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Touhou Nekokayou #64: Catness, part 2

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Touhou Nekokayou: Scarlet Weather Archive in Japanese Red #64

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Characters: Patchouli Knowledge, Remilia Scarlet, Flandre Scarlet

What's this? It was actually The Dreaded Continuity all along! Story begins here. Please be advised that none of this is planned and I'm making it all up as I go along.

There were no independently-spawnable "book" objects when I started making this, so I had to basically make the stack of books on Patchy's desk myself (hence why it sucks). For want of many other occult/mad-sciency items, this also explains the presence of the spring, the danmaku bullet, the test tube, and the tiny fusion reactor.

KirbyM and/or Thefre need to implement setting the width of the word-wrap in the speech balloons, because I ended up having to make 27 "floating" texts in panel 2's wall of text. But it was not just any text — it was Magibabble, the even-more-geeky cousin of technobabble! I just wanted to use phrases like "resonant frequency" and "phase matrix." And to riff on the fact that it isn't clear what language the characters are talking in. (Everyone in Gensokyo is bilingual, I guess. I base this on the fact that they seem to have no trouble with names like "Remilia Scarlet" and "Wriggle Nightbug")

Flan is updated, and looks kinda out of place next to the un-updated oldbies here. I still say KirbyM should update multiple characters at once, but that would increase the likelihood of running out of characters sooner than later. Flandre is without a hat because the "cat ears and tail" accessory doesn't remotely fit with hat-wearers, shence why ears and tail are also independently spawnable, but I didn't want to waste time with actual separately-spawned ears and tail. (My life would be way too easy if it were possible to "group" characters and other objects, etc... then you could move and resize them as if they were one. But this'd be far and beyond KirbyM's abilities, and Thefre has vanishted into the ether.) And I couldn't resist stealing another joke from Ennui Akadako. It was just too much of a golden opportunity, given what was happening!

Fun fact: in comics, space equals time. I put the "DADUNN" low down because if I put it up with the speech balloons, it looked like it was "happening" at the same time as the speech, rather than afterward, which was my intention.

I wrote the first paragraph before I'd made the comic. Now that I've finished, I have a few ideas of where this is going. It will still be mostly made-up-as-I-go, however!

With the release of UFO and Touhou 12.3, I have updated the Forbidden Template to include "It's a Moriya Shrine conspiracy," because damn.1

Transcript

  1. (Remilia approaches Patchouli in the library; Patchouli is working on a whole bunch of magic/sciency-stuffs.)
    Remilia: So, did you figure out what you did wrong?
    Patchouli: Yes, actually ...
  2. (Closeup of the two against a sketchy pink background.)
    Patchouli: (partially obscured by Patchouli's head and Remilia's speech balloon) The Ratcatcher system operates via a heuristic blacklist system which distinguishes rats from non-rats by carefully analyzing certain patterns of behavior from a database of ratlike or non-ratlike actions and sequences of actions, but Kirisame's feline self-transformation interfered with the process because the phase matrix of her spell interfered with the resonant frequency of my analysis paradigm, thus initiating a feedback loop, albeit a relatively harmless one, which instantiated an erroneous process in the database framework which would generate a negative result regardless (obscured by her head) actual circumstances, hence the Ratcatch(obscured by her head) failure to detect her.
    Remilia: Okay, what does that mean in English? (aside) Or ... Japanese. Whichever.
  3. (Back at the library scene.)
    Patchouli: It means the magic she used to turn into a cat confused and infuriated the Ratcatcher.
    Remilia: Kay.
  4. (Flandre suddenly flies in.)
    Flandre: HEY, SIS, I TURNED INTO A CAT!
    Patchouli: Flandre!?
    Remilia: What!?
  5. Flandre: (wide cute-fang grin) A cat, duh!
    Remilia: Yes, I can see that. How did this happen!?
  6. (Flandre and Remilia in front of a sign against a sketchy pink background)
    Flandre: Pick one!
    Sign: - Magic
    Sign: - Eirin's shady new drug
    Sign: - Yukari is fooling around again
    Sign: - It's a Moriya Shrine conspiracy
    Remilia: (darkly) Templates like that are forbidden.
    Footnote: *Joke stolen from "Komainu Set" by Ennui Akadako
  7. (Back at the library.)
    Patchouli: Did Marisa do this to you?
    Flandre: Huh? No, I don't think so, I just noticed I was a kitty right before I came out of my room and saw Alice dragging her away ...
    Remilia: Was Alice a cat?
  8. (Remilia and Patchouli are exchanging a look.)
    Flandre: Well, she turned into one as they were going around a corner, and then Marisa started petting her.
    Remilia: Hmm ...
    Patchouli: Hmm ...
  9. (Closeup of Remilia and Patchouli against a sketchy dark background.)
    Remilia: This looks like ...
    Patchouli: ... an INCIDENT!
    SFX: DADUNN!

