But I'll start with some new stuff as of today.

For the Rubyverse, I was working on the vampiric martial art some more.

I'm not sure if I had a name in mind for the vampiric martial art before, but now I do. I was thinking the English name for it would be "Moving Tree". I decided on that name for a variety of reasons. The idea behind it is that the user has their roots firmly planted in the ground--the martial art is not one which really involves jumping. It is furthermore one which involves being solidly positioned on the ground, such that nothing fazes the user.

In fact, the implication is also meant to be that the user is as tough as wood, with a hardened body.

And yet, there is also a fluidity in movement inherent in the martial art, the softer, flowing elements as if a tree is being blown by a gentle breeze. These sharp, crisp movements direct things, and can lash out with incredible precision and power.

Plus, there is the fact that branches can be, when sharpened enough, used as if spears--with the implication of impaling enemies upon the 'branches'. (Which in this case would be hands.)

There's more to it than that, but another one of the main reasons I chose that as the name is because it had the aesthetic of a name which sounded like it was plausibly a martial arts name to use. Yes, I haven't done the requisite research on Chinese martial arts that I wanted to, to get a better idea, but I DO know that quite a number of martial arts take HUGE cues from nature in their naming schemes.

And the idea of a tree which moves seems like it is something that could, quite plausibly, come from that culture. (Especially given that one of the traditional Chinese elements is Wood.)

Will I remember to call the vampiric martial art the Moving Tree martial art? Probably not! After all, it's possible this isn't the first name I've given the martial art, it's just the name I came up for it today.

Still, I feel that if nothing else this is a promising name. I'll need to find out what the best non-English name would be, because the non-English name would be the OFFICIAL name for the vampiric martial art, with "Moving Tree" just being the translated-into-English name for said martial art.

Beyond that, I also developed another new technique.
So the knife-guard's signature technique is the impale, from which the impaler stance derives its name; it is also the signature move of the martial art as a whole. While all four of the founding masters of the style were involved in every step of the process, the knife-guard was primarily co-developed by (who else?) both Tepes Lords.

The tri-guard's signature technique is the typhoon strike; while all founding four masters were involved, it was most heavily developed by Victor Wu.

And today, I developed the Claw-guard's signature technique:
Kneading/Purring.

What it is, is basically an existing martial art move in more flowing styles/forms, a circular motion.

The back hand rotates either above or below the front hand, and the front hand rotates either below or above the front hand.

When the front hand goes below the back hand/the back hand goes above the front hand, it is called Kneading; when the front hand goes above the back hand/the back hand goes below the front hand, it is called Purring.
These names originate from how, if you slow the motion down and slightly exaggerate it, what the fingers resemble.

The motion of the hands in Kneading looks a lot like a cat kneading, when slowed down. (At full speed, it's more like a scratch.) The potion of the hands in Purring bends the wrist in such a way that one hand comes back almost to the jaw, in a position which is stereotypically associated with the position you'd see paws placed in on a cat which is purring.

Now, Kneading/Purring can be done in a continuous cycle, where you make a full circle. Backhand to front to back, rotating clockwise or counterclockwise continuously, which is considered continuous kneading/purring. However, far more common is to switch between the two: instantly do a knead/purr, and then snap back with a purr/knead. 

So I'm not quite sure I'm explaining this motion as well as I should.

Basically, know how claw guard is essentially just knife guard except with a curled hand with the fingers apart? Well, it starts with the forward-hand in front, as per the norm for the martial art, and the back-hand in the back, obviously. But the motion snaps the back hand into the front and the front hand into the back.

This can be done in a static position, but is designed to synergize well with moving between the back/defensive stance and the forward/attack stance of the impaler stance. This is also one of the best defensive moves in the arsenal of the martial art, meant to give a continuously rotating guard--in theory, making it much harder to exploit vulnerabilities in defenses.

In all other aspects of the vampiric martial art, unless the hands are involved actively in either a strike, block, or grab or some sort, they remain static. They are locked more or less in a single position, where they rest. Now! Said position happens to be a smart position, one where they can easily in a split second snap a block/strike/etc. out. But the fact remains that an opponent can, if given the chance, see potential weaknesses in the defense because the defense never changes its base position.

This isn't just a vampiric martial art thing. I know from experience in sparring for my tae kwon do that the arms in the guard? Unless they are punching or blocking, they don't tend to move. The legs? They move a plenty. But the arms have more or less a single fixed position, a single 'optimized guard position', where with minimal movement a block/strike can be made.

And I don't think it's just my school.

I think this exists in almost all martial arts. I know they're not the best example, but like. In basically any movie featuring martial arts where the fighting is choreographed in such a way that you can see the fighters have a guard in the first place. The guard doesn't move when not striking/blocking/grappling. It just sits in one position.

It also is there in game animations, too, for the most part. Sprites are animated where the knees bend, the hips bend, there is forward and backward movement where the spine more or less is moving forward and backward. You know the like, it's something you see all the time. Yet when not performing either a block or a strike or a grapple, how often are the sprites' arms actually fluidly moving?

I mean, sure, it happens, but it doesn't happen often. Maybe it's wasted effort, or maybe there's the fear that the movement creates a vulnerability, maybe there's a reason for it. But I also believe that there's a reason why not every martial art does this, why some do have the arm movement I'm more or less talking about--

After all. There are existing forms where the arms move in more or less the way I am talking about. (In fact, I know at least one form from tae kwon do which uses the basic movement I am dubbing in my martial art kneading/purring.)

So I think that, mechanically, it can work as a way to more or less serve to theoretically make it much harder to exploit gaps in defense. And, yes. The movement behind kneading/purring is such that both arms are fully capable of blocking and striking at any moment.

In fact, half the reason to use this is to launch an unexpected attack, most likely a palm strike. Because the rotation is done continuously, and because it only takes ever so slightest the modification of movement to turn the simple rotation into a strike, a blow can be delivered with no warning by using this method.

At least. In theory. I have tested the body mechanics and the idea is at least theoretically sound. It acts pretty much as the counterpart to an existing thing from fighting.

In sparring, already. Your feet aren't meant to be static. They are springy. Bouncy. They have ever so slightest the continuous movement between one another. To allow for the ability to move forward, backward, sideways, in an instant, to react to being hit, and to surprise an opponent by 'invisible movement'. A move with the feet to close distance without revealing you're closing distance, or a kick without revealing you're throwing a kick.

It's a very tae kwon do type thing, but I imagine quite common even outside of it. You move the feet continuously so that your opponent never knows what you are planning to do next, and so that you can always be ready for what your opponent does next.

Kneading/purring, as I envision it, is basically doing the same thing the legs do, except with the hands. Especially since it can rotate two different directions, attacks can come from any number of different locations/times, without warning that there is any deviation from the pattern.

And yes. If you couldn't tell. It was indeed developed primarily by Lord Darkblood, and thus, is the style Ruby adapts for use in Red Hood Rider.

That's the main thing I'll be blogging about today, but I also thought it worth mentioning a dream I had last night.
The dream was almost nested, as a dream within a dream. Almost. It was a situation where I was involved in an event and thought I was more or less on break from a different event (a different dream). In the event I was involved in, I was watching television.

On that television, there was a kids cartoon show playing. Now, I don't remember if this was a real cartoon show, a fictional cartoon show, multiple real cartoon shows meshed up, or some combination of these, but what I do remember quite clearly was, within that cartoon show, there was dialog within that I listened to and memorized. (Unfortunately, I promptly forgot what said dialog was upon awakening.)

I was immensely reassured, and told my companion in the dream: "That's exactly the type of dialog that I use in Phyrra and Cyrus!" So basically. At least inside my dream. The dialog of Phyrra and Cyrus comes across as being natural, as being standard for a kids cartoon show, being just as good if not better than the material of other shows circulating in the contemporary market.

Of course, this is a dream we are talking about.

Butstill.

In spite of that.

Upon waking up.

The reassurance remains. Because I do tend to trust my dreams a lot. Phyrra and Cyrus was born from a dream, and this dream was indirectly telling me I feel, "You are on the right track. Don't second-guess your choices in terms of the dialog and what you want the characters to be. You are making something which is of quality."

​And I want to believe in that.

...But today it'll be specifically Phyrra and Cyrus I talk about.

Extensively!

I'll start with Paladins. I expanded their spells a bit. I decided that Shield of Light was the advanced version of a lesser spell: Sunscreen. Sunscreen basically provides hardened skin, making it tougher, while also boosting resistance to the elements.

I then went on to detail Paean spells. This is what I came up with.

Sunbathe: The weaker healing spell, this spell is a touch-based spell which bathes the touched areas in radiant, vibrant life energy that accelerates healing, more or less.

Detect Life: Note that while this is a standard spell every Paean learns, Solarii can learn it...with great difficulty. For a Solarus to learn Detect Life, they first must have full mastery over their powers, and only then they can learn it...by being tutored by someone that's already a master of the technique, and even then there is a level of innate natural talent required beyond training the skill--thus, it's rare for any non-Archpaladin Solarus to possess the spell.

Detect Life is basically a limited version of spirit vision. The caster's eye sockets glow a radiant golden yellow (as in, the entirety of the eye, not just the iris), and when in this state, they can see the 'inner sun' of all those around them.

Sunfire: This is the basic attack technique of a Paean, specifically a ranged technique which while it does have some noncombat purposes is meant as a combat spell specifically. Think of it as being a fire arrow, because that's basically exactly what it is.

Soul Link: Note that Solarii CAN learn Soul Link...with GREAT difficulty, even greater than Detect Life. Soul Link is a technique which is meant specifically for Paeans, designed to work in tandem with both Detect Life and Sunfire. Because Solarii can't learn Sunfire (unless they're on the path to becoming an Archpaladin), this obviously presents a challenge for using the technique.

It's not, however, impossible for a non-Archmage Solarus to learn it. They just have to first modify the base properties of the spell and make it work with their magic. Because, again. Paladins are classified as spellbladers; they aren't full mages. They have a very specific type of magic...and only that magic type is unlocked. And furthermore, Solarii and Paeans have different (albeit similar, overlapping) magic types.

As for what it does--basically, Soul Link acts as a tether to the target(s), making it much easier to cast a spell targeting the target(s), and also allowing for incredibly-short-ranged telepathy of sorts, wherein the caster can talk to the linked individual and have their words heard regardless of situation. It is usually cast after sunfire, with sunfire acting as the anchor point and detect life having been used to pinpoint the most effective spot.

Solar Supercharge: This is a spell designed specifically to work in tandem with a Paladin; it is exclusively a Paean spell. What it does is it absorbs the Solarii's Sun Scorch, and then uses the energy from that to supercharge the Paean's next spell, to EITHER: be a single, superpowerful version of that spell, OR: multiple consecutive castings of a spell normally not capable of that feat.

It is making use of this spell that is the reason why often, one Solarus and Paean will accompany one another, partnering together. Not that even if someone were an Archpaladin they'd still need the aid of another to help them.

Solar Wind: The stronger healing technique AND the primary buffing spell. Didn't quite work out how it works or what specifically it does, but this is the bread and butter of a Paean, along with the upgrade to Sunfire.
Note that Solarii can, through modifying a combination of Sun Scorch and Shield of Light, create a buff spell which is similar albeit weaker than Solar Wind. They still can't heal though; that is a property of a Paean's techniques.

Solar Flare: This is the upgraded Sunfire technique. Didn't quite detail it, but you probably have a fair idea for what I'm going for there.

You might note there are references to an Archpaladin. What's an Archpaladin? Well, simply put.
An Archpaladin is a Paladin who is both a Solarus and a Paean. Keep in mind being just one is in of itself a life pursuit; being both not only takes your whole life but also incredible talent. The youngest recorded Archpaladin was 42 years old and was a prodigy of prodigies; most Archpaladins are in their 60s-80s when they achieve this status.

