Celebrating Indonesia's Independence Day

 (( Originally published on 17 August 2012, or at least I attempted to. Blogger then came in and tell me that, yes, beside cooler yet more annoying interface, connection with your Google account, and the ability to customize your blog's appearance, Wordpress is more reliable than he is. ))

Here's a gross generalization: There's about hundreds of nations in the world, most of them have one special day where they proclaim their independence against whatever force was holding them. Today, 17 August, 67 years ago, is such day for one country in particular, something which probably will go unnoticed to those not involved with it, and sometimes even to those who are.

This country is my home nation of Indonesia. 67 years ago, taking advantage of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (not that I approve of it), the founding fathers of Indonesia proclaimed our independence from the Japanese empire, and by extent Netherlands as well.

Bah, I can't seem to write coherently these days. I've been working on this programming project as part of my crash return course in Python, and as a result my brain starts to spout sentences in variables and riddles rife with programming jargon and built-in Python functions. Might need to spend the vacation actually vacationing, lest I'll be driven mad.  

For those not in Indonesia, or for those who doesn't use Google for some crazy reason, here's a gift from those folks at Google Doodle to celebrate the day.

Hurrah!

But I don't want to end you

Imagine a world, an empty but old world. You, a lone new being in this world, know next to nothing about it. So, perhaps by curiosity or for some other abstract reason such as wanting to save the world or overcome some emotional dilemmas, you walk around. You travel through this world. Journey through it.

Over time, you see new sights, you meet new people, see fantastical events happened and dissipated. Almost at the end of the voyage, once you've seen all there is to see, you look back and realize how much love you've grown for it. You love this world, its people, its sights and everything else it had to offer. This journey, this world, has touched your heart.

And then you see the edge of the world. One that you will have to pass, for the sake of everything and everyone in this world or the others. But once you do, that's it. The end. You will never return, or if you manage to, it will never be the same experience again. All that you've gained, once you cross that edge, will be nothing more than sweet memories. Your journey is finished. (Game) Over.

You know what that's like? Playing a most wonderful RPG. That's what a good RPG make me feel, what a good game makes me feel, right before the Very Definitely Final Dungeon: I don't want to end it. After all those love and explorations and looting and battling, I don't want to just... beat the Big Bad and then leave.

Oddly enough, it has never hit me so hard. Usually, after some hesitancy, I simply ram though those big door. Then came Bastion, the indie action-RPG by Supergiant Games.

Let me put it this way: It's been weeks, maybe even months, since that large looming 3-times-larger-than-everything-else castle has been lying open, ready for the ramming, on my map. And I kept trying to find some excuse to put it off. There's still this achievement to do, this side-dungeon to finish, that upgrade to do, bla-bla-blah.

 In most other games I hate those extra sidequests. I consider them a waste of valuable time, unless they give me some form of Infinity+1 Sword or somehing, but in this game I'm secretly grateful for what few I have, since otherwise I will be forced to fight the final boss. And then, what? Endgame? After all that I've done?

One of the things that make Bastion so precious is because you can't revisit old locations anymore. Once you're done with it, it's either completely destroyed or overrun by monsters or some other excuse so I can't visit it. This isn't a bad thing, since it kept the experience fresh and the prevent Gameplay-Story Segregation, but still. Sometimes I do miss those Stage Ones. 

It also gives me so little thing to do, come the final dungeon. So little opportunity for reminiscing. So little reminders about what I have done and accomplished. I'd love to look forward to the future, but I also want to look back.

I want something more to remember all those adventures by.

So what have I been doing lately?

Mostly school, actually. I've had my entrance exam, and a bunch of other bureaucracy deals are done. Should be good to go in my new school by July. Until then, everyday is Saturdays/Sundays.

School, however, is, undeniably, a boring subject. So here's a simple breakdown of what I've been doing, beside school, and being sick for two days.

- Told my little sister that she shouldn't think that she's really sick. She is, but believing otherwise did help.
- Found and use a ridiculously cute Nazrin cursor.
- Finally created Alice in Persona 3 Portable.
- Play Bastion, a lot.
- Still play Touhou, a lot.
- Write more stories, none of them finished, few planned to be continued.
- Stumble upon plenty of amazing Touhou remixes.
- Found my XP installation disc, thus...
- Finally installed Eastern Language Support for my computer.
- Wish I could play SimCity/SimTown, but ended up doing something else instead.

So I've been writing a lot of stories, but right now I want to abandon everything, except for a little 30-minutes flash fic when I'm bored, for a single Touhou fanfic. This includes abandoning the one fanfic I have about Flandre and Koishi, the other I have of Eiki who visit the underworld, and the other about a retelling of UFO's Sanae's story.

This fanfic I'm working is also the one thing that prove that I am a Manipulative Bastard for my - or someone else's - characters. Just look what I did to Remilia!

Its working title is For Shinki!, and the image that's inspiring me to do it, is this:  

Take that however you want.

And, I'm telling ya, this time, I will finish it. No getting sidetracked by another story!


