Question #120
FROM: Dark Lord the Omnipotent

Hello, omelettey servant of mine. I don't usually take the time to write e-mails myself (there are mana clan slaves who those kinds of things for me) but I wanted your opinion on the matter of "Dark Lord Humor". Do you find the images and posts about my perfect reign of cruelty, madness, and mana clan torture to be funny or an annoyance?

"Dark Lord jokes=funny" or "Dark Lord jokes=not funny". You see, it's been a thought of mine for a long time that rather than some silly question about a plumber long past his prime, the spambot (and fool) defeating question to sign up for your board should feature none other than me.

In order to get into the forum, you must say that you enjoy Dark Lord humor. This would please me greatly. Alternatively, users would have to lie and PRETEND that they love Dark Lord jokes, and having that power over mortals amuses me a great deal, as well. I think this feature would be a win-win situation for us both (unless you WANT Mana Clan members signing up left and right), and I look forward to working with you in the future.

PS, I've seen mention of the "Backstreet Browser" on your site. It sounds like a useful tool for archiving my evil homepage, but does it work on non Backstreet Boys sites, too?! I suppose I could always add Backstreet Boys references to all the pages I want to archive if necessary, but I wanted more info first. It's just that the Dark Lord of the Abyss would never let me hear the end of it if I started talking about them instead of NSYNC. That guy is freaking obsessed with NSYNC. He's got the posters everywhere, I'm so sick of it and...

Well hey, guess I'm rambling now. In conclusion, ask not what your Dark Lord can do for you, ask what you can do for your Dark Lord.

~ Dark Lord the Omnipotent

Dear Dark Lord,

I'll have to go with "Dark Lord jokes = funny", but as far as the anti-spamrobot question at the new board goes...It's actually possible to enter as many questions as you want. I currently have two possible questions that can come up. If the spambots ever defeat them somehow and start getting through, I'll think about making a Dark Lord question. Is that good enough?

As for Backstreet Browser, it works on just about any website, but it takes a lot of fooling with to get it to do just what you want it to do. And a word of caution - if it queues too many pages, it seems like it crashes after awhile. I've made about five failed attempts to archive Port Saiid, but I think if I do it forum by forum, as opposed to making it try to download the entire board at once, that should finally do the trick.

Question #119
FROM: SethraShnoo

Thank you so much, FO, for finally giving the Game Pond the send-off that it truly deserved after all of these years. I can't think of a better way to have possibly done it. Although the GP had its ups and downs, it took something like your sketch to make us all remember that it once really was a great community and place to visit every day. It's like that sketch is our own version of "It's a Wonderful Life". He may be the Ghost of James FP, but he represents all of us.

I only have one small nitpick - I was a little disappointed when we didn't actually get to see Raymond visit the "Wishing Topic". I'm curious - was the "Wishing Topic" an actual topic you remember reading there or did you just make it up?

Dear Sethra,

I sort of just made up the Wishing Topic. Crawl also suggested that I should've actually shown that scene, too, but here's why I didn't:

1. I'm sure there might be a number of topics at the Game Pond that could've served as a "Wishing Topic", but I don't know if those topics still exist and what forums they would be in, and I'm sorry, but I wasn't going to go over the whole entire board. I could have just made up a Wishing Topic of my own or just borrow a random one, but I couldn't really think of any way to make it funny. I think I gathered up enough funny/weird posts for that sketch as it is. Too much would make the joke wear thin.

2. More importantly, I didn't want to interrupt the flow of Jack's scenes and dialogue. When you look over his scenes, where would you say Raymond's scene should've been inserted? Anywhere would've upset the pacing. I would say that nothing much really happened when Raymond found the topic. He found it, he made a wish, and he got his wish. You don't need to be explicitly shown that when the change in his avatar implies it.

Question #118
FROM: Freezair SilverEye

I've got two questions for you, both of which relate to the Game Music archive. (Well, they both relate to game music, anyway.)

Question 1: How do you decide which songs should be game MIDI conversions or MP3s? Is it based simply on what you've got? Is it based on sound quality? (I.E., an MP3 of an NES song vs. a MIDI copy.) Or something else? I always wondered why there were those two sections, and why their contents didn't always match up. (I do notice you have some songs in both versions, though.)

