basically, in a joint effort between the British and Chinese governments, scientists managed to create a terminal from which one could access every piece of equipment that runs on an electrical current.  On accident, it appears they created a semi-sentient being that ended up being the sum of all artificial intelligence. Now, they use it to gather information on enemy security systems and other unimportant things that are completely unrelated to this story.  The immense value of this terminal allows the scientists to overlook the minor quirks that it has. Like its mission to plant an electronic device in the hands of every living creature- not something they have a problem with anyway.  It makes their conquest easier. And that is where I come in. I am the terminal's hands and feet, carrying out the terminal's will as it sees fit, spreading technology to every end of the earth. Its better than my old job, at least.
"So, what's today's mission?"
"Your mission is to harness the mindpower of one particularly free thinking adult. Her name is Eva- 54 years old,"
"Wait, my Mom?"
"Yes, your..."Mom," as you homosapiens like to say," the terminal droned. "The device you will use is a powerful brainwashing device, known to you as a DSi. Her primal instincts are strong, and she will resist the change heartily, but I have managed to crack her shields with several of my smaller childeren, a cellphone and a laptop."
"No problem, then. I've got this awesome new game for the DSi! Its called Hotel Dusk. I could have her on it by the end of the day."
"Afirmative.. Proceed.."
_______________________________________

Thank you for riding with me on this little free-writing psyco-trip. Spelling was not checked at all. Anywhere.

Why We Need a Strong Missile Defense System

2009-11-09T08:50:00.001-08:00

Let’s admit it-- there are a lot of people out there that want to do us harm. From North Korea, launching missiles into the Pacific, to China firing missiles over the heads of the people of Taiwan, to Iran’s threats to bomb Israel off the map, it is clear that there are many world leaders that are beyond listening to reason. America should build a strong missile defense system at home and abroad to defend against the irrational, dangerous actions of a few power-hungry men.

Like many bullies, North Korea is strengthened when we refuse to stand up to their scare tactics. When the only thing we are willing to do is to try to negotiate with these madmen, our demands will never be acknowledged. We need a strong missile defense system in place to show that we will not tolerate their hostile actions. We shouldn’t give up on trying to communicate, but we need a “big stick” so they will take note of our demands.

Another bully-nation that has firmly made itself a nuisance on the world stage is Iran. Its leader is Ahmadinejad, a certifiable maniac who has denied the holocaust, thumbed his nose at all the good America has done in the Middle East, and blatantly ignored the sanctions the UN placed on his country. To this day he pursues nuclear energy and long-range nuclear weapons despite the disapproval of the free world. He stole, in a bloody uprising, what was supposed to be the free elections of his country. His mad actions are steering his country on a crash course to conflict with Israel and the other nations around them. If we want to protect ourselves from the coming threat, and protect our allies in the line of fire, we should invest in a missile defense system in the Middle East that can both protect against intercontinental ballistic missiles, and retaliate with them if need be.

The need to support our allies on the front lines leads me to my next point. Our friends and allies, Israel, South Korea, and Taiwan are in a more precarious position now then ever before. Israel is surrounded by hostile terrorists and nations (like Iran) that are constantly threatening its peace and safety. The dictator of Iran is openly against the existence of Israel as a nation. We owe South Korea for not following through with our promises in the Korean War. We had the chance to drive the communists out of Korea all together, but because of weak Democratic policies of containment and appeasement the battle was left half finished, with half of Korea still enslaved. Taiwan also deserves our support for our failure to back them up when Red China overthrew their Nationalist government in China and forced them out of the country into what is now known as Taiwan. If these or other freedom-loving countries were to fall to communist powers like China, Russia, North Korea, or Iran, the balance of power between capitalism and communism could shift against us.

In dealing with other countries, we certainly must try to communicate our problems peacefully and try to work out productive compromises. However, when faced with leaders that want nothing less than the destruction of our way of life, we need the power to make them think twice before they commit hostile acts.

Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu Movie on the Way!

2009-11-04T18:57:00.000-08:00

Yes, its true, after crushing many fan's hopes to see the epic Disapperance arc in the second season of The Melancholy, Kyoto Animation is trying to make up by giving the popular arc its own movie.
I used to herald KyoAni as one of the best animation studios in the genre, with solid shows like CLANNAD, Kanon, and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. But in the last half-year or so, the group went through a management change (I think?), and CLANNAD After Story and K-On! visibly showed the change. Suzumiya Haruhi Season 2 inherited the bad story pacing that plagued the two shows before it, with eight episodes of virtually the same scenes, and the same lines, and a five(?) episode background arc for a single episode in season 1. That I didn't even watch...
It makes me curious, though- could this movie be a KyoAni comeback? Time will tell...

"KotOR Remix" Role Play- Chapter Three

2009-10-27T16:34:00.000-07:00

Basically Knights of the Old Republic with a new cast of characters. The general plot is intact (as in, they go from point A to B like in the original), but everything else, backstories, relationships, characters, are totally up for change.

______________________________________________

Previous pages: Chapter 1
Chapter 2

Sora(read: Revan), Richard Ral(read: not in the original game), and Vyse(read: Carth. but really messed up) find themselves deep in the Vulkar base in their search for the jedi aprentice/commander Mana. Along the way, the trio faced many fearsome opponents- Dark Jedi, rakghouls, a mutant rancor, and continually rose to the challenge. Now, can they handle a jedi whose powers are out of control? We shall soon see...

________________________________________________

Story News

Basically, I've deleted the last attempt at this chapter, since it sunk beneath the surface before we even started.
Um, my idea for Mana is that she is using Battle Medititation right now, thus completely immersed in the force, perhaps as a defense mechanism in this case. Unfortunately, because of her force bond with Revan(Sora), the unhealthy emotions in her heart made her control over herself slip, and her powers are running rampant. I know, that probably has nothing to do with Battle Meditation, but I like the idea of it. We can talk more about this in the shoutbox after we get started.

__________________________________________________

R00les Rem1x

The game is played like a normal forum roleplay, but in the comments section. I am, as always, Grand Mod. Only double post if you HAVE to. The idea of the story development is pretty open ended. You can go where ever you want with it. Just try to keep in mind what the other people's plans are too- ask them what their plans are first if you are not sure. Your character doesn't need to be based on a character in the game if you want. No invincible characters or "Godmoding." Keep things fairly realistic for the physics of the world.

_________________________________________

Cast:
Sora-----------------Sora (InsertnamehereHerooftheoriginalgame)
Insanity--------------Richard Ral
Sora-----------------Mana Morimiya
Insanity--------------Vyse

________________________________________________

I'll kick things off with the first post!

_________________

12/1/09 Update

    A link to the Wookieepedia Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic game sumary page.
    Linkylinky

   This will be a standard fixture on the main chapter opening from now on.

12/05/09

@Insanity:   Ral can't(at least, officially) be of the Sith Race. I looked up the Sith Race on Wookieepedia and they're a red, creepy-looking race that lived on Korriban. I am so terribly sorry....

