...And frustratingly, while there is a spark of creativity to be had in the depression, it is rehashing material I already have made, rather than creating actual new material.

Basically.

When I am depressed, I frequently get bouts of creativity, in spite of the depression. That is to say. There's a difference between manic phases where I'm inspired to create things, and depressed phases where I'm inspired to come up with things that I later create when manic.

Which is to say.

During Manic phases, I am almost never coming up with a brand new idea--the mania is putting effort into creating an idea that I had at an earlier time.

Said earlier time is usually a depressive phase, where I was suffering from depression, where I couldn't get the ability to create something, but I at least write it down (or make mental note of it), with the hope of making it later.

Yet there are also depressive episodes where instead of creating new material, I simply reinforce the memory of older material.

Which is all fine and good if I didn't write that material down the first time, but utterly worthless if I did because it is giving me literally nothing new.

Tonight is one of those nights, covering the superhero/villain stories I've been thinking up as of late.

There were at least one or two supervillain stories taking place in fantasy settings.

I actually wrote a partial blog on one Worm-inspired (with the way superpowers work) superhero group, Heroes 4 Hire, although I went into extensive material I didn't blog about, some of which I don't think I ended up writing down anywhere but which I believe is mostly memorized (aside from some side-characters, probably). I believe it was to be written in third person.

I'm pretty sure the next Worm-inspired story, Requiem, about the titular supervillain (whose powers have nothing to do with 'his'--it's complicated--supervillain name, a common theme of the story being deception and subversion of typical trends of supervillains), who is...probably one of the most interesting POV characters I've ever come up with. (The entire story being first person past tense, narrated by the titular character.) Short version short: a closeted transwoman gains the ability to create a second body, which she uses to live the life of a normal (slightly younger) girl, but because she still has to live in her original (pre-transition, still closeted) body and she could at the time only be conscious in one body at a time, eventually she ends up venting her frustrations with the creation of a third body, who becomes a supervillain. (Incidentally, this allows them to have 2/3 bodies conscious at the same time.)
The power evolved is something of a combination of Genesis's power from Worm (basically, consciousness in an illusionary body) with Harem's power from Grl Genius (basically, it's one brain in three bodies, so it is still fundamentally the same person in all bodies), with the side of Mystique and Ant/Giant-Man, in that the projected form has the basic shape locked as human, but can be any sized/shaped/formed human. Her original body, the closeted one, is still fragile and frail, her projected second body is technically empowered but actively avoids using her power and maintains a constant form and is trying her hardest to live as a normal human, and their third body is usually in the form of a male villain who is the public head of an on the rise villain group.

Then there was the story, pretty sure I did a partial blog on this one, about the (also first person) story about Projection, the name of someone whose life splits into two parallel universes (alternating in viewpoint between the two), one a hero, the other as a villain, with them dreaming about the entire daily life of their other universe's self. This one does have one slight Worm-like aspect to it, but of the three takes the least. (Heroes 4 Hire takes an almost identical concept to 'shards' like Worm has for explaining superpowers; Requiem has semi-frequent battles against Kaijus invading from the Eldritch Dimension in a way strongly resembling Endbringers; this story has superpowers being closely tied to the emergence of creatures who're mostly small, but on rare occasions spawn gigantic endbringerest/kaijuesque city-destroying threats.)

And then there was the story that I can best describe as "Dungeons and Dragons meets My Hero Acadamia meets Worm" in that it's an Urban Fantasy based in modern times of a D&Desque world with modern technology and magic, while existing, being largely obsolete, adventuring being an outdated career, etc. (think pretty similar to that Pixar picture with the two brothers seeking their dad, actually, tho I had this idea before that film was released), with a twist; a significant portion of the population (especially prominent in humans, which is theorized to be a contributing factor in humanity's dominance as the most prolific species) has the ability to transform into a hybrid form between their race and some other race. Human-dog having a werewolf form is easier to explain, but it can also be, sayyyyy, elf-troll hybrid form, or dwarf-dragon hybrid form, to give an idea of the variance involved.
And then, of those with this transformation, a small number of them have defies-the-known-rules-of-the-universe (magic having been studied to a science, magic is a known rule of the universe) superpowers, superpowers that go beyond the scope of any known magic, racial ability, etc. (I quite love this story; the Worm similarities come from the protagonist and her goals, tho I admit I do struggle to write her. I'm also not quite sure on her identity. I'm not sure if she's a her, if she's genderfluid, if she's nonbinary, or if she's a transman. Her alt-form is male; that I know, but I haven't figured out her identity. Also, tho I am a transwoman, I was raised 'male' so it's unfortunately painfully obvious that her writer hasn't lived the life of a woman and that she's being written by someone who was raised 'male'. I'm a girl, but I struggle to write from the mindset of a woman whose femininity is a major plot point. I've written POV characters that were female, but whose character wouldn't change at all if male. This is a character who fundamentally would be different if male, and in the writing it shows how bad I am at this. Regrettably.)

​And then there is the story whose only title I can think of is, "Threadripper and Kinesis", with the point of view character being the villain protagonist Kinesis. This is the first story since Heroes 4 Hire to feature a decidedly male protagonist (I specifically wrote Kinesis and Threadripper to be brothers), tho I admit it is also the least distinct of the stories I've got. It's got the same aesthetic as the other stories; supervillain protagonist duels regularly with hero antagonists, with the story documenting their rise to power. But the closest thing it has to a unique draw is the brothers' reasons for becoming villains: a genuine belief that the lifestyle of a villain where you are prepared for constant betrayal and your allies turning on you and heroes wishing to jail you is better than the lifestyle of a hero where any betrayal is devastating and the mortality rate is much higher for both them and their loved ones. (Mortality rate from villains is almost exclusively either other villains, or heroes going on a roaring rampage of revenge to avenge slain loved ones where the villain killing said heroes' loved ones seals their fate.)
This is the story with the best romance out of any of my recent adventures into superheroes/villains, tho, so I am actually considering playing that up and making this my first romance novel.
(The only other romance novel I've ever considered writing has the basic high concept of "I can write a Twilight that is better than Twilight", just with a different supernatural common entity from vampires and werewolves. Which actually wouldn't be just one book, mind you. It'd be three core books, each with their own unique female protagonist. But I digress.)

​And most recently?
I've begun to develop a supervillain story, loosely inspired by multiple different sources. Taking from the Fitz-Simmons Agents of SHIELD dynamic, taking from Narbonic's Dave-Helen dynamic, and the Dr Kinesis-Alice dynamic from Evil Plan.

Which is basically.
Some works have a hardware-software duo; some works have an omni-bio-scientist and an omni-tech scientist.

This work splits the difference and divides it up into three characters. The protagonist, a transwoman who starts the story having recently graduated college with her multiple phDs in multiple fields (expert in biological matter in general of all kinds, from fungii to virii to bacteria to humans to animals), who also is a young mother (due to an accident in experimenting on herself--short version short, she accidentally impregnated herself with her own biological sperm, squicky as that may sound, and she is constantly worried about the development of her daughter as a consequence; she originally got into her field to improve herself, but stayed in the field to do everything possible for her daughter).

She also has the superpower of what amounts to an alternate dimension which works a bit like Star Trek transporters with a side of replicators (this explanation should be familiar to those who saw me talk about how Riders work in Red Hood Rider; same basic mechanic, only more powerful here); she places objects into her dimension, where she stores them; she can recall them (and even duplicate them en masse) out, and these copies last for a considerable amount of time and are enhanced in durability due to basically being hard light).

To use this superpower effectively, she has a masters in coding (she needed working understanding of programming code to help her understand the 'coding' of her superpower), and in the process she gained an associate's in some hardware-oriented field as well. (Research not fully done on this story, cut me some slack.)

She is hired to be the third head of a supervillain organization led by two other supervillains, the hardware and software guys, who basically have a similar diversification. The one with the superpower of healing has a masters in (some human-oriented medical field, research not done yet) to use it and a minor in the alt-field; the one with the superpower I've yet to come up with has the minor in (bio field) and master in the healer's field.

All three are, essentially: supergenius mad scientists that're aspiring evil overlords, with superpowers to use on top of their existing scientific abominations (since they do do mad science with both modifying their own biology and using mad science gadgets, on top of also using their superpowers).

I've made all of these stories in my head.
I've, tonight, made new material for none of them.
I've done writing on none of them recently.

​Thus, depression sucks.

Yesterday was so good, such a good blog, so I thought I might have momentum gearing up for me.
In a sense, I do, in that I had fun playing around with the future-Ruby, specifically, devising scenarios where she'd actually be using that super form, and in that sense you could say I progressed, but I didn't really want to blog about it, yaknow. It was something I kinda wanted to keep to myself as a personal entertainment thing. I felt like if I talked about it, I'd be obligated to shoehorn it into the epilogue of Red Hood Rider, or something, when I don't want to do that.

In terms of an actual blog I do want to write, though...I got nuthin.

​I mayyyyyyy need to get up early, though, sooooooo...going to bed now. Sorry for my lack of inspiration! Or rather, lack of inspiration when it comes to material I want to blog about.

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

But basically.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

...The problem is.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Which is where a little frustration comes in.

Recently, I've been revisiting my vampiric martial art. I'm not adding anything new to it, mind you, but I'm trying to bring back practicing it so that I don't forget it. As-is, I still have to re-teach myself and re-learn everything I self-taught when I invented it before.

But today, the thought occurred to me: I have an additional challenge--designing a second fictional martial art for the rubyverse, for HUNTERS. Specifically, the challenge is not only in making it a different style...but also, logically, because hunters oppose vampires...their style would, logically, need to serve as a counter to the vampiric martial art style.

Which poses a problem, because I designed the vampiric martial art to be basically impenetrable except by another more skilled practitioner of the vampiric martial art. It's a stance which has a firm grounding, emphasizing a lack of movement, except also having an emphasis on being incredibly flowey. Smooth, sharp, crisp, fast, deliberate, efficient, methodical, movements. Every step, every motion, every attack, every defense, using the least amount of effort but executed with the utmost speed and strength backing it.

A style high on redirection and control, but also having incredible strength backing its blows. That's more or less what I designed for the vampiric martial art--so what the hell could I develop as a martial art designed to counter it? It's posing a bit of a challenge to me, but my best guess is that it'd be a martial art style that would necessitate constant motion.

The vampiric martial art is, by and large, stationary; it can move, when needed, but is also fairly linear in said movements, because they are efficient and designed to counter opponents from the front, more or less. So the style countering it would, by necessity, focus on weak points; find a way to strike the vampire in areas the vampire doesn't have covered by their defense.

The basic fighting pose I'm thinking would be maximum utility for the hunter martial art would then be a modified version of the tae kwon do fighting stance I already use, just with extra spring to the feet and also keeping the arms low rather than up in the guard (which is, mind you, where the arms are in a different style of tae kwon do). This focus on a springy step would help maximize mobility, in helping the hunter out-maneuver the vampire.

Vampires would be stronger and even potentially faster than the human hunter, not to mention tons more durable; the hunter would need to focus on evasion above all else, and then find a way to create an opening, find an angle of attack that would work. Targeting the vampire's back is a really good one, but also striking the back of the leg or on joints like the elbow and shoulder.

Vampires might be more durable than humans, but they're not more flexible than humans. So a hunter would focus on maximizing that flexibility and taking advantage of a lack of it in the vampire; a vampire's just as vulnerable to a dislocated shoulder, broken elbow, etc. as any human would be, so strike them in areas that deal lasting damage, and you can defeat them.

There'd also be a thematic 'staking' blow, where they strike the heart, not to pierce it mind you, but to cause a heart tremor of sorts. A kind of blow that on a human could be lethal (it's a thing people die from), but on a vampire is basically a guaranteed stun if it lands perfectly. (Mind you, a stake through the heart's just as lethal to a vampire as it is a human, but this is, again, not a literal stake; it's a martial art move aimed at the heart.)

Unfortunately, I'm not sure I'll ever be able to develop the idea of the hunter martial art style further than that.
For me to first develop the hunter martial art, I need to have a complete, total, absolute mastery of the vampiric martial art first. And then, only then, can I maybe manage it--by more or less 'shadow fighting' (think shadow boxing, but not for a literal boxing match) it out. A skill I might not be able to actually do.

Still.

I find this a neat thing for me to have so much as started to develop, even if its growth has hit a stone wall.
​Does make me kinda sorta want to track down all of my notes on the vampiric martial art, tho. So that I can maybe once more compile it all together in a single location, to then build up on it continuously rather than start it, forget it, then start it again.

