I'm sure that I could share stories, but given the effectively party day (including a date with my girlfriend), I'll keep it to the short detail--the largest gift I got was a laptop with some pretty impressive specs that I don't remember most of, something which I have wanted for quite a while.

Now all I need is for the magical headphone combination that I'm pretty sure doesn't exist but would be a godsend if it did.

I don't like how most modern headphones are sized--they're the size of the ears, which means...they don't actually cover the ears, allowing even headphones that are brand new to let sound in, because there's just no way to have the ears be fully covered.

Older "ear muff" style headphones, where there's this big gigantic pad over the ear are ideal.

But I also like noise cancellation; the big gigantic ear muff headphones tend to not have that feature, even though it's a useful one to have.

More than both of that though--I don't want a wireless headphone because that takes installation which is a pain (rather than something you can just plug in to have instantly work) and doesn't tend to have the range desired...but I also want headphones that have a longer cord than what I have. The cord I have now is so ridiculously short that I constantly, constantly, am unplugging them on accident, and when I have need of them my range of movement is limited beyond what it should be.

But the cord if it were too long would get tangled up hopelessly. Another useful feature to have is the adjustable length of the split point. All non-wireless headphones feature a split point, where the single cord splits into two, one for each ear. While ones with adjustable lengths tend to be slightly more fragile, it's still a convenient feature to have for customization.

And obviously, I'd like for the actual headphones themselves to be adjustable, because headphones never fit well on your head. The ones I have now can move to be longer, and also have two pivot points. A feature like that is rather useful, too.

I'd love to have a headphone combining these features, because it would be something that I'd get endless mileage out of, but I honestly don't think something like this exists, so I'm not surprised it's something I don't have yet. Still, would be my current dream gift, now that I have a new laptop.

But anyway, I've got work tomorrow, so it's time for bed now.

It's a little hard to tell for certain, but I THINK I've done most of what the power outage put me behind on. (I know it's not everything, because there's one thing which I've been putting off because it's a bit of a project to undertake.)

That's left me feeling content--and I even got a little bored. Watched the first seven episodes of the original Fate/Stay Night anime adoption (at least I think it's the original? It's the one with this wiki page for the episodes, so I just kinda assumed), since it was on my mind.

My older sister, brother, and I during our "anime night"s at one point watched all of Fate/Zero (although I'm watching the original in subs not dubs) quite a while ago--we're talking, years, plural, ago when Fate/Zero was a pretty new anime at least dubbed--and when that happened, I did a little bit of a wiki walk on immersing myself in random pieces of the lore.

Combined with the vast exposure of multiple (rather spoilerific) tropes about the series, and it was just something that I held interest about watching, even though at least one of said siblings did not. (Thus, why we never watched it as a group.) Of course.

I don't know much about it, believe it or not. I know the Fate/Zero stuff more or less (obv), I also believe I pretty much know about Archer, I might know one of the unrevealed Masters, I definitely know what happens to one of the Servants, I know a little about the Master for Berserker, but in actuality, for someone who is TVTropes-spoilered and binged on knowledge, surprisingly?

I don't know much beyond that. (Well, I certainly know about some non-Master/Servant characters. But I am talking about Servants and Masters specifically, who are the ones I am interested in the most.) I finished Episode 7, so I've only seen 4 of the Masters, said Masters' Servants, plus Lancer. And of them, I actually know absolutely nothing (beyond what's been shown) of Rider/Rider's Master; I don't know the specific in-universe lore behind Berserker; I don't really know Lancer well in spite of him being one of the ones I specifically researched (well, it's more like I researched his weapons without stumbling upon much about him, just a few details), you get the idea.

In other words, in spite of me knowing some rather HUGE plot twists.
I actually am finding that by and large.
I actually know nothing in spite of just how much of the series I was anticipating having been spoiled to me.

But I'm calling it a night there.

(Note, I am rather aware that the anime series are of course based around the...what's the term...visual novel?...but I take it as a given that people understand that, and understand that I understand that.)

I'm probably not going to stay up much longer.

Tomorrow is Christmas, after all.

I'll be pleasantly surprised if half the gifts I get end up being something I make good use for, but then again, I'm probably the second-hardest member of the family to shop for. (The hardest of course being my brother.)

