Recipe for a spell

I wanted to show you more about how they set up the protective ring around the camp and I had a conversation I needed to include too so… we’ll have a girls-talk (sort of) while constructing a protection spell. I hope you can figure out the details from the drawings alone because I’m not going to explain those. We’ll talk about love instead ๏◡๏

I’ve spent… a lot of time preparing the next scene and it’s still far from being done. It’s way harder than I imagined and it takes way too much space… So yeah, I’m struggling, both with the panels and with the lack of time. It’s hard to find the balance, sigh. My fiance is starting work tomorrow too, so life will probably be more hectic and stressful for a little while. Until now he took care of most of the cleaning and cooking duties so that I can draw after work but there’ll be no more of that, I’m afraid ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So, I brace myself, grit my teeth and push forward.

LIFE IN JAPAN CORNER #4

We went for a little trip to Kamakura this week since autumn leaves are already very very pretty and it was sunny and warm enough to go to the ocean. Kamakura is a popular tourist destination as it has many temples, huge Buddha statue, ocean, mountains and various other attractions. Us being us, we have our own favorite spots there. Kamakura is only 1 hour train ride from Tokyo but we didn’t leave the train at Kamakura station, we got off at Kita-Kamakura. Usually, almost no one does that but we weren’t so lucky this week – our secret plan to avoid crowds failed and we were standing on a crowded platform, wondering why the hell everyone from Tokyo decided to follow us.

There is a temple right next to the station, it’s called Engakuji and normally it’s not super popular. We like it a lot not only because of that, though. It’s beautiful because it is located kind of inside a valley and buildings are surrounded by the vegetation. A secluded, close-to-nature kind of spot. And that closeness to nature made it so popular this weekend – everyone came to photograph the autumn leaves! Maples were red and very beautiful so I kept staring at them and didn’t notice the people much even though the place was flooded.

Near the temple, there is a hiking trail leading to the great Buddha statue. We weren’t interested in the statue but the trail itself is very cool – it has a small temple on the way and a cafe hidden in the woods! And that cafe is what I really wanted to write about today. Just imagine hiking through the woods and suddenly coming upon a cafe that is located on multiple terraces, right in the forest. Awesome, right? It’s very awesome, I assure you.

After a cup of hot chocolate and apple pie (they ran out of hot wine haha), we came down from the mountains and went to the beach. Kamakura is a crowded place, full of tourists, but if you find your own paths you might discover many lovely, more secluded places, just like this Garden Cafe! (ノ・∀・)ノ

43 comments on “Recipe for a spell”

  2. NiWo21k Reply

    I would say, sometimes it helps not getting everything explained – and i think the way you are writing its just wouldn’t fit – i mean they are working on the security of the camp, i just can’t imagine they explaining so many times how they do it (your characters are just too intelligent for that ^^

    And if your real life is getting to hectic, maybe really do a small pause, i just can’t imagine your readers would start being angry with you, i mean i am more impressed how you are able to keep this quality and consistency up with everything you are going through at the moment O.O You are sure the rumors about you being a robot arent true 😉

    And you have no idea how much i would love to visit Japan (your small snippets are just making it more and more interesting for me) – but i have no possibility 🙁

  3. JW Reply

    “Double, double toil and trouble;
    Fire burn and caldron bubble.”

    Oh wait, she’s just mixing cement or something, isn’t she..

    • Refugnic Reply

      Ah, Shakespeare. (Yes, I googled it, no I don’t know Macbeth by heart in the original language, sue me. :P)

      One thing that comes to mind for me however:

      Walle, walle manche Strecke, dass zum Zwecke, Wasser fließe
      und im reichen vollen Schwalle, sich zum Bade mir ergieße.

      Der Zauberlehrling, J.W. Goethe

      I’ll save you the trip to Google:

      Flow, flow onward
      Stretches many
      Spare not any
      Water rushing,
      Ever streaming fully downward
      Toward the pool in current gushing.

      The sorcerer’s apprentice, same guy. 😛

      Cause essentially that’s what Laura is…now, where did they put the brooms? 😀

      • antrik Reply

        Maybe you should have googled the original, too 😛

        Walle! walle
        Manche Strecke,
        Daß, zum Zwecke,
        Wasser fließe
        Und mit reichem, vollem Schwalle
        Zu dem Bade sich ergieße.

