Some halfway decent news.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 02:29 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Wow!
It was getting sappy there for a minute, but Girls und Panzer #9 was an astonishingly entertaining bit of mayhem. The climax was one of the best paced, most pitch perfect action sequences I've seen in a while, particularly because all the Ooarai girls, but especially Goosfish and Turtle teams, were smart and used their inferior equipment to its best advantage. Nicely done.


The bit of exposition at the beginning about the Student Council's motivation makes as much sense as anything else in the show.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 02:18 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test   Why so testy?Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test Test

^{"N..no...It's just tankers hair."}

  It was a dark and stormy night, but no shadowy figure lurked in a rambling old house. This wasn't some cheap dime novel, it was a high-budget ploy by Actas to pounce on the void left by Gonzo with Strike Witches.
  It had been a good run, but now they were behind schedule. They were on location(!?), it was a dark and stormy night and on top of it all, Turtle team's PanzerKamphwagen 38(t) had thrown a track again and was stuck in the mud. A Typhoon had stranded Tsutomu Mizushima in Okinawa and the company had sent in an Executive VP to act as relief director. This fellow had originally tried to get the series concept changed a late night live action show and almost been successful. He had been overruled, but his efforts had resulted in several props being bought, and contracts being signed that resulted in the show being produced using the unwieldy process of rotoscoping.

   The ersatz director ordered the Duck and Anglerfish teams to get out and help change the tread. The scriptwriter objected that this would destroy the pacing of the battle but the Relief Director was adamant, pointing out that the tread fix had been done off camera in episode 4 and that the audience demanded realism. The scriptwriter objected that the tread break wasn't in the script anyway and they should just fix it while they filmed the scene with Anzio  Maya Yoshioka had 6 minutes of dialog left to film as Anchovie and while quite professional, she was not experienced in location shooting.. The relief director screamed various expletives at him. He also ordered Anglerfish team to strip down to their skivvies...but he was adamant that Duck team keep their athletic outfits on as they all...wallowed...about in the...mud.  The scriptwriter at this point stormed off the set. What was said on set at that point is somewhat conjectural, but it is believed that the relief director then went on rambling about blue ray sales and ordered the girls to change the tank tread.

...but nothing happened.

At first...

The director had forgotten one very important thing. the young ladies may have been his employees, but they not only had their virtue they had between them 3 tank guns.  Mudwrestling in their skivvies was NOT in their contract and this asshole had been a perv from day one. After a quick consultation via cellphone they let loose on the director, Kana Ueda (who played  Kawashima) missed and demolished the food cart but the other two hit home, taking out both the director and the camera. While these props only fired beanbags a 57mm and a 75mm beanbag will ruin a perverts whole day. The directors chair, the camera and the food cart were no more.

Tsutomu Mizushima arrived from Okinawa to a nightmare. With only 3 days left till the air date it was still raining, all the film for episode six had been lost, an executive VP was in the hospital and there was no food cart at the film site. After quick consultation with the board of directors it was decided they'd just throw in the towel and make it a clips episode. They shot one scene with Maya Yoshioka (in studio) re-edited some cut scenes and two quick scenes with the main cast during a break in the rain. The episodes were quietly renumbered with 6 becoming 5.5. Even with all the cuts the rotoscoping was done with less than 7 hours to spare.
  Although the episode ended up significantly over budget (the vendor had to be compensated for the food cart), no action was taken against the actresses and the VP was ultimately fired. He has not been named and no one at Actas speaks of this incident any more.

 

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 07:35 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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1 Why Last Order?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Fri Dec 14 22:10:21 2012 (+rSRq)

2 We're TESTING

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Fri Dec 14 22:13:02 2012 (vp6an)

3 That's a lot of "Test" you've got there.  Maybe 14 pounds of it...

Posted by: Siergen at Fri Dec 14 22:37:13 2012 (Ao4Kw)

4

So it's about testing clones?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Sat Dec 15 09:39:44 2012 (+rSRq)

5 Sadly, I'm clone free but it looks like it's fixed now.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sat Dec 15 14:30:18 2012 (vp6an)

6 What is this new tag of which you speak?  (Worried that this will get me back into spending more time making caps than actually watching again).

