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

​I did get this.

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

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

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

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

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

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

...So of course that means I did something.

In this case, I reminisced about a game I got the pleasure of playing as a kid. It was during a workshop day and was run by an environmental science teacher, trying to more or less teach about the cycle of life. The basic structure of the game was rock-paper-scissors meets tag:

There was, at the start, a single predator.
The rest of kids were evenly divided between 'resource' and 'prey'.

Prey had a choice between 2-4 (let's say 3) different things they would need. (As in, there were--let's say 3--possible things they could need; they would choose one as the thing they needed.)

After this, on go, resources would then choose what they were and announce it while the prey tried to dash towards a matching resource, while the predator attempted to tag the prey.

If the prey got to a matching resource, they claimed that resource and lived to be prey next round.
If the predator caught a prey, they lived and would remain a predator next round.

If a prey got tagged by a predator, then next round, they would become a predator themselves.
If prey made it to the other side but failed to claim a resource, they would die, becoming a resource themselves next round.
If a predator failed to tag prey, they would die, becoming a resource next round.

If a resource got claimed by prey, then the resource would become prey themselves next round.

In live play, this was pretty balanced, which was the whole point. When there were fewer prey, predators died out and resources were more plentiful. When there were more prey, predators had better luck and thus more predators would exist. When there were more prey yet not enough predators to thin the herd, resources got eaten up and left the prey to die next time.

Explicitly built into the game was the potential for there to be a round with zero resources, though I don't know what the countermeasures were to prevent there from being zero prey or zero predators (since a lack of predators means no game; a lack of prey also means no game).

Still, I loved the game when I played it even if I don't quite remember the specifics, and today I brainstormed how it'd be able to be converted into a forum game based environment. I managed to come up with this system and named the game.

NATURAL SELECTION:

Minimum players: 5, plus a game moderator/host. (You need at least two prey and two resources to begin, along with one predator.)
There is no maximum number of players allowed.

Each round, resources will message the game host declaring themselves to be one of three resources: Water, Food, and Shelter. (The latter two I know 100% were in the original game I played and I figured water was another one which even if not originally present made a whole lot of sense.)

Each round, prey will message the game host, declaring themselves to be seeking one of three resources: Water, Food, and Shelter.
Then, the prey will message the game host, declaring an order they will seek resource players out in.
E.g. Players A and B are resources; Player C is prey. Player C will declare "I am seeking Water, and I will seek it in the order of A-->B". They are thus prioritized in that order. (If A has the resource, C gets A; if A doesn't yet B does and C has B before any other prey, C gets B, and so on.)

Each round, predators will message the game host, selecting one prey to hunt as their primary target.
They will attempt to guess the prey's target pathway.
E.g. if Player D is the predator and is hunting Player C with Players A and B as resources, then Player D will guess:
"Player C will go to Player A".

If the predator's first guess is correct, then the predator will automatically catch the prey.
The predator is allowed ten guesses total; each guess down the line is 10% less likely to be successful.
For instance, Predator A is chasing Prey B.
There is resources C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, and O.
If Predator A selected B-->C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, then:
If Prey B went to resource C first, predator A catches B guaranteed.
If Prey B went to resource D first, predator A has a 90% chance of catching B.
If Prey B went to resource E first, predator A has an 80% chance of catching B.
If Prey B went to resource F first, predator A has a 70% chance of catching B.
If Prey B went to resource G first, predator A has a 60% chance of catching B.
If Prey B went to resource H first, predator A has a 50% chance of catching B.
If Prey B went to resource I first, predator A has a 40% chance of catching B.
If Prey B went to resource J first, predator A has a 30% chance of catching B.
If Prey B went to resource K first, predator A has a 20% chance of catching B.
If Prey B went to resource L first, predator A has a 10% chance of catching B.
If Prey B went to resources M or O first, predator A has a default 0% chance of catching B.

There is, however, a modifier in play:
Each attempt to find a resource and failing to succeed adds a 5% chance to a prey being caught.
As in,
Prey B submits the resource D first, but fails to get it.
Prey B submits the resource E second, but fails to get it. During this second attempt, Prey B has a 5% extra chance of being caught.
Prey B submits the resource F third, but fails to get it. During this third attempt, Prey B has a 10% extra chance of being caught.
Prey B submits the resource G fourth, but fails to get it. During this fourth attempt, Prey B has a 15% extra chance of being caught.

You can think of it as this way: the predator hunts certain grounds first, expecting to find prey. The longer they look, the more chances prey has of getting away...but the longer prey are out looking for things, the more vulnerable they are to being caught.

The predator is also allowed to submit secondary prey.
These are prey targets which, if the predator fails to catch their primary prey, they will attempt to hunt. They are only allowed to name one resource player that the secondary prey will visit.
Secondary prey can only be caught if the predator correctly guesses the prey's first to-be-successful resource.
The predator is allowed to submit ten names as secondary prey, and has a chance of catching them as follows.
IF: Secondary prey visits the resource the predator guessed they would, THEN:
-The first secondary prey submitted this method is automatically caught.
-The second secondary prey submitted by this method has a 90% chance of being caught.
-The third secondary prey submitted by this method has an 80% chance of being caught.

...And so on and so forth.

IF: Secondary prey does not visit the resource the predator guessed they would, THEN:
The prey gets away.

Here's a full chart of how this may play out.

Predator is A.

Prey are players B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, and L.

Resources are players M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W.

Predator A chooses B-->M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V.

B chooses O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, M, N.
B does not get O or P, but can get Q.
Predator A has a 60% base chance of getting B.
Because B failed twice, this is increased to 70%.

In spite of the increased chance, B manages to safely reach Q. B will remain a prey, and Q will become prey.

Predator A selected secondary prey as follows:
C-->N
D-->O
E-->P
F-->Q
G-->R
H-->S
I-->T
J-->U
K-->​V
L-->W.

D, E, F, H, J, K, and L will all successfully grab the resources guessed if not caught; C, G, and I for whatever reason will not grab the guessed resources successfully (either because the resources were claimed before they could get there, they are incompatible with the resource and thus don't stay, or they claim a resource before they'd visit the resource the predator guessed).

The chances for the predator to catch the prey are as follows:
C has a 0% chance of being caught.
D has a 90% chance of being caught.
E has an 80% chance of being caught.
F has a 70% chance of being caught.
G has a 0% chance of being caught.
H has a 50% chance of being caught.
I has a 0% chance of being caught.
J has a 30% chance of being caught.

And so on and so forth.

Predators stop hunting once they've caught one prey. (Note that the game is deliberately designed such that predators have a high chance of catching prey when prey outnumber predators.)

