shoutout to fallout for using so many practical effects

LOST DOCUMENTS: AN ANNOTATED SELECTION OF MANUSCRIPTS FROM THE BURNED CITY OF VADRIN

Recent archaeological expeditions have uncovered a number of manuscripts from the Burned City of Vadrin, the ancient precursor of today's City Of Towers. Today we will display and give context (as much as we are able) to a few surviving passages.

--

From The Journal of Adap Teriil:

"At the dawn after the meeting [Likely one of the famous Conclaves of the Council, less well practiced today, these would be done every twenty-second day.] I found a dead wizard in front if my tower. Nine wounds, like those of blades but with the unified tearing that only teeth can create. I write that they were a wizard, by their apparel, but they had not a spell left in their bones."

This journal entry seems to describe a victim of some sort of beast, perhaps one of the legendary Mage-Eater Wyrms (rarely, if ever, seen) from the efffects described on the body.

--

From An Unnamed Book of Prophecy:

This manuscript is in possibly the worst condition of all of them. Only fragments could be reconstructed. But Vadrin't prophecies are described as the most accurate in all time, so what little there is is significant nonetheless.

"-- Reach Skyward, And let the Rain answer back--"

[Not enough remains to determine anything concrete]

"--Forces always to stand against, but one will come within the hall and call himself lord--"

[No Comment.]

"--The truth-teller will give undeath to love near gone--"

[Perhaps refers to Jim and Serioth? I would not expect they were historically significant enough to be prophesied]

--

From Trickster Gods:

"Clowns and wizards are together apart, equal sized stones of terrible materials. To extract the blood of the clown without arousing their interests recite the following incantation : 'Vivivivi Sosososo Colocalo trigh't trigh't Sol'. This will make you invisible to the clown so you can harvest their material for your uses--"

This manuscript seems to be a guide to the uses of clown body parts, as well as a philosophical trearise on power. This is especially significant as many of these spells were thought lost forever.

--

From A Hastily Scribbled Letter:

This last one is a special one. It is a letter found in the great council chambers.

"O my friend, it is upon us. A curse cast long ago has caught up to me and it has enveloped the city with it. All I love is destroyed again. O, I am sorry, I thought that my power could stop their power, but instead we are all doomed.

For the last time, yours, Unna Noan."

This was written by Unna Noan, the last High Councilmember of Vadrin. It is written to an unknown associate. It seems to attribute the fall of the city to a curse of some kind following Unna.

--

We at WIZARD NEWS hope that this informative piece has goven you a greater sense of historical significance.

𝕲𝖑𝖆𝖒𝖔𝖚𝖗 𝖒𝖆𝖌𝖎𝖈𝖐🌹💒

(this blog includes: what is glamour magick, how to use it, a bath ritual & some other beauty spells, affirmations, songs that may help you feel like a princess, a glamour related yt playlist)

✧ ೃ༄*ੈ✩1.What is glamour magick?

Glamours are spells used to enhance your beauty or attraction, they can be applied to your face, body, voice, hair, etc. You can cast them in the form of enchanting perfume, makeup, jewerly, beauty spells or ritual baths.(example:draw beauty sigils with concealer & blend, set intentions to your perfume: When I’m wearing this, I attract love, positive energy and I am immensely attractive, and there are many more ways). Glamour spells are used to temporarely change your appearance, not only to yourself, but how others see & perceive you too.All efffects of glamour are reversable, but you can do them daily to keep the effect. Glamour magick is the type of magick you use when you want to add more sparkles & glitter to your appearance and beauty, having the power to enhance it. Glamours can be anything from simple affirmations to more complex rituals. There are many ways you already practice glamour magick(but without intent probably has no effect)like wearing certain colors to match your intention(red=beauty, passion, love), having a makeup/self care routine, envisioning yourself the way you want to look. Some associations that can enhance your glamours: rose, lavender, vanilla, bergamot, rosemary, honey, pink salt, sugar, pink & red objects, rose quartz, shells, pearls, mirrors, Venus, full moon, friday(Venus day), the number 5, cinnamon. You can also call on Goddess Aphrodite to help you with these spells or assist your ritual(research her before starting to work, give an offering before asking her for help).

