Doodles of Azarola and Audra from the upcoming fourth book of the Black Mark series. Az doesn’t let something like an injured leg stop him from getting into trouble. I can never settle on what hairstyle to give Audra, so it just keeps changing throughout the book. It’s become one of her quirks.
Welcome to the twelfth and final week of the Fall 2013 season of Anime Knockout! Every week, we will review the new anime of the season, rate them, and kick the weakest show off of the queue.
Spoilers ahoy! So, if you don’t want to know what happens, come back after you’ve seen this week’s episodes!
For the Fall 2013 season, here is our chosen lineup:
Arpeggio of Blue Steel
Beyond the Boundary
Galilei Donna
Gingitsune: Messenger of the Gods
Golden Time
Kill la Kill
Log Horizon
MEGANEBU!
Nagi no Asukara
Samurai Flamenco
Strike the Blood
Walkure Romanze
Wanna be the Strongest in the World
Welcome to the eleventh week of the Fall 2013 season of Anime Knockout! Every week, we will review the new anime of the season, rate them, and kick the weakest show off of the queue.
Spoilers ahoy! So, if you don’t want to know what happens, come back after you’ve seen this week’s episodes!
For the Fall 2013 season, here is our chosen lineup:
Arpeggio of Blue Steel
Beyond the Boundary
Galilei Donna
Gingitsune: Messenger of the Gods
Golden Time
Kill la Kill
Log Horizon
MEGANEBU!
Nagi no Asukara
Samurai Flamenco
Strike the Blood
Walkure Romanze
Wanna be the Strongest in the World
Welcome to the tenth week of the Fall 2013 season of Anime Knockout! Every week, we will review the new anime of the season, rate them, and kick the weakest show off of the queue.
Spoilers ahoy! So, if you don’t want to know what happens, come back after you’ve seen this week’s episodes!
For the Fall 2013 season, here is our chosen lineup:
Arpeggio of Blue Steel
Beyond the Boundary
Galilei Donna
Gingitsune: Messenger of the Gods
Golden Time
Kill la Kill
Log Horizon
MEGANEBU!
Nagi no Asukara
Samurai Flamenco
Strike the Blood
Walkure Romanze
Wanna be the Strongest in the World
My first priority with the Black Mark series is to be entertaining. Not to show off my amazing ideas or world building. Not to spread a message. Not to prove something to myself or anyone else. My prime directive is to entertain myself first. If I write something I like to read, then there should be others who will like reading it, too.
However, I didn’t realize until I was halfway through writing the third book that I had plotted out a crucible story. Yeah, let’s make a crucible story entertaining! Let’s make a dieselpunk fantasy cognate of WWII North Africa a ~fun~ and ~magical~ experience! I’m good, but not that good.
So, I looked at my first draft and thought that I might be nuts and bit off more than I could chew. I ended up blowing my deadline goal by about two months, trying to make this story into something that wasn’t a hard sit. The last thing I wanted was for someone to think that this was getting too heavy and put it down. Because once the book is put down, there’s a risk that it won’t be picked up again. I know that there are plenty of people who like grimdark and the like, but that’s not what I’m aiming for. I’m aiming for the old pulp action adventure novel. Those ten-centers with the WTF covers.
Eventually, I reworked the trouble spots and shifted some focus around. The beta reader receptions that I got were all pretty positive with only a couple of minor, fixable quibbles. A sigh of relief from me. I can deal with little fixable quibbles. That’s usually me forgetting something in between drafts, because I suck at linear writing. I’m too easily distracted.
If you want to check out what I’m talking about, I have some sample chapters for each of the available stories under the Black Mark menu above.
Number four is on the way and I’ll just say that the Indiana Jones theme was playing on loop in my head while outlining it.
I’m sure someone will think that I should have stayed on the grimdark path, but I think that grimdark and angst are like powerful spices. They are best when used sparingly.
Welcome to the ninth week of the Fall 2013 season of Anime Knockout! Every week, we will review the new anime of the season, rate them, and kick the weakest show off of the queue.
