#i can only draw things that already exist and i can copy and it makes me so upset lmao

[alchemiclee]

a bad side effect of being afflicted with Head Empty is when you try to do art, your canvas is also empty, and it stays that way.

[writer-logbook]

How to improve your writing style : a 5-steps guide.

Intro : I love the 5-steps format, don’t mind me. Again, this essay is based on my personal experience.

Read in different genres. Ok, I know you’ve probably heard this advice more than you can count but did you ask yourself why it is so important ? You probably wonder ‘‘How reading some historical fiction will help me writing my sci-fi novel ?’’ For that simple reason my friend : they meet different purposes. You don’t know how to describe a castle ? It’s okay, historical fiction got your back. Because it aims at something more realistic and accurate, it would tend to be more specific and detailed when it comes to describing clothes, furniture, places and so on. Why ? Because, most of the time, THEY ACTUALLY EXISTED. Take a closer look at how it is done and draw your inspiration from it (but please avoid plagiarism it’s bad - and illegal)

Take notes and CLASSIFY them. To make reading somehow useful, you have to actually make it concious, which means you have to write things down to remember them. When I come across a description I like, I tend to takes notes of the figures of speech that are used and class them, so when I have to write a similar scene, I have an idea of what have been already used, and weither or not it achieved its goal. I am NOT talking about COPY another author’s style !!!! It’s about finding inspiration and new approaches. I also tend to take notes of the new words I wish to incoporate into my writing. The thesaurus is my new bestie.

Rewrite the same scene from different POVs. First of all, it’s fun. And it’s a really good way to spot quirky formulations. For instance, if you describe a ship, the captain’s POV should be different from that of a simple observer. The first one would be naming each part princisely whereas the other would only be admiring the surface without knowing anything. If the caption is the same for both POVs, maybe you should consider write your passage again (or have a good reason, like a strong amateurism for the mere observer). It’s go hand in hand with coherence - but it would be an essay for another time (maybe).

Read your text aloud. I put major emphasis on that one because it’s as underated as reading books for various genres. You have no idea how much we DON’T speak the way we write. Even dialogues are crafted in our stories - so make sure to give them proper attention. (i even read my email aloud but-). I KNOW how cringey it might be as I am doing it MYSELF but the benefits are worth the 35-minutes shame I endure from my own mess. Before you can shine, you have to polish (shout out to the one who said that first if it’s not me).

Take a step back. I strongly advice you to let some time pass before reading your text again and profreading it. It will cast a new light upon your work and with fresh eyes you’d be more likely able to spot what needs to be erased or rephrased.

That’s all for me today. Since I would be entering my proofreading phase for my writing contest, the next essay would probably about proofreading (with examples from my own novel ?). Unless someone wants me to write on a specific subject first.

Gentle reminder that I’m still French and not a native so please forgive my dubious grammar and outrageous mispellings.

[shuenkio]

Pov: Tsundere 𝄞⨾𓍢ִ໋ Enhypen ᯓᡣ𐭩

Genre: Fluffy

Pov: Tsundere enhypen

Paring: Enha X male!reader

Do not copy my works (⁠ ⁠˘⁠ ⁠³⁠˘⁠)⁠♥

Heeseung: In the third pov, he's the type of secret admirer, who's possessive, very jealous, and wants you to look at him only. whenever a guy or girl is near you, he's always at the crime scene, standing towering behind you, giving your friends a free dead stare, watching you closely while you are talking to your bff, And you don't even know about his presence in your shadow. He likes to walk you home even when you don't need him to and often gives you a strange signal every time. When you ask him, did he has a feeling toward you he just replies with a simple "Nope" However his actions speak in a different language as away the next day after you ask him. "No one can have you when I'm still breathing yeobo :) "

Jay: The principal's son is a walking fire in the school. He's cocky, flirty, hot temper and loves bully to those who are bad talk about him, only an appropriate is a pass. As soon as you transfer to this school, you draw his attention very quickly, because as the bully he is, he already got bored with the same victims and decided to give you some warm love instead. On the other hand, he's walking to his trap, he realizes that the moment you greet him with a short "hello" his heart almost gets shattered by your soothing voice. Your energy just brings him inside out, even though you're a guy but just by your existence alone, cast an unknown spell on him. Which makes him look awkward-cack-handed handed everytime he sees your face. "S-shut up! You failed the experiment who said I like some poor thing like you...or did i? "

Jake: The nerd guy who likes sports might be talkative to his friends but for you, it's different. Sometimes he likes to give you a hard time while sometimes he gives you a butterfly in your stomach. So confused yet so adorable. Over time, when it's a sports exam day, your p.e teacher assigns you to his team since you're bad at sports. Luckily you know how to play basketball too but not very good at it that much. It's the last match of the basketball game, sweaty, hot, and exhausted but you still keep your head on. This is the only chance to prove to Jake that you're useful too. The ball then passes to you, and you quickly run to the other team's goal, aiming for the net, with a piece of blessed luck you make it but during that time you're knocked by the other team member accidentally. You fall to the ground, slightly nosebleed, before blacking out on the spot. Jake saw you're blackout on the floor, immediately ran to you before lifting you in a bridal style, and sprinted to the nurse's office. later on, when you're awake with a band-aid on your face, you see Jake sitting beside you, watching you sleep. You're about to ask him what happened but he cuts you with "Do not try to impress me again like that, you're weak and y'know it. Just show your face every day is e-enough >:( "

Sunghoon: Laterally he enemies with you, all you do is breathe, still he got those headaches whenever you stand in his shadow. Try to act all cool and mysterious every day so you'd think he doesn't want to talk to you and avoid it at all costs. However deep down, he's watching your every move, secretly taking care of you, giving you the answers during the exam on purpose, nevertheless, you never knew he was doing it on purpose, he's more than happy that you never found out about his suspicious behavior. One day when walking back home, you got bullied by some bunch of bullies, boy didn't spare more time before jumping on them one by one, leaving them on the ground, blacked out. You were scared, bleeding and scratching your face. He then leans closer on his knee to check on you. You asked, your voice is shaking. "Wh-what are you doing here?" - "Shhh everything is okay now, let me take you home!" He ruffles your hair gently before giving you a piggyback to take you home.

Sunoo: This boy is so bad at acting all tough and mean, you know he's just doing it because you thought he wanted to look cool. However, he's still didn't treat you the same as his friend. He hates it when you're in a group project with him, talking to his friends, Don't fear him, and treat him as one of your friends when he does it opposite which somehow makes him feel slightly guilty. This action of his got the best of him when you're not in the class he'd put a snack under your desk almost every single day because he was scared to talk to you, too scared to say sorry and wanna be your friend or even more than a friend? During one fine evening, he asked you to meet him at the school's garden for some serious discussion about a project you both needed to do, it's sound not like a joke to you so you went right away. Once you arrived, you asked him what was wrong. He turns to face you with his tears streaming down his cheeks. He got on his knee and asked for your forgiveness out of a sudden. "Please M/n, I can't take it anymore, let's be friends again no-- I want MORE THAN A FRIEND THIS TIME, I LIKE YOU ALL ALONG-- why don't you know about it?"

Jungwon: A really hot temper one, can't say if both of you are friends or not because sometimes he's sweet and sometimes he's harsh as hell. Randomly staring at you in class non-stop which makes you very uncomfortable. One time during lunch break, when you were going to buy the strawberry milk, it was out of stock the moment you were about to buy it. you've been craving for those the whole day but now it's out? Ruin your lunch mood for real. He saw you wanted that strawberry milk so bad, he decided to walk to you and give you by himself and leave the canteen unspoken any words. Give you a dumbfounded moment. Your friends started to tease you after this scene happened from this day. As the day went on, he started to act more nice and lovely to you, as if he never shouted at you back then. You were stressing out that it could burn your brain until you chose to ask him the moment you saw him somewhere. "Why did I act all nice to you? Are you dumb or an idiot? Do you think I put zero effort before I make you mine?"

Ni-ki: Can't describe this boy how much he hated you the moment you walked into the classroom and introduced yourself. What's worse is the teacher assigned you to sit next to him, he just wants to murder someone on the spot but he can't do anything about it. Time is walking, he hated you but now, after spending some time observing you, he realizes you're just a shy person, everything you do is so soft and gentle, making him wanna swallow you and hide you inside his pocket. It's a pepero day, the day everyone exchanges the chocolate-coated cookie sticks with their friends or loved ones. The whole school is full of students who exchange chocolate together, even the teachers do this. Ni-ki get this opportunity to tell you his true feelings today after he developed a crush on you for a long time, so he decided to give you one while you talking to your friend. "Aww the bad boy give me a pepero, what's makes you want to do this?" You asked while giggling in a good way ofc. He stays silent for a second before finally speaking his mind. "Be my boyfriend dumbass, I can't stand seeing everyone having a crush on you from now on"

🗣️ please mind my English! ><

Reblog and like is much appreciated ♥

Please do not copy my works (⁠ ⁠˘⁠ ⁠³⁠˘⁠)

[mintywolf]

(I wrote this on the train coming home on August 26th although I am just getting around to posting it now because time is a weird soup.)

So okay.

****

I haven’t written a personal journal post in a long time but I want to write down EVERYTHING I can remember about my adventure to NYC to see the Critical Role cast so I don’t forget. It was SUCH a moving experience and I’m so glad I went even though I was scared.

So okay my big goal for this year was to finish the first chapter of my C3 prequel fan comic A Long Road Home (southerngothiccomic.com), have a print edition made, and meet Laura and Marisha at a convention so I could give copies of it to them in person. When the CR cast announced they were going to be at Anime NYC this year I figured that was the closest they were probably going to get to me in Virginia. (And getting autographs at NYCC is reportedly like hunting a unicorn so I figured this would be my best chance.)