What comes to mind when you think of the word Glamour? Do you think of Jessica Rabbitt-esk woman, strutting around, dripping in seduction? Do you think of pearls and rose gold? Rose waters and pedals strewn about? “Glamour is elegance minus restraint, romance plus distance, sparkle sans naiveté.” Glamour is intoxicating. Glamour is not something you can touch but oh so physical. Glamour is new and Glamour is classic. Glamour Magick is the art of illusion and honestly, manipulation. This scares the mundane, or those uninterested in it because there’s such a negative stereotype surrounding the word manipulation. But a potter manipulates his clay like an artist manipulates his canvas. Our view on the world is draped with the heavy fabric of the matter. And I am an advocate for taking power when it belongs to you and using it to your fullest potential. 🤍🌹How it works: A Glamour spell, or glamour magick, is still pretty true to its’ roots. It’s not wrong to call it an illusion because it is. (But I also argue that our entire reality is an illusion.) But it’s more than that. It’s pushing your ego forward and out to manipulate how others perceive who you are. We could jump down the rabbit hole of psychology and how every interaction we have with other creates perceptions we have about others… but you’ll never really know who they really are, even your closest friends and lovers… you only have perceptions of what they’ve allowed you to see. So to use glamour magick is to put extra intentional energy into how we want others to perceive us. I’m sure you’ve seen someone who walks around with confidence? Most of us, find something attractive about that, not saying shy can’t be just as attractive. But when we see a confident figure, we notice. We are pack animals after all, built to notice the natural born leaders. I consider this a form of glamour magick myself. This person may have even been just born more confident, but it won’t show unless you make it show and therefore manipulate the illusion that other people perceive about them. A Charm. Now as witches, we tend to be able to harness different powers and apply them further than someone who can just project their ego. So instead of just forcing ourselves to be confident, we can activate a self-esteem sigil, we can use crystal stones to enhance our abilities. In short, we take what we use in other rituals and spells and apply them to our physical and mental appearance. Further manipulating how people perceive us. It should also be noted that along with illusion magick, glamour witches will often uses herbology and green witchery in their beauty routines. Making hair growing masks and rose water toners are just more ways we can benefit our beauty from magick. ᔕᕼOᖇT E᙭ᗩᗰᑭᒪE : Since I know this post is mostly about the theory of and not the practice of Glamour. I wanted to leave you with a simple formula for using your makeup as a glamour spell tool. One of the most common practice of a Glamour witch is to charm her/his makeup to his/her intent. To do this: Pick a Makeup: Lipstick, Foundation, Eyeliner, Mascara, Eye shadow, Nail polish, Hair spray… you catch my drift. Pick an intent: Try to think of an intent that would match your makeup. If it’s something that applies color, think of possibly using the color correspondent of its intention. (red/pink for love. Yellow for communication or positivity, blue for emotion) Or think of using lipstick to enchant the words that you speak, or concealer to hide away your flaws (not just skin flaws). Pick a colour candle: pink/red for beauty. Pick an herb/stone. Some good choices would be:rose

quartz, carnelian(confidence & sexual energy), vanilla, cinnamon, roses. On a full moon, take the makeup you wish to enchant. Light the candle, set your makeup on some sort of sacred space (salt circle, altar plaque) sprinkle the makeup with the herb, set the stone next to the makeup. Feel free to experiment with apply more and different types of correspondents (runes, tarot, oils, sounds, sigils). Let it sit overnight. I suggest storing charmed makeup in a separate, more maintained bag/box if all your makeup is a mess in a drawer or something like a lot of people. You should treat this makeup as if it was a wand or an athame, it is just as magick. When applying charmed makeup, you should be focusing on the intent you imbued it with while you do so. And say it out loud, in your mind, however feels comfortable to you.(intent in form of affirmation or chant)