A really, really big, nice, screw which is one of my favorite imaginary weapons to play around with due to the raw potential found in the spiral shape (and, no, that's not the gurren lagann within me; I was fond of spiral-based weaponry before that show ever existed, yet alone, watched it--but after having done so, spiral-shaped weaponry became even more broken than it already was in terms of powers go for me because it went from "really, really strong" to "basically the strongest if it exists in the setting").

It actually got me thinking of it being a drill--again, not because of gurren lagann. Because the drill was the weapon of one of the seven original grandmasters of the blood masters and I imagined the screw as having the ability to cause its wielder to bleed for a power-up, leading to the obvious association. (The original drill that inspired the blood master was a drill from some childhood toy, WAY predating gurren lagann for the curious. At the time, I was expanding out the original blood master idea and turning whatever items I had on hand in my bedroom near my bed into items that could be made into being their weapons. The original grandmaster and his rival? Two different versions of the Capri Sun yellow straw. One thin, the other thick. No, seriously. When I said 'had on hand in my bedroom near my bed', I meant exactly that.)

Took me not too terribly long to track down the two pertinent blog entries on the subject where I go into the drill-style blood masters. Keep in mind that's for the blood masters as they exist in the rubyverse, not as they exist in other stories although the two are obviously closely linked. (The blood masters exist in no less than three different universes. One, Mythe, being my ripoff of Lorithia, the world of Artix Entertainment games, which is where the concept of grandmasters originated from; a second, where the urban fantasy elements originated from and actually the original story idea came from, was the origin of the characters who were imported into the Rubyverse; the third being the Rubyverse.)

But I wanted to expand upon the Guy clan style, relating to the drills. The Guy clan was always more or less the "just kinda...there" added on attachment to the Blood Masters. The founding member was a protagonist. His rival was a secondary protagonist; his main supporter that was originally unpowered before his nature as a latent blood master was discovered was also a secondary protagonist.

The dragon clan was a power that I was reusing, but while having not much of the same role in the story, was notable at least for having visible role in fights, because I had a clear, unambiguous idea of what the power was and how it worked (because it was a power I was reusing).

The seventh grandmaster was an import from a different setting technically speaking. Originally, the grandmasters were their own story (so I guess technically blood masters exist in no less than four different universes), but I decided to import them into a grander narrative (which was itself imported into the rubyverse) and that setting, Mythe, had in its "modern day" the seventh grandmaster coming in about 20 years or so after the first six, where the order of the blood masters was fairly established and no longer new, but still relatively young as an order.

I knew all of their functions quite well.

But both the Guy clan and the Gentleman clan (who I completely forgot what weapon I originally had for him; katana? rapier? Legit have no clue what I used; as far as the rubyverse is concerned it's a rapier but heck if I know what it was originally), I didn't really expand on beyond them just being there.

...The history of blood masters in my creative works is incredibly complex.
I suppose I should say it simply.
Two separate, unrelated, stories, involved blood masters, which worked similarly but differently.
One was on the microscopic scale; I was manually manipulating objects I could hold in my hand, treating them as weapons, and imagining the characters using them in a fairly medieval setting fighting both grand armies and superpowered evil blood masters. There were no other individuals in this original original setting.

The other was more on the macro scale; I was personally roleplaying as the blood master. This one was the modern urban fantasy setting. The blood masters were one of a few surviving clans in the modern days, after centuries of shadow warfare behind the scenes throughout the millenia had wiped out most other clans.

The "evil" blood masters were a main antagonist here, just like the other story, and just like the other story, they were "basically functioned as if they were vampires" (an element not found in the rubyverse mind you), capable of extending their lifespan artificially by draining the blood from others. Most blood master fights were with other blood masters, not always the evil-not-quite-vampires, either.

There was no unified blood master order in this setting; blood masters exist as a grand clan but are first and foremost individuals living their own life in that setting. They do have sets of rules, mostly for dealing with blood masters that break the rules or to bond together against threats to the masquerade (other clans, evil blood masters, etc.), but by and large existed independently from one another.

Other clans existed, but were rare, with most of them having gone extinct. One notable, thought-extinct rival clan was the shadow masters, whose powers were of equal scale and devastation to the blood masters. It is notable that this was the setting where blood master power tiers originated from.

Both settings were developed contemporary to one another. With me playing god in one and me playing the part of a character in the other--both have equal claim to being the originator of the idea of blood masters; I'm not actually sure which one came first because both came so early as to be impossible to tell. Separate, different, unique ideas.

The original grandmaster idea was then imported to Mythe. (Where the origin of the bloodmaster-vampire alliance came into being.)
Then when I imported the ideas to the rubyverse, they were combined into their rubyverse format.

But ANYWAY.
That's a bit of a tangent.
I wanted to expand on the Guy clan, the drill clan, because the screw I have was really conductive to that.

I said originally that the Guy clan focused on redirection; catching an attack and bouncing it back with extra power, basically--but I realized that in actuality, that's only the start of their powers. The spiral nature of their drill would allow for them to have one of the greatest ranged attacks of the blood masters with the highest piercing power, capable of penetrating otherwise-impenetrable targets. (Granted, they wouldn't be alone in this high-range, high-piercing power. Both stave styles would have bullet-like shots from their spears; the blood whip is incredibly long-range; the bow-and-arrow style is self-evidently ranged. However, with the exception of the dragon's blood whip, none of those are a continuous attack, whereas the Guy clan's spiral attack is continuous.)

The razor-sharp edges of their drills make for incredible slicing power as well, especially when spinning, creating a little bit of a gore-fest when they are in melee range. But I realized that they had an extra advantage; mobility and zone control almost unrivaled.

Drills being drills, they can...well...drill into objects, including the ground, to more or less achieve controlled detonations/controlled collapses/etc. Demolishing buildings, rocks, trees, tunneling under opponents, etc. Obviously, to do this over a full battlefield you need more than just one blood master (they regenerate blood at an accelerated, not unlimited, rate and drilling underground uses up a fair amount of blood), but it gives a nifty explanation for why they were out of focus in my mental image of fights between blood masters and rival armies--

They weren't very visible on the battlefield because their role was to control the battlefield in areas invisible to "my" observation point as "god" from the "sky". Certain key members like their leader? Sure, visible, fighting on the surface, but their lack of prominence in spite of their potential power now has an explanation whereas previously it did not.

I also learned that with the particular screw I am holding, the drill weapons could have an additional boost not otherwise available to them: serving as a blood-fueled rocket. (The back of the screw can be seen as a point where energy blasts out, rocketing the user forward in the direction the screw/drill is pointed.)

It'd work by channeling blood both into the drill (creating a magnified blast of wind to basically reduce resistance/drag to nil) and the 'pommel' of the drill, where the boost is--granting the Guy-style blood master limited flight if pointing upwards, as well as being able to close an incredible amount of distance in an instant, and allowing for shooting around the battlefield.

Know how in animes you have some characters who can, as fast as the eye can see, bounce back and forth (sometimes on just air)? The ones which build all that momentum, evade, and strike with incredible speed/power when they stop bouncing around? The Guy style blood masters can do exactly that. 

They can even weaponize this exhaust.
By flipping their weapon around and by grabbing the razor-sharp drill, channeling their blood into that back? (Making it function a lot like a wizard's staff.) They launch what is basically a big laser beam--not with the same pinpoint focus/penetration power as their normal attack, but with every bit the same range and with a MUCH wider beam, allowing them to mow down unprotected masses of enemies.

However, this gave me the idea for why the Guy clan isn't basically the default clan, for why they're a fairly small subsect of the total number of blood masters. Each and every single one of their non-redirection attacks? (They still have that basic ability, too, it's just that it's their basic ability, not a more advanced one.) Each and every single one of their signature moves outside of redirection.

Drilling underground.
The super-penetrating ranged drill attack.
The rocket.
The laser beam.

All of them use up blood at an accelerated rate, draining the blood master's resources faster than other styles, making their achilles' heel be the duration for which they can fight at peak efficiency. They are masters of bringing absolute sheer destruction and control to the battle, but can only provide it for a short time before being reduced to a support role, where all they can do is redirect and amplify. (Mind you, they are very efficient at this because in spite of their attacks draining blood, they are very efficient at using their blood. Or maybe it's because their powerful attacks drain so much blood that they are efficient at using blood. Same end result.)

Again explaining why they didn't have much prominence.

Feels like a really neat explanation to me, which is why I felt like making this blog post. I just kinda expanded on something that had always bugged me, and now have it at a level where I am happy with what I came up with.

Granted.

This is for something that nobody will ever get to see the light of day on.

The original grandmaster story was a generic one, which I have dozens of different similar stories to. Not dozens, actually. Hundreds. Even thousands. I'm not making it.

Mythe as a setting I kinda lost interest in beyond the one story. Plus, at least one of the very key fundamental stories to the setting of Mythe (actually, at least two), I've forgotten most/all of the details of. Fundamental parts of the setting's background/lore/backstory I've forgotten. I could work with it, but I probably won't.

These details were never relevant to the urban fantasy version of the blood masters--which, by the way, I actually wrote at least part of the story for. I even emailed it to an online friend of mine so in spite of having lost the original I could at any time pull up what I wrote and post it if I felt like it. Could continue it if I wanted. (Technically, could also do this with the relevant part of Mythe, because I did write part of the origin story of the seventh grandmaster.)

And all of this? This is canonical material in the rubyverse, sure...but is offhanded pretty much. I'm not sure any of this will even get mentioned in the rubyverse. The blog pretty much contains all my plans for what will be mentioned in red hood rider proper; Gary goes to visit a blood master in order to increase is control over his Water Rider powers. They may get brief mentions from vampires, too. That's literally it.

So pragmatically speaking.
For all intents and purposes.
What I just went into detail about, figured out, spent time extrapolating out?

Utterly, 100%, completely and entirely irrelevant and worthless. Word of God material, All There In The Manual material, but not something seen in canonical material proper in spite of being considered canon.

OH WELL.
It made me​ feel better, so that's good enough for me!

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's a really lousy workaround, and doesn't do the original image justice, but it's better than nothing.
I used my phone to snap a picture of it, which I then through a convoluted process managed to transfer to my desktop (a process involving sending it to my girlfriend even though my girlfriend is literally my only years-long consistent blog reader in that every other blog reader I know of comes and goes with the times, making it kinda pointless long-term but OH WELL).

You can tell what I mean by the camera pic not being the best, but it's at least adequate at showing the basics behind the picture and what I mean.

As a refresher, take a look at yesterday's blog both for a reference point of the prior versions of the panel and for my description of this one. You can instantly see what I mean with the face, right? Something just feels...wrong about it.

Yesterday I thought it was the mouth. Maybe the mouth is slightly too large, but otherwise I took a quick look at the art trying a tactic: look at the image with the head obscured above the mouth (so that the mouth is the only part of the face visible); look at the image with everything below the mouth obscured (so that the mouth is the only part of the face not visible); look at the image with everything.

With the first, the image didn't quite look wrong--it looked okay, it looked passable.
With the second, instantly? "OH GOD THE EYES".
For the life of me, I could not get the eyes to match.
I tried.
I really, really, really tried to get the eyes to match.
But I botched it every single time no matter what I did. I think it's her left eye (appearing on the right) being slightly out of proportion, with the edge near the outside being larger than it should?

Butyeah--you can tell that I got really lazy from pretty much just below the shoulders. Still, the head tilt--while subtle--is hopefully there, visibly. And that was one of my main goals with this.

Overall, quite pleased with this.
​So let's show them all off, side-by-side-by-side, once more for a final comparison.

Aside from how the first is colored, the second is scanned, and the third is a junk photo.
In actual terms of quality of the art itself.

I feel like this is just a logical progression--a well and true, proper, art evolution.

It's on that note that I'd like to continue on a ramble that I originally was going to start in December, near the anniversary of The Descended, back when I first found and started archive binging Grrr Power. (Which I now read as it comes out.)

A ramble which earlier this week I began to revisit, but cowarded out of following through on it--I told myself I would write the ramble while I was at work. Even figured out how to preface it. Even told myself not to get distracted. Even told myself that I'd be a coward to not do the ramble. Even told myself I'd do it if I didn't feel like doing it.