To become one, after all. You basically need to learn the magics for both a Solarus and a Paean, when the magics for one of them take a good 20 years to learn. Archpaladins are basically the strongest of the strong in terms of spellbladers, in that they are people almost full-on mages. (Mages being a lifetime pursuit in of themselves.) They are still spellbladers, because they use a specialized form of magic rather than more generic magic.

This is still akin to using both arms rather than using the entirety of the body. But if you can think of a fully-awakened Solarus as one arm and a fully-awakened Paean as the other arm, a fully-awakened Archpaladin is both arms. Both arms is less than the whole body, but is still more than the single-hand which represents the capabilities of most spellbladers.

I did some work on their armor, but before I go into the details there I'd prefer to do a little more research.

I also have Clara's appearance down to the point where once I know her eye color (I thought green, but now I'm not sure), I can draw her. I figured out her hair would be almost brown, but be just red enough where you can tell it's red, not orange, not brown. Not quite sure if that has a name, but I know what it looks like. It's kept in a ponytail, which isn't long by girl standards, with the tail end of the ponytail dropping slightly below the shoulders.

Since I already know what her armor looks like, that means I am basically ready to draw her at any time.

There's three other things not Paladin related but honestly, I'm probably either spending time with my girlfriend or going to bed so I'll talk about them later. (I don't think I'll lose the knowledge in spite of the lackluster notes.)

​So I guess that's it for the night.

Wasn't nothing, tho!

So this should give you a better idea of some of the generals behind what I am going for when it comes to Cyrus, versus Phyrra in Cyrus. To have the final image to complete the set, remember this:

So between these, you don't quite get what I'm getting for, but you get more in the general vicinity of what I'm after.

Cyrus has spiked anime hair--none of these images quite capture the anime spiked hair as I envisioned it, but the second followed by the fourth probably come the closest. This spiked anime hair is red, but not just any shade of red. The color I am going for is fairly vibrant, but not pure red, slightly diluted. Brighter red than lifeguard-red, but only just. So it's much, much brighter than crimson, but it's not as bright as possible.

His eyes are, as mentioned, a fiery combination of golden yellow and orange--none of the programs capture this look particularly well. His expression is meant to be mostly neutral, almost but not quite negative, stoic and deadpan, more or less. Serious eyes, focused. For the mouth, the first and third are best; for the eyes, fourth, second, and third (in about that order) are good.

Phyrra's expression is a big cheeky teeth-showing grin. None quite capture that as I envisioned it to be. Her eyes are big, idealistic, heroic, and yet slightly determined eyes. The fourth captures it the best but all are decent.

I decided on an official garb for Cyrus--a deep blue hoodie (think color of the fourth), covered by a cloak shown perfectly in the third. Underneath the hoodie would be a tan tank top. (You can see the blue trim of the collar for this on the fourth.) With an orange smaller tank top underneath of that.

As previously mentioned, he'd have the jeans and boots and a belt and the like more or less unchanged from before.

Phyrra's outfit is a little more complicated. The deepest layer is those chest wrappings. Covering that is a white undershirt. (You can see part of this in the fourth image.) Above that, the red T-shirt. Covering the red T-shirt, she has the brown vest thing shown in the third image above.

She also has leather elbow guards, fingerless gloves, and the shorts/boots seen above. That's about as much detail as I have thought out. Haven't made the program versions for Phyrra and Cyrus-in-Phyrra's-body yet, but with this I'd be able to more or less using additional google references throw together Cyrus and Phyrra-in-Cyrus's-body using my actual art rather than a series of programs.

I'm still not sure I'd be able to make my vision come to life because my art skills fail to live up to those of my vision, but I'd at least have the grounding where it'd more or less be possible.

I have the time to do more than just throw together quick art though, so I suppose what I'll also do is talk some more about little things in the setting. An early concept I threw around was every episode starting with 'The D*escription*'. For instance, I might have an episode title of, "The Demand", and another possible one was "The Departure". For a specific arc, I might keep this, but there was an appeal to something else.

Specifically, the idea of beginning every episode with 'The'.

And I managed to throw together at least twelve aside from the above.
The first episode, The Thaumason Siblings, for obvious reasons.
The second episode, The Wind Guardian, as it'd introduce us some more to Gora.

Ace's introductory episode, The Ranger. I did play around with other ideas. Woodsman. Sharpshooter. The like. But this, in the sense of how-Aragorn/Strider-was-a-Ranger, seemed like the best descriptor for him. Someone who is skilled in the use of ranged weaponry, that is a wilderness survival expert, not limited to just the woods though in that in any environment he is equipped to survive.

Cedrick's introductory episode, The Rival.
Another episode featuring Cedrick, The PF Plan. (I'd tell you what PF stands for, but literally 80% of the humor in the episode comes from what it is so I'd prefer to keep that knowledge secret since the moment is absolutely hilarious if you don't know about it in advance.)

Kaze's introductory episode, The Earth Guardian.
Myra's, The Fire Guardian.

Bard's, The Street Performer. I considered 'Street Urchin', and also considered 'Spirit Demon', but this seemed like the one which best encapsulated his personality/role without being too spoilerific of his plot-relevance.

Clara's, The Paladin. Could also be The Solarus, but Paladin works better overall.
Hera's, The Water Guardian.
Will's, The Adept.
Lily's, The Tailor.

Alena's, The Botanist. Could also be 'The Alchemist', but I think of her as a botanist first and an alchemist second even though her skill as an alchemist is what gives her value in the Thaukama whereas botany isn't exactly the most plot-relevant skill to possess.

These episodes would be much harder to tell as being special episodes if every episode was titled similarly. For instance, if an episode focuses around a villain, "The Damned" could be the name of the episode and that could in fact be the way to introduce a character and yet wouldn't be. That might not be the best of wording, but basically the idea is that title episodes don't give anything away, so much as they just give a general indication of important things the episode more or less introduces.

I might have other stuff to talk about buried in my notes, but the only other thing I can recall off the top of my head which is quick to talk about is a little extra on the villains.

Sloan, the first big bad, has a soft spot for animals, and this fondness is especially the case for dogs. He even ends up adopting a dog he names 'Angel' when said puppy doesn't treat him with hostility, and he does nothing to try and corrupt the dog, raising him more or less the same way any other person would train their dog.

Gunther, the second big bad, literally at the sight of a baby will go 'agoogoo' at them. Now, this does come with a caveat. He makes it clear that he can and will hurt/kill/threaten a baby if it suits his agenda to do so (e.g. leverage, shutting down a prophecy), but when it does not, he is all too happy to be giddy around babies, and gives his blessings to any family with newborns that are loyal to him.

I suppose that'll be it for today. Hope you're enjoying seeing me build Phyrra and Cyrus as much as I am enjoying building them.

Blehck. In fact, most of what I did was just rehash what I did. To whit, 

...There is one difference. As much as I liked the idea of the inverted eyes to hair idea, and as much as I liked the idea of Phyrra in Cyrus's body having sparkling blue eyes. Ultimately, I realized that when I originally envisioned Phyrra and Cyrus, I envisioned Phyrra's body as having grayish-blue eyes, and that when Phyrra was in Cyrus's body, that her eyes would be a fiery golden-orange, not quite orange but not quite amber, somewhere between the two.

This does have the effect of making the Curtains Match the Window, more or less, which I am fine with. But this is literally the only thing I did today. No further program stuff. No further details on the world. No writing things out. Nothing. I'm just doing less than I should, everywhere.

​I honestly think that I probably am depressed, but oh well. I'll do what I can.

So basically. What I want to do is a long Phyrra and Cyrus ramble. I've got more to cover on Bard, more to cover on a specific part of the story, how I do episode titles and the thirteen episode titles I want to share, and also, some rudimentary quick concept art, via the usage of programs. I'm never going to get it all done at once, but while I started all enthusiastic, I can't actually find myself following through.

​I did get this.

This is, quite obviously, made using an art program. One of my five regulars, and one of only two fullbody ones; this is one which is more suited for children (whereas the other one is more suited for adults), so it can give at least a rudimentary idea of the basic aesthetics that I'll be more or less aiming for.

Phyrra would have a scabbard, plus various knives; Cyrus would have a belt with multiple sacks attached to it. I think it is pretty obvious looking here that there is the body swap going on, and this is more or less what they'd have. Phyrra, her sword; Cyrus, a stave (though it'd be a bit longer). The clothing isn't exact, either. Phyrra is envisioned with shorts and a T-shirt; Cyrus is envisioned with longer legged pants and some kind of longer covering, although the details aren't very exact. (I opted for a jacket in this case but it easily could be, saaaaaaaaay, a gi or some similar robing instead.)

I went into tonight thinking I'd also do the other three programs for all of them among others and maybe even knock out Gora's human form, Myra's Siren form, Hera's human form, and Ace (the other characters who I know the appearance of), but I'm struggling to follow through on it in spite of me having literally just said I would.

This is at least a start though. When I have finished compiling computer-based references, I might then be able to work out a way to make actual concept art drawn by me. I actually did attempt this earlier, but failed so abysmally that I almost threw it away altogether. (Almost. I ended up putting an X through it, refusing to label it, and filing it away with my "obsolete papers kept for archival purposes" instead, which is the next best thing; for all intents and purposes, that makes it cease to exist.)

I'm hoping that with some programs to give me some general references along with the help of google (one of the main things I'd of course need is the ability to actually draw children which is a skill easily learnable but which I do not yet possess) to more or less work my way to bringing my vision of what they are like to life.

So this isn't really Phyrra and Cyrus, before/after. But it can give you a general sense of the aesthetic I am more or less aiming for, when it comes to Phyrra and Cyrus, before/after.

Well, I suppose by saying I am doing some spring cleaning of sorts. I'm moving every piece of paper which I know is 100% obsolete to an appropriate location; I am moving things which are potentially appropriate elsewhere to those locations; I am cleaning up my notes more or less.

The good news is--I am just about done with this process's first stage.

The bad news is, I've got a ton of stuff which I classified as either
-Being kept around because there was some detail different,
-Is pertinent to current things,
-Was explicitly never blogged about,
-Or--and this is the biggie--I have no memory of whether I have blogged about it or not.

If I removed that last one I'd have a good 70% less papers in the gigantic stack I have.
Still!

This has allowed me to more or less focus.

I have the recent content I haven't blogged about. The perfect RPG content (times two), the new webcomic, more about the impaler stance, and of course, the focus of why I did this, Phyrra and Cyrus notes.

I also have peripheral easy access to what I believe is the entirety of the relatively-recently-written notes on a story idea I meant to unload the details of in a gigantic ramble yet never got around to, the story which started as a Bleach knockoff but evolved to be something that is my own.

So...more or less, the question becomes...what can I blog about today, and what can I not blog about today?

I'll not be doing the gigantic ramble on the Bleach knockoff story idea yet (that one deserves a special ramble of its own), but I should be able to do the others...once I finish with the organizing of my papers. For a frame of reference, I'm pretty sure that I started dumping stuff in this area during NaNoWriMo of 2016. I am up to...well, a little past this point of last year, 3/26/2017.

Hmm...I suppose I'll start with the Rubyverse bit, about the impaler stance's vampiric martial art. What wasn't new was that there were two guards: knife guard (knife hand block is a common enough thing that I don't need to describe what it is; this is basically that), and claw guard (same basic positioning, but with fingers apart and curved).

What I developed which is new as of...well, about a week ago...is what I dubbed the tri-guard: open hand, elbows pointing up, towards target (with palm close to body). (Note that the front hand and back hand can take different guards, but are most frequently seen using the same guard.)

In normal circumstances, this would be a hilariously bad idea, because it exposes the ribcage to attack. However, I played around with the position, and found that with sharp, crisp enough techniques that are well-placed and timed, this wasn't actually an issue and was a potential asset.