🧚‍♀️🔮ᗯᕼY ᑌᔕE GᒪᗩᗰOᑌᖇ ᗰᗩGIᑕK So why are you drawn to use Glamour Magick? (if you are that is) I’ll tell you why. For yourself. There’s no other reason. Even if it’s for that special person you’ve been head over heels for, it’s still ultimately for yourself, since you want that special person. I dare you to come up with a reason to use Glamour Magick that doesn’t benefit your own self. This is for you, and your ego. Does that make you Vain? Prideful? Lusting? Selfish? NOOOOOOOOOO!!!! Everyone needs to stop pretending that thinking of yourself is a bad thing. Think about it guys… no matter who you spent your hours with, no matter who you’re laying down next to in bed… at the end of the day, you are alone with yourself. And you need to feel happy about that. It’s your responsibility, in fact, to make yourself happy. No one else’s. So please, stop treating yourself so poorly and listening to others about how you shouldn’t think of yourself first. If we were as worried about our own happiness as much as we were worried about making other people happy, we’d be a lot better off. So today, I challenge you to take a dose of self-love. Indulge in yourself and your fantasies by yourself. 🧿ᗯᕼY ᗰOTᕼEᖇ ᖇᑌ ᗩᑎᗪ ᔕEᒪᖴ-ᒪOᐯE Iᔕ IᗰᑭOᖇTᗩᑎT: Anyone who knows me knows I am obsessed with RuPaul and what she has done for the LGBT+ community along with countless others. If you’ve ever watched RuPaul’s Drag Race, you’ve seen how she is capable of opening her contestants up and turning their self-doubt, into self-love. It may be a staged show, but that doesn’t change the fact that RuPaul is an advocate for self-love and therefor makes her very important in this series. Self-love is important because, gurl, spells only work if you do, okuur? (RuPaul humor) So in order to explain this, I’ll have to dive into my 3 tips for making spells work. 1.) Be extremely explicit when creating your intent and know exactly what you’re asking for and by how much you’re expecting the thing to change. Avoid negative words like “I don’t want him to lie anymore” and turn them into “He will be truthful to me for the rest of his life”. 2.) We use spells to increase the amount of energy it takes to make something happen. It’s much more like percentage based than we act like it is. The example I always use: If you do a spot on spell for winning the lottery and mundanely your chances of winning are .001%. Even if you increase your chances 100 times fold that’s still only .1% chance. However, if you lopsidedly perform a rain dance you’ve barely done any research on and mundanely the weather man says there’s an 85% chance of rain already? You’re probably going to get your rain. 3.) Spells only work if you believe they work, and you put in the mundane effort to make them work. You’re never going to change your life with a spell if you don’t think a spell can change your life. And on top of that, if you do a spell to meet your lover and don’t go out and try to meet new people, you’re voiding all that energy you spent on your spell. Energy has to flow naturally and truthfully for it not to be blocked. If a spell isn’t working, I usually start by evaluating if it’s something I’m not doing correctly, before I blame the spell. So why does that make Glamour Magick difficult? Because when you put on your magick eyeliner you imbued with the intent to seduce a partner, but the entire time you’re looking the mirror and thinking what a ugly ogre you are and how much no one should ever like you….. YOU’RE BLOCKING YOUR MAGICK. Listen, I’m not saying you have to have an absolutely flawless relationship with yourself for glamour to work. We’ve all grown up to hate our bodies, it’s not an easy fix and it takes a lot of time and effort. But you do need to be putting effort into accepting yourself.

🌹🌙🤍ᔕEᒪᖴ-ᒪOᐯE/ᗩᑭᑭᖇEᑕIᗩTIOᑎ ᖇITᑌᗩᒪ ᗷᗩTᕼ

So let’s Practice some self-love to end the part 2 of my series. I want you to make a ritual and the God/Goddess you’re going to be worshipping and offering to… is yourself. That’s right you wonderful being of energy you. You are DIVINE.

So, start with a sheet of paper. You’re going to do research on yourself, like you would if you were working with a deity. But it should be much, much easier, as your answers are going to be easy to find. Here’s a little cheat sheet for you to fill out:

Name: (your name:______, the god/goddess of ...love, passion, beauty, etc.) Color: pink/red (there are just some examples of what you can write, but use your own likings to complete the list.) Herbs: hibiscus, roses Oil: coconut oil Crystal: lapis lazuli Favourite food/s: strawberry cake, cherries, red wine pasta, vanilla ice cream Drinks: latte coffee, champagne, rosé wine Strenghts: passionate, loving, good listener, authenticity Scents: sweet gourmand scents, amber, musk.

Now, take a day or two and gather a few things (to all of them) that you wrote down. Get a candle in the color of your choice. Consider including a symbol of your heritage or particular path. (OR create your own sigil) Get fresh or dried herbs, do some research if they’re okay to bathe with. Same with the Oil and if it’s okay to apply to your skin. Grab your favorite crystals, food, drink and scents. Don’t forget some Sage, and your pampering bath items. Consider a bath bomb, bath salts, bubble bath, lotions, soaps, conditioners, rose water, and toner water. This is for you, get everything you want to get yourself. Whatever night you favor, set aside a good hour or two for yourself. Turn off your phone (or at least Do Not Disturb). Put some relaxing music on. Dim the lights. Draw your bath water. Light the candles/incense. After you have cleansed yourself with sage smoke (or however you cleanse in your practice). I want you to stand in the divine feminine pose (Arms up over the head like an ‘O’), or the divine masculine pose (arms cross over the chest, hands resting on opposite shoulders). And invoke the divine inside of yourself. Call your name as if you are honestly invoking a deity as you stare into a mirror. Watch the power awaken in your aura, your eyes, or psychy. Make offerings to yourself of your food and drink. Say it out loud! Don’t be ashamed to treat yourself so highly. Before stepping into the bath, take time to meditate on all the good parts about yourself. Take time to anoint yourself however you wish and state what strengths come from each part you anoint out loud. After you’re comfortable, step into the bath and really take time with your body. Wash it as if you were washing the skin of a God/Goddess, you are still radiating with divine energy. Wash away all negative thoughts about yourself for at least the time you’re in the bath. We all know how hard it can be sometimes, but the more you practice, the easier it gets. When you’re ready to step out, pamper yourself further with lotion and body powder if you have any. Thank yourself for choosing not only to pamper your own body, but treating yourself the way you deserve to be treated and make a promise to do it more often. You can also say some affirmations while looking into the mirror: I radiate divine feminine energy. Natural surreal beauty comes easily to me. I constantly compliment myself and think beautiful thoughts about myself, I am full of love for myself. I am who I am and I love who I am, I have strong self love & esteem that nobody can ever break. I strongly, confidently believe and know the fact that I am beautiful, therefore it is true & everyone sees it.

