#deep dives

season 6, "one small step"

it doesn't come up often, but whenever chakotay talks about his pre-voyager starfleet career, it's always about first contact or archaeology. in "emanations," he compares their exploration of an alien burial moon to a mission he went on as an ensign, all while demonstrating his anthropology expertise. add that to him nerding out in "blink of an eye," "one small step," the dinosaur episode, and a bunch of other examples, he's a social scientist both by training and by inclination.

in the original star trek, they had an "A&A officer," a specialist in archaeology, anthropology, and ancient civilizations:

tos season 2, "who mourns for adonais?"

we never hear that term again, but that's the role chakotay often fills on voyager, and he's very happy whenever he gets to do it.

now, realistically, i don't know how much time pre-maquis chakotay would have spent in a blue uniform, because those skills would not make him an obvious choice to lead a maquis cell. ro laren sets up his character (unnamed) in tng as a tactical specialist who resigns to join the maquis:

tng season 7, "preemptive strike"

(which is a very polite and noble way to do it, as compared to eddington's defection in ds9.)

if he was in fact ro’s teacher (i think so, despite a stardate conflict in some later dialogue), it seems very in-character to me that chakotay could have started out pursuing a sciences path before showing an aptitude for piloting, strategy, and/or command. given what we know of him, regardless of his own passions or preferences, if a senior officer noticed his skills and encouraged him to change career tracks, he would do it.

teen angst era aside, he respects authority. he argues against dogmatic ideology when it's inflexible to the needs of the moment, but he likes working within a command hierarchy, and for better or worse, he is easily swayed by charismatic leaders.

season 1, "caretaker"

not only does he yield to janeway's authority on voyager before she even asks him to, and then molds himself into the kind of first officer he thinks will help her most, he does the same thing with annorax in "year of hell." tom is the voice of ethical conscience and reason in that episode, and he organizes the rebellion—against chakotay's orders!

there's so much going on here:

season 4, "year of hell part 2"

despite his father's perceptions of him as a contrarian, chakotay only rebels as a last resort. he would genuinely rather not. he clearly talked about the maquis cause with ro and others before he left—and i bet that's why he resigned to a starfleet admiral in person, to make one last appeal. his preference is to try and change systems from within.

not to west wing about it, but chakotay is only The Guy when he has to be—he wants to be the guy the guy counts on.

(hot take: with how he rationalizes the calculated sacrifices annorax is making in "year of hell," i don't think chakotay would have left starfleet for the maquis if it wasn't personal. but it was personal, so here we are!)

maquis chakotay is a disillusioned idealist, but he's never that disillusioned. he believes in the stated ideals of the federation, sometimes more than janeway does.

season 3, "scorpion part 1"

and it's a fundamental character trait that he looks for the best in people and situations, often to his own detriment (tuvok, seska, annorax, that time janeway and tuvok and tom all lie to him for half a season, the list goes on).

and it's easy to see good in starfleet, especially when most of his career was during the height of federation utopia before "the best of both worlds," at which point starfleet remembered it's also a defensive force and started building the defiant—which was the very first starfleet ship ever designed solely for combat.

the cardassian situation in tng is shown as an aberration in a largely peaceful era. the off-screen "border wars" were fought by officers who expected to go their entire careers never firing a phaser.

tng season 4, "the wounded"

for decades since making peace with the klingons, and with the romulans keeping to themselves, starfleet has been mostly goodhearted nerds who are committed to exploring and making friends. even if chakotay was a tactical officer, that was the starfleet he signed up for and served.

and, in fact, the reason why the federation abandoned the colonists in the dmz in the first place and wouldn’t help bajor during the cardassian occupation is because the federation and starfleet are devoted to the ideals of peace and noninterference to a fault.

tng season 5, "ensign ro"

chakotay doesn't object to starfleet's actions, but its inaction.

which, side note, is why janeway's choice in "caretaker" makes it easy for him to rally behind her. by choosing to protect the ocampa, even though it's a huge sacrifice and puts her in a prime directive gray area, janeway specifically addressed the exact trust gap he has with starfleet.

season 1, "caretaker"

that's what he wanted them to do back home!

chakotay defends his starfleet uniform in the kazon scene that inspired this whole essay, and he believes what he's saying, because he's right: that's not what a starfleet uniform represents, either in theory or in practice. especially in the mid-24th century, regardless of the political issues, the federation and starfleet do not conquer planets or enslave alien cultures by force.

(of course, they wouldn't have helped the kazon free themselves either, but that's not the question on the table.)

to op's main question: it's an interesting (or boring?) doylist choice to make chakotay such a platonic ideal of a Starfleet Officer™️ (which, for the record, has always included going off-leash at the expense of one's career whenever ethics overwhelm regulations).

season 1, "prime factors"

star trek went to a lot of trouble to create the maquis for the voyager premise of two crews... and then quickly brady-bunch'd them into one happy family and let deep space nine wrangle the maquis problem instead. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

chakotay being so willing to put himself and his crew into starfleet uniforms (even though some members of both crews objected to it) cheated us out of some potentially rich drama, but it does hold water with what we see of him as a character on screen, and his relationship with starfleet. it has disappointed him, but he still believes that it's a force for good, and chakotay will always err on the side of seeing the good in something and thinking he can change it for the better from within.

