Archive for annotated-interlude-3

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Annotated Interlude 3 Page 29

Apr05
by Erin Ptah on April 5, 2023 at 12:01 AM

Angel in stained glassThis page takes place in 2009, so it’s still a flashback relative to the main storyline (which begins in 2010). Just a really recent one.

Also: screw it, I’m doing a major retcon here. (“Major” in the sense that it’s a big change on the page, not that it effects anything down the line.)

I came up with a whole modern look for the Dove’s present-day appearance, even designed them a Master…but I did not actually have plot-related plans for them. Which you can tell by the fact that they Never Showed Up Again. (The human Master didn’t even show up once!)

And though, admittedly, the Dove’s whole “monastery in Tibet with the supposedly-reincarnating Master and the thousand years of memories” backstory doesn’t come up in any detail either…I like it. I don’t want the Dove to have been lost, or kidnapped, or otherwise separated from its history. I don’t want readers to be afraid that the monks were all killed when the Fire Nation attacked.

So, you know what, the white-haired guy on this page is not the Dove anymore. He’s just a regular human archaeologist, talking in the human font, doing normal human research, not having any silver eyes or wings at all.

The Dove is still hanging out with the monks. Their Master is the person formally recognized as the latest incarnation of the Master they’ve had for 3000+ years. They’re all safe, and together, and content.

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Annotated Interlude 3 Page 28

Apr04
by Erin Ptah on April 4, 2023 at 12:01 AM

lilac hibiscus paintingIn canon, the mystery announcer in the graveyard is variously described as one terrifying angel in dazzling white, two terrifying angels in dazzling white, and one mysterious “young man” in white.

(Canon fails to mention mention whether anyone checked for unmarked, freshly-buried bodies around that empty tomb.)

So, it’s totally the Dove. For that matter, most accounts of “angels” throughout history are totally the Dove. In all their radiant, winged, androgynous glory.

There was some speculation in the original comments about whether Josh had become the Dove — no, they already existed, maybe I should’ve given them more cool mysterious appearances throughout the chapter? — or whether he swapped souls/places/memories with Saxon somehow. Sadly, neither. María is just having the Donkey pull the same trick as Hannah had the Raven do, back with Jesse Riverton.

Even with the time this buys her, María doesn’t manage to bring Josh back. But she sure does manage to secure his legacy.

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Annotated Interlude 3 Page 27

Apr03
by Erin Ptah on April 3, 2023 at 12:01 AM

Poster of Moses fishing, labeled, Clerics: Not always what you expectWhen it says Josh kept some of his research hidden from María, I don’t mean that to come across like “he didn’t want to share power” or “he didn’t think she was smart enough to follow it all.”

He was just secretive about the details of his “trying to get my Being to ascend” project. Because María would’ve figured out that Josh was planning to risk his life in the process, and would’ve tried to talk him out of it. Maybe even flat-out sabotaged the whole thing. (And, I mean…she wouldn’t have been wrong.)

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Annotated Interlude 3 Page 26

Mar31
by Erin Ptah on March 31, 2023 at 12:01 AM

Pieta statueFollowing up the “Last Supper” Steal with some Pietà Plagiarism. We’re hitting all the classics, here.

Saxon’s phrase is the classic, transliterated in Greek letters, original words would’ve made sense in either contemporary Hebrew or Aramaic (I used the version that sounds more Hebrew here), “My G-d, my G-d, why have you forsaken me?”

…and the reveal of Josh being gone, combined with the role Saxon takes in the Pietà panel, is the most hammer-unsubtle foreshadowing of what he’s going to do next.

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Annotated Interlude 3 Page 25b

Mar30
by Erin Ptah on March 30, 2023 at 12:01 AM

Magic circle directionsThis cloudburst wasn’t in the original online posting. I added it for the trade paperbacks, because I needed to shift which sides of the page the rest of the chapter would be printed on. It’ll be in the Master’s Edition, for the same reason.

…and I put the high-res on Clip Studio Assets, if you’re into that kind of thing.

The boxset is also getting some new sigils in Josh’s casting:

Left: the Seventh Pentacle of the Sun: “If any be by chance imprisoned or detained in fetters of iron, at the presence of this Pentacle, which should be engraved in Gold on the day and hour of the Sun, he will be immediately delivered and set at liberty.”

