#i feel old and like a teen at the same time a weird conundrum

[iminaworldofpureimagination]

The revelation that you're 34 is INCREDIBLE idk why I assumed you were younger

I'm 34 in three months acutally but yes Im an Old Fuddy dudy this is how i feel a lot (:

[alkhale]

Ugh😭 I just need a little taste of the next nascent update

(srry it’s been awhile, with finals finished i had some stuff going on at home and i work on the other stories in tandem with whatever chapter flows faster for me atm and there’s so much with memos i want to catch up on)

Raven levitated the steaming cup down into Pandora’s waiting hands.

She stared at the sleek cup, smoothed out and painted with fine black. Pandora gingerly moved her fingers around it as Raven took her seat, several spaces away from her, at ease. Silent. 

“That’s a really useful power,” Pandora said. “If I had something like that, I’d use it to do a bunch of things at once.”

“I’m constantly at battle with the forces behind it that try and overshadow me any moment,” Raven said.

Pandora took a sip of the herbal mixture, wondering if it was possible to drown yourself with a teacup. No, she wasn’t that dumb–the closest she could get was choking on it and hoping for the best from there.

“It has,” Raven said, taking a soft sip, “Its moments.”

She could hear the distant rumble of the city. There was a bit of a salty sort of tang in the air from the bay lapping around the secluded tower’s foothold. The breeze was chilly, nipping at her cheeks and at her legs. Pandora’s bun was starting to ache a bit from how tightly she’d pulled it together at the top of her head.

“Can I just,” Pandora stopped. She set the cup in her lap and then turned imploring eyes Raven’s way. “Can I just talk for a second?”

Raven took a long sip.

“You’re a mess,” Raven said flatly. “I’ve been blocking you out since you came out of his room. Your emotions aren’t exactly well contained.”

Pandora’s mouth opened and closed like a fish. She folded in on herself, hunching her shoulders and bowing her head. “S…Sorry, um, about that–”

“He’s the same,” Raven said without a hint of emotion. “It comes and goes. Like a whiplash. Don’t beat yourself up over it.”

“Oh,” Pandora couldn’t help the flicker of curiosity. “Does it… Does it have a sort of look to it? Our auras and–”

“Even if I tell you not to talk,” Raven said, answering her earlier question and ignoring the present one, “You’ll talk. If it stops you from giving off any more emotions than you already do so I don’t have to increase my meditation while you’re here, then fine.”

Pandora bit her bottom lip.

Raven merely continued to drink from her tea cup.

“I just really wanted this weekend to be fun,” Pandora rushed out with a groan. The cup sloshed in her lap and she pressed the heel of her palms into her eyes. “The point of me coming was supposed to be fun. I–not that you guys aren’t fun with him–it really does seem like he’s just… just been having a great time here with all of you and he’s doing all this great stuff but–anyway, it’s just… It was supposed to be a little breather. For me, at least. I wanted it to be nice for him. I didn’t want to cause any trouble, I just wanted to spend time with my best friend and do all this great stuff but–”

Pandora groaned, louder. “But stuff just happens even when you can’t–things are always just out of our control–out of my control. I know his mom’s just doing this to mess with him, you know? She’s probably one of the most intelligent human beings on the planet and I mean, she’s Dam’s mom. With him it’s already this–” 

Pandora made a vague gesture with her hands, “It’s like this never ending chess game with him or something! Sometimes I feel like everything is a-a-a move or we’re always thinking around each other while thinking about each other and I’m worried that’s weird? Or it’s wrong? Isn’t that sneaky of me? Of him? Of us? I don’t even know! But he isn’t supposed to be thinking about her–I don’t have any rights to say anything but Dam’s beyond her now. He really is! He’s grown up and he’s kind–he’s so, so kind, and he’s always doing things so fully.”

Pandora made the motion of wrenching her heart out of her chest. “He doesn’t do things often but when he does he does it. Dam’s… He’s…”

“If you’re going to keep talking about him,” Raven said, “and not get anywhere, I’m going to go.”

“Sorry,” Pandora said. “He’s a great guy, you know?” Raven rolled her eyes. “You kinda remind me of a friend of mine back home– And, well, there’s something more to everything that’s been bothering him and I’m worried but then there are things I’m worried about to–”

“You’re talking in circles,” Raven said. “Make points. Address them.”

Pandora’s mouth opened, her jaw went slack, working for a second as she fumbled over her words.

“No,” Raven said, looking at Pandora in slow, absent realization. “You’re always like this, aren’t you? You just talk and work things out from there.”

“That’s what I’m always doing in my head,” Pandora admitted. “I think there’s a word for it.”

“Overthinking,” Raven said. “A mess.”

“Oh, well, yeah, that sounds right too….”

Pandora roughly rubbed at her hair, almost knocking her bun out of place.

“Perhaps,” Raven said. “You need to meditate.”

“Where do I start?” Pandora said miserably.

“What’s making you so miserable in the first place?” Raven said. “Why are you out here–with me?”

Pandora pressed her fingers to her lips before whispering, “My best friend is stressed out and I think looking at me just makes him more stressed out.”

Raven considered the energy thrumming several floors beneath them. “How do you know that?”

Pandora gestured limply to the doors that lead back inside behind them. “He’s been using his katana and his martial art skills non-stop in the training room.”

Raven raised a brow. “He’s always training here.”

“I know,” Pandora said, miserable. “But I asked Bart to pull up the feed. He’s cutting off their limbs or breaking their legs first.”

Raven stared, waiting.

“He only does that when he’s thinking really hard,” Pandora said, lips wobbling. “Otherwise he’d just cut their heads off.”

She filed that away for future reference. “I see. That’s… thoughtful.” Torturous.

“I think he does it because he’s imagining opening up whatever’s bothering him that easily,” Pandora said, shoving her face into her hands.

Raven took a small sip.

“Doesn’t that seem morbid to you?” That’s coming from me.

“A little but it’s Dam,” Pandora said into her hands.

She sighed. Raven waited, holding her cup in her hands and watching the slow ripples on the surface. Pandora turned her eyes forward, staring out at the beautiful city skyline flickering out across the bay.

“I feel so behind,” Pandora said quietly. “I know I’m naive and I try not to be naive, but I can’t help but end up falling back into it.”

“Naivety and optimism walk a fine line,” Raven said. “But they’re not always the same thing.”

“You’re not an idiot for wanting things to go well,” Pandora repeated.

“Wise words,” Raven said.

“A family friend I might be seeing soon,” Pandora credited. “He’s a larger than life kind of guy but… Mama says we’re alike sometimes. If I ever ended up becoming a heart-breaking flirt here and there.”

Pandora stared at the flickering lights.

Raven stilled for a moment. It was a flicker not unlike the lights across the bay from them. A moment. A thought. An emotion that wasn’t her own that bled out from the girl sitting beside her. And then it was gone.

“I wish I could play it all out,” Pandora said quietly. “Get my hands on the keys… It always… It always helps me think when I can’t seem to think about anything else.”

