Mikey, but Magical

I’m excited to be introducing you all to my magical OC! Unfortunately while writing this blog post for the first time, it didn’t save so I lost the roughly two hours of work I’d been spending on it TT_TT
So I apologize if this isn’t as thorough or witty as the original because I don’t know that I have the energy to do it as well for the second time.

Anyway, let’s meet Mikey! And yes, his name is Mikey too, which I’m sure you’re considering my utter lack of creativity here, which I can’t exactly refute lol. However, the primary reason is that this particular character is essentially another aspect of my real self. You can think of him as the me that would exist if magic were real, the particular brand of magic that exists within my fantasy version of Earth anyway. I do plan to discuss that magic at some point down the line but frankly it’s kind of convoluted and I don’t even understand wat I’m doing with it half the time so it’ll sake a lot more thought and consideration before its in a state that anyone else will be able to understand. However, when I do eventually post it, it’ll be in the “Research Notes” section of my cryptozoology page. There is currently another post there which is relevant, on planar theory and the nature of the soul, if you feel intrepid enough to slog through my inane babble.

Anyway, let’s actually get to the part you’re actually interested in: me dressed as a fly af mage ~_^

While I’ve assembled a number of outfits for my mage-self over the years, this is my most recent and one of my favorites.

Now you may be wondering at this point “what type of mage are you?” Well those of you who know me well probably already know that I am a cryptozoologist, meaning I study magical and extraplanar creatures, hence the field guide I’m assembling here on the site. If you’re wondering why I would dress like a glimmorous fop when working with dangerous and powerful creatures, the easy answer is: I don’t. While I love my research, it’s not the only thing I do, and as such I need other outfits to suit other occasions. The concept for this particular outfit is that I’d wear it when socializing with other mages. I went for a snazzy and detailed look, while incorporating my eccentricity into it as well.

I love a good vest, and this particular one fits the bill well for this outfit.

Now, being the twig of a man that I am, most store-bought vests only fit me in one of two directions. Those that are properly sized around my waist are inevitably too short and sit way above my pants; similarly, those that are long enough to fall where they ought to would usually fit about 4-6 of me in them. Now we all know I can sew my own clothing (this is a cosplay site for heaven’s sake), and I have made myself a vest pattern that fits me well and used it quite a bit because, as I said, I love a good vest. However, I’ve had this particular vest for a while and like it quite a bit, so I seized the opportunity to do some altering to suit my needs, rather than building a new one(though you can be sure that some time down the line you’ll be seeing another absurdly fabulous vest for this character that I will be making from scratch). This particular vest was of the “fist sideways but looks like a belly shirt” variety, so I decided to add the border along the bottom edge, which adds a fun layered look and gave me some blank canvas or some fun embroidery. I also added the welt pockets with the same fabric as the bottom border to help tie things together, and because I love welt pockets even though they’re a giant pain in the ass to make.

Now the embroidery I did along the bottom is actually relevant to my magic, so let’s take a bit of a detour to talk about that. First, I’d like to introduce you to Tsu’mat, my fellow cryptozoologist and research partner.

For those of you who’ve read my field guide entry on drive imps, you may already be aware that they are very skilled at enchanting (imbuing objects with magic). As we grew closer working together, I gained a great appreciation for his skills in enchanting and over time learned how to perform some of the magic myself, though I often rely on Tsu’mat’s help when enchanting my own items. One facet of enchanting that really resonated with me was enchanting using thread, as I already sew and stitch quite often. By imbuing my thread with magic as I stitch things, they function as enchanted items in a similar fashion to enchanting trinkets or other objects, but because of the act of channeling my mana while going through the act of stitching designs worked much better for me because of my familiarity with needle and thread. [Side note, I just recently finished the first book of Circel of Magic by Tamora Pierce and loved it, in no small part due to Sandry’s thread magic!]

This is the bottom border section I added to the pinstiped vest, it contains 3 celestial guardians: the lunar wolf, the solar serpent, and the twin stellar raptors. Unlike most of my other enchanted items, or even my other enchanted embroidery, these pieces do not have specific spells woven into the fibers. Instead, they serve more as magical conduits to the celestial beasts. While I can’t necessarily activate the magic in the stitching to produce any sort of concrete effect, it offers a more vague protection and enhanced flow of mana from their respective celestial bodies. More than anything it connects me to the cosmos and provides some amount of comfort in that association.

Another interesting part of the outfit is the chain attached to the vest, which you’ve probably already guessed its function after the previous discussion.

Styled as a faux watch chain, the myriad of charms along it length are all enchanted to perform a variety magical tasks, some of which are significantly more complicated than others. Eventually I plan on devoting a post to what each of his charms actually do (since I haven’t actually come up with a specific purpose for some of them yet), but I’ll save that for another time. I took some inspiration from Ryan La Sala’s Reverie, another amazing book you should all read. One of the characters has a charm bracelet with magical baubles and I decided to style it more for myself, and dug up some of my steampunk roots. Additionally, the beaded spider serving as the anchor for the chain is by Amanda’s Arachnids, one of a few of her lovely spiders that I’ve purchased over the years. It is itself a species of magical creature which will eventually be added to the cryptozoology field guide.

Aside from enchanting baubles and stitching, he also collects a variety of magical objects from across the multiverse; here you can see me reading through the Book of Rites, a tome originating from the same plane as my research partner. Much like my many enchanted charms I would love to take some time to show off his collection (particularly because I made many of the objects) but that seems like it’s better left for its own post.

I think that’s a great place to leave things for now, I hope you enjoyed learning a bit about my magesona! I plan on doing a few more posts in the future, particularly because I’ve been working on a new outfit that is a good bit different from this one. Until then, stay safe and see you next time!