Posted by: Mauser at Sat Dec 15 21:32:51 2012 (cZPoz)

7 The CAPTION tag lets you caption a picture. PIXY mentioned he was working on it. I kept trying to get it to work for a picture that was justified right or left of text so I filled the screen with ersatz text. It currently only works with centered pictures though and it seems to cause some wonkieness if used inside spoiler tags. However it dose reduce and italicize the caption automatically. For the picture and caption under the spoiler tag in this post, I used the 'justify center' from the post menu which gets basically the same results.  To make sure everything was working I posted additional ersatz text there too, though it's not as coherent as that above.  Like the CENTER tag the CAPTION tag also centers pictures nicely.

"Why would anyone want to?"

The CAPTION tag is like the other tags, ie:[KAPCHUN] snarky comment [/KAPTCHUN] but with caption spelled correctly and in lower case.

I gather that Pixy is aiming to eventually have them work on pics to either side of the page as well, which will greatly facilitate different page layouts.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sun Dec 16 01:58:41 2012 (vp6an)

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Everything's all mixed up and crazy.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 10:08 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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That's how much weight I lost Wednesday night and yesterday morning.
No, I did not have anything amputated, I got some bug and explosively expelled everything from my digestive track.
That was an exceedingly painful and exhausting experience.
I'm not sure what it was. I hadn't eaten anything for over 10 hours so food poisoning is unlikely. I note that something like this has happened every year in December or January for the last three years.
Perhaps I'm allergic to the solstice.
In any event, if the hippies are right about high colonics and purging then I'm  just all kinds of healthy now.
I hope to be walking without a cane soon.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 09:48 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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All hate these guys.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 07:54 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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According to this article, the anime industry in Japan just packed it in and quit.

After the eighth episode of Girls und Panzer aired late Monday, anime studios around Japan have collectively announced the end of the anime industry and discontinued operation. "I would like to thank the fans throughout the years for their continued support,” Shinbou Akiyuki said as he addressed a crowd of reporters at SHAFT headquarters. "But after the last episode of Girls und Panzer, we all know that there is nothing more to accomplish in anime.”

...The episode featured the team of protagonists engaging a Russian tankery school in the snow. Around midway through the episode, to utter disbelief of the television audience, the Russian team burst into a rendition of the traditional Russian war anthem "Katyusha”. Voice actresses Kanemoto Hisako (Squid Girl, Cure Peace) and Uesaka Sumire (Sanae Dekomori) performed the duet. The episode concluded with a dramatic fight scene and ended on a cliffhanger after the Oorai High School team were surrounded by the enemy...

"Try using a Zoopraxiscope!"

  Girls und Panzer‘s eighth episode is missing about a minute in its Crunchyroll version. Unless you download a fansub, you are going to miss this 1938 song, the highlight of the episode.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 09:08 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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We has them.
All should be fixed by tomorrow though.

I the meantime...Bunny Girls!

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 03:00 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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There are some things that strain credulity.
I was able to look beyond the premise of SAO and the implausibility of the technology. I could look beyond he occasional writers hand-wave.

But this is too much...
See that thar nebbish, the one who goes by the handle of Recon? In real life Leaf Sugu his Kendo senpai. He pines for her but is shorter than Sugu, physically weak, socially awkward, and has a stammer. In the online world however, he's shorter than Leaf, physically weak, socially awkward and has a stammer, plus he's got a bowl cut and walks with an Egor style hunch. I just don't see him picking that avatar. I just don't.

Wait, where was I?
Oh yeah, Sword Art Online  episode 23:


When last we left Sugu, she was smelling her knees and burbling, having had something of a mental breakdown upon learning that her brother was actually her partner in the game.


Kazuto, is somewhat taken aback as well, and really doesn't know what to say. I lieu of any sage wisdom, Kazuto  informs her that he will wait for her at the south gate of Arun.

Sugu Leaf re-enters the game and is shocked to find that Recon, over the course of the last 4 episodes, (and quite off camera) has managed to escape from his imprisonment, poison his captors and track her down. As one can imagine, he's feeling pretty buff right now...so buff that he actually builds up the courage to confess his love to Leaf.

You may recall that Recon is shorter than Leaf, physically weak, socially awkward and has a stammer, plus he's got a bowl cut and walks with an Egor style hunch. Recall too that Leaf is not in any sort of mood to take this affront to her dignity gracefully, so she punches him and throws him down the stairs.