In particular, the elbow up is great for up/upward outward blocks, the hand can sweep downward to do a downward block fairly easily...for either side. As in, with the right elbow pointing up, the right hand can block downward and have the deflected attack go to the right, OR go the other way and have it deflected to the left (more as a push than a sweep).

Other than the elbow itself, there isn't really much of an inward block, though the elbow itself acts as a pretty effective, close-range defense. And for an outward block, the same motion which applies for the downward block can be used. The whole thing is fairly fluid and effortless when I try it, and it pairs nicely with a particular strike pattern.

The idea behind the tri-guard is to use the triceps to snap a strike outward, where you basically just go from a bent elbow to a straight elbow. This is loosely akin to a very close-quarter jab; it isn't meant to have much power, but it's fast, allows you to grab your opponent, and sets up for the followthrough.

This followthrough has a working name of the Typhoon Strike, which is more akin to a cross: with the front hand fully extended, twist hand and reverse it around (the idea being you are grabbing onto them, drawing them in, and knocking them off-balance), and simultaneously the back hand does the inverse motion, rotating out to deliver a powerful strike. By reversing the process, this can then be combo'd, where the back-currently-in-front hand grabs and pulls, and the front-currently-in-back hand snaps from its rear position back into the position it started in.

I'm probably not describing it fairly well, but the body mechanics of it when I tried it out were at least in theory fairly sound. This stance also allows me to play more heavily around with the more crane stance aspects that I was inspired by originally, in that the triguard is built to allow for low/high blocks with a much, much greater ease than the knife/claw guards do.

Next on the list, and probably a disappointment because I've been building it up for so long as some amazing thing, is the new webcomic idea I had, called Average Joe's Bar.
The idea behind it?

Basically every being from every mythology gather in a bar to just hang out. Many of these beings even have multiple forms. For instance, capital-G God has no less than four: Big G (stereotypical old man with a beard), Momma G (an elderly plump black woman), Lil' G (a Bishonen anime boy), and Girly G (just a small girl). All angels have one for each gender (Lucy/Lucifer, Gabrielle/Gabriel, Michelle/Michael, etc.), and so on and so forth.

You have patrons like Lucifer/Satan I (Satan, in this case, being a title), God, various demons e.g. Beelzebub, The Devil/Satan II, Zeus and other Greek/Roman gods, Thor and other Norse gods, Ra and other Egyptian gods, Titans, (Demi)humans ranging from Jesus, Buddha, Hercules, Achilles, Theseus, Perseus, Moses, Noah, and the like. Basically, figures who are involved in the divine.

All of them more or less having the powers they are meant to have (or lack thereof).

...And they all meet in the titular bar, run by...
...Joe, a completely and totally, 100% ordinary human, who in theory could have regular human patrons. It's just that by some cosmic coincidence, everyone who is a patron at his bar just so happens to not be a normal human being. (He does, however, have the ability to serve godly drinks, e.g. ambrosia.)

It was envisioned as a slice-of-life story, where gods would get into antics, more or less, and crazy stuff would happen, but more or less that in spite of their drunken stupor, the gods would more or less always walk out with nothing having changed. Basically, just a setting to have fun in.

Of course, because I'd actually have to research everything I put in, and because I utterly suck at slice of life comics, it'd never come to be, even if I could pull off the art style. (I had a more chibi-like art look planned for all of these various numerous mythological figures, as to best emphasize the comedy.)

There may be more to it than that (for instance there might be a third Satan with The Devil being either Satan III and coming later or Satan II coming before, don't quite remember), but I think I hit all the important notes.

Two down, two very long ones to go.

​I'll start with the Perfect RPG. It's something I've worked less on because my inspiration has been far more focused on Phyrra and Cyrus as of late, but I've still done some work there. I worked out the beastmaster's name (you remember that she was the one to romance the dark archer, right?), and settled on Erin. This marks her as the first character I've actually named!

I also figured out an aspect of the Dark Archer's personality--in most situations, he will talk in a slightly antiquated, eloquent, verbosity-laden way, where he more or less is formal. However, whenever he is stress out, he will slip into more casual speech. Said stress is, mind you, what stresses him out. For instance, because he loves battle, even if his life is in danger he'll still be talking formally because to him that's not stressful.

However, try and get him to express emotions......

...This can be seen when the romance begins.
The following dialog is the precursor to before you can select something, to give an example:
Dark Archer: My good friend, I come to you seeking advice.
Protagonist: Sure, what are you after?
Dark Archer: I have grown rather fond of Erin over our time together, and I wish to formally initiate courtship. However, I am uncertain as to how this should be achieved.

This is when the dialog box comes up.

I also worked out a working draft for what the dialog is for choosing the hilariously stupid option of "Present Boar's Head as Proof of Manhood". Said dialog might change, but I more or less thought it'd go something like this (I wanted to show you this as a comic, but oh well):

Protagonist: I dunno, man...give her something?
Dark Archer: To what thing would you suggest?
Protagonist: Something with a personal touch would probably show sincerity!
Dark Archer: That is not a bad idea! I know just the thing......
[Fadeout to black; scene transition]
Dark Archer: Hey, Erin, look at this!
Erin: A- A...
Erin: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
*Erin faints*
Protagonist: She...she fainted!
Dark Archer: Ohcrapohcrapohcrap......
Protagonist: What do we do? Whatdowedo?
Dark Archer: I dunno, this was YOUR idea!
Protagonist: Uh...uh...let's go check her out!
Dark Archer: Check her o...DUDE SHE'S UNCONSCIOUS!
Protagonist: Yeah, that's why we need to!
Dark Archer: What the hell, man?!? I want to date her, not...
Protagonist: I MEAN CHECK UP ON HER!
Dark Archer: Oh.
Dark Archer: Uh...
Dark Archer: ...That sounds like a good idea.
[Fadeout to black]
Protagonist: Just a small bump to the head; she'll be fine once she wakes up.
Protagonist: Wonder what caused her to react that way?
Dark Archer: ...You think she liked it?
[Scene fades out]

As a reminder. Erin is an all-loving hero who absolutely adores animals. The two guys, during this route, are utterly clueless; Protagonist genuinely doesn't know why she reacted that way and the Dark Archer is genuinely hopeful that she liked it.

It still makes me laugh to this very day thinking about the scene. As in, I literally just laughed myself to tears by typing it out and thinking about it. If you're not reacting much the same way, that means I need to better demonstrate things, be it on a different medium or with better descriptors of their characters or just a rewrite of the dialog, but then again. This is MY perfect RPG, so I suppose it making me laugh is good enough.

The other thing I worked on for the perfect RPG was more or less making the first steps towards defining the relationship between the Future/Present/Past and differences in things sold.

For a start--it's (almost) impossible to make a profit off of buying things cheap in one area and selling them in a different area. With specific exceptions (said exceptions being tied to repeatable quests meant to level up the Merchant job), all goods are sold at a set price.

Goods are bought at varying prices so you can get things where the buy/sell ratio is 1:1 (as in, you can sell it for just as much as you can buy it), but also in places where the buy/sell ratio is potentially 1,000:1 (as in, you get 1/1000th of the item's cost to buy when you sell it).

The game does have a rudimentary supply/demand function, mostly tied to the repeatable quests to level up the merchant job, but still existing even outside of that. There are two basic variables at play:
"We have plenty of this good"/"We have very few to none of this good", and
"This good is something we can sell"/"This good is something which we'll never sell".
There is an in-between state for both, "We have some of this good"; "this good will sell a little bit".

And selling prices are thus set at select prices off of those criteria. None of this good + we can sell = maximum profit; Plenty of this good + something never selling = least profit; there are seven intermediary states (for nine total) of good prices.

Again, outside of specific circumstances, it's never possible to make a profit buying one place and selling another, but it's possible to get a 1:1 ratio between the two. 

Now.
That having been said.

I didn't quite get to work out the details, but I wanted to work out that there are different mechanics in play between the Future, Present, and Past when it comes to
-Buying Items (Cost/Variety/Grade)
-Buying Gear (Cost/Variety/Grade/Number of Slots)
-Upgrading Gear (Cost/Grade/Number of Slots)
-Enchanting Gear (Cost/Variety/Grade/Number of Enchantments)
-Slotting (Cost/Type/Number)
Among others.

As an example I came up with, in the Future, it'd be possible to buy products that are mass-produced and thus have a high number of slots, but come at a lower grade. Variety would be increased, but so too would cost.

I didn't get to detail the mechanics there, but I got a start on them, the idea being that the economics of the three times are not interchangeable, but still follow a general mold such that you, as Walkers, have a fairly decent progression in the quality of your gear as the game advances which is supported by the storyline.

​And now we get to the main project.

I suppose I'll start with the heroes.
I had a bit of a concern when I was going over the story in my head.

The Thaukama has 13 total members to it across the whole story. But of them, only about half of that are given the level of character depth over the course of the series that I would prefer them to have.

Phyrra and Cyrus, being the titular characters, aren't a concern. Gora, the only Guardian for the first half of the first season, is obviously not a concern because he travels with the Thaukama from the very beginning and is from the onset the closest to the siblings, so he's not a concern.

Ace, as the first human to join the Thaukama which he does fairly early on (we're talking, like, first six episodes or so), is not a concern of mine when it comes to depth. We have plenty of opportunities for him to show off his heroic badassery every step of the way.

Cedrick, given how he is introduced and how long he takes to formally join the Thaukama, is not much of a concern of mine. He is introduced before episode ten (when, exactly, hard to say) and remains a rival/antagonist until the shipwreck (his official joining point), so he has a fair amount of character focus during half the series. While he does lose some limelight after that coming into season two, he remains as one of the core fighters of the Thaukama. I'm not too concerned about him.

Kaze is not a concern, though mainly because he is deliberately designed to be the Guardian with the least amount of depth to him. This is an intentional design choice for him, to make there not be much about his character, though even given that, he has opportunities where he gets to show his character off to others.

Bard is a bit of a concern, though--during his introductory arc, he has a ton of focus. Like, he has a great deal of depth added to him during the period of those 6-8 episodes. But after that, I'm a bit concerned I don't have enough planned for him when it comes to the Thaukama's team dynamic more or less. How he interacts with others. He DOES get some focus in the latter half of the second season, though, so I'm not concerned about him that much.

Lily is not a concern of mine, because she is a co-holder for team mom with Myra, in addition to her interactions with Hera and generally her usefulness to the team, between her shops in various cities and her life experience and what she can do. She's also mostly a noncombatant in spite of being an incredibly competent fighter when she does fight, so that gives me some freedom to let her do things aside from fight.

However, there's three human members of the Thaukama and a whole Guardian (one of the core entities to the series) that I am a little bit concerned about when it comes to chances to really show them off as characters, to give them depth, personality, screen time, and levels of individuality such that you get to see them as people rather than just plot devices used to further the story.

I am deeply concerned and even troubled by the fact that Myra is someone I don't have a lot of material for. Even Kaze, the homicidal maniac, has more planned than she does. I know she is a people eater, along-side Hera. I know she is the team mom, and shares this role with Lily. But in spite of her holding the status OF team mom...I don't really have her doing much in the way of motherly things for the majority of the story, and that's an issue.

Plus, aside from that, she's the only Guardian I don't really have much in the way of battles planned. Admittedly, I don't have many for Kaze, either, and I can only think of one (really, really awesome) battle for Hera, butstill, Myra is introduced in episode 14, or thereabouts. She's with the Thaukama for 3/4ths of the series, more or less. She should have a notable impact, which I am still working on giving her.

I do have a little bit of depth planned for Will, in that his services as the son of nobles help the Thaukama out and he is the one who helps provide them with rides, but I don't have much in the way of plans for him...until the second half of the second season. This is a bit of a concern of mine, since unlike the others he doesn't have as much screen time. I do think I need to do more with him.

