I suppose I've done a fair amount of note-taking, of sorts. Like. I've been increasing my visibility in terms of connections and whatnot. Doing just some record-keeping, basically. Accounting. Building things up. Listing them. Making things. Preparing for future endeavors. The like.

To be honest. It kinda feels like that's the sort of stuff which should be on my blog, but is currently not on my blog. But mainly, it's because the things that I am recording are specific to the things that I am recording. For instance, if I do work on mafia stuff, that is stuff that isn't really personal. Well. It is. It's me as a person. And probably worthless to people other than me. But it's also. Personal yet specific. Rather than what my blog is, which is more or less...personal yet generic.

Not sure if that quite makes sense. But basically, I've been working hard on getting a more professional image in all aspects of my life. Even the ones which are for fun. I imagine that when I gather up the courage (or stupidity) to tackle actively making a webcomic again, I'll similarly be presenting a united front.

At least, that's the idea. I mean. The art I've been making (sporadic as it has been) has been pretty dang awesome and been reasonably high in quality. I'm reasonably good at looking things up and figuring out what needs to be done. The few times I'm not able to, well. I have literally half a dozen people who have offered to help me. Even if most of them aren't around anymore (and I imagine most of them would still be around! At least, that's the hope), it'd only take one to get me going.

Worst case scenario, instead of asking how to do it I just ask someone else to do it though even there I don't see that as something too drastic. Butyeah. I'm basically...kinda in the zone where I want people to see what I've done. I want people to see my accomplishments. Yet I feel like this blog is a very poor place for me to do so. It can be done. To some extent. Yet it's also best handled elsewhere.

I just think that I am at my strongest when I am reasonably interconnected, with every point having a purpose. And that means not dumping everything into one spot. That means having it spread out. So while this blog has been from the start, "literally anything could be posted", it has also been "literally everything won't be posted". Just. Most things, if that makes sense.

Soyeah. I've been doing a lot, just. Not much on this blog. I admittedly should be doing more here. But I am in fact doing stuff, and it is stuff I think is good.

I mean. There are any number of things which happened today that I could talk about. But me wanting a nap is at the top of the list, because I am falling asleep as I type this. I don't know why I need a nap. I went to bed reasonably early last night and woke up relatively late, so I shouldn't be tired, but I am tired, so because I am tired my mind is literally shutting down. I'm losing coherency, I'm going into tired mode, where typos are tending to show up and my sentence structure tends to go all nonsensical.

Well, more nonsense than normal that is. Like, I tend to call this effect "tiredposting", as in, akin to the commonly-used term "drunkposting" which is when people online post when drunk, because my tiredposting basically is drunkposting. I lose my ability to notice mistakes. I lose my ability to form good thoughts. I basically become a mess, as if drunk, while sober.

Never had a drink in my life. (I mean, it's something I vaguely hold interest in, but it's a very bad idea for a myriad of reasons. Aside from me being bipolar with mental disorders tending not to mix with alcohol very well, there's also the fact that both sides of my family have histories of alcoholism, meaning my genes are predisposed to that sort of addiction. Plus I know me and I NATURALLY get addicted to things and I imagine alcohol would be no different, so. Just...not something I should ever lay hands on.)

But I imagine the effects of being drunk do put one in the mindset of a tired posting, basically. A tired person and a drunk person tend to share many of the same characteristics. Alcohol tends to invoke sleepytime like effects on people, makes them pass out if they have too much, the like. I just genuinely think that a person tired enough is basically thinking in an altered state that is what people who are drunk get in.

Butyeah. I'm not coherent. It's only 11:23. I might sound loosely coherent to you, but it's getting harder and harder by the minute to form a thought which is one stream. Like, this is how my mind wanders. I do a lot of correcting even in this state; I'd be much worse if I let this continue for another half hour or so. It does get to the point where I type typos without even knowing I am doing so, though to some extent a lack of care also applies in that sometimes I'll notice but not bother to correct them because it's too tiring and much effort to actually do that.

But even then it's something that doesn't guarantee success. I mean, I typo even when sober, even when awake, but it gets worse when in this state because it gets harder for me to notice my mistakes. Which I am making a ton more of by the way. My punctuation also tends to shift when I'm in this state, for instance. I think you have noticed by now that I sound like I'm doing run-on sentences?

Well it's not like that in my head, except actually maybe it is. It's complicated. But at this stage I just think I'd rather take a nap than explain this further. I'd say I'd write an entry later, but I'm planning on sleeping until midnight or later which would place the newest possible entry on a separate date so you'll just ave to hawt.

...As in, not last night, but the night before, Friday night, prior to Saturday.
It's not necessarily all I had to talk about, but it's the thing I feel most like doing for today at least.

Basically, the story (the dream became a fullblown one, as per the norm) dealt with a fallen angel as the protagonist.

To put it into more words: God in this setting is known to exist to all of His eternal children. (Humans, as mortal children, don't know He exists for sure.) But He's an incredibly distant figure. As in, basically the stern father: He knows everything which will happen, but does nothing to stop it from happening. He does care about all of His children, both ethereal and mortal, but He does so with this distance.

