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A Season of Spooks

Between Enigma and his symbiote Companion, it’s difficult to say which one of them enjoys the spooky season more.

For Enigma, it’s a good excuse to craft more and more intricate illusions that can spook or frighten both his students and co-workers in equal measure.

For Companion, it’s a time where he can takeover and let loose without fear of being too terrifying to the population. They expect elaborate costuming, acts, and lifelike detail, especially from his host, so he blends right in.

Nonetheless, I’m sure the crowd is shocked by how effortlessly “Professor Enigma” tricked them into believing he compressed his mass to fit below a Jack O’Latern, popping out and frightening would-be passerbys. It’s got to be just another illusion, right?

Right?

This lovely YCH from LittleBadWolf back in late September of 2020 kickstarted a tradition where every year, around Halloween time, I switch my profile pic on all of my social media to Companion. And if there’s a YCH involving some form of monster around that time of year, odds are high that I’ll bid for it in order to use Companion as the character for it.

Halloween is a holiday rooted in pagan traditions, particular traditions revolving around the harvest season, it is significantly easier to explain why something like it would become commonplace on a plane like Crossroads when compared to a holiday like Christmas. And as a alien creature that strongly resembles the kind of terrors and spooks associated with the season, Companion would fit in to a crowd of costumed humans and anthros in a way that he never could the rest of the year.

This is one of those times where the world-building was back-filled based on a premise I wanted to implement. Shockingly, this happened (and will keep happening) more than you might imagine. Certainly, often I am commissioning art specifically to work with a story or lore-building post that I’ve already planned out, but the realm of Crossroads is strongly influenced by the artists and other creatives I have the privilege and honor of knowing.

Incorporation their creativity through YCHs like this, figuring out how a scene would work and make sense giving my world-building and characters, is often it’s own fun. It’s a skill that’s served me well over the years.

And to conclude this post, LittleBadWolf also produced an alternate version of this piece which has Companion is a pair of black pants. I was never clear of if that was because they weren’t sure if Companion was wearing anything or not in his reference sheet, or if it was thrown in as a bonus, but either way I can’t complain.