Leaf then laughs a rather worrisome laugh and announces that Recon has given her a splendid idea! She then flies off to meet Kazuto Kirito, who is, as promised, at the south gate.



...and so they fight....inconclusively, although she does demonstrate that tactics and pure essence of yandere can counter even the highest sword skill.


After the fight Kirito explains that:
A: HE DIDN'T KNOW!
B: He won't be fully returned from Sword Art Online until he rescues his beloved.

For the first time Leaf actually groks the stakes of Kirito's quest. She realizes that his is quite possibly NOT a game and a life may be at stake. She and Recon follow Kirito and Y.U.I. to the entrance to the world tree where both agree to help him (Recon because he's still carrying a torch for Leaf).


Y.U.I. has analyzed the guardians of the gate from the recent battle (last episode) and is perplexed. She thinks that given the guardian's spawn rate, the gate may actually be unclear-able. In other words Y.U.I. thinks it's possible that this entrance is not actually intended to be cleared by players.

Of course, that would be crazy as clearing this entrance and entering the tree is, ostensibly, the whole point of the game, thus, it is decided that their best bet is to try to rush to the gate before  the guardians become too numerous. the plan is to have Leaf and Recon (who have the ability to heal at range) heal Kirito as he rushes the gate.



Well....
That doesn't work.

^{The gate as seen from below near the entrance.}

^{There are Catgirl princesses  on on fire breathing dragons. This is the best show ever.}

^{"Funny...It doesn't LOOK like cake."}

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 03:29 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Steven Den Beste suffered a stroke recently, but he has recovered sufficiently that he has been discharged and is now home!

Go on over there and welcome him home.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 03:50 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Yeah...THAT kind of week.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 12:35 AM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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It all turns to worms.
Asuna throws away her trump card. Now this does, in fact convince Kirito and Y.U.I. that she's up there, but she's lost her one ace in the hole and Kirito and Y.U.I. are no closer than they were to getting into the World Tree. Arguably they are now rather farther from their goal that they were, because, well...


Sughu figures out who her partner is...and does not react well.

^{"Oh... God...Did you just say Asuna Yuki?"}

No indeed she does not react well at all...

^{"Burbleburbleburble....}"

Interesting in that there are really only 3 scenes in the episode proper.
*A fight sequence as Kirito rashly tries to rush the gate of the world tree...and discovers why no one has succeeded.
*A brief interregnum where Leaf saves his ass, resurrects him and then learns who Kirito is.
*An extended scene in the real world where Sughu confronts her brother cousin and proceeds to have a complete nervous breakdown.  This was actually pretty scary to watch.

 

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 10:09 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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...it is good to find that there is something we can all agree on.

^{"I...I..was..gonnagodosomething...but I'll just sit here and enjoy this."}

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 11:02 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Christmas hell is starting up at UPS. I've also got 3 papers due and my computer has helpfully reformatted my flash drive. I have to start over.

Blogging will be light for a bit.

I understand that the approved substitutes for content include robots, cats and ta-tas.

So here.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 05:35 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Only a little over a week after his stroke, Steven Den Beste has posted on his blog. He's still recovering but he seems to be making good progress.

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Kirito and Leaf arrive in Arun, the vast metropolis at the foot of the world tree. It seems that the second life aspect of the game is at least as big a draw as the the games stated quest.  Arun is the largest city in the world of Alfheim by far, and is completely neutral territory. Our two heroes decide to scope out the bustling metropolis and the route to the Entrance of the World Tree when suddenly....

...they are informed that they have to log out as server is about to go down for maintenance between 04:00 and 07:00.

^{"Good grief! Whet time did you get to bed?" "Oh..'bout 04:00" "Huh..Same here."}
 

What follows is a day in real life episode. Kirito KAZUTO (he's outside the game now) gets up, greets his sister cousin warmly and the two of them go about their day. She asks if he wants to spar and he tells her that he has a lot of things to do, including an attempt to visit to Asuna in the hospital.
Leaf Suguha (she's outside the game now) asks if she can come along. They have a discussion on the bus about Kirito's plans. He's missed two years of school and his sister has leapfrogged him and is now in high school. Kirito is trying to decide whether he should spend the next year in cram school trying to catch up or try to cobble together some continuing education plan. There is another option however, The government is refurbishing an old abandoned school  specifically for school age victims of the Sword Art Online incident. Entrance exams will be waived for this school and students will be able to matriculate with people their own age. They'll graduate 2-3 years late but be able to take college entrance exams as normal. This seems to be a good option but Kazuto is unsure. He suspects that one of the schools functions will be to do brain and psychological studies of the effects of long term exposure to virtual reality on adolescent brains. He's pretty sure he doesn't want to be a guinea pig. He's less sure he'll have a choice.