Alena I also am deeply concerned with--as the last member of the Thaukama introduced at a set point, I have only ten episodes to show her off and make her be seen as a deep, important character. She has a very heavy focus, but I'm not sure it's enough. I did develop a bit of a patch for this, though--I am giving her a cameo during a time contemporary to Cyrus's "are you going to have lesbisex?" line. Her introduction proper wouldn't be until later, but even this little bit would help to establish her in advance.

However, the largest concern of mine is Clara. Other than her introduction, I have...basically nothing on her. I still have basically nothing on her, but I did manage to figure out some ways to help. One way I am helping out is by introducing her earlier--she'll be in the shipwreck, and is introduced on the mainland, returning from a pilgrimage there to head back to the new world, where she does most of her adventuring.

She would be traveling with her master, and the shipwreck actually serves as a convenient method of separating her from him...allowing her to become a member of the Thaukama far more believably, and also helping to explain why she doesn't have her master with her (an issue I had before--basically, the idea was to introduce her without her master but I was having trouble with how that'd work and once her master was in the picture how it'd make sense for her to travel with the Thaukama; now I have a way of doing that).

The main thing I did to flesh her out was to develop Paladins. (Disclaimer: I want to research Paladins in D&D to see what they can do. I want to cover most "traditional" Paladin abilities, more or less, which can be justified as being based on Sun Magic. So, no, no Anti-Fear-Aura, but yes, Lay-On-Hands. See below.)

Specifically, I developed Paladins such that Paladins are subdivided into two types, depending on what they are aiming to specialize in (because, remember--they use specialized magic; they can't learn everything without becoming full mages which takes half a human lifetime).

Solarii (what Clara is in training to become) are spellbladers, who make use primarily of two main spells. Clara's lantern-spell and engulf-weapon-in-light spells are the two preliminary versions of the spells Sun Scorch and Fire Hammer (respectively).

...Yes, those names should seem oddly familiar, but I thought it appropriate. Sun Scorch, the evolution of the lantern-hand, is basically an explosion of pure sun energy, radiating out from the caster to obliterate all opponents, cast either through the hands or through a weapon.

Fire Hammer, the evolution of the engulf-weapon-in-light spell, is to create an entire weapon out of pure sun energy, controlled through heliokinesis. This heliokinetic weapon is usually utilized to rotate around the caster to attack enemies on all sides, since with every strike, a miniature sun explosion is unleashed. (This type of 'weapon rotating around the caster' spell is common enough that I think the effect comes across.) Alternatively, the concussive/explosive force generated when the weapon is 'thrown' forward can devastate a single target in front of the caster. (This is from the source material where the name originates from, but can also be thought of from another source...)

There is also a mundane application. The weapon might be made out of pure sun energy, but is still solidified--it can be grabbed. Because it is controlled by the heliokinesis of the caster, it can go however the user wills it to. When you combine these properties, what you have is that when the user grabs onto the weapon, they can, functionally, fly.

In short, this is an ability you can think of as basically being Thor wielding Mjolnir, except instead of being lightning-oriented, it is oriented around the sun. Otherwise the effects are much as you'd expect them to be, launched and returned at will, the staple attack of a Solarii. (Because Sun Scorch tends to, with repeated casting, exhaust the user, whereas Fire Hammer is cast only once and thus the only drain involved is the heliokinesis which relatively speaking is basically nothing to a trained paladin.)

They may have other spells, but these two are their signature moves, which are what make them be Solarii. They are incredibly potent, powerful abilities, difficult to master, and yet incredibly awesome once they are. Solarii paladins are generally what the masses think of as "adventuring paladins", because they have a skillset best suited for that profession--martial moves that are combat-oriented, albeit having pragmatic use outside of combat (e.g. smithing).

​Paeans are the other half of paladins, thought more of as the "healing paladins". They do have combat-oriented skills, revolving around ranged weaponry (typically missile weapons in the form of bows or the occasional crossbow), but most of what they focus on is healing/buffing based around photosynthesis. That being, they use the energy of the sun to propagate life, mending wounds at an accelerated rate and the like.

I don't have their spells detailed as well as I do Solarii spells, admittedly, but that gives you a general framework for what they do. They are more passive, but just as important.

There are some spells common to both types of paladins--the main one, Shield of Light, is exactly what it sounds like, though the form of the spell differs. For Solarii, the shield of light is a spherical barrier encompassing an area (based more around the sun scorch), usually surrounding an ally, which can be condensed (based more around the fire hammer) to form...a rather literal shield, often directly in front of the target to stop an incoming powerful attack.

For Paeans, the shield of light is a barrier encompassing an area, usually surrounding an ally, which can be condensed to form an aura surrounding the target. You know how in sci-fi a semi-common piece of tech is a personal forcefield? Sometimes so personalized that when you see the outline of it it is literally just inches above the skin and form-fitted to the body? The uncondensed is the former; the condensed is the latter.

Both techniques might have a different basis based around the particular magic unlocked in the individual to use (because, again, this is specialized magic which must be taught from an early age and which only is partially unlocking magical potential such that the caster can do a very specific set of things and nothing else), but they result in an identical effect, thus the shared name.

That's what I have for heroes.

Now let's move on to the villains!

​Back a few days ago, I managed to give them some names. The first big bad, Sloan Patrick Breaker, received the equipment which made him a threat from the third big bad. When defeated, he contacts said big bad and informs him, "The ones who defeated me are the ones you were hoping to surface. Their names are Phyrra and Cyrus."

His evil schemes are fairly small compared to others. I don't have the specifics laid out yet, though.

The second big bad, Gunther King Slayer (for the record, he is the son of two villains so that name is not what you'd call incidental), received the ability he needed for his scheme from the third big bad. When defeated, he contacts said big bad and informs him, "Phyrra and Cyrus are on their way to the New World, and if they survive the trip...they will be fully awakened."

The third big bad, Archer Cross Hill, more or less is after Phyrra and Cyrus's powers for himself.

All of those big bads, because they are tied together, have a particular theme to their names--it's ridiculously subtle though, so mad props if you can navigate my mind to the extent where you are able to pick out the common thread to all three names. (Even better would be if you discover a common trend to their three names that I hadn't intended because that'd mean there was more than just the original one!)

The fourth big bad, deliberately meant to break the trend, is named Muse Gerald Icarious. Which, in of itself, has a not-so-subtle meaning to it along similar veins to the other names. (You might note that not many of the names in Phyrra and Cyrus are particularly clever; all of them more or less are some reflection of something.)

The third big bad, Archer Cross Hill, stole some research from Muse Gerald Icarious in order to enact his final scheme (which failed, obviously), but the final big bad being the final big bad gets to use the research in its full unadulterated form. Said research being...

The Six Sins.
"Six?!? What happened to seven?!?"
Not just kidding!
You heard it right.

SIX sins.

The Six Sins are summoned spirits, directly akin to the four Guardians in function--they are cursed spirits, who reveled in their particular sin until they were forced to never embody their desire. They can never truly die; whenever they are 'killed', it simply means that they cannot be re-summoned for a minimum of 200 years. (There is of course no maximum so they could theoretically go all of eternity unsummoned, but if killed then they can't be summoned again for 200 years.)

And, yes, they are a bundled package. You summon them all together, and then are the master of all six until all six are released from the bond.

So the basic reasoning behind this is...the six sins were once human. (Which differentiates them from the Guardians, who explicitly never have been human, though did once exist without being tied to the books.) When they were caught for their crimes, they were cursed to serve a barbarian sorcerer-warlord, who made it sure that the owner of the seventh sin (pride) controlled them...starting, of course, with him. (This being eons ago in the story, his name has been lost to the history books.)

That is why there are only six of them. Because the seventh sinner is their master, the human who summons them, who must embody both pride, and yet also humbleness. They must have the ambition and drive to have grandiose goals and essentially a grandeur of godhood mindset, to have the knowledge that they can have the power to surpass all...

...And yet, because the curse also forces the sinners to be their opposites (more or less), the owner of the other six sins must be humble and wise enough to understand their own limitations and be honest about their capabilities. This unique mixture is a rather lethal one, because it involves a person who dreams big but knows exactly what steps will end up screwing them over. In other words--a genre savvy villain.

The Six Sins are...
Ivan, sinner of Gluttony. Ivan is unique among the sins for having the capacity to lie; the other sinners cannot. Ivan's sin was that he was a serial killer cannibal. At the height of his debauchery, he would eat one entire human a day, bones and all. (Literally everything in a human is at least some definition of edible with the right preparation; if you're a fat bastard, you have a big enough gut to eat much more than normal.)

His punishment, upon being cursed, was to become a mummy. (Think, half of the curse from Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl. Specifically, a combination of their appearance and the eternal hunger/thirst.) When he touches someone, he drains them of their physical energy, as if starving them.

Olivia, sinner of Lust. Olivia is unique among the sins for having the capacity to still sin, albeit not in her sin. Her sin was that she was a serial rapist--she tortured her victims, enacting various sexual fetishes on her unwilling partners. If they died, that was no problem; she kept going, making her guilty of necrophilia. She was also indiscriminate in her victim choice--man, woman...or child. So yes, she was guilty also of pedophilia. (I realize I might not be able to get this by censors, but I'd get as much as I could through with the rest implied.)

Her punishment, upon being cursed, was to become a withered old hag. (Think the other half of the curse from Pirates of the Caribbean, unable to feel the pleasures of the flesh.) Her touch drains mana. Because she is so denied what she desires and is eternally reminded of it, she experiences envy.

Balian, sinner of Wrath. Balian is unique among the sins for having full recollection of his name. All the other sinners only remember their first name, but Balian knows his full name. Balian's sin was that he singlehandedly massacred an entire city of 10,000 civilians. When an army of 20,000 was mobilized to avenge them, he massacred the 16,000 who fought...and then, when 4,000 fled in terror...

...He hunted them down, massacring every village along the way, just on the possibility they harbored his prey. He left no survivors by the time he had finished. So yes, he was in fact a person of mass destruction. He was a spellblader, whose spells are ironically what he is more or less cursed to only be able to use (nothing more). Back in the day, he used entrapment spells such that he could help narrow escape routes such that there was nowhere to run, allowing his massacres to transpire.

...Now, he is cursed with the appearance of a pseudo-Buddhist monk (bald head, peace beads, etc.), able to create barriers (basically a kekkaishi) which are explicitly nonlethal. He cannot loophole his way into killing someone by, say, materializing a barrier inside a body, or asphyxiating someone by draining their oxygen. (Well, he can do that to the point of unconsciousness, but the barrier collapses before killing anyone.)

He is forced, absolutely forced, to be a complete and total, absolute, utter pacifist. He cannot harm anyone. At all. He can only prevent harm, and is in fact compelled to do so. He can't do nothing; he must help prevent harm, in order to never embody his wrath.

Erik, sinner of Envy, is unique among the sins in that he has no recollection of his past life--thus, he doesn't remember what sin he performed. (Mostly because I couldn't actually think of what atrocity he committed comparable to the others, butstill.)

His curse was to become a blind beggar, with the gift of healing--in other words, he is forced to only give to others and to never in turn receive anything for his service. He is basically compelled to always reverse destruction. 

Deryll, sinner of Greed. Deryll is unique among the sins for not having anything unique about him. He is a textbook cursed sinner. His sin was that he was a serial killer of noble heritage--similar to Gluttony, he murdered at least one person a day, but instead of eating them, he collected various, numerous trophies from his victims. (Which is a semi-common thing from actual serial killers.)

His curse was that he became a robot, unable to be adorned in anything. (This was the only way I could think of to make the fact that he's naked get by censors.) If he grabs onto anything, he is forced to teleport away--without the item.

He also serves as the messenger for Muse. He's the one who informs the Thaukama that Archer made use of powers of the sins and knowledge acquired from his master, and that his master is actually out for much the same goal...however, his master still regrets Archer's actions, because while Archer acted alone, it was only possible thanks to his master's research.