Question 2: You tend to know obscure game sites with good resources, so do you know if anyone has any music (MIDI/MP3/MOD/I'm not picky) from the obscure Game Boy Color game Shantae? Although the game's music was a bit hit-or-miss, I'm rather fond of some of its songs (such as the music from the Water Labyrinth or the Zombie Caravan) and wondered if anybody out there had any of these tunes. (I actually tend to see sprites from this game fairly often, mostly of the main character, but I figure, if the sprites are out there, then there's a chance someone's got the music too, right?)

P.S.: I honestly have no idea if anybody gives you any real flack for the more "serious" RAU sketches, but if they do, don't let 'em! I love 'em! Honen is turning into my favorite character.

Dear Freezair,

Question 1: When I first started putting game mp3s on the site, I stuck mostly to just songs that I thought were excellent, but the average gamer would probably not have been exposed to, and gamers that were familiar with them would have a hard time finding elsewhere. But when Dreamhost changed their service plans and gave me way more space and bandwidth than I'll ever use, I started to fulfill my dream of having a site that would showcase all of my favorite game music, since the music is the one part of games I have the most passion for. Even in times when I'm not actually playing games much (like now), I still listen to the music quite frequently. As for how I decide, I sometimes try to fulfill requests, but I pretty much have to stick with what's available to me. I'm slowly, but surely, getting everything on the site that I want both by randomly selecting things I like and by taking suggestions.

As for the midi conversions, I can only do those for NES and SNES games because I have no idea how to sequence midis and have to use the NSF2MIDI and SPC2MIDI tools to produce anything. For most of the midis, I tried to do conversions for songs I really like, but could not find midis for elsewhere. (Not always the case, though, sometimes I just do popular songs I like for the hell of it and just to see how they turn out.) Also, sometimes people who have never heard the mp3s before might be more willing to test a midi first which takes far less time to download, and then if they like it, they can get the real version. I haven't always converted midis of the same NES songs I have mp3s of because you might be able to get much better midi sequences of them elsewhere, or in some cases, they just didn't work at all (I couldn't get the Dragon Spirit final level theme to work in NSF2MIDI for some reason.) For SNES games, SPC2MIDI is much harder to use. With NSF2MIDI, you always only have between 2-5 channels to work with. But with SPC2MIDI, every instrument is on its own separate channel, so it takes a lot of patience and experimenting to get all the instruments assigned to the correct channels. You also have to pick instruments that most closely match the original samples AND sound good. Sometimes, even if you do everything you can, midis made with SPC2MIDI just won't sound any good. I was working forever on the Level 4 theme of Axelay and had EVERY channel pretty much going perfectly, except, for reasons I cannot figure out, the bassline is completely screwed up. So, if I experiment in SPC2MIDI and end up with something that sounds decent, I'll post it, but I've got many more failed experiments on my hard drive.

Question 2: I checked the only two places I could think of, GSF Central and Galbadia Hotel, and neither of them have it. Maybe you could request it at those sites. You might also be able to make suggestions for midi sequencers at VGmusic.com

P.S.: Thanks for the compliments on the RAU Gallery. Honen is my favorite character, too. I haven't really gotten too much flak for the sketches yet. Someone suggested that I should keep the "comedy" sketches short and do the longer, more "serious" ones in fanfiction format, which is what inspired that joke at the end of "For the Love of an Oni", but in all seriousness, I don't think that would work. Not only would you be deprived of the visuals, but I'm not really a fanfiction writer, so it just seems more logical to use a format that parodies things I'm actually involved in.

Question #117
FROM: Bananaquit

All bets on "Eliza Gauger" being a blonde begin now!

Hi, FO, this James's brother, Tyler. Congratulations on being mentioned in that UK magazine, FO. Can't wait until you get the new forums going. I'm gonna be working on Deathamster's Nest now as a staffer. See you around!