And then at home...I didn't feel like doing it, called myself a coward for not feeling like it, told myself I would do it...and in spite of all of that. In spite of saying that, in spite of knowing I wanted to blog about it, that I should blog about it, I didn't actually blog about it.

Something I kinda sorta hinted at a little bit yesterday, but didn't get into as much as I'd like.

I'm not going to start the ramble the same way I planned in December (and heck, won't even cover a fraction of the material planned then, I'm only going to cover some of it).
I'm not going to start the ramble the same way I planned it earlier this week.

I'm going to preface it by saying that the art-me was for a longest time, "missing, presumed dead".
I thought my inner artist was just...gone.
Not gone in theory. I still thought of artistic things. I still thought of artistic stuff. I visualized artistic stuff. I was an artist in mind, still--but my drive to actually draw stuff in practice? My drive to draw things out in the real world rather than my head? It was gone.

Completely gone, for the longest time, as far as I knew.
Lingering there in the back was a desire to make my ideas real...but no drive to do it--until yesterday.

So what I say might be subject to change.
The artist within me was rekindled, so it's possible other stuff will be, too.
Also this was a ramble typed before I got passing interest in League of Legends, too, so that's another aspect of me which may come back as well.

But to go into things a little bit...

​...Well. Basically...I don't know what to do.

Or more accurately...I do, I compiled a list even, I just don't know what I want to focus on doing.
The full list also included don't-wants, too.

-I want to continue with my life on the mafia site I frequent.
-I want to finish my civ 3 mod, Across the Ages - Mediterranean.
-I want to continue The Descended with all of my accrued skills/knowledge/talent/ideas since my last work on it.
-I want to continue Red Hood Rider with all my accrued skills/knowledge/talent/ideas since my last work on it.
-I want to make Phyrra and Cyrus a reality...I really want to make Phyrra and Cyrus a reality.
-I want to be a teacher.
-I want to be a housewife, raise a family. (Of course, this is optional, but it is still a want all the same since there's multiple ways it could be done.)
-I want to live with my girlfriend.
-I want to fully transition.
-I want to live a happy, rich, fulfilling life.

-I don't want a job, beyond the one I've already got.
-I don't want to live independently.
-I don't want to write (yes, surprisingly enough, I don't want to, but like I said, the artist within me was revived so you never know) pure writing. Obviously, I'd write webcomics for The Descended and/or Red Hood Rider. Obviously, I'd write for Phyrra and Cyrus. Obviously, I'd still write down ideas whenever I had them. Obviously, I'd continue writing blog entries. But I don't want to write literature. 
-I don't want to read. (Well, I've done reading recently, but reached the end of everything I was reading.)
-I don't want to game, not much anyway.
-I don't want to watch things, not really, anyway.

Mind you,
-I do want to do those things if they involve someone else (namely/chiefly my girlfriend; absolutely I want to watch things with my girlfriend and watching, sayyyyy, One Piece episodes is the highlight of my week but what I mean by "I don't want to watch things" is that without watching them with someone else e.g. my girlfriend...I don't want to spend alone-time, me-time, time with just myself and nobody else, watching them--and this also applies to games; absolutely I'll play any game for/with my girlfriend but on my own my desire is rapidly fading).

But on my own.
Just by me, with nobody else.
No encouragement, no help, just as my own thing?
I just...don't want them.

A job is a means to an end--it provides income. To achieve most of the things on the list, I recognize that pragmatically-speaking, I need a job. Transitioning is expensive. Living with my girlfriend won't be possible most likely unless I can pull my weight and not be deadweight monetarily speaking. Phyrra and Cyrus is a project I don't want to make money yet which will be absurdly expensive to make. Red Hood Rider and The Descended both won't make money (they could off of ads, but I am against making money off of them in the same way I am against making money off of Phyrra and Cyrus).

I simply need money. Our world runs on money. And while I get a fair amount from my job--it's not nearly enough. It's minimum wage. Minimum wage in a state with one of the highest minimum wages in the US, but minimum wage all the same. It's also part-time, too, making things even worse. The only reason I have more money flowing in than flowing out is because I'm not pulling my weight in terms of paying for expenses. Food, gas, house mortgage (or whatever), car maintenance, etc.; I do none of that aside from the rare instances I put a quarter of a tank in out of emergency, or stop by a fast food place because I desperately need a fix.

I know I need the money--but I don't want a job, because simply put...well, there's more than just one reason.
One, I just don't want it. Not wanting it is itself a reason, it doesn't need a justification in of itself. I am happy with my current job (well, mostly happy, anyway, about as happy as any job would be because there ain't a job in existence which I wouldn't have troubles at least equaling my own if not exceeding the ones I deal with so I know my issues are comparatively minor). I simply don't want another.

Least of all as a replacement, but even if it weren't a replacement. Even if I worked two jobs instead of one. I just...don't want to.

Two, even if I did want another job.
I don't think I can handle it.

One day of 8 hours is literally murder on me.
How on earth people manage to do 8 hours a day, five days in a row, every single week almost without fail barring extenuating circumstances and recognized-by-the-company holidays, heck if I know. But I know that I am basically catatonic doing it once a week, where even doing it once a week is too much and I am barely functioning from it, where I would be better off not working in the final home stretch of the shift.

Even if the shift is limited to 5 hours a day.
Even if between both jobs my shift is limited to 5 hours a day.

I can't handle more than 20 hours a week. Heck, even 20 is breaking me. My hard limit, by my calculations, is 18--any more than that, and I am suffering badly. I am badly, badly suffering when I work more than that amount. I simply cannot function.

Working two jobs a week, there's simply no way I'd be able to keep it under 20 hours a week.
Heck.
Even if I quit lifeguarding (and again, to reiterate, I don't want to quit my current job), at the new job there's no guarantee I'd have the job security I do here while staying under 20 hours a week.

Say what you will about my work as a lifeguard having a job where what I'm asked to do is borderline-illegal and typically unethical and often counterintuitive and even contradictory, but the simple fact is...I've worked there for five and a half years and never once been at risk of being fired, in spite of me being able to ask for work of maximum-15 and receiving it. (Mind you, I do have to specify FIFTEEN in order to get 15; specify 18 and I end up with 25, but when I specify 15 I do in fact receive fifteen-or-less, as I requested.)

I've no such guarantee at any other job--in fact, quite likely my refusal to break myself by working more than the limit of my body can handle would end up with me fired, with me having no job. I physically. cannot. work. the amounts. that most jobs ask me to. It is literally impossible.

And yet legally speaking, we talked this over with my counselor, getting disability benefits for me would also be impossible because I can't legally prove that it's impossible for me to work that much. More complicated than that, I know that's something which people will try to pick apart, can't really explain it properly but trust me when I say that there's nuances involved where basically, if I was incredibly lucky and waited literally years I might be able to possibly receive help in some areas (e.g. housing I think?), but that what I actually need, extra money more than what I get now...

...I can't get from the government.
And yet I can't get it from a job.

A job is a means to an end, an end I desperately need, yes, but I just...can't do it physically, and don't want to do it either.
Plus.
Even if I did want it and even if I physically could do it.
There's a total paralysis in what jobs to actually do; I wouldn't know what to pick and choose even knowing these criteria. And even if someone literally spoonfed me a job--it'd require me to follow through on it and that's something I just...am not really...well. Invested in doing.

This is one of the things holding me back from pursuing an actually potentially viable teaching job in spite of wanting to teach (but more on that below)--I just know that in spite of having a passion to teach and wanting to teach, that there's just an utter freeze, an utter lack of will, to push forward and take the plunge in because for some reason that idea of having a job I just don't want.

And I can't make myself want it.

Especially since that job?
That job, which is a means to an end?

As far as my family is concerned, that job is so that I can take the steps to live independently.

...But what they fail to consider is...
...Me living independently? It's what they want. It's what they are pushing for. When they frame the question the wrong way, they get the illusion that it is something I want. Because living independently is a means to an end, it is more or less something I'd need to do to not be deadweight if I got to live with my girlfriend, to not kill my girlfriend from stress overload, to not have my girlfriend have a panic attack when I'm out of site, and so on and so forth.
It is also a safeguard in case I am suddenly kicked out of the house by my dad; if I know how to live independently, then I can survive on my own with difficulty.

But while it is a nice safeguard. And while it is something that would teach me how to be able to support in my own way my girlfriend rather than just be deadweight. I don't want it.
It's not something I desire.
Nothing in my life is inherently better with me independent.
Me being independent enables me to transition, sure--by proxy of not being dependent on my dad.
But that's not something which is a given.

It's not "independence = can transition, dependence = can't transition".
I can be independent and lack the means to transition, and I can be dependent on someone other than my dad and still have the means to transition.
The two aren't linked in that way.

So I just...I don't see the point?
Why am I supposed to be independent?
Because it's something that people "should" do?
Because it's something normal people do, especially by the age of 25?
Because it's something that would convenience others?

It's just...none of that is about me, now, is it?
Like I said--the only reason I see to be independent is to teach me the skills so that I'm not deadweight to my girlfriend, so that I can actually help out and manage some things on my own...but those skills don't require me to be independent, do they? Independence is the quickest, easiest way to teach them, sure, I guess...but it isn't the only way to teach them.

So if I can get those skills in other ways more suited to me...and I lack reasons of my own to seek independence...
...Why would I want it?

I just don't.

There's then my lack of desire to write.
You may recall that my flashdrive containing my writing broke years ago.
It's still broken, still hasn't been fixed, frankly I think my brother forgot it even existed, wrote it off as a lost project then didn't return it or something like that.

That's no excuse to not write.

I can, and have, remade stories from scratch.
Heck, because I am overly fond of rewrites, it's actually a specialty of sorts.
I can, and have, come up with dozens of story ideas. (Most compelling of all, the Worm-inspired Quadraverse story I owe you rambles--plural--about due to having expanded it multiple times since you last heard about it. And it'd be in exactly that format, a book, not a webcomic, not a game, not a show, a book.)

I can't stop my brain from coming up with dozens, hundreds, of ideas, nor would I ever want to. I enjoy those story ideas, I love fleshing them out, I enjoy talking about them, I enjoy making their plot twists, enjoy creating chronology, characters, and so on and so forth...

...But I just...
...Have an utter lack of desire to actually write.

I once came close.
I came close to creating a forum thread, recently, where I would tell people, basically, "I am looking to write, and want some writing prompts to give me a direction to write. I write as much as I can, before then requesting another prompt, and will keep going on this for as long as I can", more or less.
Figured out the rules and everything.
What my starting point would be.
What sorts of things I was looking for.
And so on and so forth.

Almost did it.

...But didn't.

Not because I forgot.

Because I lost interest.

I just lost interest in doing it.
And I have no interest in writing any new stories.
And for that matter, no existing stories.
The loss of my flashdrive, then, I realized was nothing but an excuse.
I was pissed at the time. Royally ticked off. Bummed out, in despair, at the loss.
But I could have recovered from it.

It was a choice not to.

Because right now?

The writer within me is dead.

Like I said, that's the status my artist within me was until just yesterday, so that could change.

But as of right now.

I don't want to write.

Because the writing me is dead right now.
At least the novelwriting, story-writing me.

Similarly--I don't really want to read things on my own.
I read, browse, TVTropes.
I keep up to date on webcomics--more out of obligation than anything.
Yes, I've binge-read a few webcomics recently.

But all of that? It's mostly enrichment. Mostly inspiration. It's mostly things which give me ideas, which make me feel better, which are part of another aspect: they are part of me living a full, happy, enriched life because they give me a degree of cheap pleasure, but it's not something I have any particular investment in. They're just time-wasters. Wasting time, rather than something I truly did because of a deep desire to delve into the world I was presented with.

The magic exists--and then it doesn't.
Worm is a great example of this.
I mentioned in my blog recently, either yesterday or on Friday, that I finished reading Worm.
And more significantly.
I did something like 28 chapters in only a couple months or so...
...And then stopped.
I just...didn't read.
I had plenty of times I could have read.
But for months. (Well, slight exaggeration.)
It just sat there, unfinished.

And then the magic was briefly back, just long enough for me to finish it in less than 48 hours. (Maybe less than 24, I forget if it was Wednesday or Thursday that I started but I'm pretty sure I finished before Friday?)
But it's gone again.

It comes and it goes, but it's not consistently here.
It was here consistently long enough to drive me forward to read something like 28 chapters in a remarkably short time. (I got some internet-stares when I said how much I had read in the short duration I had, akin to "...HOW", with them flabbergasted that I could read so much in so little time especially given that I read many comments too.)