I was also terrified, and almost talked myself out of it because I was nervous about giving them the comic, even though I already had a badge and it was what I really, really wanted to do. I know the cast loves to see fanart — and also, it has been revealed, reads the fanfic — but it’s also a pretty well-known taboo for a fan to show their fanfic to a creator and a graphic novel is an unholy hybrid of the two. I was also worried that it would seem presumptuous of me to present them with a fanmade prequel graphic novel because there’s almost certainly going to be an official one at some point, and afraid that at best they might politely tell me they couldn’t accept it (for the reasons that comic writers aren’t “allowed” to read fanfic), and at worst they might be kind of annoyed that it exists. Either way I’d be REALLY sad, and in the weeks leading up to the con I worked myself up into an irrational panic about this. Fortunately my friends managed to talk me into not backing out (and spoilers: it turned out okay in the end!) but I was still very scared.

Also I was so focused on the comic stuff that I forgot until after GenCon earlier this month to think of what I wanted to actually have autographed. I decided to get a big print of the chapter one cover from INPRNT, assuming that since I ordered it two weeks in advance with an eta of 5-7 days that would be plenty of time for it to get to me. Well, reader, it was not. (But please do not let me dissuade you from using INPRNT! To their credit when I contacted them and asked if I could upgrade to rush delivery, they expedited it for free. Unfortunately even with rush shipping it just missed me, arriving at my house while I was on the train to NYC.)

Pâté on the train going to see his biological parents. (Laura and Marisha.)

When I saw that it wasn’t going to arrive in time I was starting to panic because there is nowhere near me to have art prints made. It’s a 15 minute drive (past the alpaca farm) just to get to the nearest grocery store. Grasping at straws I was kind of like Should I . . . draw something? On paper?? With real media that I haven’t used in like 10 years??? I only have 3 days!!!

Fortunately my life was saved by @emphaticembroiderer who had the brilliant suggestion of sending my art ahead to a print shop in NYC and picking it up before the convention. There are indeed MANY of those in New York and I managed to find one that was open on Saturdays and able to make my print on short notice. (567 Framing on W 14th street. The owner, Jack Hu, did excellent work and was very kind!) By that point I was frazzled and didn’t want two of the same print so I decided to be self-indulgent and had this one made. Not my showiest piece but it is one of my favorite things I’ve drawn. (This turned out to be the correct decision.) It’s a 6 1/2 hour train ride from here to there (and it got a little delayed along the way) so by the time I got there it was after 5 and the print shop closed at 6:30 so I zoomed over there straight from the train station to pick it up. It turned out BEAUTIFULLY, and the owner was pleased with how happy I was with it and that he’d been able to help.

He enjoys that he is included.

Then I went and checked in to my hotel and that point really just wanted to lie down on a bed but I had plans to take Pâté to see Hadestown on Broadway that night because I wanted to make the most of my trip. (Also it’s important for our scrungly son to receive a cultural education.) In keeping with the theme of the weekend I wore the Laudna-themed sundress I made for GenCon with one of the poppies in my hair. An usher told me they liked my ensemble. :) I had decided to go for a front row mezzanine seat because I didn’t know when I’d ever have this opportunity again and I didn’t want to risk my miniature self being stuck behind a tall person. It was perfect; I could see everything and the performance was AMAZING. Pâté had a very good time too.

The next day was the CR panel and autographs!! I decided to wear my 1950s Laudna cosplay from GenCon. I had some doubts about it when I got there because without the rest of 50s Bells Hells the theme isn’t as clear and outside of a DnD-focused convention the recognizability of a CR character is kind of low, let alone an AU variant on one. But once I found the Critters my Pâté poodle skirt was appreciated. :)

This is Rach @dadrielle, Astoria @astoriacolumnstaircase, Abby @overnighttosunflowers, and me as 50s Hells at GenCon!

And okay I know this said a lot but it’s true, CR fans are the NICEST fandom to be a part of. <3 If you’re ever standing in line for a CR thing by the time you get there you will have new friends. (For comparison the other-fandoms cosplayers I saw at the hotel and on the way to the con didn’t even return my smiles, even though we were all clearly going to the same place.) I fell in with a group of people who were near me in line (including an amazing Owlbearman cosplayer) and we decided to all sit together. The panel was really great. I don’t remember everything that was asked because of everything ELSE that happened later that day but they hinted that Big Things are coming (including multiple live shows!! Please come to Richmond! Or DC! Or at least somewhere on the East Coast!) for the 10th anniversary and Momlan stepped up to the mic during the Q&A segment and revealed that Sam has achieved his childhood dream . . . to become a minotaur. :D

With the mindset of making the most of this trip I had intended to try to get a spot in line to ask a question but I was hesitant about being on camera (even in cosplay) and while I was dithering about it like 50 people got in line. (I was also Suffering by that point because my rockabilly Laudna shoes have like 3 inch heels and after walking from the hotel to the convention center I didn’t have the fortitude to dart over to the line in them.)

My question, which I hope to submit next time there’s a Q&A opportunity, was this: For Marisha. We’ve seen Delilah’s influence manifesting in Laudna’s fashion choices recently. Now that she has the means and the freedom to do so, what kind of clothes would she choose for herself?

(Because I am a little sad that — until a possible post-campaign oneshot — we’ll never get to see a high-level Laudna costume that’s totally of her own design and I’m really eager to know what it would look like! Let her be spooky and free!)

Afterwards the cosplayers were being rounded up for a photo shoot but I was anxious to get a good spot in line for my autograph with Laura at 2pm so I stealthed away with Ken (@elissabrat), a Jester fan I had met in line, who knew where they were and had one with Travis at the same time. When we got there we were told No, go away and come back in an hour and a half, because it was still only 12. So we went to the Artists Alley where we found a girl named Lea whom we had also met in the panel line and collected a few other stray Critters (Ken has a boisterous and inviting personality and importantly, is very tall, preventing the rest of us from getting lost in the crowd) and we wandered around seeking out all the CR fan artists we could find. (There were a lot! It was great. I got some prints.)

by Cait May and Maliveth

Around 1 we decided to go back and see what the line situation was. Before we parted ways I exchanged twitter handles with Lea, who looked at my profile and said “Wait . . . this is you?”

She told me she was a big fan of my comic and looks forward to it every week! and we were both kind of like !!! at each other for a moment. I had never met someone who recognized my art in the wild before. (On ANY other day this would have been the most amazing thing that happened to me, haha.) I was so touched to meet her. <3

I took out the two books I was carrying and explained why I was there and we all got hyped up about it. And it made it feel a little less daunting, to know that there was someone there who understood the quest I was on and how close I was to the end of it.

I was like 5th in line for Laura and since it was still early I got to participate in that bonding experience integral to every con, sitting on the floor in cosplay, with a very good Vex behind me. (Hilariously, even after the dig at them — or maybe unaware of it — in the most recent episode, there were a lot of Funko Pop resellers around us, haha.)

I sent word to Southern Gothic Discord to remember me fondly in case I died here. In fact I'm not entirely sure that I didn't.

It felt like there was a disproportionate amount of fanfare revealing my print because I kept it how it was packed by the printer, wrapped in paper in between two pieces of cardboard so it wouldn’t get bent, so there was this whole ceremony of peeling back the tape, turning under one of the cardboard protectors, unfolding the paper, and turning over the print. But Laura loved it. She made like a happy sob when she saw it (it was really cute) and she looked at it for a long time taking in all the details and said it was beautiful. <3 <3 <3 (No matter how much we love and ship Imogen and Laudna, NO ONE loves them or is shipping them harder than Laura Bailey. She asked if I was going to bring it to Marisha too and was careful picking out a spot so there'd be room for both of their signatures. :))

I told her I was really happy to meet her because I’ve been a fan since BloodRayne (so, um. 20 years) and she said “oh wow, that was OG days!” And she gave me just a really kind look like she understood how much it meant to me to be there.

Then I gave her the comic. You all were right, I was worried about nothing! because she is the sweetest and she loved it. I very nervously pushed it across the table and said it was a comic I had made and wanted to give her. She picked it up and started turning the pages and was surprised when she saw what it was. “Wait, this is a whole novel! You made this?”

I confessed that I had, and she asked how long it had taken, I told her about a year (it was actually longer; in the moment I kind of forgot not how many pages there are in the first chapter but how many weeks are in a year) and she looked just really impressed that I had made it and touched by how much work had gone into it. She said she couldn’t wait to read it and seemed really excited to hear that it’s still going online! (So no pressure on me there if she's keeping up with it now, haha. o.o) And she kept looking between the book and me like she couldn’t believe it.

Then she asked me if I would sign it for her. :')

Somehow I survived long enough to do so! (a little wobbly because my hands were shaking) and someone (I think it was the ticket scanner) made a joke about how I was the first person to give an autograph at a signing, haha. And then she came around the table and gave me a hug. <3 <3 <3

After that my soul was still on the ethereal plane but the rest of me managed to find my way (after a brief wrong turn) to Marisha’s line. (There was a really good Keyleth and Caduceus in line behind me and they kindly noticed and returned the Pâté sticker that fell out of Marisha’s book).

She recognized my cosplay as 1950s Laudna right away! which was very validating after my earlier indecision haha. She loved the Pâté skirt and thought the scissors embroidery on my collar was adorable. She really liked the art too and was kind of like “Awww” about the book like in an “aww it’s an Imogen and Laudna thing” kind of way (she also liked the glass bottle windchimes on the cover and I love that she noticed that detail because Laudna’s penchant for turning things other people have thrown away into arts and crafts is one of my favorite aspects of her character) until she opened it and started looking through it.

Then she said, “Wait, this is actually really good," and she asked me seriously if Liam “Art Dad” knew about it (I said he had liked some of my other art on Twitter but I didn’t know if he knew about the comic) and then she said — still looking at it, more to herself than me — “We’ll have to add it to our art catalogue.” I don’t know exactly what that means (and I don’t want to get my hopes up too high by speculating; I was too !!! in the moment to ask and now I’m going to be wondering) but . . . it sounds . . . exciting??

They also both enjoyed Pâté and his lil sunglasses. :)

I had gone up with the intention of asking my other burning question: How does being cold-blooded affect Laudna in cold climates? If she gets too cold will she enter a state of brumation like a lizard? Will she freeze solid?

But I forgot. And it really wouldn’t have been the right moment. Maybe when I come back with Volume Two. :)

You’re supposed to pay extra to get a quote put on there but they both did it anyway without even asking. I think they must be really pleased when someone brings them something personal that they’ve made to have signed and not something they’re planning to sell.

