All Too Human - All Too Human

Yep, definitely depressed again.

3/31/2015

I'm in one of those situations where my dreams are so blissful that I don't want to wake up. Seriously, every night as of late (and even during naps!), I go to sleep, have some trouble getting into sleep, but once I drift into sleep, it's so heavenly that when I wake up from my dream, there's a feeling of confusion and even despair, that the dream is gone, not real. And yet, with the exception of the astronaut dream during a nap (long story), I don't remember any of them. I just know that what I'm seeing in there must be real enough to be like Inception: it's as if the dreams I'm entering are my reality, and this is the dream.

It was particularly potent today because I was very bitter. I was supposed to be going to college today, but because my work schedule doesn't change until next week and I couldn't get a sub, I couldn't attend, and had to work. Which will put me massively behind, especially if history repeats for day two this Thursday. The only good thing to come of it was a partially-finished pseudosong (it's lyrical, but I'm not sure it actually fits to music; there's a tune, so it's not just speaking, but it's...odd), yet that's so incomplete and just the 'chorus' so I can't show it, either.

I mainly just sat in a sort of meditative state the entire time, trying not to let the bitterness leave anger in me even though it visibly was leaving a lack of enthusiasm. I worked today without the radio, and I think that was actually therapeutic; the silence and relatively calm day allowed me to just sit there and drift, something that is healthy to do from time to time.

Anyway, not much for me to say. The plan for tonight is mainly for me to write out in, say, a word doc the prologue, page by page, of my magical girl story. I do have a fairly entertaining way of going about it, I think, which will make it rather enjoyable. (Some nonlinear storytelling will be used.)

Past Midnight, Shut Up, I Know XXXI

3/31/2015

For THIS post, I consider it worth it.

Basically, today I got to think about the magical girl story again. And while I'm blogging about it so much that I've probably made you sick of the idea...I cannot convey how ecstatic it makes me feel.

So basically, today's focus was mainly on Sally's friend, AKA the blood donor for the vampire. I gave her the name Hannah. I gave her a few basic attributes. I decided that before she becomes the magical girl, her hair is not-quite-shoulder-length, but after she gains her powers, she grows it out to be longer than Sally's.

Speaking of which, I decided that Sally, being the Tree of Life user and having threads, would have longer hair. She'd keep it out of her eyes with a green headband. But back to Hannah, when she powers up, her hair turns golden, her big glasses turn into a mask, she gains a sailor-top, and yet has shorts instead of a skirt, wears tights instead of socks but sneakers instead of heels. In short, her pink-and-green outfit (primarily green, with pink accents) is a hybrid between Ruby and Sally's.

Her superhero name is simply Aeris. Her Aether Shield token is a blank sheet of paper, and transforms into a simple staff. Unlike most Riders, her powers are mostly affecting things indirectly: she can make things intangible or impenetrable (think like a Papermaster turning a sheet of paper bulletproof), and make someone light as a feather all at will. She can also blow a person away with an invisible blast, and has access to a nearly-never-used white razor attack that slices through nearly anything.
(Those are just the powers she has for sure. If you couldn't tell, she'd be the magical girl for Air/Wind. Other powers I'm not as sure about include being able to turn invisible, being able to teleport, and inverting the light-as-feather into weighing-a-ton.)

The reason why this power never gets seen?

Simple. But let's go roundabout anyway, by describing Ruby first. The trope best describing Ruby is that, surprisingly, she's an All-Loving Hero...just not the type of all-loving hero that's always nice. (And there is absolutely no contradiction in that!) She deals out tough love, as it were: while caring about her enemies (she never kills) no matter how vile they are, she'll still beat them to a bloody pulp with only the slightest of hesitations. She's heavily snarkish not to mention easily annoyed, and she most certainly won't baby others, willing to scold them and force them to act as needed rather than as wanted. None of these seem like traits of love...but through this all, she still cares for them all deeply and unconditionally. She expects nothing. (In fact, part of the reason for the snark is exactly that, expecting no payoff for her service.) Yet she gives, she tries, so hard.

Hannah/Aeris is a nice girl who puts Ruby to shame, taking a fair number of the traits up to eleven. She only fights as a last resort, and extremely reluctantly even when in the midst of the battle. She has one of the strongest powers, but doesn't wish to harm anyone with it. She loves to an even kinder, more extreme extent, to the point where so much as harming inanimate objects is something she tries to avoid. (For instance, damaging a car, a wall, a building, a rock; all are equally bad to her.)