Raven tipped her head to the side. In all honesty, she’d rather be holed up back in her room right this moment opening up the new spell book she’d finally secured through several different means. But if it meant clearing up the ridiculous amount of energy flooding the tower, then she’d sacrifice the night.

“Perhaps,” Raven said. “We can work something around that.”

Pandora turned to her quickly, overturning the tea cup in her lap. Raven managed to stop it midair but the herbal mixture splashed out, spilling over Pandora’s legs.

“What do you have in mind–”

“Didn’t that hurt?” Raven said, staring at Pandora. “The tea was still warm.”

“Oh, no, it’s just a little warm,” Pandora said quickly. “Hardly any heat–I’ve had really hot tea thrown on me before, now, that stuff hurts–”

Raven regarded her in silence.

“I–you know, people–piano now?”

this other part:

“You don’t,” Raven said, dully, seriously, perhaps even with a touch of disgust, “Need to be jealous.”

Pandora looked ashamed for a moment over the top of the piano. “Sorry. I couldn’t help it–I mean, I promise it’s not like that or anything–or anything towards you! You’re honestly gorgeous and wonderful and really, really cool and I wish I could be a bit more like you–”

“Stop,” Raven said. “Now.”

“Sorry, that was weird. Didn’t mean to creep you out. I’ve been jealous a bit before? On different occasions for different people. I’m really jealous of my friend and how he can come up with original songs on the piano and I’m jealous of this one guy for how he’s always doing what he wants and how hard it is to figure him out sometimes–oh, and I really get jealous of how Dam never gets fat. It’s insane. It’s actually insane. I think it’s the genetics and–”

Raven opened the door with a soft glow of her power, a silent threat.

“I’m shutting up now. I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing.”

“Sor–” Pandora pressed her fist into her mouth, as though she were about to eat it.

“I’ve never been in such a conundrum with anyone before,” Pandora said, seeming a bit bewildered.

“You’ve never met anyone like me before,” Raven said flatly.

- I’ve always liked raven ever since the old teen titans and i think she can help this idiot

[clairehosking]

Reading Notes

Ian Bogost wrote a piece in the atlantic, here are some of the notes I took on my second reading, as in-line replies.

A longstanding dream: Video games will evolve into interactive stories, like the ones that play out fictionally on the Star Trek Holodeck. In this hypothetical future, players could interact with computerized characters as round as those in novels or films, making choices that would influence an ever-evolving plot. It would be like living in a novel, where the player’s actions would have as much of an influence on the story as they might in the real world.

Okay straight off the bat that seems a pretty specific definition of story, which requires:

complex characters

Player Influencing plot

“Living in a novel” (which I’ll take for meaning complex simulated environments)

It’s an almost impossible bar to reach, for cultural reasons as much as technical ones. One shortcut is an approach called environmental storytelling. Environmental stories invite players to discover and reconstruct a fixed story from the environment itself. Think of it as the novel wresting the real-time, first-person, 3-D graphics engine from the hands of the shooter game. In Disneyland’s Peter Pan’s Flight, for example, dioramas summarize the plot and setting of the film. In the 2007 game BioShock, recorded messages in an elaborate, Art Deco environment provide context for a story of a utopia’s fall. And in What Remains of Edith Finch, a new game about a girl piecing together a family curse, narration is accomplished through artifacts discovered in an old house.

Okay so environmental storytelling is seen as an attempt at holodecking b/c it allows for rich environments, while artifacts imply or relate the life histories of complex characters, and player has influence in the sense that they move the plot along.

The approach raises many questions. Are the resulting interactive stories really interactive, when all the player does is assemble something from parts?

I think you doing the assembly rather than having someone assemble something for you is still a meaningful difference.

Are they really stories, when they are really environments?

I think I can only answer this when I understand what your definition of story is.

And most of all, are they better stories than the more popular and proven ones in the cinema, on television, and in books?

On this measure, alas, the best interactive stories are still worse than even middling books and films.

I’m a little confused by this standard. In terms of storytelling, are games falling short of the holodeck, or falling short of books and movies? b/c they seem like different questions to me. The holodeck question is about whether games meet the specific criteria to become the dreamed-of interactive movie. If the question is whether they measure to books/films, it’s more about whether games have equivalent ways to express characters and events but not necessarily whether it matches up to a linear, player-involved, immersive environment standard.

In retrospect, it’s easy easy to blame old games like Doom and Duke Nukem for stimulating the fantasy of male adolescent power. But that choice was made less deliberately at the time. Real-time 3-D worlds are harder to create than it seems, especially on the relatively low-powered computers that first ran games like Doom in the early 1990s. It helped to empty them out as much as possible, with surfaces detailed by simple textures and objects kept to a minimum. In other words, the first 3-D games were designed to be empty so that they would run.

An empty space is most easily interpreted as one in which something went terribly wrong. Add a few monsters that a powerful player-dude can vanquish, and the first-person shooter is born. The lone, soldier-hero against the Nazis, or the hell spawn, or the aliens.

Those early assumptions vanished quickly into infrastructure, forgotten. As 3-D first-person games evolved, along with the engines that run them, visual verisimilitude improved more than other features. Entire hardware industries developed around the specialized co-processors used to render 3-D scenes.

Ok so games are kinda doing the complex simulated environments part?

Left less explored were the other aspects of realistic, physical environments. The inner thoughts and outward behavior of simulated people, for example, beyond the fact of their collision with other objects. The problem becomes increasingly intractable over time. Incremental improvements in visual fidelity make 3-D worlds seem more and more real. But those worlds feel even more incongruous when the people that inhabit them behave like animatronics and the environments work like Potemkin villages.

But failing at the complex interactive characters part. True. (Some interesting experiments by SpiritAI and the game Event[0] however.)

Worse yet, the very concept of a Holodeck-aspirational interactive story implies that the player should be able to exert agency upon the dramatic arc of the plot. The one serious effort to do this was an ambitious 2005 interactive drama called Façade, a one-act play with roughly the plot of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. It worked remarkably well—for a video game. But it was still easily undermined. One player, for example, pretended to be a zombie, saying nothing but “brains” until the game’s simulated couple threw him out.

Also failing at the plot-influencing part and emergent events part (but some interesting experiments -- blood and laurels, for instance).

Environmental storytelling offers a solution to this conundrum. Instead of trying to resolve the matter of simulated character and plot, the genre gives up on both, embracing scripted action instead.

In between bouts of combat in BioShock, for instance, the recordings  players discover have no influence on the action of the game, except to color the interpretation of that action. The payoff, if that’s the right word for it, is a tepid reprimand against blind compliance, the very conceit the BioShock player would have to embrace to play the game in the first place.

True, this is what 3D games do. But I’d argue that other games give up on the fully simulated environment in order to resolve simulated characters and/or simulated plots. All three of these things are happening they’re just not happening in the same games.

