#I drew/wrote this back in... May? Scanner has improved since

[fountainpenguin]

"The dragonfly, he ran away... but he came back with a story to say-"

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New 130 Reasons Why I’m Fairy Trash update today!

Fairly OddParents || One-Shot - “Scarred”

Read on FFN || Read on AO3

Find more Lavender Train story arc HERE

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Poof reflects about his home and family life while riding the bus to Big Daddy's house... He's spending spring break away from home, but grows increasingly worried about how little time he might have left with his godbrother, Timmy...

(First 1,000 words under the cut)

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47. Scarred (1 month after "Sentry")

Wednesday May 6th, 2005

Year of Sky, Spring of the Silent Owls

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Mama Cosma used to babysit me and Timmy all the time when I was still in the instar stage of my development. My parents don't love stepping out of the house if it means leaving me and my godbrother alone at home, but they've stockpiled a massive amount of vacation days and it sort of reached the point where the Amity program forced them to sprinkle a few date nights into their schedule… if at all possible, of course. The godparent shortage was a real thing even back when I was still a newborn. Turnover rate in this career is bad… Granting wishes gets exhausting, especially if you're dealing with ungrateful kids all the time.

I don't think Timmy's ungrateful… He's just been a lot more stressed since his trial in Fairy Court where the truth about the frozen timestream finally came out. Like… I know I kind of had it bad, getting snapped from reality and catapulted into the Hocus Poconos and all, but I can't even imagine what it must have felt like to croak out a confession about an illegal secret wish before the entire Fairy Council. I can't imagine what was going through his mind.

None of us ever will. He's the only one whose memories went unscathed throughout those 50 accidental secret years. Well… He and Kenny Lovell, but Kenny spent years flipping patties up in Burger World before he got stuck on Earth. I remember seeing him around town before I really knew what was going on. Kenny used to suspect the truth, but not even that saved him. Sure, he resisted for a while, covering his ears and saying numbers over and over while tears ran down his face. It's not for no reason people started calling him Crocker Junior.

Even Kenny succumbed to the enthralling memory-tweaking magic of the Secret Wish sooner or later. I hope he's doing okay. I mean, I don't really know him or anything… but I get it. I know how messed up you feel when you're confused and scared and wondering if you're out of place.

We don't talk about the Secret Wish at home. Dad and Mama sometimes check on me in private, especially right after I came back from the Hocus Poconos. For a while, I thought they were just being paranoid. I mean, they seemed a lot more affected by the whole "me getting slashed from reality for a day" than I was. I felt okay.

Then I started having night terrors. I have no idea if Foop gets them even worse than I do or, like, maybe not at all. Or maybe to Anti-Fairies, nightmares are a beautiful thing.

Timmy was a wreck the first month home from the trial - the first month in 50 years that we all started aging normally on Earth again - and he'll still shut down if you bring it up. For a few weeks, he almost got sloppy with his wishes… with his secrets. We almost got found out by other humans as his godfamily. We had our share of close calls. We're just plain lucky that Jorgen lifted the restrictions on Crocker sniffing us out, because even Jorgen had to admit that Crocker was too resistant to forget-a-cin to ever truly forget about us.

Timmy's parents ramped up his therapy visits (with a helpful wand twitch from my parents to ensure they could still make ends meet when it came to paying bills). Timmy threw himself into his soccer practice, video games, endless scrolling through his cell phone, and a lot more travel wishes to far-off times and places. I never saw it as a cry for help, though. Timmy was just my big brother… and only now that I live alone, now that I look after Foop and Sammy and Finley in our dorm, do I see the signs.

Sparky provided a good distraction in the time that he needed it most. He's kind of like a therapy dog, even though he doesn't always stay in one place. And Timmy's on better terms with Chester and A.J. now, but…

… there was about a year, right after it all went down, where he couldn't bear to look at them without spiraling. I didn't really get it at the time, but now that I'm a little older with a little more schooling under my belt, I know the feeling. It's guilt. Guilt over the fact that he didn't want to grow up. Guilt for how he loves his fairy godparents just as much - if not more - than the adults who raised him. Guilt for the mental strain he put on an entire planet, holding them in a state of purgatory instead of allowing anyone around him to grow up. Guilt for Da Rules he broke to keep contact with his godfamily. Guilt for the way that he stood there, open-mouthed in the courtroom, when the Hocus Poconos slurped me out of existence and I was gone.

Guilt crushes you, I think?

Timmy doesn't let us come to his therapy appointments. And even when he's home, he gets closed-off and won't talk to me about it. I know he doesn't want to scare me… He just can't look me in the eye sometimes. I think it really hurts him to remember that he'll never get to see me grow up. No godkid can keep their fairies past age 18… No matter how many times they dance around Da Rules, flatter Jorgen, or even save all of Fairy World. You just don't get that privilege.