She's a bit naive, and also a bit of an airhead, but she's highly supportive (basically telling her friend "Go get 'em" even before she herself becomes empowered), and basically the ultimate compassionate member of the team, there to help and protect others with her powers geared largely towards that end. Someone who gives a lot, even if giving isn't the 'best' action.

I also thought of a couple of other things. I figured out the weaponmaster's name; his codename is Herald, but his real name is Harold. (Harold Archer, more specifically, and yes him choosing a homonym to his real name gets lampshaded--you might have noticed most of the characters with secret identities are really, really bad at hiding them. Sally doesn't like the need for one and doesn't even have a mask, whereas Hannah forgot superheroes were even supposed to keep their identity secret and took on the name Aeris as a last-minute thing.) I might have said this already, because I did decide it a while back, but to make it official, I did decide that I wanted Ruby's eventual daughter to be Amethyst, called Amy for short.

And from there, I've worked out the basics for a couple additional Riders. One magical girl would be the 'fire' Rider, and she'd use a staff, and wear a pink princess dress with yellow accents. Another magical girl would be the 'lightning' Rider, and she I envisioned as fighting mainly through bladed lightning, technically having a combat knife but using her lightning more than anything else, and her uniform I basically saw as being workout clothes, so she'd be another one not really bothering with the secret identity thing.

That's five elements reserved, and Gary as a Rider gets another, between Water or Ice. I'm thinking Amy gets to double up on light (something that the characters had just assumed wasn't going to happen), so if going for eight elements, that leaves space for one more magical girl or guy. At this stage, I could use an established guy, since there are two that lack powers and could gain them, but one's a vampire (thus, disqualified) and the other if he gained powers I'd want to be just light. (Since if Amy doesn't get them, then he's my alternative even though I think Amy's better for them.)

So it'd be a new girl or guy not yet designed. It could be the traitor (if the girl), or the traitor could be one of the fire/lightning ones. I heavily lean towards it being a girl, since the only reason I'd have for it being a guy would be to bring the number of guys in the cast closer to the number of girls. (Something I am known to do, particularly since I like romantic pairings of my characters. For this story, though, I think it best to break from that mold, so that while there will be some characters that fight in relationships with other characters that fight, there are at least one if not two relationships with a noncombatant who stays a noncombatant.)

I really think that's a nice balance in the number of characters. Six magical girls (later, seven), one magical guy, one normal guy, one monster guy, and occasional additional support (an additional one or two monster guys, for instance). Seems like a nice, balanced team to me.

I really wish I could convey the concepts running through my mind more clearly. Because this idea of mine, I really, really love.

Remember when I said I'd ramble on my stories?

3/30/2015

Well, I feel like keeping that promise today. I'll start by saying that last night, I did some basic work on effectively a preliminary on the Red Hood Rider comic, and it was so bad that I stopped after just the cover and first page, but that if I wasn't rushing and actually used references, these quick pages (not meant to be actual pages, mind you--I basically wanted to do I believe it's called thumbnailing, but without references my attempt was an utter failure) would be a rather nice way to convey the prologue I drafted in my head.

But since that'll take time, I haven't done it, yet. Instead, for today, I've been thinking about one of my other webcomics a little bit. I still need to track down the original notes I have for it (I'm not even sure where they are), but the basics for the webcomic is that it takes place in a world where humans had, previously, been a spacefaring empire...but were engaged in a losing war against a vastly-superior force, both numerically and technologically.

Their only victories in the war were Pyrrhic in nature, and for the most point, they simply made heroic sacrifice after heroic sacrifice: last stand after last stand, progressively pushed further and further back. They eventually got to the point where their own sacrifices were more extreme than the aliens fighting them would inflict, including--with people still on the planet/moon--blowing the planet/moon up because it was one of the only strategies guaranteed to cripple the enemy.

It slowed their advance down, drastically. Humanity was struggling nobly, and in spite of their best fighters dieing, new fighters were quick to innovate effective combat techniques. While already advance, by fighting aliens vastly superior technology-wise, humanity was kicked into high gear in advancing even faster, in a desperate attempt to even the playing field, but again, their best simply wasn't good enough, and they kept on falling back, being pushed back further and further, sacrificing more and more.

