This week, we want to use our blog to talk a little more about some of the lore behind our created universe. Specifically, we want to introduce you properly to two very important characters. These are Galaxy and Blackhole. If you’ve been following us on Twitter, you may rightly recall that we shared short biographies for these two just recently. Today, though, we’re going to be going into more detail on their origins, what precisely it is that connects the two of them, and what roles you can expect them to play in our stories going forward.

The Milky Way

The first thing you should know about our universe is that it’s actually just an alternate reality of our own universe. There’s so much that we don’t know about our universe in the real world, and so much room for fantasy, we just don’t see any benefit in saying that our universe is completely made-up.

And the same goes for the galaxy! Our stories are almost always set in the Milky Way Galaxy, which is, as you’ll know, the galaxy in which we all live in real life! Again, we just don’t feel limited by that decision. We like that our stories take place in the real world, perhaps just a few hundred or thousand years in the future, and we’re happy enough that our only limitations are our imaginations.

So, does this mean that Earth and humans and stuff exist in our universe? Well… yes! We haven’t actually decided yet whether humans will play any role (or even appear) in our stories, but their influence will be felt throughout the galaxy, certainly, and we like to think that they (well, we!) made it past our solar system at some stage. We’ve even gone as far as to name the galaxy’s capital ‘New Triton’, which we think had something to do with human settlers.

We did say it’s an alternate reality though, so – as far as things like cosmology go – we’re playing very loosely with the rules. This is a world where magic exists, and where stars and planets are created by divine entities. We’ll always read about the way things work in the real world, but ultimately we like to have fun interpreting things our own way and coming up with fantasy-driven explanations for all the weird goings-on in the world.

Galaxy, the creator

One of those weird, fantasy-driven explanations is Galaxy, the creator of our universe, who Chelsey first created in 2013 to serve as a sort of ‘goddess’ for the world she’d begun creating. We try to avoid the terms ‘god’ and ‘goddess’ around here where possible, because those come with connotations and expectations that we’d prefer to avoid. Galaxy did create the universe, though, and she certainly was all knowing and all powerful.

“Was?”, you say? Yes, that’s right. At the time in which our stories take place, Galaxy, we’re sorry to say, was vanquished quite some time ago. We’ll get back to why and how that happened shortly, but for the time being just know that Galaxy is no more a figure of legend now. She represents some lost, unattainable hope in a world which has, for far too long, had little else to hope for.

The Galaxy character started out very differently when she was first being designed. Her first incarnation, according to Chelsey, was that of a small, child-like girl who had a dark and mysterious set of powers. She wasn’t named straight away, but her file, tellingly, was saved under the title ‘Monster Girl’. As this character was developed, she would eventually become the creator of outer space, and later the creator of everything else, as well. In 2014, she gained a second, more divine form into which she could transform, which was heavily inspired by stars and space.

Eight years have passed since then, and Galaxy’s design has gone through several iterations, with her design gradually becoming what it is today. Her hair and ‘dress’ have been designed to resemble the swirling form of a spiral galaxy. Her colour scheme has changed substantially, from its original vibrant blues and purples, to a simpler palette of a dark, space blue and a radiant white-gold. She’s often drawn surrounded by planets, showing her magnificence, and the ease and love with which she creates them.

In terms of powers, Galaxy kind of had it all. She could create stars, or even entire clusters of stars, with a wave of her hand. She could create planets, colouring them blue with oceans, green with grass, brown with earth, and every other colour imaginable. She could bring those planets to life with lush forests, gushing rivers and fields of flowers, and wind and rain and storms. Time and space were hers to command, and she could open great tubes through which she could zip across her universe in an instant. Her mind was infinitely powerful, and there was nearly nothing she could not know.

The only thing Galaxy could never understand was life. Living things come with minds of their own, and Galaxy would always struggle with things she couldn’t control. The creation of life, for Galaxy, was accidental. She created the ingredients and the conditions in which life could develop, but it seemed to spring up out of nowhere. She found living things curious at first, but as they evolved and gained sentience, she would recoil. They began to worship her as their ‘god’, and to make demands of her. She felt she owed them nothing – all she wanted to do was create things! No matter how many times she rejected them, they constructed monuments in her honour and fought wars in her name. She hated it!

Galaxy didn’t want to be worshipped. She especially didn’t want to spend all her time doing things for the living beings she’d never meant to create in the first place! All she wanted to do was to create more stars – but it was her stars, ironically, which would prove to be her undoing.

Blackhole, the devourer

When Galaxy first popped into existence, her universe was a dark and empty place. She grew fearful of the dark, and her sleep was haunted by nightmares. She eventually found the strength to create a star. It was only small, its light pale and flickering, but it lit up the emptiness which surrounded her and cast away all of Galaxy’s fears. She loved that star like a child, and the star loved her like a mother. As Galaxy’s confidence grew, and more of her powers revealed themselves, her sights would turn elsewhere. She lit more stars, each stronger and brighter than her first, and then it wasn’t long before Galaxy finally wandered off into the universe, never to return. The star was distraught. As it burned up what little remained of its fuel, without Galaxy’s love to sustain it, despair turned to anger. The star exploded, producing the universe’s first supernova – but it did not die…

That star became Blackhole, devourer of stars and worlds.