He will not coddle someone. He will not intervene and mess with the laws of nature to spare disasters from happening. He will, perhaps, subtly warn people. But He does not directly do acts of divine intervention. Prayers to Him can be useful: if someone prays to Him to have the capability to see something through ("please God give me strength to survive this", for instance), then He may lend some slight support, but this is not guaranteed. If someone prays to Him to give a miracle because they can't find a solution, He probably isn't going to answer, but there's always the minuscule chance He decides that it is in fact necessary.

This led to many angels questioning God. God's choice of what to do and what not to do in regard to humanity ended up leaving angels feeling like something needed to be done, so when one of God's three archangels decided to defect, it started a rebellion.

(Note that, as per the norm, strictly speaking, all ethereal beings are genderless. God lacks a gender, and so too do angels, but God is referred to as a He for convenience and angels tend to have a gender they prefer to appear as, so they are called he/she as appropriate.)

The protagonist was meant to be the main general of the war against the rebellion. She would basically be directly under the two loyal archangels in the hierarchy: their best warrior and fighter, their best strategist, and a really big deal, the highest position available to a normal angel like her. As in, third-in-command. (Well, fourth, since there are two second-in-commands.) With first being God. Who doesn't really bother to intervene. So effectively second (well, third) in command.

...Yet in the last moment, God, sensing her cruelty, decided to instead pick her rival for the position, which led her to be incredibly bitter, to the point where she defected, and became the right-hand-woman of the rebellion, fighting against God.

Her side had the numbers advantage with about the same power between the sides per angel. This put her in the position where her side was actually winning the war against God, even without her help, and she helped make it all the more decisive. (By the way, an angel is normally immortal except to another angel; an angel killed by an angel will essentially merge with the archangel they are loyal most to. This is incentive for both sides to actually avoid killing one another, as it makes the factional leaders stronger. An angel can if in mortal form be killed, of course--but they simply return to the ethereal normally.)

...However, in a decisive battle, her rival actually managed to defeat her. (Plot-wise, this had the effect of turning a surefire win for the rebellion into a stalemate, because she was necessary to press the advantage and her rival being on the field without her would keep God from losing.)

And instead of being captured or killed, her rival decided to do something else: strip her of her powers, and leave her trapped in mortal form with absolutely no magic in the mortal realm. This is where the plot really kicks off. (Most of the above is backstory; the prologue kicks off with the battle, and the results with her losing it.)

She basically has to deal with all of her attitude problems and learn how to survive, since she is incredibly out of touch with the mortal realm. But over the course of the dream, while she was several times repeatedly pushed to the breaking point, she did undergo character development, especially thanks to a guy she met. 

The story spanned years (as in, there's significant plot every step of the way but I kept going until she had multiple children with her oldest being a ten year old daughter), and over that time her competency tends to improve as her empathy and understanding does. She's the adventuring team's strategist (this being a fairly medieval fantasy setting, she later becomes part of a wandering band), and later learns to fight quite well using mortal methods.

At one point, nearing the end of the story, she faces a threat that none of her friends can overcome, even with her best efforts to help them, and she stands nearly powerless herself, being the last one capable of stopping the threat yet even her efforts failing. Every trick she had, not working. In that moment, she genuinely prays to God to give help, which He does give, by restoring her powers.

It's later revealed to her that God, of course, saw this all as the natural conclusion from what would happen if He didn't make her the general, and He said the position would be hers now if she so desired to have it--specifically because now she was the type of person worthy of holding that position.

I realize the plot isn't exactly the most of original of concepts, but give my subconscious a break; it was a lovely show to watch and legitimately made me wish I could write the full story for it, because I think that my particular take on it would still be interesting. This blog post has done a really poor job of articulating the conflict, and more importantly, is absolutely abysmal at explaining her basic character, and how she evolves over the story, and the nature of the message to be had, which isn't nearly as preachy as this blog post would have you believe, but that's just the thing, my words make you think that from the description even though I know the actual story isn't like that so for now you'll just have to take my word for it that it's not cringe-worthy, except for the parts that are intentionally so.

My family decided to spring on me the decision to watch Agents of Shield.

I've made my thoughts abundantly clear on things like this before: "Literally I have no problem and actually want to watch it, too...if you give me warning." As in. Before I have actually planned my day out, warning. Not, "hey we want to watch this literally now".

So I'm a bit ticked off right now.
I have told them this multiple times.
I have told them that I can watch it with them if they actually tell me about it.
But I need to have the advanced warning, so that I can actually plan on not being able to do anything else.

Because by default, without that advanced warning, I plan on being able to do everything else.

I really don't know how that is so freakin' hard for them to understand. I warn them of my plans every time I think they could prove inconvenient. (Not that they actually remember, or communicate to each other, about said plans, but that's not my fault; I communicated to them and them not accounting it isn't something they can blame on me.) Why do they think I shouldn't have the same courtesy?

I can accommodate them really, really easily if they warn me in advance.
SO easily.
Like. Ridiculously easy. As in, five minutes, easily. Because I am ready for it, I am prepared to "do nothing" for the day, and react appropriately.

