Age of Defiance Summercamp 2025 Homework

    Food is quite important for our guys if they need to be at fighting strength 24/7. Funnily enough I can't think of very many classic anime series that keep the "Japaneseness" in food. Even in the OAS half the time Kento is downing burgers like they're going out of style. I know Sailor Moon had the girls with their enormous lavish bagged lunches. Inu Yasha had the group trying out modern cuisine on occasion. And of course there is the infamous "jelly donuts" in Pokemon.... Probably the only modern series I can think of that I've personally watch that go out of their way to show off Japanese cuisine is Persona 5 and One Punch Man...because on top of being a super hero, Saitama loves his hot pot....  

What's A Tuhkeeto? (Scene from Aftermath Ch. 10) by Mardrena

This was a picture I wanted to finish for the "Food, Glorious Food" community challenge the year before last, but I couldn't make the deadline and it took me months to finish it because everything in my world fell apart summer of 2024. Kento is used to all manner of food, chiefly burgers as well as local dishes (except for two he specifically can't stand), but here he is quite perplexed at a staple of southwestern cooking. In Season 2 he happily samples other national dishes like haggis and prickly pear jelly.

  In AoD, Thangiens have the scrumptious citrus-like chorinae to rely upon in battle, but for Reptilloids like Trakar who aren't able to appreciate tastes and smells the way other species do, nourishment can come from something else....like a first edition copy of Shakespeare's works.     Age of Defiance has always been a personal project born of my love of classic 90's anime, art, and science fiction and fantasy. I do not cater to a large fan base, and I can count on one hand how many people in my immediate orbit are familiar with the series. I was much surprised to find my manager at my temporary job before moving was a huge fan and for the first time in years I found myself caught up in a monumental project to make something new as a tribute to the classic series. I have yet to get it printed as every print shop I've been to says its too big to saddle-stitch (staple in the middle) or try to charge me 30 bucks for a copy which is frankly ludicrous, and currently I do not have the flexible funds to get it printed. When I get to making a supporter page, either Ko-Fi or Subscribestar, I hope to make this available for fans of both the OAS and my works, as I did over a dozen pieces of brand new artwork and paired it with existing pieces.     I really don't plan on revising older articles until I have met specific art goals for each of them. I've been pushing more than ever to add newer self-made pieces to entries so that readers can see characters and places as I envision them. If there is a King I want to add pictures of him disciplining his unruly son or engaged in a tedious diplomatic meeting or observing a fiery political debate. If there is a shadowy goddess I want to add a character portrait of her or an illustration of her butting heads with another goddess. Most articles I aim to be "feature complete" when it comes to lore, but I'm always working on newer pieces to add. Only when I feel "ready" would I want to do a complete overhaul of an article, and I'm not quite there yet with any of my oldest entries, especially my Pillars. I don't want to get so mired in the past that I neglect the future, and while I still haven't started season 6 yet, I've been working on importing season 2. I really have no intention of working on the Meta until I've achieved my various personal artwork goals including new artwork for OAS Core Cast characters.       At its core AoD is a love-letter to classic 90's-era anime as well as sci-fi and fantasy such as the works of Larry Niven, Anne McCaffrey, and J. R. R. Tolkien. Could it function as a stand-alone idea? It probably could with the Far-Star-Traveller prequel, but as I've mentioned AoD is a labor of love for the OAS, and one would not exist without the other. A ficverse cannot function without good storytelling to carry it through the seasons, new villains to fight, new allies to encounter. So much lore was omitted from even the OAS that in order to build upon the past, it has to be explored first.  

Murdina Lockehart by Mardrena

In order to include Tanya as a new character, she had to have an origin story. She couldn't just come out of nowhere and be the best at everything. Mardrena and Tanya each had their introduction stories in the lost prequel chapters. Mard was a traveller from Europe seeking a destiny she didn't know at the time and eventually becomes Tanya's predecessor. Tanya was estranged from her brother and became almost cripplingly introverted as a result of her unintentional exile. The Armor of Typhoon couldn't just appear, it had to be created from scratch by Kaosu. Even though Mard and Tanya are capable fighters, because they are female they compensate for their lack of raw strength with an assortment of weaponry. And before anyone gripes about the trope of having multiple gadgets, Cye's Armor of Torrent featured a deployable claw on one gauntlet and a tanto (short dagger) in a sheath on his back-WHICH HE NEVER ONCE USES IN THE OAS! I guess all the animation budget went to Dais and Anubis' weapons....