Dear Bananaquit,

Technically, I'm a blonde, too, but yeah, if you re-read that blog entry while picturing it being said in a "Valley Girl" accent, strangely enough, it sounds completely appropriate.

Damn! What the hell is it with the internet? I've had my dealings with Darth Yoda and Eliza Gauger. DH and James have been rebutting a site that's apparently trying to resurrect a 10-year-old forum war (see March 24th update entry). And the March 29th update at TheAlmightyGuru mentions a run-in with an idiot who singled out his site for criticism for no apparent reason other than "it's blue". If the world is really getting this dumb, then maybe it deserves to burn up.

Question #116
FROM: The Anonymouse

I know exactly what sites Darth Yoda is referring to as being malicious associates. He's talking about kontek and ezboard. You can see that by checking your site at this link: http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/flyingomelette.com/summary/

They are shown as being red and yellow. Hope that helps.

Dear Anonymouse,

Do you know for sure that this is how he jumped to that conclusion, or are you just taking a guess? Either way, my point that he should have been specific still stands. Ezboard was known at one time for having malicious pop-ups, but they took steps to get rid of them. Even so, mine never had them because I keep it ad-free with the gold service. When it runs out in May, we will be moving to new forums hosted right on this very domain. As for Kontek - the only site I've linked to from that domain is David Wonn's Unique Glitches. I've never been to the main kontek site, but I've never gotten nor seen any viruses, pop-ups, or anything malicious on David Wonn's, and somehow, I remain skeptical that he'd associate with a site that does.

Question #115
FROM: Doveblob

In regards to Site Tracking Adventures #3 and #4, watching you make such eloquent rebuttals to people like that is such a joy to read that it ALMOST makes me wish people would make stupid criticisms of your site more often.

Anyway, do you have any thoughts on the direction you are going with the RAU Gallery and its characters? Do you feel the sketch format grants you more freedom or less freedom than other formats? Have you considered doing an MS3TK type of sketch? It seems like it would work well with both your format and any number of your characters.

Dear Doveblob,

At the current moment, I don't really have any kind of "Master Plan" for the RAU Gallery. I just write them as ideas and inspiration come to me. The sketch format, like any format, has both its advatanges and limitations, but for the specific style of humor it goes for (parodying the internet and internet culture in general, particularly chat and message boards), it's definitely the best one to use. Might as well make it look like what it's about. I've never really gotten into MST3K, but I do remember how HiRider and some others used to post their own "MSTings" on ezboards back in the day. D would probably be the perfect game to do that with if I wanted to write my own.

Question #114
FROM: Broderick Gabara

I recently read your article about the person who posted at Kotaku, and found what had been said to be pathetic, and yet hilarious, all at the same time. The most bewildering part is the whole business where she thought you to be a female, even after seeing the "About FO" page, Normally, I would give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that she just looked at the first image, and mistakingly thought Crawl and 1000 to be you, but the description "flowing, golden-brown mullet," seems to describe your hairstyle more than his, implying that, as you asserted, the poster indeed knew which one was you, but was somehow still unable to determine your gender! You may have noticed that I have been refering to the poster as "she," even though you used, "he," This is because "Eliza Gauger," is written at the bottom of the article, implying that the writer is female, too. In your article, you admitted that even you have a tendency to assume people are male until you see evidence otherwise, and this seems to support this. Intriguing.

As a sidenote, I'm pretty sure that in the quotation "...I just had to give the edge to Nobuo Uematsu's bombastic ending theme for Final Fantasy 6..." you used the term "bombastic" incorrectly. The word "bombastic" is used to describe language that is overly elaborate or pretentious, which I really doubt is the meaning you were looking for. (Although, incidentally, the word actually describes my manner of speaking rather well, as my quotations are long winded and wordy, often containing flamboyant usage of polysyllabic words!) But I have a feeling you may have figured that out already.