I cannot accommodate them much if at all if they spring it on me last minute while I'm in the middle of a very long daily plan. Which Saturdays, by default, always are. I reserve a lot for Saturdays. I mark them as a time I am unavailable, both for work and for mafia. But in spite of that I do a metric ton of work on that day anyways.

So for them to interrupt that, without warning, is...really something they shouldn't be surprised at when I react with a very strong negative implication of "NO"? My time should be my time. Their time is their time. I don't interfere in their time. Like, my parents even were out at their favorite resort today, albeit doing work preparing for a party they're the hosts of. And they came home late.

As in, after 8, late.
On a night where I haven't eaten yet.
And where I usually go to bed after midnight given I work in the early mornings Sundays. (Speaking of which, something I haven't checked yet is which morning shift I am working. There's no doubt I work tomorrow, but which shift makes a different in my routine and I need to ask.)

I had planned out an approximate use for every single one of those three hours. About an hour for blogging, about an hour for eating, and approximately one hour for wrap-up across the internet, said wrap-up being something I will now have to cut short and am very angry at. (I had to log out abruptly and suddenly, leaving work unfinished.)

If they inform me of their plans (THIS IS A SIMPLE THING TO DO ESPECIALLY SINCE THEY WERE AROUND WHEN I FIRST GOT UP!), then I can adjust my​ plans. But if they don't inform me of their plans, then they really shouldn't react so negatively upon discovering their plans conflict with mine...because they didn't. bother. to. tell. me.

Blame family night. I'll try to make it up to you tomorrow, though. I had inspiration which I feel would make a rather excellent blog post, just so long as I formatted it more clearly.

As per usual, a round dance, during which I was relatively productive in terms of occupying my brain with story details. In fact, I even managed to have it be related to the Rubyverse, albeit not something directly from the comic itself.

Basically, one concept I had in one of my mega-universes (actually a multiverse, but that's a technicality), in its modern setting (well one of them anyway), is the concept of "stashes": a cache of various things, originally just weapons but later expanded to include generic supplies, first aid equipment, various magical artifacts, and the like.

These magical caches would be unlocked by a person sending a minuscule burst of magic into the appropriate 'lock', as the key. Some stashes further require a 'code' to be entered, where someone will do something like "three to the left, five to the right". Some caches require a specific trigger, too--a magical signature from a particular element, or even coded to be a magical signature from a specific group of people. (This one's harder, obviously.)

A basic feature of these stashes would be that they are accessed before a battle has begun, or after a battle has ended, but not during a battle. Mind you, if you see an opponent with hostile intention approaching, then combat hasn't yet begun and rules favor the defender, namely, if the attacker attacks the defender before they finish, the defender will not face retribution for claiming the weapons midway through the fight. (For this reason, most attackers clearly announce their presence, make sure the defender is either not near a cache or has gotten it, and only then attack, because it's not worth the hassle.)

These stashes exist everywhere across the world, in many objects. The magical seal is perfect to the non-magical, in that the objects these stashes are hidden within never act in a way which is different from the numerous identical objects around them. But they exist a plenty. Sometimes having a single item within. Sometimes a whole horde of weapons within.

These can be anything--inside of a wall. Inside of a tile. Inside of a brick. Inside wood. Inside concrete. Inside of metal. Inside of a lamp post. Inside of a fence. Inside of a statue. Inside of a fountain. Basically, in nearly every public location, these stashes exist. (Incidentally if you couldn't tell, this is a concept I made up when I was actively visiting said places and imagining weapons within, reaching them with a magical touch, thus, why I got into the habit of touching various objects as a kid and still have that habit. Tapping something, for instance.)

This is a really nifty concept, so I decided today that I'd port it into the Rubyverse. Now, the thing about the Rubyverse is that it has a whole ton of different types of magic, and different people who would want these stashes. So, how would they be formed in the first place, and how would they be restocked? In the world that they originated from this was not an issue, but the Rubyverse would need a new explanation, and I LOVE the explanation I came up with:

Universal Donors, as they are called. Universal Donors are individuals who are entirely mundane, human individuals. They have the same capacity for magic as anyone else does, in that they theoretically have some but pragmatically have none. They hold no special attributes, no special immunities, they're just human...

...Except, they have the unique quirk that they are capable of using any type of magic...on a microscopic level. As in, they can give those short, small bursts to a stash in order to open it, refill it, and seal it again, and this is their job. They travel the world and constantly fill orders of stashes which need to be refilled. Many Universal Donors do so full-time, wandering from one place to another. Since everyone uses stashes, everyone recognizes active Universal Donors and will be more than happy to provide necessary services to the Universal Donors such that they are capable of continuing on.

Other Universal Donors are part-time, assigned to specific locations which are hard to get into unless you are a local, and stay there and are activated only when needed. Now, a rule of Universal Donors is that they can only fill a stash when there is no conflict ongoing. In a war, there must be a ceasefire. Or a truce. Or something, that is mutually agreed on by both sides. Another rule is a lack of bias, in that a Universal Donor--while they may hold lodging on one side of the war (and even have people fighting on one side of the war)--must refill stashes equally.