The two arrive at the Hospital. Despite being warned off earlier by Sugo, they are admitted without incident (Sugo is out of town and Asuna's dad does like the boy visiting his daughter). On the way in, Suguha notes that Asuna is both the comatose girls'  real life and online name and observes that this is rare in MMPORGs. Kazuto is surprised that she knows so much about online games. The two of them thus miss yet another chance to clear up misconceptions and Kazuto ceremonially introduces his cousin to...

"Asuna, Vice Commander of the Knights of the Blood Oath. Lightning Flash Asuna, whose speed an accuracy with Sword I was never able to match."

Suguha is polite, respectful, formal and all kinds of conflicted. She changes out Asuna's flowers as her cousin talks to Asuna. After some time the two leave. They both have "to meet someone this evening" and no doubt reflect upon how little they've seen of each other lately.


While all that was going on...
In the virtual world of Alfheim, Asuna is attempting to make good her escape. Weaponless, in a high level "dungeon" she stumbles upon a corridor that does not at all match the games aesthetic. Finding a map she discovers that it doesn't represent the game itself but rather..
...a collection of experimental labs.

This is how Sugo's team is conducting their experiments in absolute secrecy. All their lab work is done virtually in the Alfheim online world, which of course is using the SAO servers. Now the reason that Asuna is being held in Alfheim Online is clear. Sugo never removed the 300 minds from the game, he simply stopped them from leaving. Alfheim online is using the SAO servers because they are essentially running SAO 2.0. The vast VR bandwidth needed to do these fiendish mind control experiments on people...and do them in a virtual environment is simply hidden as an extra "location" in Alfleim Online. Asuna discovers a lab with virtual reconstructions of 299 brains. From the displays, it is apparent that many of them are being manipulated to experience agony, terror and despair.

^{Evil villain is evil.}

While digesting this disturbing scene Asuna notes two monsters enter the "room". 

It seems that the avatars of two of the techs carrying out these unholy experiments are slimes, for no particular reason, other than that they seem to be an exceedingly kinky couple of pervy guys. There's really no place to hide so Asuna tries to blend in with the virtual brain jars and be very still. She listens to them talk nonchalantly about how two more of the subjects are close to having their minds completely break, and that is important that they be on hand to watch the process this time. Asuna spies a virtual override panel (it's the same type of icon/sprite as the one YUI used in episode 12) she runs to it. It has a virtual swipe card in it that activates the menu and sure enough there is an emergency log out option, Asuna then activ....GHAAAAAAA!!! TENTACLES!!1!!...

^{"Oh you have got to be KIDDING me!"}

They recognize her as the sprite from the cage whose mind they're not allowed to experiment on. As having a player type sprite in the lab is completely abnormal, one of the two tentacle monsters logs out to get instructions from Sugo, but not before admonishing the other one not to molest THIS test subject.  As soon as Thing 1 is gone, Asuna breaks morale and calls Thing 2 on his unethical and wicked experiments. He shrugs it off suggesting that it's less unethical than physical experiments on animals and that's not important now, because he is "so tired of dolls" he points out that 'doing it' in VR is like drugs but legal and his tentacles roam...
...and wander...
...and coil...
...and many blue rays were pre-oprdered after this episode.

Fortunately Asuna does have one weapon..her +4 teeth of chastity and our repulsive, evil lab tech has his sensitivity cranked up to the max.

^{What do you know? Strong female leads CAN have a castrating effect on certain men.}

Asuna's freedom is short lived. Thing 1 spawns at the control point directly in front of her and informs Thing 2 that the boss is PISSED and they need to put Asuna back in the cage, change the access code and watch her till Sugo gets back from overseas. Asuna makes one final struggles against Thing ones tentacles in a heroic attempt to reach the control point but the display is on the other side of the icon and....she's back in the cage. Think 1 and Thing 2 lock the cage and ooze off. Asuna is despondent and near breakdown.