Their enemy never made contact, apparently determined, relentless, to wipe humanity out, but in spite of this, humanity kept on doing their best to hold on. Their losses could not be measured, but they made sure that the enemy was still suffering for their victories. When finally pushed back to our own solar system, each planetary body the aliens overcame took months or even years to accomplish before they could advance to the next.

Humanity held on for that long, but eventually, when the aliens managed to navigate their remaining fleet through the rubble of the moon, the final siege began. Humanity at this point had fortified Earth into the strongest possible defensive formation, and even though the aliens had vastly superior technology and numbers, it was clear that they were running low on available resources as far as the campaign to wipe out humanity was concerned.

(Humanity deduced that there were probably fleets more worth of alien ships elsewhere in the universe, but the logistics of the invasion meant that if they could hold their ground and fend off the current invasion, they might be able to survive.)

Unfortunately, while they were near that point, they could never quite get there. The aliens were simply too advanced, too many, for even the fortified earth to withstand, and humanity's desperate measures continued, as they began using technology that risked destroying their own planet anyway in order to hold off the attack.

Ultimately, all the humans on the surface were wiped out, and the radiation produced from their machines poisoned the land. The aliens were unable to scan deep enough below the surface to confirm all human settlements were obliterated, but they left anyway: it was obvious to them that even if humanity had somehow sealed away settlements deep enough underground as to avoid detection, that between the small size they'd be required to be and the damage dealt to the planet, their days would be numbered and within a couple of generations, they'd be extinct.

The aliens were half-right; humanity had small enough settlements hidden away, deliberately so and part of the radiation was a gambit to try and help prevent them from being found. And they knew that in all likelihood, humanity was in fact doomed to die out: there were too few of them left alive, in too hostile an environment.

...But not wanting sentient life on the planet to die out, they kickstarted evolution in as many species as they could, in the hopes that they would evolve, repopulate the earth, build their own empire, and with luck, be able to use humanity as precursors to their own lives. And in this goal...humanity half-succeeded.

...By which, I mean, humanity managed to kickstart evolution alright, but they managed to do so so effectively that the animals on the surviving earth were sentient enough for communication between them to begin...while humans still lived. So all those various, last-ditch efforts, blind hopes of continuing where humanity left off, managed to survive, artificially evolve (there's some basis in fact for this being possible, in that breeding domesticated animals such as dogs has accelerated their divergence from the creatures they share ancestry from such as wolves, and the effect I have in mind is similar), and collectively recognize humans as their creators--which is, mind you, the equivalent of humans directly interacting with God.

And given the choice, you'd probably not want to see your God (gods, in this case) die. So the new collective terran life began to lay the foundation of a system to help rebuild, repair, and nurture the wounded earth, along with its crippled inhabitants. The result was that humans act as overseers of a number of other lifeforms, and these other lifeforms generally have jobs they specialize at. There's aspects of the story that are fairly grim: dead life is turned into food for the living, except for humans who are turned into fertilization for plants. Animal instincts are still very strong in some breeds uplifted, leading to accidental murders (or attempted murders) that cause extreme PTSD, among other things. There's basically some degree of forced eugenics, in that humans are still few enough in number that they must produce offspring, thus, must be paired with someone they are genetically compatible with who isn't too closely related to them.

...But there's also a lot of good. Interspecies relationships--while infertile--can be made, so long as proper procedures are taken. (For instance, humans can donate their genetic material so they still have genetic offspring, while being paired with someone they actually love.) The world is on its way to healing, slowly. Advances in technology are cautiously being made, and advances in fields regarding to natural life are going at an astronomically fast rate.

Basically, it's the aftermath of an apocalyptic world: they're recovering, slowly, and are on their way to a better world. They're not exactly happy in what they have, but they have enough freedom that they're generally not miserable. Things like art, music, and whatnot continue to be made, with diversity like never before given the inclusion of different species into sentience. Different viewpoints on the world philosophically have cropped up, and it's a rather diverse world. It just so happens to be a world that, through necessity, has some grim regulations in place that people accept because they need them to live. A benevolent dictatorship of sorts.

