- they/them
I have so many ideas and such big dreams, they're often overwhelming. Look forward to seeing multiple projects here because if I were made to stick to one project forever, I'd probably explode.
My current fixation: Main Character Syndrome
It's a term I've been throwing around in a lot of my posts- or I think I have anyway. I forget what I've mentioned in my captions vs with my friends sometimes but I'm pretty sure I've used it at least a couple of times. That might bring up a few questions, what is a MAD Mage?
Well it isn't a Mage who's lost their mind, I can assure you. MAD is actually an acronym, M.A.D, in reference to the real life M.A.D Agreement. For those who aren't aware, it's a military policy stating that the use of full scale nuclear arms against any other country with access to nuclear arms would result in both of the countries using the nukes destroying the other. Mutually Assured Destruction. Simple.
Except here's the thing. In the world of my comic, MCS or Main Character Syndrome, Nukes don't really... exist. The alternate earth present in MCS is pretty much identical to our world except with the inclusion of magic, quite powerful magic at that. In this alternate history, the pace of Combat Mages vastly outstripped the development of traditional explosives, resulting in an incident like Nagasaki and Hiroshima but with magically charged golems piloted by Combat Mages rather than nukes.
Just like in the real world, the end result of those two cities having a one-on-one conversation with a miniature sun resulted in Japan folding in WWII and, with the start of the Cold War, the concept of MAD became a very real thing. Countries quickly fell to training as strong of Mages as they could in order to make the power of the strongest Combat Mages at the time.
Thus came the M.A.D Mage program, a college level program that was officially a simply a degree course for Magical Studies that would grant students a PHD for completing all eight years of course work. Unofficially, these programs selected only the best mages from a given country and secretly trained them to become MAD Mages.
See, training human weapons is looked down upon in most societies so people don't really say these National-Level Mages are, in fact, human weapons but that's basically what they are anyway. In some places, such as the United States where MCS takes place, it's an honor. MAD Mages get quite the paycheck while having comparatively little responsibilities.
With the world of MCS currently being in peace times, MAD Mages have very little to do. They mostly posture around in the news, meetings, and international events to quietly show off the strength of a country. Just like how there's little to no reason to actually use a Nuke, there's little to no reason to have a MAD Mage besides as a show of strength and prosperity.
Is that kind of stupid? Yeah but I also find the concept of Nukes more stupid than they are cool so I think it's fairly realistic. Now the psychological implications of having a group of adults fight to become one of the few MAD Mages a country will officially employ is... not great. They're basically fighting to be an object.
Albeit an object that will have a very lucrative Magical Studies degree even if they don't meet MAD Mage standards, all but guaranteeing them a high level job either has a magical professor, freelance mage, rune developer, healer, or a variety of other jobs that use magic (depending, on the specific courses you took in the program as not every one of the twenty five available courses are necessary. Hell, it's only required to complete a minimum of four out of the seven 'core' classes, though those courses must have all eight years worth completed).
But to be a MAD Mage is to seek utter perfection in all things. It's not healthy, not sane, but it is normal in their society. Perhaps we only find it strange because we don't belong to the world of MCS where guns have fallen out of style due to the relative ease of learning equally dangerous Defense Magic, even those with low magical potential capable of a decent amount of arson if they feel the need.
MCS is a dangerous world. Any world with easily available magic should be in my opinion. A little creativity can turn basic spells into weapons of mass destruction and it always seems so much simpler than real world technology. Tsk. Tsk. Welp, back to drawing Nicholas, everyone's favorite Goth Gamer Boyfriend.
Okay, so, listen. I'm at least 90% sure we're all familiar with the concept of a magic school, yeah? Harry Potter was only a worldwide phenomenon, popularizing the concept beyond what anyone could have expected. I'm not going to explain to you what a magic school is.
The magic college at the center of Memoir on the Lost, on the other hand, is the USA's primere college, one of three boasting the M.A.D Mage program. Which, if you haven't read past devlogs, is a program used to decide which mage is going to be the country's next 'living nuke' to uphold the M.A.D contract that was signed after the end of the Great War. No, there was no second war in this world. Magic use developed far faster than the concept of a nuke.
