The state of affairs in Japan, Spacebat, and more dark magical girl action
For those of you who have been following the news this week, Japan is going through some bad shit. First the 8.9 earthquake, then the big tsunami, then the situation at the nuclear power plant which is threatening to go completely to hell and now a volcanic eruption. As things continue to unfold in the country that has provided me with some of my best entertainment, from the adorable to the heartwarming, the creepy to the nightmarish, the sad to the depressing, and the badass to the downright awesome, I am praying to every power in this universe that the people of Japan hang in there and find a way to make it through this. The people of help_japan and various other communities around the net are doing awesome so far, as are pretty much everyone else who's contributed time and money to the cause of helping the Japanese people. Keep up the good work!
In other news, today is the second anniversary of the day that Spacebat, a free-tailed chiroptera who lived out its dream of going into space by clinging to the foam of one of Space Shuttle Discovery's external fuel tanks during its 2009 launch, went out in one of the most glorious fashions imaginable. Godspeed, little fella, and may your spirit fly free, wherever it may be.
Finally, Ewen Cluney, better known as Blackbird and nekoewen , who I've followed on the net since my college days due to my interest in anime and RPGs and who is responsible for bringing the Maid RPG, a tabletop RPG from Japan, over here, has released the first draft of a free magical girl RPG called Magical Burst, which draws partial influence from Puella Magi Madoka Magica, which I mentioned in my birthday post. I'm not usually a fan of the genre, marketed as it is to the shoujo (young girl) demographic, but several magical girl series that I've been following are aimed more toward the seinen (young man) demographic, which combine the adorableness, heartbreak and relationship dynamics of magical girl fare with the utter badassery of more action-oriented fare, among them Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, which developed over time from a regular magical girl show into something more resembling a sci-fi action series by its third major season. And quite frankly, it's gotten me in the mood to perhaps write a magical girl story of my own, drawing influence from Madoka, Nanoha and the Touhou series in addition to various other influences. Which doesn't really help matters for me considering I've already got at least two to three other story ideas to choose for the script I plan to write for Script Frenzy, which is just 16 days away.
In other news, today is the second anniversary of the day that Spacebat, a free-tailed chiroptera who lived out its dream of going into space by clinging to the foam of one of Space Shuttle Discovery's external fuel tanks during its 2009 launch, went out in one of the most glorious fashions imaginable. Godspeed, little fella, and may your spirit fly free, wherever it may be.
Finally, Ewen Cluney, better known as Blackbird and nekoewen , who I've followed on the net since my college days due to my interest in anime and RPGs and who is responsible for bringing the Maid RPG, a tabletop RPG from Japan, over here, has released the first draft of a free magical girl RPG called Magical Burst, which draws partial influence from Puella Magi Madoka Magica, which I mentioned in my birthday post. I'm not usually a fan of the genre, marketed as it is to the shoujo (young girl) demographic, but several magical girl series that I've been following are aimed more toward the seinen (young man) demographic, which combine the adorableness, heartbreak and relationship dynamics of magical girl fare with the utter badassery of more action-oriented fare, among them Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, which developed over time from a regular magical girl show into something more resembling a sci-fi action series by its third major season. And quite frankly, it's gotten me in the mood to perhaps write a magical girl story of my own, drawing influence from Madoka, Nanoha and the Touhou series in addition to various other influences. Which doesn't really help matters for me considering I've already got at least two to three other story ideas to choose for the script I plan to write for Script Frenzy, which is just 16 days away.