Category Archives: News

I’ve been playing Destiny (and Destiny 2), the computer game, since the open beta on XBox. I was looking for a new game to play and, amazingly, I found a first-person shooter I actually liked. Anyway, after many years, I decided to drop it because I was getting consistently disappointed by the content. No more, Bungie! No more money are you getting from- And then they brought out The Witch Queen expansion, everyone said it was the best campaign they’ve ever done, and I caved. I have to say, I’m not finished with the campaign yet, but I think calling it their best is… bollocks.

Anyway, I was massacring something or other (it’s usually fairly difficult to differentiate between mobs who die in one hit) when a thought hit me: Destiny is a Magical Girl Isekai.

The backstory of your character in Destiny is that there’s this thing called the Traveller who grants magic powers to various champions. The champions are selected from dead people found by a technomagic fairy called a ghost. The ghost literally reincarnates your character (the ability to bring you back from the dead is, of course, an explanation for you never dying permanently in game) into a post-apocalyptic world to fight ‘the darkness.’ You have magic, elemental powers. You are a reincarnated magical girl! Plus, in keeping with modern magical girl anime, it may be that the Traveller isn’t as nice as is originally thought, and the darkness isn’t as demonic as it seems. By this point in the Destiny 2 storyline, the lines are getting pretty muddy. See? Magical Girl Isekai!

Now I just have to imagine Zavala in a frilly costume waving a wand. That should cut the stuck-up bozo down to size…

The winter anime season was, for me, something of a mixed bag. There have been standout successes, disappointments, and pleasant surprises. When it came down to it, however, there were two days in the week when I had nothing to watch after dinner. That’s not a great collection.

Spring, however…

Crunchyroll have just announced their spring line-up (link on the image above) and it is packed. I sort of knew this was coming to some extent, but seeing it all (well, not quite all) on one web page makes me wonder when I’ll have time to sleep!

Now, Crunchyroll swallowed Funimation at the start of March in a move which probably surprised no one, so there is only one major streaming service for all these new shows to appear on. Even if Funimation was there to soak up half of the offerings, this would look like a massive list of shows, many of which are must-sees (for me anyway). And there are sixteen shows yet to be announced, so it my schedule may get more packed. Let’s see:

• Ascendance of a Bookworm, Season 2: I adored the first season of this and can’t wait to see more. This is a must-watch for me.
• Date a Live IV: Very popular, though I’ve never watched any of them and probably won’t start now.
• Estab Life: Great Escape: Being heavily pushed. Will start watching.
• Kaguya-sama: Love is War -Ultra Romantic-: Have to admit that I’ve never got into this but a lot of people have. It should be my kind of thing, so maybe I’ll binge the first two seasons and hit this up when it starts.
• Love After World Domination: Hero (like, colour-coded, spandex-suit-wearing, Power Ranger-style hero) and villainess fall in love. Could be good. Will start watching, though the trailer suggested I’ll find it less fun than the (very vaguely) similar Miss Kuroitsu from the Monster Development Department which was one of my surprise hits over winter.
• Science Fell in Love, So I Tried to Prove it r=1-sin0: (Where 0 is theta, I think.) Again, tried to get into this and failed, but it’s popular and funny. May give it another go.
• Skeleton Knight in Another World: I read the first book in this series and, to be honest, wasn’t that impressed. The anime, however, could be good, and I’ll likely be watching this through the season.
• Spy x Family: Being heavily pushed as a big hitter for spring and seems likely to be a good one from what I’ve seen.
• The Greatest Demon Lord is Reborn as a Typical Nobody: So, that title’s a lie. He’s going to be OP and we all know it. This isn’t going to be as good as The Misfit of Demon King Academy, but I’ll likely be watching it through and I hope it’ll be worth it.
• The Rising of the Shield Hero, Season 2: Another returning big hit. Took me a couple of tries to find this at all entertaining, but I’m looking forward to this season being less depressing than the last one.
• Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome is Tough for Mobs: Might be worth it. This gets a few episodes to see whether it is.
• And I skipped a few I might give an evening of two to.
• And there are sixteen slots yet to be revealed.