Tiebreakers:
When there are more than one predators hunting the same prey, the first tiebreaker is obvious. Primary prey > secondary prey.
If both have the prey as primary, then accuracy is determined by which predator had the more accurate guess.
If both have the prey as secondary, then accuracy is determined by which predator had the prey higher up on their hunting list.
When ties still exist, the winner will be determined by coinflip/dice roll/whatever randomization method you use.

When there are more than one prey vying for the same resource, the tiebreaker is which player had the resource higher up on their preference list.
For instance, Prey B and Prey C are both candidates for resource H.
Prey B submitted resources C-->D-->H; Prey C submitted resources D-->H; Prey C has priority.
If both have the resource at exactly the same, the winner will be determined by coinflip/dice roll/whatever randomization method you use.

Note that the most complex part of the game is calculating the interactions between predators and prey, in that you have to check if a predator successfully catches a prey before assigning that prey to a resource, and yet you also have to check if a prey cannot use a resource because another prey got there first, because this can influence the success rate of a predator hunting.

However, if I've done my job explaining the game mechanics right, the resolutions should be simple and easy enough to understand. Predators kill off prey before they get to their resource. If prey make it through, then they have to compete with one another. If prey fail to get to their target resource immediately, they become increasingly vulnerable to being picked off by predators.

There is however one game mechanic that must be addressed.

There must ALWAYS be at least one predator and at least two prey.

If you ever drop below two prey (be it zero or one), then the necessary number is drawn from whichever has more players between resources/predators. (The players selected to be prey are randomly chosen.)

If you ever drop to zero predators, then one prey is randomly selected to become a predator.

One thing I also lack in the game is...well. It has no win condition.
The goal of prey is to not be eaten by predators and to not die from a lack of their target resource.
The goal of predators is to not die of starvation by failing to catch prey.
Resources are designed to not have much of a goal, but have a minor preference to not being destroyed via being claimed.

Yet I don't really have incentives for players to actually do those things.

I was thinking potentially the answer could be a points system:
For every round where you meet the above, you gain a point.
When you are finally converted into a different type, your score as the type you were is recorded and your total score is updated to reflect how many times you've succeeded. (For instance, a resource going three times unclaimed has a score of three, when claimed by prey that score of three is recorded and their total score is five; as prey they claim a resource but then die of starvation; their score as prey is a high of one and their total score is four; as a resource, they then remain unclaimed twice; their resource score remains a high of 3 but their total score is now six. Potentially, the game host could offer to further break it down and record total number of points scored as a specific type, but that seems like extra work.)

But I'm not sold on this, especially for a game which feels like it'd be designed such that players could come and leave as they wished.

If I did go with the points system mentioned above, I'd also need a special clause for when zero-predator/zero-prey situations arise: the player randomly converted would not have their score lost, such that the next time they become the type they were forcefully converted from, they resume from that point. (E.g. a resource with a score of three being forcefully converted into prey, then starving off in two rounds to become a resource would start from three, rather than zero.)

Soyeah.

That's more or less the outline for the game I developed.

I believe I have everything I'd need to actually run the game, it's just a matter of whether there'd be interest IN it.

Yep, sure descriptive of a name, but really I have a fair amount to talk about. For a start, how ticked off I am at my parents for different reasons. Literally the MOMENT I was starting this blog entry, my dad started snacking on food without warning me and yes, it did in fact from the SECOND he started trigger my misophonia given that the smack sound instantly rang all the wrong bells in my head and was practically an instinctive hatred of it.

My mom is for entirely different reasons. I am outright considering no longer leaving the house anymore for any reason because it seems she literally cannot be trusted to not mess with my stuff when I'm not around. No permission, nothing. On Friday, she "cleaned" my room, and MASSIVELY screwed up a VAST great number of things.

Her excuse is a smell, a smell which is irrelevant because nobody enters that room except for me, and it's not something *I* care about. She clings to it being her house, but it's a part of her house that nobody else ever enters and it's not because of the stench. It's because it's my room, so no DUH nobody's going to enter there because...they shouldn't be entering there!

She had more excuses. Like that she wanted to actually be able to hang up my clothes...
...Except my clothes were just fine where they are. It's more convenient for me and frankly it should be more convenient for her to just keep them where they have been--in the spots where they are easy to access and grab and use. In the hall right next to the bathroom, and in the bathroom itself. Guess what? That's where I actually have need for them because I change IN the bathroom for the most part, particularly useful after showers. If my clothes are right there for me to grab, then I am more likely to actually change them. But by putting them in MY room, where it's OUT OF THE WAY because I nowadays basically only go into my room to sleep (and "sleep" >_> <_<), it's LESS LIKELY I WILL ACTUALLY GO TO CHANGE because that's just not how my brain works. Thus, less effort for me.

And it should be less effort for her because it's less distance. Like. The bin's right there, and the bathroom's right next to the laundry room. My room is further down the hallway, and my closet is EVEN FURTHER down my room. She also has to open my door (which is always closed), close it, open it again, and close it, all the while risking letting a cat in because in spite of disciplining both of our cats, they are in fact able to make mad dashes inside the room (because cats are attracted to the forbidden), and while *I* know how to stop them from getting in, SHE does not. Because again. This is MY room, I know all the tricks about it, I know how to handle it and deal with it.

There was no rational, no reasonable, reason to clean it up. Except she did. She kept on going on and on about it, in spite of her having essentially desecrated what is my safe space. It's mine. My place. My spot. Where things were arranged in the way I more or less wanted them to be in. And there was years of history behind everything and where it was. And I knew where the important things were versus the unimportant things.

She screwed it all up.

For the half of the room which was originally my brother's, this wasn't inherently necessarily a bad thing. I still think she likely permanently damaged/screwed up many things there which she had no way of being aware of, but things in that section were by and large less important to me, being miscellaneous things I accumulated and yet didn't decide to properly store.

But for the half of the room which was mine--as in, the part my beside was next to--everything was important. It was ordered in a very specific way. With things arranged that way for a combination of all my endeavors. I had art stuff and story stuff laid out in there, and I also had textbooks but they were textbooks laid out in such a way that they were things I made use out of. And she just threw them all in the same place, mixing and breaking everything.

That was on FRIDAY.

You can guess what happened today.

I specifically told her NOT to do more. MY OWN SISTER AGREED WITH ME. My own dad largely thought that my mom was being irrational. Literally EVERYONE ELSE LIVING IN THE HOUSE. Basically told her that she didn't need to be doing the things she was doing. It was made very clear that it was not okay, and if more were to be done, I should be there for it.

NOPE!

Apparently, the message just didn't get through because she did more.

