Age Of Defiance WorldEmber Homework 2025

 

Condition

I tend to alternate between the generic condition then the character-specific condition i.e. Emdourachil and Kento's Avatar Form. This year I'm more than likely going to do Ryo's Demon Form. I've already touched on it in an earlier entry but this would be more character-specific such as how Ryo uses his powers and how the others feel about it. It's not necessarily that being host to a demon automatically makes him evil, but that people that interact with him tend to assume he has some nefarious ulterior motive just BECAUSE it's a demon.       Writing's never been the issue for me: I literally write in my sleep. For example I'd noodled around Ch. 1 of Season 6 in my brain for months but when it came time to actually writing it out I knocked out 10k words in a few hours because not only did I have bits of lore from World Anvil ready in the pipe but I'd finally ironed out sequences of events. My primary focus is associated artwork, and even though I've done a great deal of drawing in the past during major events such as this past Summercamp, I always feel like I could do more. I've done a plethora of timelapse videos on my Rumble page, but if I want to hold myself to my personal standards, I'll have to be more aggressive in my commitments such as say an hour of drawing time each night. I DO have a solid chunk of pre-existing artwork I could easily utilize and partially-completed sketches I can refine. I can always step back from one job to commit more time to drawing and writing, but unless the other decides to hand out more hours, I'm still going to need money for gas and groceries...     One of my gripes is the scarcity of character-centric categories in recent years. Sometimes I get lucky and I can do three or even four characters both Major, Minor, and Supporting in a given year. There's a great deal of civilian characters the guys interact with on a daily basis, sometimes inadvertently as they are caught up in battles against the forces of evil. One of the core themes of the OAS has always been the Human spirit and its ability to persevere against all odds, and that's primarily why I DETEST the Avatar "franchise" and the rampant incessant smearing of the Human race or the attempt to essentially "redwash" history. Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern is one of the greatest scifi classics of literature full of legitimately diverse and eclectic characters and sadly there'll never be a big-screen adaptation that'll do it justice, and given what's befallen classic staples such as Lord of the Rings and the Witcher, I kind of hope there'll never be, because everyone and their mom will be a race-swapped monstrosity with a BINGO card's worth of mental illnesses, sexual fetishes, and physical deformities...     So my back and forth with said snotty Anvilite from earlier had me go down a rabbithole of research into a very naughty culture historically known to have beefed with everyone from other tribes to Texan settlers before finally getting their just comeuppance. No one likes a cannibal. But I had to do a great deal of digging to find actual facts because I noticed there's a plethora of newer videos glazing this tribe as somehow being "hardy freedom fighters taking a stand against colonialism" and that "descendants" are crawling out of the woodwork claiming to carry on their "rich proud traditions". What? You mean eating their enemies to deny them the afterlife? Good luck with that. I began disregarding anything dated less than 5 years because it was all redwashed Youtube slop. I found a couple of indepth videos taking a deep dive into history that had the facts in all their unflattering glory.   When writing Ch. 1 of Season 6 there's a scene where Navajo Elder Shaman William Walking Cloud comes face to face with Greytorata, the extremely ancient and extremely powerful Goddess of Time first formally encountered by the guys in Season 5 Spacequake. Walking Cloud refers to her by the name of a Navajo goddess, but I had to look up gods to see if there was such a thing as a Navajo Goddess of Time. And surprisingly enough there actually was, and I took that bit of real-world mythos and plugged it in, because Greytorata has no power to actually dictate the flow of time: she is merely a casual observer recording events as they are fated to unfold. I think it's dumb that people try to look for malice where there is none but at the same time turn a blind eye to actual malice. There were plenty of stories I read about Indian lore in my youth like how a little girl burned her prize doll and created the Bluebonnet flower that is so iconic to Texas, or how a boy painted the perfect sunset with the aid of magical plants and thus the Indian Paintbrush was born. Those stories are there, they've BEEN there, but there are goobers that insist somehow they are the "first ever" and they "finally have representation". There's BEEN representation, they're simply too high on their own supply to recognize it.     I'm no stranger to working down to the wire, and last year I definitely had to rush some pieces and shelve plans for entries. I tend to aim low then surprise myself when I surpass my planned goal. At least this time around I don't have a litter of foster kittens trying to EAT MY WACOM CABLE!!! I'd invite more people to join my art streams on Rumble but I've heard its sort of the red-headed stepchild of platforms for nonsensical reasons. People cite the lack of diversity of content, but if no one makes said content, then how can it grow? I'll make that content then, because even though I get more bot views than actual views, I'd still rather use it over Youtube because Youtube seems hell-bent on selling out the very creators that put it where it is now and flooding the internet with AI slop. Because I primarily work in the mornings, if I do any art streams it would have to be in the evening. Whether or not I'll establish specific times remains to be seen, but I find it's better not to plan a rigid schedule in the event something unexpected crops up. Like kittens eating your wacom table. Or snow in Texas.