But then it wasn't.
And it isn't, again.

So overall, reading's just not something I strongly have right now.

It is useful for enrichment, for entertainment, for boredom-suppressing, for lack-of-better-ideas activities.
But that's about it.

Ditto, gaming. It is equally a time waster, and due to a small selection pool of games...far less enriching of my life, other than providing entertainment and relaxation and a distraction from doing things that are more important to do.
I still game.
But when I game, it's not so much that I want to do it, as much as I defaulted to doing it.
I ran out of ideas, so I did it because I couldn't think of anything better to do and it was the thing that was most appealing or rather more accurately, least-unappealing.

Again, I'd like to reiterate.

These change when it comes to having a partner, having it not be just me.

I would read just about anything if I had someone to trade comments with about it, facepalming, screaming, making snarky commentary, the like, about it. And I don't mean in the sense of a forum where you just look at comments, place your own, respond to existing comments, e.g. on a webcomic with whatever posting method the webcomic uses (for instance disqus). I mean more in real time, where we can have a real conversation and bring attention to things the other might have missed.

That is fun. That is something that I would always be down for, that I would always enjoy. That I'd always find immense pleasure in.

I would play just about anything if I had companionship in it. Someone watching the stream of a game I play, preferably in real time, again to make comments about how much of an idiot I am being, how stupid that move I made was, how much I deserved what was coming to me, etc.

Someone to play an online game with me, where we could both fail together, repeatedly, because of my incompetence getting us massacred over and over again. Or, alternatively, if we stack things in our favor to make it nigh-impossible to lose...managing to win a victory albeit one where I didn't pull my weight. Or, alternatively, where we play against each other and I totally let them win, honestly, couldn't just be because I am absolutely utterly incompetent and they are just better than me, nope, not my inexperience, totally me letting them win.

Any of that? Yeah, that's fun. Never tire of that. Never gets old. Never would stop with it.

But on my own. With no feedback. With no network...I'm getting tired of it. I'm not creative, I'm not inventive, I fall back to the same habits and do not explore much. I play the same things I have played...and I basically just. Don't really have much motivation to play them anymore.

And similarly, watching falls under that same umbrella. Sure, watching things with others is amazing, is great, is something I want to do always and enjoy doing. A real highlight of my week, uplifting, amazing, basically something that gives me great, immense, immeasurable, pure, sheer, joy at having done, leaving me happy and fulfilled.

But on its own...well. Watching some things can be useful to gain inspiration. It can motivate me to do my own things, to make my own work, to get ideas from what I watched on things that I can improve on in my life and in my creativity...but that's about it.

I don't really want those to be central parts of my own, personal, me by myself, life.
They can exist in the peripherals, sure, I guess.
But they shouldn't be what my life revolves around.

What should my life revolve around?
Well, probably not half the things I want, but whatever it should revolve around should be something I want.

And again.
I want to continue being a part of the mafia forum I play on--because it is, like it or not, a fundamental part of my identity. It is a piece of me, a rather large part. When I gave up, progressively more and more, on every other site...at the end. Even after having given up on ComicFury...I stayed there. I stayed there when I stayed nowhere else.

It keeps me grounded, it keeps me sane, it gives me my one iota of social interaction and is the only source of resources/support network I have readily, easily, available access to. Pathetic, sure, sad, yeah, but that's simply the truth. They are all I have built up.

Doesn't help that they serve as a very nice source of enlightenment, so to speak--they have a far, far, far, far, FAR more open-minded view of the world than I'd otherwise get. I mean, liberal as liberal gets is a fairly dominant majority there, sure, yeah...but I need that to help counterbalance the fact that my family is as conservative as conservative gets.

I need reminders that my family is racist, that my family is bigoted, that my family's religious intolerance is not okay, that my family's politics are not to be blindly sheeped, that I should take their words with heavy grains of salt. And the site's one of the better places to give it to me.

Not the best, admittedly, because they have a bit of a problem with the "if you don't agree with this, you're part of the problem" mentality, and they're not aiming to educate people nor am I directly looking for them to educate me and other issues and the like, but it's still exposure to an opposite view to what my family (and by 'my family', I mostly mean "my dad's toxic, backwards views"), but I fully credit the site for being one of the largest influences in me not being an echo of my father.

Without them, I'd be the worst trash of the worst trash, most likely. A despicable human being that honestly the world would be better off without having around as a whole, one spouting hatred at all times at everything not appearing to be part of it. I was headed down that road, and while I'm not fully on the road opposite of it (to the point where some probably would still argue I am those things, a despicable human being that would be better off not around, an opinion I can't entirely dispute because yeah, I am kinda trash), that I am at least trying to stay further and further off of it is something I credit to the site.

Sure, yes. The internet is a toxic cesspool of vitriol, and this site is no different. That exists, in abundance, and perhaps moreso than on most sites. Certainly seems it is filled to the brim with those hostile, divisive emotions. And yet...in spite of that. It is not all negative. It is not all bad. I know that my place on there is largely a negative one where I cause more problems than I help...

...But in spite of that...I still want to be a part of it, because it is part of my identity.

It was one of the two places I came out on as being a girl. (The other being ComicFury.)
It is one of the main places that helped me build my confidence in my femininity, that helped me build my identity as a woman. That helped me find who I am as a person.

And it's something that I crave.
Even if I wasn't part of that site.
I don't think I'd be able to give up mafia altogether.
It's just ingrained in me. Second nature to me. As both a player and as a game host/moderator/insertterminologyhere.
If I was on any site that had mafia, I would play it--I wouldn't go out of my way to sign up for a site with it just to play it, but if I were already a member of a site I visited that had it, heck yes I would. (Which would be a liiiiiittle bit problematic since I know sites that I frequent such as Kongregate have sections for it.)

Heck.
If I was on any site that had a section dedicated to playing games...and they didn't already have mafia?
...I would start it for them.
I would figure out what I'd need to adjust, what I'd need to make it work, and then I'd make it work.

Only way it'd be possible for a complete detox from mafia would be to cut me off from any site that has any source of games on it. And I mean, any source. Doesn't need to be forum-based; if they have a chat client that has chat game support? I'd find a way to make a chat-based mafia game.

Because I think in mafia games.

I have it that ingrained in me, that I convert experiences into mafia games and mechanics. I turn ideas I see into mafia-centered things. Many of my ideas which started as a mafia game can be converted to something not a mafia game...but it also works vice-versa just as frequently, where something I thought of as a different idea becomes a mafia game because the mafia game suits the idea more naturally.

I've been doing mafia for over ten years--not half my life, but 40% of it. 2/5ths of my life, spent on the forum game. That experience sticks with you your whole life. It's ingrained in my brain. It doesn't go away. It's instinctive on every level. The good (what little there is), the bad, the ugly, it's all there, as part of me.

And because in spite of its flaws, in spite of all the things there which are sour, which there is bitterness about, I genuinely believe in the community, I genuinely feel like it is a special place, I genuinely feel like it is a place which is more good than it is bad. It's got lots of bad. Lots and lots and LOTS of bad. But the good is just...stronger, more empowering, more rewarding.

I want to make more of that good, there. I want to do what I can to make there a better place, one piece at a time. The site is, in many ways, a bit of a reflection on humanity. It is deeply flawed, it is deeply troubled, there is lots of hatred, there is lots of divides, but there is also lots of...everything positive about humanity. Bonding, creativity, socializing, humor, love, friendship, unity, you name it. 

I could drop it. (There are two situations which would cause me to; if my girlfriend asked me to, in spite of my attachment to it, I'd leave in a heartbeat, wrap everything up as hastily as is possible and then simply depart and never return again, OR, if I on a fundamental level felt the site itself had betrayed my trust. I've felt betrayed before, but that's not something that I consider the site betraying me so much as something else having done so.)

But given the choice, I don't want to. It's helped build me as a person. You can leave sites like that behind you...but it's not something you ever want to do, and this is no different. My investment, my attachment, is such that barring either condition coming true...I just...want to keep it as a part of my life.

I don't want it to consume my life.
I don't want it to be all of my life.
I don't want it to be the most important aspect of my life.
Heck, when I wrote these down, it was almost practically in the order of least important to most important. (Almost. Not quite. Not really, but you can kinda see how the later ones are more important to me than the earlier ones. It's not an exact list, being a teacher is a lower priority than my creative projects, but the reason it's lower on the list is that it has a direct lead-in to talking about the others, which you'll see if you keep reading, BUT I DIGRESS.)

So it's not an important aspect of my life.
But I want to continue keeping it AS an aspect of my life.

On that note--I want to finish my Civ 3 Mod, Across the Ages - Mediterranean.
This one's not really that important...but it's a bit of a pet project. There'd be a sense of accomplishment, of, "I did it!", and it's a bit of an education, a personal pursuit of mine, a bit of a healthy hobby of building something tangible, that you can look at as concrete, and which could lead somewhere.

Would be unlikely to lead anywhere, but could lead somewhere, in that even though it doesn't teach me coding or anything it still teaches me basic structure of how to make a game idea more or less real. It gives me the layout of the sorts of things, the details, I'd need to work out. Structure of the game, of map layout/creation, of units, of balance, of tech trees, of resources, the like.

The knowledge generated from this is poor due to me being lousy at it, sure, but it's still some sort of grasped knowledge, which I'd get better at with time and practice. And it is knowledge which does have a way of transferring over to other projects, especially if I begin messing around with things I thought I wouldn't be messing around with (such as pcx files).

The intricacies, the nuances, of making my scenario what I want it to be, would teach me how I could go about making ideas that are my own game proper, into reality, because honestly this mod basically is a game of its own at least in scope, in scale, in ambition, in ideas poured into it.

I wouldn't even probably play it, beyond playtesting it. See the game section above for why. If I wanted to make something of my life...I just wouldn't have the time to keep playing it over and over again, even though if I succeeded at making it the way I dreamed of it, I'd have the ability to.

The ability to play it over and over again and enjoy it, that? That if I could actually achieve it with the full scope and scale of my ideas, would make it all worth it in the end. So it's something I want to do, but it's not something that is at all critical. I still have desire to do it even though I work on it less often than I used to (used to be just about every day), but that's more from increased passions elsewhere I didn't know I still had.

I want to go back to The Descended, from my revival of interest there.
This is something I was going to touch on in my December blog, which was near the anniversary of The Descended. (Remember, The Descended was spawned as an idea around Christmas Break, on vacation; we were in Oregon when on my grandfather's antique computer I drew the first sprite iterations of The Outcasts, The Elementals, and The Latens. I forget the exact date, but it was somewhere in that range.)

The exact blog was spawned during the time I said I had an "epic year-end blog", promised it was coming soon, procrastinated, said I'd do it, but never actually did, with it never having materialized. There was so much more to it when I wrote it, but one of the core aspects of it was a scary thought to have.

The Descended, with my thematic nature of liking 12, had about 12 "Arcs" of content.
Each "Arc" is, by my approximation of modern standards (not original standards), ~30-40 pages long.
The Descended was, from the very beginning, at its original iteration and with each reboot, each revision, always at every single point, envisioned as releasing once a week.

One comic a week.

The Descended was the first webcomic I had which had clear start and end points and material strewn in-between.

I had other story-based webcomics--some I even knew the direction of!
But I didn't have clear ends to them. Only generic ideas of where I was heading with things.

The Descended was the first, and in some senses, still the best, at getting me a story-based webcomic that didn't just have a simple direction. It had a clear, definitive, unambiguous, ending planned to it. (Mind you, not at the get-go. Took time for that to materialize, until July if I recall correctly which is why I consider July 23rd to be an "anniversary" for The Descended, and consider the original December launch date an anniversary.)

My original plot, I lost on my old old laptop. You know, back when my old laptop was called my laptop, I referred to an old laptop? Well now it's not the old laptop because my previous laptop now is the old laptop, so it's the old old laptop. Or maybe it goes back even further? Actually, it does.
My original plot was on my old old old laptop, a laptop so old I pretty much forget it even existed in the first place. That, or it was on a desktop. It involved many more gags than the current plot, many more out-of-universe mentions, far more self-awareness, and even toyed with the idea of there being a on-the-other-side-of-screen (i.e. YOU the READER...except, GAMER) character, a gamer, controlling the actions and being dissatisfied with the outcome, "loading" to redo them...and at least at one point the characters in-universe refusing to revert.

