Random OC ramblings

At one point I'd managed to cut my cast of OC's down to 12, that's somehow jumped up to just shy of 20. I've cut back so all of my plots are running on skeleton crew, the number I'm standing at now is the absolute lowest number number of OC's I need in order to make all of my plots work. 

I think the one that's junked my figures a bit is my Lancaster plot as Lancasters had 7 crew members total so I ended up needing to make 5 new characters to fill all the holes. I may end up only making a few of those characters, namely Sparks and Max into full-blown OC's because I'm just not enthused about drawing the rest of the Lanc crew members right now. I think about Sparks and Max a fair bit because I enjoy their dynamic, Hendrix and Beck are on my mind a heck of a lot anyway with Hendrix being my sona and Beck being Hendrix's S/O where as Wes, Frankie and Don are characters I hardly think about. I'm probably probably going to be better off leaving those guys as minor/background characters unless a plot point happens or research (I have a fair bit of literature on certain Lancaster roles as well as several documentaries saved) gets me interested enough I wanna start to poke at that character's role some more.

Last thing I wanna talk about is my sci-fi plot. After reading a comic hiatus notice from an artist I like I wonder if why I'm struggling to do much with my sci-fi plot is down to burnout? I haven't really thought much about those characters for years and going to draw them always seems a chore. Tbh half of them still need (re-)designs which is always fiddly and time consuming even if I'm really in the mood to get designs down which ay be why I'm feeling this way. Of the batch I only really think about Oscar (largely because he's involved with Jasper, William and Friedrich and pretty integral to their plot once they end up in my sci-fi plot), occasionally Werner and rarely Cardinal because the Werner vs Cardinal dynamic fascinates me. I'm also struggling to come up with a coherent plot, I know the themes I want I know the characters I want I just have no desire to actually sit down, put it all together and write it. I also know the lack of plot makes the characters involved seem almost boring even though I have them developed in ways I personally find interesting to work with because with no real plot I can't really use them.

I don't think it helps I've had this plot for well over a decade, it's been through several forms and gone through several large overhauls that I'm just not enthused about doing another big overhaul. It's a time consuming and long-winded process. I don't want to let this plot go as I still think I can make the base idea work, I also don't want the worldbuilding and character development I've already done and like to go to waste but it would almost be easier to start from scratch and re-introduce characters I wanna keep around later. 

Idk I'm not really sure what to do but I def don't want my plots to all be historical, half of why I have a few different plots is because I do get burnt out if I work on one plot too long, my sci-fi plot was my only plot for a good few years and 2 of those big plot re-shuffles happened fairly close together so I do wonder if that's half of where the burnout for that plot has come from. 

Sci-fi is my first love so I really wanna do something very self-indulgent with cool space ships, deep space exploration and time holes within that genre. I just need to sit down and figure out exactly what I want because what I have just isn't really working for me, it's not inspiring me to make new content for that plot the same way my historical stuff does.

As I recently started Megaman Starforce, which seems to have this running concept of "aliens taking over you for certain despair or worry"...I'm happy that it's another series besides Digimon that explores on the despair of these children, haha.

Y'know, my main casts aren't just kids for the ~hobbyani aesthetic~, I ended up sticking with it because I find the concept of magical powers born from misfortunes to be more fitting towards cast of this age range. Like...why are they so worked up over one misfortune and seeks validation from it? Because they're new to these things and slowly accepting despair into their life, and of course it's the only thing they could worry about among anything. (I've state this example multiple times but can you imagine an adult salaryman having to worry about Angel Game when he have so many things to deal with?? Yeah.) 

Though to quote a friend; they're all worked up and blame the Game to cause their misfortunes, but in the end its just a mere "tool" that is said to help you, but you're not obliged to play it. Treat it like an optional baseball bat that you shouldn't use for only baseball. These problems literally started because the antagonist hates the idea of Angel Game being a "game" and think their life meant nothing and is completely taken away by these misfortunes :') (Then again Angel Game was never meant to be a fun sports, it's just human's nature to put a "safe" rule on it, even if it have to be "degraded" as a Game.)

In the end, as Takuto said, the world wouldn't become a better place without Angel Game anyway, its just interesting to see how you'd think people would react if there were visible proofs of their misfortunes, and as much as I don't want to overuse the "kids makes changes to this world!!!!!" kind of trope... Again, I think the current cast is perfect for what kind of plot my story is, haha.

I don't intend on making my own kids anime despite how much I love that genre since childhood, but at least I'm glad to explore this kind of story, and I don't care if it's unoriginal or still have tons of stereotype shounen tropes hahah