Without my consent.
Without my oversight.

And just further wrecked what was there.

She has no way of knowing the damage she causes with this.
She has no way of judging these things.
She has no right to do that.
And yet she did.

So I am just...

...REALLY ticked off.

I almost don't want to blog about the things I was originally coming here to blog about, ticked off.

But that having been said.

I think talking about those things will in fact help me cool down a bit.

Basically, there were four projects I mentally worked on today. This being a Sunday, where I work, that's to be expected, but none of the projects are what I'd call "productive". They were, rather explicitly, time wasters. I still thought them worthy of blogging about.

The first project, which I was working on as early as this morning when I woke up with the song stuck in my head, was to write a round dance (I settled on Cha Cha) to a song used in Water Fitness. I didn't know the name of the song, which makes tracking it down a little difficult, but hey, I'm home now so hopefully I can find it. Lessee... (*slight break in blog entry to google search*)

...Initial results, not promising. (Rats.)
I might, might, might, might have in those results found a song which could potentially maybe be it, except all of them sound too...

...Well, not it. This is for a Water Fitness class. If I had to give it a genre, I'd have called it Disco. (It might be techno instead, but if so it's an earlier techno song not a more modern one, I'm pretty sure.) I'm almost certain it's a song of about that age, too.

The songs I got in my results for the only words in the song I can actually make out (and even then I'm not sure I'm making them out correctly, it's difficult to tell for sure) were all...vastly different from that.

The part that I remember is basically what I think is maybe the prechorus and the chorus. It has the (female) singer build up, holding the same word and getting increasingly more intense with it (for either three or four measures as I count it in dance-time music which might in song-time music be six/eight measures), and then after that, there's (also female) backup singers singing along with the main singer for the verse, which is a little bit repetitive but in an incredibly catchy way.

There are at least three instances of saying two words, which sound like "Hit me, hit me, hit me" (I can't remember the exact number), each instance of the two words ("hit me") being approximately one beat (as measured in dance time music), and keep in mind this is a pretty fast-paced song (if I weren't describing it in dance beats, I'd say the if-I-heard-right hit-me's are 'one-and-two-and'), and after the instances of those two words, it sounds like "with your love" (and there's at least one word after that if I recall correctly; I got a result which indicates it might be 'thing'), and then there are more words following it that are part of the chorus that I can't make out that are at a slower pace, and then it runs through them a second time, with much the same (although the words following which I can't make out might be different the second time through, is a common enough thing to do in songs with a repeating chorus where half remains the same and half is different).

I didn't find it. Admittedly. I didn't listen to the whole songs; I first looked at their lyrics to see if they were plausible matches to what my mind hears, and then tried listening and skimmed the songs, and yet nothing sounded right. One other distinct part of the song which is actually how I remember it is what sounds like...well, not a flute, but some other wind instrument, a wind instrument which kinda sorta sounds like it's electronic but is probably not actually electronic.

I can't find something which sounds like that, which is a shame, since I think the bit I mentally composed to write the dance to was pretty neat. (Then again this wouldn't be the first time I've made a pretty neat round dance to fit the chorus without really doing the rest. And certainly not the first time I've made a cha cha. I seem to like writing chas for some reason, I suppose because I find it the easiest rhythm to write moves for, dance to, and also fit the music. Portugal the Man's song which I know isn't called this but I call it "Rebel Just For Kicks" is another; Kongos's first big hit which name slips my mind at the moment because I can only think of I'm Only Joking which was their second big hit is yet another. TWICE in fact.)

The second thing on the list of things I thought about was heading back to a story I thought I was done with, the Sensation story, and I build more on the very beginning (before Sensation became an epic badass), and also much later in their child Seraphim's story specifically about Seraphim eventually gaining younger siblings.

Said younger siblings have the same abilities--the immense magical power overwhelmingly so, and the ability to sense things, but unlike their eldest sibling, they chose not to pursue things beyond a few things. Basic necessities, parlor tricks, magic with mundane utility, pragmatic things, things that essentially help but aren't really groundbreaking or big or really innovative for the most part.

In the word of one of the siblings, "Creativity, a thirst for knowledge, innovation, and attention to detail are not genetic traits". They then list the actual genetic traits, and state that's it, nothing more, and that Seraphim was the only one to inherit Sensation's usage of those.

...Of course. In a point of minor irony for humor value. Said sibling stating this was doing so while using magic to paint an artistic picture of some obscure battle they would only have known about by having deliberately done research on--a task requiring creativity, a thirst for knowledge, attention to detail, and some level of innovation albeit mundane in nature.

But the point is meant to get across that they are their own persons. They are different. Their personalities aren't the same. Their gifts are mostly the same, but what they are best skilled at utilizing the gifts for is inherently different. The younger siblings could in theory do what Seraphim did if they wanted to, but they don't want to, and even if they did, in practice they wouldn't be as good at it because they simply don't have the same mindset as Seraphim does.

In other words, because everyone is different, you can't just assume that the child of a prodigy is going to be a prodigy themselves. Seraphim was, but Seraphim's siblings in spite of having the same theoretical capacity to be ones...aren't. They just lack the personality suited for the line of big-use magic that Seraphim and Sensation before had fallen into. And furthermore, because Seraphim filled the role, there was no longer pressure for the role to be filled.

In short, in the magic world, there is often pressure for the next generation of mages to inherit everything from their predecessors, such that nothing should be lost and talent would be nurtured, cultivated, and over time, magnified and refined to perfection (or as close as possible). Since Seraphim of Seraphim's own free will already did so, Seraphim's younger siblings were never bugged, never bothered, never forced, to do anything except what they wanted (aside from the requirements their abilities necessitate).

Speaking of mages, that actually brings me to the third idea I worked on, simultaneously to the above because the Sensation/Seraphim story setting takes some cues from this setting.

In this case, I am referring to the Fate/Stay Night setting. I know that it technically has a 'verse name, but I am not a fangirl of the series to the point where I actually know it, I know way too little about the setting having mostly experienced it through Fate Zero and a little bit of wiki reading here and there, be it the Fate/StayNight wiki or on TVTropes and largely a combination of both.

...Still.

That having been said.

In spite of my lack of knowledge (who knows, for all I know the historical figure I was thinking about is already used in one of the various settings and thus my entire idea would be worthless since it could never exist), I did loosely draft up a Hero who I thought would make a potentially interesting take on the Berserker class:

William Wallace.

I envisioned him as being massive. Ten feet tall, massive, and with the bulk to match. His only weapon would be the Wallace Sword (what else?), but he wouldn't need any other. (He'd wield it with one hand in spite of it being a two-handed sword because why not.) Some artistic liberties would be taken; the sword would be basically a claymore in size, in that it'd be a big freakin' huge longsword, broad yet of rather considerable length.