I don't remember the details, never wrote it all and frankly I'm glad I didn't because while that was a valid direction I could have taken things in, The Descended would have been far, far, far worse off for it. I'm much, much happier with the direction I decided to take things in when I got my next plot.

Which I still didn't finish.
And which was on my old old laptop.
But which, critically?

I mostly have memorized.

The finer details, fine points, exact specifics, I don't remember--but I remember far more than I don't. It's ingrained in me as second nature. Mind you, there's not total recall. I have to focus on a moment to remember that moment, but I can generally remember more or less the structure of all the ideas I wove, the intricate narrative between the four protagonist groups of four and their pasts from before the start of the comic.

And I can tell you that works out to be about 12 arcs, with each arch being about 30-40 pages long.
The first arc to introduce you to three of the main groups and a little about them, the second arc to get more into the details, third arc to have the outcasts have their first encounter as a team while the background of the elementals and latens is explored, fourth arc the three groups meeting, and then further arcs for exploring the villains and such. Davos with an arc, Aria with an arc (so that's six), an arc detailing the rise of the fourth group (so that's seven), at least two arcs detailing miscellaneous plotlines where each character gets some growth, and then at least two arcs for the climax (that'd put it at eleven meaning I'm either merging two separate arcs or forgetting an arc, but I'm in the approximate right range, here).

What makes this all be scary?

Well do the math, here.

I took down the original page, but the original date has been preserved.
The Descended's first comic was released on December 28, 2009.
Over 9 years ago; near the end of this year, we'll be seeing The Descended's tenth birthday, and at the time I wrote the blog, I knew we were looking at its ninth.

There are 52 weeks in a year.
Do the math I've presented.
12 arcs, each ~30-40 pages long?
360-480 pages.

One page a week?
If I kept to one page a week, in nine years, I'd be able to do 468 pages.

Now assuming every arc together ended up being less than 480, then I'd be finished with The Descended.
The Descended would be done.
DONE.
Finished, completed, start to finish, a comic that was actually wrapped up and concluded, rather than on an indefinite, indeterminable hiatus.

Now, granted.
One page a week, the original schedule, is an unrealistically high goal given my innate abilities and how busy I was.
Also granted.
I improved the comic in 2012, 2013, and 2014; those dates represent more accurately the places you can call launches for the comic proper compared to the original.

Butstill.

The scary thought?

The Descended is an unfinished comic I put so much effort into, only to end up wasting it, because of stupid reasons.
Originally, writer's block, leading to a rewrite and generating a script.
Then writer's block in how to make the script real, culminating in the death of the computer.
Then in artist's indecisiveness.
Then for the stupidest of stupid reasons, because I didn't have the worldbuilding finished.
The World of Soano, The Descended's setting, is an RPG Mechanics 'Verse--one which using RPG Mechanics Terminology, but which is not self-aware of being in a comic and do not consider themselves in a game (because they aren't).

This is a rare combo, but it's exactly what I chose to use. To them, they use terms like mana, charisma, wisdom, dump stats, the same way we might talk about computers, food, health, cars, whatever. It's just part of their world, of Soano.

I didn't finish making the mechanics--I wanted it so that the World of Soano was one where anyone could run a functional whatever-they-want using it. A tabletop RPG, a video game, a webcomic, a story, I wanted the World of Soano to be accessible and usable by all, not just me. So I wanted to build the system for it...and I never finished it, and I put the comic on hold while I tried.

Stupid reasons.
Stupid, stupid reasons to stop the comic.
The hiatuses were never for that officially, because I was busy, because I couldn't keep up with my life, but it still contributed to killing the comic.

And yet.

I would be done with it if I hadn't quit.

Or if not done...close to.
I would be nearing the end of it.
I would be getting ready to wrap things up.

And yet.

Instead of that.

I get a comic that never started.

In spite of how there is now a revival of interest.
And new ideas.
Yes, those ideas are a bit "draw and discard".
Some knowledge of The Descended is irrepairably lost forever. I'll never get the finer details back, I'm sure some plot threads I devised are entirely Lost Forever, in spite of how good they were. The plot I had for The Descended was a magnificent one, one which was funny and yet told rich stories with great character depth and which went into the backgrounds of them and showed their personalities, all of them, on full, the entire way.

You got a bunch of compelling villains, too, who were largely sympathetic in spite of being antagonists to the four groups. I've forgotten all but a handful (literally, can count them on a single hand; the big bad, two who have personal ties to characters, a third who has a tie to another character, and a fourth whose final battle I remember vaguely but I remember literally nothing else).

But I've also gained things like the Aria chronicle. Her basic background was in the plot from the get-go. I knew that the revelation about her lineage would be there, but the story was all in the present/future; it didn't delve into the past at all. That whole story would've never existed, and yet now it does in full, because I toy with getting into Aria's mindset quite often (she's fun to think as and fun to interact with).

And frankly...losing ideas? The ultimate excuse I put forward for stopping The Descended?

Was just an excuse.
It wasn't a justified reason to halt things. I remembered it, how hard would it have been to just type it up again and make a better backup? I stopped because I wanted to stop...

...But I've regretted it ever since then.
Always wanting to unstop it. To revive it. To come back to it. To do it again.

Heck.

One of the things I gained was a basic map OF The World of Soano. Soano's shape was originally incredibly vague, but now I know what it looks like. (Well not by memory, but I have the paper in my room and can locate it fairly quickly to reference.)

And using that basic map.

I was able to map out the exact geography of where our protagonists begin their journey.
And even drew up a few pages for a hypothetical reboot of the update that vastly improved the reboot of the reboot of the original. (I think that's how many I did? Might be one more reboot in there?)

I could make it be amazing.

Absolutely stunning.

I know how to draw all the characters better than I ever did, in spite of having not drawn most of them in like five years minimum in some cases.

I could fix the gaps in the mechanics, patch them up.
I could make it coherent.
I could finish what I started.
I could do everything I failed to do then, now, with my current skill sets.
I know I could do it, because independently I've done those sorts of things on my own.

It'd take time, it'd take planning, but I know I could make it work, and dangit.

I want to.
Even though I know it'd take time.
Effort.
And ten years to see fruition.
I know that the longer I wait now.
The longer it'll be for those ten years to come to fruition.
So I want to do it sooner rather than later.

​And you know what else this applies to?

The thing inspiring me to make this ramble?

Thaaaaaat's right!

Red Hood Rider is all of the above, and more.

When we had easter, a result of that was me organizing a lot of stuff.
Part of that was recovering my old never-made December blog entry, but another part of it was uncovering the Episode 1 artwork (which was all drawn on paper) that I'd brought out ages ago to use as a reference and never returned to my room.

It had degraded to some extent and had been shuffled, but I did what I could during this time to preserve it and put things in the proper order.

And this is what got me set off towards the current path.
Because while there was plenty of things about the old art that I hated (the original "Hello" face panel among them), there were other things that to this day I think are drop dead gorgeous.

I managed to make amazing art back then. Circa September 2016--two and a half years ago, it'd appear.


I did intricate details that to this day I'm not sure I'd be able to do.

There are some things that are horrific and I'm honestly wondering if it's just that I rushed them because I struggle to understand how I could be so good in some areas and so bad in others. Or maybe I made them from memory without reference images and the amazing ones are ones where I cheated by using some, butstill. Doesn't matter. The point is. There's some gorgeous artwork in there.

So everything I just said about The Descended?

Applies to Red Hood Rider, even moreso in some instances.
My original plot is sort of lost. There might be a copy of it stored online (which I know where it is), but I'm not sure if that's a copy of the plot itself or if it's just most of the characters. (I know it's not fully up-to-date because the character of Brigand I'm pretty sure wasn't included among other stuff.)

The original plot I've mostly got memorized, but vast large swathes of it I have forgotten. Mostly stuff that gave characters other than Ruby...well, their characterization. Each of the ten fighting members of The Ruby Gang had immense characterization to them, and even the two non-fighting members of The Ruby Gang had plenty, and so too did support members like the Darkblood Coven's higher-up vampires, other Coven's vampire leaders, and such.

Every single Rogue got a lot of exposure, and even a wannabe Rogue got a repeat appearance. (That I remember, but stuff like that, I know I didn't.) Fighting styles, I had mapped out. Basic abilities, I knew. Details of the Rubyverse, largely mapped out and explored.

Lots of that stuff, I forgot.

The majority of it, I remember.

And just like The Descended?

Critically.

There's a "draw and discard"...
...Where I added key aspects I didn't have. Though to some extent I've re-forgotten them, when I was playing around with inventing my martial art, it was the vampiric martial art that I was inventing, for use in the Rubyverse for some of the choreographed fight scenes that were far lamer and more rigid prior to this invention.

And near the climax of the series, there was a whole Episode that I've invented...one which is one of the most important in the whole series, as it is the episode which explains why Ruby has been the protagonist the whole time, which explains Ruby's role in the Rubyverse, why she was selected to be The Chosen One. Before I had an episode covering a What If where she didn't exist, where Sally was The Chosen One, and it's still in the series at a much earlier point, but this new episode?

This new episode builds off of that rather than just leaving it, and ties things together that originally weren't.

Ruby is actually given a very strong reasoning for being the protagonist, and in it, the episode explores both why Ruby is me...and why Ruby isn't me. And how both halves of that are important to why she's the protagonist. And how everyone is a little bit me, and how they could get by without someone who is heavily me, but why in my story they had someone who is half me.

Because that's another thing which has changed about the story.

When I first envisioned Ruby.
She was born as a series of "what if"s rapidly chained together.
What If I were a magical girl.
What If I were a vampire.
What If I were both a magical girl and a vampire.

And from that, she became me in all but name, just with abilities I don't have. Me if I were a vampire magical girl.

...Except...

...She evolved.

She isn't me anymore.
She's still partially me. She's still got large aspects of me in her life, because she was based on me, she came from me.
But she became something else.

AND FURTHERMORE.

I became something else.
I diverged from Ruby, just as Ruby diverged from me.

Over the last couple of years, I have continued to have my world outlook expand and grow--and Ruby's outlook has also expanded and grown...but not identically to mine.

We've taken similar paths, but not identical ones...and this new episode just before the climax? It heavily explored this concept, this aspect, of her and why she earned her identity, her spot, as the protagonist, rather than having it just be given to her. A meta commentary on her role in the entire series, even.

So much about the series I've lost.

But in spite of her being largely out of focus.

Crucial details like that?

I didn't originally have...yet I have since been given.

A draw and discard.

Mostly memorized, some lost, but lots gained.

I wouldn't have it finished.
72 episodes were planned--each episode a little bit shorter, in the 20-40 page range rather than 30-40 page range, but with far more episodes you more than make up for that. Divided up into 12-episode seasons. Conservatively, that'd be 1440 pages; liberally, that'd be 2880 pages.

Red Hood Rider also updated at a rate of one page a week.
And was much, much newer.
When was the launch date, again? 
October 1st, 2016 it looks like.
Two and a half years ago.
At 52 pages per year, that's ballpark figure of ~130 pages.

Less than a tenth done with the series.
Heck.
Less than half way to conservatively being at the end of the first season.

But the other part I said about The Descended?
That part still applies.
I would have ~130 pages done for Red Hood Rider.
Instead of four.
FOUR.

Because I quit.
Because of real life stresses.
Because of stupidity.
Because of excuse after excuse.
Because I gave up.
Because I just...didn't do it.

And yet.
Now.

I want to.

I know how to do it, and do it better than I was doing it. I wouldn't need to redraw anything, all I'd do is suddenly have a years-long sudden improvement in the art. (Might come at the cost of it being in a different font tho as I don't remember what fonts I originally was using.)

I can make it amazing, make it stunning, I can fix my mistakes (for instance, fixing the godawful aesthetic of the ComicFury site), finish what I started, do everything I failed to do then and do it now. With my current skills, it's viable, it's doable, and it wasn't back then. It'd take time, it'd take planning, but I could make it work.

And I want to do it.

Even though I know it'll take time...and would take an amazing 28-56 years for me to finish if doing only one page a week. (Which is an outright impossible thing so I'd need to somehow manage to do more than one page a week. Like, two or three pages a week.)

Yet if I don't start it now.

It'll take that same amount of time whenever I do start it--and I'll be just as behind then, in the future, as I am now, because I didn't do it now, because I didn't close the gap any when I had the time, the chance, the method, the opportunity, to do so.

But in spite of that.