In 2013, three developers who had worked on the BioShock series borrowed the environmental-storytelling technique and threw away both the shooting and the sci-fi fantasy. The result was Gone Home, a story game about a college-aged woman who returns home to a mysterious, empty mansion near Portland, Oregon. By reassembling the fragments found in this mansion, the player reconstructs the story of the main character’s sister and her journey to discover her sexual identity. The game was widely praised for breaking the mold of the first-person experience while also importing issues in identity politics into a medium known for its unwavering masculinity.

Feats, but relative ones. Writing about Gone Home upon its release, I called it the video-game equivalent of young-adult fiction. Hardly anything to be ashamed of, but maybe much nothing to praise, either. If the ultimate bar for meaning in games is set at teen fare, then perhaps they will remain stuck in a perpetual adolescence even if they escape the stereotypical dude-bro’s basement. Other paths are possible, and perhaps the most promising ones will bypass rather than resolve games’ youthful indiscretions.

I love Gone Home but I certainly don’t think it shows the limits of what can be achieved at all, even within this palette of techniques. So far it feels like this article is trying to point out the weaknesses of games trying to holodeck, but Gone Home never felt like an attempt to. It felt like it was trying to glean which storytelling techniques come naturally to games and explore them.

* * *

What Remains of Edith Finch both adopts and improves upon the model set by Gone Home. It, too, is about a young woman who returns home to a mysterious, abandoned house in the Pacific Northwest, where she discovers unexpected and dark secrets.

The titular Edith Finch is the youngest surviving member of the Finch family, Nordic immigrants who came to the Seattle area in the late 19th century. It is a family of legendary, cursed doom, an affliction that motivated emigration. But once they arrived on Orcas Island, fate treated the Finches no less severely—all its lineage has been doomed to die, and often in tragically unremarkable ways. Edith has just inherited the old family house from her mother, the latest victim of the curse.

As in Doom and BioShock and almost every other first-person game ever made, the emptiness of the environment becomes essential to its operation. 3-D games are settings as much as experiences—perhaps even more so. And the Finch estate is a remarkable setting, imagined and executed in intricate detail. This is a weird family, and the house has been stocked with  handmade gewgaws and renovated improbably, coiling Dr. Seuss-like into the air. The game is cleverly structured as a series of a dozen or so narrative vignettes, in which Edith accesses prohibited parts of the unusual house, finally learning the individual fates of her forebears by means of the fragments they left behind—diaries, letters, recordings, and other mementos.

The result is aesthetically coherent, fusing the artistic sensibilities of Edward Gory, Isabel Allende, and Wes Anderson. The writing is good, an uncommon accomplishment in a video game. On the whole, there is nothing to fault in What Remains of Edith Finch. It’s a lovely little title with ambitions scaled to match their execution. Few will leave it unsatisfied.

And yet, the game is pregnant with an unanswered question: Why does this story need to be told as a video game?

(This sort of conjures up the idea that game designers sit down with a linear plot and attempt to holodeck it, which I feel is less and less of a thing)

The whole way through, I found myself wondering why I couldn’t experience Edith Finch as a traditional time-based narrative. Real-time rendering tools are as good as pre-rendered computer graphics these days, and little would have been compromised visually had the game been an animated film. Or even a live-action film. After all, most films are shot with green screens, the details added in postproduction. The story is entirely linear, and interacting with the environment only gets in the way, such as when a particularly dark hallway makes it unclear that the next scene is right around the corner.

One answer could be cinema envy. The game industry has long dreamed of overtaking Hollywood to become the “medium of the 21st century,” a concept now so retrograde that it could only satisfy an occupant of the 20th. But a more compelling answer is that something would be lost in flattening What Remains of Edith Finch into a linear experience.

Yep, I would agree with that.

The character vignettes take different forms, each keyed to a clever interpretation of the very idea of real-time 3-D modeling and interaction. In one case, the player takes on the role of different animals, recasting a familiar space in a new way. In another, the player moves a character through the Finch house, but inside a comic book, where it is rendered with cell-shading instead of conventional, simulated lighting. In yet another, the player encounters a character’s fantasy as a navigable space that must be managed alongside that of the humdrum workplace in which that fantasy took place.

Something would be lost in flattening most “walking sims” and narrative investigation games and that’s the experience of space itself, perhaps the most prized thing holodecking adds to stories (after all, if you want to participate in an ever evolving, player influenced story, you could do d&d instead).

These are remarkable accomplishments. But they are not feats of storytelling, at all. Rather, they are novel expressions of the capacities of a real-time 3-D engine.

I disagree. “novel expressions of the capacities of a real-time 3-D engine” are the “telling” part of storytelling.

The ability to render light and shadow, to model structure and turn it into obstacle, to trick the eye into believing a flat surface is a bookshelf or a cavern, and to allow the player to maneuver a camera through that environment, pretending that it its a character. Edith Finch is a story about a family, sure, but first it’s a device made of the conventions of 3-D gaming, one as weird and improvised as the Finch house in which the action takes place.

Such repurposing was already present in earlier environmental story-games, including Gone Home and Dear Esther, another important entry in the genre that prides itself on rejecting the “traditional mechanics” of first-person experience. For these games, the glory of refusing the player agency was part of the goal. So much so that their creators even embraced the derogatory name “walking simulator,” a sneer invented for them by their supposedly shooter-loving critics.

But walking simulators were always doomed to be a transitional form. The gag of a game with no gameplay might seem political at first, but it quickly devolves into conceptualism. What Remains of Edith Finch picks up the baton and designs a different race for it. At stake is not whether a game can tell a good story or even a better story than books or films or television. Rather, what it looks like when a game uses the materials of games to make those materials visible, operable, and beautiful.

Right, so it rejects holodecking and tries to convey character, plot and space according to its own language. This feels like saying games are bad at holodecking, not necessarily bad at stories.

* * *

Think of a a medium as the aesthetic form of common materials. Poetry aestheticizes language. Painting aestheticizes flatness and pigment. Photography does so for time. Film, for time and space. Architecture, for mass and void. Television, for economic leisure and domestic habit. Sure, yes, those media can and do tell stories. But the stories come later, built atop the medium’s foundations.

What are games good for, then? Players and creators have been mistaken in merely hoping that they might someday share the stage with books, films, and television, let alone to unseat them. To use games to tell stories is a fine goal, I suppose, but it’s also an unambitious one.

lol

Games are not a new, interactive medium for stories. Instead, games are the aesthetic form of everyday objects. Of ordinary life. Take a ball and a field: you get soccer. Take property-based wealth and the Depression: you get Monopoly. Take patterns of four contiguous squares and gravity: you get Tetris. Take ray tracing and reverse it to track projectiles: you get Doom. Games show players the unseen uses of ordinary materials.

And if I take a story, shake it up and scatted it all over an environment? Is that the aesthetic form of storytelling?

As the only mass medium that arose after postmodernism, it’s no surprise that those materials so often would be the stuff of games themselves. More often than not, games are about the conventions of games and the materials of games—at least in part. Texas Hold ’em is a game made out of Poker. Candy Crush is a game made out of Bejeweled. Gone Home is a game made out of BioShock.