The Painful Truth

2009-10-26T06:18:00.000-07:00

For a long time I had struggled to get through school with a good grade so that I could go to a nice college and begin to study the things that I actually wanted to study. Well, here I am. In college. And here's the big news: college is boring too! Well, the first two years at least. I discovered what my family had been telling me long before-- the first two years of college is just mandatory, general education. Sure, its a step up from high school, where you had no real say in what order you did everything in, but it is otherwise dreadfully nostalgic. At least I'm getting these hideously boring classes out of the way now, so I can get straight to the good classes when I "officially" graduate high school. That's the benefit of dual enrollment.

In other news, I gave up on my Bible study. I just couldn't manage to get anybody to attend. Its amazing that, out of a homeschool group of some thirty plus kids, nobody had time to come. Its not like they don't know who I am-- I've lived here in Shio for over four years now.

That is neither here, nor now, however. I had a little spat of complete and utter tiredness last week, like I was coming down with the flu, which put me out of commission in swimming and school. Nothing came of it, though. Sore de, I'm back and energetic again. I'll be reviving the KotOR thread soon, and you-know-who is commanded to come back and help me keep it alive this time. I won't take any more excuses! (Anyone else who wants to join in as well is welcome to, of course. Just read the rules before you post. They're pretty simple.) The picture below should adequately describe what will happen to you if you don't join in again, youknowwho.

(I humbly ask that the MT forum people not kill me for taking one of their nukes)

ganbatte, watashi >-<

2009-10-05T16:24:00.000-07:00

Yosh!(tm- not used with permission:P) I'm back in business! Let's goooooo!

I am, indeed, still alive. And it looks like insanity is still alive too. Yay- I got my only steady reader back.

I think I'm going to hold off on any attempts to post any manga pages until my drawing skills improve a little. They just aren't up to par with what I want to do right now. Maybe by the end of the year... But I'm still writing. I'm still writing my fairly serious adventure, and then, over august, I thought of a cool funny story idea. Its a mix of a little bit of the slapstick comedy in School Rumble, plus the serious overall plot of Clannad(no supernatural elements though, as far as I can tell, sorry!), with a tiny iota of Kyon-style sarcasm. We'll see how that's going to work out...

Oh, come to think of it, its been a year since this little website hit the web. Its been fun- maybe I'll try for a few more years.

^_^

Still...alive

2009-10-03T15:13:00.000-07:00

(Give me another week of radio silence- swimming's heating up and I have PSAT's coming up. College is being difficult and time-consuming, too. Big suprise, right? For now, enjoy this sugar-coated little bit of Nihon-jin(I hope that's even vaguely the right usage) cuteness.)

9/11/01-09

2009-09-11T05:31:00.000-07:00

Let's learn from our past mistakes- not ignore them.

Fragile

2009-07-23T08:20:00.000-07:00

I want this game to be good. I want this game to be good. I want this game to be good. (/repeat x 100)

Seriously, though. For those of you who haven't heard of it yet- its supposed to be like a big exploration oriented game set in the ruins of Tokyo(why is Tokyo in ruins? Do we need a reason? Well, we'll have to wait until the game comes out for one, because apparantly even the lead character doesn't know why. The point of the game seems to be figuring out what happened...so no luck for us) . It might have some horror elements, and obviously there are some ghosts that seem to follow you around, but it doesn't look too creepy. Just weird. And cool. I hope the US version has the option to switch to the original Japanese voices- I honestly don't think any of our VAs could handle this one.
I also don't know what it'll be rated...but I'm guessing Teen at most, unless I'm horribly mistaken.
So, hope this one ends up not going completely down the path of....horror...

(GEH....I just noticed...doesn't the main kid's VA sound like...Alphonse...of Fullmetal Alchemist?? Squee.)

Woot- found an English subbed trailer.

No more deadlines for now

2009-07-12T16:52:00.000-07:00

Now...I'll hesitantly say that I have an original story idea... But I've learned my lesson- I won't set any deadlines for it, and I won't promise to get it done. I'll work hard on it, but I won't be stressing about release dates. I never want to look like that again.
I love doing pictures like this. Its fun leaving all sorts of easter eggs for people to find.

2009-07-10T17:10:00.000-07:00

I'm sort-of back. No more debating for a while, I think.
You'd think with summer here that I'd get more free time to draw/write, right? I thought that too. But, all that's happened is my swimming schedule increasing to nearly impossible levels of work. Which I want. Swimming is my No.1 priority.
Also I've been doing some thinking about the Skies comic lately. I really love the Skies story, and want to see it in comic form, but its really hard to write someone else's work, you know? Harder then I imagined. Now, I'm not saying I'm giving up on drawing the comic by any means, but I want something that I can truly call my own. Something that I can do whatever I want with, without worrying about staying true to an original mold. I realize now that I shouldn't constrain myself as an artist so early- especially so early. Lesson learned. My apologies for jumping ahead of myself.
We will now return (in the next few days) to our regularly scheduled nonsensical writings that have been left to gather dust for too long.

2009-07-05T16:16:00.000-07:00

If anyone out there is wondering what I've been doing lately to completely neglect all my comic making duties, look at teh post below. That is one of the reasons. Not...the only reason, but a fairly big one.

a few things to say

2009-07-01T13:59:00.000-07:00

(About my comments on twitter about homosexuality in the media)

Let me say first off that I don't hate gays. As a Christian, I am called to love and witness to these people. Christians, you could say, "love the person, but hate the sin."

I hate this movement in the media lately to make homosexuality look "normal," and "okay," even "natural" for some people.

The Bible says that homosexuality is quite wrong. It states it clearly, beyond misunderstanding. (See the verses below for reference) Thus, I believe it is a sin, and a perversion of human sexuality. It should not be a celebrated, normal part of society like many people want it to be.

Woah- I can already see all the accusations of hypocrisy flying at me: "You criticize others as if you're perfect! Don't preach to us until you're blameless yourself! You have no right to judge others!"

Generally, I don't think that Christians claim to be perfect. There are a few wackos out there who think they're faultless, but most of us freely admit that we are sinners too.

But there is one thing that separates us from them-that let's us say that their behaviour is wrong: we are under grace. We are forgiven. We are ashamed of our sins. We wrestle with our addictions and guilt day and night. We have asked God for His forgiveness. We are striving to change, at least. We can't allow ourselves to just accept as normal people who commit these evils unrepentantly. We must separate ourselves from those who lead an immoral lifestyle.

As a Christian, I believe homosexual relationships are evil (as evidenced by all the disease that trails the people who take part in them- aids being most prevalent in gays and people who have had sex before marriage must mean something right...?), and should not be accepted as natural relations in our society. Certainly not signed into law as, what were they called, legitimate "civil unions". It goes against all our long-held Christian traditions.

That's my opinion.

My reference verses:

Romans 1:27- In the same way men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

Leviticus 18:22- Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.