It's not the only thing I want to work on.
It plus The Descended are not the only thing I want to work on.

I really want to make Phyrra and Cyrus a reality.
I think of them almost every single day.
Again, there's a draw and discard effect going on.
Some worldbuilding details get lost; exact details of how episodes are meant to go get lost.
But the overarching chronology, what things happen when? I know by heart, and I keep on repeating them over and over again.

I really, really want to make them come to life.
They are my passion. There is an ambition there. It is a love project. A project of pure love, a creation filled to the brim with all my heart and soul, that I want to pour my everything into. I know it won't be easy. I've had a bit of an insider look into what constitutes a sound editor's job, and contrary to my original hopelessly naive belief that I might be able to do that myself realistically speaking having seen exactly what that entails I know that in theory I might be able to technically speaking do it...

...But that when doing so it's a butchered job that is a hot mess. In order for Phyrra and Cyrus to come to life as I envision it, I'd need someone else to do the sound editing for it. Because if it were me, I'd never be able to do it justice. I could do justice to The Descended. I could do justice to Red Hood Rider. (Although to get multiple pages out per week I may need to bite the bullet and get help because frankly I don't know how I'd manage so much as one a week yet alone multiple a week with no aid.)

I can't do justice to Phyrra and Cyrus. I can't do justice to Phyrra and Cyrus as a voice actor and even if I could do one voice I certainly couldn't do them all. I can't do justice to Phyrra and Cyrus as an animator least of all because I'd have to teach myself how to do it and then do the hot mess of a job at it which is shared for being what a sound editor would be.

I'd have to go back to my blog where I detailed everything about what I need for Phyrra and Cyrus to confirm this is everything, but off the top of my head, what I need?
-Animator for the four openings
-Animator for the four closings
-Animator for the show itself (the three need not be the same, though they can be)
-1-4 composers for the openings' music (one composer could do all four, four composers could do one, or anywhere in-between those extremes)
-1-4 composers for the closings' music (ditto)
-I'll handle the songwriting for the openings and closings
-1-4+ singers for the openings (probably at least one will use multiple voices and thus need multiple people)
-1-4+ singers for the closings (ditto)
-A sound editor
-Voice actors for each member of the Thaukama, each villain, recurring characters (rare as they may be), and one-off characters (this probably is 2-4 dozen people altogether depending on how much overlap there is)
-I'll handle the scriptwriting

I can do justice to the things I say I'll handle.
I can, and plan to, give direction to the animators for openings, for closings, for the show itself. (The latter is an extension of the script; of course the script, or what I call the script, covers the basic plan of what's to be animated.) But I can't do animation and have it do Phyrra and Cyrus justice.
I can songwrite and do Phyrra and Cyrus justice.
I can't sing and have it do Phyrra and Cyrus due justice.
I can give direction to the composers for what I'm looking for from them, but my skills in musical composition are lackluster enough that I wouldn't be able to properly do Phyrra and Cyrus justice if I handled this.
Having seen what sound editing entails, how involved the process is, how so much of a single second of video animation can have like thirty individual sounds (not an exaggeration, if anything that's understating it rather than overstating it) attached to it? I can't do that and do Phyrra and Cyrus justice. I'd miss too much, I'd leave too much out, it'd be too basic, too sloppy, to chaotic, to filled with things it shouldn't be and missing things it should have.
I can't voice act and even if I could I can't voice act for the number of people I need.

I can't get these things for free, I know this, too. Even an animator working cheaply for the exposure it'd give, even an animator who I could get on board for recognizing it as a love project, even an animator who could get as passionate about it as I am...well...even if I could get someone with one, two, or even all three of those traits?

It still wouldn't be free to do. Because anyone who learns animation to the level of skill I would be looking for is doing this sort of thing professionally--as in. They need to pay their bills. And animation takes time. Ain't an animator in the world who'd be able to provide that animesque high quality animation I am looking for, who'd do it in what amounts to their spare free time, because that's what them doing it for free would be.

If they do it for a cost, then because it's a job they are going to be making it a project they put some fairly decent investment into. Maybe it's not their top priority project, but they're not going to put it on the backburner, they're not going to put it off. They're getting paid, so they are going to make it and make it well because they want to live off of their animations.

If they did it for free, then they'd still need to pay their bills. They need money for food, for gas, for electricity, for supplies, for internet, for all the stuff professional artists and animators need. They need money to survive--so they need to get it from somewhere.

If I wasn't that somewhere, then they'd need to be doing something else to get the money...meaning that Phyrra and Cyrus? Not their focus. Honestly...if Phyrra and Cyrus took longer to make because the animator was working cheaply and had it as a lower-tier project while working on a higher-tier project that was more expensive and can sustain them, that'd be fine.

My concern though is with the quality; when I do finally find an animator...if it doesn't live up to my vision...if it isn't what I envisioned or even better (because the thing about good artists to a writer is that sometimes, they exceed the writer's expectations and throw in details that are even better than what the writer told them to do, and I imagine animation is similar in that it can be better than what the script called for), if it looks like junk because as far as the animator was concerned something not helping them pay the bills was junk to make at a lower quality...what was the point in making it at all?

I imagine that with the proper research, I could probably find someone who would work for free. Would be incredibly hard to find, but I could find it out there somewhere. But would they make it quality? That's what I'm looking for. And 48 episodes of quality? That's not cheap. That's not free. That's expensive.

It takes money that I don't have.

But I want to make it.
I know I can do it.
Realistically speaking I'd be funding it by season, I'd be needing to do a fundraiser, I'd need to find a way to make ad revenue to go towards the future seasons and maybe fundraise them if the ad revenue isn't enough, and even after doing that I'm going to have to find people who have a combination of those traits.

Who are willing to do it cheaper than the usual rate for the sake of exposure.
And/or who are willing to do it cheaper than the usual rate because they recognize that it is a labor of love, a project with heart and soul behind it that they genuinely believe in.
And/or who are passionate about the vision that they are able to see I have for it.

Because that's the only way I'll be able to get the money raised and have the money raised cover everything.
I know a lot of research needs to be done on my end.
I know that a lot of work needs to be done on my end.
Finishing the scripts.
Doing the storyboarding of sorts.
Filling in filler details.
That sort of stuff.
I know that all.

But I want​ to do it.

And I also want to be a teacher. Not as much as I want to make Phyrra and Cyrus, and, heck, not as much as I want to create my webcomics. But.
I love teaching. I love imparting my insights, my wisdom, my thoughts, my teachings, onto others. I like to be able to say that a person was left in a better position, because of a contribution I gave to their growth.

I just have a love of teaching.
I don't even care if my lessons are listened to, if the people I am teaching to actually learn, though obviously I take pride and joy when they do, especially if they are able to take my teaching and improve on it to make it better than what I was teaching them to do.

I just...really like passing my knowledge and skills on to a "younger" generation. 

This need not be a teaching job proper, though.
I don't need to be a Teacher to be a teacher.

For instance, I am prominently known for being an expert/"expert" at the theory behind mafia. (Depends on who you ask. Bit of both camps are accurate; I have been playing for ten years so it figures that yes there are somethings I really can teach people about and being autistic with my brain wired in nonstandard ways gives me unique insights others over those ten years have missed...but because I am autistic I am prone to poor explanations of concepts, and just because I've done it for so long doesn't mean I'm perfect or know everything or am right all the time because I'm human prone to error and also poor judgments. Could ramble on this subject all day, but here's not the place for it.)

Nothing gives me greater joy than just getting a chance to tell people about my philosophies and have my ideas be passed on to them--not necessary verbatim. Taking elements of my ideas is actually a way to turn a basic idea which was on the right track but never nailed it (which is what I often am) to be refined to the point of actually getting it.

I encourage healthy skepticism in my teachings, will tell things as I see them and have a bit of a "that's the way it is" attitude towards some stuff, but I like just...seeing people actually read what I say, and taking even some of it to heart. Like, pondering what I said, considering it, and even just going, "ehh I disagree, for these reasons".

Someone who reads my ideas, and develops their own, someone who listens to my teachings, but develops their own. Someone who paid attention and took the best of what I had to say and eliminated the worst of what I had to offer. I love having stuff like that happen.

And another form teaching can take?

The main form which I dream about it taking, in fact?
The ultimate form--parenting.
Now, granted.
I know that I'll probably be a lousy mom.
Doesn't change that I want to BE a mom.

Doesn't have to be biological children, though it could be. I'm not picky. Doesn't have to be from birth babies, though it could be; again I'm not picky. I'd consider myself no less the mother of a 4 year old than I would an infant, no less the mother of a child with my blood in them and/or my girlfriend's blood in them than I would someone who has none.

Aside from being a housewife being my dream job (again, even though I know I'd be terrible at it and it is pragmatically speaking, economically nonviable in this day and age), frankly, the main reason I think I've always dreamed of raising children?

Was so that I could teach those children.

Every time I think about it.
Every time I think about all the times I've pondered wanting kids.
Every time I think about having envisioned raised kids.
Every time I think about all the different ways it could have happened.

Ultimately.

The thing that I remember most from all of those times.

Was that I was teaching them the lessons that a mother teaches their children, more or less the type of lessons my mom taught me only being my own unique take on them, stuff like actions versus consequences, the price of pursuing what you want, the like. Giving them a drive, giving them an encouragement (because encouragement is one of the most important aspects of teaching).

Supporting them, loving them.

It's mostly that I wanted to teach them to be the human beings they end up being--and with luck, to have some pride in knowing that their lives turned out the way they did in part because of what I helped them with. (We'd certainly hope so, because the alternative to that is despair/shame/horror that their lives turned out the way they did and the constant doubt of where I went wrong. Stuff like, 'they became a serial killer', noooooooot something I'd exactly be able to find pride/joy in, is what I mean.)

Ultimately, though...everything I just said?

Literally everything--mafia, the civ 3 mod, the descended, red hood rider, being a teacher, raising a family? I'd give it all up for my girlfriend. I'd give it all up to just live my life with my girlfriend. It is perhaps one of my greatest wants. It is one of the holy trifecta, the other two being the other two I listed.

I want to transition.

I want to have a full, happy, rich life.

I happen to also legitimately think that these three things are the only three on the entire list which augment each other rather than get in the way of each other. I have a finite amount of time in a day.
I can't, fundamentally can't, every day.
Do mafia.
Do the civ 3 mod.
Do The Descended.
Do Red Hood Rider.
Do Phyrra and Cyrus.
Teach.
And everything else.

I can't do them all at once.
I have to pick and choose. (More on that in a bit.)

But I legitimately, genuinely, think that the holy trifecta are together things that not only I can do all at once, but which are borderline impossible to do without having done all at once.

​I am a girl.
Without having fully transitioned, I will never truly be able to be at peace--which will diminish my happiness.

I derive the greatest happiness and joy out of the love I have for my girlfriend. They are the most important thing in the world to me--more important than anything else and I would do anything for them.

Transitioning is something that I legitimately don't think I can build a support network for on my own--it's a little bit of a self-feeding loop. To build a support network, I need a support network. And to get a support network, I need a support network. I honestly don't think that I'll be able to manage it on my own. And while I can theoretically have access to a support network here...realistically speaking, I don't see how it ever works smoothly.

It'd be bumpy, shaky, at best. It's something that I'd barely manage to do, if I managed to do it at all. There's a very real chance that left to my own devices, I never transition in spite of always wanting to, for like...ten, twenty years. However long it takes my dad to die. And even then, only transitioning if I am not then reliant on my brother, and can find a way to manage it in the hectic situation.

It's something that in theory I can do, but pragmatically speaking, transitioning is something that I'd likely have the easiest time with if it was with my girlfriend. 

And of course--my girlfriend probably wouldn't have become my girlfriend if I hadn't known I was a transwoman, and presumably is happier when knowing that I am happy (especially if they are the cause of said happiness).

When I wrote this blog, originally on the 23rd, I titled it "I don't know what I want to do".
But it's more like...
...I don't know what to focus on doing.
I know what I want to do.

I just spend five and a half hours typing it out. (Okay that's a slight exaggeration. Started at just past 12:45, and it's 6:03 now, so it's more like 5.75 hours.)

Everything I wrote? That's what I want to do. (Mind you I didn't cover large swathes of some subjects, e.g. the massive chunks of the December blog I left out.)
It's just that they are all so...so...conflicting, and I just.
Have a paralysis on what to focus on, more or less.