After that I just kind of floated away from the con even though it was only like 2:30 haha. Nothing else could have happened there that would have equaled or improved upon that experience. Although I did adopt a Tentacle Kitty. The vendor (correctly) guessed “you look like you’d vibe with our spooky collection” so I had to get a new buddy for Pâté. (50s Laudna, still readily identifiable as a witch wherever she goes.) Also I saw a very chill emotional support pomeranian in a backpack.

(On the way back I saw the mark of the Traveler graffiti’d in green on the sidewalk. Truly a blessed day. :P)

Afterwards I just sat on the bed in my hotel room amid the floof of my crinoline wondering what even is my life for the next few hours and being like !!!! at Discord. Then I met up with Abby (whom it was wonderful to see again!! thank you so much for coming to see me) for dinner and had a really lovely time going over the What Just Happened of it all and talking about Imodna over strawberry pancakes. As one does. Perfect ending to an amazing day. <3

It was SUCH an incredible, exhilarating experience, thank you everyone who pushed me into not giving up out of fear. Laura and Marisha are SO nice and gracious in person and it was just so rewarding, after all the work and love and time I’ve put into this comic, to be able to finally bring it to the people who inspired it! And to see it appreciated and admired by them! It was more than I ever could have imagined.

This fandom is the best. My heart is so happy and full of love right now. <3 <3 <3

[jumpscaregoose]

tss is kind of a weird manga if you think about it. I've been doing that a lot

its main goal is to be a sequel to flowers, and in that a sequel to the original shaman king, but then you read it and that's. really just the tip of the iceberg. tss is already a confusing, messy story if you know what it's doing, but if you go into it only having read og shaman king and flowers (like I did the first time around) you are going to be so lost

takei has this habit of reusing characters and concepts in his work, he's been doing it literally since the beginning. if we're counting each one separately (including alumi), he's written five anna the itakos. the anna that shows up in butsu zone is almost identical to anna from the original oneshot. he does this reduce reuse recycle thing in shaman king too, most obviously with anna and gandhara. and of course this continues into the mainline sequels.

flowers is interesting in comparison to tss, because it is a shaman king sequel in the way you'd expect. it repeats many of the same characters and plot beats as the original (apathetic main character, itako no anna fiance, edgy rival with a goth older sister). hana even mentions a few times that he doesn't want to relive the same beats as his father. compared to tss, the prior work flowers draws on the most is shaman king. for a few chapters. because then we get yahabe.

yahabe is probably the cleanest copy paste into the shaman king universe, excluding butsu zone. it was a oneshot that wrapped itself up after clearly defining its premise while leaving room for the story to continue. except, instead of this continuation being a full yahabe serialization, we just get yosuke in shaman king. yahabe!yosuke and mankin!yosuke could exist on the same timeline, and with how the flowers anime reuses shots from the yahabe manga and ova, that feels like what's supposed to be canon. any deviations from the shaman king canon in yahabe itself can easily be explained away by yahabe being from yosuke's perspective as a non-shaman who doesn't know what the hell is going on. he integrates so cleanly into flowers I didn't even know he was from something else until earlier this year. the same thing applies to death zero, because I fully forgot that was a different thing while writing this.

so flowers has shaman king, and yahabe, and death zero, and it sets up the main plot. and then there's tss.

tss is completely incomprehensible if you haven't done at least 30 chapters of external reading.

or, it's comprehensible, but it's also bad. the reading experience is made so much worse if, for example, you haven't read ultimo and don't know how terrifying not-stan lee actually is. or how important the themes of ultimo are to tss itself. ultimo is a conversation on the objectivity of good and evil, in the same way tss is a battle of ideologies between gods. if you haven't read ultimo, the dong family comes out of absolute nowhere and make even less sense then they do with context.

and then there's senju. the page where senju, when asked what he's learned on his 40 (20 in real actual life) year journey, smiles and says he "can't save people after all" is probably my favourite moment in anything takei's ever written. the weight of that statement means nothing to the reader who's only come from shaman king, because the senju we see in shaman king is sati saigan's spirit ally and nothing else. "I can't save people after all" is an answer to the main thesis of butsu zone, an answer given decades after that manga was cancelled to a collection of readers who might not even know what that is. it's an impactful moment if you've read butsu zone, if you know how it was cut short before takei could take the story where he wanted, if you know the creator has been writing about the same things, about the state of the world and doing what's right and how there are no bad people who can see ghosts, for decades. it makes you think about the thing you're currently reading, the sequel to the one story that author told that made it, that got to say its piece.

because takei's work is kind of cursed. his manga are frequently cancelled, his oneshots never picked up for serialization. the magazines his sequels run in getting cancelled themselves, leaving his stories in limbo. even shaman king, his most successful work, only got its true ending years after it concluded. there is so much in takei's work that has gone unsaid.

when senju stands in front of daremoine and says he can't save people, it's satisfying. it may have been what takei set out to write in 1997, or maybe it was something he thought of in the years between, but either way. this is the ending of butsu zone. this is how its theme's conclude. in the sequel to the sequel of a manga from which its original protagonist was a side character, and underdeveloped plotline. and when you've read butsu zone, it feels good, it feels complete. it hits you like a ton of bricks

this is why I think flowers and super star lose people. because they aren't sequels to shaman king. they're sequels to everything takei has ever written.

to get the most out of super star, you need to have read not only shaman king and its spinoffs, not only flowers, but butsu zone and ultimo and yahabe. hell, to understand shaman king you need to have read mappa douji, or the entire ending falls flat on its face

if you lean into it, this creates an interconnectedness to takei's work, a sense that what you're reading right now is a part of something bigger. whatever is being contemplated currently ties into a much larger conversation about society and morality spanning one man's entire career.

if you don't, you get... a bunch of messy stories. tss makes no bloody sense half the time. ultimo is insane enough on its own, and you're supposed to keep track of that and all the little changes that fit it into this timeline? not to mention the flaws in takei's writing itself, how he tends to pace things weird and leave gaps in his stories, all of it makes tss specifically pretty inaccessible to the average reader.

what is there to take away from this?

I'm not sure, really. I love tss, a lot actually. I enjoy the sense of discovery that comes with engaging in this twisted knot of a story. I think that if you tried to read tss with only shaman king and were frustrated, you should check out yahabe and ultimo and especially butsu zone and try again. you might still think it's a mess, but I think it's worth it to see if that's what lost you

but I know that's also a big ask, that's over 80 chapters of manga to read just to have the backstory for the insane stuff in tss. not everyone's up for that, and that's fair

do I think tss would be more accessible if it only drew from shaman king? yes. do I think it would have been better?

no

[dingodad]

Does anyone remember that Lord English himself isn’t even composed of the original versions of the souls that make him? He’s the son of paradox clones, right? That means B2 Jack is the one who actually contains the original souls of Lord English, since he was directly possessed. English has been diluted by being a paradoxical copy, and being part cueball. His creation is not unlike that of breeding Genesis frogs. (The end frog does not chronologically branch off from the original frogs, he is a paradoxical copy of all of them combined. I’d argue that he’s almost like the inverse to a Genesis frog.) So the destiny of the original Caliborn, Equius, Lil Hal and Gamzee is to be decapitated by Dave and explode into a black hole. Caliborn brags about how he will become all powerful, but he will doesn’t get to do that. The paradox slime version of himself born in a lab is destined to become the laser skull epilepsy pharoah hulk man, not him. Not that any of this really matters or changes that much, I just noticed that it was odd. This all adds up right? I didn’t forget anything that would make this not make sense?

you are, on a technical level, completely right: at no point in the Pharaoh Hulk's* timeline was he ever literally Lil Cal. he emerges straight from Doc Scratch, who was only ever a clone of Lil Cal. but you're making a critical error by thinking of the Hulk and B2 Jack as if they're meant to be two different guys.

*I've always known this iteration of Lord English as the "Mobster Hulk" version - google seems to be telling me it's basically only my posts that use this phrasing but I'm guessing I must have picked it up on the forums.

I won't give you the long-winded explanation about Ultimate Selves and how it's the idea of a person that matters more than the specific body they inhabit because I already have about a dozen posts on the subject and I'm sure everyone's sick of hearing it by now. so I wanna focus on two specific and related reasons why "Real Lord English" and "Copy of Lord English" is a false dichotomy, based specifically in an area of Homestuck's worldbuilding that doesn't really get talked about so much:

Jack Noir's version of Lil Cal is just a copy too! Roxy banished the one containing Lord English's soul into nonexistence, so that in Caliborn's words it will "FLUTTER THROUGH THE SHADOWS FOR ETERNITY. SURFACING IN THE NIGHTMARES OF THE UNSUSPECTING." Gamzee is not a Thief of Void, he can't steal things back out of the darkness; he's simply a psychic whose chucklevoodoos can "amplify fears through dreams." The Lil Cal that emerges in Dave's dreams, is adopted by his Bro, and one day makes the journey to Jack's prison cell is just a manifestation of Dave's fear of puppets; the one that Roxy banished is still out there.

First rule of jujus, bro: "THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE!" "if there ever appears to be more than one of the same, it is only a mirage of caUsality!"

cultured readers will be able to draw the line between the two phrases i've put special emphasis on. Homestuck uses the terms existing terms "voodoo" and "juju" to deliberately evoke an anthropological concept which is found around the world but is most pop-culturally associated with African and Afro-Carribean spirituality: Lil Cal is a fetish. his power comes not from the fact that he is composed of some special material (or because, as you suggest, he has some kind of unique or special genes), but from the fact that spiritual power is ascribed to him. think of a religious idol; there can be a million idols to the same one deity, but the power of each idol will be exactly the same, because each has the same spiritual significance.

put in overly-simplistic terms which aren't necessarily accurate but speak to a recurring theme in Homestuck: a juju works because of the belief that it works.

this is what Calliope and Caliborn mean when they speak of "bad juju", some kind of mystical force which Lil Cal is filled with. the "juju" isn't the object at all; it's an enchantment associated with the object. Calliope says a juju can't ever be destroyed, and yet Lil Cal is torn to shreds and repaired on multiple occasions - it's the magic, the juju, that persists. this is the only way an object with a self-perpetuating origin could possibly exist, or else the object would just keep becoming more and more worn with each loop of its timeline.