These Universal Donors are allowed to enlist the aid of someone in refilling a stash they otherwise can't get access to. Closing an area off. Performing memory wipes. Giving access to a restricted area. These are things a Universal Donor often needs help with. But otherwise, they don't really use others, except as a means to survive. Universal Donors are also not given a free pass to slouch off on life, at least, not by virtue of being a Universal Donor. A Universal Donor who is doing so basically full-time may be given the full luxuries of life, but they're earning their keep; a Universal Donor who refills a stash or two once or twice a month is going to be rewarded for it, but be only a part-time Universal Donor (with the reward as a bonus), needing something else to sustain themselves.

Universal Donors can have specialties. Some specialize in certain areas. Or certain types of hiding spots. Or certain items to hide. Or certain clients. After all...these people, while exposed to the world of magic and supernatural and technological, are still human. With human levels of learning and processing information. It's not like becoming a Universal Donor means you instantly know how to do any job, anywhere. It requires training and learning.

However, while those Universal Donors may have specialties, they are forbidden from having preferences, aside from the choice of how much they wish to be a Universal Donor. (Including travel or lack thereof.) A Universal Donor may inform a potential client they lack the training, but cannot refuse a job they have as within their given boundaries.

So some Universal Donors might have a specialty in, say, vampires, or supernatural creatures in general, or supernatural creature hunters (hunters don't often have magic, but they can usually fake it well enough to have a stash, which I suppose is plot-convenient for Red Hood Rider in that it gives me a way to have Herald have his weapons readily available with a justification), or magical girls (not a frequent client mind you, since magical girls tend to not need any physical thing, but they exist), or a multi-purpose stash (basically a stash that most magically-sensitive individuals can sense and unlock), and so on and so forth. But they would always have a requirement to be available to, say, create a technomancer stash.

Like I said. I really love the concept and I think it's a great addition to the Rubyverse, in that it allows for a great deal of flexibility. Mind you, it doesn't decrease drama. Just because these stashes are abundant doesn't mean they're in the location the heroes are in, for instance. (So no magical healing from a nearby otherwise-invisible cache.) Or maybe there is, but it's empty because someone else recently used it and it hasn't been refilled yet. But it gives a lot of ability for me to have a choice in things.

Another thing I thought of, and this isn't really specific to the Rubyverse per se, though it does apply to it, is that I was trying to figure out why gems are so universally considered magical, in that they often are seen as magical amplifiers and are seen as magical storage in that they store magic, and often focus it, and amplify it, and all of these various things for gems, no matter the type.

Magical gems (as in, gems that don't really exist). Crystal gems. Magical crystal gems. Diamonds. Rubies. Emeralds. Sapphires. There are literally hundreds I could name (a bunch from Steven Universe, a bunch not in the show yet but wouldn't surprise me to see eventually in there, a bunch which aren't technically gemstones yet are often considered such anyway, you get the idea), but most if not all of them are given magical properties, beyond their aesthetical, monetary, and/or pragmatic values. (Things like being the sharpest weapon available, most durable weapon available, hardest weapon available, the like.)

All of them, we tend to have that association, and I was wondering why that is. I mean. I tend to hold it true, myself. As in, it applies in the Rubyverse. Gems are good for many types of magic there. I just don't actually know why they are, they just...ARE.

It's something which I'm honestly considering trying to google, to see if maybe the internet holds an answer. You'd think that'd be ridiculous, but I'm not actually sure it would be, thanks to just how common this concept is. It has to originate from somewhere.

I mean. I KNOW that I can look up the magical/symbolical meaning/power/strength/use of these things. There's entire websites devoted to the subject. You could read for hours the various properties of a Ruby and what different Rubies symbolize and mean and do and are supposed to accomplish and the like. That, I know I could do.

But I'm legitimately and genuinely curious to know if maybe there is actually a reason humanity universally ascribed this magical power to those things. Then again, maybe not. Humanity also gave magical power to basically every animal in existence in some culture across the world. Some of these meanings are self-evident, some of them are based on the history of the culture, but others, your guess is as good as mine as to how the creature became symbolic of that thing.

Who knows? I guess there's only one way to find out. Maybe if I remember I'll give an update, though far more likely I'll just forget. I thought it was an interesting exercise though. I guess I could BS an explanation, but that felt inherently wrong to me, because I felt an explanation already existed, even if not one I know now. (Yes I know the Rubyverse is my own creation, that doesn't matter because it has a life beyond me and this is one way it is beyond me.)

Right now, my best guess is that it loosely has to do with maybe them being just naturally one of the best substances at absorbing magic. Why they are so good at absorbing magic, I wouldn't know. I'd think it could maybe have to do maybe with their shining properties, that is, their interaction with light, but even there that's sketchy since there are literally hundreds of gemstones and they all have different such properties.

​Oh well. It's a nice thought exercise all the same.

It basically involved some sort of adventure, with me as part of a group. I lived a double-life, and we came back to an old place of mine (represented by my school, in the building I know it by), where I interacted with people incredibly well. I was a bit nervous, as it was my first public appearance, but I was okay.

I received a note, addressed to my alternate self, to meet in a room, where I would get to discuss my stories. There, the person blabbered what was basically gibberish, but I was still somehow able to interpret them and figure out a few of my actual stories I have written as what they were talking about.