1Well ... the Moriya Shrine has been directly or indirectly responsible for four incidents in less than three years (Kanako tried to take over the Hakurei Shrine in MoF, gave nuclear power to a sixball in SA, the geysers subsequently unleashed a Nue who unleashed UFOs (sort of) in UFO, and Suwako built a malfunctioning giant robot).

All Touhou characters are © Team Shanghai Alice and/or ZUN; create.swf is ⑨ KirbyM with help from Thefre. "Sakura petals" brush in main/4koma logo was made by Kisara Girl. "Falling leaves" brush in 60-Years logo came with Photoshop.

21 Comments (auto-closed) (rss feed)

Archeia

Omg hahaha that is epic. I can't wait for the next part GOGOGO

Morgan

Should I be worried about how much of Patchouli's long explanation makes sense to me? (Arguably, it makes more sense to me than the short version. `.` )

Flandre's new look is going to take some getting used to... I don't think I'd have recognized her if it wasn't for those distinctive christmas tree light wings.

The stack of books seems fine to me; it looks like a stack of books. What's a bit weird there is the test tube kind of blends in with Patchouli's hair.

Mikan

Walfas Doujin Incoming!

Anonymous

/ Modified by Dizzy H. Slightly Voided:

Morgan,
I'm not worried and I'm in the same situation. I am, on the other hand, an unabashed technophile.

Draykon

Well now, that was a boring explanation. I was hoping for something dealing with an error in a magical-node-based structure in which the node intended to analyze the figurative ratness/catness rating of an intruder was accidentally swapped out with a node gauging the literal ratness/catness rating.

Though I suppose there isn't much reason for Patchy to have such a node laying around anyway. This explanation probably makes more sense. :P

Dizzy H. Slightly Voided

@Draykon:

Well now, that was a boring explanation.

thatisthejoke.jpg :P

Banzatou

Patchouli's long articulate speech has some spelling 'phail'~ (i.e. Interfrered = Interfered) xD

Other than that, I'm loving how this is turning out. Another great comic from the great biscuit muffin. :3

P.S. What's that item in-between the Great-Red-Ball of Awesomeness and the Wonder Slinky on Patchy's desk? ...A half-assed St*r W*rs cup?

Dizzy H. Slightly Voided

A miniature nuclear fusion reactor. I just needed something sciency/magicky there :x

Facteur Rien

Sorry to annoy you, but how do you:
-make capture of create.swf?
-Use bigger police than the original one in create.swf?

Dizzy H. Slightly Voided

My screen-capture program of choice is Cropper. And I'm not sure what you mean by "police," but shift-click (or double-click and altering "scale") resizes stuff in create.swf ...

Facteur Rien

Thank you! By "police", I mean, the weight of the text. But I find. Increase the general scale, and decrease the bubble scale. Thank you.

Dizzy H. Slightly Voided

Ah, yes. It's just that, um, that's not even remotely what "police" means in English ...

TyrannoRexaur

Ohhh... nevermind. Btw, goo job XD

Dizzy H. Slightly Voided

Older than you think (warning, TVTropes, etc) ;P

sRc

actually, now that I think about it, English could be viable enough just as well as Japanese. the SDM clearly comes from somewhere in Europe, and I'm sure Remilia is fluent in her original language as well as Japanese.

Facteur Rien

Oh, yes! I don't know for Remilia, but "Scarlet" is obviously a british name, and "Flandre" is a french name.

But, I wonder is China was hired when the SDM come to Gensokyo, or after they move?

Dizzy H. Slightly Voided

I'm assuming Meiling came before the SDM moved to Gensokyo; it seems all the major SDM crew did.

sRc

there was one doujin that I enjoyed that portrayed Meiling as being there already when they came, and the lake already known as the Scarlet Devil Lake before their arrival because of Meiling and Remilia fought her to take the title from her and then made her the gate guard

but I would guess she was already on the staff before they went to Gensokyo, possibly hired on while they were looking for somewhere to move the SDM to out of Europe, and she was the one that had actually known about Gensokyo and suggested they go there.

Beta-Maxis

Yes, one thing I love about your comic, you never screw with the space is time thing. Too many otherwise great create.swf users don't even attempt it, instead numbering all of the speech bubbles, leaving my eyes going all OVER the place, and some artists don't even do THAT. I know the tails are impossible to stretch/skew, but you CAN attach the tail to the speaking character's second speech bubble, kinda like in the comic books, but I'm ranting.

Dizzy H. Slightly Voided

The thing with Create.swf is, it's a simple/easy-to-use but powerful tool, which means that people get distracted by the simplicity and ease-of-use, so they only use a fraction of the power. It's kind of like making a sprite comic, except that certain things are even more convenient (within the Touhou framework), especially nowadays.

Put it another way, Create.swf can replace some of the skills associated with drawing. But nothing Create.swf can do can replace any of the other skills associated with making a comic. A lot of people don't realize this.