Furthermore, his master desires to acquire his goal through any method necessary--even peaceful ones. Conflict was thus, strictly speaking, unnecessary, and that it happened was not ideal; the violence used was excessive and entirely unrequired for the goal.

However, Deryll does relay that his master laments that, inevitably, they'll still come into conflict, because his master is villainous and the Thaukama are heroic so even though his master's goal can be met without any force, they will still end up fighting each other.

Ulysses, sinner of Sloth. Ulysses is unique among the sins for being the only sin to feel remorseful for his sins. The other sins? They still desire their sin, just are cursed to never have it. With all but Olivia apathetic about their situation, yet making it clear they absolutely would still perform their sin if they were capable of it.

...Not so much for Ulysses, who feels immense, deep regret for his actions, desiring atonement he knows he'll never get. His sin was multiple chained events--he started as an adventurer, becoming a part of their core group. Eventually, he was placed in a position where he could easily have saved them...yet he let them die, and reveled in it, enjoying the absolute betrayal of trust his companions had placed in him.

After this, he returned to his kingdom where he was a prince, and took innocents and placed them in Saw-like death-traps, such that he could just watch them slowly die as they tried to get out. At every stage, he could abort the torture-executions, but he kept them going because he enjoyed watching them suffer and die rather than sparing them.

Inevitably, his kingdom was invaded, and while he easily could have crushed the invaders...he let his people perish. He deliberately ordered his troops to more or less act in the way which was most passive and yet still suicidal. Then, fleeing from the carnage, returned to adventuring and duplicated his first feat on a second group of unsuspecting adventurers.

This betrayal of trust is emphasized as essentially having been the worst of the sins (not that hard to understand when you go Thaukama-->Nakama), and thus, his curse is also the most severe. At its most base level, his curse makes him an insomniac, incapable of sleeping and yet always eternally having the effects of sleep deprivation forced on him thanks to this.

Furthermore, he is a compulsive analyst genius.  (And yes, he does look like L from Death Note.)

The exact specifics make this even worse. He has the absolute compulsion (think like in Code Geass where Suzaku is geassed by Lelouche with the "Live!" command) where he cannot commit suicide, not even suicide by cop; he is compelled to fight to survive and to not pick fights he cannot win. If he can win a fight, he is compelled to proactively INITIATE said fight against any he deems a threat to his master; he can't let his opponents live/go free, nor can he let them kill him.

Why would he want that?

Because he is in eternal pain. He has hyper-senses. Increased vision, VERY increased hearing capable of hearing everything, increased sense of touch, taste, and smell.

Additionally, he is constantly being forced to analyze that sensory input. In short, he is a constant, never-ending, ultimate Sherlock Scan, aware of every little detail about everything in his surroundings which more or less means that he can see the life story of everything he is around more or less; there is no "off switch" to this ability, and no way to tune it out.

Worse, he has an Eidic memory. He remembers everything. Every thought he's ever had, every emotion he's ever felt, every feeling he's ever experienced. Pain from a wound he sustained hundreds of years ago still hurts as if brand new. And that above ability? You know, the scan everything one? He remembers every single second of every single scan.

Constant sensory overload, fresh every single moment. He more or less is in a constant neverending hell, and among the reasons is that he can remember with crystal clarity his sins, and what he did, the absolute betrayal of trust, the feelings he felt when doing so, and with his new abilities, being able to understand exactly how every single victim felt, through a combination of a retroactive sherlock scan (that being, knowing things he didn't know at the time through having perfect recollection and perfect intuition) and through personal experience (in that unlike when he was originally alive, he has now personally experienced the wounds he inflicted on others dozens of times so he knows exactly how they felt).

He is forced to hunt down enemies and eliminate them, knowing full good and well exactly what it feels like to be killed, and being unable to be killed himself because he's too competent to be killed and can't let himself be killed. He basically gets to always experience the absolute worst of everything.

​This is, more or less, what gave him a conscience, though. By having to actually witness what his atrocities were like, he actually genuinely is sorry for it, but knows that even were it possible for him to be released from the curse, he wouldn't deserve it.

By the way, yes, he is in fact the most deadly of the six sins. He makes it abundantly well-known that he is in fact going to massacre the Thaukama if they let their guard down for so much as a second, and the only reason that he isn't compelled to fight them is that he calculates a 60% chance he'd die when fighting every member of the Thaukama at once, violating his master's commands in the process.

I think that's about it. I am looking at the three sheets I have, scanning them for information, and I BELIEVE I got everything I had written down, so I think that's everything.

So yeah, that's what I had.

For Phyrra and Cyrus, I did think of the adept human boy's name.
William Grant Clemency, who prefers just Will. (I am subtle, oh so subtle.) I also fleshed him out a little bit, but not as much as I would prefer. The Thaukama meet him at a bit of a formal gathering; he is a frequent attender to such outings, as minor nobility. 

His parents do end up encouraging him to go see the world, albeit giving him errands to do when adventuring and homework so to speak, where he is to continue his studies. Their justification is more or less that having some real world experience will help him succeed in life using more than just his natural talents by giving him the skills necessary to survive in any environment, rather than just a sheltered one.

They also have enough trust in their son to trust his trust in the Thaukama, in that he knows that he travels with a group which is destined to succeed. Said parents do offer as many resources as their network grants them without being intrusive--it'd get in the way to have servants travel with him and defeat half the point, and they only have influence over a bit of a localized area so can't contact him half-way around the world, but they do what they can to offer assistance and influence, which does aid the Thaukama.

​But other than these details, 90% of which I more or less knew already, didn't really do anything. I still owe you the double-ramble on the perfect RPG and the new webcomic, but I suppose these things can wait.

Specifically, I am talking about Phyrra and Cyrus.

I actually have...well basically. The entire series more or less with a basic plot outline including what is probably the entirety of the Thaukama. I'll start with the trivial and work my way down the list.

For a start, pronunciations. The way Phyrra is meant to be pronounced is a bit unusual--the 'a' at the end can be interpreted most commonly as 'aw' or 'uh'; the latter is the correct one. The double-rs can be thought of as Phy-ra, Phyr-a, or Phyr-ra; it is meant as Phyr-ra. The y can be interpreted as 'ai' or 'e'; the latter is the correct one. Ph can commonly be thought of as 'f' or 'p'...but in this case, it's actually neither, more in-between the two. Much, much, MUCH closer to 'p', but not purely 'p', with the slightest of accents on it which kinda brings in the 'f' sound but not strongly.

The way I like to remember this altogether is to think, Pier-ruh, and then make it P'here-ruh to get the accent more or less right. Myra, on the other hand, has the 'e' sound; it is My-ruh, essentially. Thaumason, as established, is pronounced almost exactly like 'Thompson'. Just, instead of a quick almost-silent p, it's a quick, almost-silent a. 

Most of the other names I've come up with are pretty self-explanatory. Now for the fun part. Outlining the characters.

Last time, I more or less talked about everything there is to know about Ace, but today I figured out his full name: Ace Marcus Samson. As established, he's sixteen years old, a sharpshooter, and wilderness survival expert, with great medical expertise. He is the first human member of the Thaukama to be introduced--within the first 12 episodes, before even Kaze is.

The first Big Bad is defeated in episode 12, but during this conflict, Gora is badly wounded; Kaze comes in at episode 13 as a result.

I'm not sure if it is during this time or during the first 12, but at some point around here, we are introduced to Cedric Thomas Jenkins, a nineteen-year-old prodigy in wielding a very specific form of telekinetic magic: he controls magically-enhanced platinum spheres, which he launches as if bullets. (If you've seen the scene from X Men 2 involving Magneto's jailbreak, think like those.) He knows only that one spell, and it is very specifically only applicable to the platinum spheres he controls; this is noted as being difficult to do.

He is a mercenary, and a bit of a rival, even antagonist, to the Thaumason siblings. However, he does eventually join the Thaukama full-time as a fairly early member.

The next arc after this is a desert kingdom arc, where a demon master has seized control of an empire. (There is enough of a strong resistance led by the legitimate heir to the throne that it can be considered a civil war, but the bad guys are winning...by a LOT.) This is where Myra is summoned and introduced.

Bard Tune Song ("...Really?" "...Unfortunately, yes.") is introduced during this arc. He is a seventeen-year-old street urchin, who looks younger than he is (he looks like a scrawny fifteen-year-old). He actually likes life on the streets. He loves to be a street performer of various different types--yes, including being a traveling musician--but his repertoire also includes being a con artist, a pickpocket, and thief, in that he is skilled at sneaking around and stealing.

However, he is also a being known as a 'Spirit Demon'. This is, essentially, something which is comparable to the mixture of a vampire and a werewolf (so, yes, a werepyre as they are commonly known); neither vampires nor werewolves exist in the setting so this is the closest thing to either which combines traits from both. It also has a bit of a Jekyll/Hyde relationship (or more like Banner/Hulk), in that the Spirit Demon can come out when the individual experiences any form of extreme distress.

This is normally not a problem--normally. In this setting, a Spirit Demon has full control over themselves. Usually. They are ferocious shapeshifting beasts, yes, but they are still lucid, in full control of themselves. Their shapeshifted form is just a super mode of sorts. Said form is also the form where they drain energy from individuals, something which if extreme enough can kill the person, but they are equally as capable of just ripping or tearing a person to shreds were they inclined to.

Spirit Demons aren't easily created, either, but do spread on rare (seen as) unfortunate moments. They need the energy of others to survive, thus their moniker, but they do get many upsides; regeneration, superstrength, endurance, a thick hide, agility, claws, teeth, and the like.

This makes Bard a great combatant, and he'd be all too happy to be a hero...

...But during his introductory arc, he is against his will a slave to said big bad, who as noted is a demon master, and Bard is a spirit demon. Bard, in is HUMAN form, is free...but once he transforms into his spirit demon form, he is enslaved, and worse...he is conscious of his actions, just forced to obey orders he'd really rather not. So he's an antagonist who is all too happy to join the Thaukama once he is actually able to.

Said arc lasts until around episode 20. At this point, there is a mini-arc revolving around traveling to 'The New World', a world where if you are capable of surviving, fame is almost-guaranteed. It is a place far more dangerous, such that it is even hazardous to get there. The Thaukama getting stranded on an island thanks to being shipwrecked by a common storm of the area forces Phyrra in Cyrus's body to summon Hera and learn her water magic. (With her controlling both water and air, she can control the storms and prevent them from decimating the Thaukama on their journey.)

This would conclude the first season, around episode 24.

At this point, in the new world during episode 25, we are introduced to Clara Cleopatra Carson. She is a Paladin--think Magic Knight. Specifically, it is a knight-in-shining-armor, full plate mail, wielding sword-and-shield, and trained to use a very specific type of magic, sun magic. Even though she is a prodigy, Clara is only sixteen, so she's still a trainee; she knows only two spells. Those spells are a spell to essentially make her hand act as a lantern, and a spell which engulfs her sword, greatly increasing the cutting power of it and allowing her to send out the stereotypical anime shockwave with her slashes.

When she combines the two, she can channel them into the five throwing knives she carries to create a straight, long, cavalry blade made of light--yes, a quite literal light saber. She is also a skilled blacksmith, as a prerequisite for becoming a Paladin is to forge your own equipment; this makes her a pragmatic member of the team.

As it just so happens, she is also a childhood friend of the Thaumasons, in that they grew up in the same orphanage. This leads to a number of funny moments when they meet up, including Clara showing off her magic and saying that if they are very lucky, that Phyrra and Cyrus when they are her age might be able to do similar. A quick nonverbal communication occurs between the siblings as Phyrra eyes a "...Should we?", and Cyrus's smile indicates a, "Oh yes."

