Why are those walking steaks allowed to eat all the carbon? Unfair. They feed me green electricity. It tastes like cowpat but they laugh it off. Sustainability, they say.
The first doodle was only for fun and it escalated from there. I thought it’d be nice to gift myself a nice heap of carby junk I haven’t eaten in years for a socially-distanced birthday, and yes - I ended up striking off the circuit soldering in my electronic cymbal when me and my gin tonic played along to equally junky-but-fun DJ Bobo eurodance horrors. Soldered it back on still drunk and played on. I could do this isolation thing for a long while... x)
We started our preparations for the journey to the USA and I’m in total hype mode. Spent a bit of time on trains in order to gather important items and had time to doodle around. At the moment, I enjoy playing with the ...electrifying relationship between Taka and the Rotomdex. x)
Wanted to draw this for so long, now I finally did. Red and electric: The best combination! It’s Taka together with my shiny Charjabug, my shiny Rotom and my affectionate Rotomdex from Ultra Sun. Charjabug’s shiny form is Pokémon’s closest approximation to a German S-Bahn train, and with Rotom being a rather literal “ghost in the machine”, it can be seen as the soul of an electric vehicle, which is roughly what Taka is... in a way. x)
A little something because a certain game steals all my free time! When Grubbin and Charjabug were introduced some months ago, I was less than impressed. But... then... HOLY ARCEUS. Grubbin was the cutest thing in PokéMonAmi, and after evolving, I heard Charjabug’s cry for the first time...
Taka’s origin under the cut. :) Thank you for asking about it!
Taka does not belong to a natural species. He has been artificially created through a process named calling. In short: Necessary elements to build an organism are provided and the initus starts the process. While he builds the still-lifeless body, he reserves a part of his psyche where the consciousness of the phantasm will grow. As soon as both parts are finished, the inits unites them into an individual.
There are also phantasms who are the spontaneous response to a gigantic emotional outbreak. Taka is one of them and this is how he was called:
Taka belongs to the part of my headworld which takes place on an alternative Earth (not Aeskareion). It’s pretty similar to our Earth, but the concept of phantasms and calling also exists there.
... Now, please don’t throw things at me, the following paragraph will be ridiculously awkward. I thought this stuff up many years ago and although I know it’s embarrassing, I still hold on to this kitsch. ;_;
There was once a middle-aged man called Seltei. He showed signs of the Ketelti, which is present when an individual possesses the basic ability to call a phantasm, though it was only weakly expressed and didn’t influence his behavior.
Some day, his life took a turn for the worse. Day by day, the ground beneath his feet crumbled a little bit more. After several years of misery, he decided to end it all and went for the train tracks.
He heard the bulk of steel accelerating beyond the turn and stopped thinking as soon as it came into his line of sight. The sharp cry of the whistle pierced his ears and another perception hit him right before the bow crashed into his head.
Seltei threw himself to the ground and the train thundered over him, he didn’t know why, but his reflex seemed to be connected to the strange flash of emotion he couldn’t explain. In the following days and weeks, he developed a certain interest for the steely beast, hoping that research gave him an answer to this lingering, strange feeling.
It became clear that research alone wasn’t enough. He had to experience this flash of emotion again, up close and near the source - it had been powerful enough to convince him to live, anyway. Seltei became a humble train driver, commanding the very steely beasts that left imprints on his mind. Confined to the cockpit, he had plenty of time to explore the connection of his inner world with this electric machine.
With every day that went by, Seltei became happier. He befriended colleagues and had countless stories of stupid and awesome passengers to tell. However, one detail set him apart from everyone else: His emotional reactions to special occurences where so intense that they led to the spontaneous calling of phantasms who represented the type of mood associated with the experience.
This is how those little red thingies came into being. They’re incarnations of certain trains and the memories Seltei has of them. Taka was the last of Seltei’s phantasms, called when his initus wasn’t far from retirement. A life’s worth of memories brought Taka into being, and he happily lived with Seltei until the initus, one day, died.
Now Taka experienced the black hole into which Seltei fell earlier in his life. He didn’t know where to go and who to be. It didn’t take long for him to become desperate, bitter and introverted. He lived a desolate life in a corner of the city’s train workshop -- until the dog of a young train driver discovered the dusty gruntball. This is when Taka’s life with Joseph and Senta began, and even if his facial expression is still that of grumpy cat, things get better every day. Loju, Schnuffi and Bruno, three of Seltei’s other phantasms, also live with them.
First evening in weeks I have to myself! I wanted to draw Taka in rainwear for a similarly long time, and here he is. Isn’t he adorable? x) Splish, splash!
