By which, I mean, it loves to invent new anime. Phyrra and Cyrus, as you may recall, was birthed by this method. I had a story I meant to blog about but didn't get around to which was another one, and today I had yet another one, albeit this one kinda self-plagiarizing from the previous one.

I don't have the time to explain it today, but it was a really interesting one, to say the least.

Speaking of Phyrra and Cyrus. I didn't do anything productive aside from making content which may actually appear as like five minutes of filler in an episode. Basically, you'd know this if I uploaded my ramble on metals, but adamantium is a metal in the colliniverse. (Specifically, it is akin to steel, in that it is not in of itself, per se, so much a single metal, as much as it is a refined version of a different metal, of which there are dozens. As steel is refined iron into dozens of different alloys, so too is adamantium a refined version of a different mythic metal with dozens of different alloys.)

So today I was wondering if it was in fact possible to have Wolverine expies, that have adamantium melded to their bones--the answer is yes...but that it is not only incredibly expensive, but also incredibly stupid. It can be directly compared to, beit our world or Phyrra and Cyrus's, making a full-body plate male armor...out of gold. Yeah, it's something you could do. It's not going to kill you to do it, either.

It's just a waste of money because in real life it is utterly worthless. The properties of the metal mean that whatever benefit it could offer in theory, when molded into that form, don't work in reality. Still, some people do it anyway. It does offer more mass behind, say, a punch; it does make bones unbreakable, which can be convenient for someone who would break bones a lot.

But the tradeoff is that even the most dense of bones is lighter than the lightest of metals to plate the bones in, so you'd become much, much heavier, not to mention, less flexible. Bones are designed to be a bit flexible; adamantium...isn't. So you become stiff, almost robotic, and need to be much stronger, and are still weighed down.

But seeing as this is a setting which has plenty of golorgs (I need to do the ramble on them as well; short version, that's short for golem organism which is the magical-based equivalent of a cybernetic organism, aka, a cyborg), and there are some situations where it could come in handy (say someone was born with the condition of brittle bones, which is a thing in our world so why not in Phyrra and Cyrus), plus, there's no rule which says that you need to have every bone be adamantium.

It's still incredibly expensive to do, but on a small scale for those who have an actual use for it, it can be done. Not something you'd want to do if you can go without, though, thus, why it'd be stupid for people to just randomly do it. This would come into canon as maybe being a five minute segment if that of a throwaway quick fight for fun, where a contestant would have it and Phyrra would topple them.

​Something I could easily do away with, or expand further, as the need arose, basically.

Just not what I need to be doing!
At work, I sketched out in some quick doodles a few traditional Paladin weaponry.
Now, mind you, what I mean by traditional, is exactly that; they are things which are common due to tradition, but are not in any way shape or form mandatory in that Paladins use the weaponry they forge, and the weaponry they forge is weaponry suited to their style of combat/lifestyle choices.

I didn't get all of it done, but I still knocked a few basic doodles out for a few of them. Felt good to ~art~, even if only briefly so.

What I more came to talk about is a personal blog from my childhood, to tell a completely true story of one of my earliest memories, because it's an entertaining (if a bit mortifying) story. I had to have been either three or four years old for this incident, early. (So in the 1996-1997 range.)

Basically, the short version of it is...I was a genius child. Absolutely smart as could be, in many aspects; incredibly sharp. Fairly common descriptor of autistic children in fact; we pick up on things which most people don't, but we just have an incredibly poor understanding of other things as a tradeoff, more or less.

This is not always a good thing.

When my family was out car shopping, it happened that I was left alone in a dealership car. I don't know why I was left alone, but I was left alone in the back seat of the car. Presumably, my parents were testing the car out, and got out to talk to the dealer about details of the car, inspecting it from the front, or something like that. (They may have had the hood up, even; that'd certainly explain how they didn't notice this!)

If I was in any way restrained by a buckle (I'm presuming I was, but I have no memory of it, so if so it presented me with no challenge to my goal), I managed to undo it; I know this, because I remember crawling from the back seat...into the driver's seat.

(This is a story that, for full effect, you'd need to listen to multiple family members' perspectives.)

What I remember of this is I had a single thought:
"I wanna drive like mommy and daddy do!"
I knew the steering wheel made you go left or right; I knew the brake pedal slowed you down; I knew the acceleration pedal sped you up; I also knew that in order to start the car...mommy and daddy always pushed the brake pedal down, and ended up pulling that lever on their right sides back in order to make the car go forward.

So in the driver seat.