The true accomplishment of What Remains of Edith Finch is that it invites players to abandon the dream of interactive storytelling at last.

This doesn’t make sense to me. You’ve made a good case that games can convey character and plot well through “novel expressions of the capacities of a real-time 3-D engine”, and you’ve made a case that environmental storytelling doesn’t achieve holodecking, but I’m not going to rule out that other techniques might.

Yes, sure, you can tell a story in a game. But what a lot of work that is, when it’s so much easier to watch television, or to read.

A greater ambition, which the game accomplishes more effectively anyway: to show the delightful curiosity that can be made when stories, games, comics, game engines, virtual environments—and anything else, for that matter—can be taken apart and put back together again unexpectedly.

To dream of the Holodeck is just to dream a complicated dream of the novel. If there is a future of games, let alone a future in which they discover their potential as a defining medium of an era, it will be one in which games abandon the dream of becoming narrative media and pursue the one they are already so good at: taking the tidy, ordinary world apart and putting it back together again in surprising, ghastly new ways.

But this sort of gets why games have stories at all, which is that they are necessities to explain and contextualise the weird things game engines produce. I’d argue that regardless of whether you feel game stories are as good as books, some  “novel expressions of the capacities of a real-time 3-D engine” need narrative context to be understood and enjoyed by players. Rapture is less rapturous without its story. 

[inklingleesquidly]

THE CHARGE SHOT PART 4

PART 3 CAN BE FOUND HERE

Featuring @askvincent‘s Coco and @inklingdinkling‘s Victoria

Lee’s accident had rocked the Squidly family to its very core. Friends bid them well wishes and even tried to encourage the injured Inkling boy but it seemed like there wasn’t a thing that could be done to bring him out of his despair. 

That is until one day—

It was breakfast; Lee was gulping gulped down hot cereal and a bowl of sliced fresh fruit. “Upp, ulp, ahh,” he wiped his mouth and then drained his glass of juice. “All done, breakfast was really yummy Mom!” He had so much energy and spirit as he pushed his high stool away, took his soiled dishes, and then dismounted to the floor.

Janine watched him carry his stool over to the sink, she stuttered, “Umm—uhh—you ate that pretty fast, do you want anything else Honey?” 

He deposited his dishes in the sink and rinsed them as he was conditioned to do. “No, I’m full, besides I gotta get going to school,” he said, so upbeat and spirited. 

Her concerns wouldn’t leave her. Janine questioned, “Ahh—are you sure you feel well enough to go to school?” 

“Never better,” Lee turned his head and smiled at her to confirm his wellness. He finished cleaning, set the dishes aside to dry, and wiped his hands with a white rag. He then carried the stool over to Janine where he climbed it and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “I can’t stay out of school forever or I’ll fall behind.” As he talked he adjusted her jacket collar for her; just like she always did for him every day as he was about to leave for school. 

She followed him, observing him as he made his way through the apartment to collect his book bag. There was such a spring in his step and such a jaunt in his gait as he approached Mooky, who handed him his bag. It was so big on him due to his diminutive form but he walked with his head held high none-the-less.  

“Thanks Mooky,” Lee acknowledged his Servbot butler. 

The tiny robot replied, “Of course Master Lee, have a pleasant day at school.” 

Lee had a pleased smile as he assured, “I will, g’bye Mooky, and bye Mom, I love you.” 

As he exited, Mooky waved his arm, “So long Master Lee.” 

Doing her best to smile, Janine tepidly waved her hand, “Good bye Lee…” 

Once the door was closed, Janine immediately consulted the butler, “Mooky is there anything, ANYTHING at all wrong with Lee?” 

Right away the robot answered, “Not at all Mistress Janine; all of Master Lee’s vital signs are perfectly healthy and his mood has improved dramatically since the accident.” 

Janine wasn’t convinced, “Are you absolutely sure? Lee hasn't told you to tell me otherwise, right?” 

A frown came to Mooky’s simple face. “Mistress Janine,” Mooky gasped, “Why would you suspect your son would be dishonest with you; especially about his own health?” He questioned further as he kept the same look on his face, “Do you have your doubts, Mistress Janine? We have to support and believe in everything Master Lee says if we hope to help him recover entirely. Do you not wish to see Master Lee recovered?” 

“I do, I do! Really I do,” Janine hastily replied, “I promise I do,” she said while nervously biting her thumbnail. There was nothing more she wanted in the whole world than to see her son healthy and active again. Maybe it was just her motherly concern but she couldn’t shake the unyielding suspicion that something was amiss. She was aware -thanks to the help of their family pediatrician- that his mood would randomly swing to-and-fro due to the effects of his prescribed medication. She was prepared for that; or at least as prepared as she could be. 

This was so troubling to her; should she ask point blank? Her son was in a deeply emotional state and approaching the subject could possibly reopen old wounds. She wondered if she should just let him be; let him go to school, let their lives get back to normal, let him get back to normal… Janine contemplated this conundrum all day long. 

“So in their revision of the contract, they’re willing to give us an order of 13 episodes for the next TV season for what we paid last year. But I say they’re underestimating our advertising contributions so we hit them for an order of 18 instead. The show’s ratings tended to drop at around episode 20 before the season finale so we can keep the show airing in that sweet spot and fill up the time after the finale with that new game show we’ve been kicking around.” 

Dealings were being done at the Sucker Bros. Studios branch of Shee-Booyah. The company’s lawyer, Coco Mist was discussing  terms and strategies with Janine in her office. As Coco paced around, reading off the contract in her hand, Janine could barely listen. The troubled woman slouched in her fine leather chair, anxiously tapping her finger on her hardwood desk. 

Coco finished, “—And so we should send them these terms at the next video conference, what do you think Janine?”  

No answer. 

“Janine?” Coco repeated, “Janine, are you listening?” 

She still gave no answer; Janine’s eyes and attention were transfixed on the framed picture of Lee she kept on her desk. 

“Are you still worried about your son?” She didn’t know why she even asked; that had been the centerpiece of Janine’s mind for days now. She was confused though due to recent developments, “But what’s going on, I thought you said he was feeling better?” 

Janine replied, “It seems like he is,” she said as she lifted the photograph from her desk. 

Confused, Coco wondered, “So what’s the problem then?” 

Janine continued to study the picture; her son’s genuine, smiling face filled her with a sense of profound joy, and gut wrenching anguish at the same time. “I just have the feeling he isn’t really,” she explained. 

Coco could only shrug her shoulders and attempt to rationalize the trouble her associate and close friend faced. “Teens are weird; they get really emotional about everything since life is hitting them all at once with things they don’t really get or understand. Your Lee got in a really bad accident that he just doesn’t know how to handle. You’ve done all you can for him; you know what they say, time heals everything.” She finished with the thought, “Plus if he’s feeling well enough to eat, and go to school, and act like how he used to it sounds to me like he’s healed up just fine.” 

Maybe she’s right, Janine contemplated, He’s acting just like his old self, and his check-up two days ago said he was healthy. She looked at the photo again, she couldn’t shake the feeling she had, her motherly worry would not escape her. 