They asked me about my identity, and I explained to them the details, at which point they hugged me and basically told me that I needed to have confidence in myself and to just be who I want to be. At this point I thought this was a too-good-to-be-true thought (I was virtually crying at their kind words)...which tipped me off to it being a dream.

I was very briefly in control of the dream, but soon after, I got ripped from the world and into consciousness, so my lucidity didn't last, unfortunately. Still, I enjoyed it all the same.

If I actually thought about it, anyway. But honestly, I'm getting tired so I kinda want to take a nap. So, unfortunately, I will have to pass on that. I did think about something worthy of note, though, so while I won't be blogging about real-life stuff today (unless you count me mentioning a nap as me blogging about my real life stuff), I will be talking a little bit about my webcomic. You know, the one I'm actually supposed to be working on?

Yeah, Red Hood Rider. In this case, I actually dealt a little with the character of Ana. I thought of a rather humorous omake which would feature her, basically with Sally asking her over the phone if she knew about something, with her responding, "No, I don't, but I'll be sure to look it up for you". Sally thanks her, ends the call, beat panel, and then the realization sinks in.

​I also thought of ​maybe expanding her character. She mostly serves as a friend, as emotional support, and not much else right now. She has an innate ability to sense what's going on with her friends (and this is explicitly not magic, just her having a natural ability to empathize extremely well and pick up on anything--emotions, faults, whatever), but I was thinking that maybe beyond her role in the story (she does have plot significance), she could be one of the alternative sources for information. I have a few in the story already, but not many, and Ana would be a nice fit for giving characters a source of exposition if they need it.

The other thing I worked on today was the idea of maybe creating cast images for Heroes of Gistou, the novel I am currently supposed to be working on but really haven't been. I wouldn't include spoilers, but I'd do "known antagonists", "known heroes", "known figures of interest", and the like. The main thing stopping me from doing so is two factors. One, I wouldn't be able to draw them with the detail necessary for them to be realistic to my vision. Two, I wouldn't be able to fit the amount of info into the bio that I would want if this were a drawing. So probably won't end up actually doing it.

I suppose I should mention that my internet glitched and weebly failed to save the title of my blog entry even though that's the thing I entered first, so if the title of this blog post doesn't look to translate directly into the text as well as it should, that would be why.

That's about all I have to offer though.

...And that has nothing to do with it being half an hour from midnight (rushing against a deadline) with a dozen work-related tabs open clogging my browser that I want to get finished with. (Job applications.) It's more that I just don't have much to say, really.

Which is kind-of sad, but not unexpected. I can't write a long entry every day. Still, I do feel like I owe you the effort to try, since I know I have a bad tendency to make entries-which-aren't-really-entries at least two or three times a week. (Probably one of the reasons my blog is so hard to follow: some entries are literally one-liner snippets of nothingness, followed by an entry which is filled with a continuous wall of text near-impossible to read entirely.)

Apparently my family is beginning to figure out the critter is smarter than they thought, so I haven't said anything to them yet and it looks like they're going to figure it out on their own. (Frankly I think they're going to call a professional at raccoon removal after it continues to not work, even though that will be ridiculously expensive.)

I am also officially enrolled in the spring quarter college class, which means that I will in fact be doing the thing. In this case, the thing being...I'll be going to an LGB group (hopefully T-friendly, but we'll find out quickly enough). It's a bit nerve-wrecking to think about. So many things on my mind.

I also had a mini-meltdown today, where I was feeling ridiculously emotional, but I'm not sure what triggered it exactly. I mean. I vented my anger out enough where I didn't think it was from real-life. Yet that outburst was...pretty dang bad, and half my readers know what I'm talking about.

I'm just very emotional, and while I'm literally wasting hours of my day literally every single day...I feel like I'm somehow simultaneously overextending myself. That I'm getting stressed out, that what I'm doing is too much of one thing at once, which might be why I have neglected things as much as I have.

Pardon the curse word (I probably could think of an alternative phrase if I thought hard enough), but one of the things that my mind has basically been telling me is, "Get your shit together", because I've just...felt like it very visibly hasn't been, I suppose. And it was verbatim those words. (It wasn't me speaking to me, so much as it was one of my alternative mes. I'm not sure which alternative me, the voice who said the words sounded feminine so it might've been one of my female selves, but I can't tell which. It wasn't ME, me, though, because again, I don't use curse words at all. I don't think in them, I don't say them, they just don't come naturally to me.)

​So I probably am doing pretty poorly in life in a lot of ways, even though in some other ways I continue to progress forward. That's about all I can think of to say though.

By which, I mean...horribly long. In this case, I'll start off by talking about something I was going to do earlier: we have a raccoon in our ceiling. Or maybe more than one in a worst-case scenario. It's been there for a while, but we weren't sure if it was actually in the roof or just on top of it. Then we confirmed it was in there. Then we weren't sure what type of critter it was, until we did research, and, yep. The signs and symptoms we have all heard and experienced were the hallmarks of a raccoon.

Now, while this has been a known occurrence for quite a while, what I think really sparked my parents to do something about it is that there's currently a hole in our ceiling, one very very very recently made, which alarmingly shows signs of having been sudden and potentially growing.

