It PROBABLY won't be as good as if I had made it on the day of.

But basically.

Yesterday, I had a really good vision.
A gorgeous absolutely awesome vision.

It was a picture of a super form that is technically speaking canonical to Red Hood Rider...but which is only canonical in the sense of "it is something that happens in the canonical future of the Rubyverse...after Red Hood Rider has ended."

Because the super form I imagined takes ten years' of magical experience, minimum, to build up the 'magical strength', so to speak, to not suffer from magical fatigue from so much as attempting it. And seeing as how Red Hood Rider ends when Ruby's 18, not 26-at-minimum, that means that it won't actually appear in the story itself. (Unless I like...randomly show a picture of the future in the series at some time. Which, mind you, with an oracle play, is quite possible. But like...while it's possible, I just have no current plans to show that sort of thing.)

This form, which I am dubbing "Elemental Ruby", is basically her ultimate of ultimate forms...because in this form, instead of channeling her power through weapons (even her Black Ruby form channels most of its power through her claws which count as a weapon) or innate powers of a form, she is directly channeling her power through herself.

This is a power we DO canonically see her, briefly, use a small form of...and the consequence is that she suffers a magical fatigue burnout from the attempt--because weapons make it easier to channel innate rider abilities. Each of the elemental riders, when you think about it, does this. Ruby, her bows (mostly); Sally, her bazooka; Hannah, her staff; Gary, his sword and shield; Vili, her dagger; D.D., her wand/her sword; Whitney, her guns/knives.

The only one who doesn't use a weapon is Amy, but she has her vampiric nature as a channel (where, basically, her base powers are 'light-based counterparts to innate vampire powers that usually are darkness'), and, she is a semi-magical creature inherently (whereas Ruby is not inherently magical; she's just as artificially magical as any other rider or any other vampire).

Basically, channeling powers especially elemental powers is much, much, much easier if you do it through something beyond your body, because if you use your body directly...you run into the problem of exhausting your innate magic very very very very very very quickly. This innate magic is a little like a muscle; you flex it when you use magic and stress it when you use a lot and magical fatigue is basically when you sprain it from having used too much.

So over time you can do it...with lots and lots and lots of practice and experience using magic. Thus, why the form takes ten years minimum, no cheating, to obtain. And thus, why the form while technically canonical in that it definitely is a thing that happens in the future of the Rubyverse, won't appear in Red Hood Rider itself, which spans the course of two years total.

But as for what the form is, beyond basically allowing Ruby to use all of the aspects of Darkness and Light simultaneously (for how broken that is, well, I know I've written blogs on darkness-element's brokenness and feel like I did one for light, too, a few years ago)...

...It is the coolest image I've ever imagined.

On Ruby's right arm, there's swirling, twisting tendrils of black darkness, which create the aesthetic of a hybrid between a skintight suit and a bulky spiked gauntlet. These tendrils form sharp, long, boney fingers. At the tip of these fingers are red claws. The only part not imbued with this swirling mass of darkness? The palm, which is a swirling mass of crimson energy, spinning in a vortex. On the back of her hand, opposite the palm, rests a red gem.

When this formation reaches her shoulder, it spreads out to be a hybrid between black-feathers and black-tendrils to form an incredibly long, gigantic wing-like shape, which flows like a cape, pointing backwards with the effect of a perpetual wind, while still being movable/manipulable. (The closest example I can think of is the main female ghoul from Tokyo Ghoul who's a fragile speedster, but even that doesn't capture the effect I'm going for exactly.)

On Ruby's left arm, you get bright yellow masses of strings flowing each and every direction. Hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions of small, barely visible, long, energy strings (think monomolecular razor wire) flowing each and every direction, but many of them loosely forming constructs out of pure light. Mirroring her right hand, the back of her left hand has a white gem on it.

These strings are shaped similarly to the tendrils on the other side, so that results in a sort of skintight golden suit/rounded (as opposed to spikey) gauntlet formation, which continues all the way up her arm. (Both of these don't end at the elbow like a gauntlet would, but continue up to the shoulders where they branch out.)

Predictably, the left shoulder has a white light/feather wing hybrid, mirroring the right shoulder; incredibly long, gigantic, flows constantly, like both the tendrils on the right and the strings further down the left, constantly moving, shifting, changing exact form/position, but being malleable, an effectively cape/wing hybrid thing, pointing loosely backwards.

These wings are, more or less, combining the best of her arcangel super form's abilities, by allowing her to have the wing weapons of them, yet critically, having them not attached to her arms (which are thus, free, to do different things) while still permitting them to be used for both flight and barrage of abilities.

Her feet have, overlayed over them, each an automatic crossbow construct, acting as boots. (These allow her to do the "wall jump in air" effect where characters bounce in the air--mind you, she can already fly, but this allows her to shoot forward in directions. Which also gives her incredible movement speed boosts and also one hell of a kick. But that's beside the point.)

Her shins are layered in the bolts basically lifted from her arbalest armor super form, allowing her to use the abilities from that form, and to continuously reload her crossbows on her feet. (For those keeping track, this gives her six avenues of attack potentially; legs, arms, and wings.)

Her thighs are layered in overlapping black blades, taken from her blood staff. (Her blood staff's blade portion has the blades be about the length of a thigh, by my estimate, so this blade-armor works perfectly here.) This basically hybridizes her inherent vampiric abilities with said arbalest armor. Said blades can be telekinetically launched separately from the bolts (that's an ability she has with her blood staff; she can throw it and telekinetically control its trajectory and this is the ultimate extension of that ability), but she can also launch the blades using the crossbow for extra power/momentum behind the shot.

On her back, there's nothing. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. From just above her butt (by about as much as her normal shorts) to her shoulders...there's absolutely no clothing. A completely and totally exposed back. (She's wearing a dress, and backless dresses are a thing which exist. What she's wearing incorporates one of them, by using the Bleach logic of "anything she'd wear would be blow off by her own energy", more or less.)

On her torso, she's wearing a strapless (and, yes, backless) dress (the dress can be red, black, or white; it's red by default). However, said dress in the middle at the top has the V-neck shape. (Strapless dresses tend to be flat, like this - , but this dress would be like this \/.) Which, yes, is mostly for extra cleavage. (Adult Ruby likes to be sexy and to some extent show her assets off; it's one of her more impulsive/vampiric traits which by the time of the future she has made peace with and come to more or less accept as a part of her.)

I realize you can and do have dresses with a V-neck; I realize you can and do have backless dresses; I realize you can and do have strapless dresses; I realize that combining all three is probably impossible in real life, to which I say: Ruby has magic, rules of reality's clothing quite literally mean nothing to her. 

Anyway, said dress extends to about mid-thigh; on both of the sides, she has the inverted-v gap, the split, the slit, whatever it's called (my lifeguard shorts have them and I know that this is a thing that exists on some actual skirts and/or dresses), to allow for increased flexibility/mobility.