20:13a- If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable...

Peer Pressure

2009-06-30T16:48:00.000-07:00

The number one method coaches of swimteams use to light fires under the lazier members of their team.

How? Through group punishment. The concept, as nearly anyone who has spent any time on a competitive team will know, is simple: "You mess up, or you goof off, and everyone suffers." The theory is that the fear of the team's anger at having to start a workout over will keep the ones who are tempted to take the breaks moving.

I don't really know if it works. Goof-offs will be goof-offs. And what happens if 90% of the team are goof-offs? Peer pressure doesn't really work when the majority is in the wrong.

Then the few people that do everything without complaining (not necessarily perfectly, but gets it done), are punished more then the goofs. I mean, if the goofs get tired, they'll back off, whatever the circumstances. But the serious people will do everything, regardless of how they feel. Inevitably, lazies will not work hard and the workout will be restarted, running the people who do it right into the ground with all the repeating.

So...is it really an effective strategy?

My anime/manga watching/reading list

2009-06-23T16:34:00.000-07:00

I could mention all the normal books I'm reading right now as well, but they're all boring serious books! Except for Maximum Ride #1, which is just boring.

Webmanga:
Megatokyo: Of course! Its what really got me into anime and manga!
TwoKinds: There's a solid story buried deep in there somewhere. Very deep. You gotta squint a little to see it sometimes, but its there. Its true.
sonicandpals: No plot whatsoeva! That's why I love it.
The Dreamland Chronicles: C.S. Lewis's Narnia + Pixar= mild to moderate win.
Caribbean Blue: Once and a while.

Anime:
School Rumble ni Gakki(second term): Is that the right spelling?
Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood : Actually really cool. I wonder if they're actually going to go anywhere with the religious aspect that appears every once and a while.
Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu (season 2): Right spelling again? Happy with it so far.
K-On!: Sometimes.
The Melancholy of Haruhi-chan Suzumiya: Funnnnnnnnny. Actually just finished it yesterday evening.
Nyoron Churuya-san: Nyoron~ :s

Manga:
School Rumble
Full Metal Alchemist: I got volume one this morning. I liked it, but I'm not sure if I'll get the rest or not.
Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles: I'm 12 volumes into it, but I can only get them over amazon, so it'll be slow going.
Maximum Ride: The manga is everything the original novel is not.
Miki Falls: An American work, therefore making it high in my favorites. Just recently finished.
Lucky Star: Its weird.

That's about it. Is there anything else I should read/watch?
I came across Lucky Star volume one at the bookstore yesterday, so I got it. I honestly need to get over this weakness to buying things on impulse.

I don't win games like that very much(read as: ever), so I can understand her feelings here.^_^

...

2009-06-20T16:06:00.000-07:00

see more Lolcats and funny pictures
I've had a lot of writer's block lately. I've also been really distracted by swimming. I'm very tired. Still alive. I'll be back. Later.

Suprise!

2009-06-18T16:42:00.000-07:00

Yes, this is the good old Atmosphere you've come to know and love. I just thought I'd switch templates for a little variety. Hey- I warned you.
"Atmosphere is always changing."
Tell me what you think of the new look!
Don't worry...I can take it!
*sniff*

Clean Energy FAIL

2009-06-17T10:09:00.000-07:00

(thanks to fredrin @megatokyo+twitter for pretty much all of this)

see more Fail Blog

Instead of a drawing, you get this today. Also- windmill fail. Available in slow motion for all of your epic FAIL needs.

Enjoy!

[insert your own title here]

2009-06-13T19:25:00.000-07:00

Believe it or not, this blog is meant to be mainly art centered. So I'm trying to increase my output a little- even if its only sketches.

Now, on an unrelated note...

Internet shopping is so nice because you don't have to dig through all the garabage to find what you are looking for. It almost makes you forget how heavily merchandised everything is. A little trip to the bookstore gave me a painful reminder of that, however. Twilight was what really jumped out at me today. They have got a glaring huge SHRINE in the young reader's section. Including: posters, trading cards, and candy...? >p<

What's worse, though, is the bad imitators. The success of Twilight attracted all of the writers looking for easy money. It clogs up the fiction section with pointless, emo, junk. Now my Young Reader section is 40% more emo then it was in '08... Sigh...

A minor interruption

2009-06-12T16:06:00.001-07:00

Its been a rough week again. Came down with a swimmer's ear infection (I think?) on wednesday, resulting in me not being allowed to get in the water for several days. Ah, ow....see? I just had a striking pain in my ear. I had forgotten how bad ear infections were...

Because of this stupid ear infection, I have also been forced to skip the swimmeet this weekend. Sigh.

On the bright side, I've noticed that moldable ear-plugs really seem to help ease the pain.

Hmm, who's that chibi guy up there? Yeah, that's [insert name here]. I haven't thought of a name for him yet. Insanity would (maybe) know him as zallo from the old roleplaying games of our youth. Dressed up as me in this instance.

All of you who didn't participate in those old roleplays may simply think of him as Ichi for now. No. Not Iji. That's a TOTALLY different character. ICHI. Ignore the fact that the two names sound almost exactly the same. That has nothing to do with the fact that on many levels their characters are alike in my mind. No likeness in personality at ALL. I am NOT a theif. Its merely a temporary name. Just remember that.

comments and feedback tutorial

2009-06-04T09:15:00.000-07:00

From the feedback I've gotten from my friends and family, I've found that the post a comment button is too hard to find. Not only that, but it seems that people are having trouble figuring out how to post a comment when they DO find the page. So, I decided I'd write a little walkthrough on how to get to the comments page, and, from there, post your thoughts.

Step 1:
Enter the main page of the website (http://www.sora-atmosphere.blogspot.com/). From there, you can do two things: (a)you can click on the title of a specific blog post you want to look at, or (b)you can simply read the posts that show up on the main page.
Step 1, a:
If you decide to click on the title of a specific post to view it alone, the post a comment button will appear like so below the blog post:

Posted by Sora at 2:41 PM

0 comments:
Post a Comment <-----this is what you want to click! Home
Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Step 1, b:
If you read the posts on the main page, then the post a comment button will appear below the blog post like so:

Too busy to comment much today. <-------main body of blog post
Enjoy.

Posted by Sora at 2:41 PM 0 comments <---click the link that says "comments"
Thursday, May 28, 2009

Step 2:
When you come to the comments page, you will find two things: a list of what comments are already on the blog post(if any) on the left, and a box where you can type your comment on the right.

Step 3:
Write the comment in the comment box. That's the simple part.