I did exactly that.
I think I was completely down in the pedal area where the feet were, pressing down on the brake pedal...and shifting the car into gear. (Or at the very least, neutral.)

My parents were, prior to this, completely unaware anything was happening...but started panicking when the car I was in started moving forward. (Thank heavens there was no key in the car because even at that age I coulda turned the car on. Though, granted, had I managed it, I probably woulda been stopped before shifting the gears, butstill.)

The main reason for the panic, however, was not because of the implication...

...But because my brother was right in front of the car as I pulled this stunt.

So they made a mad dash to the driver side door, figuring out what had happened, in order to stop me.

In other words.
As a child.
I almost ran over my brother, by "driving" a car.

To this day, how I pulled off what I did baffles my parents, and even I'm not really sure what happened. All I remember from the incident, really, IS that thought of "I wanna drive like my mommy and daddy do!" and the car lurching forward after I fiddled around.

​Makes a good story to tell at the least.

Not as much progress being made as I would prefer, but enough to be good!

I figured I'd knock something off the quickie list.

​I wanted to cover this when talking about characters' parents, but the short version of it is, literally over half the cast is orphans. The few who aren't, have both parents alive, with one exception. Ace's mother died reasonably recently in his life (without her, he had no ties to his home and thus her death spurned his adventuring life)...but his father is very much still alive.

Unlike most parents still living in the story, we actually get to meet him and learn a fair bit about him. His name is Jake Samson, AKA, "The Four-Armed Swordsman". This is a moniker he earned via using two two-handed weapons...one per hand. He doesn't literally have four arms, but the implication of the statement is, his skill and mastery of using two two-handed weapons at once is such that it seems like he'd need four arms to accomplish the feat.

His weapons of choice are a longsword (maybe even claymore) in his right hand, supported by a nodachi in his left hand. He's considered the best swordsman of the old continent, one of the top ten adventurers in the old continent, and one of the top ten swordsmen in the whole world.

In this sense, he is a bit of a rockstar, and suffice to say, Phyrra is in particular flabbergasted to learn that Ace's father is someone so famous. It should be noted though that due to how the world of Phyrra and Cyrus is, he's only a mild celebrity. He has some world-wide renown, but only in his area is he considered particularly strong. So he IS famous, but only slightly so.

So I still need to find a spot to unload all the stuff in my notepad file as to not risk having that info lost forever; I need to share a fair amount on blogs, too. I have my blogs loosely ordered such that they are grouped by subject, making it easier for me to ramble, too. All the big ones are organized so that I can unleash them all at once and all the small ones are in the notepad, waiting to be launched.

​Progress!

You may remember that my working title for Phyrra and Cyrus was INFIverse. (Or INFINIverse, I forget which.)
You may also remember that is an existing name of a 'verse. I didn't bother to do research on it, just enough to know both names were taken so couldn't be used as an original name.

Today I came up with that.

It kinda sucks. So if I can find a better original name, you bet I'm gonna use it.

But it returned an absolute zero on google results, which means it's unique to me: the colliniverse.

The meaning is not nearly as special or accurate.
The INFINIverse is accurate because of the concept of INFINITY. (I still need to give you that creation myth.)
The colliniverse takes a concept from there, the collision of INFINITY and Nothingness, but it's not quite the same especially since technically speaking it wasn't quite what you'd call a collision. (Again I'd need to give you that creation myth for you to understand.)

So for me I still consider this a working title. A NEW working title. A working title UNIQUE TO ME. But still, something which with luck I can think of something better down the road.

OH WELL.

For now, it'll do.

I am also beginning to lay the groundwork for further Phyrra and Cyrus work.

This will take me quite a while to finish, but I got about a third of what I wanted to do today, done. And that's progress!

Soyeah.

We're getting there.

​Slowly but surely.

More specifically, what I mean by that is...I feel like I can actually do the things that I want to do.
I have the sense, not immediately.
I have the sense, I'll have to fight for them.
I have the sense, that I'll need to make sacrifices for them.
I have the sense, that my motivation will come and go and that they'll never come to be unless I have the drive to keep going even when motivation wanes.

But I have the sense.
I can do it.

Right now, basically.

I just...believe in myself.
I don't often give myself that luxury, especially as time has shown I often can't.
But.

I feel like I can actually do it.

I can make something of my life.

I feel it.
I know it.
It is a strange sensation to have.
That feeling, which I know is nearly impossible.
Yet to know that somehow I can do it.

It defies words, but I have it now.
And due to how rare it is.
Due to how much of a commodity it is.
I felt the need to blog about it.