Ever wonder what classes one would have to take to finish this illustrious program? Not really? Well I did. I've decided it's an 8-year program that's essentially a PHD program, since those take about the same amount of time. If you don't get picked to be a M.A.D Mage, you just get a PHD in Magic, which is useful don't worry.
Now within this eight-year program there are seven core classes, of which you have to finish at least 3 years of each before picking five of those courses to stick to until you finish the program. There are also optional courses you can take for extra credits at year three and year five.
If you're genuinely trying to being a M.A.D Mage, these courses are less 'optional' and more 'required' as the top three students with the highest GPAs and Credits (weighted roughly evenly) are chosen to meet up with the top three students of the other two colleges with this program to decide who gets to be the official M.A.D Mage in a final examination. This final examination is largely kept a secret by the government due to political nonsense.
Did I take inspiration from Harry Potter to design this curriculum? Yes? Am I ashamed of myself? No. I am also taking some inspiration from Winx Club because I love it. Moving on to the actual curriculum.
The seven core classes are as follows. They will be listed with eight names for the eight years of classes. One of the classes (Practical Magic) will be listed twice as it is split into two core parts.
Intro to Potioneering -> Basic Salves -> Intermediate Salves -> Basic Potions -> Intermediate Potions -> Basic Antidotes -> Intermediate Antidotes -> Archaic Potions
Numbers of the Universe -> Editing Forms -> Sacred Geometry -> Theoretical Equations -> Foundational Patterns -> Elementary Statistics -> Theoretical Time -> Basics of Entropy
Practical Magic Pt. 1 -> Compositional Transformation -> Sculpting Life -> Animating Life -> Animate to Inanimate -> Fae Transformations -> Impossible Made Possible -> Shifter Theories
Practical Magic Pt. 2 -> Survival Charms -> Aesthetic Charms -> Laws of Movement -> Security 101 -> Dueling -> Dual Casting -> Spatial Modification
(Practical Magic works by taking place twice a week, the first day follows Part 1's path, the second follows Part 2's. You have to take both if you take Practical Magic, thems the rules.)
Ancient History -> Modern History -> Fae Wars and Rivalries -> Famous Mages -> Intro to Theology -> Magical Literature -> Governments of the World -> Rebellions and Wars
Basics of Defense -> Physical Defense -> Mental Defense -> Magical Offense -> Curses and Cures -> Magic Meets Law -> Experimental Curses -> Natural Magic
Herbs and their Uses -> Basic Herbology -> Harvesting -> Extraction and Preservation -> Fauna in Myths -> Dangerous Flora and their Uses -> Sentient Flora
Magical House Pets -> Fae and Familiars -> Magical Etiquette ->Dangerous Creatures -> Magical Ingredients and You -> Ghosts and Ghouls -> The Soul -> Sentient Fauna
Meanwhile the options for additional classes starting in third year are:
- Runes - History of the Dark
- Alchemy - Foreign Culture
- Medicinal Magic -Astronomy
- Future and Fortune - Elemental Affinities
And then the additional classes starting in fifth year:
- Alchemy - Theoretical Telepathy
- Folklore - Laws for Sentience
- Enchanting - Golem Creation
- Magical Maladies - Foci Craft
Now, how much of this will I reasonably use? Well, the game Memoir of the Lost was a life sim before it was a romance/otome game, with the main plot revolving around the mystery of the school rather than the love interests. Of course, this mystery couldn't be completed in game, even with cheating and editing save files, so people tended to think of it as a life sim/romance game instead of a mystery game.
How long could you play a broken game before it stopped working? In this case, the game would become too glitchy to play just after the third in-game year started, about when the players could pick their extra-curriculars (allowing them to grow closer with whatever other character was taking those classes as well).