Since you say that you are losing interest in videogames, and now only listen to the music, I figured this next tidbit would be relevent. I noticed that you have posted the field theme of "Mother," on your I am pleased to see that you like that song, as I really like it too. However, what I wanted to say that there was a fully instrumental (and vocalized rendition) of this song, in addition to instrumental renditions of other songs in the game, available for download http://ngeb.net/eb_mothersound.shtml. Just be careful, the lyrics are quite bad! And I don't even mean just regular old bad, but rather, "even worse than the lyrics of the DK rap song" bad. Okay, maybe that last part was a bit of a stretch, but nonetheless, they're horrible! Sometimes I compensate by intentionally turning down the volume to the point where I can hear the melody that the vocalist is singing, but not the lyrics. And it truly is a shame, because the instrumental portions of the songs are, for the most part, actually rather good.

That's all. I can't think of a better closing than this.

P.S. I wasn't sure whether I should have sent this to fo@flyingomelette.comor epost@flyingomelette.com, and settled on epost. If I did not send to the proper address, my apologies.

Dear Broderick,

Somewhere in this messy apartment of mine, I have a classical music CD called something like "The Bombastic Favorites" and it includes music like "Ride of the Valkyries" and "Thus Spoke Zarathustra", so that's where I got the word from in reference to music. I knew about the "Eliza" thing, but without pictures or anything else to indicate gender, I wasn't sure to take it at face value, especially since a man going by the name "Katie Holmes" became infamous in the NES Scene for collecting thousands of games several years ago. But in the spirit of irony, I just submitted the sketch the way it was because it was funnier that way. I'm also suspicious that person was acting as dumb as possible in an attempt to be funny (kind of like "Jeff K"). But to paraphrase (because I can't find the original quote) something Crawl once said, being stupid alone isn't funny, it's a gimmick. Some comedy based on being stupid can be funny, such as Homer Simpson, but in those cases it's more of a subversion of intelligence, which takes intelligence on the writers' part. Suppose I wrote a sketch saying, "Hey, I just found this site called retroCRUSH and I have no idea what its purpose is. I mean, it's this weird site that's all dark and has pictures and stuff. It's not a blog, so therefore, I have no idea why it's there since everything has to be a blog these days and websites are just old and useless now, except to give us bloggers things to write about. And I'll just say Robert Berry is a woman because even though he has pictures of himself on the site, I'm just going to assume everyone on the internet is a woman." I think I'd owe every one of my readers a REALLY huge apology.

Question #113
FROM: Anthony Heitzinger

Dear Flying Omelette,
you seem to know how to get any mp3 from any game. So, I was wondering if you could get an Mp3 of the song in Illusion of Gaia that plays when Will enters a "creepy" area, such as the vampire castle, the mountain where Will first meets the moon tribe, the place in freesia where the slaves are, or in the tunnel the people travel through after Mu. some of these places may have the wrong music, if so, my bad. If you could get this song and add it to your video game music downloads list, then that would be great. If you still don't know what song I'm talking about, in your review for the game its the song you described as "so haunting, it literally sends shivers down my spine!"

sincerely, Anthony Heitzinger

Dear Anthony,

Normally, I might not be so punctual about fulfilling a music request, but I just so happened to have an mp3 of that very song sitting on my hard drive because I was going to use it for a post on my forums that I never ended up posting. I'm not sure what to call this song because it is used for so many different situations, but what comes to mind the most when I hear it is the Moon Tribe, so I'll call it "Moon Tribe Theme" for now:

Illusion of Gaia - Moon Tribe MP3

Question #112
FROM: Tricob

I created them using NSF2Midi, and fine-tuned them with Anvil Studio. Anyway, here's a few. Let me know if you want more. And thanks for replying so quickly! :-)

CobraTriangle-NameEnteredInHighScoreChart.mid

CobraTriangle-SaveThePeople.mid

CobraTriangle-Title.mid

Dear Tricob,

Awesome! Thanks very much for your submissions. I'll add them to the MIDIS page next time I update it (which will be soon), but for now they'll be available right here.

Question #111
FROM: Tricob

I don't suppose you take Midi submissions? I have some Cobra Triangle midis that I noticed you didn't have.

Dear Tricob,

Did you sequence or convert them yourself? I might consider accepting them if they're your own midis, but I don't want anything taken from other websites submitted to me. If you sequenced them by ear, it might be better to submit them to vgmusic.com where they'll get higher exposure. But I know they don't accept NSF2MIDI conversions, so if they're conversions, send'em my way and I'll check them out.