I am going to do this.
It will take a hell of a long time to get right, get good.
​But I can do this and I will do this.

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

Alas.

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

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

A huge, huge, HUGE breakthrough on Phyrra and Cyrus.
I wanted to give the full blog today, but I was too busy today dealing with stuff to do that, so all I can really give you is that I'm on the verge of naming their world...and have successfully given their 'Verse a name: I gave it a working title of The INFIverse.

Now.

That might sound like a lame name.

But it's anything but.

That name has regards to do with the coolest creation myth I've ever made, and it took me HOURS of brainstorming to hash it out.

A quick google search indicates that I'll need to come up with something else as Infiverse seems to be taken even though I am quite specific about it being INFIverse (the extra letter capitalization holds meaning), but a working title which needs to be changed because it's taken is better than no title for the verse at all!

Still, since the name's apparently taken I'll need to work a little bit harder, but I'm oh so very close.

I also--and this is directly correlated to the creation myth--worked out what the most popular religion in Phyrra and Cyrus is. Quick note, there's no confirmed deities in existence, be it lowercase god or uppercase God, and yet there's numerous religions in existence revolving around the few aspects of the creation of their world that they don't have explained away with science.

Basically there's a very small gap in their knowledge, and that gap is where religion enters the picture; monotheism is more common than pantheism, and I developed the name of the most popular religion. It's probably the name of an existing religion but then again what isn't: Voidism. Again this'll make sense when I explain the way their world was created, which I can't wait to do, but unfortunately need to wait until tomorrow to do.

​I'm just so excited!

Am I back to blogging content?

...Ehhh, debatable.

But with luck, I'm on my way there!

The real breakthrough there is...well. I'm back! In a way that I have been longing for.

My desire to make art has been slowly rising. And while the creator within me has been alive and well for a while, the actual writer within me has been fairly dormant.

But today...both explosively grew out until they were bursting out the seams.

I want to make art.
I want to make it badly.
I want to make things.

And more than that.

Something finally happened.

For the first time.

I actually began writing the script for an episode of Phyrra and Cyrus.

Now granted.

I took some shortcuts with descriptions; there are plenty of details which should be there that are absent.
And I only got what I estimate is around 7.5 minutes (with another 30 seconds or so that I didn't have time to write but got worked out) of somewhere around 22 or so minutes. (Every episode, I estimate, will have around 20 minutes of content, with an opener that's around 2 minutes give or take 30 seconds, and a closer that is also 2 minutes give or take 30 seconds placing total episode time at 23-25 minutes; the first episode of the series, however, will have no opener at the beginning, and its closer will be the opener for the first season, as is a sort of tradition for anime.)

So it's not like I suddenly have everything.

But the point is.

I DID IT!

Only part of it, but I did it.

I am taking the first step towards committing to making Phyrra and Cyrus a thing, a thing not living just in my head.

Now granted.
There's still miles to go in conceptual art.

Something I'm considering also doing is storyboarding of sorts, where I'll use pieces of paper to demonstrate thumbnail-style (that being, stick figures if that, making heavy use of text and generally just giving a rough idea) "frames", demonstrating key areas of the episodes.

...I'm probably making trained animators cry with my (absolute lack of) terminology, buthey. I am not a trained animator; I'm not even a trained artist.

I know there's a lot of work to be done.
Concept art.
Storyboarding.
Scriptwriting.

All of these aren't done, and need to be done.
Worldbuilding is mostly done, but I still need to fill in some details like the name of the world, the names of the continents, oceans, countries, and cities visited.

I need to come up with names for background characters, and design them.
I need to finish designing the 13 main characters, 4 main villains, and the 10 underling-villains (1's more solo, 1's a direct underling of the first, 2 are direct underlings of Gunther, and the remaining six are the sins under the final).

For that matter, even the designs for Phyrra and Cyrus could use touching up.

Still.
I have a good idea of what I can, realistically, do, and not do.
I can probably get concept art in tandem with the script and storyboarding good enough where an animator can animate something to match my vision.
I can write a script good enough where a voice actor can speak the lines necessary.

I can probably teach myself how to be an editor. I have absolutely zero skills in this area, and I know it's a skill difficult to master, and will be immensely time-consuming to do, and once I am at the editing stage I'll also be running into "okay, I have everything individually I need to make it reality...now how DO I make it reality with the pieces put together", if that makes sense.

