#definitely need to write a lore bible for idls

[endless-sketching]

Maybe I should make it the title

Identity Least Searched

Or maybe

Identity Last Searched

Just been thinking about how the story really does ultimately start with Zenny's final bit of their arc timeline wise. Prehardlight incident they escape years worth of abuse from their father then was able to form an unbreakable bond with Emi after coming out to them without a single word, then inconvenient timing comes in and wrecks their plan to fully transition by giving them a corporeal form that changes at a slight self conscious thought.

I do want to emphasize how transitioning really does take time, I guess that's why I want to interweave Rosa and Pumpkin's story into this so that as Zenny takes slow but gradual steps to be their better self that we get sweet yuri goodness in between those moments.

Still doesn't help how my main cast is basically all girls lol, it's not like I need to make male characters but at the same time I do need side characters. That and I might as well make that Zenny's bully idea into a pricticious side dude.

Oh yeah, story telling wise: the story starts with Pumpkin's perspective after waking up from a weird dream but you're not shown her dream but a dark rubble filled screen with Emi's muffled screaming searching for Zenny, it needs to stay muffled and really hard to make out all to make it a neat little foreshadow of the Hardlight Incident.

I never really gave Pumpkin a solid story ground aside from her frantic gay panics and her working at her grandma's cafe. I've been thinking of making her a battle artist of sorts, a magic battle artist. The concept is basically fancy fighting for show, that way it works with Pumpkin's shy (I think it's shy at least, it's that bashful reluctantly not drinking at the party then minutes later is the most wasted person kinda deal, a hesitant kind of personality but isn't afraid of doing it anyways) personality and her magic handicap.

I guess in a way I did want Pumpkin to be bullied in a really weird way? Wait no it's alienation, it's the fact that she needs a elemental gemstone to help stabilize her magic. And in this world, even though magic has taken a slight back seat in the modern age of technology, there are still parts of the world that are slightly outdated in their ways so they would often be boastful of how pure their magic is.

Did I ever talk about that great mages concept here?

Essentially it makes it so that elemental gemstones become the world's main source of energy but before the industrialization there were temples across the world of each element. 4 major ones and one that's buried deep. Each temple housed a great mage of each of the respective elements including the light element, but then all 4 of the great mages feared the light element at how almost impervious the element is so they collectively banished it and killed light magic as a whole.

That bulk of lore was essentially how Emi was able to rediscover the light element through odd elemental casting notes and elemental gemstone notes.

And I'm thinking that Emi, Zenny and Luna rediscovers the light temple to see if they can turn Zenny back.

Though I wanna make it so that at this point in the story, Zenny's content with staying how they are now. They just want to shed light to an unfairly restructure of history and push forward light element tech.

There's also a plot line here where each great mages has an apprentice, and the light great mage knew their time was limited so they told their apprentice to run away before the other great mages get them. Which then lead the apprentice to develop the very spell that helped them to alter their form with light magic, a one way magic transformation.

Oh my god this could lead into myths of a light spirit in the deep forest near where the buried light temple is. Which said light spirit is the original light element apprentice in a drastically altered primal owl form.

Hm it does break into a lot of story beats that I need to write more about later.

Yeah I just need to write a lore bible lol.

What I have in mind right now is that the main crew finds relics and artifacts from the light temple that helps them reach out to the primal light owl or understand leftover notes of the light elemental apprentice. It honestly might be better if that owl was the apprentice's pet of sorts. That said owl would appear in random forest backgrounds where it involves Zenny, and the light owl has a big liking to Zenny for being really similar to the apprentice and a light being themselves.

I just really want Zenny to have an owl friend huh

If anything it helps set in stone how old the temples are where everyone from that age is basically dead. Except the light elemental apprentice, the idea rn is they're basically the opposite of Zenny form wise, that despite being able to create light creatures they failed at turning themselves into a light being. And failing such spell has essentially killed their identity. What Zenny had accidentally become was what the apprentice tried to do.

Oh wow I could make it so that the apprentice losing their mage because of the fear of their magic potential mirroring people fearing trans people because of the fear of breaking down the stupid pillars of gender norms. So In turn losing the last person that the apprentice could've confined in had left them isolated by society. That loneliness drove them to advance light magic faster than the other elements but at the cost of also burdening the advancement with the intent of vengeance.

Light magic takes hold of the caster's psyche, the clearer the mind the more powerful the spell will be.

It can also be wielded creatively but that's the case for all of the elements.

So when the apprentice casted the form change spell on themselves, they made sure they were inside the ruined light temple. The spell only failed for them because their mind was tainted by revenge. Resulting in creating a vengeful light spirit instead.

And the idea I wanna run with this is that Zenny faces the light spirit by essentially keeping it into a Steven Universe fusion stasis.

What that means is that Zenny has a conversation with the leftover feelings of the light elemental apprentice by fusing with the spirit instead of fighting it. And what I meant by fusion stasis is that they just become a ball of light that basically went by in a flash for the other people in the room but was a whole ass neon genesis final few episode kind of deal for Zenny and the spirit.

The key part of this thing being a spirit is to firmly state that Zenny chose to stay the way they are, during that conversation with the spirit, they offered Zenny a way to change back but Zenny chooses not to.

Now that I'm thinking about it, this is the same kind of deal the mc from Boku Girl had between being a guy or a girl at the end of that manga. The main nitpicks I had with that manga was how it doesn't explore fully the mc's perspective enough and how it links gender identity with sexual orientation. Like there are parts in the story where the main mc changes back into a guy when they're having feelings for their girl friend crush but then changes back to a girl when they're having feelings for their guy childhood friend.

So when it comes to the final arc to Zenny's character development, I want to write something like what Boku Girl tried to do but firmly disconnect that link between gender identity and orientation. Basically making it so that Zenny turns into a girl when they're feeling feels around Luna is my end goal :p

Alright sleep time weeeeeeeeee