I also envisioned him as having two basic abilities:
Freedom's Call, a passive aura which basically is a blue flame surrounding his torso (which is bare because why not), gives a rather-distinctly-non-Berserker-sounding trait: it redirects any blow which would hit the torso or head to the extremities. Furthermore, wounds sustained while Freedom's Call are active would heal at double the normal rate.

...And Martyr's Freedom, wherein the Berserker side comes out. The blue flames instead cover the extremities and his sword, granting him three times the normal speed and five times the normal strength. The tradeoff is that not only does this remove Freedom's Call, but also that any wounds sustained in this state take four times as long to heal and cannot have their rate of healing accelerated by Freedom's Call.

In short, he can fight and fight and fight with it being incredibly difficult to deal any meaningful damage to him (though I imagine given the setting there would be attacks capable of bypassing Freedom's Call, which would be perfectly acceptable since it's not meant to be some absolute completely infallible defense), but he's got no remarkable abilities while in that state; when he chooses to fight at full-power, he is a much more fearsome opponent, but any damage dealt to him really leaves a mark.

Granted, I have minimal knowledge of the setting, so even if he's not an existing Hero...I'd have NO clue how well this would work in terms of being a viable Hero to summon. 

He wasn't the only one I started to work on, either.
I also thought it might be neat to have a Caster who uses two dice, with their attacks being luck-based: cast the die, and whatever results come up, specific spells are cast from it. Their strongest attacks would be matching dice, with the two strongest being snake eyes and box cars yet also having reasonably powerful spells cast from doubles in 2, 3, 4, and 5. The default attacks (easiest to cast, most frequently cast, essentially signature moves not hard to pull off) would be the results of rolls common, e.g. the various combinations resulting in a total of '7'.

I didn't really flesh out the possibility beyond that, though. Didn't think of what historical figure and/or legend would fit the above, didn't think about what the abilities would actually be, but I at least thought the possibility had potential as a Caster in that setting. (I guess it could also be a mage's special ability but that wasn't as appealing to me.)

The final thing I toyed around with was just me basically coming up with the idea for a game of mafia using some mechanics, though I didn't really flesh the idea out. I can share this on the blog though because were I to ever actually follow through on this idea and make it a reality, then everything I say now would be either public knowledge in the game proper or have been publicly known to have been scrapped from the game's design.

For a start, the first day's deadline would be 14 days. (Shorter than what I typically run, but a convenient number to use.) From the second day onward, it would be 10 days. Days, however, are divided into multiple parts.

-Dawn: Results from the night are posted and any pre-day, post-night actions (which I would need to make at least one of) are used. It would last 24 hours.

-Morning: The thread would be open as if a normal day, though some actions may exist that are exclusive to Morning. This period would last seven days on the first day, and five days all days thereafter.

-Noon: Which, frankly speaking, should really be called "Midday" (to match Midnight), especially since Midday is actually a word, but I digress. This is not a phase, proper, so much as a milestone; just like in real life (where noon only exists for one minute before it is no longer noon), it is marked, announced, and moved on from.

-Afternoon: The thread continues to be open like in a normal day. Any day actions not exclusive to Morning would be able to be used during this time. This would be the remaining seven/five days.

-Twilight/Dusk: Actions modifying the result of the afternoon and following phases are submitted. Thread would be open during this time, with no flip posted. This period would last 24 hours.

-Evening: The lynch is posted, yet the topic would remain open to discussion. Some night actions unlock during this time and are possible to submit though there would be no Evening-specific night actions featured in the game. This period would last 48 hours.

-Night: The thread would be locked, closed from discussion. Night actions would be submitted, with the results at Dawn. This period would last an additional 48 hours.

-Midnight: The inverse of Noon, a milestone posted at the half-way mark of Night, announced and then moved on from. The game might feature actions only available past midnight, but this is something I cannot be sure of.

The game would also feature a modified lynch mechanic.

-The lynch would use plurality rules--the person with the most votes is lynched, at the deadline for the end of the day (as in, the end of the afternoon).

-Achieving majority in numbers would not achieve a lynch. As in, with 13 players, 7 would not lock the lynch in on a player. (Though the player is by plurality probably screwed.)

-However, if a lynch wagon has a supermajority (75% of players on the first day, 66% of players on every day thereafter), then the day will instantly skip to the Twilight/Dusk phase.

-That being said, while the moment a supermajority is reached a lynch is locked in for the day (and thus all votes thereafter would not count), if the day was still in Morning it will last the full duration of the Morning, just skipping Afternoon. As in, the thread will still be open for discussion, and any Morning actions can still be submitted along with any other day actions. 

I'm not quite sure if this is a good explanation.
But basically.
If no supermajority is reached, day ends when afternoon elapses.
If supermajority is locked in, then votes will no longer be counted; they are locked in and can no longer be changed.
If supermajority is reached in the afternoon, the game will instantly progress to the dusk phase, ending the day early (exactly like what reaching a majority lynch would do in most games featuring majority lynch rules).
If supermajority is reached in the morning, the thread will remain in morning, with actions being able to be submitted and the thread remaining open for the full seven/five days...
...But votes cannot be made anymore.

The idea behind the diversity in phases there would be to play around with the nature of roles in a game a bit, to have it such that they would work in some innovative and creative ways, modifying the experience of the game in a unique and hopefully-interesting way.

That having been said.
While I love the idea.

...It would be so.
so.
so.
so.
so.
so.
SO.

SO.

Ridiculously easy to screw it up. I'm also not entirely sure I have the ingenuity to actually craft a setup which has roles making adequate use of the mechanics, at least not my first time running the game. It wouldn't be the first time.

I've run a game which had an absolutely wonderful mechanic...but had such cliched roles as to make the mechanic nigh-meaningless. I've since drafted plans for at least one sequel game if not two (not to mention potentially designing a modified version of the mechanic into a semi-open game featuring a pick mechanic where all possible roles would be known from the onset, rather than a closed where none of the roles are known), and those games will if I ever run them make much better usage of the mechanic. (Although I obviously cannot describe how.)

And this mechanic feels like it would be much the same. I'd craft the roles for it, and over the course of the game, I'd see what players thought I would do, and with them making random comments giving me inspiration, and me going, "GOD why didn't I think about that?!? That would have been much better than what I actually did!".

So even if I didn't screw the mechanic up (which would be ridiculously easy to do because it is something which is pretty complicated and not hard to make mistakes on), I'd probably screw the setup up, in that I wouldn't make the setup live up to the idea. 