Sure enough, not enough time for me to do what I want to do!
I had a double ramble planned with two topics, one revolving around Bard in Phyrra and Cyrus and the other covering a dream I had last night which I extrapolated into a fairly interesting anime story idea. (The dream was that I was watching said anime show with my siblings, and then later watching it by myself on my TV...in spite of not having had cable TV for at least a year or two if not more.)

Alas.

I need to go to bed, because I've got work tomorrow.

​Tomorrow will also be a "so many things, so little time" day for the record. I'm anticipating about half a dozen obligations by my estimate. I'll count it as a win if I get half of those done; I'll double my win points if one of said things is girlfriend time. <3

Unfortunate, but expected.

Anime night, so. Watched Attack on Titan (my siblings insist we've watched it subbed and thus can watch the new episodes, but hearing the voices, I'm QUITE certain that we didn't so I don't know what the heck they were thinking but oh well), a few episodes of Tokyo Ghoul (we're at around episode 8 I believe), and then a series I can't remember the full name of (half of it is Seraph) involving vampires and demons (got to around 7 there).

​With that, I need to go to bed.

That is, when I call myself trash. Often, I am. Often, I can be excused temporarily from a task, so long as I actually follow through on it. Have that happen, no harm done. Not trashy of me, just real life ensuing.

What makes me trash is when I am excused temporarily from a task, promise to do it, and then break that promise, making another promise which could just as easily end up breaking. And doing this with multiple promises at once, such that when I choose to fulfill one, I am breaking another because I only had the time to fulfill one.

That is pretty much an accurate summation of what's happening right now, and if not trash, what would you call a person who did that? To some extent, it can be justified. Yesterday, work left me physically, mentally, and emotionally drained--and then after that, on top of it all, I had other things to do once home. (Among them, desperately-needed girlfriend time, which while eating up time, is one of the only ways to recharge me emotionally because sometimes I just need to have that interaction in order to not feel dead inside.)

It turned out to be worse than I thought; I was actually coughing (albeit very subtly) by the time I would be going to bed. Because I was pushed past my physical breaking point. Meaning, while I wanted to fulfill some unfulfilled obligations which I had promised to do...

...I couldn't. I just couldn't. Not with how I was. It'd have been utterly impossible for me to do.

...So I was planning to do it today.

Except most of today was spent sleeping (see also, needing to recover), and once I was awake, I was informed of something that was 50% me not remembering, 50% me having no way of knowing in advance. Those two might seem like they contradict, but they don't. What happened is, we knew our parents might be gone overnight. (And when our parents are gone overnight, on Saturdays, my brother comes over for an anime night.)

Until today, I had no way of knowing that in advance. I could have still planned for it in advance, though, simply by remembering it; I was in fact the one to bring up the subject on Thursday before even my sister did so I was literally the one who basically was indirectly planning for it, and yet I didn't remember this a day later on Friday.

And now it's basically midnight, with me working my same Sunday shift early Sunday morning. With a chance of family night tomorrow (though I don't think so).

At least one promise I made for Friday was a result of an earlier broken promise, too, so I am breaking a promise that was breaking a promise.

I am pretty much. Becoming the worst of the worst kind of failures. The one who has so much potential to succeed and you can see it and you see the promise of success, only to see it dashed, but you maintain hope...only for it to be dashed, but you keep on waiting, because you have belief in them...which keeps getting shattered, over and over again, until eventually you give up on them and accept that they failed to deliver.

There's no more painful way to fail than that.
Yet that's what I'm doing.
​Which is, pretty much. Trash.

It's a day filled with fun stories. Meeting my brother to buy fireworks, and for the first time ever, testing out his new car--a pickup truck--or rather his new truck's ability to carry four people.

He told us that it was a four-seater.

This is a technically true statement.

It is not a four-door truck, though, and those rear two seats are...well. They're not the soft seats all cars use. They're four solid blocks: two square cube blocks for seats, and two square cube blocks for the...back thingies. (What's the back half of a seat called? I'm sure it has a name.)

Additionally, while the passenger side door will open just fine and well from the outside...from the inside...you can do absolutely nothing as the inside handle is broken. (A fact he wouldn't know, as he'd have no reason to use that handle.)

Once home, we planned events. Parachutes first (7 recovered, 1 had a parachute deploy but became a POT--prisoner of tree, in that we know exactly where it is but can't retrieve it; miraculously, there were no MIA, but there were 4 KIA due to 'chutes not deploying), then food. LOTS of food.