Spoilers ahoy! So, if you don’t want to know what happens, come back after you’ve seen this week’s episodes!
For the Fall 2013 season, here is our chosen lineup:
Arpeggio of Blue Steel
Beyond the Boundary
Galilei Donna
Gingitsune: Messenger of the Gods
Golden Time
Kill la Kill
Log Horizon
MEGANEBU!
Nagi no Asukara
Samurai Flamenco
Strike the Blood
Walkure Romanze
Wanna be the Strongest in the World
Continue Reading →
Welcome to the eighth week of the Fall 2013 season of Anime Knockout! Every week, we will review the new anime of the season, rate them, and kick the weakest show off of the queue.
Spoilers ahoy! So, if you don’t want to know what happens, come back after you’ve seen this week’s episodes!
For the Fall 2013 season, here is our chosen lineup:
Arpeggio of Blue Steel
Beyond the Boundary
Galilei Donna
Gingitsune: Messenger of the Gods
Golden Time
Kill la Kill
Log Horizon
MEGANEBU!
Nagi no Asukara
Samurai Flamenco
Strike the Blood
Walkure Romanze
Wanna be the Strongest in the World
Continue Reading →
Welcome to the seventh week of the Fall 2013 season of Anime Knockout! Every week, we will review the new anime of the season, rate them, and kick the weakest show off of the queue.
Spoilers ahoy! So, if you don’t want to know what happens, come back after you’ve seen this week’s episodes! We also have a change of format this week.
For the Fall 2013 season, here is our chosen lineup:
Arpeggio of Blue Steel
Beyond the Boundary
Galilei Donna
Gingitsune: Messenger of the Gods
Golden Time
Kill la Kill
Log Horizon
MEGANEBU!
Nagi no Asukara
Samurai Flamenco
Strike the Blood
Walkure Romanze
Wanna be the Strongest in the World
Very brief. I’ve been gone since the end of Flame and Frost.
I can see why everyone is saying “go ‘zerker or go home” now, too. DPS is king and everything is balanced around the dodging mechanic and twitch play. Control and support are just theoreticals.
The downside to the Living Story is that, after an absence of several months, nothing substantial has changed in the game and I’m still left with little to do or care about. It’s not like I can spend a week or few to catch up on the story and understand what the deal is with the current events. So, there is no investment in what is going on. There were some zone events with rescuing or protecting Vigil engineers, but nobody was doing them in the maps that I passed through and no one stopped to help on the one that I soloed. Wintersday is Wintersday, but it doesn’t look like I can finish up the achievements from last year. I can make more snowmen, but it doesn’t count for anything. So, there’s the same mix of dungeons and dragons that were there when I left. I was tired of repeating them months ago and I don’t feel any impetus to go back to them.
After running around a bit, I found the new construction in Divinity’s Reach. Not much explanation of what it is or why I can’t get into the blocked off area with the laurel vendor. I don’t have a pass and I didn’t find info on how to get one, if I can get one. I just threw up my hands at that point and decided that I had other things to do with my time.
I still don’t understand the decision to make so much content temporary without any way of visiting it after the event it done. Upon return after several months, there’s really nothing to reconnect to and catch up on. Well, there’s another armor tier. Yay. *shrug*
So, I’m left with an MMO itch that still needs to be scratched.
Welcome to the sixth week of the Fall 2013 season of Anime Knockout! Every week, we will review the new anime of the season, rate them, and kick the weakest show off of the queue.
Spoilers ahoy! So, if you don’t want to know what happens, come back after you’ve seen this week’s episodes!
For the Fall 2013 season, here is our chosen lineup:
Arpeggio of Blue Steel
Beyond the Boundary
Galilei Donna
Gingitsune: Messenger of the Gods
Golden Time
Kill la Kill
Log Horizon
MEGANEBU!
Nagi no Asukara
Samurai Flamenco
Strike the Blood
Walkure Romanze
Wanna be the Strongest in the World