On her face, her right eye is blue; her left eye is red. She doesn't have a mask, per se, but she has swirling light energy flowing like water surrounding her right eye, and energy darkness dancing like flames over her left eye.

Her hair extends down to midway down her shins--half-black, half-light-brown. And by "half-black, half-brown", I don't mean "one side brown, the other side black". I don't mean "top brown/black, bottom half black/brown" (the kind of aesthetic that you'd expect from a dye job left to grow out). I don't mean a zebra-like effect down each strand of hair (basically a more extreme version of the previous).

I mean "every other strand of hair being a different color"--not literally, of course. But I mean "every other pencil stroke of hair alternating between those two colors". So pretty close. Basically, for it to be visibly alternating, quite rapidly, between the two colors.

It is literally the most gorgeous, the most amazing image that I have ever envisioned and I love it.

...The problem is.

I'm not a good enough artist to make it.

For a start.
I'd have to draw Ruby as 26 years old. Not as easy as it sounds.
I'd have to nail the hands--given these were the detail that gave me the idea in the first place, they are what I can envision clearest, but they are also what would be the hardest to do. Not just because hands are difficult, but because capturing a "still" of the image, especially when it'd take multiple "camera angles" for me to show off the entirety of the effects I describe, make it impossible for me to draw.

I'd have to nail the wings/capes--this is something that is a never before seen effect. Nobody has made the exact thing I have in mind, to my knowledge. No reference images. And, again. Same problem of trying to capture an object in motion, in a "still", while still portraying that continuous movement.

My weakest point in drawing people is their legs, and the level of detail I'm requiring is insane for them, but all that said...this part is probably the easiest part, aside from needing multiple "camera angles" to capture the crossbow-boots to their full effect.

The face is something that is incredibly hard for me to get down. The effect there is one which is crystal clear in my head but when I try to think of "how would I convey this effect in a drawing?", I come up blank; how could I convey that this is energy, not a physical mask? How can I convey that it's basically my unique take on "energy flowing out of the eyes, just...not directly out of the eyes"?

And then...for all of this...how can I convey this without color? Well, obviously, I can color this image, but even without it...how can I convey these effects without relying exclusively on color to pull them off?

I know for a fact that if I TRIED to draw this and just went "I'll use colors to pull off these effects"...I'd hate the drawing(s). Because it just...wouldn't be effective. It needs to work in pencil. I know it can in theory. In theory, it's possible to do what I am aiming to.

In practice, I'm just not good enough yet.

Which is where a little frustration comes in.

Haha.

It just occurred to me one of the reasons I like Not A Villain so much.

It's because my most ambitious webcomic idea of all time which to this day I would love to make but know I could never make had a loose parallel to it--the idea of three separate art styles for three separate settings. The seventh webcomic I ever made, which I called SciFanTerra, focused on a guy living out an every-day just-recently-graduated-college life (which was meant to have a somewhat-realistic cartoonish style), pulled into a fantasy setting with magic and whatnot where he was declared The Chosen One (with a more animesque art style and where he is de-aged to appear to be a teenager), and who after returning home is selected to help in intergalactic affairs (in stick figure style), and it had loads and loads and LOADS of characters with an intricate balance between magic and technology and lots of worldbuilding and rules and whatnot and remains one of my favorite ideas ever even though I know I can never make it.

But!
Point being.
Not A Villain differentiates its three different areas with three different art styles, and I just now remembered why that was so appealing to me; it's because years ago (we're talking, somewhere in the 2008-2010 range), I had the exact same sort of idea.

​Funny how things work like that.

So last night, I started binge-reading a comic...but couldn't catch up on it overnight before tiredness claimed me. Now, admittedly. I did 550 pages, started at 3 am, and this was like two hours later, so that's still 550 pages in two hours, butstill. There's seven hundred pages and I only got 3/4ths of them overnight. May or may not have the time to do more later, kinda have stuff to do today, but I want to.

The comic in question is one I've always wanted to binge-read, Not A Villain, and now I'm glad I have. I can aptly describe it as such:
Has a strong parallel to Danganronpa (especially the second game) with ever so slightly the touch of Hunger Games (The Game and it requiring watchers to do well in).

But more specifically.

I can describe it adequately as:
"Imagine Danganronpa's setting where Junko Enoshima did all of the things she did...but then, had a legitimate HeelFaceTurn." With Junko post-turning-good being the protagonist trying to overcome how she literally ended the world. (Or as Jake puts it, "redeem the unredeemable".)

If you've played the Danganronpa games enough to be familiar with them, and you've read to the point I have in Not A Villain, you'll instantly get where I'm coming from with that description and I do think it is an apt one. A very very apt one, given the setting.

Like I said, pretty busy today so this might be my only blog entry in spite of it being short (I'm kinda rushing to get this in during a brief gap so I don't forget to mention this later), butyeah. Definitely something I'd recommend.

...But since I actually made an entry yesterday, if I made this entry yesterday, it wouldn't have archived properly given that I'd have been writing it at 6 am. (It'd have appeared before my first entry in spite of being written chronologically after the first entry.) I coulda technically just not moved the date and done it at 6 am and technically called it a blog for the day, but I hate doing that especially as it tends to restrict when I can write a proper blog for the day (it forces me to make the entry before midnight, because after midnight when the entry was posted at 6 am means the only way I'd get the chronology right is if the after-midnight entry was even later, e.g. 7 am).

But anyway.

Last night I continued my bingereading habits with a comic I picked up through much the same source as the last times I've done so. A wiki walk through TVTropes starting on EGS's TVTropes Trivia page for image links. Incidentally, the webcomic I ended up for itself HAS a TVTropes page image to its credit, one that I'm actually surprised ISN'T EGS; it has the current page image for Dude Looks Like A Lady (which EGS's Tedd is usually who you'd expect to hold the championship of that over).

This comic would be, to save you the trouble of checking the TVTropes page (also said image could change over time and probably will), Dubious Company. A comic about wannabe-Pirates, pretty much, who're needless to say slightly inept at their chosen profession, to say the least.

Quite the humorous series and was well worth the read. The text-based epilogue pretty much sums up the cast. (I'm paraphrasing a non-spoiler part of it, no worries.) Where a few of the characters are good people, but the main pirates are just...people. People who do good things, people who do bad things, just people. Who love to drink rum. Lots, and lots, and LOTS of rum. (They're pirates. Even if inept ones. Basically the entire reason they're pirates is to drink as much rum as they want to, which is to say, more rum than they'd ever be able to get their hands on.)

Writing this kinda reminds me of the sort of thing I used to do a lot; there was a time where, when I did basically nothing but read lots of webcomics, I wrote long essays of glowing praise to obscure comics I had found that few others were aware of. Or even sometimes, I'd write long essays of glowing praise to not-so-obscure comics I had found that were pretty popular but which I wanted to show my support for in the best way I knew how.