Another webcomic idea of mine that I'm rather fond of is one mixing fantasy, sci-fi, and slice-of-life. Basically, it'd follow an average guy, living a slightly-quirky life. A recent college graduate, he has a circle of friends and shares a small house with a good friend. (And, yes, she is exactly that, and no, their relationship doesn't become more than that.) He's got a good, funny life there...and then he gets dragged into the fantasy world, where he is classified as The Hero, The Chosen One set to lead the forces of good to victory.

His body changes in there to that of a teenager, because clearly the hero MUST be a kid, and he is not exactly happy about the whole ordeal, snarking heavily and using underhanded tactics that a hero shouldn't ever use but which he employs just to get the whole thing over with as quickly as possible. Some of his friends eventually come into the world as well, helping him on his adventures there, but he only enters there when literally dragged through, because time doesn't mystically stop; time spent in the fantasy world passes in the real world too so the longer he's gone, the more he misses out on. (Fortunately, his boss is one of his good friends.)

Other small details include how his brother is a dark mercenary who was summoned similar to how he was, except as Chaotic Evil. His brother, not exactly happy about being Chaotic Evil, decided to emphasize 'Chaotic' and slaughter the cult of evil that summoned him, and since then has been hiring his services out and doing whatever he pleases, with the 'evil' bit mostly translating into 'being a jerk' rather than actual acts of evil. (Basically, gaming the system is a trait that the brothers share.)

Another eventual twist is that he actually isn't The Chosen One, but he's stuck coming anyway, because the characters point out that while he may not be The Chosen One, it could be a case of The Unchosen One, where he continues to fight in spite of the prophecy being a lie and fills the role anyway, and failing that, he's their best hero until the actual Chosen One is found, and thus, has to continue fighting until the real chosen one can fight without him there.

Then there's the sci-fi bit. I decided that the style for sci-fi would be stick figures, but he'd be notable in having a nose in stick figure form, which the others wouldn't. (I'd also like to point out that these stick figures would be rather detailed: colors for clothing, skin, and such.) In there, he would be a consultant on the ship. Basically, the crew came to earth in search of someone fitting their criteria: someone who would accept the situation, be willing to help, be able to comprehend, follow along with things when needed, yet not think identically, encouraging out-of-the-box thinking and the ability to solve a problem. So not exactly a "primitive" mind, so much as a "mind that is most likely to not be set in their ways". He wasn't the only option--there were millions of candidates--but the recent magical signature on him from his fantasy adventures marked him as being the best candidate in immediate range.

And from there, he gets the same stuff, getting introduced to the world as a whole, how things work. Basically, because magic exists along-side technology, there are many things that aren't fully explained, like how humanity exists on many different worlds, yet apparently evolved separately on there. They're the most common form of life out there, even though other forms of life exist.

And there's a weird cosmic effect in place: technology will not work on a planet until a significant portion of the population recognizes it, understands it, and often is able to use it. In short, their minds make it real. Meaning that on Earth, advanced technology doesn't work, and magic is extremely dampened, making it a sort-of isolated well. There are ways to get around this, of course, by showing humans how to make the tech and how it works, and once it's mass-produced, bam, it now works on Earth, even more advanced alien versions of the tech.

I never quite did flesh out the balance between the three settings, but I love the concept.

A final webcomic I felt like talking about was a fantasy webcomic, loosely speaking. Basically, it's slice-of-life, featuring more "realistic" characters. Vampires are caused by a fungus that spreads through spores in the blood. Werewolves are a disease that acts a lot like a cancer, which can spread only through certain methods, and has some unique properties. "Angels" are birdmen. "Dragons" are reptillian fliers. "Demons" (that's a derogatory term) are batpeople. Fairies are insect people. These, and maybe an aquatic merfolk people, are basically what I'm thinking make up a world, where all of them live together. (Vampires and werewolves can only infect humans, by the way. They're considered offshoots of humanity.)

There's biological barriers in place preventing interbreeding, but such relationships do exist. This is not a world where nations are divided by race; nations exist, but are made up of multiple different races, just like in the real world we have how multiple ethnicities make up a country. While one race may be dominant (humans in particular are the most numerous), the other races exist in plentiful numbers everywhere.

I made a city setting, where some characters of each type exist. I actually have put a ton of detail into it, but I'll save it for later. I've rambled enough. Next time, maybe I'll get to actual stories rather than webcomics!

Hey, politics.

