Saber Marionette Some Cocktail News...

BakaMattSu · May 6, 2002

I recently had a quick exchange with Canal-Friend of Cocktail Lounge fame. I thought you guys might like to see this stuff as well, since it is interesting and explains just what will become of our favourite The Sabers scene.

Ooh...I can't wait to see this when it's all done!

The original mail, and the reply follow...

BakaMattSu · May 6, 2002

My e-mail...

Originally mailed by BakaMattSu:
Heyo, my name's BakaMattSu, and for the longest time I've been a big fan of Devoid of Thought's Saber Marionette Fanzine "The Cocktail Lounge"!

I speak on the behalf of many SM fans when I say "The ones responsible for all the work put into the page and its projects deserve our undying praise" !

Saber Marionette is a wonderful and indescribable anime, and fans are very hard pressed to find enjoyable gaming material, but with "The Sabers", we have found just that!

Unfortunately, it appears that the Lounge has remained dormant for almost a year now...

It would be a crime and a disservice to us all if you were to abandon us fans when all the work you have done so far has been excellent and top-notch....

We would like to fight for the continued life of the Lounge!
Please don't say that things have already come to an end!

In closing, we thank you for all you have achieved so far, and it is our best hope that development will once again happen on this scene...

On Behalf of many fans,
BakaMattSu
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BakaMattSu · May 6, 2002

Canal-Friend's Reply Part 1!

Orginally mailed by Canal-Friend:
Hiya, BakaMattSu. =^_^=

The name sounds familiar -- you wouldn't happen to be the author of "Castle Japoness", by any chance? If so, thanks are in order for putting up that link and synopsis to my site when you did. =^^=

Now then, in order to better answer your questions and comments, I'll respond Arrow style....

> I speak on the behalf of many SM fans when I say "The ones responsible
> for all the work put into the page and its projects deserve our undying
> praise"!

Thank you, and thanks for relaying that consensus to me. If you're who I think you are, you're probably in better position to know what SM fans want than I do.
=-v-'=

Of course, pages like 'Castle Japoness' need praise as well -- that site in particular, for its the home of the Saber Marionette RPG project. For the longest time, I've had the inspiration to create two GENUINE Saber Marionette games: a 2D RPG and the a Bust-A-Move style puzzle game. Unfortunately, I'm only a graphic artist and not a programmer, and I had too many other projects to complete to take the time to learn....

=-___-=

So I shelved the idea away, along with LimeCraft, Half-Lime, Lime Alert 2 (see a pattern here? =^^'=), and several other futile attempts to insert the girls into our everyday lives. =¯v¯=

But at least I'm happy that someone thought of making a full-fledged RPG -- that the idea is not dead to the world. =^_^=

> Saber Marionette is a wonderful and indescribable anime, and fans are
> very hard pressed to find enjoyable gaming material, but with "The Sabers",
> we have found just that!

Thanks again. =^_^=
It has been a while since I've taken up The Sims,... not only did I get partially bored with the game, but I've also since lost count of all the Expansion packs released for it. =-____-=
I haven't given much priority to completing the full roster of Saber Marionette characters because I've already finished with the default characters: Lime, Cherry, Bloodberry, Lime-chan, Cherry-chan, Bloodberry-chan. But I have promised myself to finish the roster eventually, especially now since I've gotten so much practice with 3D mesh editing. (And since now, I assume, there are far better tools for us Sim Skinners to work with).

I do have other Sabers characters completed (Otaru, Luchs, Panther, Tiger, Marine), but they're all in their Alpha Stage (just painted textures over the original Sim body meshes). And the only character that I DO have ready to distribute is a character of my own creation -- and I can't distribute her until after a few prerequisites in our main page (Devoid of Thought).

On a darker note, however, I would have liked to have received more in the way of feedback back in the heyday of "The Sabers". Not complements -- I don't care much for them -- but troubleshooting questions and comments. To this date, I STILL don't know if the files are working properly on everyone's computer (that includes the self-executing archives).
=-____-=

> Unfortunately, it appears that the Lounge has remained dormant for
> almost a year now...
> It would be a crime and a disservice to us all if you were to abandon
> us fans when all the work you have done so far has been excellent and
> top-notch....

Well, at least I'm glad I know my work isn't crap.
=^^=

I have actually produced several, minor, unannounced updates to the site. But yes, like Devoid of Thought, the site has stagnated. It hasn't become dormant, because I haven't abandoned my responsibility to the site. But it has become stagnant, because I haven't had the time or the inspiration to create something new. There were certain prerequisites (more on that later) that were left unfulfilled all this time, and played hell on my inspiration in general.

Still, I suppose the... "disservice"... started ever since I first uploaded the darn site. Being one for originality, I wanted a creative medium with which to distribute my "Sabers" files for download (an uncreative approach would have been a "Download" section at Devoid of Thought). If you (at least used to) frequent Devoid of Thought, you would have noted that fake pages and advertisements were commonplace -- only that the Cocktail Lounge was my very first fake webpage of that sort. That would explain why I never added an email address (on the page, at least) or a guestbook. That also explains why the rather LARGE roster of Editors (which I plan to trim soon) wasn't necessarily related to the Saber Marionette universe, as it was meant as a parody of other game magazines (think Gamepro.com).

Why I maintained it updated was as a service to the guestbook visitors, whom I still interact with daily (though at the moment, not at the actual DOT guestbook). That also explains, in part, why the articles are ridden with weird, non-Saber Marionette references from Guestbook tales and the like. Why I added the links was due to my obsession with functionality (and also as a tribute to my old page, the Nuku Nuku Emporium). Why I gave the Lounge the layout that I did was,... as I said before, as a parody of other game magazines on the Web (that would explain the formulaic ad banners). Why the site is on Google is 'cause its such a great search engine. Why the site is on Anipike was because my brother, LF, put it there (or at least someone from DOT did).