I had what is almost the ultimate double cheeseburger: potato chips, green beans with bacon strips, and actual slices of bacon (four of them), with ketchup, four slices of cheese, on two burgers. I had half of a bacon-wrapped hot dog. The first half tasted delicious! But then, it began to just taste like fat wrapped around fat...and with conflicting flavors of fat that did not compliment one another. I eat bacon; I eat hot dogs; eating both at once was not for me, at least not also with ketchup.

I also had extra green beans with bacon strips.

Corn on the cob was available, but I tend not to have it, mostly for a petty reason: my preferred method of spreading butter on my corn is the melt-in-microwave method and utilizing a special brush dipped in the melted butter to spread it over; I am the only one who likes it that way, so it's never done anymore, meaning I rarely if ever actually have corn on the cob anymore, even when I have room. (This was one of the rare instances where I would have had it.)

Oh, also, prior to that, we had coffee. I put ice into mine to slightly cool it and make a makeshift iced coffee. It did ever so slightly dilute the coffee (I could taste the water), but it also worked; instead of overheating because it was hot with coffee making it worse, I ended up at feeling the perfect temperature, so I'd say the slight loss of flavor was well worth the tradeoff of cold coffee (which frankly tastes better than warm coffee anyway) and better internal temperature regulation from digestion.

We then watched a film, Lucy. Wasn't exactly anything I really was that invested in, but wasn't exactly terrible, either. Then came the S'mores. Last time we used the charcoal grill: "I think we might have used too much lighter fluid." (That was for Memorial Day weekend I believe.) This time when using the charcoal grill: "I think we might not have used enough lighter fluid."

Not a single marshmallow caught fire this time--a first!

Granted, not a single marshmallow was really as well-done as we prefer them to get, except for those who spent an enormously large amount of time on the task.

Then came the fireworks. We use a $80 pack of fireworks we buy, in conjunction with a few (in this case, 4) Roman Candles, and if necessary, mortars (though it's rarely needed as most of the time, mortars are included in the pack including this year).

That probably doesn't perfectly sum up the day, but it hits most highlights.

I had family night, too long a blog to type up, and I was tired, so I didn't remember that I hadn't typed up that tremendously long blog up.

I have work today which I'm going to start prep for soonish, and when I get home I don't imagine I'll have the time to do the blog, but a preview of what I guess will be tomorrow's blog:

​In addition to whatever I do tomorrow, I have two separate bits on the perfect RPG (one worldbuilding of sorts or rather character building, the other more mechanics building), plus a spew about a new webcomic idea I had. Said webcomic idea involves mythology to say the least (I should save the full details for the full blog), and that's part of why I ended up not blogging yesterday, actually.

Because of the new webcomic idea, my mind wandered off to classical mythology. Because of my mind being in classical mythology, it wandered off to Zeus/Poseidon. Zeus/Poseidon, for reference, is to Greek Mythology what Majesty is for High Fantasy--that being, a lovingly affectionate parody of it, wherein the cliches and stereotypes are played up for laughs, which has NUMEROUS numbers of gameplay hours and ENDLESS numbers of hidden dialogs to discover at various different points.

I ended up buying the game on steam and troubleshooting how to play it in windowed mode without it being messed up. Basically, the game has an in-game option for windowed mode...but its windowed mode makes the user interface half-invisible...essentially rendering the game unplayable.

Playing in fullscreen is something I'd never want to do for numerous reasons, among them being that it messes up my screens, basically making every window I have go from whatever they were into a specific windowed mode up in the upper left corner with a specific size. Though admittedly the main reason is I like to stream for my girlfriend something only possible in windowed mode.

Also, the in-game windowed mode options render text much more difficult to read because the resolutions they offer by default are warped from the game's natural proportions, so text is squashed. I did find a workaround, albeit one which requires a third party program, causes the game to not be recognized by my streaming program (something there's a workaround for), and which has weird scrolling dimensions that I haven't been able to fix.

Basically, I get the impression you're not supposed to automatically scroll to the far side of the map when interacting with the user interface, but this is currently unavoidable. Similarly, the scrolling for the bottom is also off such that the lower 25% of the screen auto-scrolls. Incidentally, there's less scrolling to the left and top--the level of scrolling there actually looks like what it's SUPPOSED to be.