✧ ೃ༄*ੈ✩🌹Makeup magick🌹

so makeup magick is just one of the 3 categories that falls underneath glamour magick as a whole, by definition makeup magick is the practice of using beauty products in one’s practice to enhance certain features to be more desirable. While glamour is made to have an allusion on one’s appearance and cannot physically change someone’s appearance through magick means, i do believe with makeup magick it IS possible to change one’s appearance by using beauty products with intent & cosmetics. (fake nails, eye makeup, contacts, etc)

You’ll most likely see makeup magick as a whole being more presented in a feminine light as makeup magick still is influenced by stereotypical beauty standards where it’s more commonly seen being used on females or as feminine expression. but masculine makeup magick does exist! you don’t hear a lot about it but through the more recent years it’s been getting slowly more heard of especially in masculine presenting individuals & non binary people. Makeup is for everybody! there is no limit on who can and can’t do makeup magick, anybody of any gender identity can use this type of glamour in their practice. 🤍

There are a LOT of ways to incorporate witchcraft into makeup magick since, a lot of the time, makeup brings that playful style of bold colors or a mature color palette. color magick is my go to when doing my makeup, i pick colors that symbolize certain traits i want to express in myself such as red to express passion and sensuality. Next is sigils, you can program sigils with a certain intent and draw the sigil in your beauty product! i find it’s easier to draw sigils with foundation or concealer personally since it has a wet substance. Chanting your intent as well always helps! whenever im doing an action in my makeup routine i like to chant what i desire to be the outcome. an example is moisturizing my skin and chanting “i have smooth, soft skin, I adore my crystal clear skin’’ or envisioning myself with clear skin, seeing it in the mirror(with the eyes closed) as I already have it right now’’. Skin care is another good way to incorporate makeup magick into your practice (plus it counts as self care!!). Doing skin care to keep your skin nice and hydrated and pampered is great for makeup magick! it’s all about learning to love your features for what they are and enhancing them, give your skin some love! when you think of skin care, what comes to mind? is it an act of pampering yourself? keeping up with your hygiene? for me it’s an act of self care and working towards the best physical version of myself i can be. Surprisingly your skin actively shows what you’re going through, your skin is a reflection on what’s going on underneath what’s visible to the eye. stress can help make your skin more likely to have breakouts in acne and your hormones & genetics do make a difference in whether you’re likely to get acne, which skin care can help with. Getting into a skin care routine correlates with makeup magick, self care and it’s honestly devoting your time & love towards yourself! i find that it’s a daily thing i actually enjoy doing for myself and it makes me able to connect with myself just a bit more☺️ Skin care isn’t just about acne treatment, moisturizing dry skin, taking away excess oil on your skin that ain’t doing your acne good. it’s about connecting with yourself and taking care of the body you’re in (which can be hard depending on your situation).

🍰🧁An easy beauty spell

This spell should be done during the waxing moon, Grab a pink candle and carve your name and a heart symbol into the pink candle. Then after carving your name and symbol into the candle, Dress your candle with olive oil, sugar to attract sweetness, and rose petals or rose buds to attract beauty.

