Click here to read morphE

As of about twelve hours ago, my original character contest is officially over I'll be announcing both the winners and holding the drawing for the giveaway TONIGHT at 6PM over Livestream! You're free to come in beforehand, but just know that I won't be online UNTIL then 8D Once I've announced the winners which should take about a half hour-ish, I'll be taking doodle requests for a couple hours, then getting back to work on (non-spoilery) backgrounds for morphE.

(Livestream finished - thank you very much to everyone who came by!)

Can't make it tonight? That's perfectly fine I'll be editing THIS journal entry with the winners after the livestream.

Good luck everyone, and thank you all so much for entering!

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AND NOW THE MOMENT YOU'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR....

THE WINNERS OF THE CONTEST!

First off, thank you. I received 45 entries to this contest, which made judging INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT. I can tell you all took the time to think deeper into your characters' mindsets and piece together the "why" and "how" of a character, more than just the "what" and "where". Again, the fact you took the time to craft (or hone) a character really means that everyone here is a winner!

I seriously deliberated for days on who would receive prizes, and it came down to a matter of balance. Bold characters with enough distinction to be considered interesting, balanced with enough realism to not break a person's suspension of disbelief. Balancing fantasy with rationality, following the established canon's rules. Most importantly, every trait comes with a reason - the creator clearly sat down and chose WHY a character acts the way they do. HOW a character would behave under X circumstance. Though there were many that fall under this criteria, these three characters stood out among the rest, and I'm proud to present them now ^_^

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In third place, we have ~NijixSmallGrey's Jinki - whose character design intrigued the hell out of me Highlights from their profile include the following~

Jinki wasn't born with a whole lot of brains and so he is usually hanging over his current Master's shoulder when they do experiments or preform magic. Because of Jinki's job as a holder and protector of items, he bonds and becomes close to his Masters (whom are usually lone Wizards or sorcerers.) and remembers each and every one he's ever had. He isn't easily upset mainly because he's oblivious to many innuendo's and subtleties of humans personalities

Through his chest lays a small dimensional plain which holds historical artifacts, relics, crucial secrets to Alchemy and other Magic practices. His life span is undetermined because he never visually ages. He serves his assigned Master until he dies, and when they do, he is to serve the Wizard or Witch, that his previous Master left him to.

Jinki's relationships have to do very much with his personality, he gains attributes he sees in others. He gains human attributes by being around other humans. He forms strong and loyal bonds with his Master's and can recite each of their names in order of which he served them. His relationships never make it past loyalty and a sense of pride in duty. (Or at least, they haven't yet) Leaving Jinki with what seems like an incomplete personality.

And look at that design. HOW COOL IS THAT?

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In second place, we have ~Vixenoflight's Kathleen Helena Wilson - the London caught my eye initially, and I stayed for the ROPED INTO WORLD OF DARKNESS TO BECOME A MAGICAL GIRL. That's totally simplifying it and not doing this character justice though XD Highlights from their profile include the following~

Kath likes adventure and excitement; despite her apparent hot-headed impulsiveness and propensity to act without thinking and dive headlong into things, she has quite a practical, logical mind when she wants to engage it. She's naturally brave and loud, although growing up with her parents always looking out for her disabled younger brother and not her has given her a deal of maturity and responsibility – but she still resents being ignored. She is ridiculously loyal – she'll never leave anyone in need, whether they like it or not – although part of this is still a desire to prove herself as worthy and partly habit of looking out for her brother, who she still loved in spite of his being the centre of attention. As such when she meets Lady's partner, the physically hideous Guardian of Pestilence, she sees past his sickly face to his good heart.

Age 18 Kath finally drifted away from her parents to university and never went home again, studying mathematics and becoming an accountant in the big city of London, living life to the max. But still something felt like it was missing. When taking her reluctant, mysterious new friend Lady out to a bar, she is proven entirely correct when the two girls are attacked by a monster – and worse, while Kath flails with football tackles to ward the thing off Lady simply pulls a sword out of nowhere at all and calmly beheads the creature. After she's fought past her initial terror Kath is exultant – she's right, the world is a magical struggle against good and evil fighting for control of the 25 elements of the world and Lady's mystery is explained simply by her being a Guardian of magic with a double life, protecting the world from the encroaching darkness.

Kath has lots of friends however due to her outgoing nature, but in spite of their apparent differences her best friend is soon Lady Stewart, an officemate with a dark secret. When Kath finally uncovers the truth she can't believe Lady has been fighting ostensibly alone all this time and resolves to help her – not entirely realising she might be more trouble than help in a magical battle. Her sincere friendship wins Lady over, however, and she mentors Kath to be a genuine help – not that Kath always takes on board the lessons first time but she tries because she cares about her friend and, by extension, the world in which she lives. She compliments Lady's cool nature with her fire and the two have a lot in common in terms of moral outlook and mental strength.

One of many pictures of Kath wearing some badass armor

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And in first place, we have *SailorPtah's character Patrick - whom I'll admit, I kind of scoffed at upon scanning through the profile the first time. 8,000 years old? That's a difficult age to write well-- oh. OH. Wow. Yeah. You took the time to think about this. Wow. Damn.

They went on to describe Patrick (his current name, though he's gone through several over the millenia) as a "Being" - a shapeshifting creature that transforms between a human and (in his case) a dog. EVERY facet of this character's personality reflects his dog-like nature. Have some highlights, as they describe him much more accurately and succinctly than I could at 3AM 8D

Important equipment: (1) Bianca gave him a collar, so he can pass for being a normal dog without appearing to be breaking the law. Nothing special, a cheap blue strap with gold-colored fastenings, but he's very attached to it. (2) English workbooks. Since Beings have extreme difficulty with written languages, he's enrolled in an ESL class at the local library to work on his reading and writing.

Everything Patrick does has an underlying thread of anxiety: mostly, at this point, anxiety over whether Bianca approves of him. Even if he's in a good mood, which tends to involve puppy-like enthusiasm, he'll tense up at the slightest hint that she's not happy: "You never told me to do anything about that! I would have fixed it if you'd said something!" He has a hard time making decisions and articulating desires that are separate from hers.

Every Being has a (mysterious, unseen) Contract, binding them into service, obedience, and some level of emotional dependency with a human. After one contract-holder dies, the Being will go looking for someone new to sign on. There's no way to break the Contract except by the death of the human -- and a Being can't fight, hurt, or sabotage their contract-holder's plans, so if they get picked up by a less-than-scrupulous person, they're stuck with it.

Patrick is the blonde haired one at the bottom of the page, with his master Bianca to the right, and her roommate Sparrow up at the top. All of these characters can be found in the webcomic "But I'm A Cat Person". Check it out!

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Lastly, our randomly rolled giveaway winner is ~fishydraws! Funnily fitting, they drew this image, the only one I couldn't link the thumbnail of XD Take a look at the rest of the entries below~



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Congratulations to all our winners! I'll be distributing points on Thursday (payday, yes!), and if you note me your drawing requests, I'll start working on them by Monday, May 20th. This coming week I'll be visiting my family and attending Anime Central in Chicago, so I won't have time to work on them until then.

And lastly, THANK YOU SO MUCH TO EVERYONE WHO PARTICIPATED. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.

If you added me to your watch list just for the contest, I appreciate you following me this far I encourage you to keep watching, as you'll get a heads-up for my next giveaway or contest before I advertise across the rest of DA. I also post commission specials frequently, and put up livestream ads when I'm online. If that all sounds cool to you, I'd love to see you stick around. If not, thank you - and enjoy the rest of your internet