To be fair! This is not necessarily the raccoon's doing. Our house has suffered from roof leaks, and there are visible signs of water damage in the approximate area of the beginning-to-collapse-ceiling. It could be entirely unrelated to the raccoon. Or maybe the raccoon isn't directly causing it. Or maybe the raccoon just shifted the already-existing damage in a way which made it visible to us. All the same, regardless of whatever the cause was, the risk of it being the raccoon and the risk of making it worse means my family wants the raccoon gone.

They ordered a raccoon trap, but I read Sandra & Woo. (Well, read as in past tense, in that I am two or three years behind, but I read it for years.) I know a thing or two about raccoons. Not only from the comic, not only from the author (who is a raccoon buff), but also just from my own knowledge about them. They are very smart critters.

My parents' plan is catch-and-release: catch it, drive it to a far away location, and release. I am very skeptical as to the success of this plan, for many reasons. While the trap is a raccoon trap, I put little faith in it actually being able to capture the raccoon. I also am hesitant to say it is simply one raccoon up there; there could be a whole family. Even if it's just the one, even if the trap works, I am skeptical the raccoon will stay in the trap for long. Even if it does, even if the raccoon is driven fifty miles away, I am unsure as to whether it will stay away.

I have not voiced these concerns. Perhaps I should, though there's multiple reasons I haven't. Not being a naysayer unless I have to (it hasn't worked yet but it could), not knowing how to properly tackle the subject of these issues, and also, as bad as it is to admit it I kinda think the whole affair is a little funny?

I know that technically speaking I shouldn't--raccoons could cause a lot of damage up there. To an already very damaged part of the house. But in spite of how the issue should be serious, I can't help but find it a little bit humorous, I guess.

But in other news, for Red Hood Rider, I discovered that I have accidentally color-coded my characters. That seems like something which would be difficult to accomplish, but it's true. Ruby, the elemental rider of the Darkness element, has a primarily black wardrobe. Her name is Ruby (which is obviously red), and her middle name's Scarlet (also red), and her hoodie has red, and her freakin' superhero name is Red Hood Rider, but in spite of that, her hoodie is half-black, she wears black shoes, black socks, and a black mask, and most of her alternative clothing is...also black. Black sweats, black gloves, black shorts, black skirt, black casual clothing...basically, mostly black. And black is a color most frequently associated with Darkness.

Sally, the elemental rider of the Earth element, doesn't have as strong of a color code...but when I gave her clothing, her shirts were a mixture of brown (an earth color) and green (an earth color). Gary, the elemental rider of the Water element, has a white T-shirt and blue jeans, both colors associated with water.

Hannah, the elemental rider of the Air element, has a kimono which is green (an alternative wind color), or alternatively a light shade of yellow (another air color). Whitney, the elemental rider of the Ice element, has all cyan clothing, with cyan being a color closely associated with ice.

That's five right there. Now admittedly. From there it's a little more ambiguous. I have no clothing predisposition towards D.D., elemental rider of Fire. (Aside from one quick "drawing"--really messing around in a program--which has her belt be red with a golden buckle, both of which are fire colors.)

Vili, elemental rider of Energy is purple central, all the way. (Heck, Vili is her nickname from her superhero name, Violet Ranger.) Now, I wasn't sure about this one. Energy has the strongest associations with yellow and blue, with some connotations to white. (The colors of lightning.) However, I looked it up: purple is in fact listed as an alternative color for the element. So that's a firm six. (Okay so the entry for energy said anything, but the entry for lightning said purple was an accepted color for the element, albeit less common.)

Amy (despite her name, Amethyst, being purple) has an association with white--not a strong one, but there. Her skin tone is one of the palest even for vampire standards. Her clothing also tends to be white or with white accents. (Admittedly she also wears black.) Which is kinda sorta Light-element themed, though it doesn't matter that much in the grander scheme of things.

Still. That's pretty coincidental, yet it is exactly that; a coincidence. I did not design them to be color-coded to their elements, at least, outside of uniform. (Obviously in their superhero forms, they have strong ties to their element.) But the thought randomly occurred to me today for some reason that, yeah. They really are color-coded. (So I'm going to make a gag about it in-comic, probably before Amy's introduced as a rider.)

We're not done with my thoughts for today though. I mean, frankly I could have made three entries for my three separate and unrelated thoughts, but I had them all before coming to the computer, and didn't write any of them down, so I figured I might as well tackle them all at once.

Another thing I thought about is an old, old, old, old "story idea" of mine that I used to play around with all the time. I say "story idea" in quotation marks, because there wasn't really much of a coherent story. It was more like a continuously-refreshed/updated 'war game', of sorts.

Elements got added over the years, but the basic setting was me having a bunch of color-coded toys (ones which didn't fit in my bin specifically made for those toys) and throwing them together. The result was a mish-mash of various stuff. The largest and most consistent focus was on the airplanes, albeit having the exact specifications of each plane change a ton. A secondary focus (sometimes in an entirely unrelated setting) was on the foot soldiers.