How much? Six and a half inches, snow. Enough where we have maybe one car capable of getting out? Most of us were certainly staying home today, including me. Fortunately, I didn't need to tell my boss that I couldn't come due to inclement weather, because my boss told me that our facility was closed for today. (Did need to cancel my counseling appointment tho.)

It is cold and it is not gonna melt and even if it did melt it's gonna refreeze which is even worse than before the melt. (Funny thing, ice is ten times more dangerous than snow. Snow's not much worse than water; ice is...well, ice. And melted snow refrozen makes solid sheets of it.) Meaning I probably won't be going to tae kwon do tomorrow, either. (Which kinda sucks, as I said I would and it's the first day of a new session for the lil' kids class. But, safety first.)

Being trapped at home on a day I didn't intend to be left me realizing...it is immensely, tremendously, overwhelmingly, boring because I am still in that recovering position of not really knowing what to do because I still don't feel like :efforting:. Mostly, I messed around for a few hours in Majesty (someone figured out a quest turning Majesty into a tower defense game of sorts, and then released a mod based on that quest for guardhouses which upgrades them further than the mods existing, allowing for lots of fun).

I also have made significant progress on the story of Worms. I'm ending the night having just finished Interlude 14--by my understanding, not even remotely close to finished with the story and it certainly doesn't feel that way. There are events which I know happen (TVTropes spoilers, the very thing that got me into reading Worms in the first place). One or two, I can kinda sorta see as maybe being close, but the others are events that in order to transpire (which I know they do), require significant setup (which hasn't happened yet), setup that doesn't just magically appear out of thin air.

So, slow and steady progress to go. Reading a comment at circa 12 posted in like 2018, I seem to recall them stating, "not even a third of the way through", and that wouldn't surprise me in the least. It is a thoroughly entertaining read, and I'm actually a little miffed at one little thing; Shatterbird's control over glass (which extends to Silicone) is pretty much exactly the power one of my heroes (canonical to the Rubyverse) has; he even goes by the codename of Silicone.

Ah well. The OP nature of that power (in a bad future, said character is one of less than ten superheroes/supervillains left alive in the dieing Earth and could continue to exist even after literally every single other person died; through time travel where he basically inserts himself into the pass, said future is averted and thus his present-self is significantly weaker than that and rather deliberately keeps himself rather weak since he hates his future self's guts and both share the sentiment of him not wanting to walk that path a second time, but I digress) is bound to be something others would be aware of.

Anyway, at least I'm not sick like I thought, and didn't have stress of work to make it worse. Also, we haven't lost power. Obviously, saying that is tempting fate, but realistically speaking, if we were going to lose power, we probably would have already. The snow stopped falling; the melting and refreezing could knock out power, but is incredibly unlikely to, and even if it did. It remains true that so far, it hasn't, which remains a blessing in my books.

I think that's all I can think of to say, so probably gonna go to bed now.

So have one now!
Today, I developed another take on God and Angels which would be for a story.
What story, heck if I know. Not the Rubyverse, not Phyrra and Cyrus, not Soano, so that disqualifies the usual candidates. Could be new, could be an existing story (but probably not), got no clue even what form the story would be; all I know is that the story would feature what I developed today.

And what I developed today was basically an origin story of roles and relationships which persist to the modern day.

God, in this setting, as per my usual, is agendered, having no actual gender. God is an entity, existing in a way transcending our understanding, neither male nor female. However, God likes to present itself in the form we are most comfortable with.

As most humans identify God as being 'He', that is the form He usually takes, and will be how I refer to Him for the rest of the ramble for the sake of simplicity. All of His creations are also agendered at their base levels. The souls of humans have no gender (even though spirits have gender), and so too are all angels agendered, able to appear as male, female, both, or neither, at will.

God has more to him than that. He is not the all-powerful God that we know.
​In this setting, God both did, and did not, create the universe. God gained awareness, but was blind to everything. He saw absolutely nothing. He could do absolutely nothing. But then, He noticed something--the event that we would come to define as being the big bang, as a possibility. Not a reality, but a possibility. And He could make that possibility become a reality, so He willed it to be, setting off a chain reaction.

In the resulting universe...God can't break the rules of reality, but He can bend them a bit, where He influences events. So, He is bound by the rules of the universe, thus, is not what we'd call all-powerful...even though He is able to do just about anything.

God can see everything in our universe...but in order to see a specific thing, He has to actually focus on that thing. This can be thought of as seeing the forest instead of a specific tree within--He sees the whole forest and thus has an idea for what happens within, but the only way for Him to know what happens to one specific tree within the forest is for Him to focus His attention on that tree.

Since the universe is a very, very big place, that's a very, very big forest for Him to be monitoring the trees within.

God can see into the future...but He only sees the probable futures that are most likely to happen. He is thus able to be surprised both by natural freak occurrences and of course by any creature with free will, including humans. We usually act in the way He sees us acting, but we can still surprise Him at certain times.

God both knows everything about the universe, and yet doesn't know everything about the universe. This can be thought of as an instinctive knowledge. He, by what we'd know as intuition, more or less knows what everything does...but He doesn't know precisely why they work that way, only that they do.

So when you combine all of this, He's not all-knowing or all-seeing, but He's still fairly close, in that He knows the general workings of the forest, the general happenings of the forest, and the most likely occurrences to happen in the near-future of the forest, and He is able to directly influence the forest.

...Just, not turn the forest into a fire, as it were. (Though He's quite capable of setting the forest on fire, should He so will it. He just...isn't.)

God has, throughout the history of the universe, been trying to influence it as positively as He can, but while He has capabilities beyond what any human has and his existence is far above our own, He is not perfect; He can both make mistakes, and have oversights which lead to bad things having happened.

To this end, He actually uses His direct creations as tools.
Angels, with a single set of wings and the ability to take on any form they please, serve as monitors of sorts. They observe areas of reality, interact with it on a more direct basis, influence it subtly rather than overtly, but also constantly and consistently rather than sporadically.

Cherubim, with two sets of wings, serve as more or less the 'workforce of the heavens' (if angels can be thought of as the 'workforce of the non-celestial'). They sometimes interact with the less-astral planes, but more or less do most of the "behind-the-scenes" work of running/influencing the universe for God.

Seraphim, with three sets of wings, serve as overseers. They are, more or less, the bosses of angels, but also are conduits. They serve as a direct line of communication. They occasionally communicate directly with God, and are more or less His direct assistants and underlings. They very rarely, but on occasion, interact with more mortal realms.

Arcangels, with four sets of wings, serve as almost-equals to God. Direct underlings, direct 'generals', direct advisors, who are full-time entities serving more or less as His direct "balance-checkers" as it were. It is literally their job to question God's decisions, more or less. Well, two of them at least. (Gabby, the third, more or less has the job of being the direct enforcer of God to keep unruly children in line, and serves as a balance and tipping point, keeping disarrest from happening.)

​Arcangel Lucifer, The Lightbringer, Satan of Hell, is "a bit" of a rebel, using his male name and pronouns but taking on a permanently-female form. (Why? Because.) He is not actually evil. Just...argumentative, and strongly opinionated. (He's the oldest of the three arcangels.) This puts him frequently in disagreement with God, but he's not always antagonistic with Him. Just usually antagonistic.

​And, interestingly, he is not always wrong. God is, as mentioned, not perfect. He can make mistakes. Usually, a fair indicator of this is when Michael/Michelle agrees with Lucifer, but even when not, sometimes, God admits that even if Lucifer's exact argument may not be right, he still raised valid points to take into consideration.

His eight wings are all white feathered wings, representing his element being pure light.

Arcangel Michael/Michelle changes every human life cycle between which form (s/)he takes, and is currently in a male form. Lucifer tends to be a champion of the greater existence thinking on levels of souls; Michael tends to be a champion for existence on a smaller scale--most notably to humans at least, that of our own, dealing with us both spiritually and physically.

This still puts him/her at odds with God on occasion, and at odds with Lucifer on occasion, but the two are actually fairly similar to one another, having a lot in common and getting along fairly well. Michael/Michelle is the middle-aged of the three, and has his/her wings be of different elements:

Two fire-wings, two ice-wings (all four feathered), one water wing which more or less looks like a liquid octopus tentacle with dangling squid-like-tentacle protrusions and a jellyfish-like membrane (all made from different types of water, but giving it an aesthetic loosely like that of a bat wing, only with anatomical parts matched to sea life), a matching wing made of energy, with what looks like lightning for the bones and the membrane more or less being visible static electricity (so, another bat wing).

His final two wings, both feathered, are one white and one dark wing, representing light and darkness.

Arcangel Gabriel/Gabrielle, Gabby for short, usually takes on the gender opposite of what gender God would be represented as when appearing spiritually, and takes on the same gender as what God would be represented as when appearing physically. 

This is more or less because Gabby tends to take on the role of both arbiter and enforcer: as a representative of God, s/he will want to appear as if an incarnation of God when walking among mortals. However, on a more spiritual level when individuals have a stronger direct connection to God, Gabby then represents the opposite side of what God is seen as, as to provide a sense of balance.

Since, as mentioned, most people see God as male, Gabby is seen as male when in physical form and as a female in a spiritual form. And since arcangels tend not to spend much time in the physical realm, it's usually safe to assume Gabby is a she.

Gabby's got four wings like the other arcangels, but one pair (representative of air) is invisible, and thus, can't be seen. She has two metal (feathered) wings, two rock (also feathered) wings, and two vine-like spines of wings with hordes of bugs swarming from them to form a vaguely insectoid-like wing. Think like a butterfly wing, except instead of millions of scales, it's millions of bugs. These represent various aspects of life:
Rock, as the raw building blocks; insects/vines, as the creatures created from it; metal, as the refined products made from the life.

...That's as far as I got on that.

Like I said.

I don't really have a story.

Well, I do.

I think me describing the above?

That counts as a story.

In that I have four named characters with numerous implied lesser characters.
I have these characters' backstories defined, as well as more or less what their abilities are, albeit deliberately vague on the exact nature and scope of them.

So there's the makings of a story.

But I didn't really take it anywhere.
Haven't built it further and I probably won't.
Haven't placed it anywhere and I probably won't.
So what you see here is probably what you're gonna get.

The next time I talk about God, Angels, or anything like that, it'll be yet another story. Maybe already existing, maybe another new one, but I can guarantee you it won't be this one because I really don't know where to go from here. This was all I had.

One of the things which turns me from manic to depressed so often now in spite of medications meant to help with that.

Forgive the phrasing as it's something I'd normally not say unless in tongue-in-cheek because saying it seriously is a hallmark of arrogance, but I can't think of a better phrase to describe the issue:
"It's not every day you have a stroke of genius."

I don't want to call myself a genius because of how presumptuous that'd be. BUT. I think you can at least understand my sentiment here, what I'm going for.

It is not every day that you come up with a great idea.

It is not every day that you come up with an idea which is amazing.

And like.

I know I am a very creative person, who builds grand worlds. The World of Soano (The Descended's setting) is one of my favorite places. The Rubyverse is a conglomeration of my work across the years and takes the best of everything put into one place.

Heroes of Gistou takes what is perhaps the greatest achievement I've ever had as a writer and is a conglomeration of all my years of work as a writer; in the original mafia game I wrote the flavor for it was ambitious enough but as a novel which took things even further, it has literally every skill I've ever used in any of my stories ever in one place, while adding elements I've never used before including diversity in gender/sexual orientation (okay so that's touched on very lightly in one other story but only barely), racism, and hair/eye/skin color and whatnot.

It is basically my crowning achievement as a writer because the characters are humans I know (okay so to be fair, this was a bit of a cheat because when writing their characters some influence from the players who were assigned those roles leaked in), the setting is one of the most intricate ones I've built, the plot is one of my favorite stories, and the quality of the writing is the highest I've ever done; there's nothing to top it.

Though, coming close would be the other novel I was working on when my flashdrive failed and caused me to lose literally years' worth of work. (Still bitter about that, but if you're wondering, probably wouldn't work on my novel if I had the information, anyway. I'd back the information up, but my mood to work on the novel was utterly killed and having the flashdrive back and functioning wouldn't magically revitalize it.)

It is, in many ways, similar to Gistou in that it is the other story which touches on sexual orientation (albeit not gender orientation), and in some ways it actually is more of a statement. Some things which we might think are very unprogressive are shown even from the main characters...but this is more or less commented on in the book and you can tell that it is a deliberate narrative choice. (At least if I competently write that is.)