And another thing: Unless you're reading this only a couple of minutes after I posted, then the Now Playing section to the right should say that I am now playing Bastion, an indie action RPG Low Fantasy about a kid trying to fix the "Bastion" after an apocalyptic "Calamity nearly destroyed the world and the entire human race. So far, I have to say this game compete with Aquaria for the best indie games I've ever played. A semi-review might come someday.

So how's the weather today?

I can't tell, not right now. I mean I can't tell the weather right now, and  not that I'm going to find out later. It's 12 minutes after midnight as I write this. It's probably too dark to see outside, but I really can't prove it. I never have the guts to open the curtain at night, at least not without someone watching me.

Yesterday night I slept early because I wanted to wake up earlier. It failed horribly. Woke up an hour before noon, 4 hours after the planned wake-up time, even though I already carefully planned to sleep about an hour before I usually ends up sleeping. So for tonight I'm just going to let nature do it. I'm never much of an early-sleeper anyway, these days. My eyes persisted to have a more nocturnal schedule. I swear, they feel fresher at night. 

The sky was bright and sunny when I woke up this noon. The sort of picture-postcard perfect kind of summer afternoon when you just want to get outside and play under the sun. Not an uncommon weather, but it's definitely rarer than the awfully-too-bright noon that we usually get during the Dry Season.

The weather got weirder as the sun started to escalate to the west. At 1 it was cloudy; clouds which at the end produced no rain whatsoever. The sky was slightly dark in the afternoon and, frankly, gloomy. And it was, for some reason, silent. Except for the birds chirping and the occasional four-wheeled machines passing by. The dogs are even tonight than then. It was like the sky, the whole neighborhood, forgot what weather it was supposed to be in.

I took my two cats out to the front yard then, because they kept running into the off-limit backyard. Figured they need some sun. But it was a bad time to get some sun, as, as I 've already mentioned, the sky was dark. They enjoyed it anyway, sniffing around at all the new smells. Being outside (the backyard has high walls and is mostly roofed. Not much of a yard) is new and rare to them. They don't go out much.

Through the day, I didn't go outside farther than my fronyard, and that's only when I took the cats out, despite the weather. I don't really have to go anywhere, since my school's not going to start until mid-April. But it was still... awfully lonely when I think about it. I don't have many friends I'd like to go out with, and I've never communicated with my neighborhood friends since we were 7 years old. I played with them a lot back in those days, riding bicycles and playing in the park in front of our houses, all under the sunny sky.

It feels awkward to meet them now. We got so busy with our own new life.

I didn't go out yesterday either, and the day before that, nevermind how he weather is. It's like I won't ever get outside unless I really have to. All the things I need, I can get at home. I don't have to go out much, so I don't go out much. 

It's not sad, really. It's just awfully lonely, preceded with perfectly cheerful times. Funny, how it was like the weather today.

Touhou sparks too many creativity

I used to sleep at exactly 10 pm. every night, even on weekends. This ensure that I can sleep long enough and able to wake up around 5 or 6 am. without any ill merit. Waking up and sleeping this early give me the advantages of proper communications and interactions with perfectly diurnal people without dozing off in the middle of their conversations..

Touhou completely ruins my schedule, not because I play the games, but because I play with its soul.

Dramatization aside, it's a well-known fact that the Touhou project has over 13 games, over 70 characters, and just as many locations. It also have a sort-of backstory and personality, each one of them unique, for each and every single character. Sort of. There's not much canon backstory and personality shown, but Touhou is already like a community project where every fans participate with making the whole story. Sort of.

Nowadays, every time I play Touhou, or read about it, there's a sudden urge in me to draw fanarts, to create fanstories, to browse the internet for its fanremixes, to basically do something about it. I don't usually make fanworks, since my brain is heavy enough with ideas to supply me with art and story concept for decades to come. But for Touhou it's different. It pulls me into it, begging and crying for me to expand what short details we have about its characters, world, and stories into something bigger.       

Before I sleep, for some reason, that is the voice that speaks to me. So instead of letting myself into Dreamland, I would get up, get a piece of paper, a pencil, and doodle or write whatever. Sometimes it's not even anything to do with Touhou, but I know inside that it's somewhat influenced by it.

Then I ended up sleeping around midnight.


I already have about a dozen pages in my drawing book of Touhou fanart. Might scan it sometime. I also already have a couple thousands words logged in my computer for Touhou fanfic. Might show it sometime if I ever finished them. For now, here's some Photoshop results I made for it:

 

Nuclear Utsuho

Original artwork by U-Joe of deviantArt

Mystic Oriental Shrine Maiden

Original artwork by Silver Forest doujin circle

 

Marisa Kirisame

Click for full-size

Original game artwork for Touhou Scarlet Weather Rhapsody by alphes 

Flandre Scarlet

Click for full-size

Original artwork by marionette ex of deviantArt

I might use some brushes made by someone else there. No idea what or how or where. So if you somehow notice them and know where they come from, give me a call. If you're also the artist of the original artwork used in them and do not want these to be shown, also give me a call.