Sailors steered by one fixed star for the plainest of reasons: it never moved, so everything else could be measured against it. A character kept on a lodestar card is kept the opposite way to how most studios keep her. Redescribed at every sitting, she is reprinted by mood each time — a hairstyle rewritten, a signature detail edited out — and by the ninth frame the stand lights two similar women instead of one. Written once and kept by the stand, the card is the one description that never shifts its bearing.
The card holds five lines in fixed order. Age — a plain number, and here a mature one. Hair — colour, length and one habitual style. Build — two or three words, no more. Face — one or two details that endure every crop. Signature — the detail that survives even a tight frame. Everything else belongs to the day’s line below the card: outfit, corner, hour, light — set fresh at every sitting, never confused with the card itself.
The routine is plain. Paste the card, word for word, at the head of every prompt. Generate at the standard cost of 6 credits, keep the best third, and spend on repairs, swaps and upscales only after judging — judged against the card by the stand, not against yesterday’s frame, which may itself have drifted.
The star stays lit so the card never has to be re-plotted. Set hers once, in writing, and every new frame comes off the same woman.