Blackhole is the living form of Galaxy’s nightmares, come to life, warped into a twisted rage by the immeasurable anger the star felt when she abandoned it. Whilst Galaxy lived to create, Blackhole lives only to destroy. His only goal is to erase every last trace of Galaxy’s light from the universe, including all living things, and return everything to darkness. He roams the void, seeking out planets and ripping them apart with his tentacles. Wherever he goes, he unleashes his evil spawns to search out living things and kill them. Once he has his sights set upon a planet or star, nothing can stand in his way, and nobody can hope to be saved, for there is no force in the universe that can stop Blackhole.

As a character, Blackhole is almost as old as Galaxy herself, but what’s interesting is that he never actually had a design until relatively recently. Chelsey told me, back when we started working on this universe together, everything I needed to know about him, and together we set about writing his backstory and his exact connection to Galaxy. A document I wrote back in 2016 sets this all out in great detail. We got Blackhole to a point where we were really happy with his story and his role in the story, but he still didn’t have a design, and he would go without a design for another six years!

That finally changed this year. Chelsey had thought about the way Blackhole might look many times over the years, but she’d never got anything committed to paper, and honestly I can’t blame her. Designing your primary antagonist – and not just that, but the antithesis of a character like Galaxy, who so much work has gone into and we’re both so happy with – is hard work and can’t be taken lightly. Nevertheless, things got to a point where we decided it was time to just go for it. We talked about how Blackhole might look, considering different avenues for inspiration, before Chelsey finally came up with the idea of tentacles. It made a lot of sense, since visually there’s a similarity between them and the swirls present in Galaxy’s design.

Inspiration also came from an image released by NASA back in 2019, in which a black hole and its shadow were captured for the first time. You’ve probably seen it yourself. We observed, as I’m sure many others have, that the black hole in the image looked sort of like an eye, staring back at us from across the void of space. Honestly, it’s quite a scary image when you start thinking of it as an actual monster lurking in space, like Blackhole himself! Blackhole’s colour scheme of black and orange came directly from that image, as did the eye at the back of his throat.

We also likened Blackhole to the personification of ‘Death’, or the ‘Grim Reaper’ as it is often known, due to Blackhole being the literal death of stars and worlds. You can perhaps see a resemblance to that personification in Blackhole’s design, particularly in the way that his tentacles resemble a hooded cloak or robe in some of his stances, and in some ways he has the look of a ribcage about him too. It’s an unsettling design that conjures thoughts of death and mortality.

Personally, I like to think of Blackhole as less of a character and more of some great, unstoppable force, like climate change, or the eruption of a volcano. You can’t reason with Blackhole. You certainly can’t hope to fight him one-on-one, and don’t bother trying to raise an army against him either. Only Galaxy ever wielded a power strong enough to stop him, and she’s gone. Without her, the universe’s end is inevitable.

Future plans

So, where do we go from here? Well, it’s been a very long time coming, but, now that Galaxy and Blackhole both have designs that we’re happy with, we’d like to finally begin using them more. There are a few ways in which we expect to do this. We’ve dug out stacks of old doodles and writings, and we’d like to update and publish some of these. Chelsey’s currently working on a comic which covers their origin stories in some detail. We even commissioned some beautiful artwork of Galaxy from illustrator Jun Yen, and we’d like to do the same for Blackhole at some stage, too.

In terms of just how Galaxy and Blackhole slot into the stories we want to tell with Kinoko, that’s a slightly trickier matter. Galaxy’s gone from the world, and Blackhole isn’t the kind of antagonist you can expect Kinoko to ever confront face-to-face. Nevertheless, their combined presence will loom large over many of the stories we tell, and the threat of Blackhole’s return to the Milky Way Galaxy will cast a long shadow. Whilst neither play much of a physical role in our stories, both have worshippers all across the universe, not just in the Milky Way Galaxy, but over in neighbouring Andromeda, and even farther beyond. Right now, we’re working on two factions in particular: the ‘Order of Galaxy’, and the ‘Cult of Blackhole’.

The Order of Galaxy (that’s a working name!) are an ancient organisation, dedicated to preserving the memory of their fallen creator. They trace their origins back to the days when Galaxy still walked amongst them, and since ever since the day of her destruction they have sought to revive her. Even after millions of years, the order remain true to their cause, no matter how hopeless their sacred vows might seem.

The Cult of Blackhole (another working name) are also an ancient, secretive organisation, but they are dedicated to aiding Blackhole, the devourer, and fighting anyone who would try to stand in his way – like the Cult of Galaxy, for instance. They believe that, in aiding him in his ambitions to snuff out every last flicker of Galaxy’s divine light, Blackhole will grant them eternal life in his new universe. Anyone may attempt to join the cult and earn their place, but only the most devoted can ever hope to pass their unholy rituals of initiation.

These two factions have been at war with one another since time immemorial. Even when the Order of Galaxy have seemingly had such little left to fight for, the battle has raged on. Both factions have infiltrated the universe’s governments at their highest levels. Certainly, most senior political figures in the Milky Way Galaxy are members of one or the other, and we’re sure the same goes for other galaxies, too. These aren’t the only factions aligned to Galaxy and Blackhole, by the way, with all manner of different orders with their differing ideologies coming into play. For all the colour and joy we want our stories to offer, things behind the scenes – far beyond Kinoko’s control, or that of any mere kuparkuke – are messy, and trouble is most certainly brewing.

Right, well I think that’s all for now. If you’ve stuck with me for this long, I hope you’ve found this an informative and thought-provoking read. We’re still pretty new to proactively sharing what we’re working on. I just thought it would be nice to go into detail on our processes for once and share something that we’re both excited about. If you’ve enjoyed this post, and you aren’t already doing so, please do give us a follow over on Twitter. We hope to share lots more like this in the not too distant future!