...So in synch, Phyrra forms a mini-cyclone in one hand and a flowing circle of water in the other; Cyrus forms a rock spike in one hand and a fireball in the other. Poor Clara is left uttering broken insensible words as she blue screens from the sheer shock. (Keep in mind that prodigies, even prodigies of specific types of magic, take until their teens to do it; Clara is an immense prodigy for being so young and having what she does, so it should be impossible for Phyrra and Cyrus to surpass her while they are their age.)

Her luck doesn't improve much. Because Phyrra and Cyrus are, obviously, still in each other's bodies (which they are for the vast majority of the series aside from some specific instances where they go into their rightful bodies; I worked out that they are themselves for the 24 hour cycle of both a full and new moon, so once every other week), Phyrra decides to prank poor Clara even further.

Phyrra acts exactly like Cyrus, with Cyrus acting exactly like Phyrra, a scheme they ask the Thaukama to go along with. However, in some moments, the two will overtly, deliberately, act like themselves, confusing their old friend immensely. Clara does figure it out eventually, but it gives you a fair idea of what the poor girl has to live through.

Despite that, though, she is a serious character; Paladins are immensely talented warriors and even though she is still a trainee, she IS a Paladin, skilled in martial combat and whose smithing skills are of endless use to forging and repairing the Thaukama's equipment. So she fights well and provides services valuable to the team outside of combat.

The next arc is a mini-arc lasting until about episode 30, revolving around an arctic land. When the Thaukama find themselves in need of appropriate winter clothing, they stop by at a tailor shop to obtain the goods they need, and are introduced to the shop owner of Lilian's, Lilian Rose Wolfe, AKA, Lily (her preferred name). She is older than any other human(ish) member of the Thaukama, at 32, and has the life experience to go with it.

She offers to clothe the Thaukama for free, on the condition she is allowed to study Hera's clothes, as she knows that the inspiration she'd receive from having gotten a good look at them would when she made some based off of Hera's clothing (Hera is one of my favorite designed characters aesthetically as I envision her), be worth far more than any fare she would charge the Thaukama; she points out that if anything she'd be ripping them off.

Hera notes that the only reason her clothes are practical are that they are magically crafted as part of her body, more or less, but Lily is quick to point out the vast majority of her customers across all the shop branches she has opened aren't interested in how pragmatic the outfit is, and that aesthetics sell.

Hera is still rather put off at the idea of it, though, because she would essentially be selling herself off to pay for clothing in her eyes, only to have people wear clothing which is a pale imitation of her own, bringing hers down.

Phyrra sways her to take the deal with a rather simple observation:
"Miss Hera, this pretty lady is offering to take your measurements."

Of course, Lily makes a point that taking measurements, while an intimate process, is not a sexual one, and that it is poor professionalism to mix business with pleasure, especially with clients who wouldn't typically assume she's into them. (The implication being that, yes, she does in fact like her ladies, and have a job which gets her intimate with them, yet she avoids taking advantage of her clients.)

With the biggest of knowing smirks, though, she notes, "However, if the deal relies on me being a little less professional than I normally would be...some sacrifices can be made." She also assures Hera, with some flattery, that her work would make everyone be in awe of the original, increasing rather than decreasing the allure of Hera's original.

Lily does end up adventuring with the Thaukama for business-related reasons, though decides to stay with them (she has her apprentice run the shop, something she does often because she has shops in many different towns) after that. She carries the tools of the trade for a tailor, everything from a mallet to knives to pins to needles to ropes and so on and so forth. Beyond that, she also carries survival tools such as a hatchet.

...However.
Though she is a combatant, none of those are what she actually fights with.
She fights with...

...A whip.

...Now, admittedly. It is an enchanted whip. Lily cannot use any sort of magic, but her whip was given some permanent rune enchantments mixed with technology, allowing her to dominate fights with it. Aside from it being able to wrap around things disproportionately well and also unwrap just as easily (think Indiana Jones like usage of a whip, which in real life...doesn't really work that well), her whip can be electrified, shocking anything it comes into contact with.

Additionally, the whip can be engulfed in fire. A third option available to her is essentially VASTLY enhancing the crack-sound of a whip to create a sort of shockwave, essentially allowing her whip to both pierce and cut what she pleases. But the real feature is a rather mundane one: various toxins that she can release from the whip at will, which range in effect from paralysis to confusion to temporary blindness to causing unconsciousness. None are lethal, but all are effects that give her an edge where once the poison takes effect, if the enemy isn't immune, she wins.

Hera, upon witnessing this for the first time, has quite the reaction, noting, "It's been a long time since a human has made me feel this way..."
Phyrra instantly catches on, teasing her: "Does Miss Hera have a crush~?"

She's not alone.

On one of the times where Cyrus has his own body, Hera and Lily go on a trip to a nearby city for that day. As they get ready to depart, Cyrus blurts out, "Are you two going to have lesbisex?"
Hera's reaction is to smack him really hard in the head, and then depart.

When they are a fair distance away, Cyrus further notes, "That wasn't a no~!" (Hera and Lily just smile as they leave.)

Once more as explicitly as the show would allow the implication would be that, yes, these two do end up as a couple, but it wouldn't be something likely to be absolutely confirmed during screentime. 

After the arctic arc, there is one episode which introduces the only member of the Thaukama who I've yet to name, a 12-year-old boy, who is what is known as an 'Adept Human': a human able to see things for what they really are. In other words, he knows all the guardians are spirits instantly and can see Phyrra and Cyrus's body swap.

This gift also gives him a minor form of combat clairvoyance, in that he is very gifted at knowing where enemies are likely to attack and allowing him to dodge almost anything. However, his true talent is that he is a bit of a beastmaster, in that he tames animals; this is a valuable skill for, saaaaaaaaaaaay, obtaining a ride for long-distance travel; having mounts which are suitable for the environment is a vital skill his addition to the Thaukama allows for.

Immediately after this, the Thaukama face down the third big bad, which concludes at episode 36.

Episode 37 introduces the final member of the Thaukama, Alena Mary Woodrow, an 11-year-old girl. She is the girl I mentioned previously, but now I know her name and also her talent--botany, with a side of alchemy. She has an incredible level of empathy, on par with the Adept Human boy, except she's just a normal girl, albeit prodigous in her field with a green thumb.

Episodes 38-48 would then involve the fourth and final big bad for the series.

Now, granted.

Some episodes I have the content mapped out for.

But most of these episodes I very much do not. I have an idea of what I want the general narrative for the story to be, outlined more or less above (albeit with me deliberately hiding some information here and there), and I have the characters more or less pegged down. Yet the vast majority of the series is filled to the brim with gaps in content that I'm not sure what is actually there.

Also, while I have a general timeline in mind, the episodes are a bit fluid. I might end up needing more than 48 total, or I might significantly struggle to fill up the episodes necessary for 48 to make sense. Some arcs might be lengthened or shortened. I don't have any specific idea for how long the desert arc/big bad2 is, just that I want Hera to be introduced at or before the end of the first season, and that she is introduced near the end of a mini-arc that comes after said desert arc/big bad2.

Similarly so for the arctic arc; I didn't have any particular length in mind. Also, the big bad3 being dealt with at 36 in one way actually feels way, way later than it should be and yet in another way feels way, way earlier than it by all rights should be; I feel like this is a big bad who should exist for a long time and yet his effect I want to happen earlier in the series rather than later. (Said effect I know is after Lily's introduction which is after Hera's introduction though, so that gives a pretty specific timeframe.)

One technique I might use to accomplish this: the third big bad might be shown in episodes before his arc, as having ties to both prior big bads, making him seem like the big bad for the entire series even though he's only the penultimate big bad. Given that I have approximately ten episodes to introduce and play around with the final big bad, I'm not concerned about him coming out of nowhere, so I think this works, too.

Is there anything else in my notes?

Hmm...I don't think so. I think that covers both the 18th and today. I don't think I forgot anything so I think I covered basically everything. You more or less have a much better idea what the setting, story, and Thaukama would be like for Phyrra and Cyrus.

If I did my job right, you'll even share my wish that it could be made real.

...Since my creative whims are being interrupted by having listened to music in order to drown my dad out. However, that having been said, I still have three very valid things to ramble on. Let's start with the most recent. A couple of days ago, on Thursday, I had a series of dreams, one after another, which were all amazing and awesome dreams filled with adventure. Mostly after I'd waken up, as part of my powernapping.

There was one which stood out above the rest.

It didn't take me very long to dub the story idea...
Phyrra and Cyrus.

Phyrra and Cyrus Thaumason (yes, that is Thompson, and yes it is just about as common a surname for the setting--it's not exactly 'Smith', and while it's not a top-ten surname, it IS a top-15 surname; incredibly common and unremarkable) are prodigal twin siblings. They are considered to be incredibly talented for their age--at 11 years old, both are already accomplished adventurers.

Phyrra is a bit of a Genki girl--she is energetic, enthusiastic, radiates an aura of brightness and happiness, is sweet, naive, and innocent. Additionally, she is incredibly polite, and fairly formal. However, she is also reckless, hotheaded, and a blood knight who loves the thrill of combat. Her specialty is bladed weapons, especially swords. She has blue hair, which is let down. She is also bisexual. (Well, at her age, more like biromantic, butstill.)

Cyrus is everything Phyrra isn't. He is calm, cool, and collected: a thinker, cautious by nature, who prefers to avoid combat when at all possible. He'll use any method to avoid conflict, be it running away or preferably negotiation. However, if a fight is inevitable, his fighting method is to be decisive--whereas Phyrra likes to have fun fighting and thus doesn't think much about winning, Cyrus when he plans a fight plans how to end it as swiftly and effortlessly as possible. He is blunt, unapologetic, rude, cynical, and a bit of a jerk, but he really knows how to use anything.

This is why his preferred weaponry is environmental weaponry. For instance, if surrounded by rocks, using a sling would be a good option; when in a forest, wooden weapons such as a spear would be ideal. When he has to default to a weapon, his choice is the universal staff, a tool versatile, yet pragmatic, and easily carried. He has protagonist-styled spiked red hair. He is demisexual. (Well, at his age, more like demiromantic, butstill.)

The duo sought after the usual things. Fame, fortune, but mostly...respect. A secondary caveat to this was them wanting to be treated as any other person would be, not discriminated against as being children. A tertiary aspect of this was them being self-aware enough that they aren't yet adults, and being frustrated that, yes, their minds still do operate as those of children, albeit incredibly gifted, mature, prodigal children. Though they have the experience and talent of adults, they know all too well their thoughts and critically emotions are those of kids, still.

In the adventure which kicks off the story, the Thaumason Siblings set out after a legendary book, the Book of Endlessness, said to be able to grant the reader(s) limitless abilities, among them age manipulation. Their idea: find the book, and use it to wish to be adults, such that they could so to speak "skip ahead". They were, of course, aware of the risks in doing so, but deemed it worth it because what would be lost from that wouldn't be something they'd miss, as far as they were concerned.

They didn't even think the book was real or if it was what it'd be able to do, but they found a fairly reliable rumor of where it would be if it were, and decided they'd try. 

By the way, this was envisioned as an anime. Western Animation would work, but it'd have to be one of those two. It doesn't really work as any other media. Not live action, not even manga that well (though it'd maybe be possible? I just think the magic would be lost without it as an animation).

So keep that in mind.

The first episode opens up with them entering the dungeon and more or less showing off their base abilities and natural personalities as they progress, filled with the special siblings banter only siblings can manage. (Seriously, I don't know how to explain sibling banter to someone who has none. It's just...something people with siblings kinda get and know and understand. They see sibling banter in fiction and they can often tell if the writer has siblings, sort of thing, in that if you know it you know what's real and what's forced.)

Eventually, they find the book, and begin to read it.

So the full effect of the book is that it unlocks the full magical potential of the reader, who takes on possession of the book as being its "owner". Magic exists in this setting, and it's the type that anyone can learn...but learning it takes years of study, such that the youngest magic users are in their 30s if they started when they were children. It is a dedicated, life-long study, akin to getting a doctorate in a field. You spend basically half your life to learn the beginnings of it, and you still even after learning it are no master.