3/29/2015

Yeah, YOU? Know what I think of you?

*Gives a giant middle finger*

That's what I think of you.

...
*cough*
*ahem*

...As you might have guessed, I just got screwed over by bureaucracy, in this case, square dance ones. (Oh, DON'T even get me started on politics as a whole. Square dance politics are brutal enough.) See, we were doing well. My senior square, on this last year that I'll be able to compete (since I'm 21), had things set. We had a solid display. We had styling laid out. We perfected timing and trusting our square. We were in synch. We were in unison. We had it all down, and were mainly practicing mysteries to get our skills back up to where we needed them to be.

Our Junior square was doing equally well.

...And then, tonight, we receive news that because of a technicality which we couldn't get an exception for (in spite of similar exceptions being granted all the time, and there being literally no harm in this technical rule violation and us only being in a position where we'd give the four other senior squares a fair competition due to their own skill and our own weaknesses), that's all out the window.

Now the two squares are both senior, but have been mixed. It was the only way to get it through. But it completely screwed us over. We probably weren't going to win--we were going to give fair, honest competition. Fun. We were going to give it, a run for the money but ultimately probably not win.

Now thanks to this sabotage, it'd be a miracle if either of our squares got so much as THIRD. I'd cry tears of joy if it happened, even if it was the other senior square of my club. (Mind you, that's probably more likely, since it basically went that my square got the best senior dancer and a fairly strong senior dancer in the form of me...but also got the weakest/newest juniors, whereas the other square got middle-of-the-road dancers except the second-best senior dancer. It only takes one dancer to break down the square, especially one with a bad attitude which I got the impression my partner has, so guess which square got the short end of the already pathetically wimpy stick? Yep. Mine.)

Honestly, at this stage, my greatest hope is that my sister's square wins, the other Washington club's new senior square (last year, it was just me and my sister's clubs, so we've gone from two to six) as second, my club pulling a miracle third, and the two new Canadian senior squares ending trophyless. (The Canadians are the ones who are hosting the dance this year, thus, it was their board that basically is the cause of the veto which has so royally screwed me over.) In spite of how unlikely that is, I can always hope it serves as a message.

Coulda sworn I posted this already.

3/29/2015

After the square practice of my old club, I went to a badge dance for my CURRENT club. Got 7/10 badges. One badge, dancing in the bathroom, could only be done by one square, and the speakers were oriented such that this would only happen for one tip--I wasn't in that square, so I couldn't get it.

The other two were similar, dealing with brooms. At least as far as I know, brooms were only handed out once during the night. However, I did the others rather well. Danced multiple tips as a girl because there was a shortage of them (oh, well, there was a badge for that anyway), plus I was the first to get the badge for dancing inside the bells.

Had it not been for caller sabotage (as in, deliberately extending the tip when they learned it hadn't happened yet and calling moves that encouraged it), we woulda gone that entire tip without ringing the bells once, even. There was a fair amount of fun to be had, and the end featured an all-girls and all-guys square with a third in the kitchen (another badge, by the way, for dancing there).

Fun, plus the food was nice at the end given that I had eaten nothing since breakfast (aside from a snack of cake) the entire day.

Now with that out of the way, time to talk about what I was coming here to blog about: the magical girl story.

I had a fair amount of thinking time today, which translated directly into a lot of storywork. (Including me working out how I'd write the prologue.)

For starters, I decided on the name behind the character: Red Hood Rider, AKA Ruby's, birth name is Ryan Ventrella. Her(/his) blood brother is Dion Falco. (Last names subject to change.) Her friend, the one I mention, is going to be named Gary. (No last name decided yet.)

I also thought up her rival's name, birth name being Samantha (and she does go by Samantha unlike Ruby who prefers just her superhero name for obvious reasons), but it has to be that or her superhero name (White Sailor, AKA Sally), because she hates Sam or even worse Sammy as nicknames.

Some of the details I thought up mainly had to do with aspects of the characters. For instance, Samantha is Sally basically full-time, but for different reasons than Ruby is Ruby almost always, in this case being that Sally has lost everything and has nothing in her life except being a superhero. She is, quite literally, a professional superhero. She survives off the generosity of people she's helped protect, basically a freeloader who eats, sleeps, and then goes off to train if there's no work (that is, evil) to do.