Gazing at Janine, Coco could tell this conversation wasn’t easing her woes. “Jan, why don’t you try taking the rest of the day off,” Coco suggested, “I mean, you’ve got a billion sick days, nobody would mind.” 

At any other point Janine would say that was absolute lunacy; she’s come to work no matter what the circumstances whether it be deathly illness, a natural disaster, or even an injury. However this time was different. “I think I will,” she agreed, pushing herself up from her chair, collecting her purse, and leaving the building. 

Coco wouldn’t say it out loud, to Janine or anybody; I don't blame her, if I were in her position and something like that happened with my kids—I'd feel the same. 

Despite being able to get off work, Janine couldn’t be put at ease all day long. Messages flooded her phone from friends, other mothers and fathers who shared her concern. 

How she could approach her worries about her son, she didn’t know.  The thoughts buzzed around in her head; she couldn’t concentrate even if she wanted to. Not completely thinking straight, Janine did something she never did before in her life. With the sun still shining bright even as it sunk into the horizon, Janine entered The Shortcake Lounge; her favorite bar. 

Soft jazz mixed with the flow of water from the bar’s elegant fountains sounded so loud in the empty establishment. Opening for business just as others were closing their doors, many customers would come after work to unwind, drink, and socialize after their day. 

Noticing the sole patron, the lounge’s proprietress approached with disbelief and curiosity. “As I live and breathe, Janine Squidly, here, this early?” 

“Hi Victoria,” Janine mumbled; her forehead resting against her palm while she thumbed at her phone. 

The bartender checked the time displayed on the register beneath the counter to confirm how early it was. “Do I need to get drinks ready for some TV executives you’re trying to schmooze,” she questioned.

Janine heaved a heavy sigh and revealed, “It’s just me tonight, Love,” then requested, “Peach Margarita, please.” She didn’t look up; her eyes were still glued to her phone as she answered incoming messages.

Victoria put her hands on her hips; as a bartender she knew the best thing to do was to serve drinks to those with the money and willingness to pay for them.  “Before I do something we both regret,” it was a different thing entirely when it involved someone she called a friend, “Tell me what’s going on with Lee?”

There was only one thing in the world that could drive Janine to drink, Victoria knew it.

Silence and stillness fell between the women as Janine stopped fiddling with her phone. She sighed through her nose, and then gave another sigh breathed through her lips. "Here's what's been happening—," Janine began. 

She recounted the entirety of the incident to Victoria; the accident at the Squad Battle tournament, the surgery, Lee's spell of seclusion and depression, and where they were at now. 

Finishing, Janine said "I haven't been able to focus on anything all day. My son feels his emotions really strongly and honestly so for him to pull a complete 180 like this is—is—it's just worrying me so much.  All of my friends have given me advice, good advice on how to handle it." 

Looking at her phone again; she thought of all of the guidance she had received. 

'If you’re worried you should talk to him right away.' 

'Just let him be; if he’s stressed then he needs space.' 

'You should keep an eye on him but don’t be obvious.' 

'He’s definitely hiding his stress; you’ve got to do something about it.' 

"Mmmrrr," Janine groaned, burying her face in her hands. Her voice was muffled but what she had to say could be heard clear as day "What do I do? I just want to help my son feel better and be happy again." 

Once again, as a bartender there were certain things that should and shouldn't be done; one of the biggest ones was not getting involved in customer's personal lives. For friends, again, it was different; especially for a longtime friend who helped pay for her wedding and whose son was hers and her wife's ring bearer. This was a conundrum though, one that Victoria, herself didn't have an answer to. 

"Well Janine, it's hard to say what you should do," Victoria gave into the lack of a clear resolution. "But if there's anyone who can handle your son's problems best, it's you, since no one knows him better than you do." Janine looked up, and she hung on Victoria's every word as the proprietress took a crystalline glass and began to pour water into it from a frosted pitcher. She pushed the chilled glass toward Janine and said, "That and you're an A-plus kind of woman, Janine, whatever you think is the right thing to do, I'm sure it'll be the right thing for Lee." 

Though it may have been ordinary water; it refreshed Janine's troubled mind all the same, allowing her to absorb everything Victoria had said. She weighed her options, and thought about the tips she was given by everyone who listened. 

She knew what she had to do. 

Standing up while collecting her purse, Janine said, "Thanks Victoria, thanks a lot, but I have to go home, I need to talk with my son." 

As she left, Victoria had a thought she didn't vocalize, I know you'll make the right move. 

 Despite the struggle, Lee managed to jump up high enough that he could press the elevator button for his floor. As much as he tried; there were just some things he couldn't get used to involving his diminutive height. Lucky for him though, he could access his front door without a problem. Entering, Lee called out, "I'm home, Mooky" knowing that the little servant would be in, more than likely attending to chores. "I got a lot of homework to do so take care of my messages if I get any, please." He was about to make his way to his room where he could work in peace but he was unexpectedly stopped. 

"Lee-honey, could you come to the living room?" 

It was the voice of his mom; rather peculiar as she was usually at work until later in the day. As curious as he was, Lee readily called back, "Okay Mom," and dropped his backpack at the entrance before making his way inside. 

There, waiting for him was Mooky who happily waved, "Welcome home, Master Lee." 

Along with him was Janine; who looked up from her phone, a firm tone to her voice as she said, "Hello Sweetie, good to see you." 

Lee waved to his metallic buddy with a big, enthusiastic smile, "Hi Mooky!" Turning to his mom, he bunched his fists together as he said, "And hi Mom, did you get off work early?" 

"I did, I did," Janine confirmed, the serious air she had didn't fade as she explained; "There's something we really need to talk about." She peered down at Mooky and then looked straight into the eyes of her son, who gazed back at her with confusion.  

Quizzically, Lee wondered, "W-what about?"  

He hadn't a clue as to what she had in mind but Janine declared, "Just something I've brought Mooky and someone else to help with." 

"Like who," Lee replied curiously; not having a clue as to what his mother could want to talk about, let alone who it was she recruited for this inexplicable conversation. 

Janine touched the screen of her phone, causing it to emit the distinct sound of her phone's VOIP app reconnecting a call. 

"Cutie," a voice came from the phone that made Lee's eyes widen, and his pupils shrink in dismay. As Janine spun the phone around it was confirmed to Lee; there in the center of the camera in an unfamiliar though unmistakable hotel room was someone dumbfounded to see him. 

"Cutie," Callie repeated, "OH MY COD, HI!" She practically stood up in the office chair she sat in; she was so excited to see him.  

"Umm, hi Callie," Lee mumbled quietly, sucking the air in his cheek, and restlessly holding his arm. 

She continued, almost blathering as she had so much to say, "What's going on, you haven't answered any of my messages or calls in forever! I wanted to talk to you ever since I saw what happened at the Autumn Squad Tournament." Hearing that alarmed Lee immensely but he couldn’t imagine she would say, "What you did, that—THAT WAS AMAZING!" 

"Huh," Lee gasped, as did Janine; neither of whom could've guessed how she would have reacted. 