Question #110
FROM: Wildcat

Dear FO,

Thought I'd drop you a line again...it's been a while. I read up on the whole Darth Yoda thing, which ultimately made me chuckle. Fantastic rebuttal, by the way. Since his attack on you indirectly is an attack on me (since I am linked on your site), I'd like to thank you for the wonderful defense. Sounds to me someone had a chip on their shoulder, but didn't really feel up to completely brushing it off (i.e. exposing who he/she was). Kudos.

Also, thanks a ton for the Kirby's Dream Land 3 Star guide! I bought the game recently, and I intend to use it when I get stuck. ^_^

A little late, but congrats on the new car. I had a Corsica myself (until I got rear-ended...) and I remember all of your comments being true about mine, too. I hope your new one is much better.

Anyway, keep up the fantastic site. It's one of my favorites on the web. :) Take care!

Wildcat

Dear Wildcat,

Thanks again for writing and thanks for all the comments. Darth Yoda can now go down in history as being the only person to make comments dumb enough to have four separate people write in to the Q&A about it. I had a lot of fun making that Kirby's Dream Land 3 guide. I hope you find it useful if you get stuck on something. I used to have a hand-written guide for getting all the secret stars, but I think it got lost when our old apartment was flooded. I was going to recreate it, but then I thought why not do the next best thing and remake it for the site?

Thanks also for the comments on the Malibu. I love it more and more every day. I still have a soft spot for my Corsica. Crawl still drives it sometimes, but I imagine I'll have to get rid of it someday in favor of another new car for him.

Question #109
FROM: Kairobi King

If anyone sounds like a paranoid, basement-dwelling fuck with a gun rack to make Burt Gummer jealous, it's Darth Yoda. I mean, where the HELL does he get off saying we're associated with malicious sites?? He should at least have the balls to say what sites he's talking about. Geezums, makes me wish I had gone through with making a website years ago when I wanted to just so I could make an update berating him.

Anyway, enough about him. I know I already said it on the forums, but the RAU Gallery is now my favorite section of the site with the reviews still a close second behind. The writing is really funny and I hope you keep it going for awhile. I just have one thought on the Great Forum War: Is it just me, or is Leona a hypocrite? She has no problem setting a bomb in a guestbook, yet she won't go with Honen because she doesn't like his "war machine"? Anyway, the episode where Troy got swallowed is great. See you on the forums.

Dear Kairobi,

Thanks for the comments on the RAU Gallery. I'm glad you guys are finding it as much fun to read as it is for me to write. I'll keep it going for as long as I can, but I can imagine either running out of ideas eventually, or the whole idea of it just getting old. Yes, "Nonsense War" seems to be a favorite of those who have sent me comments on the series. As for Leona...well, the bomb was more or less Wildclaw's doing, but I'm not denying that Leona can be hypocritical.

Question #108
FROM: Daryn Versetti

Yeah, I guess you could say I had a "leap of faith" because after I firmly planted both feet in my mouth way back in those old Q&A postings, I began to actually think and remembered that you wrote pretty well for The Minerva Project and if you wrote a webcomic it would probably be a good one. I just didn't want to see another Penny Arcade clone, but I don't know what made me think that's what you would've done. Anyway, I like it so far and I think it would be nice if someday you could get a webcomic going. Take care and keep writing the reviews, too!

Dear Daryn,

It's not that I'm saying the RAU characters wouldn't work in a webcomic (I mean, they're originally from a comic after all), but The RAU Gallery itself is undoable as a webcomic. Its style of humor depends greatly on the format, especially since it so often parodies its own format. I'd like to do a comic someday, but right now I don't have the time and I don't feel my artistic skills are up to it. I have, however, been adding more and more drawn scenes to recent sketches, and the next one will have even more. Of course, I'll keep writing game reviews, too, but the frequency at which I write them is going to be a lot less often now since I'm devoting time to other things.

