How to invoke Midjourney archetypes and make a cat fly

You can create new characters beyond the blueprint

After making a lot of images in Midjourney (MJ), you’ll soon learn that the MJ bot doesn’t always follow your prompt and make the image you want. You crafted your prompt in a clear and straightforward way that even your 3-year-old child could understand, so why can’t the bot?

Put aside the possibility that you’ve used the banned words in your prompt. I assume you are a good person who follows MJ’s rules. So let’s say you want to create an image of a unique cat with your prompt: /imagine prompt: a photo of a cat with 4 ears And you tried numerous re-rolls and modified your prompt, but nothing. The best image you can get looks like this. Why?

It’s time to learn about archetypes

Archetype is the model that represents a kind of person, place, or thing. It’s like a blueprint that MJ refers to when making an image. For example, the archetype of a cat will have two ears and no wings. So, if you want to make a picture of a cat and put “cat” in your prompt, MJ will make a cat with those typical characteristics, not a cat with four ears and wings. Archetype is essential so that the bot will make coherent images.

MJ’s archetype is more than a condensed description of a character/subject. By referring to that archetype, the bot will also automatically find out the other “things” or ideas or situations related to that character. For example, suppose you prompt the following professions (doctor & police) with a single word. MJ will autocomplete to fill in the related details (stethoscope, hospital background, police uniform, street background, and poses), so you don’t have to type all the descriptions of that character/subject.

The good and bad about archetypes

The archetypes make the prompt shorter, which is a good thing. You don’t have to describe everything because the bot will do it for you. Think about how many words and adjectives you must type to describe the two pictures above.

The downside is that you must know the specific archetype of the character, thing, or scene you want to create. “Cat” is the archetype for a regular, typical cat. How about a cat that has four ears? And a cat with wings that can fly through the air? What do you call these archetypes?

The invoke method

In Midjourney, when you type the descriptions in your prompt to describe your character/thing/scene, you use the “Describe Method.” The other way to prompt is to use the “Invoke Method,” which means you call on the specific archetype to replace your description of the character, thing, scene, action, or pose. For example:

• a powerful man with fire magic and wearing a dark robe → sorcerer
• a man who enjoys a meal and talks with his family → diner in the restaurant with family (The archetype for the “man who enjoys a meal” is a “diner.” The archetype for the scene is “restaurant,” if you want the background to be more specific. Else the location can be anything… like in the jungle?)

You don’t have to crack your head to find the right archetype. Consider the classification of things like professions (e.g., scientist, spy, lawyer), heroes (e.g., warrior, wizard, super-hero), villains (e.g., devil, monsters), and animals. The list goes on and on. Here’re some resources if you need inspiration.

201 character archetypes https://industrialscripts.com/archetypes-of-characters/ Scene archetypes https://onestopforwriters.com/scene_settings

Using “unlock words” to break the (standard) archetypes

When you want to go beyond the standard archetypes, you must “break” it using the unlock words in your prompt.

A list of “unlock words” is given in Midjourney Discord FAQs:

fantasy, surreal, magical, fabled, mythical, mythological, supernatural, fantastical, fictional, make-believe, imaginary, unrealistic, legendary, pretend, unreal, concept art, fanciful, anachronistic, hallucinatory, illusional, dreamed

No, you don’t have to memorize these words. The words are for reference purposes only when you need some ideas. The list is also not exhaustive; it doesn’t cover all the possible situations. I tried a few, and they don’t always work.

Other unlocking words & phrases in Midjourney V5 include “-like” (cat-like monster), “a creature blended from X” (a creature blended from a cat and an eagle), and “a hybrid X-Y” (a hybrid cat-eagle in the sky). To keep things simple, I’ll address these in another story.

Let’s use what you’ve learned to make a cat with four ears.

(Fun fact: According to Google Bard, there is a real cat with four ears. You can do a Google search for “Midas cat.” But let’s pretend you don’t know about this.)