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tl;dr: chakotay is a starfleet officer by training and at heart, who was temporarily out of uniform because his family and tribe happened to be directly in the middle of starfleet's messiest ethical quagmire.

I was never formally trained, nor do I follow any specific guide... I'm not professional and I'm just winging it 80% of the time, but here's how it happened!

Break down the story into pages. Each page should introduce a new idea (e.g. "this character is attempting something but failing") and advance the story.

Make a thumbnail storyboard to work out paneling and composition.

To the art program! Now do THE ART.

It's now 2 AM. whoop

But even with all this planning, I don't always stick to the script. Looking at the storyboard, you might be thinking, "Hey wait, this outline only has 8 pages! Where did the 9th come from?"

I... I came up with it on the spot. Making comics is, almost ALL of the time, an unsteady flight for me - I almost never know what a page is gonna look like before it's finished. Check out this speedpaint and how much I waffled over the composition before actually starting the page...

Why I Spent 32 Hours Making a Comic About an Emotionally Challenged Robot

Other than because "the 21 grams experiment" is a really, really, really good fic (and I hear making fanart for writers gives them motivation to write heheh *rubs hands together evilly*), other than because ULTRAKILL is a fascinating game with thought-provoking lore, other than because the Prime Directive demanded it of me...

I wanted to study color painting. I love art, I think. I love making art. I mean, I don't know if I love it in the way people seem to use the word "love"... but it's fun and I've been doing it for almost a decade now. So I guess you could say I love art.

And I read a LOT of comics, so I have a LOT of reference material. My main desire was to make a comic in the style of friedri-ce's gorgeous comics (textured rendering, vibrant color, abstract backgrounds, large panels), but works like Fragments and Ava's Demon are also hugely influential on my art because of their lush, dazzling, sexy color. I think studying from your favorite artists who are better than you is a good way to improve!

I mean, just look at this. Gosh. If I could make something as cool as this someday, that would be just... gosh.

Of course, I don't pretend to, nor do I want to, imitate any style so closely as to make it look like the original artist did it. I have my own personal preferences, and an artist might not be happy with you making art in their style (luckily for me, friedri-ce has stated that they are ok with others painting in their style).

Adapting Fic to Comic

What I love about comics is that you can interpret (emphasis on interpret) the fic's emotions through art! 21ge's story, and ULTRAKILL in general, makes me feel a lot of things that are difficult to put in words, so I express it through art instead.

For example, the 3 main characters get a color that represents them and their associated emotions. When their colors dominate the page, their presence is strong:

V1 gets dark blue, the color of rationality, cold logic, and business. It feels most secure in the safety of its known world - painted in shades of blue, or a blue so dark it's almost black and white.

Gabriel gets yellow/gold, the color of sunlight and, well, gold - it mainly represents his kindness. His colors tend to warm and brighten V1's hues, illuminating the world around him.

V2 gets red, the color of powerful emotion (at least, compared to V1), danger, and blood. Its color poisons and deadens Gabriel's colors on its sole page.

Together, all the colors represent the full spectrum of human emotion, dazzling and glittering with light.

I might even be able to remove all the text and you'd probably still be able to tell how V1 really feels, deep down. Why does V1 say the things it does? What is it feeling, despite its cool exterior and blank face?

Lonely, afraid, overwhelmed, defeated?

It lacks understanding of Gabriel, which is why he is never fully depicted except in combat - he's turned away, or in the darkness, or on a stained-glass window, or off-screen. It lacks control of Gabriel, which is why the light scatters when V1 tries to touch it in pg8. Often, V1 says the opposite of what the art is saying because this story is about how conflicted and in denial it is, how little it knows itself.

A picture can say a thousand words, and the combination of word and image can say even more. That's how 2 simple words can say so many things left unspoken, about both Gabriel and V1.

But space comes at a premium in comics, and I had to trim so much from the original text. If you compare them, you'll notice most of the changes are cuts, paraphrasing, and transition sentences... But I felt really bad chopping up kivaember's writing. They write such good dialogue, it felt like sacrilege... I still feel guilty about it...

A-anyways, a character will "speak" differently when their thoughts are being told to you in 3rd-person vs when their thoughts are directly written in a comic caption, which is why many of the changes were made... this is where adaptation gets much more subjective, because a comic is not the same as copy/pasting a fic onto some art.

Conclusion

Total time spent drawing: 32 hrs, about 3.5 per page.

The longest page (6): 6hrs, 37min. This is the page that got split into 2 to create the splash page.

The shortest (7): 1hr, 45 min. This is the extra page added.

Making (painted color) comics in this style is loads of fun, but I won't pretend that it isn't incredibly mentally taxing for me. It demands that you perform so many skills (because art requires many) over and over, multiple times per page, multiple pages per comic. It means that you learn so much - and that it's an all-consuming experience.