After, you will need to cut a piece of paper with your hands and write with a red maker or pen towards you your affirmations and desires on the paper, anything you wish to have in the present tense, as if you have them already. Work on this spell for 7 days, everyday you need to light up the candle and read your affirmations and desires while looking into a mirror at yourself (you have to strongly believe that you are these things you wrote, and if you don’t believe at first, don’t worry, you will.). Now on the seventh day you will need to put sugar, rose petals, and some of your hair on the paper and fold the paper towards you to attract beauty. Burn the paper in the pink candle flame to activate the spell while chanting “As beautiful as a rose, as sweet as caramel I attract beauty with this spell.” And after bury the ashes in your garden or blow them out into the wind. Make sure to burn the candle down completely after casting your beauty spell.(be careful with this!). Here is a playlist that contains videos about glamour magick & beauty: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAL4LtTa0wPfHx6FsM6Y0mSa_BZ39M9S9

More songs for your badass precious ass muah💋🥂💜

bad girls-m.i.a(slowed+reverb) Ayesha Erotica: literal legend; Iconic; Gangbang, Cadillacs. Donatachi, Slayyyter-Crush on you Slayyyter: Butterflies, Venom

The Legion of Super Heroes Reviews: The Legion of Substitute Heroes or Unsung Heroes

Happy 29th Birthday to Me! Yes it’s my birthday which means it’s time for reflection, griping about getting older and cake. And after an exausting weekend of grappling with a growth, i’m not going to go into anymore detail, I can finally, relax celebrate and get back to reviewing. And since i’ts my big day, that means I decided to dedicate today’s reviews to things that mean a hell of a lot to me and in one way or another shaped me as a person. A self indulgant way to reflect on my past, look to the future and show y’all some stuff I really like. So with that out of the way let’s talk about the Legion of Super Heroes.. and their oddball sub team I love dearly. 

This is also my first chance to talk about DC Comics on my blog. I’m honestly shocked that in the year i’ve been reviewing stuff regularly, the other half of the big two superhero comic publishers hasn’t come up. While I do tend to lean towards marvel, in part because Marvel is simply better at collecting their stuff and putting it on sale more often, it’s still the home of some of my faviorite properties: Justice League International, The Green Lanterns (Minus Hal), Teen Titans, Wonder Woman, Oracle, Batgirl (All of them, particularly Steph and Cass), Young Justice, Supergirl, my personal boy The Martian Manhunter.. the list dosen’t go on by much but it indeed goes on. I”ve been reading dc comics since I was in middle school, and I haven’t stopped since and don’t intend to stop now and maybe in the next year I can get around to tackling some of their awesome cartoons and comics more eh? But yeah among these titans, including the actual titans, are the Legion, one of the most unique and awesome super team concepts in my humble opinon and , even for DC, one of the teams with the most tangled up histories. 

First created in the Silver Age by writer Otto Binder and Artist Al Plastino, The Legion of Superheroes is DC”s first successful teen superhero team, predating the titans by a few years, though I dearly love both wildly diffrent teams. The Legion is defined by their high concept: A thousand years into the future, three super teens from diffrent worlds who happened to be on the same ship with billionare RJ Brande, saved Brande from some goons hired by his crooked buisness partner. 

And exposed him. Inspirired by their courage, heart and skill, Brande latter called the three together to form them into a super team, one inspiried by the legends of teen hero Superboy. 

No not Conner though it was nice to get to show off my poster of him. While he was part of the second continuities legion, we’ll get to that, he’s not the superboy we’re looking for. He is damn great though and it’s good to have you back bud. 

Not Jon either, though I do miss this kid’s pre-bendis version and he was the inspiration.. for another version of the legion. (SIGH). Try. AGAIN IMAGE SEARCH. 

...... 

No not the cool bad boy turned troubled good boy, not the child who was inexpciably aged up by that bald smeghead, and not the great idea turned into a editiorial mouthpiece. I”m talking about THIS superboy. 

This is where the name came from: From the silver age till crisis on infinite earths, Clark Kent was active as a kid in smallville, and thus was Superboy, superman when he was a boy. He dealt with similar stories just with Lana replacing Lois, and Luthor as a ginger teenager. And it was these deeds as a teen hero on his own, one of the first honestly, that inspiried the legion and brande and forged the team. 