Understandably, this makes magic users uncommon. And this isn't something where you can be a prodigy and learn it at a disproportional rate. There are magical prodigies who can use it in their 20s, but that's the prodigal level. It is the level of a genius, who not only is a genius, but also has essentially a "sixth sense" for muscle memory to learn the magic, or even eidic muscle memory for the process.

...By which. I mean. Magic is something that the entire body uses. It is something which is physically exerting, because it is using "muscles" of sorts which you have to be trained in how to use. I can say it is effectively equivalent to having a person who has used nothing but their hands their entire life, trying to learn how to use legs they've never used. They might see people walk and get the theory, they might know how it is done, but if they try to stand up, they're going to fall.

This is why even prodigies take into their 20s to get it, and most magic users are in their 30s, and magic is a bit of a rarity. Because it is not something you learn to use overnight...and even if you did. That's just for using the magic at all. You still need to, once you have learned HOW to use magic...learn individual spells. Magic isn't a do-anything power. Now, granted. Spells are near-infinite in number and have many different variants. But knowing how to use magic doesn't mean you can use magic because you also need to learn how to use specific spells.

Learning spells? That you can be a prodigy at, by studying hard and grasping them quickly and rapidly. But to learn a spell, first you must learn magic. It's impossible for people to learn a spell without first learning how to use magic, because without knowing how to use magic, the spell is just words on a page with pictures; they have no frame of reference for what it feels like, basically.

Now, granted. There are workarounds. Some people are magic-users-lite, who have unlocked partial magic casting, which they use for a very limited select set of spells applicable for the bits of magic they are using. This still takes years of training, doable in your teenaged years if a prodigy or in your 20s if you're more average. You can think of this as instead of using two arms, of using one hand (fraction of one arm which is half of two). 

However, even including those, magic's still not too terribly common. It's a thing, which exists, but which people still don't make wide usage of. The rules governing it are seen as an extension of physics--in a world which has always had magic, after all, the rules governing the universe are such that from a scientific point of view people don't differentiate between magic and not-magic. So it is considered a science, well-documented, well-recorded. People understand what it can, and can't, do.

So back to the book. The book? Basically, it instantly allows the owner to become a mage, regardless of how little they had trained their magic before. It does not grant them the knowledge on how to use said magic...but within the pages of the book are the recordings of basically every possible spell that the unlocked magic can use. (And this being limitless potential...that's basically every spell.) With the caveat...it will only show pages the owner is actually in the now capable of casting. 

...Sounds awesome, right?

...Well, the problem is...the book has a self-defense mechanism, and it's not just an easily-bypassed dungeon. In fact, it has more than one, but all of them work on the same principle. The book of endlessness has a defense mechanism which works as a double-reversal, on the principle of "being finite". Normally, when reading the book, the owner will start to find themselves aging rapidly, their time disappearing from being endless to being finite.

If that fails, the walls enclosing the space rapidly progress inward--the endless space becoming finite.

...However. The book's reversal mechanism doesn't quite take into account if two people simultaneously read it to both become the owner. Or rather...it does...and it does the only thing it can: use the reversal in...a very, very different method.

...And it is by this method that the entire rest of the story is set up, because that reversal? A reversal of spirit between the owners. Or in other words. A body swap. Phyrra gets stuck in Cyrus's body; Cyrus gets stuck in Phyrra's body. And it gets worse; they are, for the entire duration of this, now stuck permanently at eleven, never aging. (The opposite, reverse, of what they wanted.)

Yes the series would have plenty of shenanigans where Phyrra (in Cyrus's body) would need to try to pretend to be Cyrus, and vice-versa. And at times, awkwardly enough, the reverse (the two are actually in their correct bodies...but with people who only know Phyrra in Cyrus's body as Phyrra and vice-versa, them needing to try and pretend ANYWAY). You know the like. (So gender stuff would be featured a fair amount.)

...Oh, and the walls start to close in on them anyway.

Fortunately, the book is intricately linked to four other books: the book of wind, the book of earth, the book of fire, and the book of water.

Phyrra, in Cyrus's body, rushes over to the book of wind, activating it. Each book has a defense mechanism of summoning a Guardian. The Guardian's duty is to kill the owner of the book, or failing that, to serve them until such a time as the owner no longer owns the book.

Gora, a rock monster (his design is from a combination of sources, among them being that one rock monster that Kurama faced early on in YuYuHakusho), the Wind Guardian, comes forward...and gets introduced to Phyrra. Guardians, as creatures belonging to the spirit realm, can see beings in their true spiritual form, so has a unique form of double-vision where he can see the body of Cyrus but he can also see that it is actually Phyrra. Phyrra wins him over with her sheepish grin and polite manners.

...It also helps that he is not immune to being crushed in spite of being made of rock, so he starts to panic when he noticed and swiftly teaches Phyrra the 'wings of levitation' spell, which "shuts off traps", and the enclosing walls qualify, thus saving their lives.

Gora notes that they're just children, and can't find himself to do anything other than help them.

...And thus, the story begins, concluding the first episode.

This trio lasts for quite a large amount of time before other members of the Thaukama (Thaumpson + Nakama, it's the best I could come up with for their group name) join. In APPROXIMATE order:

Kaze, the Earth Guardian, is summoned when Gora is badly injured in a way the kids need the aid of the earth book in order to fix, a task that Cyrus (in Phyrra's body) undertakes. Kaze is a homicidal maniac. (His design is directly lifted from Kazekirimaru in Bleach's Zanpaktou Rebellion filler arc.) He is a killing machine who excels at slicing opponents to shreds, and unlike Gora, he is not so easily dissuaded from murdering his book's owner because of him being a child.

Phyrra does combat with him using her wind magic augmenting her blades, a fight which she does respectably well in and Kaze acknowledges her talent, yet notes that no matter her potential and no matter how prodigal she may be she is still inexperienced in the ways of the wind which he has had eons to master, so she is at a disadvantage.

After healing Gora and watching the fight for long enough, Cyrus challenges Kaze, noting that he is to be Kaze's owner, not Phyrra, and that if he is to be worthy of that, then he should be the one who earns Kaze's respect. In spite of using the element which has a disadvantage (the reason Guardians are the opposite element to the book they are guarding is twofold--to kill any would-be expert of the element, and to provide coverage to the expert of the element should they decide to subjugate themselves), Cyrus does in fact manage to prove himself.

Ace, age 16, the first non-Guardian member of the Thaukama, is an expert marksman. Give him any ranged weapon, and he can hit almost any target. He specializes in pistols, but using muskets is still viable. He is a highly competent archer even though he doesn't like to use bows, and he can make do with a crossbow even though he thinks them cumbersome. He can hit with a sling, and can throw darts and the like fairly well.

However, perhaps his most valuable asset is not his combat skills, but rather, the fact that unlike Phyrra and Cyrus, he is trained to survive out in the wild for long durations of time. He knows advanced first aid techniques, such that he is an expert medic, and is a survival expert, knowing what's edible, what's not, what's poisonous, what's not, how to prepare foods which would normally be toxic such that they are edible, where to find things, how to prepare against environmental hazards, and the like.

I haven't given him a last name yet, though he does have a loose appearance. Brown hair, fairly shaggy, wears a cowboy hat, has a trenchcoat, combat pants, and for shoes maybe combat boots. I want an aesthetic which is, overall, something that would say 'pragmatic in most environments'. (I mean obviously he'd need a different getup in a colder environment, but I want something which works reasonably well in the forest, jungle, desert, sea, and the like, while still offering high combat readiness.)

There would be other human members of the Thaukama join before this, but I haven't fleshed them out in much detail.

Myra, Fire Guardian, a Siren (with a Mermaid form and Sea Serpent form), is summoned by Cyrus (in Phyrra's body) when the siblings are entering into an area they anticipate fire magic being useful for. She is equally as lethal as Kaze, loving to eat or drown to death anyone. (None of the Guardians are pleasant individuals; the siblings having 'tamed' them is noted as being an incredibly unusual occurrence because the Guardians are explicitly MONSTERS.)

However, because she is a Siren, immensely beautiful and alluring, Cyrus is basically smitten, addressing her as...
...Mom.

Myra is taken aback, and briefly insulted by the term of endearment, because it'd imply she is seen as an older individual whereas she loves the thought of being seen for her beauty and charm.

Phyrra explains to her, also addressing her formally as Lady Myra, that while she might be looking upon children, her charms are not lost on the children. Cyrus's reaction is as it is because he sees her as absolutely gorgeous, and everything he imagined his mother would look like. Phyrra puts on her own charm so to speak and says that Myra is basically everything she'd hope to be when older, and explains that if they ended up aging in spite of Cyrus being in that body, that Cyrus wouldn't complain too terribly much about turning out that way, either, more or less.

This flattery and sweetness and all-around awe at her flusters Myra quite a bit, and while she is quite adamant she is not their mother, inevitably, she does end up being the Team Mom anyway.

At some later point, the Thaukama get stranded on an island--to get off, they need to make use of the wind and water books in tandem, so Phyrra ends up summoning...
Hera, the Water Guardian, a Phoenix/Dragon who has many of the typical traits of the latter. She loves to hoard money, she loves to eat people, she loves burning things to ashes, and demanding tribute in the form of pretty maidens (that she explicitly-as-can-be-while-still-having-it-as-implied has sex with, so yes she is a lesbian but yes she is also a rapist), but in spite of all these unpleasantries (I repeat. The Guardians are not nice people. They are MONSTERS. They enjoy killing things among other atrocities), she does have a rule--
She will give her blessing to anything which survives the fire. "Reborn through fire" is in fact still part of her design, coming from the phoenix half, and through the ashes of her flame, she will give prosperity to the individuals whom she deems worthy of continued life.

Phyrra willingly undergoes this trial, passing, and earning the fourth and final guardian as a companion.

There would be at least one more human member of the Thaukama to join after this point, a girl about the same age as the Thaumason siblings, but I haven't named her or put much design into her character. (Her presence is more plot-related.)

This took me more or less...like.
Ten minutes to think up.
Literally all that happened in the course of a powernap.

I'm not sure how many episodes there'd be. Quite a number, though. At least 24/26 (depending on whether a season would be 12 or 13), possibly double that (if you count 12/13 as the half-season and 24/26 as a complete season). I don't think it'd run longer than that, though. (In fact, 48 already seems like it might be pushing things.)

The setting is such that I could write an endless amount of material for it, and the series epilogue (I know exactly how things go from the confrontation with the final Big Bad onwards) leaves things rather open-ended both after, during, and before said epilogue in that there is the possibility of writing FAR more material than documented.

But I know what kind of material I have, what kind of material I want, what kind of story I want to tell, and about how long that story would be, and that's not as long as you'd think it'd be. I wish I could make it, but this is miles beyond my league. I don't have the ability to start to finish map out the story, yet alone, line for line the dialog happening such that every single moment is mapped out.

Even if I did have that scriptwriting skill, I don't have the art skills necessary to draw the scenes I know I'd need to.
Even if I did, I don't have the animation skills necessary to make said scenes come to life.
Even if I did, I don't have the audio editing skills (there's names for that but I'm too lazy to bother looking them up) to basically work with the sound.
Even if I did, I would need voice actors for these roles, able to consistently deliver the wide array of things I'd need them to (there is one point which requires an incredibly professional level of performance in order to nail the moment I have in mind and it WOULD be screwed up with sub-par voice acting)...and this is something I can't exactly do myself.

So I would need those voice actors, something I can't get around no matter my ability to get around those other limitations.
And they would need to be high-quality.
And they would need to be able to deliver on a schedule more or less.
...I mean.

...Those services exist.

...But they sure don't exist for free.