Due to its status as a life sim, the players did actually have to attend these classes and have their player character study in order to remain in the school. Being expelled for any reason is an automatic game over due to... well... not being able to solve the mystery if you aren't at the school. The game was also known to often soft-lock if you got too poor of grades and were dropped from the M.A.D Mage program.
Jem, our nitwit protagonist, is of (at best) average intelligence and is incredibly poor at making smart decisions. No one should have expected him to solve a mystery, let alone somehow manage to remain in a prestigious program most people train all their lives for even a chance of joining.
This will not go well for him. It will go great for me though. I love rambling about my worldbuilding. What use is a magic college at the primary location of my story if not to ramble about worldbuilding? Talk about a missed opportunity.
Does this mean I will be designing teachers for all of these classes? Some of them, maybe. I definitely have the Practical Magics Professor down pat, Aurelion my beloved. The rest of them are up in the air depending on how much I care and how many of these people make sense to exist here according to the lore.
Mmmmmmm lore.
Anyway, I'm totally normal about this and definitely don't need to go to sleep. Nahhhh. It's fine <3
I was once again thinking about the cosmotology of Main Character Syndrome and came to the realization that the college at the center of Memoir of the Lost is actually like... really messed up. It's not even the only college like that.
This isn't about them being monetarily exploitative though. It's more about... how history has developed when magic is at the forefront of it. Magic is powerful and dangerous with a lot of negative consequences should something go wrong (or, if that's your intention, if something goes right) and the world of Memoir of the Lost is far more earth-based than your standard affair.
For a quick explanation of the cosmology (theology? Idk what the word is)
At the beginning, the end, and forever, is the void. Except the void isn't. By nature the void does not exist because it is there mere representation of nonexistence, the true form of Nothing. But, as the problem goes, you can't just have Nothing. The concept of Nothing only exist in contract to Something.
And so there was Something. 52 Weavers to be exact, eldritch creatures far older and more ancient than the Gods of any given universe, born before the birth of time. They too, technically, were born at the beginning, the end, and forever. It's a chicken-or-the-egg scenario. Which came first?
The 52 Weavers, the Something to give context to the Nothing?
or
The Void, the Nothing that needed a Something to even define it as Nothing at all?
Since both existed before Time, one of the Weavers' earliest creations, technically neither existed before the other. Without time, there is no start and end, no age.
From these Weavers, more somethings were created, strings woven into threads and crotched into the blanket that is the multiverse. Or, well, omniverse? A concept of the universe that is a step above the multiverse and each of the threads are, by themselves, a multiverse. The strings that make up those threads are the universes that form the multiverse.
Two of these strings in one of these threads are the strings that represent Jem's universe and the universe of Memoir of the Lost. The only real difference between these two places is that the universe of Memoir of the Lost has Functional Magic while Jem's universe does not. The difference between functional and non-functional magic is, fundamentally, whether or not a universe is thought to have magic at all.
Does this make any sense?
Anyway.
Despite the presence of magic, the universe of Memoir of the Lost grew almost identically to Jem's universe up until the American Revolution, when magic and war first intermingled. Before that, magic was mostly used for practical, at-home purposes. With the realization that magic could be used for war, an arms race quickly started that resulted in WWI.
Unlike in Jem's universe (which is much like our own), there would be no WWII. Nukes, as a concept, would never be created as it became clear that magic could be far more deadly and far more insidious. MAD was quickly developed and, with it, magic schools were created.
At their highest levels, the collegiate levels, magic schools are essentially training grounds for living weapons. They certainly have other degrees, much like how the military has a degree program, but their focus is honing people's magic to be used in the next generation of living weapons to participate in the MAD contract.
However, each country only has one representative, their strongest mage from their best magic school, the rest either being soldiers or following their degree paths. This has caused quick the competition amongst those with ambition, who's sole goal is to study magic and become the strongest there ever was. You know, the typical Shonen-protagonist dream.
The difference is, of course, is that these people are fundamentally fighting to be a weapon, an object to be displayed and gawked over in order to keep their country 'safe'. It's an incredibly dehumanizing position to have, one that's looks at in equal parts awe and fear. Many of the top mages are more than a little cooky in part because of this treatment. If people treat you like a thing for long enough, it starts to have consequences.