This review isn't even close to what sorts of essays I used to write, but did remind me of that trend I had. I miss doing that. Just...talking about the works of others which I enjoyed, and referring them to others, so that others can see if they like it a much as I did. I'll often give them warnings about any pitfalls about the comic, things which might be valid criticisms of it, and I will acknowledge shortcomings of the comic which I wish were better, but I'll still end up saying that if you can look past those flaws/issues, that there is some genuinely good entertainment/enrichment to be had from the reading experience.

It's something I just loved to do, to show my love and support to people who did what I failed to do. Write, and draw, a comic. I just...hold a ton of respect for webcomic artists/authors, because. Well. They did what I dreamed of doing, only they did it better than I did, in some form or another. It could be art. It could be characterization. It could be atmosphere. It could be worldbuilding. It could be length. It could be in setup. It could, and often is, more than one of these. Heck, it can be all of them at once, or maybe it's something inexplicable which I didn't list above.

They did something that I ended up failing at, and didn't fail at it.

​It should be little wonder why I read so many webcomics.

Mind you, I chose that wording carefully because while I'm not as bad as I was yesterday, this is more a reversion to be what I was two days ago--that being, still depressed, just...not as painfully so. I am still down and can feel that I am quite down, I just am not as horrifically down as I was yesterday.

I'm not upbeat, I'm not energetic, I'm still fairly lethargic, I'm down, and I'm just not enthused by most things, but I'm at least at the point of feeling like I can live, whereas yesterday was actually kinda DANGEROUS levels of low.

Soyeah. Not gonna lie. I could be better. I could be much, much better. I would love to be absolutely entirely better than where I am at right now. I even kinda have an inkling of a desire to be inspired, a desire to work on something, a desire to be passionate, so maybe I'm on the rebound.

...But I know I'm not recovered yet, because while there's that small portion of desire, it's not actually focused on anything. If my lack of focus were because of too many things, I'd know I'd be recovered, but my lack of focus here is because there is no thing. No single thing, and no more-than-one thing. Just nothing. 

I have the desire to be inspired, which is good, but nothing actually inspiring me, which is not as good. In actuality, I feel like I can kinda sorta express where I'm at with this, kinda sorta. I feel like what I want to do isn't so much as work on anything, so much as I want to talk about something. On here. On my blog.

I want my blog to basically, were it to actually have readership (which I know it doesn't, stats be damned, because I know there's no way that I'm getting at-lowest 30 readers a day, at-highest 110 readers a day; I'd expect maybe one tenth of those to be real, 3-11 people per day).

If people were actually reading what I was writing. For it to actually be something that was inspiring to them. That was uplifting to them. I need not write uplifting content myself. My blog entry could be entirely a long entry about why my day sucked, but what I kinda want is that if people actually read my blog, for them to actually have some thorough enjoyment, entertainment, enrichment, enlightenment, from it.

You know.

Basically.

It's the same dream I had when I first became a writer which kept me being a writer for all those years that I was a writer.
It's the same dream I have for being a webcomic artist, and for sharing Phyrra and Cyrus with the rest of the world, even after having had the writer within me be basically dead for novelwriting.

It's to have others feel the same way about what I wrote, that I feel about things that I read. You know how I go on about all these things that enriched my life? How Dan Shive was a massive inspiration to me once I read his work. How Grrr Power was a massive inspiration to me once I read the comic (okay admittedly you never got the full blog entry there but you did get a part of it).

How Worm was an incredibly uplifting, inspirational, piece of work in spite of it being incredibly dark, just because it represented how you can do so much and make a work so incredible online using just sheer willpower combined with clever planning basically, determination combined with competent storyboarding, to lay out a guideline to a plot.

And so on and so forth.

That's been going on since I was a kid. When I was young, I saw that Eragon was published by a person when they were a teenager--I knew that the Inheritance Cycle was, objectively speaking, not a too terribly well-written book series filled to the brim with flaws, but the inspiring fact about it wasn't the quality of the books (which I felt were entertaining in spite of being flawed; think basically "like most mainstream films these days" which are absolute junk in so many ways but can still be mindless entertainment that you get creative ideas from).

It was that a teenager managed to write, then successfully sell, the book he wrote. The books sold, and they sold well. That they sold so well, no matter what you think of the quality of the material, means that the author did something right. Same principle applies to the Twilight Saga. I enjoyed reading it, and the books sold well. I objectively know about all of the flaws in the series which have been pointed out to the point of being old, boring news.

Everyone knows the books are objectively junk--but they were still enthralling enough to be an enjoyable read in spite of knowing all the flaws therein, and the books still sold incredibly well. You can say whatever you'd like about the author; you can say whatever you'd like about the quality of the books. But the fact that they sold incredibly well, combined with my subjective experience of enjoying them in spite of knowing that they were flawed. Means that you have to acknowledge that objectively, she did something right.

She was able to sell something that was flawed, and make people buy it in spite of its flaws, and even enjoy it knowing all of what is flawed within. For all the flaws of the writing you can find, the fact that it had that effect, again, means that there was something being done right.

And that's the effect which has always been inspiring to me as a writer. Knowing that in spite of the flaws of the writing, it is still possible to make a product that people genuinely enjoy, and can derive entertainment from. More than that! That they can be enriched in their lives from having read a work in spite of the flaws of that work. That they can be inspired, that they can be uplifted, to the point where they dream big and can maybe do something that they otherwise wouldn't.

In other words.

My dream of dreams is basically. To be able to have it so that I do for others, what others have done for me, throughout my life. Picked me up, made me stronger, made me more enriched, made me more inspired, made me the dreamer that I am. I want to make other people dream. I want to make others be picked up by what I do.

And right now the only way I have of doing that is through the one thing that I've never consistently failed at for the longest time of anything I've worked on. Which is my blog. Yes, I occasionally for whatever reason miss an entry in spite of the aim to be a daily blog. But the simple fact of the matter is. By and large. For four and a half years.

I've kept this going.

Do you know what else I've kept going for four and a half years?

Pretty much nothing.
Nothing that's me, at least.
Sure, job; tae kwon do; dancing; counseling. Stuff like that, been doing longer than four and a half years. But it doesn't really count as being me. Those things are a part of me, but they aren't a part of my expression of me.

Every dance I try to write, I don't finish.
Every time I take up songwriting I never go anywhere with it.
Every time I try to compose music, I keep it in my head and do nothing with it.
Every time I write a story, I never end up following through with it and publishing it.
Every time I start a webcomic, I end up abandoning it, even after having taken precautions against abandoning it.
Every time I work on a project, I end up abandoning it, even after knowing about my bipolar disorder and taking steps to counteract it.