I guess I could run it in some future day some time in the distance, but I'm not too optimistic, which is why I'm blogging about it here. (Again, though, for emphasis: me posting it here does not mean I can no longer run it, because everything I said I explicitly want to be public knowledge from the onset to the point where if any of the things I stated changed I would state they had been changed.)

I suppose that's about it for now.
​I should probably get a nap in, I'm anticipating today being a very long one since I don't do anything tomorrow.

And you know what that means.
Today I worked.
Today I was trapped with my mind with nothing better to do than to just go from topic to topic, including me thinking up a reimagining of Gauntlet: Dark Legacy, just with my own twists on it to make the game even bigger than before.

I thought that there would be eight classes, with eight elements, with both genders, each with a secret form unlocked with New Game + (New Game + resetting levels and items, sets the story back to zero, but allows you to still access the levels from later on, the benefit being it raises the stat cap from 750/800 to 900/999). Like in the game I'm reimagining, each would have a different name (with an accompanying appearance change) at levels 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, and 99, for 11 total forms/names if you include the original.

Each class would have a focus stat, of which there would be eight.

Attack Speed (Elf/Archer),
Movement Speed (Jester/Temptress),
Turbo Magic (Sorcerer/Sorceress),
Potion/Item Magic (Wizard/Witch),
Damage Reduction(Armor) (Viking/Valkyrie),
Damage Tanking(Endurance/Extra HP) (Knight/Samurai),
Basic Attack Damage (Berserker/Barbarian),
And Combo Attack Damage (Warrior/Duelist).

Stats cap out at 750, 800 for the prime stat (which grows at double speed); on NG+, it's 900, 999 (the max) for the prime stat.

Yes, that would mean 256 unique characters (each needing a melee quick-attack, melee power-attack, ranged quick-attack, ranged power-attack, weak-turbo, strong-turbo, and 2-3 combo attacks), and as far as names/appearances, you'd need to multiply that by 11 for 2,816 different names/forms. (Which is mostly aesthetical, butstill.)

It sounds daunting but you'd be surprised how much the actual game proper had in it for a PS2 game (and this would presumably be a more advanced game). Like, one thing older games had (which I kinda miss from newer games) is that they had a bajillion secrets, often near-impossible to actually obtain, some even requiring cheat codes. Gauntlet: Dark Legacy among them. (I could look it up in a guide and probably still be left knowing that the guide no matter how thorough was still missing things.)

The elements of course would be my standard eight:
Earth (color scheme, various browns/greens),
Air (color scheme, yellow/green),
Water (color scheme, various blues/white),
Energy (color scheme, cyan/yellow/white),
Ice (color scheme, various cyan/white/blue),
Fire (color scheme, orange/red/yellow),
Light (color scheme, yellow/white),
And Shadow (color scheme, various grays/black).

Okay so Shadow isn't the name I normally use (I use Darkness), but it felt like 'Darkness' wasn't appropriate for an element for the given aesthetic I was aiming for here.

The game as I envisioned it would feature twelve controls--sixteen, if you count directionals.
Quick/Rapid-Attack (100% damage at normal speed),
Power Attack (200% damage at half speed),
Turbo Attack,
Magic Potion (capped at 99 carrying capacity--keys would also be increased to that amount),
Block,
Strafe,
Sprint (uses turbo),
Tagteam (for multiplayer; uses half of both players' turbo meter),
(De)Activate Inventory Window (one thing I loved about Gauntlet Legends which Gauntlet Dark Legacy took out was the ability to NOT AUTOMATICALLY USE ITEMS since some items are best stored for later use rather than drained immediately),
(De)Activate Item (NOTE: not all items can be deactivated; all items have a cap on how much can be stored),
Scroll Left through item inventory,
And Scroll Right through item inventory.

Note that obviously, you don't need all of these at once. In fact, most are optional. Block's only used essentially to stop boss attacks, Strafe is an entirely optional mode, Sprint is designed to be an awesome thing which is never actually used, Tagteam relies on HAVING multiple players, you can't both power-attack and turbo-attack except when trying to create Combos, and it's a bad idea to be micromanaging items in the middle of a fight, so you only really deal with a small fraction of them at a time.

As I designed the game, the controls would also be adjustable, too.

A feature of the game is also combo attacks: 2-3 different attacks (which unlike in Dark Legacy can be either melee or ranged), which are about as powerful as a weak-turbo, but require specific timing in order to pull off. I'm thinking to keep it simple the combos would be power-power-weak, weak-weak-power, and then if a third, power-weak-power.

The game does feature elemental modifiers so the choice of element is not just aesthetical: against the opposite element (Fire <-> Ice, Water <-> Energy, Air <-> Earth, Light <-> Darkness), there is a two-way damage upgrade: your attacks do more damage, but the enemy does more damage to you. Similarly, against the identical element, there is a two-way damage reduction: your attacks do less damage, but the enemy does less damage to you.

This modifier only applies to rapid/power attacks and does not influence either turbos or combos.
The power attack modifier is 3: against opposite elements, doing 600% at half speed, so 300% damage.
Against the same element, doing 66% at half speed, so 33% damage.
The quick attack modifier is 2: against opposite elements, doing 200% damage.
Against the same element, doing 50% damage.

Enemies do 200% damage against opposite or 50% damage against same regardless.

As regardless of which level design I use, there will always be levels focused around enemies of one element, this means that every class will have times where they have a harder time killing things and a harder time defending against things but an easier time surviving and an easier time dishing out damage.

Speaking of level designs, I thought of one of two ideas, the latter of which is probably easier to design but makes things considerably shorter.

The first is where the game has 64 realms (one for each element/class combo), with five levels plus the boss level.
Then, a 65th "realm", a single level called Purgatory. At the end of the level, the final boss's first form would be fought.
Then, a 66th "realm", a single level called Hell. At the end of the level, the final boss would be fought.
Then, a 67th realm (with either 3 or 5 levels) called "Roots of Evil". After all levels are beaten, a bonus boss can be fought, and this is considered the conclusion of the story.
The 68th realm is considered to be the "Mission Control" hub station world you start in from which you access the shop, save, get hints, and so on and so for (the equivalent of the tower), called "Yggdrasil".
The 69th realm would be the Eternal Hall: a series of 69 interconnected levels (as in, start one, go through all of them), where you face apparitions of all the monsters, and all the bosses. It's bonus content only, unlocked after the above, and something to do purely for fun/bragging rights. (Each level would, of course, be reasonably short compared to actual levels.)

OR, a much simpler game (and thus, less fun):
8 realms, with 8 normal levels each (each level representing a different element), with a 9th level being the boss for that realm, and the boss being tied to the class and shifting through the eight elements as part of the fight.