Evan and Curtano are to two competing students to be the next MAD Mage. Both were top of their previous schools, far stronger than the majority of the populace could ever hope to be, the true 1% in terms of magical ability. Evan, however, is just a bit stronger than Curtano.
Evan is also an expert in making it look easy. It's like figure skating or gymnastics. None of it is actually easy but the goal is to make it look effortless.
Curtano, who's struggled and clawed his way into this position from the very bottom, falls for Evan's mask of effortless perfection (which, to be fair, Evan also tends to believe his own bullshit) and he despises Evan for it. They're rivals, enemies, and neither have anything good to say about the other.
Having gotten so close, seemingly about to fail before the finish line, Curtano does something bad. Nothing illegal, of course, just... not very recommended.
Curtano performs a summoning ritual to look for a familiar. Why is that bad? Because you can't control what answers the ritual. If it ends up being stronger than you? It can chain you instead of the other way around. Curtano's ritual summons something very strong indeed, one of the 52 Weavers.
In response to his call for power, twisted by the Void and the natural misunderstandings between an eldritch creature and a speck of dust, the Weaver decides to take pity on this little mortal. The world is twisted, the real made unreal...
And the game begins.
Welcome to 'Memoir of the Lost', an indie Mystery/Romance game known best for it's mystery ending being buggy to the point of being impossible to complete. Why?
Because every contract has an out and the Weaver who answered would truly hate to lose.
Yeah we're fully calling these devlogs now, I refuse to change. Anyway-
Magic in the world of Main Character Syndrome- or specifically Memoir of the Lost- can be best thought of like strings. Musical strings, at that, each one specifically tuned as though on a violin or, given the sheer variety of frequencies, the world's biggest organ. In order to use magic, your own personal frequency must enter a harmony with the specific kind of magic you're trying to cast, weaving these 'strings' in 'yarn'.
This process of weaving takes place during a three step process, easy to learn the basics of in practice but generally much harder to explain. Isn't that how it always works? Things seem simple until you learn about them and then you're just... so wrong.
Inspection:
- The first phase of weaving. Even the least magically sensitive person can perform inspect as it's essentially sending your own magic out into the atmosphere to grasp at harmonic frequencies, like waving your arm to feel a breeze. More magically sensitive people might describe it as playing an instrument and hearing what responds.
- Being the first phase, it's also the least dangerous to mess up. Inspection is merely the process of gathering magic, there's little intent or form to it here. Releasing magic is no worse than breathing out a breath of air. Perhaps it's a bit annoying if it's blown into your metaphorical eye but generally harmless.
Interaction:
- The second phase of weaving and where much of the danger and complexities come in. This is the part I liken most to crochet (or knitting, if you prefer, though I know much less about that and already know only the bare basics of crochet). During this phase, you pull together and layer your metaphorical yarn to form a shape. What shape you make has a direct impact on the spell being cast.
- Shapes that feel 'sharper' tend to be active spells, fire arrows or earthen spikes, while shapes described as 'softer' tend to be more passive, moving water or a gust of wind. What specific pattern does what tends to be tailored to the individual caster though some spells have been generalized. Generalized spells just aren't as effective as personalized ones though.
Expression:
- The last phase where it can really all go wrong. While the other two phases are all about intent, focus, and control, Expression can happen on accident by simply losing track of a spell. It is the act of taking the harmony you've built up, this shaped out shawl of yarn, and turning it into something real.
- A bit like imposing your will onto the world. The world is made of frequencies and now it beats along to the one you created. I'm really mixing my metaphors here. Music or Crochet? Just pick one... nahh.
Now the specific affinity a person has is based on their very soul and doesn't tend to shift throughout their life. While many affinities exist, the four broad categories are separated into different elemental and sub-elemental compositions. These four elements are... well, actually you could probably guess.
Fire, Water, Earth, Air- the classics, yanno? Now the sub-elements are where it gets more interesting. General, if you have a sub-element, you can use the primary elements that make up that sub-element as well, though it may not be as effective as the sub-element proper.