I have listened to uplifting speech after uplifting speech. People who succeed say the same cliched lines about why they succeeded, not because it's a cliche, but because the cliche is cliche because it is true to reality and they all say the same thing because the same thing held true for each of them. I forget the exact words, but something along the lines of willpower being temporary, of how the drive to work is temporary, but you need to keep doing it, keep efforting at it, even when you don't feel like it, force your way through it, keep at it, and if you really want it, you will put in the work necessary to get it done.

More or less, something along those lines at least. And I have tried to implement that advice before--tried...and failed. I have, consistently, failed. In spite of knowing about the autistic concept of inertia. I know that once I get rolling I can keep things rolling but that when they screech to a halt they stay stopped with a near-impossibility to get started again. I take measures to prevent the stop, and even if the stop happens, I tell myself that I have the strength of will to push the stopped train, inch by inch, until it's moving again.

...But I never actually do and all the planning in the world falls apart because I, frankly, just suck. I dream. I dream the dream, I never bring the dream to reality. For all of those things. For all of those ideas. They all fail. I've gone into this before, about how while I dream of succeeding, I'm actually happier in my failures, and hypothesize that's why so many people who don't make it big can still be happy and why quite a number of people who do make it big are often not-so-happy in spite of having made it big.

Who knows, maybe that is true. I honestly don't know anymore. I am a contradictory being. Old enough where I'm expected to more or less be solidifying myself, young enough where I can't actually do so and am constantly, consistently, second-guessing every single thing about everything. All my beliefs, all my thoughts on myself, how I view things, everything, I doubt it all and I constantly revise everything including my outlook on life.

But I'm going on a bit of a tangent, there. My point is...I generally am just. A failure in general. Yet this blog is pretty much the one thing which I don't think I have failed at.

I've had plenty of blog entries where I didn't succeed.

I like to pour my heart and soul out every single entry, so when I am forced to blog-dodge for whatever reason. Forced to make an empty, substanceless entry. Forced to make nothing. Or whenever I forget to make an entry. When anything like that happens. Obviously, it's not a success.

But by and large. Four and a half years. Four and a half years, I've been doing this blog. And by and large it actually has succeeded. It hasn't succeeded as often as I'd like. It certainly hasn't succeeded in all the ways I'd hope it'd succeed, in part because those hopes are by and large contradictory. I've wanted different things out of my blog at different times, so of course my blog can't be all of them.

But it's still been most of them, most of the time. Even this entry. It started out as any other would, and yet now has been built up to be something actually unique. And there's the charm, I feel, in my blog writing. There's where I derive some hope from.

I want what I write on this blog. No matter the subject. About me. About me talking about my latest passion project. About whatever caught my fancy. About something I read, something I watched. About whatever I have on my mind when I make a blog entry. I want what I write here to be something that readers can get some enjoyment from.

I want as many people as is possible to read my blog, so that as many people as is possible can find something, anything, in my blog, which made it worth the read. I want a blog which is worth the time and effort to read. After all.

It's four and a half years.
And counting.
Of content.
Filled with entries that are this length and longer.
Like, what's my longest entry? I wouldn't even know, but it'd have to be something probably ten times as long as this already-lengthy blog.

I know that even I can't read all four and a half years of my blog.
I can't even really stand to skim too much of it. I just don't have the time/focus to review it all, even though I know that I'd actually be better off if I did review what I wrote/said from time to time so that things that I said that I didn't want to be forgotten, aren't actually forgotten.

And if I.
The girl who wrote the blog in the first place.
If I.
The person who made the entries in the first place.
If I.
The person who can read 800 pages in a single night and then some.
If I.
The person who could read almost all of Worm in the span of weeks, and then finish the rest in the span of days. When that work is over a million words long by some significant amount.

If I can't do it.

Then I doubt anyone else could. And even if they could, I doubt that they would.

Sure, some people like to stay fairly current on my blog; they read it every day, or if not, they binge-read it every few days, every week, every month, you name it. Some people do that, and can do that. That's not too hard to do; keep current on something updating every day.

But starting from the beginning? Yeahhhhhhh nobody can start from the beginning, read every entry, and get caught up, while having read it all well and truly having read it all. It's impossible.

But believe it or not.

I'm actually kinda proud of that.

It's enough content that it's impossible to keep track of it all.

Instantly that means it's worth more than most other things.

I know that my few readers, such as they are, have changed over the years.
I know that they come and they go.
That I legitimately do have a small readership who stay...but who said readers are that stay, tend to change.
But right now the closest I have to inspiration to do something is...well. Just this. My blog.

At this point, I think that the closest thing I'll ever have to a lasting legacy is in fact this blog.
Not any story I'll write; I won't probably ever publish even though that's been a lifelong dream of mine.
Not any webcomic I'll start; I won't probably ever finish any of them no matter my desire.
Not any ambitious project, e.g. a video game, Phyrra and Cyrus; you actually think that I, me, Bree, could actually have the conviction necessary to see it through, by myself? Nooooooooot a chance in hell. Maybe, maybe, MAYBE with the right support network I could see them through, but that would require that support network be perfectly placed and able to push me in that direction actively and consistently and continuously and to keep me from slacking.

Realistically speaking.
This blog is it.
It's all I'll ever actually have as lasting proof.
Because after I'm gone.
You'll have random scattered notes everywhere about random scattered ideas I had. In bad handwriting, with most of the papers having long-since deteriorated due to whatever various poor conditions they were stored in having withered away the penciling/ink to the point where the already-basically-unreadable writing is turned utterly-illegible. 

The ideas die with me.
And because I will probably never actually get those ideas to reality.
They will never be made. They will always just...disappear, when I (hopefully very very very far away) eventually die.
Which, mind you, I know is morbid and is obviously something which isn't something that many people (including myself) like to dwell on, but is a hard fact of life. Much as we like to dream of being immortal and plan on living forever, everyone including myself dies eventually.

Since I don't want to really ponder on it much further, not going to say more on that than that, but what I'm focusing on is how this blog is basically...well. Assuming it isn't taken down at some point. (Which would really really suck and screw you weebly if you ever do that to me.) It's the proof I was alive. It's the proof I was a person. It's the proof I existed. It's the best insight into my personality, my being, my existence, that will remain. It's the record of who I was as a person.

It's not a perfect record, of course. But it's a lasting insight into who I am--and it is something which is there available for everyone to see. It is available to all, which is one of the things which I've always wanted. I've wanted to share myself with the world. I've wanted to share my being with others, open up and just. Tell them about myself. Tell them anything and everything about me.

Basically lay out my life's story, except for the things about my life that I want to keep private to only me or those that I choose to share those things with. (E.g. things that I tell my girlfriend and only my girlfriend are...pretty self-evidently, going to have a level of intimacy to them.)

This blog is who I am. It's not all of who I am, but it is who I am, as is recorded in time, in history. And I know nobody reads it, in spite of my dreams otherwise. But that doesn't stop the dreams from existing. Of this blog. Of my writing here. Being the thing that I get from others all the time.

