Athra Girl Magazine OOC Discussion

[Akkad_Akaya]

A few days ago, I posted on my alt The Leopardess that I was coming out with a project for December. (I play Ravana 729, Akkad Akaya, The Golden Serpent, The Leopardess and m1thr0s) This project has now been released here, in character:

Looking for this teen girl magazine

New Link: https://ningishzidda.deviantart.com/art/Athra-Girl-Magazine-732041883

I have not done anything Eve related for a very long time. Previously I had painted some silly posters for an Amarr Faction Warfare event we called “Operation Pool Party” with a cross-corporation coalition of mercs and loyalists being represented in the posters (https://ningishzidda.deviantart.com/gallery/) In character, these are produced by m1thr0s, the alias of one of my characters who is the owner of a visual design studio run entirely by spoiled rotten artist slaves all hepped up on goofballs and other fun Serpentis drugs, among other businesses.

A huge amount of the credit for the accuracy of this magazine goes to Samira Kernher. She is and always has been a treasure for the roleplaying community, in particular for those of us wishing to play an Amarr character. I wanted to make this OOC thread to talk about how the magazine was made, and why I did things a certain way.

I have owed my characters a detailed biography for quite some time. Ravana 729 and Akkad Akaya are actually my late husband’s characters, who passed away on December 26th 2016. While I like the history he built for them very much, (so much that I decided shortly after to build my character into his story as well) they have a more difficult background than The Golden Serpent, so, I wanted to start on her. I didn’t want to make a regular biography or profile. These always strike me as lacking the ability to achieve immersion. Chronicle style stories are better, but, then I had a thought, what if I connected her to a medium that made sense in her world, that fit her age group and special social problems?

That’s how I came up with such an odd idea, a teen girl magazine, to really convey just where she was coming from and the world she grew up in. We all have thoughts about what our character thinks and does in their spare time that never spills out onto the IGS. I’m sure we’d all like to get to know our favorite characters a little better sometimes. It’s difficult to do this within the context of IGS and character bios are really flat. I think the medium of an in-game biography done by a reporter or columnist, or an in-game advice column, as Aldrith Shutaq’s player suggested, is a really good idea. The IGS tends to be very polarized and scrappy - leaving little room for neutral character development, and the IGS in game tends to be the same.

I’d like to do more of these, although, this project took me a week to finish. Since I’ve gone through the rigors of it once, I suspect it may be easier to do again, so I would consider doing another one, and maybe now that people can see what it would look like, I might enlist some help. I would really like the help of other people to do some of the writing, which is possibly the most grueling part beneath the full page size paintings themselves.

I’d like to note a few things about the magazine that are not obvious.

1. Much of this was hand painted, every snowflake and splotch on the first three pages was done by hand.

2. Samira noted that my use of “ISK” was wrong - baseliners use a local currency, which doesn’t have a name in lore, so we decided to name them Amarr Crowns or Imperial Crowns. I used “AC” since IC could be confused with something else.

3. Amarrian is not an actual word. It’s always Amarr. I had to edit almost every page! And my twitter account is “AmarrianSerpent” ugh. I hope I can change it…

4. “Radical Gheinok” is a reference to Vaporwave and was made with some Vaporwave clipart (https://www.deviantart.com/art/Vaporwave-Png-s-Gifs-Stock-Pack-553847379) and my own public domain stockart.

5. The Flipbook program I am using, Flip Builder, is free but it leaves a watermark. I am literally a starving artist so I am not going to listen to any complaints about it.

6. The girl at the bottom of the page on page 11 is me.

7. “Templarii” by Anoyia, 6, is an actual drawing sent to U.S. Marines overseas by a 6 year old. And it’s hilarious. And dark.

8. The Ad for PIE on the last page is a spoof of a classic U.S. Army poster. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/3c/3e/27/3c3e277dd475ec1faeab1d01c561e223.jpg

9. Golden’s age in the interview should raise some eyebrows. There is definitely something unethical and illegal going on there, even if we don’t have much of anything to go on about the Empire laws. This is meant to illustrate both the free leash with which Khanid rules his kingdom as well as something not quite right going on with the Akaya family. At the very least, she skipped a high level degree and years of training to get fast tracked into capsuleer status.