Right: the Fifth Pentacle of Mercury: “This commandeth the Spirits of Mercury, and serveth to open doors in whatever way they may be closed, and nothing it may encounter can resist it.”

Center: the (otherwise mostly-unseen) Sigil of the Donkey.

With the implication that there are probably 2 other sigils, in the cut-off circles at the top and bottom of the panel. Speculating on which others Josh would’ve picked is left as an exercise for the reader.

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Annotated Interlude 3 Page 25

Mar29
by Erin Ptah on March 29, 2023 at 12:01 AM

Nationwide transmutation circleThat’s right, the carvings on the pottery formed a Nationwide Transmutation Circle. Or in this case, a citywide circle. Which, in accordance with the historical principle of “cities only get large enough for people to have no more than a half-hour commute to work by the fastest method of transportation available,” is like a mile across.

The big square with lots of nested smaller circles is from the same source as all the pentacles, but it’s not one of the pentacles. It’s…not actually labeled, beyond “Figure 2”, in any of the sources I could find. Pretty sure it’s just a diagram for “this is how you set up the room (or, well, the city) in which you’re gonna do the magic.”

…I put the smaller pentacles in the circles for the Master’s Edition. More on that tomorrow.

(Also: now I’m getting more adventurous with the sound-effect fonts.)

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Annotated Interlude 3 Page 24

Mar28
by Erin Ptah on March 28, 2023 at 12:01 AM

cross against ocean sunsetThe one where the whole page is unsubtly cross-shaped.

Writing this interlude, I picked through the whole canon timeline in way more detail than I ever did for Actual Religious Purposes. All the action on the big night is seriously compressed in this page, but I was poring over an hour-by-hour breakdown, deciding how to compress it.

And it’s…kind of impressive, really, how much “state tactics for suppressing your enemy anti-authoritarian activists who represent marginalized groups” have been consistent for the past several thousand years. Is the public opinion clearly against you? Get everything done behind closed doors, after hours, don’t give them any chance to form a protest until after the thing they’d be protesting is already done.

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Annotated Interlude 3 Page 23

Mar27
by Erin Ptah on March 27, 2023 at 12:01 AM

Picture of Mary, captioned, Abstinence: It's 99.999% effectiveHe’s worried about his mom, you guys.

Josh is a smart guy, he’s traveled the world and learned from the best, he’s literally magic, he has plans within plans and wheels within wheels set up here — and he’s prepared for the possibility that it’ll all fail anyway — except, he absolutely can’t risk leaving nobody to watch out for his mom.

I didn’t tag it in the original upload of this page, but that dove flying overhead in the last panel is supposed to be the Dove.

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Annotated Interlude 3 Page 22

Mar24
by Erin Ptah on March 24, 2023 at 12:01 AM

Last Supper with meme facesAnd here we have the obligatory “Last Supper” Steal.

Although I kept a few consistent, recurring character designs for Josh’s posse, I didn’t give most of them specific names or identifications. And of the ones who do have IDs (Rocky, Saxon, and María), I didn’t match their positions with the corresponding characters in Da Vinci’s painting (Simon Peter, Judas Iscariot, and “the disciple Josh was totally into”) (which lot of people assume was referring to John, not least because, uh, the phrase appears in the gospel John wrote) (and then, in turn, The Da Vinci Code championed the theory that prettyboy “John” in the painting was actually supposed to be Mary Magdalene).

Don’t try to use this panel as a guide to matching names and faces, is my point. The only one I deliberately drew in the right pose is Josh himself. And he’s the important one, anyway.

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Annotated Interlude 3 Page 21

Mar23
by Erin Ptah on March 23, 2023 at 12:01 AM

palm frondsSpeaking of JC Superstar: “I really didn’t come here of my own accord.”

The “Josh had his whole Holy Week demise planned out from the start, and Judas knowingly agreed to play his role in it” headcanon has been around since way before I came along. It’s hard to come up with a genuinely original twist on something that fans have been analyzing and writing meta on for literally thousands of years. But I hope “Judas followed Josh’s orders because he was a shapeshifting golem that Josh created” comes close.

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