      • Refugnic Reply

        Well, considering that it’s been years and then some since I last read the thing, still not too shabby what my memory managed to produce. 🙂

        But thank you for the clarification, I’m sure old Johann would be delighted. 😉

      • antrik Reply

        More than 20 years in my case IIRC… Though maybe I did reread it at some point for whatever reason and just don’t remember that?

        I have to say that I don’t remember the whole thing either — but I do remember astonishingly large parts…

        (And I didn’t even like it very much… Unlike Schiller’s “Der Handschuh”, which we also had to learn — but that one I actually enjoyed.)

    • JW Reply

      Man, I only now noticed the sound effects. I could have gone with “Wobble, wobble, toil and trouble”…

      • Refugnic Reply

        Would’ve made it harder to find the text on Google though, albeit it WOULD have been funnier that way. 😉

        Since we’re about changing the classics, how about ‘Wobble, Wobble, toil, kick, trouble’? 😛

      • JW Reply

        I nearly broke my tongue trying to pronounce it the first time. It’s a bit of a tongue twister.

  5. Refugnic Reply

    Well, he doesn’t as much not mind the longer ‘walk’, but much rather the longer ‘crawl’, isn’t he?

    And what do you mean ‘not the time’?
    Has there ever been a better time for terrible jokes and lesser instincts than life or death situations?

    Though yeah, Kasper certainly is a sadist.
    Usually you would start mixing the concrete (or whatever) only just before you intend to use it, not for potentially hours before it…well, I guess that’s what she gets for disrupting the (brittle) peace of the camp like that. Swift and harsh punishment. 😛

    Oooor he just wants to see her handle a stick.

    Okay, back from the gutter with you, mind, that’s most likely not it. 😀

    And how is it ‘not flattering’ to be attested bravery?
    Okay, the choice of words may be a little lacking, but that’s Laura for you. 🙂

    Now as for you NI…you keep your head above water and if that means you’ll have to drop something that can easily be picked up again later, so be it.
    Don’t you dare to drown, while trying to please everyone.

    I once read the following quote:
    I do not know a safe way to success, however I do know a certain way to fail.
    Step 1: Try to please everyone.

    I think Plato said that (though the words might differ ;))

    • JW Reply

      Step one to pleasing everyone: first reduce “everyone” to a manageable number. (Sure, people will complain while implementing this step, but no one will be complaining once you’re done.)

      • Refugnic Reply

        Thing about that is, that it won’t be ‘everyone’ there any more, because ‘everyone’ is defined as the (fortunately finite, but still unmanageable) number of people that want something from you once you have proven that you have something they might want, be it a skill, a possession or an attribute.

        What you are suggesting is a remedy to the problem: Do not try to please everyone, but only those who really need/deserve your help, cause all the others either will manage either way (and therefor not complain) or don’t deserve it (those will complain, but they don’t deserve any better. :P)

      • JW Reply

        No, no, what I’m suggesting is to postpone determining what “everyone” is/means, until later. And if at that later time “everyone” turns out to be a more manageable number, like maybe zero or one, well, all the better.
        There’s not much of a point to pleasing people from the past anyway.

      • Refugnic Reply

        So, in other words, try to please none unless it benefits yourself, eh? 😛

        I guess that works for this strange world of ours. 🙂

    • antrik Reply

      The unflattering part is that Laura thought Sofia would be too chicken for this…

      As for Robert, I frankly didn’t get what he was on about until I read your comment… Jeez, he seems to be even more desperate than I thought 🙁

      • Refugnic Reply

        I wouldn’t say ‘desperate’, I’d say ‘a healthy, heterosexual young man’.
        I mean, Ada is an attractive young woman whom he’s had a crush on for years now.
        If he went after everything that’s even just halfway female and his age range…THEN I would call him desperate.

        Of course I have been misinterpreting the imagery and the texts before, though I don’t see NI correcting me, so I’m guessing that just for once I am likely to be on the spot. 😀

        Heh…I see what you mean about the chicken part.
        But good for Sofia that she managed to surprise after all, am I right?