Excitement cascaded through her words, "That move you did; I never saw anything like that! It was—it was like—I swear it was like three Dynamo Rollers covered the length of an entire map! Tell me how you did it! Where did you get all that ink? D'ya think it was because we spent all summer getting ya buff n' tuff?" Tell me, Cutie, tell me, tell me, tell me!" 

She blathered with a degree of exhilaration that was comparable to a young child winning a shopping spree in a toy store. As weary as she made Lee, her words bewildered Janine who turning her phone around to scold the young woman. "Callie, this isn't what we talked about, remember?" 

A sharp intake of breath could be heard from the other side of the call and Callie said, "Ohh, right-right, I'm sorry, Mom." Turning her back around to face him, Lee caught sight of a side of Callie he was familiar with but rarely saw. She gazed at him with a troubled look of concern, exclaiming, "Cutie, Mom said you got hurt at that tournament and you got really upset for a long time afterward. I-I'm not really good in these kinds of situations," she stuttered, "But how are you feeling now?" 

Lee answered, his lips quivering as he seemed to struggle to form a smile, "Y-Y-Yeah, I am-- I'm feeling a lot better." 

Mooky confirmed straightaway, "It is true." He explained further, "My sensors indicate that Master Lee is as perfectly fit and able as he was this morning." 

"Y-Yeah," Lee bobbed his head with a wide smile stretching his face, "That's right; I’m all better, really, honestly.” He seemed dead set on convincing them; and it worked on Mooky and even Callie. 

“You see Mom, we have nothing to worry about,” Callie said optimistically. 

They may have bought it but Janine didn’t. Now more than ever she was certain of it; his slumping posture, his nervous demeanor, and how it seemed like he struggled to answer. Something was definitely awry with her son. 

She silenced both Mooky and Callie's chattering, "Both of you; please," she said before focusing squarely on her child. "Lee, I'm your mother, it's my job to know everything, especially about you, and I know that you like to hide your feelings to keep everyone from worrying about you." 

Hearing that made Lee's eyes go as wide as dinner plates, his mouth went dry, and his whole body stiffened up as he listened to his mom continue. 

"Normally I would give you space and let you talk when you wanted to but since you're hurt and have been depressed I NEED to know exactly what's going on." Janine was doing what she thought was right; if she was going to help her son, she needed him to tell her everything. 

However, Lee could only muster a tepid stutter, "I—I—well—I," he nearly bit his tongue; he couldn't formulate a single word in response. 

Janine practically pleaded with each question she asked, "Do I need to schedule some therapy? Is your medicine making you feel more depressed? Do we need to try different medicine? Is there anything you're having trouble with at school or at home?" 

Each question she asked he just babbled, "I—umm—uhh—I--." 

Callie interrupted the examination; giving Lee the most worrisome look. She gasped, "What?! Cutie, is that why you didn't answer any of my calls? I had no idea, I just-- why didn't you say anything? I was so worried the entire time and now this—what's going on, Cutie?”

She looked so distraught, Lee could tell and he knew she expected an answer; an explanation of why he kept her in the dark so long. The only problem is he didn't have one to offer. The most he could do was bumble through an apology, "Callie, I—didn't mean to, I just, I'm sorry—I didn't--." 

Over the chatter of the two women, Mooky thought to interject as well. "Master Lee this is most troubling; the odds of you being dishonest are exactly "5000 to 1." He seemed to have a second thought thereafter, "But there is the addition of your anti-anxiety medication that has the effect of altering your brain chemistry; the unplanned alteration can alter that ratio to as low as 200 to 1." 

Lee took in a quick, hard breath through his nose. He tried to reply but Mooky was throwing out numbers and calculations, and was beginning to explain functionality and side effects of his medication that he wasn't aware of. It was so much information to take in all at once from the little robot—let alone Janine and Callie as well. They all seemed to continue talking to him all at once. 

"I'm only doing all this because I love you." 

"There is also the possibility of how your medicine affects your physical health."  

"You know you can tell me everything, you know that, right?" 

"I brought in everyone you can be honest with so please." 

"Perhaps that itself is negatively impacting your thoughts." 

"I'm here for you, you're my bestie!" 

He couldn't tell who was even talking; their voices quickly began to meld together. 

"You may seem physically fine but there is a possibility you are not mentally." 

"I want to do everything I can to help you." 

"I want to see that super-duper smile of yours again!" 

He kept trying to respond but couldn't think, his mind couldn't catch up to everything that was being said. 

"I'll do whatever I can, whatever you want, you don't have to worry." 

"We can get through this together, I promise, I'll come right to you." 

"Interpreting and understanding the state of your health is most important." 

There was so much going through Lee's head; he couldn't process it all.  

He wanted to run away, he wanted to leave, their attention and what they were asking of him was simply too much. 

"Please Lee, talk to us." 

"Master Lee please tell me." 

"Cutie, please." 

That was it. 

"Haaa—hii—AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!" 

Lee's breath was caught in his throat but only for a moment as he reared back and released a scream so loud it must've been heard from all across the city. It startled the three who were desperate to help him, they could only look on in horror as Lee then collapsed to the floor in front of them. 

Janine and Mooky scrambled up to him. Callie nearly fell; in sheer surprise she bolted out of the chair she was sitting in. 

Dropping to her knees, Janine cried out, "Lee! Lee! Honey, what's the matter?! What's wrong?!" 

"Hyeh-eh, hyehh-ahh, heeeh, gyeh, kaaa, haa." All he could do was release high pitched wheezing noises and sounds like—he was having trouble breathing! Observing him; his skin was steadily going pale as he lay on the carpet, clutching at his chest with both hands. 

Callie begged for an explanation, "Mom, Mom, I can't see, what's happening?!" 

Janine wasn't even sure; she didn't answer Callie but instead opted for help from another source, "Mooky! Ahh," she screamed, "Tell me what's going on with my baby, please!" 

Despite being a robot, Mooky seemed as frightened as he tried to search for an answer. "Searching," he exclaimed only to quickly find the answer. He gasped at what he found, "MASTER LEE IS SUFFERING FROM A PANIC ATTACK!" 

"A panic attack," Janine and Callie repeated as they watched him with ever increasing anxious fear. Every breath he took sounded so pained and his body started to convulse and shiver at random intervals—and neither knew what to do to help him. 

Biting her teeth, Janine couldn't think of what to do in that moment. In her desperation she cried out, practically begging,"Mooky what do we do?!" 

Mooky flailed his arms and shook his head, "I do not know I must search more for the remedy!" His arms then fell at his sides limply and he blankly stared ahead, muttering, "Connecting to internet—searching for 'cure to panic attack'. Searching—searching--." 

He was taking seconds too long and so Callie bawled, "Mom, what did we do? We did this to him, what are we gonna do, I'm so scared, I—I—I should get Marie, she'll know what to do, she always knows what to do!" 