The 9th would be a "boss realm"--a single level where you face a boss rush of all the bosses you have fought, back to back, before then facing the final boss's first form.

The 10th realm, Final Realm, is where you'd face all the monsters in the game on a single level, at the end of which you face the final boss.

The 11th realm, the Eternal Realm, would be somewhere between Roots of Evil and Eternal Hall, in that it'd have 3-5 levels, each featuring a mixture of old monsters with a new monster introduced, at the end of which there would be a bonus boss, and this would be considered the conclusion of the story.

There might be the 12th realm, where you face monsters THEN the bosses, in subsequent order, but this is not a requirement.

I also thought it'd be good to have optional extras in difficulty. Normal, Hard, and Hardcore. The only difference between Normal and Hard is that Hard features friendly fire, in that you can hurt any allies you have (thus, not influencing a solo-player).

Hardcore introduces a gradual health-drain (though, to compensate, extra food items are dropped throughout levels more periodically)--not active while in Yggdrasil, but active whenever inside a level, effectively giving you a time limit for the level as your health slowly drains away. It would be possible to switch difficulties in a game, for obvious reasons.

Also, miscellaneous thing, but at 25, all heroes unlock an ability (didn't decide if it was by class, by element, or by both, which makes the difference between 8 tied by class, 8 tied by element, or 64); at 50, this ability is upgraded and they gain a familiar (which launches an attack with them); at 75, their familiar is upgraded. I also think level 99 (the level cap) should have something, but what, not sure exactly.

That's about all I thought up in advance while at work. I'm sure I could keep delving deeper into the idea of a reimagined game were I to actually do my research. Butyeah. This is how I'd handle things.

Oh, I guess I also did some precursory thinking into some of the characters involved. Specifically, the appearance and blurb for a Fire/Ice Wizard.

For the Fire Wizard, I'd reuse the image I had for a different game which was also inspired by Gauntlet Dark Legacy, which was a laughing mad mage, and it'd have the caption: "The definition of a pyromaniac. The answer to which half dominates is 'yes'."

For the Ice Wizard, I'd have him have spiked cyan hair, and a slasher smile with all his teeth being fangs, and he'd have the caption: "As far as his enemies are concerned, cryomancy? Not cool." (I'd claim credit for that, but I'm lifting it from cryo mines and certain robots' reactions to them in Ratchet & Clank.)

But I didn't really hash things out beyond that.

And you know what that means. In this case, I extrapolated a bit on the sci-fi story which was based off of a dream. Specifically, a mechanism I had already thought of was that the computer AI doesn't have a gender, but users could hear it as either male or female depending on their preference--I figured out how this would work: simply by addressing it as one of its two different names, Aiden for a boy; Aida for a girl. This being computer AI names, of course there's an acronym involved: Artificial Intelligence Data Network, AIDN, also called the Artificial Intelligence Data Ambassador, AIDA.

I also fleshed out the backstory behind the elven race a bit. They evolved on a world which had two races rather than one. Like other races, neither of their races was homogeneous; they were splintered and fractured. However, elves on that planet were akin to what a dog on earth would be if dogs had human intelligence and were capable of speaking the same way humans do.

In that they were subservient to the other race, and they had evolved to be that way; for both the other race and the elves, it was just a part of their life. Elves, in spite of being equals in intelligence, got pleasure out of serving their master race. And said race was rather technologically advanced.

Unfortunately, a disease emerged in the race, a super-bug: asymptomatic to the point where the only way to catch it was with intense medical examination, 95% lethality rate, incredibly easy to communicate, no existing vaccine, and no way to counter it. The only reason elves survived is because they were just biologically different enough to be immune to the disease, in that the disease did not cross the species barrier in order to infect elves.

While not every member of the race was wiped out, their population was reduced to the point where they became a dieing race: impossible to save, because they simply didn't have the numbers necessary to sustain a viable population. That, assuming that the survivors were willing to even bind together in the first place. To some extent, they did, but not enough, thanks to natural tendencies to distrust others for stupid (or even not so stupid) concerns.

Still, this did unite the elves pretty well. They did everything they could to help, until the last of their master race had died out. This had a way of unifying the elves, getting them close to being homogenized. They maintained their desires to please their masters, by keeping the memory of them alive and by continuing their work, which is why they inherited and continued to further the advanced tech. And in the modern day, they often apply the mantra of servitude to others as if they were their original masters.

However, while they have this tendency to want to serve, they are not pushovers. They can and have fought wars (which they won) in order to protect their way of life. So while they may be, technically speaking, a slave race in that they are often in servitude of others, this is not something that is inflicted upon them, and they are quite capable of defying expectations.

In particular, their definition of pleasing others may not match what would be typical, in that a thought along the lines of "the needs of the many" would apply, in that not serving one specific person but rather devoting oneself to the pursuit of, saaaaay, medicine to treat others as a doctor, would fit into their philosophy. So think less manual labor (and certainly less sex*), and more public servant on a grand scale, for what most of them see their lives as striving to be.

They do exist in positions you might think of a slave race as being in, but in a minority of their population, rather than the majority.

*For elves, except for pretty much the ones into BDSM (in that they prefer to be subs), they insist on having sex with an equal, not a superior. They are rather promiscuous and enjoy casual sex among peers more than most races do, but they would not have sex with masters; the few who do are the exceptions to the general rule. They do make exceptions in the case of formal courtship (as in, proper marriage between individuals) in that if one is of higher stature then it won't stop them from hooking up, but as far as sex outside of wedlock, it's almost exclusively between two on equal footing.

And that was literally the worst fate possible to inflict on me. You know why? Because it left me bored out of my mind. On a Sunday. At work. On an extra-long day. Now, NORMALLY, this is the environment which is productive for my creativity! And in a CERTAIN sense, that would be true still!

...Just...

...Really not in a good way!

Because while what I did was no doubt rather creative...the result?

What effectively amounts to me expanding my to-do list for the next 24 hours. No, seriously. If I had to guess how many items I placed on there, I'd estimate over fifty. That's what I mean. Self-inflicted hell. Where I have given myself an increased workload of things which I should absolutely do.

WELP.

It was completely by accident, too. I slept in my work clothes, something I typically don't do because it's something I shouldn't do. (I mean, it's not like I actually wear them when working. But I wear them TO work which is why I call them my work clothes. By which, I mean my red shirt/coat and the red jacket over it.)

By doing so, a thought appeared in my head. Neural pathways are funny that way, in that if you create a pattern once, it's easier to follow on future days--and it is purely by having had that pattern in the past, mere happenstance, that allows me to have done what I did to remember.