Perspective, contrast, composition, anatomy, the mechanics of light, color... You could spend a lifetime perfecting just one of these things.

My comic is riddled with mistakes. V1 and Gabriel are incredibly off-model, and different every time I draw them. There's a typo. I messed up my color profile a couple times.

But that's ok. I didn't focus on getting every single one of these aspects right. What I wanted to make was an artwork painted in rich and emotional color, whose story moved others the way 21ge moved me. (Judging by some of the hilarious tags I've gotten and the cool people I've met, I think I did that for quite a few!)

I make art because I have a vision in my head and I want to show others something they've never seen before, make them feel things that only I can show them!

To send you off, in lieu of saying goodbye I'll just put this extremely accurate footage of me charging up my laser to nuke kivaember with art WAHAHAHA 👇

~~~

Chapter 1 - Light

Falls on the floor and screams, then recomposes himself and very unconvincingly pretends he expected this. This is the first we get to see of Light's Perfectly Normal And Chill Guy persona and I have to say it's not a strong introduction to his acting skills. He gets points for entertainment value though, and also for managing to scream without attracting the attention of his family???

Rating: 8/10

~~~

Chapter 7 - Kiichiro Osoreda

This is the guy who performs the bus-jacking that forces Raye to show his ID. It's a very entertaining scene, but he's being controlled and his reaction is therefore inauthentic, which makes it difficult to give him an accurate rating.

Rating: 0/10

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Chapter 26 - L

This one doesn't technically count because L is merely hearing about Shinigami rather than seeing one, but it's too good not to include. He silently falls off his chair while actively solving a murder case in which the main cause of death has been heart attacks. Naturally the entire task force panics and thinks he's dying, and he does nothing to assuage these concerns. Absolutely iconic of him. Also makes for brilliant foreshadowing.

Rating: 10/10

~~~

Chapter 46 - Misa

We don't get to see Misa's very first reaction to meeting Rem, but we DO see their reunion during the Yotsuba arc, and she is horrified. She screams just like Light and L did, and her fear persists as long as Rem's hand is covering her mouth. She reacts pretty much how I would expect the average person to.

Rating: 5/10

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Chapter 53 - Soichiro

Another pretty standard reaction. Falls backwards, screams and immediately reaches for his gun. Nothing remarkable about it.

Rating: 3/10

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Chapter 53 - Aizawa

Exact same reaction as Soichiro, but he gets extra points because this panel of them both panting on the floor is utterly delightful. The eyes?? The pose???? They look like a pair of petrified crabs. I'm obsessed.

Rating: 8/10

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Chapter 53 - L (again)

L has heard that Shinigami exist and already knows that there's a "monster" attached to the notebook, so he's not surprised at all by the time he actually sees Rem. Instead, he starts having such an intense and paralysing epiphany that he doesn't even notice Light taking the Death Note from him. The least dramatic reaction so far but incredibly on-brand for him in every way.

Rating: 6/10

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Chapter 70 - Rod Ross

Freaks out once he actually sees Sidoh, but he's incredibly relaxed about the notebook flying beforehand. His line "I wouldn't be surprised if it's alive" is hilariously ironic given that the notebook does turn out to have a living component to it, and this does, in fact, surprise him.

Rating: 7/10

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Chapter 70 - Kal Snydar

One of my favourite reactions purely for the implication that Rod might have recruited an 8-foot-tall man in a monster costume. Perfectly reasonable assumption to make.

Rating: 9/10

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Chapter 70 - Mello

Much like L, everyone around him is panicking, but he stays impressively nonchalant. Immediately starts plotting ways to manipulate the demon creature for his own gain. This is essentially L's reaction if he was 90% more unhinged.

Rating: 10/10

~~~

Chapter 101 - Near

Only character to look genuinely happy about seeing the Shinigami which is an instant 10 for me. He gets an extra point for having the most precious smile ever <3

this won't be a long one (for now, unless i decided to expand on this au):

gojo and enji's ages are about 18 and 22 respectively

enji graduated from college at 21 and debuted at the same age, quickly shooting up to no. 2 by the time he's 22

gojo, geto, and shoko graduated from high school at 18

quirks and cursed energies often don't mix well, thus every jujutsu sorcerers are normally deemed quirkless, but most would decide to declare their cursed energy as a quirk instead to avoid discrimination (e.g: gojo's is called spatial manipulation instead)

of course, there will be some rare exceptions where one would have a quirk and also cursed energy, but they're just unable to use both at the same time, so they will need to train more on it (e.g: yuuji has a super strength quirk)

in the world where curses and villains exist, jujutsu sorcerers and pro heroes will have to work together; tho the general public is unaware of curses and sorcerers, every hero is at least briefed on what they are and what to do, including on letting sorcerers take over if they arrive on the scene and never questioning them

there are also exceptions in which certain quirk users can at least sense curses and may even protect themselves from them using their own quirk!