User blog:Silver-Haired Seireitou/Supernatural Creature Project

Hello everybody! Hope you are all doing well and with summer quickly approaching, can't wait to relax and unwind. I've come to suggest a possible project that we, as a community, could possibly engage in and could be plenty of fun. But before I announce the idea, let's recap on some things.

State of BFF and TBF
Now, for a while, I've seen a steep decline on both our site, BFF, and our sister site, TBF. And this can be for a number of reasons.

The obvious one being that everybody has their own things going on and the real world is getting all the more productive and busy and whatnot, so there is less time to spend writing on here. And I'm betting this is probably the major factor for a lot of you, including myself as well.

And I wouldn't be surprised if the RPCQE policy is probably cutting down on activity a little as well.

However, the other major factor is most likely because of the downturn Kubo has been taking with the series ever since he began the Quincy arc. It's hard to muster up excitement for the Bleach series anymore when you see its author taking a dump on it with every incoming chapter. And this translates into a lack of desire to work on Bleach-related concepts.

You aren't the only ones feeling this way, I promise you. It's natural to feel this way. No matter how out-of-the-box we think, it is always important to lean on Kubo as a foundation, and when that foundation is extremely rocky and unstable, it's difficult to let creativity and awesome ideas flow naturally onto our works. I'm sure each and every one of us on this site and the sister site are feeling this to some degree, some more than others.

And even though I have faith that Kubo will eventually make a 180 and return to a good track, I don't see it happening anytime immediately.

Bleach: Supernatural Setting
Sometimes it is difficult to think about it, considering that Bleach never goes outside of the "Soul Society", "Hueco Mundo", or "Human World", but we have to realize something.

Bleach is one of those few series that supplies us with a supernatural setting that is potentially limitless. The idea of the supernatural and the afterlife are thoughts that can go so far, it's almost frightening to comprehend all of the possibilities you can do with such a premise, and it has no limits whatsoever if you do it tastefully.

Take a look at some of the things the series has hinted to us, whether it be in the manga's canon or in the anime's filler:
 * The Human World contains several naturally-occurring Senkaimon. Some do go to the Dangai, some do go to Soul Society, but some are said to go to dimensions that are unheard of, unknown... There's no telling what is out there. And this is all over the world.
 * Bleach has stated that special zones in the human world, where the spiritual density is abnormal, can serve special purposes. For Aizen, Karakura Town was abundant with souls, that he could carry out a plan to create an Ōken. But what about other spiritually-enriched areas around the world? In the real world, we hear stories about places like the Bermuda Triangle, haunted islands, "gateways" to Hell... Not to mention places revered as actually spiritual places, like Mt. Fuji. What do you suppose could go on there on a spiritual level?
 * We've seen now that there are two beings that are animals. Yoruichi has the ability to transform into a cat, something Kubo hasn't touched upon nor explained. And then there's Komamura and the recently revealed "werewolf clan", "animal realm", and "human transformation technique".

And these are just a couple things, there are even more. My point is, Bleach has a premise and a setting that FAR exceeds what Kubo has touched upon.

SNC Project
With the two aforementioned sections in mind, I wish to suggest the following project that both sites could get involved with.

The Supernatural Creature Project, or simply, the SNC Project.

As you may have noticed, User:Njalm2, a respected and intelligent user on this site, had created an article about Dragons.

Inspired by his work, I decided to do something similar and I wrote an article about Kitsune.

We both agreed to use my Yuánrǎng dimension as the home of both creatures, and once we did this, I started to wonder on other creatures in Japanese mythology and other sources of mythology as well, and I wanted to work on as many as I could.

But that is a tall order for any one person to do, no matter how interesting it could be. Not to mention, each species of supernatural creatures can be interpreted in so many ways depending on who writes about them.

So, here's a thought. Why not present this as a project for all of BFF to get involved in?

We all pitch in and create an entire WORLD of supernatural creatures, both those that are cemented in mythology or totally made up by your imagination, and make them available to the community. This will allow us to experiment with so many ideas, while serving the dual purpose of offering people on the site different interpretations of supernatural beings that they can also experiment with and create their own characters.

This is also going to be a nice break from the conventional Shinigami, Hollow, Quincy stuff we've been stuck on for a while now.

Process
Here's how the project would work.

Should we proceed in going through with this project, I will make a page that will serve as a list to keep track of all creatures that have been made.

There will be two types.

Creatures that exist already in mythology, such as Yuki-Onna, Tengu, Kappa, and so on. These will need to be reserved by asking me to reserve it under your username so that nobody will touch it but you, and I'll mark it with a tag that says it is a species that will be made for the purpose of this project, so people know it'll be available for use without permission.

I will make it a rule that you can only reserve one species at a time. While you can do as many as you want, I must request that you can not work on another one for this project until you finish the one currently in progress, or unless you give up your claim on one species in order to pursue another species. This will ensure fairness and that everybody has a chance to work on an equal amount of different species. Please use the Kitsune and Dragon articles I linked above as a guide on how to format the page.

And then there will creatures that are totally unique and made-up, based on your imagination. I have no rules with these, you won't need to reserve anything with me for these, but let me know if they will be made for this project so that I can tag them with the special aforementioned template.

When the article has been labeled as "complete" on the list page I'm going to make, it will be open for community use.

Project FAQ
Note: This section may have more added onto it if necessary.

If I write an article for a creature, can other people edit it?
 * No. Once you request to write an article, while others can use the species without permission and they can add the name of their character to any list on the page, they will not be allowed to change any of the content you've written.

Is the article I make for this project mine?
 * If you are making it for this project, meaning that it has been tagged with the project template, it means you are giving it to the community as a sort of donation. So there shouldn't be a property tag with your name on the page. Be mindful that once you do this, you can not take it back, so consider this carefully. However, you will be given credit in the list of species I'll make, so everybody will know you were the one who wrote it and that the content is by you.

'''I don't want my creature to exist in Yuánrǎng. I want them in another dimension or another world, is that okay?'''
 * Yes, it is. There is absolutely no obligation to have your creature live in the Yuánrǎng dimension, especially since I've still not finished the article. Basically, Yuánrǎng is a dimension that, as the name implies, is total wilderness and uncultured lands ranging in different climates and temperatures. But as I said, you can choose where your creature species resides in naturally.

'''I want to make a race of supernatural creatures but I have no interest in letting others use it without permission nor any interest in this project. How does this affect me?'''
 * Not at all. If you don't want to get involved, and would rather make your own species that is solely yours and not connected with this project at all, then go right ahead. There are absolutely no consequences. I am not trying to restrict people to anything with this project, but instead, I'm simply offering a suggestion for the community to work together and pool their ideas together for everybody's use. If anything else, this will spark both interest back to the community's desire to write while also promoting cooperation.

Final Comments
Since I'm not sure if Njalm wants to hand his Dragon article over for this project or not, we'll just keep the Dragon species on the fence until we're sure, so nobody touch it until we figure that out, unless you are making your own Dragon article for your own purposes and not for this project.

Keep in mind that this project is still in the suggestion phase and nothing has been set in stone. I'm merely suggesting it to see how much interest in this project there might be. So I'll await everybody's opinions on the matter. If you have any questions, or anything I said above seemed unclear, don't be afraid to ask.

Thank you. --Silver-Haired Seireitou (talk) 02:07, May 8, 2014 (UTC)