THE ZODIAC EXPERIMENT: THE NEW AGE
hoo boy. strap in, folks.
@sweet-star-cookie @mythicalmagical-monkeyman @hyperfixation-tangentopia @maiawhimsicalt
so. uh. I've had TZE for five years. that's a pretty damn long time. and yes, "the new age" means exactly what you think it means—this is a complete reboot. now, I'm not gonna say that I'm going to completely hate the old TZE now—I love my zodiac ocs to death. they've been my oldest comfort ocs to date, and I've made some incredible friends through them.
but. I did make my TZE ocs when I was pretty young. they've been through a lot of iterations, but they've always mostly stayed the same. there are some worldbuilding mistakes and discrepancies and spontaneous decisions that I've kept because trying to fix them would just cause the entirety of my worldbuilding to fall apart. so i'm fixing them now. this a complete revamp of The Zodiac Experiment.
my grievances with my own work:
- the biggest mistake that's been bothering me for a while is the geography of the world of TZE. since the Astral Plane is based off the cultures of earth, each zodiac has a kingdom that is inspired by the culture that they were a part of when they were mortal. my partner pointed out to me that it was a bit weird that I dedicated four whole kingdoms to east asia but no kingdom at all for India or South America. and I thought about this for a pretty long time, and I did realize that I wasn't particularly satisfied with my world's geography. this got worse when I tried to write a book set in the world of TZE and realized that having two entire kingdoms based off of Japan was just kind of redundant and mildly unnecessary. originally, the zodiacs were never meant to be kings and queens, they were just meant to be people. but by giving them their own kingdoms, i kinda fucked up the geography of the Astral Plane.
- another thing was the religions of the Astral Plane. it was a canon fact in the old TZE that every star spirit in the Astral Plane knew about the existence of the gods, and that the Zodiacs were established royalty. however, I also realized that this kind of degrades the zodiacs' power and mystique in canon. no god would outright show themselves to their followers unless really prompted to. so in the reboot, all Zodiacs operate behind the scenes, only directly interacting with their Constellation advisors, other Zodiacs, and Eclipse. in the same way, Constellations only directly interact with other Constellations, the Zodiac they serve, and humans. Eclipse doesn't talk to anyone except the Zodiacs. Ciara, with her semi-god status, is one of the first people who connects the bridges between the gods and the common people.
- the distribution of the zodiacs' genders was kind of uneven. what I mean by that is all air and earth signs were female and all fire and water signs were male. the original reason for this is because the very first iterations of the zodiacs were meant to be students at a boarding school, and the female and male signs were supposed to be in dorms together. the new Zodiacs have the spring signs (aries, taurus, gemini) and the fall signs (libra, scorpio, sagittarius) as female while the summer signs (cancer, leo, virgo) and the winter signs (capricorn, aquarius, pisces) are male. this also gives me the opportunity to play around with gender presentation and expression (which I did try to do in my previous iteration of the zodiacs, but I don't think it was as obvious as these new guys)
- a very long time ago I mentioned that the reason why the zodiacs and constellations were special was because they were the only beings that could perform magic. yeah uh that's a lie that's being retconned. now, even humans can gain magic, though the most powerful humans can't even come close to winning against a zodiac, even if the zodiac is at their weakest.
- they are not called star spirits anymore, they are called humans. their biology also changes slightly; all humans possess a secondary set of blood vessels known as meridians. these meridians contain a liquid called many things: mana, qi, pneuma—it varies depending on which part of the world. this liquid is what allows humans to control magic, but it does not allow them to be born with magic. the very first humans were descendants of the Zodiacs, and they were said to be born with magic. however, time and evolution have degraded humans, and this is why the zodiacs are said to have retreated into hiding—they are ashamed of their children.
- on the topic of mana—the color of the mana is the only thing that is completely unique to each zodiac. aries is red, taurus is reddish-orange, gemini is orange, cancer is orangish-yellow, leo is yellow, virgo is lime green, libra is green, scorpio is cyan, sagittarius is blue, capricorn is purple, aquarius is magenta, and pisces is pink. thank you to homestuck and @probably-a-human-being for this idea.