And it was naturally a super boy story where they were first introduced as the legion’s founders went back to recruit Superboy after putting him through some trials, and were intended as just one of many silver age one off concepts.. but caught on with the readers so much they were brought back, and had their ranks expanded and eventually not only added supergirl, yes the one your thinking of this time, to their ranks, and yes sometimes she and superboy were in the same place at the same time, Clark willingly had founding member and telepath Saturn Girl put a mental block in his head for any info he’s not supposed to know yet so it’s cool . But yeah not only that but they eventually became their own feature in Adventure Comics, where Superboy’s stories were published, but overtook him in popularity with time.  Over time a number of distinct aspects were established: The roster eventually got as large as 20 plus legionarres, almost all from diffrent worlds, and they eventually set up bilaws. Some are silly and dated such as “Legionarres marrying means they retire” which was eventually done away with in the 70′s, but others were simple logic: each member must have a unique power, no using weapons and such which rather than be super power snobbery is so said tech dosen’t fail and the legion later fully allowed Karate Kid, a martial artist, to join, no killing.. just common sense stuff that adds to it. And one of those is the centerpiece to today’s story, which we’ll get to in a moment.  Obviously given they’ve been around since 1958, there is a LOT more to the Legion’s history I will dig into at a later date: The short version is that Crisis on Infinite Earths, Dc’s first big reboot, fucked the team up badly by retconning superboy out of existance and dc editorial made it worse by shooting down EVERY solution the team came up with to fix the issue. So eventually things got so messy they nuked the whole thing during the event Zero Hour and rebooted fresh with Mark Waid taking the helm and updating the concept for the 90′s and being a more lighthearted, if still not without weight, comic in the sea of 90′s edge. Waid would reboot the team again due to sagging sales, a far weaker reason this time, with a more rebllion slant, the original team would be reinstated, and then ended for a while before recently being rebooted by Brian Micheal Bendis... who sadly is long past his creative prime from books like Ultimate Spider-man and alias and is instead stewing in his own toilet dinner these days and thus it’s not pretty.. well okay art wise i’ts VERY pretty, it’s just story wise it sucks dirty ass in thunder storms. There was also an awesome cartoon that sadly lasted only two seasons that I will DEFINTELY be digging into, especially since unlike x-men evolution, it’s not you know 50 some episodes and me biting off way more than I can chew but a slim 26 that still has fans to this day. I”ll get into ALL OF THIS, some ohter time hopefullly and I mostly outlined it since some of you might be familiar with another version or “Sigh” the reboot and this helps clear things up.  So yeah with all that out of the way we’re going back to the silver age and the first story I ever read of hte team, how I met them with “The Legion of Substitute Heroes” and a later subs story I genuinely love. I first read this story in one dc’s old expensive archives collections I got from the library. Oh how I miss the library. Your probably wondering who the legion of susbstite heroes are.. but since the first story covers that we can jump right in after the break!

So we open with a teen in a parka uniform disembarking from a spaceship from another planet, which a passerby notes is just like the airplanes people used to ride from country to country. 

But we meet our hero, Polar Boy, whose in a winter themed outfit and has come to try out. This is the tradition I was saving for now: The Legion Tryouts. Like a club or sports team would, but I like it because it makes sense: The Legion NEEDS to be as big as it is because while their headquartered on earth, their mission scope is anywhere in the united planets which spans GALAXIES. They could be called on any time and need their full force or need to have severa l members on a smaller mission and frequently having members away on a mission was cleverly used to reduce the cast to whoever was needed for the story. 

So it only makes sense to frequently look for new membbers to help strengthen their ranks... but given their teens and are recurting teens they need to be careful and need a logical way to reduce crowd flow. I mean you saw how many people used to line up for american idol before that died a justified death, people will do anything to be famous and they need to weed out those whose powers and skill just aren’t up to snuff yet, or those who are just dicks as, unsuprisingly, several stories have been built on assholes who applied and were rejected turning evil and attacking.. even though the Legion wasn’t even paticuarlly harsh. They also are more than fair as applicants CAN try again or if they prove themselves in other ways can be let in, as Bouncing Boy, my favoirite legionarre, was intially rejected for his power of .. well...

Yeah.. on paper inflating like a ball and bouncing around is kind of silly. In practice he can ricochet off enemies, walls, and obstacles and is fairly durable in that state. It’s why I don’t really brook mocking the guys power: yes it’s goofy.. but say that again when he hands you his ass. It’s the same with matter eater lad who yes is an actual character: While being able to eat anything is gloriously goofy.. it means he can chew through ANY substance and digest ANYTHING. Hell in the cartoon episode intorducing the subs they used both of these guys to great efffect: Bouncing Boy, who in the cartoon had to try out multiple times in his backstory, encouraged the future subs while Matter Eater Lad got in by EATING A FUCKING BOMB. He also had shades which I dind’t know he was missing but now I do. My point is the process is fair and well thought out and leads to some really fun scenes. 

