http://www.furaffinity.net/view/3153093

My latest super secret project has finally been unveiled!

Based (very loosely--I played with a lot of stuff to make it a better story) on a dream I had, I am proud to introduce DLY, an eight (!) part story series about a tribe of outcasts afflicted with a deadly plague. With disagreements among the tribe's members hindering them from within at the same time death stalks them from without, can they coexist and stay strong as they travel on an ambitious migration?

As stated before, this series will have eight parts, one for each character. Each chapter is simultaneously a story about a particular character and a continuation of the main overall story. Each chapter will get to know a certain character better through flashbacks and personal narrative while examining the latest events from his or her eyes. Chapter 1 sets the stage, and is also the story of Keeper Edward.

With less of a focus on sexuality (in that it's the first thing I've ever posted here that's not porn) and a much stronger focus on plot and character development, paired with the length of the series (chapter 1 turned out to be over 12,000 words, and if the others decompress in a similar manner...) then it is very possible that I am actually writing a novel.

Yes, this means for someone who's used to working in such utter secrecy (I just sort of dropped chapter 1 on you without warning like I've done with absolutely everything else I've ever made,) I have just openly committed myself to seven more stories. Sigh. Wish me luck.

I realize the the fact that I just said it wasn't porn will deter a lot of attention here, but let me just say that I worked really hard on this, so please read it. :(

I think I just had the gamer equivalent of an existential crisis.

By this point, I'm fairly used to the fact that I can expect to be exposed to others playing Modern Warfare 2 pretty much all day, every day. The incessant MW2 sounds may as well be white noise at this point--blam blam blam, Enemy UAV Is Airborne, blam blam, that ringing noise from when you get hit with a flash-bang grenade, slowly fading back into more blam blam blam and also stab...and so it goes.

Normally, I just say, like I've always said, that I clearly like different games from the entire rest of the world and just let them do their thing while I do mine. Of course, then I made the mistake of watching about five Zero Punctuation reviews in a row to get caught up after having missed it for a while, and Yahtzee is apparently even more curmudgeonly and "this game is proof that gaming is dead" than usual these days, so that was...depressing.

That's when I started to worry. With my weaving obligations, I barely have time to play games anymore, and when I do I'd usually rather work on personal projects or do something productive like that. Even if I did have time to game all day, I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a game of which anyone else on the planet has ever heard. What if my obsession with retro and retro-feeling games, and all those old games, and all those semi-enhanced ports I want for Christmas, is all simply because that era was the last time I felt as deeply in love with video games as the MW2 people seem to be now? What if the reason I'm not as mad at Nintendo for abandoning real gamers in favor of whatever casual market they're after now is because I'm actually in the casual market? Oh God, what if I'm actually not a gamer anymore?

Then Atlus came along and grabbed me by the collar, told me to pull myself together with a hard slap, and gave me the exact three words I needed to hear to make it all better:

Etrian Odyssey III.

Yes.

Does this restore order to the universe? Well, no--I'm still falling madly in love with an obscure retro-feeling title while still being mystified by you kids today and your UAVs and whatnot, and the question of whether my retro fixation is me clinging to the past because it was the last time I liked games is still unanswered. However, the EO series has just enough of a deliberate old-timey feel to it to indulge my retro fetish while still being new, it's incredibly awesome, and it's sort of a nice affirmation to have a game to look forward to this strongly again (not counting the obvious one that's another enhanced port.) Maybe I still like games after all....

I went to go do my regular thrice-weekly jogging/sprinting exercise excursions. Since it was cold outside, I opted to go to the weight room and use their treadmill instead.

The entire communal building was unnaturally packed. Like, normally when I'm in there, there are maybe a combined total of three to five other people in the building (a couple are on the couch watching television, one or two are messing with their laundry in the laundromat, maybe one other person is with me in the weight room,) but today...good lord. Must have been a convention or something, I thought. Then I noticed that there were at least ten screens in creative and unnatural places (two TVs in the wallball room, three laptops on the table in the room with the actual television...) and all of them were running Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

A Brawl tournament! Right here in our communal building!

I didn't join in, because attendance was ridiculous enough as it was, and because I am nowhere near tournament-level in Smash Bros. I see that as something as an oxymoron anyway--I'm there for the Nintendo fanservice, not for any deluded pretense that Smash Bros. can be a balanced and legitimate test of fighting game skill even after tournament neutering. (Smash Bros. is fun in a party game sort of way and I'd be up for playing it more, don't get me wrong, but if I actually wanted to compete with someone then I'd go back to playing Guilty Gear.)

So I hit the treadmill and got to spend a good twenty minutes as the only person in the entire building working out while a good 50+ were sitting around one screen or another either playing or watching others play Smash Bros. Now I'm home again, and still feeling vaguely superior.

(Although, to cut myself back down to size a bit, I did ultimately cave and sticker up my PSP, despite the fact that it really didn't need any help being any gayer. See this? This is what happens if you get carried away with all the included stickers and is not what I did to mine, at all, though I did put those purple vine-looking ones on either side of the UMD door on the back like that. Mine are aligned the other way, though, with the stems on the bottom.)