Racial divide, philosophy, the nature of war, the nature of fate/destiny, discrimination, eugenics of a sort (something I don't think I ever actually wrote down was a minor revision to dialog at one point where the protagonist notes that while there are 10,000 humans left alive, only about 4,000 of them are pureblooded humans with no genes from the other species which is closely enough related to humanity that they can have fertile hybrid children and said hybrid children's descendants account for the other 6,000 and the protagonist believes that in order to survive humanity needs that genetic diversity since humanity's gene pool is dangerously small; even his ancestors had a first cousin marriage).

It just touches on a lot of things, with some of the most powerful writing I've ever done, a full cast of characters who are actual CHARACTERS. They don't just have quirks. They have flaws. Most of my characters, well, they might have flaws but they don't get displayed in my writing. It's a bit of a weak spot in my writing; when I write characters, they don't tend to fail, they don't tend to have shortcomings, they don't tend to be in the wrong, and so on and so forth.

This story has all of that. And the question, of course, of "am I really in the right?", with ambiguous answers, rather than clear-cut ones. People. More than any other story, maybe even more than Gistou, people. Yet the world has a beautiful history to it and the plot progresses in this altogether philosophical way, where action is happening and yet you still get these little moments to know everyone.

The Perfect RPG for me is a setting I might have slightly tabled in favor of other projects, but I am still passionate about it because I really like what I made there.

I still want to make the Disneyesque Villain Song setting. I've toyed with various expansions, from extra characters (the protagonist, the seer, the love interest, the best friend of the protagonist, a cool old guy, and of course the villain among many others), how the beginning of the story unfolds, how the protagonist meets the love interest, how the story ends, and little things here and there including that the villain would be almost by-the-book following the evil overlord list (with some liberties taken here and there).

It is a wondrous, beautiful thing, envisioned as a film but also suitable for a miniseries. Probably not a full series, but could be done I suppose with tweaking.

And then there's the two most recent.

Phyrra and Cyrus.

And Dawn of Order.

I am passionate about them all.
Yet those ones really speak to me as, so to speak, "genius among the genius". Or rather. "This is the perfect balance of something which can actually be done (and is thus, pragmatic to do), and yet is something which is still grand enough to be ambitious, reach the masses, and inspire greatness", more or less.

Phyrra and Cyrus, and Dawn of Order, are both outside of my general comfort zone. I am a writer first and foremost. I am secondarily an artist. While those are used in animation and games, they are not at the forefront of them. Both have incredible ambition behind them, both have incredible ideas which make them truly unique and original, and yet because of what they are, are something which can be spread to the masses fairly easily and readily once made.

And more than that. I feel that they can actually be done. Not by me, alone, yes. But they can be DONE.
One of the reasons The Descended may never get off its feet is because it feels like a project which needs to be done entirely by me, but yet the scale of the project is such that while it's incredibly ambitious I'm probably never going to be able to complete it in my lifetime just as me alone.

Aside from how I've lost the art and scripts I've had multiple times, aside from how the site is (pardon the language) a clusterfuck and yet I have a strong desire to not nuke it and start from scratch. Aside from that. To tell the story I want to tell, I need to produce high-quality, almost professional art. Yet there's a ton of content for the story. I've forgotten a fair amount and with no usable notes that content is lost forever but even with it removed (or magically recovered).

The story isn't short. Compared to Red Hood Rider, yeah, it's short. But it's still something which if I were updating daily would take years of my life to complete and updating at a rate slower than daily would take...well. Longer than a human lifespan, honestly. 

Speaking of Red Hood Rider. What I just said about The Descended applies to it, too. Red Hood Rider, being a project which is mine. Just feels like something which should be done by me. I have also lost many notes of mine on the subject and what I have is chaotic, jumbled, scattered. Yet new content keeps being added even to this day, and content gets revised. And it's estimated to be about 80-100 episodes worth of content.

Each episode with 20-40 pages.

If that were daily updates that'd be potentially 4,000 pages. You know how many years that is? Ten. If I were releasing daily pages it would take ten years to complete Red Hood Rider. Now imagine less than daily. And knowing that the quality of art demanded for the project is even higher than that of The Descended, because Red Hood Rider is meant to be something which could be adapted into an animation (which is why chapters are called episodes).

My novels are, obviously. Personal projects. Can't outsource writing. Well, you could I suppose but heck no that's not something I'd do. So it'd have to be me doing them, by myself, alone.

All of them, I can reach out to others of course. Get a novel published, I can communicate to my readers. Start updating a webcomic, I can have dialog with my readers actively on a daily basis. But there's something in that which feels missing, actually.

And that is something not missing when I think of Phyrra and Cyrus especially, although also recently Dawn of Order.

Because on those. I would be creating my visions, but I'd be working with others, collaborating with them to bring what I envisioned to life. It would be my project, it would be personal, but it would have the touch of others on it as well and that would be a good thing. For The Descended, Red Hood Rider, and my novels, the thought of the touch of others on it feels WRONG.

But because it is literally a requirement for Phyrra and Cyrus (given voice acting) and Dawn of Order, it feels right. It feels good. The thought that I'd have it.

I'm not sure I'm presenting a very coherent thought here on what I am getting at.

What I am getting at is that many of my projects, I feel are personal projects.
Yet when it comes to a project like Phyrra and Cyrus.

What makes them strokes of genius.
Is that they are something which aren't personal projects. Yet in spite of not being personal projects. They feel like they are realistically achievable. I don't think anything I've envisioned in them is impossible, unreasonable, or really that hard to achieve if I really set my mind to it.

And I just.
Really, really like thinking about them.

And that's where the depression comes in--when I can't think of them, as it were.
Or rather. "I have thought of this great idea. Why am I not thinking of something just as good, or doing something just as good?"

By that, I mean.

Anything I do, I feel like it's less than what I could be doing.

I pretty much stopped playing Final Fantasy VII once I started envisioning the perfect RPG.
And now there's something similar for Majesty, Zeus/Poseidon, and the like.

Where I have envisioned a really cool game, Dawn of Order. Which I want to be playing, or at least designing. Rather than playing those games.

And any other game just feels...lesser than those, because those are some of my favorite games after all.

And there's something similar for Phyrra and Cyrus.

I've pretty much stopped rehashing most of my ideas (aside from the villain song one which is alive and well) since starting it. And when I think about them. I just. Want the moments I envision to be real.

I've even mapped out exactly how I could do it, too. The things I ask for, most I know explicitly can already be done because I have seen them done. And if I've seen them done, then it is possible for them to be done on my project. (For reference, this is also true of Dawn of Order. I don't think anything I describe is impossible, not even when putting it all together, because every element I describe exists in one of the games I was inspired by, and while I know code isn't exactly directly transferable, it'd be possible to more or less manage it if you were a competent coder familiar with the inspiration and knowing the intended result.)

​If I could, for instance. I'm like 97% sure that Phyrra and Cyrus could be hosted on ComicFury. Yes, it's a comic site, yes, Phyrra and Cyrus is an animation, but I am almost absolutely positive (thus the 97%) that a "comic" can be a video.

Specifically. A video which doesn't autoplay, which you hit play in order to play, and which has both animation and audio. There is a file format which allows that. Well, multiple file formats. But I am positive one of said file formats, ComicFury supports for comics, and thus, it would be potentially possible to upload an entire episode. (Might run afoul of the size limitation to uploads but I'm sure there'd be a workaround for that.)

If that were possible, then from there it'd be easy.
Each comic (except fillers in the form of character art or worldbuilding concepts) would be an episode.

The most iffy thing I'd want would be the ability to make a video fullscreen; I'm less than positive that'd be possible.

But I'd want a home page with disqus comments that'd display the latest episode and latest blog (easily done), the ability to leave disqus comments on every blog post (easily done), maybe disqus comments on some extra pages (easily done), and then for the comments on every comic...
Disqus comments displaying on top and ComicFury comments also displaying below Disqus as the default (seen it done so it can be done),
With the option to alternatively have ComicFury comments on top and Disqus comments below,
And the option to hide ComicFury comments (seen it done so it can be done),
And the option to hide Disqus comments (seen it done so it can be done),
And the option to hide both comments,
And the ability to save preference for comment display (the above options) between both pages page to page and visits  visit to visit (meaning not needing to manually click the preferred option each time; pretty sure this can be done),
And Disqus comments linked to every site I host Phyrra and Cyrus on with Disqus (seen it done so it can be done).

Optionally, with a domain purchased and used.
Premade layouts have a quick-navigation (dropdown menu) so I'd have that, and premade layouts also have the "save my place" function for saving the comic/episode location you were watching so you can "load my place" later, and optionally, I could maybe have non-intrusive advertising built into the site.

So that might seem like a fair amount. But given what I know ComicFury can already do. In that I've seen almost all of this already done. I'm pretty sure it'd be possible to do. And it'd be awesome.

This is what I mean. I mapped that out over a week ago. It's doable. Most likely, at least. 

It feels like something I can actually have made real.

It feels like something where I could have a blast.
Just interacting with viewers, with fans, with friends, and coworkers, to make a project, pouring pure love into it every step of the way. A project which is mine...but also more than mine. Something greater, built by a team, a community. Something to share with the world, and be remembered for.

Something unique, quirky, original, and ambitious. Yet not so ambitious as to be impossible. To be manageable. To be something that can be made.

That's what I want to make on a daily basis.

But it's not every day I make a Phyrra and Cyrus.
It's not every day I make a Dawn of Order.
It's not every day that I get to have those moments of genius for lack of a better term.
It's not every day where I can snatch that greatness and feel it.

But on those days where I don't have the greatness.

I still remember the feeling of it.
The sensation remains.

On days I am not making the next Phyrra and Cyrus. Or for that matter, making Phyrra and Cyrus. I am remembering the sensation of Phyrra and Cyrus. And that is where the depression comes in...because I feel empty, because it's just so real and something just so close to something I can see tangible...yet not actually existing. The ideas will die with me.

I intend to live a very long life, of course. But the ideas if I don't make them...well. Nobody else would. Nobody else could. They could make something which has all the elements my notes describe, of course. But it wouldn't be how I had tried to make it because my notes aren't nearly as extensive as they should be, and there are little things here and there that the only way I'd be able to bring up is if someone first was trying to do them wrong and I'd be able to tell them, "No, not that. This." to fix it.

And that's the frustrating feeling.

Knowing that I have these ideas. Ideas that are. No matter how much I try to be humble. No matter how much I try to avoid arrogance. No matter how much I try to be a realist, a pessimist, a cynic. Ideas which are just...good. Ideas which are genius. I have them. And they demand to be made real.

I feel them as real. I actually live with them as real. I don't just see episodes of Phyrra and Cyrus. I also see me interacting with viewers who watch the latest episode of Phyrra and Cyrus. Me commenting on their comments, engaging them in dialogs which are currently nonexistent. Talking to them, revealing miscellaneous facts, sometimes being a bit of a trolling creator, other times revealing tiny snippets which couldn't make it into the show, small Word of God things like that, you probably can get a sense of what I mean.

When I think of them. I am actively doing that. Not just laying out the episode itself. But also the reactions to the episode, which I know would exist because. Well. I am confident in myself. Not arrogance. I know that, 100%. If Phyrra and Cyrus was made into a series. There would be fans. There would be people commenting. There would be a lot of them because in order for Phyrra and Cyrus to publish so much as a single episode. It'd need to get the publicity to get off the ground in the first place.

In other words. I know that if Phyrra and Cyrus existed. There would be people talking about it. It would demand to be watched. Demand to be seen. It would be popular, spread like wildfire. I know this because I know what I can make it be. If it existed, then it would exist at a high enough quality where those things would be impossible to not have.

And the depression more or less comes from.

"...So why isn't it so?!?"

So why don't Phyrra and Cyrus already exist.
So why doesn't Dawn of Order already exist.
So why doesn't this idea. Which is magical. Have its reality.
And why can't I have something like it, right now, in front of me.
Why can't I have something like it, or it itself, in my mind if nowhere else.

And that's what cuts deep. Not having it in front of me. Not having it in my head. And not having something similar to it in my head. Living in a world where it doesn't exist tangibly. Living in our world. A world close to the one they exist in. But they don't. Because I haven't made them exist yet, in spite of being their creator.

I think that describes my depression pretty well. And people might be able to relate to it now that I've described it in those terms. But I never know. Sometimes, it might just be I'm crazy.