Of being something that enriches the lives of those who read it. Of being something worthwhile to have read. Of being something that people actually enjoyed experiencing. Of sharing my visions with others, and those visions having inspired those others, in spite of them having been mine.

I guess that typing this out has made me feel even better than I was before, a little. Because that spark is there. Mind you. Beyond continuing to blog every day, not gonna do anything with it. I could, theoretically, have ways to spread my blog to others. When I comment on webcomics that allow you to link to a site, I deliberately avoid linking to any site including this blog, even though I could easily do so without consequence and have said link theoretically lead to potentially more exposure. Same for comments on Worm; I left a few and had that option, but chose not to take it.

I could theoretically explore post options more; there's options for search engine optimization. There are sites which I have profiles on that don't link to my blog even though both ComicFury and the site I play mafia on contain the blog link; on the ones that don't, I could add it in.

By having an increased presence on other sites, with a link to the blog, I would in theory be able to get an increased number of readers. Heck, all of those are free but if I really wanted to, there are paid options to expand what I can do using weebly's software (paid options which can go to hell as far as I'm concerned; I'm never paying so much as a cent to weebly and if they try to force me to, they can kiss my presence goodbye; I'd find somewhere else to blog).

That I can list these options but am not going to do them tells you what I mean--I could do more with my blog to increase its exposure, and with luck, increase the odds of my dream coming true, of me succeeding in having it be what I dream of dreams it being, of it being uplifting, inspiring, and so on and so forth.

But beyond making entries like this.

I won't actually do that.

So the dream will remain just that, a dream.

​But it's a nice one to have, isn't it?

Well it's not purely my depression, mind you, as some things have gone, to use a non-cuss-word, rather poorly to say the least, with screwups that are entirely my fault (can't really talk about them, mind you), but those things? Theyyyyy don't explain my sudden inexplicable nosedive by themselves, not even coupled with me being depressed.

The depression had to have gotten just outright worse than it was before. No other way to explain it; the bad things might've made it worse, but this was happening anyway regardless of those things. Heck, even how I react to events I know is different, based off of me binge-reading another webcomic.

In this case? Evil Plan. Tone-wise, it's actually something I'd call probably overall more lighthearted than dream*scar, albeit because it's literally documenting the rise of supervillains, having its moments of darkness. (The two stories are obviously vastly, vastly different in so many ways, but I'd say they have similar themes/undertones/atmosphere to them in that they are documenting people who want to make the world a better place knowing how bad it currently is, who take actions that are fairly tragic and gut-wrenching but which make total sense given the setting.)

Yesterday, dream*scar was uplifting to me, in spite of it being overall darker than Evil Plan is. And yet, today, after having binge-read Evil Plan, I actually felt awful. Still enlightened, mind you. Still enriched from the reading experience. I absolutely love superhero/villain settings and I absolutely love villain protagonists so no duh I love a setting which combines the two together.

But when I caught up, instead of just a minor disappointment of, "aw, that's all that's been released?!?", there was just a genuine sadness to my emotions after I caught up and I just kinda hit a slump and realized...that my feelings were different today than they were yesterday.

Honestly, if I had reversed the reading order? Yesterday doing Evil Plan and today doing dream*scar? I think you'd be in for this exact same blog, pretty much, just with the situations slightly reversed, with me swearing that the slightly-darker atmosphere does not justify the feelings for my attitude after catching up on it.

Because, again. Think this is just a me-thing.

Gives me comics to look forward to, sure, yeah.

But it's also just...I'm legitimately sad and just. Down. Really, really down right now. Depression was there before, but not gutwrenchingly crippling before. I can physically feel the pain of my emotions right now. And that's not just reading a webcomic; that's not just bad things happening to me; those things might contribute but aren't the root cause. The simple fact is that my depression just got worse and I just...can't do anything about it.

I'm sorry.

I want the blog to be all upbeat and energetic, filled with passion and love where I pour my heart and soul into explaining the myriad of things that I love to ramble on about. New story ideas, new love of things I've read/seen/etc., experiences that are incredibly noteworthy from my day, and so on and so forth.

But right now all I can think to do is...vent, and hope that this can make me feel some semblance of better, even though I know it won't. Nothing but time can truly cure depression; any activity I derive happiness from simply staves it off for a temporary duration.

It's just that with shutdown week at work, I don't work for six days (stupid bloody staff meeting scheduled during last day of shutdown week means I don't quite get the full week). No work, no need to go to bed at midnight. Also, with depression set in as well (it comes and goes but is still definitely here to some extent), I had free time.

Lots of free time.

As in.

"Binge-read about 840ish comics in a night", time--albeit spread out across two comics. One appears to be on a hiatus for whatever reason (the tvtropes page didn't mention why, but it's probably something which I could track down the info on why if I searched, but I don't need it to recognize that not updating for a year is a hiatus for some reason), but was quite the good read in the form of dream*scar.

The other still updates, and is called The Fantasy Adventures of Jack Cannon. Though I haven't read them yet, I also picked up two extra comics which I may or may not get around to binge-reading this week. I just...kinda...felt like reading, I guess? Depression tends to be the time I do a lot of that. Comics can be kinda uplifting to read (even if the content is anything but--within reason), and for some reason I just am really good at reading stuff.

Those 800 pages? It was done in less than three hours. That's about my estimate, at least. Didn't mark the exact begin time, but I know that I started well after midnight--I started on TVTropes, with a browse based around the EGS trivia page (image liiiiiiiiinks), and it was only from there after reading multiple pages (well parts of them anyway) that I found the comics, which is where my estimate comes in.

I'm guessing that the TVTropes browsing concluded at about 1:30ish? Okay so maybe it was under four hours, but I was finished before 5:30. Depending on my start time, then, guess it may or may not be that impressive. But to give you an idea of the TVTropes browsing I did, it was the pages The Atoner, Chirping Crickets, Conveniently Seated, Deadly Upgrade, Defensive What, Defrosting Ice Queen, Differently Dressed Duplicates, Distracted By My Own Sexy, Dope Slap, Education Mama, Fantastically Indifferent, Faux Yay, Filler Strips, Flat What, Gender Bender, Hates Being Touched, Humanity Ensues, and Hyperspace Mallet.

I started after midnight, made my way through all of those, then started the webcomics, and did that in less than five hours, sooooo. Reference point, kinda sorta. Point is. Pretty sure that's not a normal reading speed and that most people can do less than that in that amount of time.

One of my gifts, I guess.

Once more, by the way, my conclusion's the same as I made originally; reading vastly enriches my life, but largely gives me nothing except a method of doing something other than sleeping to deal with the depression. When you don't feel like doing anything else...it is something that at least feels like it had purpose, because, again. Enrichment. I feel genuinely enriched by the experience.