  AoD exists as an homage to the classics and aims to incorporate as much supplemental lore as possible, both from the original YST drama cds and historical events. I'm reminded of a very old painting which features people gazing up and pointing at what is clearly a UFO. The people at the time have no idea what it is, but the artist went out of his way to depict it as well as the people's reactions. In order to blend both science fiction and fantasy, there has to be a bit of a conflict between the two. How does technology respond to magic. How does magic affect technology.     I finally got around to switching up the artwork on the home page. I plan on having a rotating set of season-specific works but haven't completed the ones for summer yet. I still haven't made a new background image, it's definitely on my to-do list, but my mega-project back in March got me much closer with brand-new custom artwork for each of the guys. My ideal layout would be borders featuring OAS characters on one side and AoD Vanguards on the other. I would like to have sections dedicated to the Core Cast, followed by Vanguards, then Major, Minor, and Supporting characters. Technically I have enough artwork to do a Core Cast page for Ryo but I would like specific character-based artwork for example showing off different clothes and Armors.   It would be a monumental project of its own but I would like to add in alot of OAS information for new bio pages because unfortunately there's so few of the old guard left that most supposed "experts" on the OAS quite simply don't know their heads from their a**es. I tried watching a review on Youtube and had to stop because instead of going indepth into the story the goober goes off on a tangent on "nitrogen turning the clouds green" rather than "oh a spooky villain is invading and spreading darkness over the city".     Have I made mistakes in the making of AoD? Of course. Would I do anything differently? Probably not. It's better to learn from mistakes yourself, reread something and think "hrm that could be worded differently" or "this needs to go there". What would I do differently? Not listen to feedback. I've found that is a surefire way to have your project taken from you and twisted into something completely different. Tanya was very much a very modern model of a modern Mary Sue at her earliest inception decades ago, and some "feedback" advised to make her "vulnerable". But apparently their definition of "vulnerable" meant very violent and graphic SA... Tanya's flaws are HER flaws. She's very coarse as a defense mechanism and hides her vulnerabilities behind a facade of bravado. She's focused so much energy on hiding her emotions it takes something monumental to bring them to the surface in an arc spanning from Aftermath to Cataclysm War. It's a little something called character development   Given the amount of AI spam-bot slop-monkeys harassing me on FFN, I am more determined than ever not to let anyone have creative input into my works ever again. My oldest closest friend tried twisting my work into something he wanted, and as a result I can no longer even see him as human. I've noticed similar proclivities in others like him and as a result I refuse to associate with anyone like that ever again.       Even the OAS is full of changes, both sudden and gradual. Probably most notable was Anubis' arc from depraved villain to staunch defender. The guys themselves change over time with them being noticeably older during the OVA Message after losing their 1.0 Armors and gaining new Armors. As they are faced with newer challenges, they are forced to adapt by utilizing different fighting styles, equipment, and accepting aid from unconventional allies. Season 2 of Age of Defiance, Foes From Another World, sees the greatest shift as the team prepare to square off against their first major extraterrestrial antagonist.  

Foes From Another World Pt. 1 Cover Art by Mardrena

Originally Season 2 numbered 36 chapters before being trimmed down to 30. For the revamp I plan to split it into two parts with part 1 taking the guys to other nations and other Realms and part 2 introducing the wicked Thunthen Supreme High Overlord Mal Daggur. The guys are simply not prepared for such a large hostile foe, but help comes unexpectedly from the Thunthen themselves in the form of Bak Thraplek and his crew of Dissidents. They lend their technological expertise to the guys and in exchange learn more about Humanity and how important it is to defend righteousness.