- this world is set in a more medieval age—this is so that it lines up with the timeline with the other stories i have in this universe. if you are keeping up with the many masks of chau huynh (which, let's be real, barely anyone is keeping up with TMMCH except for katie. shoutout to katie.), then you might remember the time i mentioned TMMCH took place in the same universe as TZE. it does—it just takes place many years after the events of TZE. like, hundreds of years. it's less headache for me to just put TZE back into the past.
- every character in this story is a villain in their own right.
with that, here are the revamps of the zodiacs! (and also eclipse and ophiuchus and cetus and Ciara because they're still around as well).
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general redesign details:
- the color of the zodiac's hair follows a specific pattern. spring signs have colored hair, summer signs have natural hair fading into color, fall signs have natural hair streaked with color, and winter signs have natural hair color. aquarius and pisces are the only exception to this rule because of their heightened skill in magic.
- the eyes of the zodiac also follows a specific pattern. fire signs' eyes are red, earth signs' eyes are green, air signs' eyes are orange, and water signs' eyes are blue. additionally, cardinal signs' (aries, cancer, libra, capricorn) eyes are pale, fixed signs' (taurus, leo, scorpio, aquarius) eyes are vibrant, and mutable signs' (gemini, virgo, sagittarius, pisces) are muted. on top of that, positive signs (fire and air) have four point star pupils and negative signs (earth and water) have six point star pupils.
- I did try to give these guys more varying body types so they all wouldn't suffer from same body syndrome (I also made the heads smaller so each character wouldn't take up too much space. everyone I have talked to have said that smaller heads are worse. womp womp to them.)
Aries: The Ram
She/her
Goddess of war
Eventually ends up with Pisces.
The oldest Zodiac in terms of time periods. She came from Ancient Rome, but Eclipse kept her soul locked in stasis until it could be stabilized to become a Zodiac.
The strongest Zodiac, physically
Fatal flaw: good god get this girl an anger management coach. Her mood changes at the smallest whim, and she demands obedience from every one of her servants. She hurts others. She hurts herself. It can't be helped.
Design choices: She's meant to look like a Roman gladiator, and she's physically the strongest out of all of the Zodiacs. The flower she has on her head references Virgo, while her moon necklace references Cancer. Her bracelet references Gemini, and her anklet references Scorpio. The only colors she wears are red and gold—red to symbolize carnage, and gold to symbolize glory.
Taurus: The Bull
She/they
Goddess of the harvest
Married to Capricorn and dating Libra (open marriage)
The second strongest Zodiac, physically
Fatal flaw: The laziest and most indulgent Zodiac. She's one of the more reclusive Zodiacs, locking herself away in her room and constantly indulging in food, alcohol, and other vices. A large amount of Zodiacs don't realize that this behavior hides a much larger, much deeper problem.
Design choices: She has vitiligo in this iteration, whereas previously, Virgo was the one that had vitiligo. I did this to make it look like the patterns of a cow. She is still blind in her right eye. I based her dress off a Quinceañera dress, making it big and poofy to represent her indulgence. I think she has more flowers in this design, but I could be wrong, and I'm too lazy to sift through all my photos looking for the original Taurus design.
Gemini: The Twins
They/she
Goddess of chaos
Dating Ophiuchus and Sagittarius
Fatal flaw: she continually keeps trying to reinvent herself. She is one of the most childish Zodiacs, because she died the youngest. She shirks her duties, and she is also one of the biggest liars among the Zodiacs. As such, nobody trusts her with any important tasks. It's widely known that she's just a puppet queen, being controlled by her Constellations.
Design choices: i'm not gonna lie, Gemini's redesign is the one redesign that i don't completely love, but that's just because I love my original Gemini design too much (I am a Gemini). Regardless, I based this Gemini off of a blue and yellow macaw, with her dress inspired by traditional Incan dress. The flower she has on her head references Virgo, while her moon necklace references Cancer. Her bracelet references Aries, and her butterfly belt references Scorpio. It's not shown, but she has tattoos of wings on her arms and back. When a spell is recited, these tattoos transform her arms into wings. She is one of four Zodiacs that is able to fly. She wears no crown, further emphasizing how unfit for her role she is.