        @JW Yeah, the tail. I’m sure that’s all he’s looking at… 🙂

      • antrik Reply

        Nothing wrong with checking out an attractive ass when an opportunity, erm, “presents” itself… 😉 However, hoping for an otherwise uncomfortable situation to prolong just so he can keep staring — or making a remark about that — do not exactly strike me as entirely healthy.

        Maybe “desperate” is not the best word, since that’s more often applied to people craving for *any* attention from the preferred sex. I’m sure there is a better word for someone totally fixated on a particular person to the point of being indifferent and oblivious to others’ interest…

        Frankly, I can’t figure him out at all. He doesn’t generally strike me as the kind of looser typically engaging in such pathological behaviour…

      • Refugnic Reply

        I believe the word you are looking for may be ‘obsessed’. 😉

        But is the situation really that uncomfortable?
        They’re crawling through the grass to avoid more trouble…not that bad, in my opinion.

        At least compared to standing knee deep in demon entrails.

        And regarding the remark, I believe he just wanted to be funny about it. 🙂

      • antrik Reply

        Well, yeah, he is trying to be funny — but it’s not working. It’s not funny: it’s creepy. (Again, not the best word, but I can’t think of a better one right now…) We know from similar situations earlier that Ada doesn’t think it funny either — and he knows it too.

        It’s a mystery to me. Why does he do these things he knows creep her out? Does he get a kick out of it? Does he think it benefits either him or her in some obscure way?…

        • NotImportant Reply

          Ada here: https://replaycomic.com/comic/it-feels-nice/ “…I imagine you don’t mind the walk”. So he’s basically referring to that. Because he doesn’t mind spending more time together for a change (as opposed to being in the camp with all other people). I didn’t mean it to be creepy. Okay, maybe a tiny little bit. But just a tiny little bit ๏◡๏

          You read him well, damn it. Better than I wanted at this point haha. But he knows where the border lies with Ada, if that could creep her out he’d never say it out loud.

      • antrik Reply

        Wait, are you saying he is not in fact referring to prolonging the view of her behind? That’s certainly a relief 🙂

        As for reading him well… That totally makes my day 🙂 I feel so accomplished right now!

        (Especially as I’m not usually good with people…)

        • NotImportant Reply

          Lol he’s not THAT bad hahaha~ ;D
          Robert is, I feel, especially tricky. A lot of people commenting on the comics read him wrong!

      • antrik Reply

        Being fundamentally bad at reading expressions and other social clues, I generally focus more on trying to make sense of situations based on context. Perhaps that’s helping here?

    • NotImportant Reply

      I think from all the people I’m trying to please I am the hardest cookie haha, my own ambitions and goals are killing me xD
      There’s not much to drop, to be honest. I could stop leaving the house but my fiance would get too depressed. That relationship thing is so time-consuming…

      (I wonder if he’ll read this hehehehe….)

      But in all seriousness – there’s been a lot of shopping and whatnot recently and I’ll gladly stop. It still takes me a lot of time to find what I need here in Japan… We’ll still need to find and move to a different apartment, buy all the furniture, omg, I don’t even want to think. But then… Maybe then life will leave me alone for a moment lol

  7. xthorgoldx Reply

    Man, I loved being in Japan during June, but I’m a winter weather man at heart… and what’s worse, I’m in Texas. I’m gonna be super jelly once you start posting pics of snow T_T

    • NotImportant Reply

      Snow? In Tokyo? No waaay xD But I might go somewhere colder for a day or two, just to see the snow lol

    • Rateus Camp dweller Reply

      Come back to Texas, it’s just not the same since you went away. Before you lose you accent and forget all about the lone star state. There’s a seat for you at the rodeo and we’ve got every slow dance saved…

    • Klorix Camp dweller Reply

      It’s been snowing here a little bit for tha past week. We now have a nice white blanket covering the landscape. Yay. Also happy I’m not on duty to remove the snow from the sidewalk!

  8. Jaycloud9 Reply

    I’ve just started to read this and it IS Awesome!!(took me half a day to read it ALL but worth it \(‘0’)/

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