Warning: this chapter has been ready for a bit, but the commissioner has been too busy to check it, so it's possible that I'll have to edit some stuff after he has the time to go over it with me. If you want to wait to read it until then, I'll perfectly understand. In any case, I hope you enjoy this one at least as much as you enjoyed the first one.
I am in ...
2024-03-11 02:05:09 +0000 UTC View PostWords are inadequate.
I can’t count how many times I’ve thought this line since I confronted Yui and Yukino in the room that I will always think of as ours. The many occasions in which it’s been proven true. The times that a touch, a look, or even a scent have meant…
Have meant much more than words ever did.
This is true in fiction, as well. There’s a reason why so m...
2024-03-11 02:04:59 +0000 UTC View PostConvenient breaks from reality.
No matter what story it is that you’re engaged in, no matter the medium of choice, the tone, the genre, or the tropes… willing suspension of disbelief is not a rigid concept.
Yes, it would make you roll your eyes and finally give up on a particular franchise if they added yet another hair color to the palette that the main character’s s...
2024-03-06 05:57:05 +0000 UTC View PostI have mentioned already (maybe at length) the party system, the party management system, the companion side quests, and a lot of things that game developers use to trick the player into caring for the sprites moving across the screen in ways they likely have never cared for a living, breathing, human being, if only because most classmates or family members are often saddled with people writing...
2024-03-03 09:07:56 +0000 UTC View PostThere are a lot of things that we love to see in fiction because we’re deprived of them in reality.
That’s what some of the most popular genres are predicated upon, after all: fulfilling a wish that is unlikely to ever be reached. Martial arts? Well, wouldn’t you love it if effort was guaranteed to pay off and there was no ceiling to human potential that couldn’t be shattered with...
2024-02-26 02:41:18 +0000 UTC View PostThere’s a joke about lesbians that some of my friends have often laughed at: What does a lesbian bring to a second date?
A moving van.
Which, yeah, it gets the point across. I’ve seen it plenty of times with my college friends, the way they will attach to one another quick and hard enough that Amy may get some inspiration about what to do with all those limpet teeth she...
2024-02-22 03:13:48 +0000 UTC View Post"She’s still a villain,” I tell Amy as we look at the girl sitting under the night sky at the top of Captain’s Hill, surrounded by three dogs frantically lapping at her face in a messy order that still, somehow, ends with an equitable share of slobbered cutis.
“Yeah. So?” My sister says, not quite arguing but inviting me to tell her something other than a fact with no c...
2024-02-19 23:41:48 +0000 UTC View PostLacmere University – A Tale of Chivalry, Monstergirls, and Tuition
Chapter 1: Sabers at Dawn (or Afternoon, if That’s Too Inconvenient)
There’s a lot to like about fencing. It’s a good sport that relies on your brain as much as it does on your muscles. High-speed chess, a friend of mine who’s never played a game of chess in his life once c...
2024-02-15 21:29:55 +0000 UTC View PostSayaka – What Goes Around Comes Around
Waters rush. Waters roar.
And, through all the exhaustion, through all the bone-deep need to close my eyes and let the world turn to darkness…
I answer them.
A maelstrom sweeps across my bedroom, leaving my furniture untouched as it spirals around me, going faster and faster with every turn and...
2024-02-13 02:50:19 +0000 UTC View PostSo, once again, and I can’t thank you enough, you managed to vote for me to get an actual break at some point—which is kind of bewildering, given my poor output since I started freaking out about finishing Wake-up Call.
Regarding that poor output? Good news, everyone!
I just finished the 9.6k words next chapter of Puella Monstrum, and I’ll post it as soon as the commissioner g...
2024-02-13 02:43:27 +0000 UTC View PostIroha
“I—he’s never—” Mister Hikigaya says, still looking over the sofa toward the bathroom that his son just stormed into.
He looks back at his wife, the two adults sharing bewildered looks. Shocked, lost looks.
He starts to rise.
“Don’t,” Komachi says.
And I’m so damn grateful I’m not the one who has to say i...
2024-02-10 21:16:53 +0000 UTC View PostI started Wake-up Call on September 2020.
That’s also when I finished it.
No, this isn’t a metaphorical thing. No pseudo-Zen, mind-bending statement about the end containing the beginning and viceversa: this was a silly one-shot that I wrote with no intention at all of following up on it. It was quickly followed by a Dragonlance, Kitiara-focused, one-shot, of all things...
2024-02-07 10:06:55 +0000 UTC View PostIf anybody ever asked you what the most iconic part of the cooking manga genre is, what would you answer? Would it be the creative twists on otherwise commonplace recipes? The struggle to keep a plot going that somehow revolves around cooking? The way it deals with a story that heavily relies on precisely the one sense that a visual medium is incapable of properly conveying?
Of course not...
2024-02-05 06:12:06 +0000 UTC View PostSo… let’s start the month with a bang, shall we?
(As opposed to the kinda whimper the past few months have been.)
I think I’m finally recovering from the aftermath of writing Wake-up Call’s ending, and I’m cautiously optimistic about how to continue All Right! Fine! I’ll Take You! as well as about writing Wordsworth’s final arc without falling into the pitfall...
2024-02-02 22:23:01 +0000 UTC View PostSo…
Uh…
I mean…
Cutscenes!