Cancer: The Crab
He/him
God of relationships
Married to Virgo
Fatal flaw: he tries entirely too hard to ensure that there is no conflict between the people he loves. He wants his family to always stay in a state of idyllic bliss forever. Even if that means...covering up the imperfections.
Design choices: his clothing is based off traditional Maori clothing. He wears a crown of seashells to show how he is the water zodiac with the most connection to the ocean. He still has his cybernetic legs. He is based off both a crab and a lobster. The moon necklace he wears references Aries, Scorpio, and Gemini, while the diamond necklace he wears references Virgo.
Leo: The Lion
He/him
God of theatre
Dating Capricorn
Fatal flaw: his ego is insane. He's been blessed by the sun himself, and he took that to mean that the world revolves around him. Lives off of validation and praise and attention. It doesn't help that his kingdom is actually one of the most prosperous kingdoms, reinforcing his idea that he is the greatest ruler and Zodiac. He is the greatest Zodiac, after all...right?
Design choices: his clothing is based off Tanzanian clothing. Despite his designation as the Zodiac bearing the blessing of the sun, he is not the one wearing the most gold. This is a symbol of who truly is the most glorious Zodiac. His circlet is the same as Scorpio's, to hint at their past relationship.
Virgo: The Virgin
He/she
God of wealth
Married to Cancer
Fatal flaw: he's materialistic and extremely possessive when it comes to his belongings and the people he cares about. He fears things being taken away from him, and so he hoards things, holds onto things so tightly, they break. Due to this, he repeatedly counts and tallies his wealth, so as to make sure he never loses anything. He can't lose anything, not after what happened...
Design choices: his clothing is based off of an Egyptian pharaoh’s. For this iteration, I changed Virgo’s antlers to be ones that have diamonds hanging off of them, as that indicates his opulence and wealth. The angel wings have stayed the same, as Virgo is the virgin, and angel wings are an indicator of purity. He is the only other character besides Eclipse and Ciara to have bird wings on his back, indicating how he is one of the most influenced by Eclipse. The flower he has on his head references Aries, Scorpio, and Gemini, while the diamond necklace he wears references Cancer.
Libra: The Scales
She/her
Goddess of justice
Dating Taurus
Fatal flaw: she’s entirely too apathetic to the concerns of everybody else. She’s the most objective out of all of the Zodiacs, and bases all of her thoughts and decisions on fact. As a result, she comes off as heartless and lacking empathy to everyone else. She tends to favor neutrality in all conflict, seeing all perspectives of the situation. As a result, nobody is able ever really able to win Libra over in conflict.
Design choices: her outfit is based off Arabic clothing. Her veil has stayed to further tie into the justice is blind theme. Her beaded crown is the same as Eclipse’s to reference how they both lack emotion. She's wearing multiple layers to symbolise how she's one of the most closed off and repressed Zodiacs—she hides a lot of herself.
Scorpio: The Scorpion
She/they/he
Goddess of emotion
Ends up with Aquarius
Her corruption allows her to have greater control over shadow magic. She is the only Zodiac who is able to use shadow magic.
Fatal flaw: lets her emotions control her, rather the other way around. She is the most mentally weak out of all the Zodiacs, and succumbs to corruption the most easily. Most of the other Zodiacs view her as too needy and clingy. The most misunderstood and demonized Zodiac by far.
Design choices: her design takes inspiration from Indian culture. One thing that I didn’t include in the picture was that she can conjure four additional arms made of shadow, another design choice inspired by Hindu myth. The flower she has on her head references Virgo, while her moon necklace references Cancer. Her butterfly belt references Gemini, and her anklet references Aries. Her circlet is the same as Leo’s, to hint at their past relationship.
Sagittarius: The Archer
She/her
Goddess of travel
Dating Gemini and Ophiuchus
She is the fastest Zodiac due to her speed enhancement magic and her electricity magic. This is something Aquarius is very petty about.
Fatal flaw: she is known for being extremely blunt and honest, and thus has gained a reputation for being a bit of a bitch among the Zodiacs. She also doesn’t recognize her behavior as hurtful, and frequently admonishes her fellow Zodiacs for being too mentally weak. This mentality also translates to her; she doesn’t really care about others’ opinions of her. As such, she’s viewed as the oddball out of all of the Zodiacs.