10. It’s okay for your character to find the magazine offensive, and to say so. I’ve been roleplaying a long time and I’m fairly unbuffeted by IC drama. In fact, I find it amusing and deliberately instigate it. https://forums-archive.eveonline.com/topic/440337/ Some problems might include that the prices are (theoretically) very high. this is a magazine for very wealthy girls living on the backs of slaves. It calls the Gallente “primitive” and some Amarrians might find Akkad himself offensive - he is dangerously liberal with his slaves and has made more than his share of enemies within Khanid, turning in separatists like McCarthy indicted Commies, and so on. So feel free to say something nasty if your character feels like it with these sorts of things.

11. Diana Kim wins best comment "Speaking about the trends for Amarr teen girls…
    … which guns do they prefer currently?"

• Izi

[Elmund_Egivand]

OOC: Personally, I like to use the term ‘Shekels’ to refer to Amarr Empire currency. I also refer to Gallente Federation currency as ‘Sovs (Sovereign, in reference to the Federation’s past as the Garoun Empire but I figured the modern Gallente and Fed citizen probably forgot that term and just use Sovs instead)’, Republic currency as Maiku (from the Maori word ‘matikuku’, meaning ‘Claws’. In reference to the symbol on the Republic flag and an acknowledgement of the Brutor’s role in the Rebellion). For the State, it’s just ‘credits’ or ‘kredits’.

[Akkad_Akaya]

Why shekel?

[Teinyhr]

Just my 2cents on local currencies - the chronicle Khadrea at least mentions “Amamake credits” which i think is a solar system wide currency as hinted by its name. I think it’s fine to invent whatever name you wish for local currencies - I mean, our Earth alone has likely more currencies than there are recognized nations.

[Elmund_Egivand]

Based on their roots as a fringe Catholic sect before the Eve Gate collapsed.

[Akkad_Akaya]

Shekels are Israeli though, not Catholic. Catholics are all over the world currently, centered in Italy, with the Lira and the Euro being the currency. So by that logic Euro or Lira would make more sense.

I don’t think Judaism, one of the main religions of Israel, is much of a fit with the Amarr religion. They are strictly anti-proselytizing. They did own slaves, historically, and the Assyrians, the Semites who originated the word shekel, were very warlike and worshipped a war god of fire and the noonday sun, called Meslam ta-Ea Nergal, who does share some similarities to Amarr religious practice.

I usually think of the Amarr as Muslims with a side of the Vestal cult publically. Secretly I think they’re more like radical Thelemites, judging by the Sabik thing…it’s very hard to pin down their religion to any one Earth religion, and I think that’s a good thing. I have a hard time seeing the Jewish or Israelite thing, though.

[Elmund_Egivand]

I lifted it straight from the Bible, where they used shekels. I suspect that some bits of the Bible probably snuck into their Scriptures, which may or may not include the currency referred in the Bible. That is my reasoning for ‘shekel’

[Mizhir]

First of all. Sorry to hear about your late husband.

I must say I was quite blown away by how amazing the Magazine is. I love the details and all the flavour it has. And it seems really realistic. So really nice work.

3. Should be possible to change your twitter handle. I have done it before and I doubt they have changed it.

4. You put so much effort into something we can enjoy for free. Anyone complaining about the watermark deserves to get slapped.

5. I am jealous about your hair. Even though I have some nice curls / waves, my hair is mostly flat on the top of my head.

6. Golden’s age is certainly very low for someone with capsuleer tech, but I am not the type who wants to nitpick about these details and you are far from the first person to have a young capsuleer. Instead I just see it as a interesting approach you have taken on your character.

Don’t spend too much effort on comparing things with RL things. Just create your own flavour and mix and match the parts you want.

[Akkad_Akaya]

Thanks for the condolences and compliments Mizhir.

Real life beauty tips? No need to be jealous…my hair is mostly straight, naturally. All of those “bedhead” curls are from sponge type hair rolls. One thing I notice is the longer my hair is, the more impossible it is to get the curls to stay up higher on the head. I have very thick hair, so it might be different for you, but it’s pretty easy to build volume. About shoulder blade length hair is ideal for that look. I’m not into perms, I think they look stupid mostly unless one has a really good hairdresser. So you wet your hair and apply whatever product (hairspray or holding gel/foam) while it’s wet, then put the rollers in, and you let it dry (I usually just slept on it.)

That’s how you get the look, it lasts for a day or so. It’s a pain in the ass to do but worth it if you’re planning to have sex, take a photo or go out on a date.