Scratch and Caliborn both say it: "Instances of [Scratch] have spawned in countless universes", just as Lil Cal will continue to infiltrate the dreams of infinite children and take Caliborn "FROM UNIVERSE. TO UNIVERSE. TO UNIVERSE." importantly, it's implied actually quite early on in the comic that you can't really "clone" a "soul", because paradox clones kind of follow similar rules to jujus; there can only be one TRUE clone, who will always travel back in time to become their own origin, and all other clones are "MALFORMED MUTANTS" with no bearing on the timeline. so the exact circumstances through which Cal arrives in each universe, be it via ectobiology or clown voodoo, don't matter: every copy is either a) inert or b) actually the same Lil Cal at a different point in its circuitous timeline.

in other words - thanks to a time loop of his own orchestration! - all versions of Lord English have to be decapitated and/or collapse into a black hole at the end of their lifespan because they all have to ultimately return to the void. you're really not that far off the mark in that there is a tragedy in the fact that Caliborn believes he will "GET STRONGER. AND OLDER. AND BIGGER. AND BUFFER!" each time he destroys a universe. the tragedy is just that he thinks turning into Mobster Hulk is the end goal when in fact by making himself immortal he has ensured there IS no end goal: he's trapped being reborn as new Lil Cals in new universes forever and ever. no matter how many brief excursions he takes out into the universe to play the villain, his essence is trapped in the void for all time.

[derww]

DAY 16: WOUND

CW: Suicides, god complex, unreliable narrator, dead dove

– I don't understand, – Vi states. He's almost annoyed – the key word is "almost." In time with his tapping on the table, a space storm is raging outside their base, – why?

The world that stretches out in front of him, despite its apparent minuteness, is detailed to the smallest things, a real work of art: from the way the crowns of the trees and meadow grass move in the wind to the finest elaboration of the texture of the stone. This is a masterpiece, a magnum opus, but it only further irritates Vi. He clicks his tongue and shakes his head. A ban message is displayed on the console in front of him.

– This won't work, – he grumbles, returning the world to the last savepoint, – this is wrong, everything should go differently, – and restarts the world, returning it to its usual state of complex synergy, – what the hell is wrong? – he asks, tapping his foot restlessly, while life is in full swing again in the world, similar to a very distorted reflection of the present. Somewhere out there, under the night sky, Vi hugs Zam and says how glad he is that he is there with them. His head is decorated with a floral wreath.

The real Vi paces, clearly bothered by circumstances, until he freezes, riveted by the sight of his double inside that universe, who strokes Zam’s head and wishes him sweet dreams. He thinks about the decision for a while, but then remembers that he knows better than anyone and sets himself up to make a spatial jump. However, there is nothing difficult about it – this time it is only an astral journey.

It's strange, being in the body of pseudo-Vi. Not because this copy isn't accurate enough, but because that's who he was while he was still a player. He has clear boundaries of body and mind again; his fur is hard somewhere, tangled somewhere, cut with bumps of battle scars, and his body stubbornly gravitates to the earth, as if depending on it, leaving him even too grounded. This all leaves an itchy discomfort – not enough to be outraged, but enough to be annoyed. 

And he could disintegrate this Vi and embody his true image, or simply rebuild this body at the pixel level, unnaturally and arbitrarily distort it enough until he achieved the desired result. But he is not here forever, just for a moment for him and for this world, and he will need to return this body to the pseudo Vi in a sufficiently undisturbed state so that he does not go crazy. So he leaves it as it is. He's going home. He doesn't remember the way.

He's a bad actor, but playing himself is different. He's already lived through all of it. He won't make a mistake. And even if he does, he always has the opportunity to simply turn back time. He's not risking anything. What's the difference? Subz silently waves at him, and Zam sleeps on his shoulder, and it's all so peaceful that Vi feels annoyed. He says "Good night" to Subz and goes to his room, into the tangle of holes and catacombs with a black bed in the center of the bunker at the bedrock, and with a snap of his fingers materializes a book in his hand. On its first page, there is a direct request not to read further. He flips through it without hesitation.

And... Zam, looking at him from the pages of his personal diary, sounds happy. He shares how glad he is to be on the team, that he has finally found peace with himself and with the world around him and no longer feels the need to run away from anything. He describes their long walks and how they sleep together, intertwined in a tangle, about regular golf games with the Pangi and watching cartoons with the Planet, about leisurely evenings where he just allows himself to exist, and about the fact that he can finally start to draw. His life is good – no, his life is wonderful! He got out of the cycle of violence and found himself and people who love and appreciate him!

Vi smiles with satisfaction, closes the diary, and it disappears from his hands, returning to Zam's enderchest. That's good. That's great. Maybe he doesn't need to interfere at all? Everything is going smoothly this time. He can just admire the performance and then come back and never think about this stupid project again.

And hey, he's capable of playing himself! It's easy; Subz and Zam don't even notice anything. He participates in all their silly activities, hugs, and smiles and even remembers how to cook to bake them a cherry pie. And, of course, he looks at Zam from time to time, but he's fine, smiling and laughing and hugging him and enjoying life, and eventually Vi stops thinking about it. I'll stay here for a month, he decides, make sure of everything, and get out of here. He still had more important things to do, after all.

They have a game night right in the hall of the base – almost half of the server comes, and it's a lot of fun and all that, but Spoke stares at Vi all the time, without blinking or smiling. He does not try to talk to Vi, knowing that it is useless, and only stares, stares, and stares, absolute in his insignificance of meaninglessness. Vi smiles back at him. Not that this Spoke could do anything. He was just a mortal. Vi was the god. 

He spends long hours just being with Zam – they help each other, spend time together, discuss anything, sleep, and just stay silent. Subz is also here at least half of the time, but Vi barely pays attention to it. 

One day, he lifts the lid of an old piano. Has it always been here? What's the difference? Zam is also here, facing him, with an easel set up. He draws while Vi plays, and they both mumble a tune to themselves. Vi does not even remember what composition he is playing; his hands move by themselves from memory, as if he has no control over what is happening at all, and he just lets it be. 

The ending leaves him unsatisfied, so he plays new and new melodies, taking them out of the trash of his muscular memory, skips the moment when Subz comes, and smiles, listening to the clear notes. Vi stops only when he no longer wants to play, and Zam and Subz applaud together and tell him how cool he is and how much they liked it, and Vi is instantly distracted from the piano, and the three of them are going on their planned fishing trip, but something pulls Vi to finally turn around before leaving and.

There is an easel in an empty room. On the easel is a canvas mounted on a stretcher. It is covered with catchy and thick acrylic. It's him – soft colors, fox ears, lowered hood. He's in a close-up shot, and he's smiling at the viewer. Behind his back is a tangle of blue, light blue, and purple.

Something is wrong, Vi thinks distantly, and his throat goes dry. Have I ever looked so happy?

***

Life goes on at the same pace. There's nothing going on here. No disasters, no battles. It's almost a vacation, Vi thinks ironically, and reaches out to poke Subz in the side. Subz, still asleep, grumbles with displeasure and turns over on the other side. Very little later, Zam brings them breakfast with unleavened bread and coffee in bed, and they watch a movie together and play UNO, and then they go back to bed and just lie around, lazily exchanging thoughts and ideas. 

And this is... so good. just to be happy. Just to live. No violence, no deaths, no betrayals. A quiet life belonging only to themselves, in which there is no place for unfair play, in which there is no point in playing dishonestly. I don't know what went wrong before; Vi thinks and yawns, but now it's gone. As always, I saved everyone. A couple more days, and you can come back. Pseudo-Vi can handle it himself; it's nothing complicated.

He falls asleep without thinking about anything at all. He wakes up to the chilling hum of the ban. It doesn't take him long to find Zam hanging in his room.

What.

And he's- he's angry, he's annoyed, he's disappointed, and what comes through is he's confused. Thinking, Vi asks himself not why, but how he dared. He doesn't bother talking to Subz or taking the body out of the noose and instead calls up the console and rewinds time.

First, to the most recent savepoint. He talks to Zam, he gives him gifts, he does not leave him for a moment, and Zam is still gentle to him, and he is absolutely happy, but still – maybe not immediately, maybe after a couple of days, but he kills himself. Escapes his supervision. He stabs himself with a knife, he throws himself off a mountain, and he boils himself alive in lava. Vi puts himself on a suicide watch, and a week later Zam drowns himself in the sink. After that, Vi decides that he needs more time. He goes back on a week. Then on a month. And on and on and on, much earlier than the moment when he himself found himself in this scenario for the first time, and he does anything, and it's absolutely fucking useless.

WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU, he shouts at Zam, barely managing to take him off the noose this time. AREN'T YOU HAPPY. ISN'T THAT WHAT YOU WANTED SO MUCH? STOP BEING SO FUCKING STUBBORN.

This almost-real world crunches under his palms, crumbling into shreds, and the Wormhole spins with all her might under their feet.

I'm sorry, Vi, Zam says bitterly, and his hands and face are covered with cosmic burns, I'm very, very sorry. He dies before Vi has time to ask him about anything else. He throws his corpse aside, restarts the world from the very first savepoint, and teleports away from here to his real base, which has become so alien. This time, Subz are here. He waves at Vi.

– I don't understand,– Vi repeats, clenching his fists in impotence and still staring at that world, – Why? Why? Why?

Subz looks at him with sad eyes and silently shakes his head. He seems to be... feeling sorry. But why pity him?

[hordraomin]

Krita tutorial the way I know it.

Basics: What is where.

Gimmicks.

Specific advice on specific tools.

Basics: What is where.

Upon opening the program this is what you're met with. First of all, must comment: The layout is HEAVILY editable so you can just drag menus anywhere you want, even leave them floating amidst the sheet you're drawing on.

You can create custom art templates, I have two o'mine here as both have my signature background color.

As well, you can edit the custom document settings, as in what size you want it, what resolution, even the initial content of the image. As well you can create from clipboard: Just copy some image from your browser and Krita will recognize it (useful for making meme edits lol).