Basically, my mind created a connection, a mental connection. Something I did in the past was sleep in the same work clothes, wearing them on Monday in spite of no need for it. However, this was born from laziness, as I work every Sunday and I worked that Tuesday so in my lazy viewpoint there was no reason to change out for one day.

This isn't something I've done often. Once, maybe twice. That's all I needed, however, to then raise the question, "Wait...do I work this week outside of Sunday?" Prompting me to check. Because I got it in my mind that no tae kwon do and no counseling for the rest of the year meant that I was free aside from Sundays for the rest of the year. I manually had to add back in, "Except for dance, of course", but work on non-Sunday days was excluded.

And needed to be reinserted, for good reason because this week I actually work twice! That being, tomorrow (just with no tkd after) and Friday. OH WELL. A little less free time than I thought I had, but no big deal in the grand scheme of things. It's a simple 10-4 shift tomorrow without the tkd which eats up my day so most of tomorrow is free, I got to stay up tonight reasonably late, I'll have tomorrow, Wednesday, and then Thursday night because work on Friday is in the afternoon and thus allows me to stay up late on Thursday so basically...

​...Not quite as much free time as I'd LIKE, but plenty enough.

​Which I will, undoubtedly, waste.

We had our normal sibling ritual, but for the sake of safety (oh god I'd be in SO much trouble if a sibling actually read my blog, but thankfully they don't; still, I act as if they do just to be on the safe side as a precaution), I can't go into the details of what we did there.

I did have work today, but it was a pretty standard (albeit light in traffic) day.

Not much else I can really think of. I skipped my nap because I have counseling tomorrow, though, so I'm in need of sleep now.

So you know what that means:
Poetry!

...I'd say 'song', but.

I tried to make it a song, yet I couldn't really make it into one. I was just going with the flow, and nothing really felt right as far as making it lyrical. OH WELL. So I doubt this is ever gonna be "finished", but what I have:

I am sick of Chrismas songs;
I really hate how you sing along.
I want nothing more than them gone;
Is my stance there really wrong?

All the classic ones are overplayed;
Newer ones I wish were never made.
Now they all just sound the same;
That monotony is what I hate.

Holidays are for cheers;
Spend them fondly with peers.
It's a time with no fears;
Be honest, open, and always clear.

It's what we do, not say;
It's what we celebrate.
The when can always wait;
Holidays are what we make.

Give them meaning don't just act;
Make them yours and you'll never lack.
Unique is good and that's a fact;
Be yourself and that is that!

...The idea behind this was to make a song which appeared to be a Grinch-like anti-Christmas sentimentality...but which is actually a pro-Christmas song, just anti-way-(collective)we-CELEBRATE-Christmas song, essentially saying that it IS a special time of the year but that conforming to celebrating it in the way society expects us to is a mistake, more or less. That's what I was going for, but I never made it quite coherent.

Also covered in my time there when bored--furthering the Sensation (code power, Curveball) story. I developed their character a while back such that eventually, on a secret black ops among secret black ops level, they are instead known as Salvation with the code power, Godstrength. (Code power name is not the original cooler name I had thought of but since I can't remember my original name OH WELL I'll go with what I've got.)

The story would eventually continue to the point where they'd have at least one child. Said child would inherit the same level of power--neither stronger nor weaker--but have one definitive difference: the restriction on number of spells to be learned would be lifted, allowing it to be "The same, only more".

A second difference being the exact contract creature. Sensation/Salvation has a contract with a creature which essentially gifts Sensation/Salvation with perfect memory. The child of that creature, a hybrid with a Blademaster creature who is Sensation/Salvation's trainer, is who their child makes the contract with, allowing for a greater ease of access to blades. Along the same lines of "same, but more", in that it's not MUCH of an extra in theory, but in practice this little bit of extra can make a huge difference.

Said child gains the public codename of Striker (thanks to the contract with a creature as far as everyone knows is just a Blademaster), with no code power developed (since part of their cover story is essentially that the child's parent is basically the magical equivalent of a dumb hick which they accomplish with some truthful yet misleading wording, they can get away with the idea that the child hasn't inherited any power nor developed any of their own).

Eventually after some freak occurrences at what amounts to magical school, the child gets discovered for what they really are and gains the secret moniker of Seraphim, with the code power of Godkiller, the motif there being that Salvation's got the strength of a god, but Seraphim has strength which would allow for surpassing the strength of a god.

I haven't really played around with it too much beyond that, but I thought I'd keep you updated on the story which spans endless years at this point. (Obviously, Striker/Seraphim wouldn't be born at the beginning of Sensation/Salvation's story and by the time Striker/Seraphim is attending magical school they are a teenager, so.)

And it wasn't my fault. It was PLUGGED INTO THE CHARGER. It somehow LOST ALL ITS BATTERY IN SPITE OF THAT. My parents did fix it while I was at work, butstill, that meant that I needed to leave for work without my phone. Which is my emergency lifeline in more than one way. A way for people to contact me, a way for me to contact them, a way for me to keep in touch while at work, a way for me to check in on things online, and also the most convenient way of clocking in and out of work. Was very annoying.

Ah well. At least work was productive! I managed to keep myself busy and I felt like I fixed a lot of stuff. Didn't quite manage to get everything, but I got enough done where I can say shamelessly that I earned my pay, and I can't really ask for much better than that.

Of course, on my break, I DID happen to think up an idea. I would never, ever, ever, EVER be able to pull this off. But basically, I thought of what I'd do if I were to be given free reign over superheroes as I know them to be. As in, not my OWN superheroes. Those I've got plenty of. I meant EXISTING, established superheroes. Spider Man, Batman, Superman, Iron Man, the like.

The idea I came up with was a comic I'd call "Shared Universe". Now I imagine that there would still be the risk of legal issues for things which aren't public domain (nobody can really stop me from having a character named Thor even if said Thor looks identical in every aspect to Marvel's version, but I imagine there'd be more issues if I used Spider Man verbatim), so I'd tweak them as necessary to make them be 98% the same but with just enough key details changed to not get a lawsuit.

But basically...the idea would be me making exactly what it sounds like--a shared universe, where I would run my own takes on characters, settings, ideas, and whatnot. Similar concepts would be combined/merged/tied together even if originally unrelated. I would simplify a lot such that many of the currently-unrelated things can be reduced down to having a much smaller explanation pool for the sake of simplicity.

However, I would still make things as incredibly diverse, interesting, unique, and consistent as possible.
There's four settings I would for sure be using: Marvel, DC, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and Hellboy. I also had the idea of throwing in both Frankenstein and his monster. (Another idea of mine was to take some cues from a certain film and have Van Hellsing be a werewolf. I even thought up a way to have him have four different appearances: as an old man, he'd have his heightened senses but human strength; as a young man, he'd have heightened strength but human senses; he'd have a hybrid form and a full-wolf form.)