Why I kept the articles dated, I know admit was a mistake. Had I been more mindful of my suspicions, I would have never added dates to the Cocktail Lounge -- even though I never promised updates, the very concept cries out for "more". I guess my reasoning at the time was that I could keep the site regularly fresh with the addition of random, pointless and humorous little articles (something perhaps akin to my brother's Senseless Solutions page, though certainly to a much smaller degree). But as time went by, I found myself more and more uninspired, and loathing of the general uselessness of it all. As much as people may like updates, I assume there comes a time when they get frustrated by the persistence of useless updates.... =-__-=
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BakaMattSu · May 6, 2002

Canal-Friend's Reply Part 2!

Originally mailed by Canal-Friend:
> We would like to fight for the continued life of the Lounge!
> Please don't say that things have already come to an end!

Thankfully, no.
Once again, the two main factors that inhibited progress with the Cocktail Lounge (and even my portion of DOT in general) were lack of time and lack of inspiration. And the fact that I loathe to pour my real life into the web scene doesn't help to explain myself either. I wasn't willing to admit personal problems, or my problems finding a new job, or my displacement after 9/11, as excuses to postpone new content even further. It breaks my Internet character, and it definitely is not how I do things in real life either. =-_____-=

Anyway, those little real-life "distractions" played hell on my inspiration, and ate some of my time as well. But what really caused the time drain -- apart from my annoying perfectionism -- was that I grew attached to the Cocktail Lounge. Or more precisely, I grew attached to the idea of bringing our anime universes alive with interactive, realistic, 3D worlds. The more recent articles (and graphics) depict the Cocktail Lounge not as a magazine or a website, but as a full-fledged building. I've created blueprints of the TRUE Cocktail Lounge, based on my own warped, architectural theories. I've even created 3D renderings of particular stage sets (auditorium, souvenir room), though my goal is to create the whole building in general.
I haven't finished for two reasons....

One, I'm still fairly new at this (as I'm my only teacher). And two, I wanted to complete two additional equally-ambitious projects before I proceeded with this somewhat grand tamale ("somewhat" for reasons I'll explain in a moment). The first being the creation of CF's house (the "Hatchet House"), which is done and quite weird if I might add. =^^'=
The second being the creation of 3D models of my soon-to-be major cast: CF, Lime, Cherry, Bloodberry, Lime-chan, Cherry-chan, Bloodberry-chan, and that "other". =^^=

And why am I doing that?
Well,... to prepare for the future, of course. =^_^=

> In closing, we thank you for all you have achieved so far, and it is
> our best hope that development will once again happen on this scene...

And it will. Can't say when for sure, as I'm awful with deadlines. But I couldn't live with myself if I don't develop my grand project, as it'd be a real waste of theory.

First off, the prerequisites I mentioned earlier (that ate at my happiness and thus my inspiration) are slowly being met. I've recently acquired a new and well-paying job, which has drained back the life and humor in me to some degree. I've gotten several projects out of the way which helped test my theories, and have reinforced my faith in my ability to get things done right. And I'm also soon to increase my mobility and productivity ten-fold, as I'm about to get my very first laptop. =^v^=
(Despite the immediate concern about screen size, anything right now is better than long my outdated desktop.... =-v-=)

So rest assured that better days are in the horizon.
=^v^=

At the moment, the Cocktail Lounge will be updated,... in fact, I'm working on a weird facelift for the site that is based on my ensuing retirement from the Guestbook (hence, it will probably not make sense to the average visitor). After that, however, I'll settle the Lounge into its permanent look -- a 3D tour using Flash, and a corresponding "tourist pamphlet" as an HTML alternative. I'll lump in all existing and subsequent downloads into a "souvenir shop" of sorts, add a museum area for the obligatory info on Saber Marionette, and add a special "cinema" area to view the fruits of my grand project -- which involves making a fancomic of sorts using a technique I call "Partial-Motion Animation" (which I've already tested and works wonders). The "fancomic", of course, stars Lime, Cherry, Bloodberry, Lime-chan, Cherry-chan, Bloodberry-chan and that "other", and will hopefully be an interesting dramatization of how the SMJ and SMR characters would interact if they lived together. Of course, since I'm VERY big on continuity, I'll make sure to add the proper references where needed (a very big issue if you've seen the end of J to X). But just like with this "fancomic", the Cocktail Lounge will eventually deviate from being a pure-blood Saber Marionette site, and will become more an instrument of conveying my own created universe. So in part, yes, the Saber days are numbered.

But I AM looking forward to the start of bringing something new. To ALL of DOT, as I plan to remodel our whole site. =^_^=

Once I'm finished,... and all my work has the look and climactic feel of a finished website, its content completed and set in stone for all eternity,... then I'll retire and return to my immediate goal in life which I've left pending since my pre-Anime days (which is to write a rather unusual, illustrated novel).
=^^=

Anyway, hope that has answered all your questions for now. If you have more, don't be afraid to ask again -- just remember that I have a hard time being brief.
=^^'=

I wouldn't ask you to check on my site frequently for updates, as nothing about me works promptly enough. But when I do finish my Cocktail Lounge, I hope it will be a channel for new and creative Saber Marionette content for all ya fans. =^_^=

The only thing that can stop me now are Copyright laws.... =X____x;=

Thanks again for writing. =^v'=

--CF
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Saber Marionette Some Cocktail News...

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