Design choices: her outfit is based on Hawaiian hula dancers. While bows and arrows were used in Hawaii, they were used more for hunting. Horses also did exist in Hawaii, but they are not native to the area. This further ties into Sagi’s sense of not fitting in with the other Zodiacs. She and the original Sagi both have the white headband and burn scars. She has the headband and flower crown in place of her crown because she’s more active than most of the other Zodiacs. Her necklace has blue beads as well as a shark tooth—she made this herself. She has the legs and tail of a horse—this was something I tried with the original Sagi but later cut out. She also has a single horn—I dunno, I thought it would be cool.
Capricorn: The Goat
He/they
God of time
Married to Taurus, dating Leo (open marriage)
The oldest Zodiac in terms of death age. Died when he was 47.
They were a fisherman in their mortal life, hence the spear-trident hybrid weapon.
Fatal flaw: being the god of time, he never forgets wrongdoings. He holds grudges until he dies—and since he can’t die, that’s forever. When he first because a Zodiac, he was a nihilist and saw no point in immortality. He has since moved on to find new purpose in his life as a god, but still retains part of his former personality.
Design choices: The robe he’s wearing is a more stylized version of ao dai, traditional Vietnamese clothing. The conical hat he’s wearing is worn in many southeastern Asian cultures, and I chose it instead of a crown to show that he’s still the humblest out of all the Zodiacs even after becoming royalty. The veil is an homage to my previous Capricorn design. He no longer has a visible fish tail, instead having scales on his legs. When he goes into water, they turn into a fish tail.
Aquarius: The Water-Bearer
He/they/she
God of knowledge
Ends up with Scorpio
The second fastest Zodiac. He’s said to be as swift as the wind itself.
Fatal flaw: he’s too curious about the world he lives in. When he was a mortal, he was confined to the walls of the palace he lived in. As a result, he now wants to find out everything about the Astral Plane, searching and discovering and stopping at nothing in his pursuit of knowledge.
Design choices: Part of his hair has a watery texture because he possesses both air and water magic—this is something I included in the beta version of my original Aquarius design, but lost when it came to the actual version. He has a xiao guan headpiece in place of a crown because it’s more functional than a crown. He has a mix of traditional hanfu and changshan clothing. And I’m not sure if I ever mentioned this, but both Aquariuses have tridents because they swapped their weapons with both Pisces. The trident was originally Pisces’ and the fan was originally Aquarius’.
Pisces: The Fish
He/him
God of art
Ends up with Aries
Nicknamed the most: Pi, little prince, little fish, little bitch
The oldest Zodiac in terms of creation order. Despite this, he remains one of the more immature Zodiacs.
He was a prince when he was a mortal. Never lived to see his coronation as king.
Fatal flaw: suffers from delusions that he will be the one to succeed Eclipse and be the one to unite all the Zodiacs under his rule. This is something he has in common with the original Pisces as well. He believes he will become a martyr whose sacrifices will bring peace and prosperity to the Astral Plane. He gets his wish...just not how he intended.
Design choices: I wanted to give him a more childish appearance to contrast his standing as the oldest Zodiac created. His eyes still have a black sclera, but his eyes are dark blue with the faintest hint of purple to symbolize his descent into corruption. It’s not shown, but he’s also wearing a cross necklace to further tie into his martyr-ness. He is the only Zodiac to have a conventional-looking crown because he was actual royalty. He and Aquarius are also the only ones to not follow the hair rule I said earlier—both have streaks of color due to them training their magic for so long.
Ophiuchus: The Serpent-Bearer
She/her
Fatal flaw: Nothing will change. Everything will remain the same as it's always been. I need something to change. Something. Anything. Anything at all.
Design choices: eyelash color changed to be more of an albino coloration. Dress and Asclepius stayed mostly the same. I do want to mention (this was a part of my previous design as well) that the ribbon around her waist is meant to look like a snake's tail, because she once had a snake's tail, but it got chopped off.
Cetus: The Whale
He/him
Fatal flaw: Everything is changing, too much, too fast. I don't recognize anything anymore. I want it to stop. I want everything to stop.
Design choices: he looks mostly the same if I'm being honest.