Here’re some prompts that were used to break the archetype. The archetype was broken, yes. But they did not create a photo of a natural-looking cat with 4 ears. ( — weird 1000 parameter also didn’t work)

/imagine prompt: an unreal photo of a cat with 4 ears

/imagine prompt: a photo of unreal felinoid with 4 ears

/imagine prompt: a photo of a surreal feline species with 4 ears

/imagine prompt: a photo of a fictional feline species with 4 ears

/imagine prompt: a photo of unreal Midas cat with 4 ears

After a few tries, this was the prompt that worked: /imagine prompt: a photo of an unreal feline species with 4 ears

This photo is the most natural-looking cat with 4 ears — so far. Adding the words “unreal feline species” did the trick.

You can use an online thesaurus to find words similar to “cat” to invoke the archetype — meaning using similar words but not the same. Look past the synonyms. Check out the related terms. “Feline” is related to the word “cat,” but it is not the same as “cat.”

The problems with invoke method are: (1) You must find the right words to invoke an archetype. (2) You can’t specify the details about your first made-up character. Such as a cat with four ears and a necklace. Luckily, you can fix this by using /remix.

The /remix method

The /remix method is more straightforward than solely relying on a prompt to invoke the archetype. To get into the /remix mode, type /settings. Then choose “Remix mode” (green means activated or ON). To deactivate, click the “Remix mode” button again.

You can also activate the /remix mode by typing /remix. Similarly, to deactivate, type again /remix.

In this story, ignore the settings’ High and Low variation modes. I’ll write more about the variation modes in the future. If you are interested, please follow me and stay tuned!

Now let’s create a flying cat.

1. Imagine a creature (other than birds) with wings that can fly in the sky. What will that be? How about a fairy?
2. Now, create a flying fairy. /imagine prompt: a photo of a fairy with wings flying in the sky, noon
3. Upscale one photo that you like.
4. Click the Vary (Strong) button. A dialogue box will appear. You will only see the dialogue box if the /remix mode is activated.
5. Paste in the same prompt and change the word from “fairy” to “cat” a photo of a cat with wings flying in the sky, noon (no need to add /imagine prompt:)
6. Re-rolls if needed. Then upscale the best photo.

Here’s how it works:

• Since not all fairies have wings, you have to specify that they must have wings in your prompt.
• The fairy is a model/blueprint/archetype for the cat to switch with the fairy.
• You can think of it like this: the cat has taken on all of the fairy’s superpowers and inherited all her traits. Now, the cat has all of the fairy’s qualities, like wings, fly ability, beauty, and grace.
• If you choose “bird” instead of “fairy,” the flying cat may have feathers all over.
• When /remix is turned on, you can use the Vary (Strong) button to change the photo’s subject. Here, the cat is “fitted” into an archetype of a fairy.
• Vary (Subtle) does not work because you are changing the entire character. Using it will create a fairy with the cat’s head.
• You can also change “fairy” to any character you want, like “dog.”
• You can use the same “fairy” as a blueprint or template to make other magical creatures! (great news for the fairycore fans)
• You’ll usually get better results if your original archetype is about the same size and shape as the new subject you want to switch to. But sometimes you get lucky, like with the flying elephant whose skin sparkled like a fairy (see below).

Why would you want to use /remix?

• With /remix, you can make a model/template character, then switch it to a different character.
• That means you don’t have to use just one model. For example, you can get the “whitish” look using a pegasus instead of a fairy.
• For the flying cat, you can also invoke the archetype using the prompt: /imagine prompt: a fairy cat flying in the sky — but you will have lesser control of the “fairy cat” archetype. (“angel” may work as well)
• Other creative ways to use /remix: (a) Make a scene that fits an archetype, then switch out the character. (b) Invoke another archetype to add details. Etc. (for another story)
• The flying cat archetype was switched with the pegasus in the photo below. Then, by asking the cat to hold a sword, the “guardian/warrior” archetype was triggered. MJ will automatically add more details, like the cat wearing armor around its neck.

Related stories

Conclusion

• An archetype is a model that shows how a type of person, place, or thing looks.
• Archetypes are needed for Midjourney to make coherent images.
• To create an atypical character, subject, object, or scene, you must break its (standard) archetypes.
• You can invoke or break the archetype by using certain words.
• You can make a model or template character with the /remix method and then change it to a different character.
• You have more flexibility with the /remix method to invoke other archetypes and add details.

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