Despite Mooky variably leaving the conversation and Callie's reflections of her own inexperienced panic, Janine couldn’t focus on either of them. In that moment all she saw was Lee; her poor son on the floor in an anxiety induced panic.  Her heart sank, this was such a constant problem in their life; her son faced a myriad of troubles that she was utterly powerless to stop. She was beside herself; there were so many times where she relied on others to save him... 

Janine’s fists tightened and her body tensed up; over all the noises, over all the blame and fear swirling around in her head—she needed to act. Without saying a word she shoved her phone into Mooky's arms, bringing him out of his trance of scouring the internet and surprising Callie as well. 

"Search suspended," Mooky said. 

Callie gulped, "M-Mom," neither were sure of what was going on.

They watched as Janine scooped Lee up in her arms and carried him over to the sofa. If she wasn't so focused she would've noticed how unusually cold Lee's body was feeling, and how it trembled and tingled in her arms but she wouldn't let anything slow her down. 

She set him down and had him sit up straight. Looking right into his eyes, sje instructed, "Lee, Lee, if you're able to hear me; look at me, focus on me, just me." She pointed to her eyes, hoping he would follow. Though he was still gasping for a breath and blinking away tears that collected in the corner of his eyes, she saw he did managed to do as she said. "That's good Honey, that's really good, keep your eyes on me, Sweetie," she praised. 

His chest was heaving uncontrollably and he whimpered painfully. Thinking quickly, Janine gripped his tiny hand. "Lee, Lee, listen to Mommy, Baby, listen to Mommy's heart." She took his hand and placed it squarely over her heart. His fingers tightened and loosened repeatedly but she held it there, "Just focus on this, good boy, that's a good boy, you can do it, Mommy will stay right here, you'll be okay." 

Even though she was unsure and scared out of her mind, Janine did her best to remain calm, in hopes that it would help Lee. Her heartbeat was steady, slow, and most of all, soothing. He had lost control of himself but sensing his mother's heartbeat, and hearing her loving, encouraging words was slowly but surely easing his terror. Janine held her hand over Lee's keeping it on her heart as she tenderly cupped his cheek with her other. "You're doing so good Honey, Mommy's so proud of you, just keep at it, everything will be fine, I promise, I'm here for you, I promise, I’m here." 

Everything else in the Squidly household fell completely silent aside from Janine's encouraging words, and Lee's erratic breathing. As time passed he steadily became more coherent; the shaking stopped, the cold sweat he developed was fading, and he could see clearly as the tears dried up.

Mooky silently approached with Callie watching without making a sound. 

"M-Mom," Lee weakly said. 

Janine's lips quivered as they curled into the widest smile. Without sparing another moment she threw her arms around her shrunken son, embracing him with all the love she had. 

"I'm so sorry, Lee," she whimpered, teetering on the edge of crying over what she did. "I should've thought better, I knew you were still upset and I still backed you into a corner to make you talk!" She sniffled as it really dawned on her how poorly thought her actions were. Janine touched her cheek to Lee's and stroked his hair as she begged, "I don't expect you to but please Honey can you ever forgive me?" There was a part of her that just knew she didn't deserve her son's forgiveness for her betrayal. 

Miraculously, Lee did forgive her; "Mom—you were right though." 

That surprised Janine as much as it did everyone else in the room. 

She pulled back to allow him room to explain, "I really wanted to feel better because everyone's been so worried about me. I just—sniff," he sniveled, "I saw how hard you and Mooky were trying for me, and I got so many messages from friends who were there that day and saw on TV, and I just, I just wanted to try." 

He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand and looked down at himself; inspecting his diminutive body which hadn’t changed in weeks. He held up his hands and kicked his stubby legs, mumbling, "I took the medicine like you said, and I tried, I really tried to feel better for everyone thinking that it would help but I just—I can't do it!" He slammed his fists down on the leather sofa, "Mom, I can't do it, I can't make any ink!" Janine gasped, and so did Callie and Mooky as they watched Lee furiously pound his fist against his abdomen. 

The worried mother grabbed her troubled son's fist, trying to stop him but he beat on himself with his other. "Lee stop it," she yelled, gripping his other hand, stopping him even though he wriggled and writhed. 

He bared his teeth, snarling out questions; "Why can't I do it, why can't I just be normal like everyone else?!" He hung his head down and shook his head, "I try so hard to work out and get big and strong and cool like everyone else and just—when I feel like I did, this happens!" He whined and moaned, then looked at his mother, seeking an answer to a question he continuously asked himself, "Am I gonna be small, hiic—and, gyuhh—weak, guh-huh, and can't do anything forever?" His words came in bursts between whimpers before he finally dropped his head against his mother's front and began to cry. 

Janine was at a loss for words; she knew how much stress her son faced with his confidence and self-worth. Despite how she, their family friends, neighbors, and more loved him for who he was—he didn't feel the same about himself.  

What could she even do about it? 

Was this environment to stressful for him? Was this whole world too stressful for him? 

As she held her son and let him cry, Janine wanted nothing more in the entire universe than to find a way to cure her son of everything that troubled his poor mind. What could she do, what could anyone do? 

With that thought, a voice reached her, "Janine, Lee..." 

Through their grief they turned their attention to the phone held in Mooky's little clamp hands. Even just watching the scene unfold, Callie could tell how much this family she loved dearly was suffering. 

"Cutie, I'm coming by tomorrow—and I'm going to help you get better." 

[comiconverse]

Khary Payton: Reigning Supreme On The Walking Dead

Khary Payton, star in the AMC hit TV series The Walking Dead (TWD) took time out his busy schedule to chat during Fan Fest Chicago 2017. With a background in comedy, theater, voice over and acting…. Mr. Payton was made for show business. Currently best known for his role as King Ezekiel on TWD and as voice over for Cyborg on Teen Titans, Khary Payton has an extensive list of credits to his name.

Khary Payton: Reigning Supreme On The Walking Dead

Mr. Payton’s passion for his career shines brightly. One need only spend a few moments with him to see how he embraces life, his family, and his fans with endless love and exuberance. I was thrilled to be given the opportunity to delve into his world. Khary Payton is a beacon of positivity in a too often distraught world. His joy is contagious.

Khary Payton has an extensive resume… behind the mic and on screen. Credit: saltcitycon.com

Living Life, Loving Laughs

Linda: What got you started in the industry? Did you always see yourself working in show business?

Khary: Yeah, Yeah. When I was 8 or 9 years old I started ya know dabbling in this. I won a nationwide talent contest when I was 11 or 12 and after that I started doing a little standup comedy when I was in high school. I did little theater things. Then I decided that comedians are incredibly depressing people.

Linda: [laughs] Why do you say that?

Khary: They are! They are! It is a tough life to be on the road as a comedian. It’s lonely and its, these poor guys… I was 16 years old, I was enjoying just the process and enjoying how talented they all were. Some of my favorites were just so depressed because their friends had gotten famous and they were still not famous. You know, I’m sitting at the bar at 11:30 waiting to go up and they’re all commiserating with their alcohol and I’m havin’ a coke and really happy to be there. So I was like ya know, I think I’m gonna go to college, these guys are a little much for me.