But, loosely speaking, sometimes I would tie them together, and overall, the picture you would get would look something vaguely akin to this:

There were four sides, locked in an eternal war with one another, largely played out in dogfights where planes would often get shot down but the pilots would survive, be recovered, and given new planes. (So they didn't often lose pilots, they just lost craft, making the main challenge not manpower, but rather production power, to keep the necessary number of craft functional. Incidentally, this mechanic allowed me to develop characters in the form of pilots and have them actually have victories over a side without killing each other off, a huge bonus for convenience.)

They each were vying for control of a central location which all four nations have a border on (White existed to the direction loosely northeast, Red existed loosely northwest, Gray existed loosely southwest, and Blue existed loosely southeast--this, too was always consistent 100% of the time), in this case, basically a super-advanced, high-tech mega-cannon none of them were responsible for creating, with mysterious origins. Not so mysterious was its capacity: highly-pinpoint-accuracy, high-speed rapid bombardment of bombs each capable of leveling a city. It could fire into the air, too, destroying aircraft, or hit the ground, wiping out whole armies. In short, a doomsday superweapon, vastly devastating, which all wanted in order to win the war.

One of the strongest of the four nations was Red: Their main strength as a superpower was their very, very, very strong industry. They could pump out machines faster than basically any nation. In a war where the main problem isn't manpower but rather production power (see above), this basically made them the consistently largest contender for taking it all.

They had six units (units being my generic term for "I have this many representations of them, and these representations are loosely equivalent for each unit type, be it a standalone troop, a squadron, a battalion, or a full army") of a super-advanced type of tank, better than any of the tanks of their rivals, owing to this industry.

They also had one unit of each type of the four plane types. (Plane type stats changed constantly, but the below are loosely the overall guidelines I put in place.)

One, a light aircraft with minimal weaponry/armor, was what I called the scouter/bomber. It could be loaded up with lots of fuel or lots of bombs. Fuel, for advanced scouting of enemy territories. Bombing, self-explanatory. These are the light aircraft that make up the backbone of a good fleet, even though they're weak/vulnerable in a dogfight.

Two, a light aircraft with minimal armor but decent weaponry, was what I've loosely deemed the interceptor. It specialized in quickly coming in to stop scouters/bombers. It was the most maneuverable of the three normal craft, and also the fastest, plus had the highest altitude, just with light armor and only medium weapons.

Three, an aircraft with heavy armor and weaponry, was what I've loosely deemed the fighter. While the slowest of the three standard craft, they were difficult to shoot down and able to shoot down both of the above once they got close enough to enter into a proper fight.

Four, a specialized super-advanced and super-costly and super-rare prototype of a plane, was what I've deemed the raptor. Not one of the standard three craft. While under normal circumstances it had drawbacks, special advances in technology let it be the fastest of any craft (albeit temporarily, with its normal speed being the slowest), with more bombing weaponry than a bomber (albeit not in amount, just in potency), with the heaviest armor, and climb as high as any, with by far the highest maneuverability of them. A sort-of super-plane, especially when factoring in its special missiles, something no other plane has. Basically, a "cheat" of a craft, faster than any, as high as an interceptor, more maneuverable than any, heavier armor than any, heavier weaponry than any, more functions than any.

The reason there aren't so many of them is for a combination of reasons. Namely, it being super-expensive to mass-produce them and also super-difficult to actually pilot the craft. So while these craft are the elite responders in a dogfight/aerial assault, they are also not something everyone has for good reason. If it were easy, everyone would have them, but it's not so they don't. Red, however, has one.

The main weakness Red has is that they have one standard unit of infantry--only one. Tanks can only do so much damage on their own. Same with air superiority. Most of their manpower is spent boosting their industry, so they have very little left to man their assault, which is the main factor in why they don't dominate.

Their main rivals in sheer air superiority level would be White. White held three scout planes/bombing planes, an interceptor unit, and as with Red, a raptor unit. Lacking anything of a special quirk (all of the powers have one, save white), their special quirk is, in a sense, the skill of their pilots. Namely, those three scouts? Capable of fighting toe-to-toe against superior planes in a dogfight. Their interceptor? Able to gun down enemy fighters. Their raptor? Inferior in quality to Red's raptor, yet the pilot of the white raptor wins the majority of engagements with Red's raptor.

The other notable thing about White is that while they lack tanks, they have an overabundance of infantry. Namely, one stealth unit (basically think covert ops, on a massive scale--able to infiltrate and sabotage and subdue among many others), one advanced unit, one advanced assault unit (specializing in taking ground in a blitz attack), one super-advanced unit (basically a prototype able to dwarf almost any standard infantry), a rapid-fire unit (basically a machine gun squad of sorts focused on eliminating targets and/or grouping them together), and an advanced defensive rapid-fire unit (a machine gun squad focused on denying the advancement of an enemy via a nigh-impenetrable defense). While their lack of tanks hurts them very badly, this infantry abundance ensures they have a wide zone coverage, especially given their large air fleet and the superiority of their pilots.

The other two nations were considered secondary, but loosely considered third in power was Gray: their most notable feature, two units of a gigantic missile. This missile could be used both on the defensive to shoot down enemy aircraft and on the offensive to bombard a location and absolutely devastate it. It is one of the two weapons of war prized almost as much as the central cannon itself is for that very reason, and Gray can (and does) mass-produce these.