Until they are gone, at which point it is revealed that she snatched the virtual swipe card off the control point.

^{This woman now has her tormentor's swipey card. Someone is going to pay and it's not going to be her.}

Meanwhile...elsewhere in the same game Kirito and Leaf spawn in and begin exploring the city. Along the way Leaf tells Kirito that there is now a glass ceiling over the city due to the fact that the moderators "freaked" and patched the player work around that resulted in the screen cap that led Kirito here. As they cross the threshold of the cities central zone (immediately around the world tree) YUI becomes agitated and starts calling for "Mommy!" Kirito asks what is wrong and YUI says that Moms (Asuna's) player information is now detectable and...

Kirito takes off like a rocket as the episode ends...

On the debit side, the art, animation and monster designs in the "lab" segment seemed a bit below the shows normal standards. In particular, those were some truly dorky looking monsters.

^{Seriously?..What the HELL man!? What were they thinking?}

However, the other scenes were spot on. The real life sequences were, additionally, very effective in using, weather, color and lighting to convey a palpably desolate feel.

Although this episode leaves us plot-wise almost exactly where we were at the end of last episode, it did flesh out out a few things.  The real world elements are well handled and the offhand comments about his school prospects and his concerns give just a hint of unease. The episode also does a nice job ramming home the sheer abominable horror of Sugo's machinations. He and his team are exquisitely evil.  Meanwhile, Asuna continues to give lessons in playing a bum hand very well.


5 more episodes to go.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 08:22 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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So earlier today,  at my folks house, I was getting of the shower when I heard a scream...not  an "eek!" a scream that could wake the dead. I threw a towl around me and ran out as my mom shouted in a hysterical pleading horrified voice..."GET DOWN HERE NOW"

I was halfway down the stairs when she ran into the living room and looked up at me with a face that could only mean someone died.

I was almost to the bottom when she said..."There's a stinkbug in the kitchen on the..."

...back up the...stairs into the bathroom, I quickly dried and put on pants as she began shouting stinkbug status reports with the urgency and intensity of Herbert Morrison covering a dirigible crash. "It's at the edge of the fan! It's right there. It's walking to the end! GET IN HERE!"
Oh the humanity..
She then ran into the living room and stopped me wanting to know why i had turned around to which I replied "...pants..."She explained that she couldn't reach the ceiling fan and the stinkbug was right over the cake mix and THANKSGIVING WAS GOING TO BE RUINED and I had to prevent the stinkbug from falling in the cake-mix (or the gravy) and....
I couldn't get into the kitchen from the dining room because she was standing in my way explaining so I went around and entered the kitchen through the hallway.

No stinkbug.

I searched. I searched. No stinkbug.

She ran and got my dad from the garage and the two of us did a thorough stinkbug sweep...but the stinkbug had left.

Or had it?

She glared in horror at the cake mix, the sugar and the gravy.

There was a good 15 minutes of dad and I sifting and pouring before we could convince her that the stinkbug had not  buried itself in her ingredients and had simply flown away.

In fairness she'd been working on this for a VERY long time.

In any event Thanksgiving dinner was awesome...despite the knowledge that somewhere out there the stinkbug still lurks.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 12:38 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 You should have added a girlish shriek as you turned around and ran back up the stairs...

Posted by: Siergen at Fri Nov 23 18:53:33 2012 (Ao4Kw)

2 STINKBUG!!!!!!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Fri Nov 23 20:26:06 2012 (PiXy!)

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I suspect that there is a story here....

_{Update: Actually, I think it's a Cougar.}

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 10:44 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Today in Austin they held the first Formula One race in the US since 2007.
I completely missed it.
Wonderduck did not..

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 10:44 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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 Episode 20 picks ep exactly where 19 left off, being pursued by monsters at exceedingly high speed.

Alas, it was not enough to warn the ambassadors, as our heroes arrive moments after the Salamander forces. Fortuitously the Salamander General Eugene is given to speeches. His team outnumbers the diplomats about 6 to one and Eugene is widely regarded as one of the most formidable fighters in the game.