You quite literally get what you paid for.
So if you pay nothing, then you find almost no voice actors. The few who bite are likely low-quality, and are going to be working under their own time constraints rather than yours because they are effectively volunteering.

So EVEN IF ALL OTHER FACTORS WERE ACCOUNTED FOR.
I couldn't do this on my own.
...And all other factors aren't accounted for.
I do need the audio editing skills; this is not something I have the software for, nor the training, and I have little in the ability to learn these things and if I did I wouldn't learn them well enough to make use of them to the level they'd need to be at. The only way I get what I want is with someone who's an expert, which means again hiring someone. More money aside from the voice actors.

I do need the animation skills; this is not something I can do. Yadda yadda, more rambling, end result: hiring someone. More money. Oh and as an aside...said person would need the ability to not only closely work with me, but also the audio guy. (Who would need to work well with both the animation guy and the voice actors since the audio guy would know what was needed there.)

Just animating isn't good enough; to animate something, first I need to show what needs to be animated. This is done through a combination of scripts and art. I need help on both because I cannot master both.

I can write the overall narrative.
I can flesh out moments.
But I can't on my own make the script. I'd need writers to help me. I'd outline some things, they'd outline others, collaborating until I got a narrative and product that I was satisfied with. All the while working with artists who'd draw these images to give character reference art and scene reference art.

More money.
More collaboration, even.

...You can see where this is headed.

It's not possible for me to make, because for me to make it I'd require a fully staffed animation studio. Proper hardware, proper software, proper staffing, properly paid.

It's literally one of the best ideas I've ever had, up there with the villain song setting (which I envisioned more as a film or maybe miniseries) in how good it'd be...and yet.

It'll never come to be.

​Ah well.

I'm gonna take a break; when I return, I might ramble about the other things I need to, the perfect RPG stuff and the webcomic idea (which I actually could make because I have the skills necessary, I just never will because 98% of my ideas are never going to see the light of reality thanks to how much time/effort the 2% which do take).

So I might as well give one today! Christmas actually contained a lot of thoughtful gifts this year. Every year, my family at least tries to get things good for each other, but this year, everyone was basically entirely successful with every member of the family, a first as far as I can tell.

Including myself, mind you. My brother got me two really, really, REALLY nice fidget rings. Unfortunately, they're not that photogenic but that's a shame because I really want to show them off in their full glory because seriously WOW they are amazing. They have a black chain in the middle of the ring for spinning, and an ornate design on the outline. The one I'm wearing is all-black, too.

There was a slight flaw: the ring's too big for my ring finger and yet too small for my middle finger...however, more on that in a second. There's a reason it's still such an amazing gift. My brother joked when I couldn't get it off my middle finger that it was a cursed ring...but seriously, this ring is so amazing that it absolutely demands a story be written with it as a central object.

I was thinking along the lines of a binding object, a contract of some sort perhaps or maybe death-related, definitely full-blown supernatural urban fantasy though specifics beyond that I haven't worked out. I do think it deserves at minimum one story--honestly the ring's so cool that it could have three, four, even five different full-fledged individual stories each with their different takes on the same object. It was THAT on the mark.

My older sister got for me a gift of many pairs of gloves that work with touchscreens (i.e., allowing me to use my phone with gloves on), plus a single pair of fingerless gloves. Now, these fingerless gloves are the same type of material as my more flimsy gloves. That being, the material which is like a type of clothing. Wool? I dunno, but it's a really common type of glove which is prone to tearing with a short life expectancy especially with long fingernails.

You can probably figure out what I mean by the description. So it's not exactly the fingerless gloves of Ruby. That being said, I've felt the closest I've ever felt to being Ruby since adorning them. As in. I lost my glow-in-the-dark bracelets a long time ago. I lost my bat ring a long time ago. I ran out of the hairties which I associate as being Ruby's instead using a much thinner type (and out of laziness now only have one instead of the signature two on the left arm).

So I've felt a little bit distanced from being her, in that I've had a harder time conjuring up imagine spots where I was roleplaying as her. It wasn't impossible, mind you, but it was difficult--more difficult than other characters. Sally my lifeguard tube acts as her bazooka; Hanna I play with her god-tiered wind powers; Gary I can do a lot with; Vili is easy; D.D. is also easy; Whitney and Amy I tend not to play around with that much but if I did I wouldn't have much trouble.

Yet I've been having difficulty for a while getting into the shoes of Ruby, in spite of her being the character that launched the whole Rubyverse as someone originally based in part off of me before she gained her own life/identity. Something that troubled me deeply.

And yet. The moment I put on the fingerless gloves. Instantly, it just came rushing back to me. The magic, the sensation, of her. Of Ruby in full form. It's not the right material and certainly doesn't have the square gap in the palm. But it still has made me feel much closer to her.

Not to mention, they're just kinda...really, really cool. And feel fitting, appropriate. They have merged with me, becoming natural literally overnight. They are a part of me, and a really awesome one. And there's one more thing. You know how that ring I mentioned was too small for my ring finger? Yeah, well...with the fingerless gloves on, it fits perfectly. It doesn't want to fall off, nor is it smothering my finger. It's removable, but not accidentally.

And the colors are complimentary as well, given both are black. Yet not the same black, different blacks so the ring is not invisible on the glove. So overall...I'd say that my older sister's gift hit the mark and was dead on the money in terms of being good.

My younger sister gave a gift which I have wanted for years as well, albeit one which has progressively gotten weaker and weaker in me as the years have gone by. A bit like Deck The Hall Ball in that regards; my parents gave it to us as a Christmas gift years after I had wanted to go, and yet the year we went was sandwiched between two awesome years as a year which was mostly unremarkable. (Though I did rather enjoy seeing Jimmy Eat World live, I wouldn't be able to note any other band there. They had plenty good enough performances with stage presence, it's just that...they weren't as memorable as bands in other years would have been.)

In this case, the gift given? One-day pass (believed to be Friday) for Emerald City Comic Con 2018.

The reason this is a gift that I've wanted for years that has gotten progressively weaker and weaker in me is that I have been a comic artist and avid reader of webcomics for years. Many, many, many of my online friends would be going to events like these, and I couldn't go to meet them in spite of it being in my back door practically.

I have always wanted the chance.
And yet.
I've lost current contact and familiarity with most of the people who might be going there.

ComicFury has literally thousands of people who I know, dozens/hundreds of which who might be in attendance, and yet, I last contacted them...my god how long ago was it? Was it almost a year, or is it almost two years now? Three? I lose track of the time. I simply...haven't been there in spite of my desire to be there. I love them all so much. I love it there so much. I just haven't been able to stay there no matter what I try and it's not their fault, it's always something stupid on my end.

Life gets in the way. I make promises I break. Even knowing I'm bipolar, even knowing I am autistic with inertia, I end up with issues, where I get things going and when I grind to a halt I get a ridiculous fear and it stacks and stacks and I just don't go even though I want to.

They're not the only place.

Comics I read off of ComicFury, I am behind on.
Many of them probably have way too many fans for me to ever get to know them, and it's not like they'd really remember some random reader who comments under the name Bree. (Something I may or may not even be able to tell them given that my older sister will be in attendance as well--something I think is for the better overall since it gives me a way to have an anchor, a root, because I have no way of really knowing anything will be okay.)

Some of the fans for said comics might. Even that's a stretch. For instance, while I became a vocal commentator on Go Get A Roomie for a few months, it was only a few months of a webcomic that's been going for years. Who's one commentator to them?

There is of course the slight chance of meeting people from the site I play mafia on, but the experiences I'd look forward to are the above ones. Meeting these people I called my friends. Meeting these people who I looked up to. Meeting these people who I engaged in various conversations at length, often with good banter. Showing them the shy real me who is an introvert in spite of my rather promiscuous activity when I am around.

I don't...really get that without reconnecting. I can attempt to come 2018 and getting closer to said event, where I begin to comment again and look out for announcements of attendance. But that's why this is a diminished thing from what it could have been--me years ago needs no reconnecting because me years ago was already there actively all the time. Me now does need the reconnecting because I am just a tremendously stupid individual who can't control her life.

However. All the same. While not quite as "on the mark". This is still a good gift. Because while the above might lead you to think I would be bitter...it's the opposite in fact. I am thankful that I now finally have that chance. I am hopeful that I might get the ability to reconnect with things I have wanted to reconnect with for ages. This represents an opportunity. It could be an opportunity for disappointment and suffering, yes, but it can also be an opportunity for me to really get to get things I've lacked for far too long.

I'm not sure how I can really explain my hope, my vision, my viewpoint there. But basically. I have faith that it will be something where good things will happen as a result of me having tickets to go there. Never in the way I anticipate of course even though the way I'd 'anticipate' would be awesome, but it will be there I am sure of it.

Besides that, I also received the gift of wireless headphones for my desktop. They need some hardware to be installed that we don't have at the moment (the anticipated date of arrival is this Friday I believe?), but these would allow me to not be limited by the ridiculously-short cord on my current headphones. I could potentially sleep in my room with them, or eat with the family while my dad is (listening to music to drown him out), or do things more freely without removing the headphones, and so on and so forth.

A pretty pragmatic, useful gift if not one which has the level of emotional investment those other ones do. It's not working yet, but when it does it will help a lot I imagine. Won't be perfect I anticipate that of course, but oh well. My point is, I got some good presents this year, and also gifted some good presents, too. My brother is notoriously hard to shop for but I believe he just might actually play the remastered Crash Bandicoot games I got for him. My older sister actually really liked the bracelet and necklace I got for her. My younger sister got some earrings, a ring, and one other item I forget and she seemed to think they were nice.

I think I have a reasonably competent sense of a metric for "gifts that they are putting a happy face on for the sake of politeness" versus "gifts they actually think are good", and basically, this year I felt disproportionately there was a higher amount of the latter than normal.

After gifts, we ended up playing a game called Dreamwood between us siblings (which I won) and, after it finished, did our annual Gauntlet Dark Legacy playing until dinner. After supper, we had two rounds of full-family Uno, then a second round of Dreamwood for us siblings again.

My brother got disproportionately lucky--in a perfect storm, he captured TWO of the strongest item cards in the game, giving him a +2 bonus when making 2/3 attack types. (For reference, creatures have difficulty ratings between 3-9 for most monsters. So any rating of 3 he was guaranteed to get, any 4 he had >random odds of getting with one card, etc.) He put it to good use, gaining an insurmountable lead.

To our credit, we did try to stop him early and often. I failed four times in a row to capture monsters that he on his turn proceeded to take. (I had >random odds, too, I just got bad rolls which landed me squarely in last place.) Eventually, however, I managed to capture the literally-strongest-item in the game (+2 regardless of attack type, capable of stacking with other items), albeit being too little, too late.

It allowed me to go from last to second (although because I took risks out of desperation of knowing I was last that ended up working aside from those early failures which placed me behind, I had already gained some ground), but it was literally impossible to catch him.

He ended the game with a move which was ridiculously lucky, too--he was attacking the strongest card in the game, with a 1/32 chance of success. His +2 bonus, two cards, and a one-time-use card allowed him to have a 3d4 + 2 (rather than a 2d4 + 2 without the one-time-use card), which had a 96.875% chance of failing because he needed nigh-perfect rolls on each of his dice to beat the monster...and he did.

Not that it'd have mattered since if *I* had captured the monster, my point total would have been one below his point total without said monster. Like I said, he had an insurmountable lead. But by capturing that monster, he stomped us all. It was simply impossible to recover from the early setback. (Seriously, the guy captured two of the hardest items to get at the earliest stage of the game and as a result got two of the best items to allow him to cruise :easymode: through the rest of the game. It's dumbfounding that he got so lucky, but them's the breaks.)

It was a pretty fun time, though honestly in spite of all the fun I had with my family, I'd still have preferred to spend my time with friends instead. (By which I mostly mean my girlfriend.) Something I thankfully got some of later in the day and also today.

​Soyeah. That about sums it up.