And I get that. I'm not saying I don't. I mean, it's way too dangerous for everyone's health and safety, magical creatures and mortals alike. I don't know if my parents are ever going to tell him how Juandissimo legally challenged Fairy Court and won the right to adopt Remy. They always sort of meant to bring it up when he was older, maybe 16 or so if they were still around him then and he stayed as stubbornly clingy as ever… but after we found out how far he'd go with the Secret Wish, I don't think Fairy Court looks very kindly down on him right now. Timmy kind of shot himself in the foot with that one.

I just wish there was something I could do… but my dad thought the same thing once. That's why he granted that Secret Wish in the first place. No way is that happening a second time.

[Cnt'd on FFN / AO3 - Links at top]

[imbriaart]

The best tool in your bag... failure!

So today I want to talk about the importance of failure in one's work. No one sits down and draws or writes a masterpiece the first time through. It's important to know that you will fail and its important to know that and improve.

One of the biggest things I have heard in my years of drawing from people has been. "I cant draw...."

My answer is always the same. I couldn't ether. To say that people are naturally talented and are born to do a great masterpiece is to lesson the hard work, sleepless nights and inner fighting over things in ones work that for the better part... don't work. But its important to know where one fails and to work hard to improve that issue.

My best examples can actually be seen in older work for Demon Blade. This year (August 16th) will mark me developing and drawing Demon Blade. When I first designed it, I was the comics editor for the College Newspaper at VCU. With it I did political cartoons (till I got a visit personally from the Dean about my comic) and released two comics. The first was critical View, a gag comic and the second was the first version of Demon Blade. Given while I had digital development tools at my hands. The programs and tools where still a decade away from being really useful for comic art outside of coloring. So I did the comic by hand.

While rough I drew the hasty 4x4 inch panels then inked and lettered the comic all by myself in about two hours a page. While the characters of Mai, Ino, Tetsu, Yoku, and Kaji, all where parts of the story. The comic was a sloppy mess. Because while I was a classically trained artist with skills in animation, I failed to get the form right. But I pushed on.

In 2000 I started one of the first online magazines called, Anime In America. The page for about two years was a hit covering news and reviews. In the magazine I tried to continue the series Demon Blade in a newer more comic book format. And I failed again. This time because despite my college being one of the top art schools in the world... they didn't teach comic art. (Heck if it wasn't for my reports and discussions in my years many of the teaching staff would have still scoffed that anime was a legit art form to look at in a modern movement. Keep in mind the US anime really didn't make a break through till 98 when the Pokemon craze was at its peak.) I fought for them to use a book by Scott McCloud called "Understanding Comics" which is now a staple book used at the college to help teach about comics and in many parts art itself. But still the only real books I had to help me develop my own skills was the classic "How to draw the Marvel way"which was hard to agree with since Marvel wasn't really drawing that way in the 90's. But still I tried.

By then I had a decent scanner and photoshop to do some improvements but still needed a lot of work... But I didn't I stopped drawing for a while. Telling myself my art wasn't good enough. I started to listen to the negative critics (the loudest of which was myself) and didn't return to drawing comics for three years. And even then it was sloppy. I had to reteach my skills to be a better artist. By 2007 I reached a point where my art needed to go digital. (Mainly due to the poor drawings on paper filling my apartment at the time) So I jumped and started doing Critical View and then Sweet Dreams. Both would be sloppy messes that I was proud of at the time.... and now may still be a bit proud but also ashamed how much my artwork slipped.

(Sweet Dreams Hand Drawn Sketch vs Digital Drawn Page)

It would take time to retrain my hand to be decent to pick Demon Blade back up. And in 2013 after six years of training I tried just that.... And failed again. This time with Demon Blade #0

If you search the web you may come across reviews of Demon Blade #0 and even may come to its Comixology post. The comic isn't too bad its got a score of a C+ in comic ratings which is pretty good considering I wrote, drew, and published the 16 page comic in one week. This was a challenge I gave myself to do a manga artist's time to recreate Demon Blade in a new way. What I got was a good looking, and hyper stylized piece with horrible grammar (because I went to public schools... No really I just suck at grammar and need to hire an editor one day. When I can afford to.)  

But despite the critics I pushed on and did a sloppy mess with the official 2013-2015 release of issues 1-24 of the series. Most of which is available now on Amazon for cheap. I got sloppy but kept up a monthly release for each issue for two years. (Its only reason it got lost to the web was the downfall of Inkblazers website where it was in the top 30 titles)

(New verses old of the same scene in Demon Blade #2)

When I got to the end of the first real arc of Demon Blade I noticed much of the audience I had gained was lost in the downfall. And many new fans wanted the earlier stories which I found had major flaws. So as I began to face homelessness I started working in 2015 on the current redesign of the series. I was determined to give the series a clean and at the same time unique look. Mixing my years of study into a much more professional looking and moving comic. And while I am proud of the comic.... I also know there will still be failures in it that I will ultimately want to fix... and fixing those mistakes is fine. As long as I learn from them and improve who I am as a artist and storyteller.

What do you think? Do you have your own opinion you want to share, or do you want to chime in on mine. Do you have a suggestion of a topic you want me to cover? Share it in the comments.