Now, once you have your file, I will show you what is where.

Brushes:

Brushes are easy to edit and there are tons of free bundles to download online. I myself only got one bundle, Jackpack (bit hard to find now due to original source being lost, it is still available but bit tricky to come by).

There. Are. Tons.

Some of these are my custom brushes for calligraphy in neography, you might even guess which ones. You can edit existing brushes, make new ones from the ones you've edited without changing the original, and all sorts of stuff (more below in the third chapter).

There are numerous packages of brushes once you enter Krita, but only one/two are available when you first open it. To unlock them all, click here:

And make sure all bundles are dark gray in color (example of both dark and light below).

Now Tools Options: those will pop up depending on what tool you're using.

Symmetry: Fun stuff. You can drag the lines depending on how you need them and then center them back to the center of the screen if needed.

Gradients and Textures also have their tools options, you can play with those to get the feeling what they can do (more in third chapter).

The Filters tab is useful too. Blurring, motion blurring, color mapping, artistic filters and all that: Quite fun.

Gimmicks.

Krita allows you to customize your workspace freely. Floating menus, tabs, anything you want. It has quite many drivers at that-

To access the workspace templates, go to Window and choose Workspace.

Krita allows for copy-pasting any image onto the sheet. Though, for me it sometimes crashes if I accidentally copy-paste text into it without choosing the Text tool first.

The software allows for both raster and vector work. It is basically Photoshop sharpened to be used by artists primarily.

There are some interesting mechanics regarding the Eraser (default bind E).

You can use it with any brush, allowing for textured erasure/quick work. Good for sketching.

You can use it on gradients (given there's a transparent point on the gradient preset).

There's a Multibrush tool:

People say Krita is good for animation but my brain can't wrap around it yet honestly @~@.

The keybinds:

B - Brush tool.

E - Erase tool option.

M - Mirror (useful for checking accuracy from a new angle).

Ctrl - Color pick (when used with brush or other color-using tools).

Shift+L.Mouse+drag - Changes the size of the brush by dragging left and right.

Ctrl+E - Merge layer with the one below.

Ctrl+G - Group selected layers.

Ctrl+A - Select whole sheet.

Ctrl+Shift+A - Deselect everything.

F - Bucket tool.

G - Gradient tool.

Ctrl+S - Save document.

Ctrl+Shift+S - Save As document.

Ctrl+N - New document.

Ctrl+O - Open document (will be seen in a new tab on top of the sheet).

Ctrl+C - Copy selected layer or selection.

Ctrl+X - Cut selected layer or selection.

Ctrl+V - Paste copied/cut layer or selection.

Q - Multibrush tool.

R.Mouse - Interesting thing: Opens up a quick selector for brushes and colors you've already used in the piece.

1 - Zoom 100%.

2 - Zoom to fit the piece vertically.

3 - Zoom to fit the piece horizontally.

4, 5, 6 - Turn 15 degrees (4 and 6) or undo the turning whatsoever (5).

Ctrl+I - Negative filter applied to layer.

Ctrl+U - Color editing on the layer.

Ctrl+Y - Soft proofing mode (for color mistakes and stuff like that, mostly annoying for me tbh).

Ctrl+T - Transform selection/layer.

Ctrl+R - Square select tool.

Ctrl+J - Lasso select tool.

Honestly you can just hover your mouse over tools and see their shortcut binds, as well. Or edit them in Settings.

Specific advice on specific tools.

Brush:

Brush editor is a great tool for making custom brushes, and it even has a sratchpad to test them out. Lots of settings, but no need to be afraid; Most of them you might never use on purpose.

Use Brush Smoothing for great and pretty lines in lining pieces or making calligraphy.

Gradient:

The four icons to the right top are:

Mirror gradient.

Arrange by lightness value.

Arrange by color value.

Space the stops evenly.

Click the gradient to add a new stop. The three things to the left are:

Make the stop use Primary Color.

Make the stop use Secondary Color.

Make the stop use a fixed color.

[jasper-pagan-witch]

The Modal Commander Servitor

An approach to a Magic: The Gathering servitor subtype. This is one of my UPG-filled personal projects.

There are many approaches to making a servitor. There are ways to advance that servitor straight to thoughtform. There are even ways to make an egregore with other magic practitioners. So that’s not what this post is about, though I will leave resources at the bottom for that [1]. This post is about using pop culture in tandem with magic to make a servitor even more powerful. I’m warning you now, we get well into the mechanical weeds of Magic: The Gathering in this one.

The thought came to me a while back in a Discord server with some magic-practicing pals. I got the idea to use my Magic: The Gathering Commander decks as modal spells (more on this term later), which then turned into ideas for making them servitors. To quote myself,

But more to the point, the idea of a Commander deck is that you have a central Guy in charge of particular Things and you typically build the deck around that, so why not treat the central Guy as a servitor empowered by the tools built into the deck (in the form of supporting cards) to accomplish a goal, and it’s empowered every time you play the deck. It’s basically outsourcing magic bullshit to eldritch monsters from between the planes, a toddler cactus person, several pirates, the gods’ most unfortunate bisexual, and a lawyer.

And then I put the idea aside for a while. Summer, my fallow period, happened. But when I came back to my practice near the start of autumn, I found myself revisiting servitor/thoughtform ideas, which prompted me to return to my old notes on Modal Commander Servitors, the Hireling Sliver Hivemind Linking Sigil System (SHILLS), and Echo Summoning. We’ll only be focusing on the first in this post.

But let’s start at the beginning. The crux of this servitor is that it is the Commander of your Commander deck, so let’s talk about the Commander format.

The Commander format (as officially known by Wizards of the Coast aka WOTC) is also called Elder Dragon Highlander or EDH. It is a casual multiplayer format with a competitive form known as cEDH. You have a deck that is 100 cards strong, and with the exception of basic lands, you can only have one copy of a card in your deck. Commander is centered around a Legendary Creature (or, more rarely, a Planeswalker) who exists in the “command zone” separate from the main deck but that still counts towards that 100-card limit. Under certain circumstances, you can have two Commanders (such as with the Partner, Partner With, Friends Forever, Choose a Background/Background, or Doctor’s Companion mechanics). You start at 40 life, and if you end up at or below 0 life, or you take 21 points of Commander damage from a single Commander, you lose the game. Your deck’s available colors are restricted only to your Commander’s color identity – every color that appears in their card, not just the ones in their initial mana cost. [2]

There’s a lot more to it than that, but for the purposes of this post, we’ll be focusing on your Commander itself rather than its format.

Depending on your approach to pop culture entities (PCEs), you may already see them as faces of existing entities (such as Karametra being a face for Demeter) or as embodiments of archetypes (such as Bertram Graywater embodying the “corrupt lawman” of the Western genre). However, these are far from the only approaches. My personal approach is “everything is already so goddamn weird, so why wouldn’t they exist”. Luckily, when creating a servitor, we’re not drawing on an existing PCE. Instead, we’re forming our energy into the shape (and sometimes personality) of one!

In the meta sense, a player of Magic: The Gathering is a planeswalker (a mortal with a spark in their soul that allows them to travel to other planes and access the magic of other planes even if they aren’t there), battles with other players are duels with other planeswalkers, and their deck represents their allies – other planeswalkers they can call in favors for aid with, creatures and allies they can summon for help, and spells and other resources they have at their disposal. [3] Therefore, your Commander is your greatest ally who can help you in this duel, one whom you can keep resummoning easier than others (as seen by the command zone being a separate zone from the graveyard). The crux of this format, in a meta sense, is that your Commander wants to help you. So why not make it into a servitor, a type of energyform, so it can help you for more than merely games?

Okay, so we’ve covered the Commander, and you presumably already read up on servitors and thoughtforms recently. But what about that other word, modal? Modal is an MTG mechanic that gives you the choice of two or more effects of a spell or ability when it’s cast or otherwise put on the stack. Modes are the different effects you may choose on a modal spell or ability. There are keywords that add onto it (escalate, entwine, and spree) that allow you to pick more or all of the options at once. [4] If you’re worried about what “the stack” is, don’t, it’s not actually relevant for what we’re doing with this servitor. Not even MTG players understand the stack. The point is, modal means options, and the only thing better than good stuff is options for good stuff.

So let’s put all of these definitions and mechanics together. A Modal Commander Servitor is an energyform stored in a Legendary Creature (or Planeswalker) card in charge of a Commander deck who uses the cards and resources in the deck (or otherwise given to them) in order to adapt to whatever you need it to do. They’re created like normal servitors and can draw on the same energy sources as normal servitors, but they can also draw power from the lands in their Commander deck. They can be empowered by both magical and in-game usage. The deck theme and archetype (such as an Otter Typal deck for Bria, Riptide Rogue or a Ninjutsu Theme deck for Yuriko, the Tiger’s Shadow [5]) also tie into and empower the Commander as both a Commander and a servitor. Sure, you can build a deck completely divorced from its Commander, but you’re kneecapping yourself and your Commander by doing so.

Let’s circle back to the Partner mechanic. It appears in multiple forms – Partner, Partner With, Friends Forever, Choose a Background and Background, and Doctor’s Companion. These abilities give you the ability to have two Commanders for your deck, with caveats.

Let’s start with Partner, the broadest form of this mechanic. Any Commander with Partner can team up with any other Commander with Partner. While most are monocolored (and there’s a colorless one that you get to choose the color of), there’s also quite a few that are dual-colored, meaning that your deck can have up to four colors with two Commanders. Of course, you could absolutely use two Partner Commanders with the same color identity to make a monocolored deck. There are definitely benefits to that approach, depending on which Commanders you choose. (Cough, Akroma, Vision of Ixidor partnered with literally anyone.)

“Partner With” is similar, but it restricts you to premade pairings. This was seen in the Battlebond set, the Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths set, and several Universes Beyond (aka, officially licensed crossover cards) sets like the Lord of the Rings Commander decks, the Doctor Who Commander decks, and the Assassin’s Creed set. “Partner With” is just a chunk of its keyword. Part of the keyword itself is the card that the Commander is...well, partnered with. “Partner With” is not the mechanic fully, because the full mechanic is “Partner With [specific card]”.