Step 4:
Below the comment box you will find a list of four options with round buttons beside each choice. Above the list it will say "Choose an identity."
If you don't have a blogger account, you do not even need to worry about the first option.
The second option is OpenID. Those not familiar with blogger should ignore this as well.
The third is Name/URL. This is one option that ANYONE may use.
no signing up/signing in, just click on the button beside Name/URL and type, in the space provided, whatever name you would like to have appear with your comment. It doesn't have to be your real name, either. In fact, I recommend thinking of something other then your real name for safety's sake. The URL space is optional- you don't NEED to type in anything there if you don't have anything to link to. If you have a website, you're welcome to link to it with that space.
The fourth is Anonymous. This option let's you post a comment without leaving a name.

Step 5:
Finally, click the huge orange "PUBLISH YOUR COMMENT" button below the options list!

If you follow these detailed instructions, you too will be successful in life. Or at least, in spamming me with endless comments.

Prologue Page 8 "not the brightest"

2009-06-02T14:41:00.000-07:00

As always:

Main site: http://sorathecrow.tripod.com/
Archives: http://www.christianmanga.com/soa/?id=8

Too busy to comment much today.

Enjoy.

This is IT. Page 7 "kidnapped"

2009-05-28T19:20:00.000-07:00

Main Site: http://sorathecrow.tripod.com/

Archives: http://www.christianmanga.com/soa/?id=7

Not bad. Not bad.
I think her ear is too small though. I noticed that at the last minute, of course.

Be sure to click the TWC.com box below the comic and vote for the comic! Let's see if we can get out of the low thousands.

2009-05-26T17:32:00.001-07:00

Fuuko won.

For now.

Saimoe 2009

2009-05-25T07:22:00.000-07:00

Go! I command you all to go straight to the Saimoe 2009 website and vote for Fuuko.

(Saimoe 2009 is pretty much where fanboys around the world vote to decide who is the best moe character in anime. I'm pretty new to it myself, but it looks fun.)

A tip

2009-05-24T12:28:00.000-07:00

If you really want a close relationship with someone (be it in friendship or love) communicate with them!
Listen to what they have to say, make room for them, accommodate them in everything. Even if its boring, or if their opinion is different then yours. Don't hate them if they disagree with you. Being friends doesn't mean you have to have the same beliefs.
Its about you telling them what's on your mind as well. Small things, important things, ugly things, the closer you want to be, the more you should share between each other.
If you have a beef with the person, spit it out- relationships will not flourish if you hold your pain inside. Both parties should be open to discussion about "touchy" subjects and willing to listen to the other's opinion, even if it hurts.
I'm not expert on this stuff. I'm just a sixteen year-old. I'm a pretty naive person when it comes to relationships, and I don't really practice what I preach 90% of the time, but I believe this is important. Its not the only thing you need to hold a relationship together, either, but its a major factor.

Akiko Jam+Sanae Pan=epic fail

2009-05-23T15:21:00.000-07:00

Haven't actually seen the episode yet, but I thought this was funny.

"if you put them together, it'll make the perfect combination!" Of evil that is....

Kyoto animation is a brilliant group. . .

Anime! Anime! Anime! Anime Saturday!

2009-05-23T06:09:00.000-07:00

I still feel like garbage today....
So I'm going to marathon a bunch of anime!

The shows I'll watch:

K-On!

Lucky Star (I'd been meaning to watch the last episode for a while...)

And....

Uh...

I don't know what else I'll watch!

Sheesh....

I'll update this post later if I think of something...

I managed to find ONE site that wasn't megavideo that had Clannad After Story.
What's wrong with Megavideo? Megavideo only lets you watch 75 minutes or so of video a day. Something I learned the hard way (by it shutting down one of my shows right in the MIDDLE of it).
So now I'm just waiting for my episode to load up to the point that I was at before...

Suzumiya Haruhi Season 2!

2009-05-22T05:51:00.000-07:00

Yes, it has begun. After about two years of waiting, the second season has begun. of course, in Haruhi-style weirdness, the first episode starts in the middle of the first season, and the same for the second episode. The first 5 or 6 episodes of the new season will be sprinkled into a replay of the original series, with only four episodes at the end to continue the plot.
So, this is pretty much the season where they fill in all the missing parts that were in the first season.
No opening song in the first episode, although there was an ending song. Can't say it really compares with the original end song, but its okay.
The episode was satisfying, though, with a few really good comedy gold moments.

I can't feel......my lips

2009-05-21T14:41:00.000-07:00

I'm back.
After at least nine shots in the gums, and laughing gas, and two types of IV-fed drugs(one that was really fun, actually).
So, for those of you who have never had their wisdom teeth removed I'll give you a little idea of what its like.
Its torture. But its also not as bad as you would expect. The IV needle hurts just a bit more then a flu shot, and you feel a little pressure afterwards, but otherwise, its nothing. Being drugged to sleep doesn't really feel that weird, and you don't remember a thing about the surgery. Heck, you probably won't remember the drive back home, either. Oh, but by the time you get back home you'll be aware.....horribly aware. The pain isn't so bad, its the numbness, and the blood. It'll look like you're losing buckets. But (they assure me) you won't die.
Just be sure to keep ice on your jaw, and hold gause on the gums for about two hours. The bleeding won't stop by then, but it will slow down, and the numbness will be gone enough by then for you to drink fluids to counteract the bloodloss.

Honestly its not THAT bad. I should be back in action by tuesday.

I hope i didn't say anything weird when I was drugged....>.>

It'll be fine, right? Right?!

2009-05-21T06:55:00.000-07:00

I'm getting my wisdom teeth out at noon today. Therefore: no food from midnight of last night to, well, until the procedure is over.
Geh...it's not the getting hungry part that I'm really worried about though. I'm more worried about the IV. You see, there were several ways to go about the operation: I chose the completely unconscious route (I don't want to hold my mouth open for an hour while I watch dentists tear around in there!). I'm just scared of getting poked.:P That, and, I wonder what its going to feel like, slowly drifting into a drug-induced unconsciousness- will it be like falling asleep normally? Dunno.
I just want to get this over with now, so it doesn't interfere with my training when the season heats up in a few weeks. Luckily, I'll have one more weekend to myself after this one before the swimmeets start.

Oh, and I got my Akiko comic books! Wai!

Casual reveiw:
Akiko Volumes 1+2
Publisher: Sirius
Writer/illustrator: Mark Crilley
Age Rating: All
All around rating: 8/10
Flying icecream trucks?! Sleeslup worms?! A weird, floating, purple head?!
Shouldn't have ordered that almond ripple. It always means trouble.
Fourth grader Akiko is enlisted, along with four more otherworldly adventurers, to save prince froptoppit from the clutches of the evil(?) Alia Rellapor. Fate seems to be against them, however. Right off the bat the team is captured by Air Pirates (and these aren't your colorful, heroic, Skies of Arcadia-variety either)! Can Akiko and the gang escape the air pirates? Only one way to find out...Read it.:P

If you're getting sick of all of the angsty charaters you see in manga, if you're sick of all the suggestive themes, if you're just plain sick of all the pointless violence, and you want something thats simple and funny like saturday morning cartoons in the "olden days", give this series a shot.