Question #107
FROM: SethraShnoo

Hi. Just wanted to add my 2 cents on the Darth Yoda situation - It sounds to me like what he means by "malicious" are sites that attmept to hijack your computer or steal your personal information as opposed to something like DBDH Arena. But that makes even less sense since none of us do that, either. It's too bad you can't provide us with the URL to his site.

The other more important issue I wanted to address is that of Lizaki - Did he really get blown away by Ogrin's tornadoes in the "Grand Finale" sketch? Neither him nor any of the other characters involved in the beginning of that sketch have shown up since and I was surprised he wasn't even one of the people that "prayed for safety" in The Great Forum Wars Part 4. I'd hate to see Lizaki leave the series as he's become one of my favorite characters already.

Dear Sethra,

On issue #1: If he had come right out and said something like, "I don't like that site because it associates with Deathamster's site and I hate Deathamster", I wouldn't have gotten as angry. It's still rather juvenile and may be worthy of poking some light fun at, but at least he would've been honest. But by being so vague with his accusations he's taking a dump on every single website I've ever been supportive of. It's not as though good fansites, which are a dying breed, need anymore flak. I'd hate to see the day when the entire internet is nothing but blogs and IGN clones, but it's looking more and more likely. I'm sorry, but I cannot provide a link due to the potentially-serious nature of the situation. I don't have anything against the site itself and wouldn't want to see the whole place catch flak for what could possibly be just one random idiot on their forums.

On issue #2: No, Lizaki did not really get blown away by the tornadoes. He's still around. I don't usually like to explain my jokes, but that entire sketch was a self-parody of my tendency to want to give up on things for the dumbest reasons and then be persuaded back into doing them for even dumber reasons. Lizaki didn't get featured in "The Great Forum War Part 4" simply because The RAU Gallery has too many characters for me to have had Robin and the others call out to every single one. The sketch would've become way too long if I tried. If you want a "fanboyish" explanation for why he wasn't called to, maybe Robin just drew a blank in the heat of the situation. Or maybe he did receive the call, but just wasn't shown.

Question #106
FROM: Daryn Versetti

Hi, FO. Sorry I haven't been posting on your board lately but I rarely can find time these days. I've been regularly checkin' your site, though, downloading some of that really butt-thumping music you provide and keepin' up-to-date on your reviews and other stuff. But what I'm really glad to see is that you're writing with the RAU again. Not exactly the webcomic I was hoping for, but I suppose it'll do, especially since it's pretty goddamn funny once you get all the references, even if I sometimes have to read through them a few times to catch onto everything.

However, what I really wanted to do is thank you for giving out the best virtual ass-kicking I've seen in a long time! It's about time someone put people like Darth_yoda and his ilk in their place and that middle finger line had me rolling outta' my chair.

I'd also like to point out that if Darth_yoda had done the "customary lurking" (as you call it), he didn't even have to go very far to find more about The Thing That's Hidden Its Identity - DUN DUN DUNNNNNN!!! As someone else already pointed out in your Q&A several questions ago, there's an About Flying Omelette page that says who you are, shows several pictures of you, and even your car's license plate.

So anywho, just keep it goin'. I'll try to visit your board sometime in the future.

Dear Daryn,

Not the webcomic you were hoping for? My Q&A archives show that you were trying to discourage me from making a webcomic. Did you finally have a leap of faith?

Anyway, I generally don't like to take such an angry, hostile tone in the RAU Gallery, not even for the Site Tracking Adventures. The first one poked some lighthearted fun at an anime community, and the second one had nothing negative at all. But this one was different. When someone states as an absolute fact that me and the sites I associate with are "malicious", while HE is running a WHOIS on my domain for no explained reason, then accuses me of partaking in illegal internet activity without a shred of proof, bases it on the fact that I use a pseudonym while HE is using a pseudonym, too, that's going WAY too far. My best guess is that he's someone who was "mistreated" by someone who owns a website I'm affiliated with and he's taking it out on everyone who associates with said website (whichever it may be). But I don't care what sob story could possibly be behind his motives, anyone who pulls shit like that can go fuck themselves and probably deserved whatever crap he was given. I hated the Game Pond, but I never gave grief to anyone just for being friends with anyone there or for linking to them.