In short, the closest thing she has to a family are her fellow residents at the homeless shelter. The only reason she bothers with a civilian identity at all is to help keep them save and offer her some level of protection in case she were to need it, but otherwise she's always out there, always fighting, and not ashamed of it. I also put thought into other aspects of her. The token she has is called the Tree of Life, a whistle she wears around her neck that transforms into a bazooka that has threads attached to it (the threads coming from the necklace, since she wears the whistle around her neck as a necklace).

In spite of having a freakin' bazooka for a weapon, she's faster and stronger than Ruby by default, in fact best known for her speed and is comparable even in magic. (There's a reason they're considered rivals!) I also thought up a few other details. Her costume would be white with green accents, and be straight-up standard sailor getup, except her forearms and below which have the threads from the bazooka. (Think like Ichigo's shikai: the threads are malleable to her will.) Her hair goes from black to a very dark green, and her eyes from a dark brown to a vibrant brown.

Another thing I thought up was her lineage; I decided that she was half-Caucasian (her mother), 1/4th Hispanic (paternal grandmother), 1/8th American Indian (paternal great grandfather), and 1/8th Indian (paternal great grandmother). (In other words, an Indian and an American Indian had a son, who married a Hispanic, and they had a son, her father, who married her mother.) Basically, she looks mostly-Caucasian, but her skin's slightly darker than normal, and her genetics mean her features (in particular, facial features) show the other half of her ancestry too.

I'm not sure why I was particularly inspired to have her like that, but it's the image that came to mind when I thought of the rival.

Now onto some more technical stuff. The transformation trinket of Riders (the formal term for magical girls powered this way) is called a spirit totem, though when calling the name of the spirit totem (e.g. Tree of Life) they may also refer to it as a token. ('Transformation trinket' in this case just being Ruby speaking in TVTropes terms to Gary, who also knows them, Spirit Totem being the official name, and token being the name used casually especially after calling out the name of one.) Ruby's spirit totem is called 'Angel Wings', and the Angel Wings totem (like that, that's how) is the glow-wristband/bow she uses.

Riders are superheroes more than anything else because they can work independently, their powers all manifest differently, and they all get to create their own customized uniforms, all traits of a superhero in comparison to, say, a power ranger. That being said, they all share the same basic rules, they often form teams, their spirit totems are sentient and work as both tool and assistant (both uncommon in superheroes' weapons) and their uniforms often take on influences from 'Eastern' (by which, I mean Asian, and by Asian, I of course mean 'mostly Japan', though with a little bit of extras in there from China, Korea, and such) culture anyway, so while more superhero than anything else, they're not strictly speaking superheroes.

Speaking of which, as I just said, most Riders are influenced by Eastern culture, particularly since spirit totems are attracted to a certain type of personality for their hosts, and Ruby is no exception. She is more into superheroes than, say, anime (she even makes reference to Batman/Bruce Wayne being a metaphor for her in the whole "civilian identity is the mask, superhero the true form" way), but she's been heavily indoctrinated into Japanese culture regardless, thus, why her look is a hybrid. (This is actually half true: I hold greater INTEREST in superheroes than anime, but I'm more INVOLVED in anime.)

And I also went on to think about the spirit totems a bit more to see what I wanted. Ultimately, I determined that I want them to be sentient, able to speak to their user (but only their user), yet for this to be rare...however, for nonverbal communication to be extremely common, like sending sensations through the Rider, or beeping loudly or such, basically, things that let the Rider know something needs to be done, and directing them, but not giving them specific instructions. In short, think of their verbal instructions as being that of a partner, giving advice when it's needed and nobody else is around to give it, and their nonverbal signals are as if the weapon itself is in a trance, being guided by magical forces. And in addition to those trances, to also serve general functions, like danger detection, reminders, alarm clocks, limited communicators, granting a limited shield/transport, and those are just the ones that I think I want universal.

I think that the powers of the Rider in question should offer a lot of variety--for instance, Ruby can pull a hybrid of the Green Lantern and, say, Green Arrow by shooting trick arrows that have customized purposes. She also has multiple finishing techniques and more than just 'shoot an arrow, hope it hits' in her arsenal. Stuff like that can get explored as the series progresses, some of it as being always there and just not used a lot, other bits of it being unlocked through training, through combat, through witnessing others use their stuff, and such.