Essentially then, it’s a good thing I generally do most of my writing during the day, because if I was hoping to get a lot done in the evening, it’s not happening. On the plus side (on the plus side of having more entertainment), Ascendance of a Bookworm inspired The Empress’ Mage. A new season might get me to write that sequel I’ve been planning. Not promising anything, however.

Okay, so the Dragonball reference I referred to in my last post was:

‘Uh, I’m not really sure. Haven’t had it measured in a while, you know. It’s got to be over nine thousand by now.’

And here’s the scene on YouTube for those who haven’t a clue why it’s a Dragonball reference.

But, I was thinking about this over the last couple of days, and I thought, ‘What would a nine-thousand capacity get you?’ Is it really god-like? (Plus, doing a whole post to reply to myself seems silly.)

Answer: no. Well, a bit.

Believe it or not, I don’t make this stuff up. Obviously, it’s all made up, but there are rules. I know exactly how many Tammys (that’s the correct spelling) every spell takes, and so I can say with certainty which spells any of the characters can handle. And I can give you an idea of what capacity 9000 actually gets you.

• Fire Blast rank 1,200. Sounds really awesome, but it’s not exactly nuclear. It works out very nicely to a blast equivalent to 5 one of TNT. That’s a bit less than half the nominal yield of the GBU-43B (aka MOAB, Mother Of All Bombs), the most powerful conventional weapon in the US arsenal (11 tons of TNT).
• Armageddon rank 351. This works out as rather more impressive due to the scaling factor. Rank 24 could rain lasery death down on the entire surface of the Shinden. You’d need rank 25 to cover the Earth. Rank 351 covers an area with a radius of about 5×10¹⁰⁵ metres. That’s larger than the observable universe…
• Weather Control rank 96. Weather Control has different area scaling (because reasons). As such, this only gives you a 9.6 mile (15.4 km) radius; barely even a big storm.
• Magic Burst rank 289. That’s Nava’s current Magic Burst, not the original one. That works out about 576 lbs of TNT, but the damage dispersion from Magic Burst isn’t the same as Fire Blast, making this a little more effective as you get further from the blast centre.
• Armour rank 817. Sounds a lot. It’ll stop a shell from a Carl Gustaf recoilless rifle or an M72A2 LAW without trouble, and no small arms round will touch it. A Javelin anti-tank missile, however, will rip through it 99% of the time and almost certainly kill whoever it’s protecting.

For the record, the lowest complexity spell seen in the books is the Umbrella cantrip (1 Tammy; anyone able to work magic can use it). The most complex spell is hard to define since the rank concept is open-ended. Active Recovery rank 3 is 243 Tammys (and rank 5 is 438; to be featured at a later date). The ‘base’ cost of Force Dome is kind of high; Class 3, Rank 1 Force Dome is 338 Tammys, and that’s what Nava used in The Aquaria Incident. There’s a spell coming up which will take the record for highest complexity by a mile at 2,242 Tammys. That’s the flat complexity, no ranks or anything. However, if I reveal much about it, it’ll spoil things, so you’ll just have to wait and find out what needs all that oomph.

Hope this has been informative. Back to getting Nava & Co. in trouble.

If you haven’t read The Aquarian Incident yet. Stop reading now, and definitely don’t read the comments.

So, three posts in one night. I was not planning this. Anyway…

I was just wondering how many of you spotted the Dragonball reference. I have never watched any of the Dragonball series (and certainly never the film), which was why I figured I could get away with this one without explanation. It’s kind of surpassed anime culture. But I’d love to know how many people spotted it.

Okay, the art dump for The Aquarian Incident is up on ArtStation. Link from the image above.

More than usual, this one has a lot of fanservice. Trying to decide what kind of swimsuit Mel should wear took months. I ended up not really using most of the ideas I had.

So, in case you haven’t heard of this, My Dress-Up Darling is a newly released anime (based on a manga) about a high-school loner who hooks up with a stunning girl. No! Don’t run off! It’s not like that!