Eclipse:
Has no perception of gender so use whatever pronouns you'd like
Supreme emperor of Astralis/the Astral Plane
Fatal flaw: What flaws? She has no flaws. She’s supreme. Perfect. The highest form of authority this world has ever seen.
Design choices: the gold has been removed from her design and replaced by silver to contrast Ciara. She’s also represented by the moon, and with paler and more muted colors to contrast Ciara. Her scythe is also meant to look like a crescent moon. This design is also a more accurate size comparison of Eclipse compared to the other Zodiacs.
Ciara:
She/her
Ciara Nhật Thực Phuong, the child savior
Her middle name has changed to the Vietnamese term for ‘eclipse’.
The girl “destined” to unite Astralis
Fatal flaw: I can save everybody, right? -> I need to save everybody. -> What if none of us can be saved? -> None of you deserve my saving.
Design choices: mainly the same as her previous design, except with more saturated colors and gold accents to contrast Eclipse. She’s represented by the sun, and her new sword (not shown) is meant to look like a sun’s ray. At the beginning of the story, she looks the same as the version I showed previously. In this version, she has shorter hair and horns and wings because she’s reached her ascended Taiju form. At this point, her Taiju powers are comparable to Eclipse’s teenage powers. The shorter hair marks a change in her character development, where she’s more cynical and resentful towards the Zodiacs and the world she lives in.
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You reached the end of this post? Good, now I can rant about...everything.
The past few months have not been kind to me. I started writing this post back in early March, abandoned it, and finished the rest of it in an hour because I had a manic burst of energy. This story and these characters means...a lot to me. They were created five years ago, during COVID, because I was a lonely kid and I needed something to distract me from everything that was going on around me. But in the past year or so, I've been slowly falling out of love with this story, and these characters, and I'll talk about why.
I've been made fun of for having these characters (but that might just be because...i make them in gacha life, an app that does not really have a good reputation because of its awful community—regardless, i really don't have the time to draw, hence the character creation app). I was young when I came up with this story, and the writing for the original story was...not good. Very much not good. I get that everyone starts from somewhere, and that my writing is much better now, but...eesh. And while it's nice to look back on that and see how far I've come, it's getting harder for me to view my characters as just kind of...childish. Hence the reboot. And hence me working on a novel that takes place in the same universe, but isn't about the same characters, so I can incorporate more mature themes.
People have also told me that they don't like my characters because "i'm (insert X zodiac) and i don't act like that at all!" which, come on now. Of course i can't condense every single personality type into a single zodiac. These characters are meant to be caricatures of zodiac signs, and above all, they are fucking fictional. Fiction rarely ever hurts anyone. Another part of why I stopped writing this story—people love zodiac signs, but they only love them when they're vague and can encompass basically everybody.
I started putting out content about TZE on tumblr during 2023, and I made a lot of friends through it. Hell—I've even gotten fanart of my characters, which i'm eternally grateful for. people liked my characters enough to listen to their playlists. However, it is so fucking hard to get people to care about original characters, as i've known for a while, and as i'm learning as i put my original novel up, chapter by chapter. That...was kind of the reason why i ceased TZE content altogether—i got the sense that people didn't really want to see my zodiac ocs. But—shoutout to katie (again, lmao)—I do know that people are still interested in my characters, if only I would put them out there. So I'll put this out there.
Another contributing factor to my stopping of TZE content: I love these characters too much. I'm...very scared to actually start putting pen to paper and start actually writing out their story, because I'm too scared I'll fuck it up. I have this irrational idea that this story is my magnum opus, and it needs to turn out perfect. Irrational, I know, but what can ya do. ┐(´ー｀)┌ I've tried twice already, and gave up both times because it wasn't turning out like I wanted it to. I'm still pretty young, and I'll probably actually start writing this again when I gather more writing experience.
I start my last year of high school this week, and I am also beyond stressed and worried and anxious about what my future holds for me after this year. Sometimes, writing feels more like something that's chaining me down rather than something that's supposed to free me. Sometimes, I feel like writing is the only thing I’m good at, and sometimes, I feel like my writing is complete shit. I have not been really kind to myself over the past few months, but I'm working on that.
Wherever I go from here, I want to thank everybody that has supported me and my creative writing endeavors. Thank you for all your kind words, your fanart, your encouragement. I'm beyond grateful.
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