Choose a Background and its partner, the Background Enchantment subtype, were introduced in the Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate set that came out well before Baldur’s Gate 3, leaving most of us confused about all of these named Commanders like Shadowheart and Karlach and Wyll. Backgrounds were a new way to add something to the Command zone that wasn’t necessarily a Creature or Planeswalker – instead, they’re Enchantments that boost your Commander. Even better, they work as part of the normal Commander deck, so they can still boost your Modal Commander Servitor even if they’re not in charge of it!

Friends Forever is a type of Partner originally tied to the Stranger Things Secret Lair cards that was brought in-universe with the Innistrad re-workings of those characters into more lore-accurate cards; any card with Friends Forever can team up with any other card with Friends Forever, but this one can even give you access to all five colors of mana.

Doctor’s Companion is a Partner keyword from the Doctor Who Commander decks that allows the cards with that keyword to partner with any Commander who has the subtype line “Time Lord Doctor”. My coworker, who is way more into Doctor Who than I am but knows very little about Magic: The Gathering, was absolutely giddy when she saw how that worked.

I understand that this is a lot, so let’s circle back to the primary point: using Partner Commanders means that you essentially have two Commanders to try and deal with in a Modal Commander Servitor context. I can think of a few ways to handle this, personally. One way is to just have two servitors and allow them to work together or separately to accomplish goals. Another is to treat them as two sides of the same servitor, drawing on one side at a time. A third that I can think of is to just address them as one unit, since that’s what your Commander deck is – a fusion of their two abilities to create a stronger whole.

There are also the Companions to consider. The Companion mechanic debuted in Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths in 2020, and it was panned as a mechanic. Even being reworked for the Multiverse Legends in 2023 reprint didn’t help the mechanic much. Notably, Lutri, the Spellchaser was banned in Commander the moment it was previewed [6] and Yorion, Sky Nomad can’t be used in Commander because it requires your deck to have more than the 100-card limit the format has. [7] But the other eight Companions are able to function as Companions (provided you have that Rule 0 talk with your pod about allowing a sideboard) within the constraints of the Commander format [8], thus giving you a 101st card and, potentially, an additional servitor. While they may not necessarily be an additional Modal Commander Servitor, they can be crafted as an additional, lesser servitor to aid your Modal Commander Servitor.

And no, you can’t use it as both a Commander and a Companion. The “only one card” rule still applies, so you have to choose one. However, provided that both of your Commanders meet the Companion’s requirements, you can absolutely have two Commanders and a Companion.

Do you see what I mean about getting into the weeds?

So what about when you’re done with your Modal Commander Servitor? My approach is to use a built-in “kill switch” to dissolve the servitor and, since this is tied to a specific Commander deck, to dismantle the deck and cleanse the Commander card. Simple and to the point, because I like simple and to the point.

I also made it easy to activate and dismiss my Modal Commander Servitor. I build all of my energyforms with activation phrases that will pull them out of “hibernation” and dismissal phrases that send them back to it. This allows them to rest and regain energy without having to be actively used. I used this same method and theory for my own Modal Commander Servitor.

I am also in a pod that believes in using every card we own, so even if a card is officially banned in Commander by the Commander Rules Committee (before they recently disbanded) or Wizards of the Coast, we still use them. (I feel the need to mention that I primarily play against my mother, who was a Magic: The Gathering player from the early days and does not believe in mercy.) Naturally, if you play with a specific group, you can talk to them about in-pod bans and allowances, but if you play against random people, it’s probably best to listen to the existing banlist. Of course, with WOTC in charge of the bans now, there’s going to be a whole power scaling thing... Lowkey, this format is kind of a mess right now because people lost their ever-loving minds recently. [9] But this is a post about pop culture occultism, not...that mess, so let’s move on!

For the rest of this post, let’s step through a theoretical Modal Commander Servitor. We’ll pick Yorion, Sky Nomad [7] because I feel bad for it. Although it can’t be a Companion, it’s still entirely legal as a Commander! Yorion is a White and Blue Legendary Bird Serpent for five mana, getting up into the pricier side of a Commander. It has four power and five toughness, meaning it can hit your opponents decently hard and take a pretty big hit. It has the Flying keyword, meaning that it can only be blocked by creatures with the Flying and/or Reach keywords. When it enters the battlefield, you get to exile any number of other, nonland permanents that you both own and control; they then come back to the battlefield at the beginning of your next end step. This is commonly referred to in MTG as “blinking”.

So this is pretty good, at least to me. You can bring it into the battlefield and exile any number of things that also have “enters the battlefield” triggers to get them to pop off once more. And looking at Yorion’s EDHRec page, a lot of people had the same idea. As of writing this, there are over one thousand decks on EDHRec that focus around blinking with Yorion at the helm. But blinking isn’t the only thing Yorion can do. Plenty of deck themes also feature cantrips (cards that draw you cards in addition to doing something else), those damned Persistent Petitioners (who can make your opponents mill their deck until they die from running out of cards), cloning, Flying, and so on, though none of them have nearly the number of Yorion decks that blinking does. Personally, I’d build a Bird deck, because I’m predictable and like Typal decks. I would add cards like Skycat Sovereign, Watcher of the Spheres, Favorable Winds, and other cards meant to boost Birds or Flying creatures. Ultimately, I would focus on making this a functional Commander deck first and foremost, because I’m not going to keep a deck around if it sucks ass. That kind of defeats the point of the Modal Commander Servitor – in order to make it more powerful, you need to use it for both kinds of magic.

So that’s the “Commander” part figured out. Let’s shift focus to the “Servitor” section. I have a fairly quick yet simultaneously detailed approach to making servitors. [10] The important things to emphasize when building this Modal Commander Servitor are to name the servitor for the card (including any epithets or surnames on the card you’re using), to give them the ability to draw on the cards/resources in their Commander deck, and to specify that your Modal Commander Servitor is just that when you are speaking it into existence. Give them the ability to adapt and whatnot.

So now we’ve got a Modal Commander Servitor. Personally, I would focus on pouring energy into it and giving it simple tasks at first so it can get its feet under it. Being spontaneously brought into existence is disorienting, even for things that can’t think for themselves and aren’t sentient, so I give my servitors a chance to exist and hang out in their “dismissed”/hibernation state so they can get used to existing.

Now, let’s talk about potential specificity. Even though I keep my Modal Commander Servitors extremely vague and adaptable, you can outline the particular modes you need them to function in more specifically. For example, Yorion can be given different “modes” focusing on categories of magic typically aligned with White and Blue, such as protection, scouting, travel, and elemental air and water. This can help if you want the Modal Commander Servitor to be more specific than “do whatever”. If you follow the “all entities are ultimately facets of a bigger entity” approach, you could have Yorion channel parts of the Bird overspirit or the Serpent overspirit, if that’s your spiritual cup of tea.

Ultimately, the point of the Modal Commander Servitor is adaptation and flexibility. Sometimes, you just need to outsource a problem and you don’t have the time to make a more specific Guy for it, but if you already have one of these handy, you can just point them at the issue and wait to see what happens.

I hope you enjoyed this post! It got...pretty long, but I think that’s ultimately for the best, since it enabled me to pack more detail in. If you end up doing this, please let me know what you do and how it goes! I’m eager to see what other people experience with this deeply UPG-based approach to servitor creation and usage.

Citations, Resources, And Further Reading

[1] “Jasper’s Servitor/Thoughtform Resource Post”, compiled on Tumblr by jasper-pagan-witch: https://jasper-pagan-witch.tumblr.com/post/762988504970100736/jaspers-servitorthoughtform-resource-post

[2] “Commander (format)” on the MTG wiki, compiled by Fandom users, through a Breezewiki mirror: https://antifandom.com/mtg/wiki/Commander_(format)

[3] “Planeswalker” on the MTG wiki, compiled by Fandom users, through a Breezewiki mirror: https://antifandom.com/mtg/wiki/Planeswalker

[4] “Modal” on the MTG wiki, compiled by Fandom users, through a Breezewiki mirror: https://antifandom.com/mtg/wiki/Modal

[5] “Bria, Riptide Rogue (Commander) – Otter” and “Yuriko, the Tiger’s Shadow (Commander) – Ninjutsu” on EDHRec: https://edhrec.com/commanders/bria-riptide-rogue/otter and https://edhrec.com/commanders/yuriko-the-tigers-shadow/ninjutsu

[6] “Lutri” on the MTG wiki, compiled by Fandom users, through a Breezewiki mirror: https://antifandom.com/mtg/wiki/Lutri

[7] “Yorion, Sky Nomad” on Scryfall: https://scryfall.com/card/mul/64/yorion-sky-nomad

[8] “All Companions” on EDHRec: https://edhrec.com/companions

[9] “On the Future of Commander” on the official Magic: The Gathering website, by Wizards of the Coast: https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/on-the-future-of-commander

[10] “Entity Creation Worksheet” adapted on Tumblr by jasper-pagan-witch: https://jasper-grimoire.tumblr.com/post/763362895377694720

Condensed Chaos: an introduction to chaos magic by Phil Hine: A good beginner primer on chaos magic, with a fairly extensive chapter on servitors/thoughtforms and a willingness to explain things that I just gloss over and build red string boards about.

Magickal Servitors: Create Your Own Spirits to Attract Pleasure, Power and Prosperity by Damon Brand: A very thorough book on servitor creation, though not necessarily from a chaos magic lens. I found it very funny to read how much the author was frothing at the mouth about chaos magic. Yet, it’s still hands-down the best book dedicated entirely to servitor creation that I’ve read thus far.

EDHRec, a website for comparing Commanders and seeing the most commonly used cards in particular decks: https://edhrec.com/

Scryfall, an MTG card searching database: https://scryfall.com/

[rosestarlightkatarina]

The night.