These sub-elements are also split up into categories. Diharmonic, Triharmonic, and Quadharmonic- or twos, threes, and the one four (who's basically the avatar).
Diharmonic elements are: Flora, Lava, Sand, Steam, Lightning, and Ice
Triharmonic elements are: Glass, Storm, and Pressure
The Quadharmonic element is: Gravity
The more base elements needed to make a harmony, the rarer those tend to be.
Now there are a few notable exceptions to this system found in those possessing Divine Favor from the 52 Great Weavers (gods, essentially) who exist to define the empherial void. These exceptions are elements that do not naturally exist within the world who's effects can't easily be replicated by other elements (if at all).
I have a few characters possessing diving favor. While I won't go into who has what yet (though you may be able to guess from my gallery once I finish uploading my backlog), here's the unique harmonies that exist so far:
Shadows (oooh spooky) and Crystals
Yeah, there's only two of them. What? Divine favor is rare!
Now beyond harmonies is the broader categories of magic, which I can also go over briefly since this is very much getting away from me. There are five of these categories. From least to most dangerous to pursue, these are:
- Elementalism (the basic stuff I just described utilizing the elements)
- Transfiguration (turning one thing into another, the base in which Shifters use to shapeshift)
- Construct (making golems and stuff)
- Transportation (going from one place to another, very difficult)
- Summoning (under no circumstances should this be done unsupervised)
And now we're at 800 words and my head hurts, heh. See you in the next log!
Is it weird to call these 'devlogs' when I'm making a webcomic, not a game? But the webcomic centers around a game so it could just be on brand... eh, I'm calling them 'devlogs' and no one can stop me :P
Anyway, onto what this journal is actually about, the relationships present in Main Character Syndrome. So far, I only have six of the, like, seventeen members of the cast worked out but I still can't stop thinking of the relationship between Evan and Curtano specifically. They're actually who inspired me to write this because I adore whatever's wrong with them.
In terms of the game 'Memoir of the Lost', Evan is the most popular route. He's this cheery, boy-next-door type who's really designed to be the first one you pick. He's welcoming, attractive, and always willing to help. Everyone loves him! Especially because he's always willing to help with homework and training.
Curtano hates him. That's okay, Evan hates Curtano too. You'd think this was a standard thing, that of course one of the main love interests on the side of the Main Character would hate the primary antagonist, the one directly standing in the way of solving the mystery, but it's deeper than that.
Once, the two were rivals, you know? Curtano was always the top student in his life, clawing to that position through sheer will alone, practicing until he broke and bled. Evan, meanwhile? He's a natural talent. He's effortlessly stronger than Curtano and not afraid to show that off. I think it's understandable that Curtano would come to hate that. All his effort and for what? To be outdone by a prissy man who never tries?
So yeah, plenty of hard feelings between them, though they pretty one sided. It was only once Evan starting viewing Curtano as a threat to his status that things became more mutual.
And then the incident happened. Ever since then, Evan has become convinced that Curtano ruined his life. Curtano... agrees, funnily enough. He did something knowing full well how poorly it could go and still continued due to the slim chance that he could make it out unscathed. As a result, everything is all tied up in mystery and mystique and misery.
That was a while ago though. By now, the two's relationship can't simple be defined by hate, let alone the little numbers the system uses to quantify Jem's relationships (which I forgot to mention until now). Then again, relationships are far more complicated than words or numbers can describe. Hate is multilayered at times.
For these two, they've spent so long defining themselves in contrast to the other that I think they've forgotten what it means to be themselves. They despise each other yet they would sooner die than be separated for too long. It's a strange codependence, to be reliant on someone who you wouldn't even spit on if they were on fire. I love whatever's wrong with them.
Anyway, I was just thinking intensely about them last night. See you in the next devlog, whenever that is! I'll probably go off about Fifi (who isn't in my Gallery yet on account of the 5 post a day limit, I just got here lol). Have a great day folks!