But this is okay, because that's so far in the future that by the time I am anywhere even remotely close to prepared, I'll have the time/effort necessary where I'll be able to put the needed work in and find out exactly what I need, and what I need to do, and so on and so forth. (And if we get to the editing stage, I'll presumably have plenty of people I can call upon for advice, because editing is like...one of the very last steps; if I get to the point where I'll need editing, everything else will be in place which means lots of help having gotten there already. See also, what I can't do.)

I can probably teach myself how to code if I get a site of my own. Multiple people are willing to teach me, too. (Plus, if I have leftover funds from whatever money I'd use to MAKE Phyrra and Cyrus, I can always just pay someone for this.)

There are, however, limits to what I can do.

Realistically speaking, I'm not going to be able to animate Phyrra and Cyrus. I may be able to teach myself how to make animations, but to match my vision requires a level of skill that I simply don't have nor ever will. No school can teach me what I'd need to know. I just know it. This is something you may wonder, but I just have a head for it, in knowing that I won't be able to make Phyrra and Cyrus in a way I am satisfied with if I were to attempt to animate it.

So I need to have an animator. Animators won't work for free, so I need to pay them.

I can finish writing the eight songs that I'll need (four openers, and four closers), but I'll need someone to actually sing them. Some of these I can probably go cheap. Heck, my sisters may be able to sing one or two of them and if I become an editor then I'd be able to edit it into something amazing. But not all of them will be; I will need to hire some people to actually sing.

I probably cannot compose the songs to an extent where I am happy with them. I can do what amounts to a storyboard of a song: give the lyrics, give my horrible singing of the lyrics, give some loose idea in the form of descriptors and maybe some sound for what I'm going for, but that's about all I can do. To get openers and closers to the level I would be satisfied with them, I would need to hire a composer.

Granted, that's actually not too terribly expensive from my understanding, but it IS money I have to have and invest.

And most of all.
I have 13 main characters.
Let's say your average episode needs 5 extra voices.
That's not a perfect estimate, obviously. Some episodes won't need any extra voices. Others may need more than 5. Many will need less than 5. Heck, the main characters aren't all appearing from the first episode (as they're introduced along the way), so it's not like it's 13 voice actors from the onset plus the extras.

But for the sake of a high estimate. Let's say I need 18 characters, every episode.

For a fact, I know that any voice actor that can offer the level of professional voice acting I'm after, needs to be paid. And this, I believe. Isn't that cheap.

​Let's see if I can pull some quick estimates.

​For composers, according to this old article, the two ways I'm most likely to get are % of budget (depends on how much money I raise, then), or a rate per minute. Off of 2011 values, $~425/minute (since I don't know if it'd be 1-5 instruments or 6-11) * 2.5 minutes * 8 = $8,500. And that's from 2011. According to this site, that's ~$9,522.17 now. So a general roundabout figure is probably $10,000.

For just the composer. If I am lucky.

Due to google misinterpreting my search to be for hiring a singer to perform (rather than to compose for you), it's a little difficult to find what the cost of singing is. Presumably, quite high.

For voice actors, I've found a site which I'm presuming is up to date, the question being how relevant it is. I believe it's pertinent though, so according to these numbers, if we assume a worst-case scenario of it being considered a Large Market (when it comes to money I have to spend on Phyrra and Cyrus being a reality...well obviously I want to show it off to as many people as I can, but the more I show it off to, the more it costs to make in the first place, so more people = worse, from a budgeting perspective)...
...Well, that's $118 * 18 * 48 = $101,952 to make.

That's not impossible for me to get. I mean, with an actual job proper rather than minimum-wage lifeguard, I could probably save that amount within 1-3 years. (Of course, if I had 100,000 to spare, my first desire would be to spend it on transitioning because if memory from when I looked at it serves me, $100,000 is just about the cost to fully cover a complete transition start to finish when you add the bills up between psychiatry, pills, doctor appointments, hair removal, and surgery. Those are the bare minimum, but they alone are expensive.)

However, costs for an animator...*shudder*
Hoh boy, if this is to go by, that's gonna suck. I'm presuming it'd be flash animation, butstill. $15 * 60 * 5 * 8 (for the openers), then
$15 * 60 * 20 * 48
= $36,000 + $864,000.

...And that's 2011. Rough estimate of current cost, $967,900.17 + $40,329.17 = $1,008,229.34. Would be over a million dollars to animate.

I can't earn that much.

I'm not sure I can even raise that much.
But that rate was by my understanding an incredibly cheap rate. A cheap rate, in 2011. And I'd need basically a million dollars to pull off 48 episodes.

Frick I'm a whole lot less certain about being able to pull that off.