Donna Beneviento x reader

This one is all about fluff and sleepy atmosphere

I hope you enjoy🖤🌙

No doubt today is a way too harsh on you. Everything is out of hand and it makes you feel even more exhausted. But the most frustrating thing is that you don’t have any chances to meet the doll maker, let alone a little talk to her. She acts more like a pretty ghost in a pretty old house and you try to copy this behavior. Expect Angie. The only one thing you have to do for being the reason of her laugh or anger is breathing. Even sleeping isn’t always a good cause for her to stop. You must be more creative than that. But you two seem to get along recently. It’s actually a miracle how you are still alive. Consider yourself lucky. However some horrible questions about their true intentions come to your head every night. And the only one person, who knows the answer, is ignoring your existence, preferring the company of her own. Except Angie, of course. When the sun hides behind the waterfall, the owner of the manor comes from somewhere, takes her continuously chatting feral creature and disappears. You can swear she has some teleportation skills. For one moment you could say she was an illusion or a fever dream of yours. But there was always Angie with her bites to make you deny these thoughts swiftly. Still your various assumptions are never gone. This night does not differ from the others. Eyes are shut but mind is overwhelmed. Thus, after some useless attempts to fall asleep, you find yourself wandering around the empty house until you see the dim light coming from the slightly open door. The curiosity wins so you have no choice but come a little closer on your tiptoes. Behind the crack there is your lady, painting a little porcelain face, all alone. Just her and soft sound of creating a new friend. Something about this view makes you stay, watching her work quietly. That’s impolite to stare you think when it’s too late. Unfortunately, the period of time is long enough to get noticed by her. Now you are caught and there is no way back. You have to speak.

"My lady, I apologise for interrupting you. I didn’t mean anything bad. I have an insomnia. Please may I stay here? Just for a little while." You say that so fast as if you are ready to get killed for your audacity. But the slight nod is the only response you have.

You hoped for this reaction but wasn’t really prepared. So you just froze for a few seconds before finally making your way through the room, looking at its beautifully arranged furniture. Still something, without any sign of mercy, is beckoning you to come to her as closer as possible. Besides, the is always a chance for you not to see the tomorrow morning. So you just decided to use all of your carriage to keep this opportunity. You slowly got down on the floor next to her, waiting for any sign of her disapproval to run away and blame yourself for such a stupid behavior for the rest of your life. You don’t know exactly what you are doing. It’s really hard to use the brains when every part of your soul is screaming inside you. Fortunately and scarily, she didn’t show any urge to stop you. You just closed your eyes, leaning your cheek to her dress to feel the soft material caressing your face. Every little thing about this woman is soothing and cosy. You can’t help this atmosphere wrapping you up in its embrace. You have been waiting for these minutes for too long that it almost makes you cry in relief. You feel like you’re in heaven and it suits your thoughts of being probably already dead just fine. It’s like being asleep and you look exactly this way when her fingers runs through your locks. Your heart is about to fly away from the chest but you don’t dare to move, relishing the soft touch. It would be unforgivable to scare this precious moment off. She keeps gently stroking your hair, sometimes drawing circles and flowers on the top of your head. You do your best not to tremble and pretend to sleep. But after half an hour it is not an acting anymore. You don’t realise how tired you are so…you wake up. In your bed. In your room. Is it just another dream? Who knows. Well, only the one may know.

[libelelle]

As you might have seen in your notifications, I REALLY LIKE THE TIME TWINS AU

Is there some fun fact that you can say?????

Just anything

OOOH I DID SEE!! im so glad you like it i love seeing people go through the tag like that (and BOY were you thourough. you found the first post i ever made for the au) im genuinely so flattered

theres a lot to say but not much that i havent already said.... from what i can remember anyways. as you know ive made a LOT. of posts about it.

hmm.................................. OH YEAH. SONICXSHADOW GENERATIONS. ok idk if you've played/ watch sxshgens but i can talk about how it + Mephiles baing there will affect it! under the cut to avoid spoiling innocent passerbys

Ok so the great thing about shadow gens is that it basically confirms what ive already said in this au about Mephiles being trapped in a timeless spaceless void (HUGE WIN ON MY PART!) which means not only is this game still able to be canon to the au, it also makes it canon compliant up to the time it splits away still.

Things that it changes... well It doesn't reallyyy make sense for mephiles to not have memories if he had them in the void. consequently this does change one detail i really loved: that he took sonics form because he couldnt remember anyone else. pity. my 2 options for this are either to force this, by making his escape from time prison result in memory loss OR i let him keep his memories and his form that he copied from shadow. i am biased in this situation because i loved the detail about his sonic form but i will think hard about it later to decide.

if he does end up having his memories, this doesnt change much later on aside from a more pointed and purposeful attack on Silver. Him drawing out Silver using the fire at his school on pupose or whatever. He also would target Shadow more fiercely than id originally planned, but i was thinking about doing that anyways. generally i think him having memories would be better plotwise, im just a little attached to the sonic thing.

next thing that changes is that because he saw shadow, i know have a reason for his escape. as we all know now, Mephiles just "wants to exist". Good enough motivation, but now i also have a prompt for Mephiles escape: the fight with Shadow. He was desperate to get out and that encounter with Shadow would be more than enough for him to seek a way out. so thats what happened. He lost the fight, Mephiles got desperate, then somehow forced his way out. Go him!

ALSO because of the way the time void is structured, Iblis might play a bigger role than i expected. Black Doom is like. fully automonous, as well as very other character from his past, so i imagine when Silver goes on his field trip to time prison, Iblis will be the same. that'll be great for character exploration for both Mephiles and Silver, once i start planning for that part

lastly... well this really makes my au akin to a Silver generations thing since Silver will be going to the void and scrambling through his own memories at some point. 3s a pattern. Not so much a change but it is funny!

anyways if you have any more questions feel free to ask : ] <- loves to get asked about their au

[carnirat]

So you know John Smith's "Journal of Impossible Things" from Human Nature/The Family of Blood?

Years ago, I got a small copy of it at a nerd store and it's got every page from the journal in it. I'm sure these all exist out there already but here's some of my favorite pages and what text I can make out for those who haven't seen some of these

There's lots of repeating text and jibber jabber, I assume to fill space, so I won't write down stuff twice or the random stuff he tends to write over and over

I find myself wanting to draw a perfect rose, over and over although I cannot find a rose anywhere!

In my dream, I keep asking a girl where to find one, and she is dressed in the most extraordinary immodest way.

She will not answer me, and she keeps walking away.

I remember this girl I have drawn her although(?) I know her well in my dream

(The rest is stuff from the previous page and more jibber jabber)

I am a father in my dreams, I am certain, and a grandfather. A great sadness at these thoughts. As if they had not just died, all my (I can't tell), but had departed in a way somehow more final than death.

I am the last for some reason I am terribly afraid that my watch is broken.

I can't remember what they look like (idk) see shadows (idk)

The skies are a burnt orange. And the leaves on the trees are silver.

I know a man who lives on a hillside there. And the city has towers! And I dance(?) in my robes, and my collar I can never get it right. I am so ill suited for it and yet they tell me I am in charge! Ha ha ha!

(Repeating)

(A page about Capt. Jack Harkness)

I am traveling with a man in the military, only he isn't what he seems, and so I leave him behind after a battle, and he is stranded in no man's land, so alone and so far away from home.

(More repeating)

(Page about Martha, next page is immediately next to this)

She wants someone close to me someone I think I know in the waking world. And she is a doctor. She wants to heal me. Why is being a Dr so important? To her and to me. I wish she could turn around so I can see who she really is.

(More repeating)

The girl with the strange spikey hair is trying to take someone away from me

She dresses strange different

Her features are unclear

I don't know what she looks like

Black hair

(Lessgo badwolf rose)

A woman with the universe(?) poured into her and she becomes a lady!

Such grace!

She judges the living and the dead.

Everything changes as she (idk)

She judges(possibly) everything and everyone that she meets

She judges all that come in her path all and more.

She has gold eyes the universe is inside her

Powerful

Gold eyes

I have seen the opposite of a star. A darkness rather than a light on the void

There is a world that lives there, terribly close to disaster. It feels most like a vision, a prophesy. Like something out of astrology, that the placing of these stars is important.

(Jibber jabber)

And further into the nightmare, there was a pit. And there was a voice from the pit. And it wrote itself onto mens faces. It sought an escape into the world of men.

It was the beast, I am sure. The thing inside is all that we must not let out.

A broken clock or a broken mirror will let it out.

(Can't make out the last bit)

-

Hit the photo limit but I'm not done! I'm reblogging with the rest, here's the link to that)

[8r14r-r0s3]

I adore madoka magica but when i think about it too hard the amount of inconsistencies that pop up from the soft magic system confuse the ever loving shit out of me

POINT ONE: what the fuck is all of the magic in episode one??? What are the purple light beams Homura is shooting??? What fucking gun is that Akemi??? Why can Mami heal Kyubey??? Can magical girls heal other people or just themselves??? Cause I thought healing other people was like a special thing only Sayaka (in this story) can do??? What’s up with the weird texture that pops up when Mami arrives??? It shows up when she makes the ribbon barrier to block Sayaka and Madoka from Gertrude in episode two, is that just like a force field she can set up??? That’s never explained, is that her magic power??? Cause

POINT TWO: what the actual fuck is going on with Mami??? Magical girls have a weapon and at least 1-2 magic powers. This is very consistent, Homura has a shield, time stop, and hammer space, Sayaka has a sword, healing powers, and speed boosts, Kyoko has a spear, barriers, and illusions, and this was seemingly true of Mami too, until fucking Portable happened. At first it seemed that her weapon was Guns and her magic powers were Ribbons and potentially the other weird shit she does that no one else does (Sayaka’s magic bat, seeming safety circles, healing Kyubey), but her guns are made of her ribbons, meaning she either doesn’t have a weapon or doesn’t have a clearly defined magic power. What the actual fuck is going on with her????

POINT THREE: All of Charlotte’s Labyrinth. Why is her grief seed outside of the hospital when according to her Magia Record story she witches inside the hospital? Why hasn’t it already hatched? Where’s the big witch explosion when it hatches? Where is her body? Why does the labyrinth form BEFORE the grief seed hatches??? On the topic of Nagisa, what’s HER magic power?? Is it the weird cake ritual thing?? The thing she does with the serving platters to homulily’s familiars? Cause I thought those were witch power things?