Not, mind you, particularly inspired (though there's a really good EGS sketchbook entry I'm deliberately not moving past because reading it was incredibly inspiring and I'm hoping that rereading it will get me reinspired when the depression wave has faded), but still enriched. I don't see anything productive from spending the time reading the stories/tropes. But it still felt good, and it felt like it was something that I was better for having read. 

Which, given the depression, is about as much as I can really ask for.

Oh and by the way--speaking of the time. Did I mention it's almost six am? I should probably go to bed soon. The coffee I had six hours ago's by now fully worn off. Not that that was what was stopping me from going to bed mind you. But. It contributes. I'm not particularly tired (tired enough to go rambling on in the magic productivity zone of "tired enough to wander, not tired enough to not be able to be any semblance of coherent"), but I can feel the sensation of tiredness and even if I couldn't...

...Objectively. I kinda know I should be going to bed anyway.

Soyeah.
Spent the night reading.

​Now to spend half the day sleeping.

Hey I never said my blog had to be once a day. If I had my way, every day would be like today with multiple, lengthy, in-depth blog entries, each one covering a new thought or expanding upon a previous existing thought. That's what I had in mind as wanting, as an objective, when I started the blog four and a half years ago. I wanted to make it be a diary of sorts, where I would get out all my thoughts of the day, unless said thoughts I deemed to private to share for whatever various reasons.

In this case, further talking about character models. I was inspired by this sketchbook entry to compile a list--probably incomplete, but everything I could really think of--of things to do without clothing/accessories entering the picture, to vary characters and also have these details stay consistent for them.

The list I came up with was a little extensive--making it intimidating to tackle.

But that means it's all the more important that I am able to nail it.

Some of them are stupidly obvious and basically don't count (hairstyle, colors, etc.). But others I feel are legitimately things that I need to work on in order to actually get my characters looking the way they need to look.

The incomplete list, "things to vary/things to keep consistent", was as follows:

Head size/base shape (circular/oval/square/etc.)
Basic structural form of the head. More rounded, more blocky, more streamlined, etc. This one you can technically write off as being something subdivided below (see below ones to get a good idea), but I think that this is a basic characteristic in of itself.

Hairstyle
The stupidly obvious one. Different hairstyles come from different characters. This is mostly a 'keep consistent' one, though, because I've been widely inconsistent with character hairstyles--mostly by virtue of having changed my mind on them; I need to lock them down.

Hair part
Could technically lump this in with hairstyle, but simply changing the part in the hair can make two previously-identical-looking drawings look like different people. If this is intentional, good; if this was accidental, bad. Keep consistent for the same characters, and experiment with changing for similar characters. 

Eyebrow shape
Subtle one which I can kinda sorta do differently for characters, but which I also kinda suck at keeping consistent for characters; I need to establish this for them.

Eye base shape/location/size
Eyes have a general location on the head, and a general shape, and the size changes with expression, but different characters have different base eye sizes/shapes, and the locations of their eyes are in slightly different spots on their head and need to stay consistent for the character.

Eye indent
Not quite sure what to call this. It's the inward curve on a face around the eye; this is an excellent spot for variety assuming I can nail it down and get it consistent.

Ear location/shape/form (lines inside; width/height)
Ears are generally in the same spot on the head, but there's details that can be changed. The exact position on the head. The exact shape of the ear. The width of the ear. How tall the ear is. Whether the ear has the connection flap to the head or not. (Some people have it, others don't.) And the various ear details inside the ear which are important but which are widely inconsistent in my drawings.

Nose shape/location/size
Again, noses are generally in the same region, but the exact spot they are in can vary, but needs to be consistent. The shape of noses varies, and so too does the size. Noses are a very easy detail to master, and yet they're a detail that I basically just wing it every single time I do a drawing; I slap one on randomly and hope it's right. I need to put thought into them.

Mouth location/base shape
General region of the mouth in reference mostly to the chin and nose; how far up or down it is from them, basically. Also how 'big' their mouth is. Mouths are not all the same size. This is something usually associated with the jaw itself, but isn't inherently the same thing. You can have a big jaw with a small mouth (many 'deformed' characters, e.g. lots of One Piece characters, have this aesthetic), or a small jaw with a big mouth (again, many deformed characters have this aesthetic to them).

In art, this mostly manifests as how big a smile/frown/neutral face/etc. they make, and where it is. It's a small detail, but it needs to be consistent. For female characters, this also controls the size/shape of their lips, a detail that I kinda suck at drawing because I kinda suck at drawing lips.

Cheek/jaw shape/form/angle/etc.
This one is pretty self-explanatory and is one of THE biggest details to establish.
Big difference between jaws of
O
V
O
U
O
|_|

Where O is the top half of the head and the other shapes are various different chin shapes (pointed, rounded, square, being the most common three I can think of and what I was approximating above). These variances in chin/jaw shapes and length can be subtle, but they need to be deliberate above all else. It's one of the biggest details to establish.


Those, just for the face.
I continued down further than just that.
---
Neck-head connection
People have different thickness necks, and these necks have different head connections. This is a detail I can sometimes be good at differentiating between, but usually suck at keeping consistent.

Shoulder width
I usually just use loose estimates where I know guys have twice head width and eyeball it, and girls are slightly more slender than that and eyeball it, but while this is a good guideline, shoulder width isn't universal for all guys and all girls, so this is a detail I should be introducing slight variances in.

Arm connection
That is, the armpit area; not quite sure if this is something that varies, but it's definitely something of an artistic weakpoint and I need to get more consistent at it even if not more variable in it.

Arm length (subdivide forearm length; base hand length)
Pretty self-explanatory. We like to think that arms are all equally proportioned, but they're not. My limbs I know are disproportionately longer, with my torso comparatively smaller. This is, admittedly, not something I want to mess with much, but a little deliberate variation would be nice...and it's something that seriously could use consistency even if I never vary it between characters. Keeping the character with the same-proportioned arm's more important.

Arm tone/definition (musculature)
I kinda suck at drawing muscles which might be one of the reasons I tend to like to draw characters who lack visible ones (girls and effeminate guys). Still, for those who have muscles, I need to be consistent about them.

Shoulder ridges
They have a name but I forgot it. Collars? The two boney protrusions on your front. They can be different thicknesses, lengths, and locations (both in reference to one another with how far apart they are and how down from the shoulders they are), but this needs to be kept consistent, and it's something which isn't right now.

Torso shape/width
And also height, but that's a given. Pretty self-explanatory. Not all torsos are exactly the same in their (lack of) curves. I have basically zero consistency here, when I know I need it.

Breast size
For the characters that have them, of course. I have some general references as guidelines for some characters. Off the top of my head, I know that Aria is quite well-endowed--not extreme anime boobs levels of endowed, but she has the largest chest of any of my frequently drawn female characters. My best reference for this is actually fanart I got of her as part of a Christmas exchange program. That's actually legitimately about how well-endowed she is (maybe ever so slightly smaller), which is to say quite large but not boing-boing-boing-bouncing levels stereotypically seen in anime.