But ANYWAY.

The point is, I have that game now, and got it working.

I had a cat interrupt me mid-blog so if I had anything else to say then her sitting on my lap broke that chain of thought, so I suppose that's it for now and probably for today; I have a staff meeting to prepare for.

There was not a two-day gap in entries with today being a double-entry. My previous entry was made on Wednesday, just past midnight. I forgot to adjust the date on the entry to reflect that.

Anyway!

Today is Valentine's Day. It's my first one with a girlfriend, though unfortunately they have a long day today (and I had a long day yesterday meaning neither definition of the 14th is viable for us to have a date) meaning no intimate time given that I work tomorrow and thus can't stay up. I did however get free food from Denny's, because my mom and dad decided to eat out and allowed us kids to tag along.

I also on the way down developed a new power for Ruby in Red Hood Rider.

...Hey!
Don't go rolling your eyes, sighing, or just thinking "...again?" or the like.
Trust me on this! Just...bear with me for a while. What I'm saying is something that you'll actually think is something which would be too good to not have.

Basically, it's not a power specific to her--it's a universal power of all vampires.
This new power is actually a consequence of one of the very most basic aspects of vampire physiology in my setting. In my setting, while vampires can drink through the mouth (which is considered stronger than sex; on a willing participate the kiss of a vampire is better than an orgasm; on an unwilling participant the bite of a vampire is explicitly akin to rape), the primary method vampires drain blood is through their fingers.

The new power is extrapolating based off of that, by virtue of a required secondary power of sorts--it's not even much of a power. Basically, vampires can for a limited period of time breathe underwater, via sucking in the oxygen from water to go directly into the bloodstream...but this is not something which allows them to stay underwater indefinitely. Their draining is meant specifically to drain blood from people, not to drain oxygen from water.

So how long it extends their ability to remain underwater, I'm not sure exactly. Lower figure would be ten minutes, higher figure an hour or two, but it wouldn't exceed that. It also isn't exactly healthy for them to do. This can be thought of as an emergency oxygen system, to be used only when the primary oxygen system has failed. It's also something which is specific only to water. It doesn't work anywhere else.

And even given this...my use for it?

...A skit.

A gag.

An omake before the start of an episode, as a one-off joke...and even then, with the explanation being mostly in the author blurb with it only implied in the comic image proper. This is why it's not really something to groan about her having; it's not something story-significant. It's just for the sake of a single piece of humor, one which is in a setting that while fully canonical is detached from the main story altogether. Isolated and remote, with it only serving to vaguely segue into a new episode.

In this case, the skit would go something like this, with Angel Wings saying,
"Sally is calling you."
And Ruby's response?
"Please text her to tell her I can't answer her right now on account of (new panel) me slowly drowning to death." with the new panel revealing that her leg is tied to a magical chain which is attached to a big weight with her underwater.

For obvious reasons, this would be before Gary becomes the elemental rider of water (since he could fix it far faster, obv).

I'm thinking that this makes a better omake than whatever I had planned before as an introduction to one of Ruby's Rogue Gallery villains--in this particular case, you might have guessed it's the mobster. I don't remember his last name (as ashamed as I am to admit I the creator can't remember his full name) but his first and middle name are Mac Rose. Because what superhero setting is complete without a local mobster that is an antagonist of a hero.

The shackle is an anti-magic one, if you hadn't guessed, which would of course prevent Ruby from just summoning a bow to sever the chain.

Soyeah. Not a new power which serves any practical purpose.
I mean.
I could make it serve a practical purpose.
I'm sure this is a power lots of people would love to have and it is technically one extra thing.

It's just that it's one extra thing that I consider completely and entirely irrelevant to the story outside of a single gag. And honestly I don't really see much of an issue with having characters possess powers which are displayed for no other reason than Rule Of Funny, since...well. I aim to entertain. The moment has a bit of black humor involved, but I still think that if handled well it'd be a good addition to the comic.

The problem was more or less weebly trying to be greedy jerks--to post a new blog entry, I need to hit a specific button. The New Post button, which is at the bottom of the screen at the right. Without it, making a new blog entry (aka, a New Post) is impossible to do because...well, in order to make a New Post, you need to hit the New Post button. (Go figure.)