Well, it is, but… Wakano Gojo is a lanky boy who likes playing with dolls. Or, to be more precise, he’s training under his grandfather to make hina dolls. Since that’s a bit of weird career goal, he has no friends, keeps himself to himself, etc. So, he’s not a typical otaku nerd type; he’s his own kind of nerd. And then he happens to bump into Marin Kitagawa in the home studies classroom because his old treadle sewing machine finally broke and she doesn’t have a sewing machine of her own. It turns out that Marin wants to be a cosplayer (she is an otaku nerd type), but can’t sew worth a damn. Gojo decides to help her (by making that maid-type outfit in the picture above) and hilarity ensues. Marin falls for Gojo. Gojo gets horribly embarrassed. It’s all good fun and fanservice.

Why am I drivelling on about this? Well, partially because I just watched the latest episode and felt like posting something about this series again. That’s why I’m doing this now. Why I’m doing this at all is episode 4. A couple of weeks ago, the English dub of episode 4 came out I watched it and noticed something which I didn’t really take in watching the subtitled version. The concept behind the episode is that Gojo has everything he needs to make the first costume (Shizuku from Slippery Girls 2; I’m not explaining, watch the anime if you want to know), but he thinks Marin wants to wear it at a cosplay event in two weeks and works himself to near exhaustion getting it ready. Other thinks conspire to create delays. He’s at wit’s end. Then, in his darkest hour, he remembers something his grandfather told him about making hina dolls: it’s hard work, but when someone sees one and they smile, when someone falls in love at first sight with something he’s made, it’s all worth it. Energised, Gojo finishes the outfit, and then discovers, of course, that Marin would have been happy with it being ready whenever it was.

And yesterday and today, I’ve been reminded of why I put myself through all the pain involved in writing these books. (Okay, yes, they make money and feed me, but…) I put out a book, you guys comment that you like it, and I really appreciate that. Just like Gojo and his grandfather, it’s the smiles that keep me going. Now, if I could get a Marin to smile for me when I finish a book, I’d probably be putting them out every other week, but we can’t always have what we want.

So, thanks.

Also, if you’re into anime (or just want something funny to watch), I’d recommend My Dress-Up Darling. If you can put up with adverts, you can watch episodes free on Crunchyroll (link on the image). The dub is really well done, so you’re not missing anything watching it in English. Episode 4 is not the only one that’s resonated with me. It’s an all-round show: meaning, massive boobs, tips on cosplay, and plenty of comedy. This show has it all. Uh, except for battle scenes. So far.

The Aquaria Incident, aka Death’s Handmaiden 5, aka The Beach Episode, is now out. And in time for the weekend!

• Smashwords.
• Amazon, ASIN: B09VCF5M28.
  • US
  • UK
  • DE
  • CA
  • AU

Art dump sometime this weekend. I understand that you’ll probably want it sooner, rather than later…

Not my favourite day of the year, to be honest, and the weather is miserable. I brightened it up with Nava and Suki. This is a UHD image; feel free to use it as wallpaper if you wish. I am.

Meanwhile… I update the ‘What I’m Working On’ page recently with what I was planning to be my next project. And then I started writing it and, well, it’s boring. I like the concept. I’d like to do something with it. I just need to come up with a way to un-boring it.

Death’s Handmaiden 5 now has a name, The Aquaria Incident. If nothing changes in the next week, it’s going to be followed by DH6 which doesn’t have a name yet. It also may not have enough plot to go forward with; I’m currently working that out.

Updates on progress when I have them.

Someone asked for Tatsu with a CM1328… and this isn’t exactly that, but it’s something like. The CM1328 should probably be a bit bulkier, but that front grip can be unbolted to let this thing be mounted to a vehicle or tripod. It works.

Also, I hadn’t had a chance to use this environment model yet. It’s from Stonemason, one of my favourite environmental modellers. ‘Streets of Japan,’ it’s called. I feel like I’ve been there since it’s based on a Tokyo neighbourhood. Of course, the only thing almost as ubiquitous as the vending machines is the 24-hour/7-11 shops. Sigh. I wanna go back!

The art is up for Mask of the Demon. Click the image to go to ArtStation and see. Enjoy, but be aware that it’s not all suitable for work.