A few cool How-to videos

2009-05-17T16:51:00.000-07:00

A few of Mark Crilley's how-to vids on drawing manga. I know most of you (that I know of, at least) who read my blog aren't really interested in manga drawing, but R.C. might find these useful. And hey- who knows. Once you others see how easy it is to do this, maybe I'll have a few converts.:P

I REALLY needed this drawing profiles one.

The Obama Card

2009-05-17T16:17:00.000-07:00

Some scribbles

2009-05-16T13:14:00.000-07:00

Did a little chibi practice while I watched Mark Crilley's how-to video. Thought they turned out fairly good.

My youtube adventures

2009-05-15T19:19:00.000-07:00

I was just innocently watching a video(don't remember what it was now), when I noticed a little How to Draw Manga ~~ video in the Featured Video's section of youtube. I checked it out in my boredom, and what do ya know, this Mark Crilley guy was pretty good! And he kept on mentioning this manga series of his called Miki Falls. I followed his link at looked at it on Amazon. It looked pretty good too. So I ordered the series(its only four books long, and its pretty cheap, so no big deal money-wise. I haven't gotten it yet, so I can't really recommend it. Reveiws will come soon!).
Glancing down at the "Customers also bought" section, I found many of the Akiko books. Wow, its been ages since I read those books. Come to think of it, I really miss those old stories, maybe I'll- I trailed off mid-thought at the sight of the author name below the book's title.
Mark Crilley.
Bottom line, I freaked out. Kind of a fanboy moment or something.
It was just a big suprise, I guess. Haha, I liked the books as a kid, and his art was always said to be very anime/manga influenced, but that he was actually still working, and had a real MANGA series, threw me for a loop.
Its funny how what I thought was totally unrelated to my life now, actually may have been part of the reason why I even GOT into manga.
Upon more investigation into his work, I discovered that Akiko had actually started as a graphic novel!
So, to make a long story short, I ended up ordering two of the original graphic novel Akiko books, a big anthology type thing of the comics, the first novel, and the Miki Falls series.
It was a good way to make up for not being allowed to buy that laptop...
^_^

Check out some of Mark's work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R26rsBkVEdo

Is a fish making countless farmers lose their jobs?

2009-05-13T12:02:00.000-07:00

http://www.foxnews.com/search-results/m/22257563/fish-or-famine.htm#q=smelt+california

Ah, California, is there no end to your foolishness? And everyone wonders why you're bankrupt and begging for handouts. Do you seriously expect any progress when you consistently stamp out any effort to be productive?

Now, I grant you- banning that gay marriage bill was good(even though it was only pushed back by a tiny margin). But, that's the only thing you've done right in recent memory.

Environmentalists have managed to close irrigation canals for farms in California. Their reason for the closing: a 2 inch fish. A fish- the delta smelt- that they claim is essential to the fragile delta ecosystem, is being killed by the pumps for the irrigation system. They say that, if the smelt goes, the entire ecosystem of the delta will quickly follow suit. Resulting in no water for millions of people.
But, what happens if the farmers are driven off? If there is no work in the area, then there will be no one to drink the water! Already, because of this environmental extremism, at least 37,000 honest, hard-working people have lost their jobs. Unemployment in Mendota, California is now at 40%!

Oh, California, you'll never get back on your feet if you suppress the very people who want to build you up...

We have to choose what we value more: the livelihood of thousands upon thousands of people, or the livelihood of a fish.

My Mother's Day Gift

2009-05-09T18:31:00.000-07:00

This is what I managed to whip up for my Mom this evening.

Fail Whale (Courtesy of Star-Bottle.net)

2009-05-09T15:25:00.000-07:00

Minori of Toradora has always had some...odd tastes(jello bucket trading cards yugi-oh style, anyone?), but this takes the cake. Or...the coffee, anyway.
www.star-bottle.net/?p=821

Comic Status ala Page 7

2009-05-08T19:20:00.000-07:00

Nothing. Nada. Zippo! I have gotten NO work done on it whatsoeva!
Its not laziness, though. I still got up early, still worked on comic-related things, but just not the actual drawing. I'll do some tomorrow after I get back from morning swim practice and have lunch with Mom and....finish working on that mother's day drawing that I put off to the last day(again).
It'll come soon, though. Don't worry. With the new schedule, I might just have the page ready before wednesday.
*Stops to look back on accomplishments*
Okay, its not a lot yet, but, I still can't help but be pleased. With my progress in writing, in drawing... my soon to be seven (official) pages of the manga.... It feels good, doing this. Its a lot of fun, if mind-numbing sometimes(the night sky inking comes to mind).XD
I might even be able to start a twice a week update format soon... It wouldn't be set in stone, with MY wild schedule, but its starting to look more doable.
All in all, this should be an interesting summer.

Hectic

2009-05-07T18:02:00.000-07:00

Phew, the race is over. The last major activity of the week is over...
So, here's the rundown of the past three day's tiresomeness:
Tuesday: Leave for swimming at 2 pm, get home at 8:45 after Japanese.
Wednesday: Swim at the YMCA for two hours(get kicked in the head by wild highschoolers playing underwater hockey), go straight home. About an hour later go to the AWANA awards ceremony(I sit for a half an hour and they forget to call me for my award! And when they DO call me up, they give me the wrong award...).
Today(Thursday): Got up at 5:30 this morning and worked nonstop to get the next comic page done. Had band rehersals in the early afternoon, followed by a concert in the evening(my solo went well^^).
What a week. But its over now. Just have swim practice on Friday and Saturday. Almost done...T~T

Prologue-Page 6 "Silence"

2009-05-07T07:00:00.000-07:00

Miracle of miracles, I got up at 5:30 today and got the comic done early!
Check it out at these spots.

Main Site: http://sorathecrow.tripod.com/
Archives: http://www.christianmanga.com/soa/?id=6

Fina and Cupil Cutlass

2009-05-04T18:56:00.001-07:00

Quite pleased with how she turned out here.

In the video game version of SoA, Fina didn't get this outfit until the very end credits. I've been pondering giving it to her sooner in the manga version. I think its cooler, and much easier/more enjoyable to draw. So I might have Fina buy it when she and Aika are stranded in Nasrad. Either that or maybe when they build their base on crescent isle.
If I get that far.^_-

I made a button!?

2009-05-03T19:58:00.001-07:00

Its not amazing, but not bad for a first timer.^_^

deviantART account

2009-05-03T12:20:00.000-07:00

I got a deviantART account today. Mainly just as a way to advertise the comic.:P You'll still see all of my updates here first.
My page.
Woah. There's a lot of good Skies of Arcadia art there. It makes me pitifully aware of my n00by-ness...

Megatokyo Page 1204 avatar

2009-05-02T11:26:00.000-07:00

I just found Kimiko's expression on this page so priceless that I was moved to make an avatar.

Come to think of it, that isn't the only expression on this page worth making an avatar of... But that's it for now.