...Except. Last night. That WHOLE ENTIRE AREA (and then some). Was being COMPLETELY AND ENTIRELY COVERED UP. By weebly telling me that I can customize something (something to do with a footer) if I upgrade. AKA, I pay them money to use the site that I've been using just fine for free.

Frankly, I'm never paying weebly a cent and I'd explicitly forbid my girlfriend from paying for me because HECK NO I'm not going to cave in to that kind of junk. If they tried forcing it on me again, I'd just stop using them and move to a different site. (I mean. In that case. I might need to pay weebly so I can use my site...but it'd be the smallest payment possible for the least amount of time possible and be purely so that I could make the announcement of "SCREW THIS, I'M OUTTA HERE!" and announce where I was moving the blog to.)

Fortunately, whatever it was, it was only temporary. Things are back to normal, so yesterday's blog is now up as it would have been last night were I able to.

As for today! No family night tonight, that'll be tomorrow. But today I worked, and that means...yep! I was trapped in my own thoughts again.

In this case, I was working on a few details of the Disease setting (which I call the Epidemic series). I've named that book of mine before on my blog, albeit only once or twice and way back, by now probably over a year if not two. Basically, it's a post-apocalyptic series which has a few details:

-The titular disease was a manmade virus of sorts that was engineered by the Big Bad (and a secondary villain helping).

-The disease consumed a great deal of many modern technologies. A lot of older things work (for instance, cars from the 80s and first half of the 90s), but newer things were 'eaten' by the disease (which I know is a bit questionable, but the disease is explicitly supernatural in nature given...well, just see the below).

-The disease propagated itself everywhere. It exists everywhere, categorized in "dense" areas (mostly, forests, jungles, etc.; areas where there is lot of flora and fauna to store it) and "scarce" areas (mostly, cities, where it isn't stored as well).

-Plants were unaffected, but in scarce areas, will wither and die if prolonged contact with humans not having a specific gift is maintained.

-Non-human animals were also unaffected.

-Humans still with, so to speak, "the blood of youth" as it were (as in, loosely speaking, below the age of 30) were given superpowers, which the disease powers. Off of where they spent the most time acclimating in the first few weeks, their powers took one of the two types mentioned. (Scarce powers are more precise but lack power; dense powers are more powerful but lack fine control.)

-Humans over that age either were killed off by it or were transformed into beasts the story dubs Darmichrons. They're on average about 8-10 feet tall, have massive strength, speed, endurance, razor-sharp claws, and carnivorous teeth to match; they maintain their human intelligence, but have the primal instincts of an animal, and are driven to be monstrous sadists who hunt the surviving humans for food primarily, but also for sport. (These are who I'll be talking about.) They are capable of speech still.

​-The series protagonist is patient zero: the person first infected with the disease.

Darmichrons are the earliest villains in the story, although they later fall to the status of cannon fodder in spite of them being dangerous. They've got immense regenerative abilities on top of everything else and incredibly tough skin--what this amounts to is that projectile weapons (e.g. guns, bows) are ineffective against them (thus why the heroes use weapons like swords primarily, when not utilizing their powers), and even most attacks don't work.

They do have weaknesses (touching plants won't harm them, but get a plant inside of their body and it's poisonous to them; they have an unexplained mystical weakness to silver; they can't penetrate through brick mortar buildings; they're vulnerable to the elements e.g. being burned alive, drowning, freezing, electrocuted to death, and similar things which the heroes exploit), but they're still monsters to face.

One particular trait about them is that when they are in small enough groups, they still think individually, but when they get into a large enough mass, a hive/swarm mentality takes over. As in, "the death of a few will ensure the rest get to eat", where to overcome a force they essentially rush them with superior numbers and utilize their natural skills. They no longer speak, but they don't need to; they instinctively know what one another are doing, and as such are able to coordinate attacks such as that whatever force they are attacking is overwhelmed with minimal resistance.

I'm quite fond of my creation, by the way; they took inspiration from vampires, werewolves, zombies, and largely from Chiropterans (or however they spell that word) from Blood+, among other sources. But! These are all preexisting facts; I was not working on the above.

I was more working on a later plot point. In the sequel story to Disease (which was originally part of Disease before I decided to split the book in two), there's a point in the story where the protagonists need to make an alliance with a group of Darmichrons. (This is also not new and always was a part of the story from basically the get-go.)