I think it's a highly-manageable concept, really. They're not unlimited in power, but are very creative in what they have.

Another thought I had which I'm not sold on is that the Riders may have elements attached to them. All of them are 'holy', but it might be a neat idea for them to have a secondary element. Ruby's would be darkness, Sally's would be earth, and I'd work it out from there. Butyeah, not so sure; it depends on how many characters get Rider powers.

...Speaking of which, there was that other idea I had and liked, that I want. A character who is a weaponmaster, basically the best pure combatant on the Magical Girl side, and yet, unlike Garry who gains powers, he possesses none; he's just so good that he can fight on par with enemies even without powers. I'd find ways to not make him redundant with the vampire combatant that comes to Ruby's side, too.

...Oh, and on that note, the magical girl/donor who he relies on? I threw around ideas, and I kinda like the idea that while Ruby doesn't know her, Sally does, and that she's a resident of the homeless shelter, too, and Sally's closest supporter. I also thought up the idea of her being a bit of a bookworm, along with the look. I like the concept.

And as you might be able to tell from this MASSIVE wall of text, I might just have my favorite concept for a webcomic ever. Or maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe a series of light novels, butstill...I want to make it.
Real bad.

The best kind of nostalgia:

3/28/2015

So today, there was a short-notice "square practice" of my old club.

By which, I mean, yesterday, we got a call asking about whether we could attend a meeting, a sort of square dance club reunion. Ten or so people showed up, and it was a blast.

I mean, I only recognized half the people there because that's about how many I knew (me being the 'baby' of the group and not having directly danced in competition with most of them), and it was a bit cross-generational even beyond that, ranging from 20s to 30s, but all 'kids' in that agerange.

So we got together. We danced, even though half of us haven't danced in years. There was something that was just so...so...energetic about it. That mystical mixture of people created an environment that few can create, a magical feeling that goes beyond the nostalgia factor. My bond to them is the weakest, but even I was able to feel that camaraderie.

Regrettably, I had to leave early because my sister had a lesson to teach and she was my ride (she had to reschedule the lesson to even attend in the first place), but the time I was there, though brief, defies all words. There's something about a group of old comrades gathering and reminiscing that simply defies all words. It's...a truly wondrous thing, even for a weak link. If you're a stronger link, then it's just that much better.

Cherish what you've had. Always.

I'm a reblogger, now!

3/27/2015

Because I'm going to link to a blog I found. And not just link to it, directly quote (well, with the slightest modifications) it. (Fair warning, some vulgar language. Sorry.) Now, mind you, it's about passing as male, not female, but that doesn't change the value of it. (The part I'm going on about is useful to most trans people.) So without further ado:

You have to become okay with being trans.

Not okay with passing for cis, not okay with skating by as long as no one finds out ever, not okay with keeping your clothes on during sex. I mean become truly, genuinely okay with who and what you are, and that has to happen for you to get your happily-ever-after. Until you do, you are cutting yourself off from intimacy and consigning yourself to a life of fear.

It's hard. It's a process, and it's not one that's going to happen overnight. It's certainly not going to happen when you're in the middle of transitioning hell, while the future is terrifyingly uncertain and you have no idea whether you can even go through with this, let alone what your life is going to look like on the other side. It's not going to happen while you still hate the body that you see in the mirror and it seems like you're going to be stuck in this miserable limbo forever.

But with time, it can happen. Please, please believe me when I say: You'll be alright.

Things will suck unbelievably less once you're passing, once you have privacy for your struggle instead of having to weather the stigma of being visibly gender-nonconforming everywhere you go, once you don't have that constant misgendering wearing you down. When people look at you and see you, when they speak and are talking to you. That's when you get to spread your wings and be, for the first time in your life, the person you've always wanted to be.

When your body starts changing, [...] the dysphoria will ease. When someone's flirting with you because they're interested in the person that you are, you'll start to win back some of the self-confidence that got shattered in transition.

And it plateaus eventually. There will come a time when you've made all the changes you're likely to make, be that hormones or surgeries, [when they will have run their course and worked all the magic they're going to work, and you'll be] as far as you're going to get. Being trans will no longer be such an oppressive, all-consuming force on your life, it'll be an injection you take once a week and some awkward conversations sometimes. But wherever you stop, at some point you have to accept that this is the body and the life you have to work with. You have to become happy with that.