Yes, cutscenes! In JRPGs, where narrativity can often take priority over immersion, there’s… the… the cutscene.
You know, that thing.
It’s a whole thing, I’m told. Like, you… okay, you proceed along with the story, take the (lack of) dialogue choices needed to at least pretend that you’re playing an interactive m...
2024-02-02 05:47:44 +0000 UTC View PostTaylor
In some
2024-01-28 12:47:15 +0000 UTC View PostShizuka Hiratsuka Tries Not to Panic
“You were supposed to take care of him when I—you were supposed to take care of him,” Yumiko Hikigaya states after my latest jab.
‘A bit late for that, isn’t it?’ I just told her when she said she didn’t want her child to be hurt.
“Oh, I can guarantee she has done that,” Haruno says with ...
2024-01-20 20:21:41 +0000 UTC View PostDo you know what’s the main difference between a hangover and being sleep-deprived?
The hangover goes away.
Lisa Wilbourn’s experience with lack of proper sleep—
I don’t want to hear that from you.
“Hng… Just give me a minute,” Amy says from the sink of the high-tech kitchenette set at the back of the Dragon vessel sailing south at speeds ...
2024-01-19 00:58:48 +0000 UTC View PostThere are, at times, joyful occasions that need to be properly celebrated. Once-in-a-century star-alignments the likes of which can stand shoulder to shoulder with a gacha game’s summertime special events.
That’s right: I’m talking about finally finding a subject I haven’t already ranted about!
Because, through the myriad tropes that could be used in shounen, eroge,...
2024-01-15 13:40:17 +0000 UTC View PostHannah
What I’m about to say should be no surprise at all, given that I’m the lone sane member of a quartet consistent of overpowered Tinkers and a too-often frantic Mover:
“You’re all being ridiculous.”
It still needed to be said.
“You and Colin look absolutely adorable in matching outfits,” Minnie says, taking pictures with her p...
2024-01-12 01:54:23 +0000 UTC View PostIn this, our magnificent series on the ins and outs of the anime industry in specific and otakudom in general, we’ve already talked about anime parents. It’s not surprising at all, given both the depth and breadth of our lectures, but some points may have previously remained unaddressed.
While it is a staple of the genre that parents will remain suspiciously absent in a way that would...
2024-01-08 04:58:26 +0000 UTC View PostBy the time we’re having breakfast on our kitchen counter, the lingering traces of burning cotton have already been taken care of by a range hood that was about ten times more expensive than what a regular household (that is, one where shirt-burning is not an endearing tradition) would require.
The breakfast is, as ever when it’s Tay’s turn, a culinary marvel the likes of which can ...
2024-01-05 05:49:00 +0000 UTC View PostFirst of all, I wish you all the best in the year to come. May it bring good fortune in each and every single one of your endeavors and relief in every struggle that you face. I hope you’ll become as happy as you ever wished.
Second? Love you all, guys.
I’ve made no secret of how many things went wrong through 2023, a year that I optimistically greeted with a post titled “ 2024-01-02 02:21:38 +0000 UTC View Post
A stage surrounded by cameras and festooned wit
2023-12-29 00:26:36 +0000 UTC View PostWine and whisky.
We’ve spent many nights drinking our respective preferred spirits, and some good-natured teasing has come from it. I’ll sometimes point out that California reds have won international contests, and her adherence to vintages with a pretentious ‘Chateau’ emblazoned in gold on the label is more of an affectation than a matter of taste.
She…
She will jus...
2023-12-24 04:09:52 +0000 UTC View Post“It was just a prank, bro,” I state with not even an ounce of irony.
Lisa Wilbourn’s adherence to the metric system and subsequent lack of available ounces—
Hush. Don’t want us to get branded as heretics.
“A prank,” the woman on the other side of the wide, crystal desk littered with papers and notebooks reflective of what Einstein would praise as a very ...
2023-12-21 03:20:35 +0000 UTC View Post“So. Alone at last,” I say with overdramatic levity, my left wrist bent and the tips of my fingers demurely brushing over the top of my chest, adopting the pose as soon as the door closes behind the pair of students who will be the death of me.
Let’s just say that Iroha’s enthusiastic greeting was… memorable.
And that she coped a feel. Or two. Or left my entire body tingli...
2023-12-18 04:49:45 +0000 UTC View PostAll right, cheekiness aside, seeing as this is a poll, the thing is that I’ve got a couple of things I want to accomplish before the year’s over. One of them is the Christmas Special (which, thankfully, already has some work put into it), but another would be my next original story and latest addition to the Seasonal Specials, a New Year’s-themed project.
I already got the ...
2023-12-16 19:02:50 +0000 UTC View PostDragon
“I don’t understand the issue?” the clueless man says as I glare at him sitting down on a wheeled stool by the side of the holographic prototyping table in the middle of his workshop.
A table that, even now, proudly displays in glowing blue lines the peak achievement of one of the greatest minds of our generation:
An over-engineered pair ...
2023-12-15 05:55:14 +0000 UTC View PostHitomi’s Big (and Very Long) Day
My head is swimming.
Which, given that I have, throughout this day, gotten mindfucked, thoroughly fucked, lost my virginity, got my repressed Sapphic crush revealed, and been introduced to the existence of literal magic…
…
Right.
My head’s swimming.
“You don’t have to mak...
2023-12-13 03:19:19 +0000 UTC View Post