POINT FOUR: Why do Elly and Izabel pull people into their labyrinths when witches are supposed to gain power by people committing die? Or if they gain power by drawing people into labyrinths and eating them, why do the people the Witch Kiss not enter labyrinths? Also what are the exact effects of a witches kiss? Why does Gertrude’s make a woman try to jump off a building but Elly’s starts a death cult? Is it based on the strength of the witch? Cause Elly goes down in one hit to the weakest magical girl in the show so that can’t be it. Is it based on their nature/“curse”? Because then what does Izabel’s “vane” nature have to do with Homura’s relatively unspecific ideation in episode 10?

POINT FIVE: what the fuck happens when a familiar becomes a witch?? Why do they still drop grief seeds despite not having soul gems from which they hatched??? If they don’t produce energy from their conversion like magical girls do, why do the incubators allow this to happen??? Isn’t it wasteful??? Also will they be carbon copies of their witch??? Are there just TWO Albertines in Mitakihara????

POINT SIX: How did the cycle start?? What was the first magical girl fighting if there weren’t any witches that existed yet???? I understand this is nitpicky but were they fighting wraiths???

I have so many questions please help QwQ

[lulu2992]

Lmao I trust Sharky's infinite wisdom on duct tape, but in my opinion, I think he forgot to consider the power of cement! Also, I am liking a combination of both of these ideas! And ultimately it just makes their stories all the more unfortunate and tragic ; v ;

I don't think we really need to take into account the minimum age for juvie, and though the maximum age is 18, the time one stays may vary. But I'm thinking because this would've occurred about 5 years before the OPAC was beginning to be considered, Jacob lying about his age wouldn't really have to be necessary at all. As for his dog tag, well. It's hilarious, someone definitely fucked up and we're never going to know exactly who probably

The way I'm looking at it, Joseph can be an unreliable narrator because his perspective is very biased; the very nature of writing from specific characters is only an account of their experiences as they see and interpret them to be, which may not be entirely factually accurate. And because of cut content, changes, vague information, etc. perhaps not all the information we take in from the game as players is wholly accurate either. And I'm treating the extra/supporting content in much the same way.

(Also I've been doing a crazy amount of supplementary research on Christianity in general and also just what events took place historically, and I bet John had a hell of a time during and following the Great Recession.)

Of course, we know that the ages from the PlayAsia Blog are not official, but I don't think John's age is impossible specifically because of his profession. Man's been on cocaine for god knows how long- But people graduating from law school exceptionally early or young is not unprecedented (also I'm just very biased about him). The only real age conflict is that, though TBOJ originally describes Joseph from the start as "a child of about ten," but then he later specifies that he was exactly 7, 3 years off but still a small leap, but going by those dates, John wouldn't even exist for another 3 years as well... I've definitely hand waved this and shuffled the event further haha. I need to reread Absolution, but MAN what's with that! (Also sorry this is so long, I've gotten so passionate! I'm so happy you're passionate about fc5 still too!!)

Joseph is indeed an unreliable narrator with a very personal worldview, and some of the things he wrote in the book are definitely biased, but I still believe most of the inconsistencies between The Book of Joseph and Far Cry 5 are just... mistakes, mostly because the story and characters went through many changes, as you said. By the way, I wish we knew when this book was written and who the real-life author is! There are cool drawings in it too, and even though I like to imagine Joseph illustrated it himself, I don’t think they gave credit to the artist(s), but I could be wrong (I don’t have a physical copy; I’m sad).

I hadn’t really thought about this but it’s true that, if John was already born (and even going to school so at least 5) when Joseph was 7, then The Book of Joseph is in contradiction with Playasia because the information sheets say they were born 10 years apart. That said, Absolution also suggests John is at least a decade younger than the Father, so that’s inconsistent with The Book of Joseph as well… And if we want to trust Playasia, Jacob is 12 years older than John and 2 years older than Joseph, so he was either 17-18 or 9-10 when he burned their adoptive parents’ property and was sent to juvie, which... doesn’t really work either.

I think we’re going to need more cement :’)

[izloveshorses]

we're almost to the halfway mark, so i thought i'd share another progress update on this little (big) project!! (previous update)

i've almost finished drawing half of all the assets (according to my spreadsheet) and then we can start assembling them into a "book." the bulk of the assets are characters/costumes, but i've also completed several props and started working on some backgrounds as well. I need to decide how the book will be laid out before i make much more progress on those, though. i've been trying to hold off on finishing the principal cast because i think saving them for ~dessert~ will keep me motivated to power through the rest, but i'm so anxious to get to them because i want to play with them in photoshop and put them on their associated backgrounds like little paper dolls 🙈 so that's why ballet tuxedo!dmitry doesn't exist yet, and why i've yet to color the rest of anya's act ii wardrobe.

anyway. progress in my workflow is hardly ever linear, but you can kind of see how i approach the rendering process from these images, i hope. the drawing carries the weight of the image so that step always takes the longest, since getting the likeness, the proportions, the folds, and the expressions right is the most important. if any of that looks off no skillful painting or rendering can save it.

and then i always color skin first because everything else (clothes, hair) goes on top of skin. you can see the color palette i'm using is the same for almost all of them, though act ii requires a few more saturated hues than act i (bright blue, some reds, and green every once in a while). coloring the rest in doesn't usually take very long. once the flats are down i go in for a final pass, laying down those patterns and textures that always give me a hard time lol. and then i clean up and recolor the line work and mark it as done! since i'm working digital i use alpha lock and clipping masks for that.

director's cut commentary of each image included (under the cut bc this post is already so long):

anya's act ii lineup. her phtk outfit is the only one i've marked complete (the linework on the others is still black and need just a few more touchups). I've yet to lay in the flats for the maroon travel coat because i think the drawing needs more work. i might change a few things on big red, maybe her expression, but i haven't decided yet.

dmitry's act ii lineup (sans tuxedo). he just needs a final pass on the first two on the left, and then his finale look is finished, because it's the same from act i :)

vlad's act ii lineup. he's almost done, just needs a final pass on the finale and phtk outfits.

lily's act ii lineup. i'm going to redo the pattern on her neva club dress (linda cho i love u but god) but otherwise she's all finished.

the dowager's act ii lineup. she's done! :) maybe i'll find something to pick at later but rn i'm marking her done lol.

petersburg citizens from rumor! i think these guys are all done. there are more people i could include, but there isn't enough variation on the costumes to make it worth it imo.

neva club patrons. the only two marked complete are the two on the left, sergei the doorman/the male server and count leopold. i still need to find a good reference for the female server lol.

the press! just the men for now lol. i used the obc program as a reference for this one, so i'll get the two ladies in soon :)

the hussies! i've marked it complete, but. we'll see if there's more adjustments i can make.

there's still more i've completed that's not pictured, but i'll definitely share more soon. act i is nearly finished entirely, which is cool, and the only big ensemble sheet i've yet to make much progress on is everyone in phtk. i may end up just drawing one or two people from that and then copying them with different patterns because, honestly, the shape of the dresses and suits are all very similar. hopefully that won't be boring to look at lol.

if there's anything in particular you'd like to see/have any questions, or even suggestions, lmk!! and follow my 'anastasia illustrated guide' tag for more updates :)

[canmom]

rn attempts to use AI in anime have mostly been generating backgrounds in a short film by Wit, and the results were pretty awful. garbage in garbage out though. the question is whether the tech can be made useful - keeping interesting artistic decisions in the hands of humans and automating the tedious parts, and giving enough artistic control to achieve a coherent direction and clean up the jank.

for example, if someone figured out how to make a really good AI inbetweener, with consistent volumes and artist control over spacing, that would be huge. inbetweening is the part of 2D animation that nobody especially wants to do if they can help it; it's relatively mindless application of principle, artistic decisions are limited (I recall Felix Colgrave saying something very witty to this effect but I don't have it to hand). but it's also really important to do well - a huge part of KyoAni's magic recipe is valuing inbetweeners and treating it as a respectable permanent position instead of a training position. good inbetweening means good movement. but everywhere outside KyoAni, it mostly gets outsourced to the bottom of the chain, mainly internationally to South Korea and the Philippines. in some anime studios it's been explicitly treated as a training position and they charge for the use of a desk if you take too long to graduate to a key animator.

some studios like Science Saru have been using vector animation in Flash to enable automated inbetweening. the results have a very distinct look - they got a lot better at it over time but it can feel quite uncanny. Blender Grease Pencil, which is also vector software, also gives you automated inbetweening, though it's rather fiddly to set up since it requires the two drawings to have the same stroke count and order, so it's best used if you've sculpted the lines rather than redrawn them.

however, most animators prefer to work in raster rather than vector, which is harder to inbetween automatically.

AI video interpolation tools also exist, though they draw a lot of ire from animators who see those '60fps anime' videos which completely shit all over the timing and spacing and ruin the feeling and weight of the animation, lack any understanding of animating on 2s/3s/4s in the source, and often create ugly incomprehensible mushy inbetweens which only work at all because they're on screen so briefly.

a better approach would be to create inbetweens earlier in the pipeline when the drawings are clean and the AI doesn't have to try to replicate compositing and photography. in theory this is a well posed problem for training a neural network, you could give it lots of examples of key drawing input and inbetween output. probably you'd need some way to inform the AI about matching features of the drawing, the way that key animators will often put a number on each lock of hair to help the inbetweener keep track of which way it's going. you'd also need a way to communicate arcs and spacing. but that all sounds pretty solvable.

this would not be good news for job security at outsourcing studios, obviously - these aren't particularly good jobs with poor pay and extreme hours, but they do keep a bunch of people housed and fed, people who are essential to anime yet already treated as disposable footnotes by the industry. it also would be another nail in the coffin of inbetweening's traditional role as a school of animation drawing skills for future key animators. on the other hand, it would be incredible news for bedroom animators, allowing much larger and more ambitious independent traditional animation - as long as the cheap compute still exists. hard to say how things would fall in the long run. ultimately the only solution is to break copies-of-art as a commodity and find another way to divert a proportion of the social surplus to artistic expression.

i feel like this kind of tool will exist sooner or later. not looking forward to the discourse bomb when the first real AI-assisted anime drops lmao