Animation, up there with voice acting, is the skill I most cannot make Phyrra and Cyrus without outside help on.
And yet, they are singlehandedly the two most expensive parts I'd have in making Phyrra and Cyrus.

But dammit.

I want to make Phyrra and Cyrus real.

Somehow.

I don't know how I can make that much money.
How would I?

Maybe I could find people willing to work for below the market rate.
Maybe.

If I offer them exposure, proper credits and whatnot. Maybe figure out a way where Phyrra and Cyrus would make a profit and offer them a percentage of it. (God I don't want that because honestly I'm not looking to make money from Phyrra and Cyrus and it's quite the opposite I don't really want to make any money from it; I want it to be there for everyone, easily.)

Maybe. Maybe, I could figure out a way of somehow negotiating prices down.

But there has to be a limit to how much I could reduce the prices. I can see. If the animator(s) worked at half market value, potentially. At a stretch. I can maybe, maybe, maybe, MAYBE cover the costs of Phyrra and Cyrus with $500,000.

Which is a range that is maybe, maybe, MAYBE JUST EVER SO MAYBE. Doable with fundraising. 

I don't know how I'm going to make this a reality.
But I'm not going to let this discourage me. It's daunting. It's disheartening in a "this is gonna SUCK" kind of way. But it is not discouraging. I'm still going to make it a reality. I'm still going to figure out how to make Phyrra and Cyrus a real thing. And a real thing, available for free online, with people able to comment on episodes. (For instance, on Youtube. Not necessarily there, but that's an option.)

And yeah I know.

With inflation.

It's only going to get more expensive the longer I wait.

The longer I procrastinate on getting to the part of needing to hire these people.
The more expensive it'll get to actually hire these people.

Yeah, I know.

There's a lot of work to be done before I am anywhere even remotely close to ready.

The things I have yet to do may sound simple when I say them, but as soon as I face them, they become immensely daunting.

Designing about 30 major characters, along with designing numerous extras, plus background characters that may only appear for one split second for one scene as part of a crowd. Names, appearances, what they sound like, what they wear.

Naming every city, every region, every country, every location, visited.

Creating every monster/creature/beast/etc. fought in adventures, designing areas, landscapes, terrain.

Figuring out, second to second, every piece of dialog, every facial expression, every single tone used, to convey the meaning I am intending. Figuring out how every single bit is framed, such that I have a second-by-second playout of how every episode goes, and writing the script allowing this to be shown.

I need to do it all.

I know I can do it.

I am working towards it.

I'm not at the stage, I'd say. Where I need to start trying to get into contact with people to help me get to the places and people who can help me out. Basically. I'm not at the stage where I think I need to begin reaching out to everyone on how to make it a reality, how to get the things I need, and so on and so forth.

There is just oh so much work that I need to have FINISHED before then.

And it is all writing and art, pretty much.

It is all the two things within me that were dormant and have now exploded outward.

I can do this.

If it takes me years, so be it.

But I know I can do this.
If it takes me a ton of help, so be it.
If I have to make some personal sacrifices, so be it.

But I can do this.

I know I can do it.

I know that it may sound strange to have that confidence. I don't know where it's coming from.
I just have it.

I. can. do. this.
So somehow​, I am going to get it done!

So for Phyrra and Cyrus, from the onset, I've told you their orientations (Phyrra's bi, Cyrus is demi), but for a while I've wanted to share/reveal those of others.

Gora is straight.
Ace is bi.
Cedrick is straight.
Kaze is an asexual demiromantic, in that he doesn't much care for sex, but he's perfectly capable of having feelings for someone. This makes more sense when you know the blurb I have for him which I wanted to share as well. (Also new for today.)

Kaze
Homicidal Maniac
Kaze enjoys the carnage of a good massacre, killing dozens of people at a time just for fun. He is ruthless and relentless, striking with no mercy. The only things capable of impressing him are combat prowess and killing capability. However, in spite of being both amoral and unscrupulous, if someone holds conviction in their ideologies and is capable of backing them up, it is possible to earn his respect.

Myra is actually not someone I know the exact orientation of. I know she's not a lesbian and I get the sense she at the very least can like guys, but the specifics beyond that, I don't actually know; she hasn't told me that.
Bard is bi, but while he is bi, he does have a particular fondness for lovely ladies.
Clara is straight.
Hera is a lesbian.
Will is pan.
Lily is a lesbian.
And Alena is pan.

Now is this really that relevant to the story? Nope, not really! But these are little trivia facts that I learned just by really getting to know them.