[Mizhir]

Haha thanks. I will give it a try. My hair is pretty thick as well and reaches my breasts, so the weight of it is pulling down a lot making it flat up top.

[Akkad_Akaya]

Oh right, I can see what you mean. According to lore, the Prophet Gheinok wrote the scriptures. I think there were other authors later on - Anoyia and so on.

“Catholic” certainly points to a post-Christian origin, but Catholic means “Universal” in Latin, and could refer to a futuristic religious movement that emerged after our time - something that solved our current religious conflicts, for example. The Lutherans also refer to themselves as “Catholic” although they tend to use the word “Universal” these days to avoid confusion.

I have to say I prefer Amarr Crowns, but I kind of liked Varrinox’ insistence that the Amarr Empire was just his British Empire in disguise.

@ Mizhir

When I do those curls it’s mostly flat up top too, but you can hide that by brushing back some of your hair on top like so, to create a wave that goes back and disguises the fact that one isn’t naturally wavy. Like so:

[Samira_Kernher]

@Akkad_Akaya

3. Amarrian is not an actual word. It’s always Amarr. I had to edit almost every page! And my twitter account is “AmarrianSerpent” ugh. I hope I can change it…

Well no, specifically it’s not a word for referring to Amarr as a people. You can still use it as an adjective in the sense of, say, ‘an Amarrian dress’. Or, indeed, ‘an Amarrian serpent’. You just wouldn’t say, ‘that Amarrian over there,’ it would be ‘that Amarr over there’. At least as an Amarr. Foreigners can get it wrong.

But yeah, I love this! It’s a very neat idea and you did a wonderful job on it.

[Samira_Kernher]

As for crowns, that was just a very quick suggestion for the sake of needing a currency name that was not ISK. Certainly not a declaration of canonicity. I suggested crowns just because it’s a feudal-based society. It seemed generic enough for the purpose of the magazine. And as the actual name is not given in the magazine I don’t think, just the abbreviation, it could stand for something otherwise generic like “Amarrian Currency”, or “Amarrian Coins”.

Either way, Amarr would certainly have a name for its currency that is rooted in the Amarrian language, we’re just inaccurately translating it into English for our own reading comprehension.

@Akkad_Akaya

I have a hard time seeing the Jewish or Israelite thing, though.

The big similarity that I see is the idea of the Jews as God’s chosen people, compared to the Amarr idea of the Amarr as God’s Chosen.

[Akkad_Akaya]

Oh right, we’re -:¦:-•:’":•.-:¦:-•CHOSEN •-:¦:-•:’’’’:•-:¦:-

For some reason I always forget that part, probably because it seems like it’s a curse, and it sucks.

Well I don’t see why CCP doesn’t just give us some guidelines for the name of currency. They need a chronicle that outlines currency, like the one food chronicle that gave us some names of food and methods of cooking…

[Nana_Skalski]

Shekels doesnt sound right with Amarr. Maybe as old currency used by Ni-Kunni it would be ok, but they would have to be changed to something similar sounding like maybe Chaleks.

Imperial crowns sound just about right for official Amarr currency.

[Aergri_Evingod]

looked shekel up and considering it’s origin I find crown to be more likely as shekel would mean the unified catholic church had reconciled with another monotheistic faith.

[Arline_Kley]

Thrones for Amarr
Credits for Caldari
Republics for Federation

Nothing for the Matari for they use a bartering system for hard currency is unknown to them

[Aergri_Evingod]

@Arline_Kley

Thrones for Amarr
Credits for Caldari
Republics for Federation

Nothing for the Matari for they use a bartering system for hard currency is unknown to them

Commodity money on planetary level is likely though some currency in existance on regional level is not unlikely either I suppose.

[Ravana_729]

“Nothing for the Matari for they use a bartering system for hard currency is unknown to them”

And that’s not stupid. Why would it be unknown to them? Their technology is in use across the galaxy.

It would literally be impossible for them not to know about the concept of currency.

The original link is broken, I’ve replaced it. Deviantart now offers magazine style uploads!

https://ningishzidda.deviantart.com/art/Athra-Girl-Magazine-732041883

[Arline_Kley]

@Ravana_729

“Nothing for the Matari for they use a bartering system for hard currency is unknown to them”

Hit a nerve have I?

I know the Matari use something for currency, but it was in jest that they prefer bartering