The funny thing about that "About Flying Omelette" page is that sometimes people find it and STILL don't get it! In that same STA sketch, you'll recall that "Christopher Paladin" mentions a another guy who said the characters hadn't changed in 20 years. That was based on something I once found in my sitetracker that actually inspired the idea for the Site Tracking Adventures. Some random guy on a random blog found my site and had his mind completely blown by it. He apparently had no clue what a fansite is, read my "About Flying Omelette" page and saw the pictures but still insisted I was a man, and then said my art skills hadn't improved at all in 20 years. (Yes, I know I'm not the best cartoonist in the world, but I have posted many side-by-side comparisons of "then" and "now" versions of my characters and I don't think there's any denying the newer ones are almost always better. Preston Abirok and Deuce Koma alone prove that.) It's a shame I didn't have the guts to go through with the STA at the time and felt such a site section would be too controversial because I had written up this really funny bit about how this guy had never been in contact with the opposite sex, thinks they're a government conspiracy, and has a gun rack on his basement wall that would make Burt Gummer jealous. I regret not going through with it, but ah well, live and learn.

Just a note on the car's license plate - it's no longer a valid number (or if it is, it's not mine anymore.) The car's been relocated to Ohio where it now has a new number and Ohio plates. I probably should blur it out anyway.

Question #105
FROM: Stephanie Watson

I have to say your shrine to the Knights of Justice is the closest I've ever gotten in all the years I've looked, but the cover of the game is still not quite enough.

I've been looking for good screenshots of Arthur's gold-armored horse for years - I *love* his armor, particularly the spiked helmet it wears. I've been trying to get as many shots of it as I can at as many angles as I can for drawing purposes, but I've had absolutely no luck. Even if I still had the cartoons, I can't screenshot a VHS tape with what I have available. Do you think you could at least point me in the right direction? Thank you very much in advance.

Dear Stephanie,

I don't have any screenshots because I don't have access to any episodes of the show, and the horse doesn't appear at all in the game. I do, however, have all three issues of the Marvel Comics series that was produced around the same time as the show, and I found two (and only two) pictures of the horse in them. Here they are:

King Arthur's Horse #1

King Arthur's Horse #2

Question #104
FROM: James Torrance

5 questions about Professor Nucleo McRaven

1. If he's an archaeologist, shouldn't his title be DR. McRaven?

2. When he has an itch behind his ear, does he scratch it with his hand like a human would, or does he stretch his leg up and scratch it with his foot like a cat?

3. What is his favorite kind of cheese?

4. If he's a cat-like demon, why does he have bat/dragon wings?

5. Why does Cory refer to him as "Amadeus"? I know it's his middle name, but it still seems weird.

~James FP~

Dear James,

1. Good question. It probably should be. But I guess sometimes people get used to calling you one thing and you get used to being called that, so it sticks. I actually knew someone IRL who officially had the title of "Dr.", but people still called him "Mr."

2. With his hand. Even I have my limits.

3. Never thought about it, but I'm guessing he'd like provolone.

4. When I was really young, like around 8 years old, I remember there being this store on the mall that sold "cat gargoyles". They were little sculptures of cats with gargoyle wings. They looked sort of like this:

I think it's very well possible that I had those in mind when I created Nucleo because I always thought they were the strangest things in the world back then. On a storyline basis, however, mountaindevils have wings because it helps to be able to fly when you live in the mountains. Less danger of dying from a fall, and easier to travel around.

5. Aurora gave Nucleo his middle name and usually addresses him by it. Cory picked it up from Aurora. Nucleo didn't seem to mind it and thus never corrected her.

Question #103
FROM: Troy Demetrius

Hey, FO!

Thanks for featuring me, or rather a computerized representation of me, in the "Nonsense War" episode of The RAU Gallery. Sethra cued me in onto it. I think it's great that you're writing with your characters again and I hope it goes well for you. I have one small suggestion. I think it would be useful if you had some sort of system that would allow us readers to reply to individual sketches with commentary. Yeah, I know what you'll say, there's the forums for that, but things would get a little cluttered if we started a new topic for every sketch and putting all the comments into one general RAU sketch topic would be confusing. It might also be a good idea for the game reviews, too.