  Season 6 will officially kick off the Three Wars Mega-Arc, setting the stage for the coming Entide. The guys not only have their work cut out for them facing newer, more desperate and relentless foes, but at some point the very people they've sworn to protect. They've been so used to facing monsters and aliens, it comes as a genuine shock to them when they learn their own government views them as enemies.     I'm not really interested in changing how I get inspiration. I have an idea of how my series runs and ends, I'm not going to let anything change that. I have specific playlists I like to listen to and lately I've found that one playlist got COMPLETELY gutted and a third of the older content gouged out and replaced with newer GARBAGE I don't care for in the slightest bit, so now instead of being able to fire and forget and listen peacefuly to specific tracks, I have to manually scroll through to find the part thats still intact. I have other playlists and music compilations and my personal playlist on my desktop and ipod, but there isn't anything "new" that catches my ear. Everything sounds dismal and grating compared to the classics and I can't stomach listening to any "new" music because "modern" slop just doesn't compare to the majesty and emotion of the classics.   Probably most abhorrent is recent pressure from companies by degrading their services in order to force people to buy "premium services". They claim they need more and more money to provide their services despite swimming in record revenue then try to gouge the people that DO have their "premium" product by adding "premium PLUS!" and the list goes on. For a real life example, the apartment I was forced to flee hasn't changed for the better. It's gotten astronomically WORSE with the management company trying to hike rent rates even more than before in order to pay for yet more upgrades. Meanwhile the trees are still crippled maimed stumps, the laundry rooms don't work, the pools look like swamps at the onset of high summer, and residents are fleeing in droves. Private equity firms ruin EVERYTHING.     I've already stated I don't care for input from anyone in regards to my ficverse and worldbuilding. Constructive criticism is one thing but too often feedback borders on straight up malicious. It's coming up on a full year of the recent infestation of AI spam-bot slop-monkeys in FFN with no solution in sight and it's gotten to such an extreme that I still haven't gotten around to starting Season 6 even though it technically wouldn't be hard. I've noticed alot of creators I used to think were friendly people have displayed a very unsavoury side and I've gone out of my way to avoid people that raise red flags with me. Even on Cara where I've been posting my art I'll be browsing pieces and something jumps out that just tells me that artist is someone to be avoided and thankfully there is a block option so I can block individuals that promote unsavoury ideals.   I'm an introvert. I don't live or die on social interaction in fact I thrive without it. I'm not going to look at other worlds for "inspiration" because they have nothing to offer me. Their world is their world, my world is mine, and there's only so much you can do with BBcode. The second I start tailoring my world based on others is the second it stops becoming MY world.       Even after spending weeks since moving spitting out job applications all over creation (I even applied to be a ranch hand and still no dice) my situation remains the same, so technically I could spend all month writing. *knock on wood* that's assuming something doesn't magically turn up between now and start of Summercamp. Even under the crunch writing isn't the hard part for me, it's the art. I always try to do some form of illustration for any given entry be it a rough thumbnail to a fully-rendered illustration. I had plenty of time last year due to medical leave and tried to make the most of it. If only my smarmy smug contemptuous weasel manager at my former job could understand that....   I finally FINALLY finally got around to examining my Blue Folder and going through my old notes...and I had NO idea how much filler and sidequests I had. It'd been so many years since I'd rifled through it that alot of chapter ideas actually got shuffled around and plot points that were originally planned for later were used in Spacequake. Plot points for War of Woe were set before War of Rage and God Wars took place before War of Wrath rather than after. I suppose the story just kind of took me in a different direction than expected. This does have the benefit of cutting out some nonsensical filler and condensing the storyline. I have a revised episode summary set up for Season 6 and can start writing Ch.1 but first I need to update my spammer block list...   I'm more or less settled into my residence and it's roughly a third the size of my old apartment, so I have even LESS space to myself and even though I've set aside a little drawing area, the girls like to be goobers and suddenly decide they want to lounge on the nice sofa just as I get ready to sit down and draw. The rig is as good as it'll ever be, but the space is too cramped to set up the Linux rig just yet so I'll have to make do as is. The vast bulk of my empty sketchbooks are still in storage but I did fish out most of my art supplies and current sketchbooks. When it's not smotheringly hot either in the mornings or evenings I can open the little window and let the girls onto the catio to lounge around, the drawback being the odd buzzing bug finding its way inside now and then....   I don't know that I really have writing stubs most of my articles I aim to have feature-complete even if its something simple like a method of communication or a Thunthen swear word. I would like to revisit art for older articles and I do have unfinished drawings for marauding monkey folk or a powerful transformation. I could easily revisit them but I am still working on other goals and projects first.     This kind flew under my radar and I didn't notice it until I tried clicking on a link I had bookmarked for drawing references. Apparently BandaiNamco plan on "rebooting" the original YST with a new animated movie for the 40th anniversary and....I am not particularly thrilled. For starters it smacks of "modern audience" with a super-bright color palette and that hyper-detailed "modern" anime style. It doesn't look like any of the OAS characters are featured. I have my reservations because BN has had a horrible track record of respecting their franchises lately and this comes off as more rummaging through the couch cushions and dusting off old IP for profit.   I could be proven wrong and it might end up being actually good, but for example Yashahime the follow-up to Inu-Yasha stayed fairly faithful to the aesthetic and character designs of the classic anime. The English dub actually featured Kirby Morrow's (Miroku) final performance. I binge-watched The Rose of Versailles anime last month and I tried watching the Netflix anime but I couldn't make it past ten minutes because they cut out so much exposition and added in these cheesy musical numbers that just took me out of it, and it had almost the exact same art style seen in the YST teaser trailer. The "New Armor Legend" marketed in the teaser looks NOTHING like the OAS and that has me worried. They already tried doing a reboot/sequel with the failed sequel manga Shin Yoroiden Samurai Troopers and it didn't even make it past one volume. I hope I'm wrong, but seeing two of the characters in the teaser using smartphones just comes off as jarring...  

Evil Minions by WordiGirl

I've been trying to keep busy finishing up projects that I'd put on hold while moving and settling down. Because I've had no luck finding stable employment nearby I've decided to bite the bullet and set up other sites that I'd been putting off for well over a year. Whether or not they'll bear fruit remains to be seen. I' In addition to World Anvil I now have a Cara profile to show off larger-resolution versions of artwork, a Rumble account for timelapse videos and hopefully drawing streams, and a ko-fi page to try and offer art services and perhaps someday products to fans of AoD and the OAS as well as pay it forward. I'm not a social person but I can open up to people with common interests like my manager who was an anime fan and familiar with the OAS.

Cara Profile

Rumble Page

Ko-fi Page

  What will Summercamp 2025 yield? That remains to be seen. One thing I've noticed is all the preparation in the world might not matter once prompts drop. I've been working on new artwork all year and nine times out of ten most of them won't match the prompt. That does give the added challenge of having to do newer pieces but also some of the older ones I put in so much work to won't get used just yet except for chapter illustrations. My remaining major goals include editing and illustrating Season 2 Part 1 and starting Season 6. I doubt I can finish either before the end of the month but I can at least make the most of the time.