But yeah joining the legion is naturally Polar Boy’s dream, as he walks down the avenue of heroes, basically a series of statues honoring the legion and hopes all his hard work paid off. We then cut to the auditions, where he apparently waited all night. What I like about this story is that unusually for the silver age legion where it was mostly a sea of powers attached to a bunch of cardboard, really the dc silver age in a nutshell and why marvel broke out so much for having more dynamic and realistic characters, Polar Boy has more of a personality. It’s not MUCH but he’s a dedicated, hard working kid who just wants to join his heroes and seems really in awe of htem, a feeling we can all relate to. We’ve all had people we’ve looked up to, admired, and we’ve all had groups we wanted to join as kids, teens or what have you. And of course.. we all know what it’s like to be rejected by someone or something you badly wanted to be a part of.  And that’s what happens to poor polar boy, who comes from a world with an intense sun thus his people developed super cold powers.. but he can’t control them well so while their impressive, they also freeze the legion. HIs powers are good... but due to their strength and radius he’s also a liablility. They give him an consolation anti-gravity belt.. they had these before eventually compressing them into the much cooler flight rings.. which I still desperatly want one of. I have the flash’s costume ring and a green lantern corps ring, but still no legion ring. 

Naturally this devistates the poor boy and he wonders around dispondent till nightfall, convinced he’ll never be one of them. He soon meets Night Girl, a fellow reject with super strength given to her by her dad’s formula.. but only in darkness as she’s from a world without sunlight. She also faces a “hopeless future” but it’s then Polar Boy’s true strength reveals itself: he decides screw giving up on their dream and if they can’t be in the legion they’ll start their own Legion. 

Though not to compete but to serve as a subtistute, in case the legion is ever incapacitated. So Night Girl gathers the other rejects the next morning. Cleverly one of them, Chlorophyll Kid was seen with Night Girl herslef at the tryouts behind Polar Boy. We soon learn about them and each of their origins: Stone Boy can turn himself into an immobile stone statue, as his world has half a year long nights and thus his people hybernate, Fire Lad who can spit hot fire literally and set anything combustable on fire and Chlorphyll Kid who can make plants grow rapidly. Each were rejected for resonable powers: Stone Boys powers too static, Fire Lad’s is too dangerous and Chorlpyl Kids toos pecific. But upon seeing all of this Polar Boy says they STILL have fantastic powers and still can help people and the legion. 

Thus the Legion of Substittue Heroes is born. And I love them as much as the originals. As a bit of a misfit myself I relate to these guys: They have strange specific powers, got rejected by the big team.. while that trope is nothing new at the time it was unique and even now it’s a nice and inspiring message. Instead of giving up they form their OWN team to do what htey can anyway. They might not be the best like the legion but they can still help and still do what’s right even if not on their scale. It’s a great concept and really makes them endearing. Again I have a thing for the underdogs but I still really like these guys. It’s why it annoys me they got kind of spat on with time: While I love Keith Giffen and Paul Levitz run on the legion, and feel it’s the best of that contnuinty it’s not without fault and the two basically spent a full issue mocking the team and split polar boy off from them before making their own subs with only ONE of the originals. It just felt.. disrspectful. And so far no continuity has used them again until the recent bendis run, which has them announced for the Future Slate special. It took BENDIS, who dosen’t get how to use the team properly and is up his own ass, to bring them back in a new continuity and I find that obnoxious. The subs are a great concept and deserve to be honored as such and as such are one of my favorite superhero teams. 

But their careers don’t start well as they doubt themslves, except for Polar Boy who boisters them along, and constnatly just end up going to missions the legion already has covered and when the legion go to fight some robot ships, they refuse the subs help.. which is fair though, as Brainy puts it they can’t risk putting untrained volunteers in harms way. Their about to just quit, in a really sad moment.. when CK, because I can’t spell cholophill and hate having to use spell check notices some odd seeds spread about.. and when he grows one a horrifying tree man shows up. They struggle with it till the setting son finishes it’s job, meaning Night Girl is at full power and whollops it and the subs spend the night destroying the seeds.  They  find out the next day the seeds came from the same planet as the robot ships, meaning the ships are a distraction for whoevers doing this and since they can’t just call earth, as the full force of the legion is needed with the robots and all it’d do is cause a panic, it’s down to them. Night Girl however is scared.. and I like that. It shows that while their regaining their confidence.. it’s sitll risky. Their a bunch of barely trained fanboys, and girl, going up against an alien invasion, with it down to them. They CAN save the world but it’s alright to be entirely terrified when your thrust into it this fast. 

They make their way to the planet, having built a ship earlier and lie low, finding out what’s going on: The plant men are fully intellegent, and grow themselves..though how they know to attack and go to the bathrom and what not out of the seed I don’t know but I assume it’s a genetic thing or they might be some form of hive mind. point is the seed plan is to grow troops all over the world via rockets for an invasion, and it’s a brilliant concept for one too. Aliens who simply GROW the troops right into battle, born with the knowledge to do so, and right where they can ambush them. It’s down to our heroes and Stone Boy, whose been the most pesemistic, valiantly dives in to provide a distraction so they can destroy the factory and the seeds. Turns out he is useful as the most the treeple have is a space lead pipe.. yes really. I love the silver age. But they’ll bring ray guns soon, so Stone BOy knows it’s a suicide mission and now our heroes have a timer. But luckily.. our heroes are stronger than they think. Night Girl punches a way in till Night passes, while Polar Boy and Flame Lad use their powers in concert to make an opneing.. but with time running out Polar Boy finishes things by having CK grow all the seeds now they have acess.. thus exploding the planets population, destroying several cities from the number of bodies, and thu discourguing the treeple from trying again. Stone boy is able to flee with the rest of our heroes and the day is saved. 