However. Critically. She is the only character of mine to be that well-endowed; while others might have large breasts, if I draw any who have measurements rivaling hers, then I am drawing them off-model because they're supposed to have smaller breasts than she does.

Breasts are usually another of those things I draw mostly by feel, mostly by instinct, of what feels appropriate to draw--and that's not something that leads to artistic growth because it leads to most female cast members having about the same near-universal measurements, measurements that change according to my art rather than according to the character as they should.

Hip shape/width
Wait we were blogging about something? I heard the word breasts and got a little distracted.
*ahem*
Hips are similar to torsos and shoulders in terms of needing variance. I kind-of have trouble making girl's hips be large enough (I consistently make them too small even when I deliberately try to exaggerate them), but in general I could use a lot of consistency here, and yet also a lot of variance because hip sizes are one of the main things that people use to vary character designs especially in females. There's whole TROPES devoted to different hips, which ties into their relationship with the torso.

Leg length (subdivide thigh/shin length; base foot length)
Same as with arm length; I basically said everything there that applies here.

Leg tone/definition (musculature)
Ditto this; same thing applies to leg tone/definition as does arm tone/definition. Mind you, as arm length and leg length are separate (you can have short arms and long legs, or vice-versa), so too are these different; you can have ridiculously muscular legs and scrawny arms, or vice-versa.


Then there were a few miscellaneous considerations.
---
Height
Obvious one, which ties into proportions, of leg length/torso height/head shape/etc.

Basic proportions (limbs/etc. disproportionately big/small)
Kinda sorta covered above, but if a character has a significant part from the "generic"/"standard" design, this departure needs to itself be kept consistent.

Basic skin color
Obvious thing to track is obvious. And I do...except my notes are computer-specific quite often meaning that I've long-since lost my exact RGB combos for basically every single character I've ever drawn. I'd need to manually recreate them, and my recreations wouldn't be exact and would only be "eh, close enough".

Eye color(s)
Obvious thing is obvious; see above for skin color, and you get this, too.
​
Hair color(s)
Again, obvious thing is obvious; again, see above for skin color and you get this too.

Body Markings
Scars, tattoos, the like. These are separate from accessories such as rings and such, because these are things that can't be removed. I suppose things that are part of the body, like extra limbs (say, horns/wings) would also count as being in this category, but these are things that I have sometimes overused and which I need to scale back on using only when it actually makes sense to be used.

For instance, Aria might have scarring from her ill-fated fight; Sasha living her life definitely has scarring; Tyra and Sinaer both went through experiences that would leave scars; Sally might have gone through an experience leaving a scar; Vili as a seasoned street fighter might have scars somewhere.

But those are about it as far as female characters I draw frequently go--and each of these should be in locations that make sense rather than just being randomly tacked on in "heroic" locations as has been what I've done in the past. I need to work out what their original injury/injuries are/were and from that, figure out what would be left behind, and then consistently show it the entire time.

Anyway.

I think that's about it for blogs from me for today.

Both because I'm running out of time (11:15 pm, and once past midnight, blogs wouldn't archive properly), and because getting this all out has helped me a lot.

Mind you.

Still doesn't make the art.

But this is what I'd need to do​ to make the art.
Art is hard.
Look at that probably-incomplete list of variables I need to track, and imagine applying it across every single pose from every single camera angle they will ever appear in, and now you have an idea of the sort of workload I'm setting out to need accomplished.

For every single character.

You might think that this is overthinking things. That me just winging it is fine, that I do well enough without paying attention to all of these levels--and that's true. I do okay by not tracking these things. But if I want to take my art to the next level, which I do, then these things are a necessity. They are NOT optional to take my art to that level; they are a prerequisite.

I guarantee you, every artist who gets as good as I'm aiming for in some way shape or form can manage this. They might not have neat character sheets, but they still have character references and even if they don't? That's because they've spent years drawing the characters and can do them from memory and still get them "on-model" for the most part.

Take, for instance, Dan Shive; he's had well over seventeen years of drawing almost every single day in terms of experience; he was drawing characters for EGS years before EGS even started and again, EGS started seventeen years ago. And like I said--he did those drawings? Almost. every. single. day.

Whereas me?

I draw one character every six months or so, on average.

One character, not multiple. Every few months, if I'm feeling particularly artsy and active.

There's no shortcut. There's no easy way to get to doing art well. Yes, I get better at doing art when I take long breaks from doing art somehow. I don't know how that works, but it does. Yes that's a thing...but there's limits to that growth. That growth is random, can't be controlled, and is something sporadic at best.

There's no way to become a good artist without time and effort.

And building those character sheets tracking all the data I mentioned?

Best way to get that time and effort in. It is the only way I will ever get to that level, because it's the only way anyone ever really could. By drawing, establishing rules, establishing guidelines, and practicing those drawings with those rules and those guidelines.

Soyeah. Still am not improving in my art just by thinking this out...but by verbalizing it, by having it spoken and a set list of "I need to do this, this, this, and this", it gives me an idea of what I need to do in order to accomplish that improvement.

Which feels good to get out of my system, and slightly satisfies the artist within me.
She'd be more happy if I made this a reality, but she'll have to settle for me having laid out the process by which I could ever possibly make it one.

Not exactly art, per se, although you could theoretically tie this in to art.
I have figured out how to make rudimentary edits to pcx files for my civ 3 mod. So far, the only one I've made is for the luxuries to in the city display screen (basically it involved exporting the existing one, making the changes to the existing one, then importing it back in, after I got the icons in the appropriate order), more or less display correctly (minor magenta pixels may display, but eh, close enough), but on my to-do list is to tackle getting buildings to display as they should...a task I have a feeling I know what will entail, but...*shudder*...it's going to be hell to get it to work right.

I've implemented literally every building except for the government-specific buildings, and have implemented the governments kinda sorta. Haven't had the game crash on me simply by having the governments exist, but that doesn't mean they work right. I still need to work out the exact balancing scheme for them; I've more or less outlined a general idea of a plan for them, but it is something that self-evidently needs tweaking.

Basically, Despotism (starting government of Persia, Goths, Celts, and Egypt) is the base government; I raised unit support from 4 to 6 for all, and this is the "universal +2 buff" that I applied to all other civs. I also raised Draft and Military Police to 3 each. (On my to-do list is to check governments' stats in full for all other scenarios.)

Monarchy became 4/6/12 with draft/military at 3/4 and was otherwise left alone.

Communism was raised to be 8/8/8, draft/military 3/5, with elite spies and was otherwise left alone--might need to buff Communism further, though, to give it the edge over tribal council (see below).