EDIT:

Aw, darn. Someone else made one before me. And its colored.... *Sniff* How do I keep up with people who spend their ENTIRE LIVES on the forums? How?

here's some more:

Speaks for itself.
Kimi-chan reminds me so much of Sakura from Tsubasa here. Something about the cute, blank stare suggesting of a complete lack of understanding of what is presently going on.

Is the White House meddling in private business?

2009-05-01T18:57:00.000-07:00

The short answer: heck yes. Take General Motors, AIG(and other banks), and now Chrysler for example. Its not a matter of if the government has interfered in our businesses, but how much? I'm not going to go into the manipulation of the mortgage system for the past fifty years, or how safety is actually reduced when the economy is tampered with here. The news of the day is the White House's newest intrusion on our constitutional rights.
White House threatens investor into backing down in an argument over Chrysler sale?

So here's the rundown for those of you who didn't click the link:
These Chrysler investors have a contract that says that they get paid before anyone else in a situation like this. The government doesn't think that's a good idea, though. The Obama administration (which is now the head of at least two car companies, and has fired executives in at least one bank- doesn't really sound right, does it?) says that the investors should not be paid. And if they raise their voices about it, the Obama administration is threatening to use the White House Press Corps to crush their reputation. Even when the investors offer to concede 50% of what Chrysler owes, the Obama Administration won't back down on its stand.
We, the American people, need to draw the line at some point. The government is not meant to provide assistance or make decisions in any private business- large or small. When the government starts deciding pay or firing executives, we take another big lunge toward a socialist government. The economy is more resilient then Obama makes it out to be. Companies grow and expand, and often they spread themselves too thin. Bankruptcy is the natural cure. A company over develops, runs out of money, declares bankruptcy, and the company eventually emerges a trimmer, more competitive entity.
But the Obama administration is trying to cheat the system. They try to synthesize a danger-free economy. But that isn't how things work. Everything in life is a risk, and people should be allowed to take risks. Even in the greatest country on earth, a risk-free life can NOT be guaranteed. This path we are taking can only end in socialism.

SoA Page Five Uploaded! Woot!

2009-04-30T06:09:00.000-07:00

I THINK I did everything right.....I HOPE I did.... Please....tell me I did.... I want this happy moment to be ruined quickly if it HAS to be ruined at all...

As always, the comic can be found at the main site for a short time, and then forever at the archives. For those of you who don't know where the Archives are: there's a link on the sidebar of this blog, and there's a link below the comic on the main site.

And there will ALWAYS be a notification of updates here at Atmosphere, and links to BOTH of the locations.
Main Site: http://sorathecrow.tripod.com/
Archives: http://www.christianmanga.com/soa/?id=5

Japanese voice acting

2009-04-19T07:45:00.001-07:00

Did a little bit of searching, and I found some clips of the battle cries done by the original Japanese VA's for Skies of Arcadia.
Fina sounds....really different! Her voice is....a lot stronger in this version. Its not bad, though. Just different. Voiced by Yui Horie, so I can't really complain.
Aika sounds...more violent. But still, the voice actor gets her character a bit better.
Vyse just sounds ticked off. The English voice was far better in this case. Pirate's Wrath is....Jolly Roger?? And what is the deal with Cutlass Dance?
Have not been able to find the Eternal Arcadia-only cutscenes yet. But I'll keep searching.

Oh, look, this must be about America, right?

2009-04-18T09:25:00.000-07:00

Uhg, I point this little passage at the conduct of our government right now.

They dress the wound of my people

as though it were not serious.

"Peace, peace," the say,

when there is no peace.

Are they ashamed of their loathsome

conduct?

No, they have no shame at all;

they do not even know how to blush.

-Jeremiah 8:11-12a(NIV)

First:

Hillary Clinton offers honorable reconciliation to the Taliban? Why do we try so hard to make peace with the scum and murderers of the world? Why do we curse the ones who protect us, and try to appease the ones who are out to kill us?

Second:

When North Korea is waving a long range missile in our direction, what do we do? We run around in a disorganised panic and try to arrange more peace talks! What is the Obama administration doing about the very real threat of a nuclear ballistic missile attack? Trying to cut defense budgets. Robert Gates himself says that "we're not prepared to do anything about it."!

Third:

When pirates attack our ships and take our people hostage, do we take any steps to prevent further attacks? No. We opt to leave pirate bases alone.

Why can't we ever eliminate a threat before it hurts scores of innocent people? Why do we time and time again choose "containment" over total victory in all of the present conflicts? It truly is "no-win" strategy. Because of our complacency in the Korean War, we now have a serious nuclear crises on our hands. Its not just our error in not following through with that war that is biting us in the butt, though- our further failure was in not dethroning Communist China when we had the chance. Now China controls more industry in our economy then WE OURSELVES do(or at least most of it), and could crash everything if it decided to boycott us. And would 9/11 even have happened if former President Clinton had taken out Osama Bin Laden when he had the chance?

If we don't take a more aggressive stand on national defense, and if we don't start standing up for our people and innocent people across the world when its in our power to do so, I'm afraid that...

So they will fall among the fallen;

they will be brought down when they are

punished,

says the Lord.

-Jeremiah 8:12b(NIV)

...America's future will be the same as old Israel's. We will be trampled underfoot by our enemies.

Like a kid in a candyshop

2009-04-16T17:57:00.000-07:00

Sigh... For some reason, I decided to go back to the ChristianManga.com forums again. And I'm hooked...again. I'm not going to spend nearly as much time there everyday as I used to, and I'm not going to even try to keep up with most of the threads there. The main thing that keeps me coming back there is the old RP I started, ChristianManga.com Campfire Story(yes, the name was shamelessly ripped from the one at the Megatokyo SD Fanworks forums(now into its third thread!?)...but the story IS totally different. Its pretty cool actually).

Besides that, I've taken a short time out from the comic to work on a little idea of mine I've been wanting to do on the forums for a while(also lifted from MT, but nobody needs to know that....)...

Also, I'm still trying to work on my Allan's Pokemon Adventures fanfic. Needless to say, things are slow right now.

Swimming is heating up also. This weekend is the last free weekend I have for a while...so the workouts were peaking last week and this week. This last monday I did the hardest workout in my life, a full 9,300 yards in one practice. It was....horrible. I almost lost the will to keep going there- I was almost ready to just leave in the middle of it all. I don't do that. But that's beside the point- this last week and a half has been torture. So, bear with my slowness...

In other news...
As you can see in the above pictures, I've gotten into School Rumble. I'd watched season one through on youtube early in 2008, and had wanted to get some of the DVDs. So I finally made use of a little Best Buy gift card( thanks, Insanity) that I got way back on Christmas, and bought a season box set. Overall, its a hilarious series. The art... is mediocre. But the story is so random that it doesn't really matter. The English VAs....well, lets just say *I* could VA Harima Kenji better. But the Japanese dub IS included, so its all good(Yui Horie as Sawachika Eri ftw!). The subs are, as always, sub par compared to the fansubs. These people take no pride in their work!
I'd spend money on the manga first, though. Can't beat the original version. The art is muchhhh better, and some of the jokes are executed better.