The heroes opt not to tell the public, as to take away glory for the Legion. It’s a noble gesture.. they do DESERVE credit, but they choose not to take it, preferring to let the legion get theres for stil lsaving the world from the robots. They stand firm, now confident they may someday make it to the big leagues.And it’s this that really makes me love them: Thier not the strongest or best, but they try anyway for the reasons a hero should: to help people, and not for the glory. THey remain unsung heroes and are fine with that.  Eventually the Legion WOULD find out about them, but naturally instead of being dickheads about it, fully accepted them, even offering them some contests for membership, but that’s a story for another day. THey’d remain stalwart allies and valuable backup in crisis situations for years to come until the bollocks outlined above. But they’d never leave my heart and thanks to them.. the legion never left either. 

Final Thoughts:  While I do love the story for it’s personal signifigance to me, It’s stilll a really good story for the time. A bit stilted as was the style, but still good, well paced and with an endaring cast of underdogs who prove themselves in the end. It’s something diffrent from the usual clean cut ahead in life wasps these stories usually followed at the time. While the team’s still all white and all that, their outcasts and misfits who just want to help and have trouble beliving in themselves. Their a good standard to live up to.. and a good inspiration for me and my constnatly self hating self doutbing self. And I hope you enjoyed htem too.  If you’d like to comission your own review, just dm me. It’s 5 bucks for individual issues. Later days. 

Hey, just wanted to say I love your Haruka x Michiru and Moira fanarts a lot! Love your art style, as an artist wannabe I wanted to know if you can gimme some tips about cell shading, how do you do it for your fanarts? Do you work with Photoshop? :)

Hey there! ^^Thank you so muc!! I’m really happy that you like those and you’re into arts as well!Hehe.. ahem, I actually dislike Photoshop (mostly because my pc can’t take its… “”””awesomness””””, I guess?) But It’s undeniably a good program.I think Clip Studio works fine enough for me. I use it for like.. 90% of my work, (the rest 10% is using PS filters or adjusting colors)

I use a lot layer folders, layer effects (CSP has layer efffects only, no brush effects) and Linework Layers (those vectorial ones, where you can fix your lines, or thin or thicken their width, a very important-to-me-thing PS can’t do -yet- ).As for coloring… usually I use one main layer as color base, monochromatic, so I can create as many layers I need for each color and clip those on it, (it makes it easier to color stuff).Once I’m finished with that, I fuse those together with the base color layer (for a practical matter, so I don’t get confused later). When there are more than one character, I make a folder for each one of them.Then, shadows phase. It depends what’s the lightning around, I could be using a cold tone or a pink-yellow-ish tone for it, set on multiply effect . I think it’s good to imagine where your character could be placed (even without drawing the ambient, but surely, that could HELP). Lights now. Which layer effect for it? I would go for a glow dodge effect, opacity set between 10 and 20%. I could make more than one of these, but usually that happens after I’ve fused all of them together (base color + shadow + lights).NOW… I’ve recently met a new way of creating ambient light, in a more accurate way through “Linear Burn”, “Glow” and “Color Dodge“ effect layers.(It’s really complicated for me to explain this stuff through words. lol)Again, same concept of the multiply layer we used for shadows: I tend to use cold colors for the Linear Burn layer, and then warm ones for color and glow dodge layers (opacity set really low on all three). Those kind of effect layer are really good in order to help you with ambient lightning/shadows. Where do I put those? I usually put those three layers on top of the shadow or lights layer (doesn’t matter, depends on which one is on top), clipped on the shadow and lights ones ( in the end you’ll obtain a loooong row of clipped files on top of that poor basic color layer, if you haven’t fused any before. lol).I’d suggest you to not fuse any if you’re not sure about the coloring shadows or lights, but it’s still fixable if you fused those layers. It’ll just lenghten your time spent there…

I hope this last part wasn’t too confusing…edit:when I’m done with the basic, I could slip various effect layers to fix lights or shadows, depends on what I am looking for.I am very gut feeling in those things, so I don’t really have a method. I don’t know what I am doing either.