Republic's one I go back and forth on. War weariness is something I'm iffy on, but for now is set on Low. Cost/unit could be debilitating at its default 2, but for now I've left that alone. 3/5/6 is their unit support, with draft/military at 2/1; I'm not sure if that's appropriate in a scenario where you're generating a bajillion units to support and if playing one of the four warpowers, are locked in a war. The buff to veteran diplomats seems paltry compensation for this. (That said, Republic was given literally the best government-specific buildings, sooooooooo...)

Democracy given the scenario properties wouldn't be viable with high war weariness, so I set it to low. Their stats are similar to a republic, with 1/1/1 unit support per city (worse), and 2/1 draft/military and Elite diplomats. My concern is that this makes Democracy a worse Republic, even though Democracy has the worker rate bonus over Republic. Might need to buff the worker rate, or do something there.

Fascism I more or less buffed what was already there; 8/14/20 unit support, 4/6 draft/military police, veteran spies/diplomats, but keeping the drawbacks of the government.

Feudalism I tried hybridizing the game's default with the Shogun's-basically-better-Monarchy version of. Paid labor, no war weariness, trade bonus, no tile penalty, 6/8/10 unit support, draft/military set at a higher 5/6 (as a draw to the government), corruption/waste at problematic, but keeping the 3 upkeep cost of units. Plus veteran spies. Not quite sure if the hybrid works out as intended, but I think I'm on the right track.

Tribal Council right now is a better Communism it feels like, with free unit support, communal corruption, no war weariness, forced labor, 3/4 draft/military police, and elite spies/diplomats. This is where I want the government to be, so I'm not nerfing this; what needs to happen is buffs elsewhere in relation to this. I set it as the government for the Mongols, who need that free unit support to compensate for starting with basically no cities but having a ton of settlers ready to settle. (Well, migrants.)

Oligarchy I saw as being "similar to Monarchy"; nuisance not problematic corruption, forced not paid labor, 3/4 draft/military, and 3/5/11 unit support. I see this as approximately fair, though maybe it needs to be 4/6/12. It's meant to be close to normal Monarchy regardless. It's the government I set for Rome, Carthage, and Greece. (Persia not being one as in Rise is for balance reasons; Despotism being a worse government counterbalances the fact that Persia starts with a freakin' empire. Granted, it only takes Persia one turn to switch governments, butstill.)

Imperialism I hybridized the Rise/Fall versions of in some aspects, with high preferential treatment to the Rise version. Corruption at nuisance, unit support cost of 0 (effectively free, but handled differently), worker rate 4 (same as Fascism; most governments are 2, with Democracy at 3), draft/military 4/4, paid labor, unit support (not that it's relevant) 4/6/10, no war weariness, elite diplomats/spies.

Blood Cult, I learned, from the game has a unique trait: not requiring maintenance. (Well, Anarchy has that, but that doesn't count.) This INSTANTLY became my focus for the government, but I kept it well-rounded in other aspects as well. Removed the tile penalty (which I realize means Despotism's the only government with it and I am okay with that), no war weariness, forced labor, veteran diplomats, elite spies (this is straight out of the game mind you), 10/10/10 unit support (this is out of the game as well, just with the +2 bonus), 3/3 draft/military police, problematic corruption.

Protestant Monarchy is currently "maybe a worse Democracy", so might need a buff. Minimal corruption/waste, 2/2 draft/military support, trade bonus, worker rate 3, paid labor, no war weariness, 3/4/6 unit support. Seems to be comparable, but again, Democracy might need a buff.

So governments are loosely in.
Buildings, aside from governments (and unit generation, as in most cases, the units they're meant to generate aren't in the game yet), are in.
Resources I fixed to be in as they're meant to be.
Still need to implement Wonders (a little bit more of an undertaking than buildings) and units, and I'm midway through adding some of the buildings that I want cities to start with (this is something that I'll need to test out by playtesting and playtesting and playtesting).

I also need to tweak stuff like starting gold of civs; I had a rough idea of how much gold I wanted each to start with, and need to actually implement it.

So the scenario's progressing nicely. Lags like hell at every stage (seriously, it almost crashes every single time I try to launch the scenario) so frankly, once again, might be utterly unplayable; has way too many resources on the map for each civ (I could make do with literally half as many, and my playstyle of denying my opponents key strategic resources is nigh-impossible even though this means that the second half of my playstyle involving not being denied strategic resources is equally as super-viable) and just a lot of things that I executed imperfectly, but perfection is the enemy of good.

I do keep questioning myself, wondering what the scenario would be like if I made it perfectly rather than the hot mess I'm building, but oh well. I'm still making it, albeit not constantly. Just when it fancies me.

I did do a side-project for a while; a tweaked Middle Ages scenario. Played it twice through, once as the Kievans (a bit of a test-run, that; managed to trigger both the domination and VP wincons the same turn though it was effort to get the domination to trigger because I had to propaganda-steal a ton of cities and make some ill-advised conquests of enemy cities that left my own cities vulnerable but so worth it), then as the Abbasids.

Was quite fun. The exact list of changes is a little more extensive than I would've originally made, but I kept the heart and soul, the core, of the scenario the same. No new units/buildings, just modifying existing ones to fix some annoyances.

With no score-tracking, though, twice was enough for that.

Soyeah. On the gaming front, while I've largely not been talking about it, I did make progress there.

It's not the thing I want to focus on, mind you (and I can only work on it for so long before wanting to do...well, more than just that), but I feel like I'm making significant progress all the same.

​If only I could make that same progress in my art.

Mostly just to remember things I was annoyed I couldn't, such as RIN's name being Rin. (I vaguely recalled her last name, but couldn't quite pin it down as being Takeyami. As a reminder, I wasn't really looking for a real Japanese surname when naming her and while I'd find it neat if Takeyami was a real surname, the trope "As Long As It Sounds Foreign" applies; it sounds Japanese, and the syllable combination was something I found neat, so I wanted it to be her surname accuracy be damned.)

Turns out there were a couple of female characters I had forgotten about, albeit both of them being side-characters. (Herald's sister, and a character who is either born through magic or born well after the series ends; I honestly don't remember which of the two it was. I know it's the former if during the series because one of the parents is too young and both of the parents involved are too responsible to allow for a teen pregnancy, but these are two characters who I can see past-me having canonically paired up by the time of the epilogue and have them have had a daughter by then.)

Mostly, I was right in my knowledge of my own characters, including correctly remembering Gary's surname as being Cross. (The reason there was doubt about that is that the character I made for a roleplay had the surname Cross, and I was wondering if I was just thinking of their surname when trying to remember Gary's, but nope, I had it right. Apparently I think Cross is a good surname for a guy.)

There were a lot of plots referenced which I had forgotten about, too, though a fair number of them I remembered.

My notes are a chaotic mess, over a hundred pages that includes background rubyverse knowledge, random snippets from scripts, outlines loose plot event locations...kinda difficult to follow, but that's to be expected.

​This has only increased the amount I want to do art, dangit.