Just a suggestion. Thought it might help. 0o

I am TROY!!

Dear Troy,

Thanks for the comments on the sketch. I'm certainly glad you liked it as I felt a little uneasy about posting it without your permission. But since it was meant in good fun, I was hoping you wouldn't be offended by it.

As for a comments, I'm guessing it's because we live in the age of Myspace and Livejournal and other such blog services that allow other users of said services to reply to entries with comments that I get asked this question. However, this isn't a blog, it's an actual website, and while I have seen websites that do that, I do not have any idea how they do it. And even if I did, it's not really something I'm interested in. I don't really have time to read and moderate comments under every sketch. If there's something you want to say, email or the forums will have to do.

Maybe when we move off of ezboard, I'll create a separate forum on our new message board specifically for RAU Gallery discussion, if there's enough interest in it.

Question #102
FROM: Freezair

Hello there! I love your site, and I love your RAU Gallery. Funny stuff, that! But I have a question pertaining to said gallery.

Now, maybe I'm missing something obvious, or maybe I'm just really, really stupid. (Both are equally plausible.) But in the IA Character Guide, it says, or at least heavily implies, that Image Arcane herself is dead. (It says "She would be 38 if she were alive.") However, in the RAU Gallery, there she is, allive and well and annoyingly perky. :P And according to her character profile, she is 38. So I'm a bit understandably confused. Is she Schroedinger's Demon-Elf, or has there been some sort of canon shift? Or did I just miss something big? It mentions her being trapped in the Fire God's tower, so was she merely captured and PRESUMED dead, or did something else transpire? Or am I just thinking too hard about this?

Cheers,

Freezair

Dear Freezair,

First of all, thanks for writing. This is the first I've gotten feedback on the RAU Gallery from someone who isn't a forum member. It's nice to know that other people are reading it and enjoying it.

The issue with Image Arcane (the character herself, not the entire series), was something I had to mull over quite a bit before I finally came to a decision on it. Although the RAU has always sort of been its own separate universe thing, it still has to maintain some consistency with the series, and since the sketches I've been writing take place after all the wars with the towers were over, that means that I'd either have to avoid using Image Arcane at all, or to remain consistent, reveal what her fate really was.

Unfortunately, I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to re-write the original series and make it presentable, so I may as well come right out and reveal it: Image Arcane wasn't killed in the tower. She was turned into Sol. This was consistent with the Elemental Gods' ability to transform their minions into super-powerful forms. (This happened to Nucleo in the Dark Tower and Snakeroot in the Plant Tower.) The reason Aurora looks the way she does is because she was an earlier attempt to turn a demon-elf into a Sol that was interrupted by Leohtiss.

Although the Sword of Skiva was successful ih returning Nucleo and Snakeroot back to their true forms, it didn't work on Sol because the fire god, Karma had simply become too powerful. Image Arcane was returned to her true form when Swan took control of Jack Sheen and turned him into a super-powerful form to fight Sol. Unfortunately, she was in a catatonic state for so long that the incident has left her mind slightly scrambled. Although it's probably for the best that she has no memory of leveling forests and torching entire cities while she was trapped in the form of a giant red dragon.

Question #101
FROM: Andrew

Hi!
I am so happy that you have Kingsley's Adventure music! You had mentioned that you found a few other tracks that weren't used in the game but wouldn't put them up unless someone really wanted them. Well... I would REALLY love to hear them! If it wouldn't be too much trouble on your part. Also, if you're feeling generous, the other battle themes (Gustav, Reggie, and Oscar if I remember correctly) and the ending theme as it cuts off during the end credits and never makes it to the end. But those unreleased tracks would really make my day!
-Andrew

Dear Andrew,

Here are the remaining Kingsley's Adventure songs that I ripped from the CD's RAW files:

CRAB (Unreleased Track)

CREDITS

GUSTAV

OSCAR

REGGIE

STARTUP

SVEN (Unreleased Track)