Just as Eugene is about to give the order to strike, Kirito, acting on very little information, makes a dramatic entrance and crafts a clever story that gives the Salamanders pause. He claims to be an Ambassador as well, and that he just signed a mutual aid pact with the other two kingdoms represented. As his race (the Spriggans..none of whom he's actually met) already have an alliance with the Undines, this would mean the Salamanders are risking a war on four fronts. (This of course is, in actuality, utter bollocks.)

 General Eugene is suspicious of Kirito's poor equipment and lack of an escort, but to be on the safe side he decides to have a duel with Kirito to see if he is of sufficient level for this wild tale to be legit.

^{One of the stranger ultimatums I've heard}

Eugene is more than a match for Kirito, but Kirito has a trump card. He still has "dual wielding" skill from Sword Art Online. Using Leafs sword, he catches the General off guard and gains the initiative. Kirito does not yield the initiative and the General Blows up REAL good.

^{"He went all kinds of 'splody!"}

And there is much rejoicing...despite the 67 other soldiers standing by.

^{Oh..yes...The Kait-sith are catgirls}

As a gesture of goodwill, the Cait-Sith and Sylph queens resurrect the General (which prevents a major XP, Level, and Equipment loss). Eugene thanks Kirito for a good fight and as a gesture of reciprocity orders his team to retire. He leaves, still, unaware that the whole tale of a 4 power alliance was a ruse.

After some quick explanations and a bit of housecleaning involving Leaf's former guild leader,  the Leaders of Cait-Sith and the Sylphs both offer to hire Kirito, but he points out that he only cares about getting to the top of the World Tree. He guesses (correctly) that the alliance was for the two races to unite in a push to gain access to the tree, and asks them to take him along. They agree but point out that it will take some time to get the proper equipment. Kirito then drops his last ace in the hole. He still has two years of money from SAO that register with this game as loot. He donates it to the cause and the two powers divide it evenly. Now with enough filthy cheat lucre to outfit their parties with high level magic items they have nothing standing in their way. Both agree to move their top fighters to the world tree as soon as they can get everyone together.

Kirito has played his cards well, he is now part of an army of two nations assaulting the prison of his beloved.

Speaking of whom....
Asuna has been biding her time. She did get the pass-code to her cage successfully and now that the coast is clear she makes good her escape. She has no equipment, is dressed in a nightie and is on the top level of the world tree, but Asuna Yuki has 86 levels in badass and she is determined to free herself from this nightmare and reunite with her husband.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 02:54 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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1 Nice writeup!  But several of the pictures aren't showing up for me

Posted by: David at Sun Nov 18 15:57:35 2012 (vyRm+)

2 It looks like none of the pictures are missing; there are just a few extra bad links to the ultimatum picture.

As for Asuna, I suspect only her internal badassishness is available. Our Villain likes his women helpless and breakable, and will surely have stripped her of her stats and skills, except perhaps for cooking. Kirito's cheating is only working because Sugou has completely dismissed him as a possible threat. I had initially thought that the "glitch" in his login was because Sugou had set a trap for him, but if he knew, he'd have found ways to use it to torment Asuna (which would have backfired the moment she spotted Yui in his pocket, but...). If Sugou understood Our Heroes at all, Asuna would be chained to the bed and Kirito would be surrounded on all sides by the legions of Hell.

-j

Posted by: J Greely at Sun Nov 18 18:15:15 2012 (2XtN5)

3 I really hope that while spending that massive bag of haxxor loot to equip their teams from the good stores, someone is kind enough to get a few items for Kirito.  There is really no reason he should still be running around in low level gear.

Posted by: David at Mon Nov 19 13:37:42 2012 (Lf1Ga)

4 I've had a suspicion about that odd login glitch, and the stuff that did translate across games.  I mean, a re-skinned SAO is fine, but why should Krito have access to his old stats on a new character?  Why would "old" SAO character data be loaded into the new database at all?  And how strange is it that the glitch should drop him near the one player he could count on for support?

I detect the mostly unseen hand of the game's designer. They never found him, or his connection to the SAO servers.  So is he one of the 300 also, but still has his admin privileges?  Or has he just inserted himself into the game and is helping Kirito from behind the scenes?  Respect for the enemy that beat him?  Anger over having someone screwing with his game? Face Heel Turn?

Posted by: ubu at Wed Nov 21 13:59:25 2012 (SlLGE)

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