I'd have concepts such as the League of Extremely Gifted (dating back to the 1800s with roots in TLOEG with some Hellboy and Frankenstein later, but in more modern days being the equivalent of The Justice League)--LEG for short--PALM (haven't quite worked out the acronym there but I was thinking something along the lines of 'Protects of All Local Mankind', loosely equivalent to Defenders), and FIST (again, not with the established acronym but something along the lines of 'First Invasion Strike Team', akin to the Avengers).

LEG was formed originally to deal with supernatural threats, and still covers that area. They use the appropriate level of force to contain threats and protect the world. The members of LEG largely work individually across the world, but unite whenever they encounter a threat that they know they are incapable of dealing with on their own. All of them have one central location, but all of them are also incredibly mobile in that they travel a great deal and only return to their central location when it is necessary for their own reasons. (E.g. recharging at a secret base.)

The members of PALM work in city branches: every single branch has a team operating in a single location. Said team, similarly to LEG, works mostly as individuals, the difference being they coordinate with one another to essentially create patrols which can cover the whole city. They also operate on a lower level. Whereas LEG still primarily deals with supernatural threats (albeit now also dealing quite a bit with super-powered individuals), PALM mostly deals with every day criminals, and putting down crime syndicates and the like. PALM has a no lethal force rule; it is forbidden.

And FIST would be PALM's opposite. FIST is essentially a first responder force, mobile and operating on the move. They exclusively work as a team, not as individuals...however, membership REQUIRES that the person in question be able to operate as an individual (as you never know when you will be separated from the team). They respond to any extreme threat which the locals cannot deal with.

They are basically the equivalent of a police/army of superheroes, in that they are an organized strike force of sort. If an alien invasion were to happen, FIST would be the ones to take them on. They also deal with supernatural threats that exceed the scale LEG is capable of on their own, they largely are responsible for keeping supervillains from conquering the world, and will also respond to any large-scale crises. (For instance, while PALM might save people in their city during a hurricane, FIST would be the kind of people to stop a hurricane from devastating a city.)

I would not use any one singular source material for the characters in question. I would use as many as I could find, to get the best variety possible, and then I'd research them, give my own take on them, and make something blending the best of all worlds. Given the freedom of comic books not needing to be self-contained stories and that I'd be operating on a 150ish-year timeline, this would allow me to explore nuances of every character from their material.

I'd do my best to keep villains as villains and heroes as heroes, but I wouldn't be afraid to blur the lines a little. To give spins on villains. I'd allow myself to have a higher sense of realism (thus why I'd try to cut down on the number of supernatural sources)...but I wouldn't let this increased sense of realism kill the whimsy, the fun, the aesthetic of classical superheroes and supervillains.

Good people could and would remain unambiguously good, no justification no explanation needed; good for the sake of good. There would still be evil people evil for the sake of evil, no elaborate backstory necessary. It's just that I'd use these to emphasize and accentuate virtues and sins, in a sense, in that I'd be using them to show the strengths of both sides. A villain who is a villain for no reason, no explanation, no justification...properly utilized is the scariest thing of all.

A hero who is a hero for the sake of being good can give a much-needed sense of hope, even if they know that doing so is difficult. (A staple of some of the best supes being that doing what they do isn't easy...and it's not being easy which makes what they do be super. Superman isn't super because of what he does, so much as what he doesn't do, as it were. The choices he makes and whatnot.)

...It's an idea I would absolutely love to make of course.
But it'd never happen.
I could avoid the lawsuits or whatever easily enough. Just creatively change a little here, tweak a little bit there. Heck, the whole point of the project would be me doing my own take on these characters in the FIRST place so I'd already have changed them from their base point.

What I can't do.
Is give the research properly to pull it off.
In order to do this to the levels I envisioned, I'd need NO LESS THAN encyclopedic knowledge of AT LEAST:
-The DCAU
-The current DCEU
-Other prominent DCs (e.g. animations not part of the DCAU, shows/films like various Batmans)
-The DCU proper
-The MCU (this one's easy enough, just need to finish watching Agent Carter and watch the Netflix series for shows)
-Other Marvel films not part of the current MCU (various Fantastic 4, X Men, prior versions of Spider Man, etc.)
-The 616 Marvel Universe (that is, the main comics verse, which I'm going from memory as being 616)
-The Ultimate Marvel Universe
-Prominent alternate universes of both DC/Marvel which aren't canon yet have widely influenced works of famous superheroes/supervillains
-Hellboy comic
-Hellboy films
-The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
-TLOEG film
-Plus any other works which I'd want to incorporate into the setting. (For instance, I have in my head the idea of Dr. Frankenstein being AROUND a second-generation member of LEG, and his creation being a continued member to modern days, but I haven't actually done much reading/watching of the classics featuring him and mostly know of things from popular culture.)

...That, not even covering how this would be literally thousands of heroes/villains (probably tens of thousands), in at least ten times that many stories (so we're looking at hundreds of thousands if not millions of stories). I can cut out stories. I can merge stories. Those two would reduce things significantly. I can even cut out/merge characters. Ideally I don't make new characters...but what I'd want to do would be FROM ALL OF THAT. Making new stories, too. Not just retelling, but creating.

Most of the initial creations for stories would in fact be retellings, just mixed, mashed, and so on and so forth. Blending things together, such that what seems like something original is just two things which were unrelated being merged together into a singular thing. Yet that's what I'd want as a BASELINE. To start MAKING things.

And this would be made with comics, mind you. A webcomic or plural, webcomics. But still. Each story's not a single page yaknow. Each story is like...10-50 pages. Of art which I'd want to be top-notch, too. I couldn't pull the art off. Even if I could, I couldn't pull it off on the scale necessary. And there's no 'even if' to that. A team of like...20 devoted people might be able to manage it.

...Might.

...But even if I had that. Then I'd still need to be able to have the encyclopedic knowledge of all the sources I mentioned above--I have good retention of quite a fair number of them, I know FAR more about them than your average person, but I am no comic book nerd of any sort. I'm second-rate-at-BEST.

...And even IF it were possible for me to have memorized enough to get it done "right" as it were...there would be the matter of actually managing to WRITE all of this. To actually get it done right. To handle thousands of characters in thousands of stories and manage to tell their stories with a coherent, consistent timeline which would be similar to what we all know, and yet still have spins on them.

It's just not a viable project on any level.
Alas.

A girl can dream, right?