What keeps this from being a gamebreaker? Because Gray is otherwise relatively weak. They have no tanks. In the aircraft department, all they have is two units of interceptors and two units of fighters. Interceptors do not make good units to go on the offensive for (they are mainly for dogfighting), and fighters are meant largely to protect those going on a bombing run, not to be the ones doing it. As a result, their aircraft tend to be geared towards shutting enemy aircraft down and preventing unit advancement too far. They're largely on the defensive.

Their infantry support this tactic. They hold one advanced defensive unit (basically a better army, but focused on defending an area from attack and denying advancement), one stealth unit (same as white), and one advanced defensive rapid-fire unit. Their basic strategy--hold their territory, and prevent others from gaining new territory.

The faction generally considered weakest was Blue. Though they had once been a dominant power, at some point, a catastrophe happened and that set them back in almost all terms. They do have two advanced tanks (better than standard, but not as good as Red's tanks), plus two units of normal tanks, but their firepower is mostly pathetic. They have one standard unit...and that's it.

...Except...they also have one ultra-unit. This ultra-unit is basically the infantry to kill all other infantry, and even take out tanks or shoot down planes. It is rapid-fire, and can assault from the air. Aside from this, Blue also controls and manufactures the second of the weapons of war prized almost as much as the central cannon: a cannon of their own, able to shoot (less accurately) into the air or capable of (fairly strong) ground bombardment which--while not reaching as far as a missile can--can still reach everyone except White. (Notably, Gray and Blue tend not to shoot at each other so much, because if Gray shoots at Blue, Blue can defend against it entirely without consequence albeit not being able to counterattack; if Blue shoots at Gray, then Gray gets damaged but their counterattack damages Blue. Basically, Gray attacking is pointless as neither side gets damaged; Blue attacking is detrimental to both sides and neither wants that.)

In terms of air power, Blue isn't entirely defenseless, but they are by far the weakest, with only one fighter unit and one scout unit, mere shadows of what they used to command. On the bright side, their craft are second only to Red's in terms of ability, and their pilots are second only to White's in terms of ability, meaning that between their craft, their pilots, and their superweapons, Blue continues to get by, similarly able to deny advancement of others even if they cannot storm by force.


...Of course, there's a twist.
A fifth nation exists: Green. Previously unknown, when they enter the scene it's an absolute nightmare because they put everyone to shame.
They have three advanced tanks, equal to Blue's tanks (though lesser than Red's), and one light tank (which is lesser than a standard tank). However, they also have one ultra-tank: this ultra-tank is literally twice the size of an advanced tank (which is itself larger than a standard tank which is larger than a light tank), and has the armor to match. Worse, it has the firepower to basically one-shot anything, and its bombardment is long-range, and packs enough power to do considerable damage to an entire city. (Not devastating, but considerable damage.) Oh, and these shots? Also capable of sniping aircraft which try to take it out.

They only have one plane...but they only need one plane, because their plane, an ultra plane, puts even raptors to shame: it is full-time as fast as an interceptor, has a boost ability like a raptor that allows it to exceed any craft's speed, can climb higher than the others, is equally armored to a raptor, and carries even heavier firepower than the raptor, and this time it's both in punch and amount. And with the same missiles as the raptor has.

Infantry-wise, they also have an "ultra-lite" unit: not quite as strong as Blue's ultra unit, in that it is slightly weaker, significantly more fragile, but also is more sustainable (able to fight for longer) in more terrain with greater ease.
They also have an advanced assault unit, an air-assault unit (able to attack units in the air and on the ground, albeit much weaker than the ultra unit), an advanced bombardment unit (basically a unit meant specifically to blast to smithereens defense units), and a second ultra infantry unit: an ultra anti-tank unit, specializing in removing enemy tanks from the battlefield altogether, and being quite skilled at also decimating infantry and sieging cities.

They enter and take the world by storm. Their unique quirk is of course all these absurdly powerful units. The drawback, aside from their lack of extensive air units (which are, as noted, the most critical aspect of the war), is that they lack the production of any of the other four nations: they rely on their units not being too badly damaged/destroyed in the first place, because it takes them considerably longer than any other nation to replace damage and even slightly longer than the other nations to so much as repair damage.

I did a few times resolve the plot, but always revived it at a later time. (Until one time I didn't?) Most of the times the conflict went on until I got bored, so I never really did much. Some times, a faction would win. Green winning was considered a downer ending. Red winning, similarly so. White winning I think was the "heroic" ending, though Gray and Blue also could have cases made for them. (Gray was never antagonistic, and I don't think Blue was either. Enemies, yes. Antagonistic, no.)

I think that at least one time, a draw was reached. This might've been the last time I played with the idea, even. A "final resolution", of sorts. I don't remember how it happened. If it was all five factions, or the four original nations in an alliance (most likely led by White) defeating Green which triggered it. All the same, that was more or less the setting I cooked up.

And it's been literally years since I've thought about this. I think the last time I played with the idea had to have been at least seven years ago, if not longer. Yet every once and a while, I would stare down at the bin where they are, and look, and today for some random reason I decided, "hey, let's take inventory" and to officially try to describe the overall setting I had going.

​I find it absolutely fascinating.