I think some, perhaps many, trans folk never do -- and accordingly, the attempted suicide rate for transsexuals hovers around a staggering 40%. I don't presume to speak for what was going on in everyone else's heads, but judging from my own darker moments, I can hazard a guess: the crushing awareness of everything that you'll never have.

It's a lot. I don't need to give you my litany, because I'm sure you've already gone over your own, dozens of times. You know what you missed out on growing up, you know what physical limitations you're stuck with, you know what experiences you'll never be able to have.

And if you follow that path too far, you'll end up at the same place every time: what's the point, might as well just die and start over. It's so tempting to give in to despair, or to get angry at the unfairness of it all, because -- make no mistake -- it is fucking unfair, but that way lies bitterness and ruin. You don't have to go there. I'm not going to lie and tell you that everything's going to be sunshine and kittens, that being trans doesn't cause problems and complications -- but I'm also not lying when I say that it can be alright.

Yes, being trans is a cross to bear. It'll be a stone in your shoe for the rest of your life -- but it doesn't have to be more than that. Look at the world around you, and you'll see people who live under worse burdens and still find a way to be happy. Dwelling on the things you'll never have is ultimately as pointless as any given cis guy tormenting himself because he's never going to have the beauty-fame-talent-money-charisma of Johnny Depp. (Which is to say: true, but not particularly useful.)

So when you catch your thoughts going down that dark road, haul them back. Remember that being [the trans person you are] is better than being [your birth sex] was. Remember that there are plenty of hotties who are happy to date trans people (and who may well be more accepting of your anatomy than you are). Remember that there are places where being trans is not a big deal. Remember that it's only as big a hurdle as you let it be.

You never get to stop being trans. It's part of your history and it's shaped the person you are, even if you get every surgery under the sun, but that is okay. Being trans is okay. You can still do what you want to do, be who you want to be, fall in love with someone who's head over heels for you, and live happily ever after. I'm trans, and I'm okay with that. You can be too -- I promise.

...That, when I read it, lifted my spirits a ton. It was pointed out the article is written to a somewhat-specific audience (the article as a whole doesn't work universally, and even in the section at the bottom, it's mostly addressing specific people, but that fact isn't exactly the clearest thing and the literal words seem like it's generalizing, yet I don't really mind because I'm WITHIN said audience at least for the ending section), but it's still something incredibly lifting.

The message might not have been delivered in the best way possible, but if you can get past that ever so tiniest of flaws, it's just...great words to hear.

Tune update:

3/26/2015

Got it from the car.
It goes like this:
Hmm.
Hm!(u3)
Hm(u2)-Hm(u1)-Hm-Hm(d1)

(Hm(d1))Hmm.
Hm!(u3)
Hm(u4)-Hm(u3)-Hm(u2)-Hm(1)

(Hm(d1))Hmm.
Hm!(u3)
Hm(u2)-Hm(u1)-Hm-Hm(d1)

Hmm.
Hm!(u3)
Hm.

Same scale as normal. This is just an approximation, but the tune is extremely addictive. Once it gets in, I have trouble getting it out.

Yet another new tune.

3/26/2015

I haven't tested to see if it has a tie to THE tune, yet, but I did in fact think of a new tune today, which to my surprise, was quite persistent in my head until I wrote it down. (I figured something that persistent was important.) Unfortunately, I left the tune in my car, so me giving it will have to wait until later today, butstill.

Genealogy Update:

3/25/2015

My sister's been busy.

She found a link in our line to royalty. ROYALTY, not NOBILITY. And, well...you know how these things go.
Find a link to one royalty, find a link to several, what with their intermarriages and political stuff and such.

In this case, at least five Kings and multiple famous women. I believe my older sister (who has the full list) mentioned King Edward I and King Edward III and one of the Henrys (III?), plus I believe a King Francis of France or something like that, and then a King of a kingdom that's a part of modern-day Spain. I'm not sure how it's spelled--Aragon? Yeah, well, there's a connection there, too.

These things are fairly far back. But are pretty dang important.

I mean, it's so distant as to be practically nonexistent. There are perfectly ordinary families whose connection to royalty are MUCH stronger than mine. But it exists all the same! I have royal blood--however far back, however faintly it may be--inside of me!

Maybe that's why I'm so royally messed up!