Oh, we might be getting a new laptop!:D

Obligatory advertising for family:P

2009-04-12T10:14:00.000-07:00

I'm not the only one in my family with a blog.(actually, she was on Blogger even longer then I was...much longer.:P)
http://riderblog.blogspot.com/
Drop by and say hi to Heather(Mother of two of the cutest little girls ever)!

Some random art

2009-04-12T10:08:00.000-07:00

No. I have not gotten started on the next page yet. I got distracted by a few ideas that I want to try out in a little while. Thou shalt see what I'm talking about eventually. If it works out.

Pokemon- Allan's Adventures

2009-04-09T10:44:00.000-07:00

We'll see how far this goes. I'm not feeling very inspired about keeping up this blog right now, honestly. But here's the first bit- it'll get more polished as I go on...I think. We'll see.-.-

"Allan~...Allan...!" An insistent voice called from far away.

The teenager grumbled in his sleep, but then simply rolled over, covering his head with the pillow.

The voice stopped for a moment, then repeated, much closer: "Allan! Time to get up!"

Allan opened a sleepy eye and peeked out from under his pillow at his mother. She stood a few yards away with her hands on her hips.

"Uhn...just five more minutes..." Allan moaned, trying to hide under his covers.

"No, Allan!"

Joy, his mom, would have none of that, though. She grabbed his feet and dragged him out of bed. He flopped onto the floor, still groggily holding his pillow. "Have you forgotten about your meeting with Professor Elm? You have to be there in fifteen minutes(and its a ten minute walk)!"
Allan jumped to his feet in surprise. "Oh no!" He looked at the clock by his bed. "10:17?! I'm so late! My first pokemon...my first pokemon... my first pokemon..." Allan chanted those three words under his breath as he scrambled to find some clean clothes to put on.
"I'll be downstairs in the kitchen, don't dawdle," Joy said, closing his bedroom door as she left.
***
There's the first page. More to come. Maybe even this evening, if I feel like it...

PAGE FOUR SEESEEIACTUALLYMADEIT

2009-04-07T19:47:00.000-07:00

Like my youtube-style grammar? Honestly, do those people who always comment there not know what a comma is? Or what lower case is, for that matter....?
But that's beside the point!
SoA:H Page four is out-
Main site: http://sorathecrow.tripod.com/
Archives: http://www.christianmanga.com/soa/
There ya go. Hopefully the next one will be here in a week or so. No definate date though. As always.:P

Just Forget It!

2009-04-01T19:31:00.000-07:00

Had a HORRIBLE day today... I don't even know why I bother... with drawing... with swimming... with school....
I give up.
Its just not worth the effort anymore. I'm sick of all of this hard work.... I mean, what's so great about Skies of Arcadia anyways? Its just another corny, dusty, boring old game that nobody cares about! The characters are bland and unoriginal. The whole premise of the story is StarWars/Final Fantasy( who would like that?)! Nobody reads this blog anyway! I'm not a good writer... this entire site.... this entire webcomic.... is just a big... fat.... waste of time. So I'm done. Nothing more to see here. As of today, I'm quiting this comic.*

*(please note the date on this post)

The End of March Rant

2009-03-27T16:50:00.000-07:00

(Tl,DR)

Media-
Watched Toradora!, and read three or four of the Light Novels. Its not bad, but I'm not thrilled with how the anime is ending at this rate.
...I...can't believe I'm saying this...but... I watched The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya all the way through. Heh, I'm not a "Haruhi-ist" now by far, but it was fairly funny. The scrambled order of the shows was really annoying, though. The last episode of the series is actually only the...sixth?-.- Overall, too many suggestive jokes, too much bad language. BUT, the whole set up of the story is original, and its fun to watch. Its a disappointment for me, like most anime, because of the previous things I mentioned, but as anime goes- or any media for that matter- its notable.
Started reading the Lord of the Rings AGAIN.:P You just can't beat the classics. Nothing man made is perfect, but if you want the closest thing, check it out.
Restarted my file on Pokemon Diamond- its official, the pokemon games are out to get me.-.- I can't win. I'm still having fun with it though.^^ I'll post my friend code later when I beef up my party.
Got Pokemon Platinum.
..
Heh, its a big update from Pokemon D+P. But the story isn't really any better then the previous one. Its a fun game, though. So, if you haven't gotten Pokemon D or P yet, I heartily suggest you get this.
Dad got an Ipod! (Wait that was last month....hmmm)
Youtube got a little facelift. Very little. What? Humph. Its news to me, at least.
It was an unproductive week comic-wise... But...since I'm snowed in this weekend, I'll probably get a lot of work done now.:P

Weather-
SNOW?! I thought it was spring! This shouldn't be happening!T~T

News-
An officer holds keeps a football player from seeing his Mother-in-law before she dies. Unbelievable.
Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto I want this book. o__o
The usual... More bad economy, more foreign countries criticizing us for our choices(come on UN..."dead-beats"? Really? Who gave you land here in AMERICA, and donated millions-billions, actually- of dollars to your cause?!), and more whimpering at the feet of the communists.
Speaking of which, you know things are bad when Communist China is looking down on us.
The only beacon of light was a certain speech... Bravo, Mr.Hannan! Come over to America and say that to OUR leader, please.

Random things-
The "what is love?" song, whatever its called....is STILL stuck in my head. I'm almost starting to regret playing Don't Eat the Mushroom now....
This has been a bad week for swimming! Yeesh, on monday, it was 90 mph wind, and today its a blizzard! Two out of five practice days down the drain...
Still trying to figure out a good background for the blog. I'd like something more...original. Maybe anime inspired(some Air wallpaper would be cool)... but I'll stick with this one for now.

Internet Explorer 8

2009-03-21T10:08:00.000-07:00

I just downloaded Internet explorer 8 on a whim a few minutes ago. Its not really that different from 7, on first glance-over. The style is actually a lot like MozillaFirefox 3.0...>.>
The big new feature is the Suggested Sites button that shows you sites that you might like based on your web history.
Since I don't know anything about security, I can't say if this version is actually safer then IE7 in any way.>.<
Overall, nothing hugely interesting to report.

Paradox of Heaven(random comic)

2009-03-20T16:23:00.000-07:00

"...I cannot bear this constant strain

Of endless, aggravating cares;

They are to great for such as I."

So thus my heart condoled itself,

"Enjoying misery," when lo!

A "still small voice" distinctly said,

"'Twas sent to lift you- not to crush."

I saw at once my great mistake.

My place was not beneath the load

But on the top! God meant it not

That I should carry it. He sent

It here to carry me. Full well

He knew my incapacity

Before the plan was made. He saw

A child of His in need of grace

And power to serve; a puny twig

Requiring sun and rain to grow;

An undeveloped chrysalis;

A weak soul lacking faith in God...