Said group of Darmichrons was larger than any other group in existence (and thanks to what I've planned elsewhere in the story, that might mean a group upwards of 100,000 or so), and had one key trait: somehow, they were able to overcome the hive mentality and regain a level of individuality in spite of them being together...yet in spite of having regained it, still maintained many of the aspects of their hive mentality. (Basically they got the best of both worlds.)

Still not new. But before, I just had the heroes meet up with them with nothing extra attached. Yet I thought about a few facets of the consequences of this culture, and devised an alternative meeting method. It starts with the heroes sending their half-Darmichron (capable of freely transforming between human and Darmichron) in as a scout.

He reports back that it was a good idea they sent him in, because if they hadn't, they'd all be dead--the Darmichrons have guns. THIS is new, but it seemed to just fit so perfectly and logically. A normal Darmichron would never use a gun, because of their sadism and desire for the thrill of the hunt; a gun's cheating and more than that, anatomically, it's basically impossible for them to use standard firearms.

These Darmichrons given they have a society which has human intellect and has some facets of them subdued (including the sadism) in favor of the community were able to figure out bypasses. (After all, guns aren't that hard to modify and Darmichrons are big enough that they can carry something like a shotgun as if it were a Dillinger, in that it is a small-arms for them rather than taking both hands.)

The heroes have the ability to sense Darmichrons from a distance (this is how they stay alive: by running from fights they don't think they can win, or being entrenched and prepared when running's not an option), but guns have a range longer than that distance.

The Darmichrons use them as both their main defense against superpowered intruders, and to hunt said superpowered individuals--because they are nigh-immune to bullets, there is no risk of friendly fire. However, humans are just as vulnerable to being killed with guns with superpowers as they are without them. (Alright, so a few have abilities which make it difficult to kill them with gunfire, but the vast majority of the heroes are not immune to bullets.)

So the Darmichrons have a huge advantage. The heroes haven't used firearms ever since the apocalypse--because their main opponents that they go up against are Darmichrons who're immune, they had no need to use them; firearms were a waste of space.

Darmichrons' main opponents are humans...who aren't immune, and thus had good use for them. It just took specific circumstances for them to be able to create that environment where they used them. And it's a huge advantage, since it means that in addition to their natural strength/speed/etc. granting them a huge edge in melee combat (no need to carry a melee weapon when your teeth, claws, and appendages are lethal enough on their own), they have the ranged weapons to make it such that the melee was never necessary.

This is, of course, precisely the type of advantage the heroes were hoping to gain, which is why they wanted to seek the alliance in the first place (since the antagonists at this point are an army of superpowered humans and the heroes are comparatively outnumbered).

Of course, to the chagrin of the humans, they meet said Darmichrons by them ambushing the heroes, albeit not killing them. (They followed the half-Darmichron back, shot warning shots at the heroes to let them know not to move before the heroes sensed them, and then moved in closer.)

They explained their curiosity, since there are three core rules of their society,
Darmichrons don't hunt Darmichrons,
Darmichrons don't hunt with humans,
And humans need to be hunted; they won't come into the nest.

The reason they didn't attack is because they possessed the curiosity that two of their basic rules had been broken, so they do in fact listen to the pitch the heroes make. (The alliance is made, for two reasons. The antagonists would wipe the Darmichrons out once done with the heroes, and that the heroes give the Darmichrons multiple things that they were incredibly okay with--a complete continent to call their hunting grounds where if humans were found it was at their own risk; any excess livestock to be exported to said continent; various different levels of therapy to re-introduce elements of humanity, everything from at the lowest level making them omnivorous rather than carnivorous and at the highest level allowing them to become fully human again, with them being able to choose any treatment even none if they prefer themselves the way they are.)

I thought the idea made a lot of sense at least. Then again, I'm the only one who knows the full story, so all my ideas for the story make more sense to me.

I ended up not having work this morning as I thought. I did of course have my staff meeting this night, and I got just about as much sleep as I would have if I had worked anyway (I took a shower, waited for my hair to dry, then napped, but the time the hair was dry came well after I'd have been done with work), meaning I am extra tired and today was just all-around disappointing in terms of doing things.

Oh well.
The day is lost...but there's always tomorrow!