(For Faith grows but by exercise

In circumstance impossible).

Oh, paradox of Heaven. The load

We think will crush was sent to lift us

Up to God!...

from Streams in the Desert by

L.B. Cowman, Edited by James Reimann;

page 82-83,

Zondervan (publisher)

(Click on it to enlarge- I think it'll work...)

Just randomly came up with this comic when I was reading the above passage. Enjoy~

A lengthier post

2009-03-15T12:57:00.000-07:00

So, things have finally cooled down with swimming. Championships are over, and I won't have another meet until late April(it had better not be on my birthday!>.<), and swimming will be in the morning this week. Meaning I get to spend more evenings home. Meaning I get to spend more time writing and drawing.^_^ More accurately speaking. What I find suprising is that, even with all of my tiresome swimming lately, I still went to the pool yesterday and worked out for two hours. On a saturday. I'm crazy.

Also,I found a nice little little passage in Streams in the Desert that I might post later today.

And the main event for today(and probably this week) art-wise:

A random drawing to distract you from the lack of comic updates.>.>

Good luck everybody!!!!!

2009-03-13T17:10:00.001-07:00

This is a shoutout to everybody that's going to D1's with the MM's- my swimteam! I want to see 100% gold from everybody! Good luck! Kick but! I'm praying for you all!

wish I could be there....

Nevermind

2009-03-10T19:10:00.000-07:00

The lack of shoutbox support on WordPress has broken the deal! I'm sticking with blogger! Forget the post below!

The new place

2009-03-09T17:33:00.000-07:00

Well, its not completely done yet, but here it is!
http://soahblog.wordpress.com/
All of the old posts are there- I just need figure out how to get the shoutbox "installed."

Its Decided

2009-03-08T17:12:00.001-07:00

I am definately moving the blog to wordpress. I'll reveal it tomorrow, most likely.

WordPress

2009-03-08T16:22:00.000-07:00

Got an account on WordPress today. I'm seriously wondering if I will move atmosphere over there in the near future. Its very shiiny.o.o I just want something a bit more....I don't know....professional looking.:P

Video game music that...doesn't sound like videogame music

2009-03-06T19:39:00.000-08:00

Most of these games I've never played- but the music rocks.^_^

SoA, Prologue: Page 3 (finally:P)

2009-03-06T04:44:00.000-08:00

Well, sorry about the (extra)long wait on this one. I couldn't do ANY drawing last week, with my swimming championships taking up the whole weekend.
Personal critique on my new page:
Enter Alphonso. Meet the signature hair flick. You'll be seeing a lot of this particular peculiar mannerism.:P
You notice the lack of stars? I just did too.^^
My lines aren't as clean in this one as I normally expect from myself. I sacrificed a bit of quality to get it out today.>.> The next page might be even longer in comming.:P I've got a filler page(or two) planned to keep you busy until I'm done doing a little more writing and storyboarding.

The Links:

Main SoA:Heroes site: http://sorathecrow.tripod.com/

Archives: http://www.christianmanga.com/soa/

As always, not totally pleased with it, but posting for the sake of progress.:P

Someday

2009-03-01T18:15:00.000-08:00

So, I want to set myself a deadline for the next comic page- tomorrow(monday) evening. I'm terrible with deadlines, but I'll try it again. With the swimmeet this weekend, I didn't get any drawing done...

Uhg...too tired to write much more...

Let's Play-erImean Review Iji (first impressions)

2009-02-22T12:42:00.000-08:00

I've played the first few levels, or "Sectors", of the game now, so I guess I'll give a list of first impressions.

(First: content)
Probably around Everyone 10+ for mild blood, language, and scary themes(I'm very conservative in my ratings. Most ten year olds have seen and heard much...much worse then this)

Language: 2/5
Its about PG level, so far it doesn't seem too bad.

Sexual themes: 2/5
The only reason I'm giving this a two is because I saw something weird further into the game on a youtube "Let's Play" video. Its probably not something you would notice if it wasn't pointed out to you. Otherwise: its a 16 bit style game, not much to see.

Violence: 2/5
Of course, even 16 bit games can get violent, and suggestive, trust me, I know from painful experience. The violence factor isn't too high here. There is a little bit of alien blood, and some fairly hard to see human blood, and that's it. The themes are pretty serious, featuring lots of fighting and war, and stuff, but its not any worse then say, Lord of the Rings or Pirates of the Caribbean.

Bad Religion: variable(?)
As far as I can see, there are multiple ways of beating the game, and multiple endings.
You can play complete pacifist-style, and not kill a single one of the invaders.
Or you can go berserk and wipe out even the aliens that could help you.
Or you can go somewhat in-between by killing the invaders and getting the higher alien race's support.
I honestly don't know yet what the "right" path is, or if there even is one that is completely right. Simply leaving everybody alone doesn't seem right, but going on a rampage isn't either. We'll see if the game's morals hold up in war or not...

(Now for the gameplay stuff:)

Play control: 4/5
Its a solid control scheme, but there are a few things that are annoying.
When your character moves, making the screen scroll in either direction, everything gets slightly fuzzy and it makes my eyes hurt.
You can only fire when you're on the ground. This is kind of explained by the fact that hero herself says the gun is nearly to heavy for her to hold properly. But it still makes for some awkward situations in battle. I find myself constantly jumping and pressing the fire button, not getting a response, and getting shot by a Tasen for my troubles. You also can't aim. You can only fire in the direction you are facing. Its not a huge problem, and it doesn't affect you in battle much, but it would make things a WHOLE lot easier.

Music: 3.75/5
It all seems to fit the mood of each scene, and I like how it changes subtly in different parts of the stage. But can't we get some different music for each sector?!

Plot: 3.75/5
Its really interesting so far. Not much to say yet, since I haven't gotten very far.

Sound Effects: 4/5
The gun fire sound effects sound really good. The limited voice acting(when your enemies are about to fire they say "Hold it!" in raspy reptilian voices.^_^ Also, Iji will say "I'm sorry..." when she kills anything at the start of the game.) was also a really nice touch. I didn't expect that from a freeware game.

Graphics: 4/5
Before you look at my rating and start saying that its too generous, that the game's graphics don't compare with anything on the market today, let me remind you: it was made by one person. Alone. And its free. No strings attached. When you look at it that way, you can really appreciate the finer details of the backgrounds and cutscenes. Its not Cave Story level art, but its really good.

Difficulty: 2/5
So far its pretty easy, but there's a lot of extras, so you'll probably find some decent challenge.

Replay Value: Good(?)
There are about five difficulty settings, and playing through each unlocks something new. Don't know if the game is FUN enough to go through that many times, though. We'll see...

Let's Reveiw: Iji

2009-02-21T18:45:00.000-08:00

I found a decent looking game. I will now play it. I will probably reveiw it later. Look forward to it.

Or else.>.<