Khary Payton enjoying time with his fans at Fan Fest Chicago 2017. Credit: Linda Marie

Khary Payton Making His mark

Linda: A little too intense?

Khary: Yeah. Well one guy (who I really loved) after I did a pretty good set… he said, “So kid, you gonna take me with you when you’re famous?” I was just laughing, I was like yeah sure, whatever. He said, “Yeah, that’s what Chris Rock said.” Then he kinda stormed off. I was like, what’s going on, I wanna go home [laughs]. So, I opted for college. I did a lot of theater and after college I did a lot of Shakespeare, I did a lot of experimental theater and then I moved to LA when I was 28.

Khary Payton receives a gift from a young Cyborg fan. Credit: Linda Marie

I was doing little films and little guest star parts on TV, commercials and stumbled into a little cartoon audition that a friend of mine got for me and I happened to book it. That was for Cyborg [character on] Teen Titans. I’ve been doing that for 15 years and if I hadn’t gotten that part, I’d still be wondering how to get into voice over. But it’s been really great for me and during that time I did nine pilots that failed at one point or another. So after 22 years, I got an audition for The Walking Dead. I met that casting director, Sharon Bialy, 15 years before and I worked for her a couple of times but she always brought me in. So I was really lucky to meet people who remember that you always come prepared and ready to do your thing. I’ve been doing pretty well, taking care of me and mine and after 22 years, you get the best job ever.

Khary Payton takes part in The Walking Dead Church and State panel at Fan Fest Chicago 2017. Credit: Linda Marie

Linda: Sitting here listening to you talk, you already answered several of my questions [laughs].

Khary: People always want to know how you got started and how did you get this part and this audition. It’s always that the real story is a lot longer than well, I got a call to audition and I went over the script. This part is [The Walking Dead’s King Ezekiel]… I’ve been oddly training for it for my entire career with all the theater that I did. Kind of royal exuberance that he’s got and with the voice over it kind of lends itself to the character.

Incredible King Ezekiel artwork given to Khary Payton at Fan Fest Chicago 2017. Credit: Linda Marie

Regal Encounters

Linda: I can see that for sure, there definitely is a presence. And, I gotta ask you… How do feel with being called ‘your majesty’ [laughs]? Do you get joked with about that?

Khary: I do. I do. It’s weird but, people have fun with it. I was at Disneyland a couple of days ago with my girls at spring break and we were at the Star Wars ride and as we were leaving, the guy that had let us in said “Thanks for coming Your Majesty.”

Linda: [laughs] How did you react to that?

Khary: You know, what can say… It was nice to know, it was a nice understated way for him to ya know say that e watches the show, he likes the show. Cause he’s working so he doesn’t have time to stop and ask to take a picture. So I guess it’s a quick way for people to acknowledge that they know who you are.

Khary Payton poses with his Walking Dead family. Credit: Twitter – @kharypayton

Finding Family

Linda: That’s a good point. How is working with the rest of the cast? Do you guys have fun, play around a little bit?

Khary: I love them all. I work mostly with Lennie James and Melissa McBride. I really love those guys. My Kingdom people, I lost a couple already and Karl [Makinen] and Logan [Miller] who play Richard and Benjamin respectively…. I miss those guys already. Karl owns a restaurant in Los Angeles so I was there just a couple days ago but it still, I just hate that fact that we’re not gonna be doing this together. We were all brought in at the same time ya know, it was kind of like… this was our family that we brought in to the show but I know I’m gonna start getting to know Andy Lincoln and Lauren [Cohan] and Denai [Gurira] and all of these guys who have been on the show for so long.

Linda: If there is one thing I’ve learned from going to these conventions, especially the Walker Stalker, is what a tight knit family you all are. When the fans see you guys come together…. they just go crazy. They just love that.

Khary: It’s an ensemble show. It’s sticky and it’s hot and it kinda bonds you. First of all, we love the story that we’re telling and when you’re in those uncomfortable situations, I say uncomfortable but it’s still the best job ever, but it bonds you together. You’re kinda suffering, you gotta run through the walkers over and over again and it pulls you together in a weird way.

Khary Payton on set of The Walking Dead. Credit: amcnetworks.com

Good To Be The King

Linda: I’d like to talk specifically about [your character] King Ezekiel for a second. What do you feel are his best traits? What weaknesses do see in him? If you could change him, would you change anything?

Khary: I dunno if I’d change Ezekiel. I think we’ve all got our faults. I think that maybe as a leader he maybe swings one way and if something goes wrong, he overcompensate a little bit. Like he lost people before and so now with the Saviors he’s trying so hard to keep everybody safe and maybe he gave the Saviors a little too much leeway because of that. I think a good leader learns from his mistakes… and that’s what he’s trying to do. Honestly for the most part he had kept his crew safe from the Saviors.

Although you can stick pins in any leadership trait, I think he’s doing pretty good. You kind of think of him as this guy who’s not really a leader because he used to be a zoo keeper but I think that he’s played his role just about as well as anybody on the show has. He’s taken really good care of a large community and they’ve been thriving. I know people are upset that it took him a while to get going but the truth is he just met Rick and his gang, he’s gotta know if they’re on the right side of all of this. I think he’s finding his way. It’s all coming to head.

Khary Payton engages his fans at Fan Fest Chicago 2017. Credit: Linda Marie

Costume Conundrums

Linda: It certainly is. I’m all caught up and there’s just a couple of episodes remaining. Before I let you go though, I promised a few fans I would ask a question that kept popping up… Is the wig hot?

Khary: The wig is not that bad. Everybody thinks the wig’s hot. It’s the clothes that are hot. It’s weighty and it’s weird ya know foam leather, neoprene with the fur and all of this. I wanna kill Robert Kirkman [laughs].

Linda: [laughs] Can you make this lighter?

Khary: Well that’s the thing. When they made this character, they knew we were shooting the show in Atlanta. In the summertime. They don’t have any lycra?

Khary Payton does voice over for Aqualad in Young Justice. Credit: shmoesknow.com

Coming Up For Khary Payton

Linda: Right?! I don’t wanna take up too much of your time. So I will end by asking if you have anything new coming up? Anything you want to talk about?

Khary: Yeah, yeah. There is season 3 of Young Justice, a cartoon that I did that was canceled but because it got a really popular following on Netflix, we’re coming back for a third season and more seasons I imagine. I love that show so I’m really excited about that coming back. Big Hero Six is coming on Disney XD I believe in a few months. And of course more Teen Titans, more Justice League action, more Lion Guard. I like to keep the kids entertained until they’re old enough to watch zombies get killed.

I would like to thank Mr. Payton for taking the time out of his busy schedule to chat with me. I would also like to thank the hardworking management, staff, and volunteers for all they do to keep Fan Fest running smoothly. Great job as always! Be sure to follow Khary on social media… Instagram: @kharypayton Twitter: @kharypayton .

King Ezekiel and Shiva join the fight in The Walking Dead season finale.

Note: This interview took place prior to The Walking Dead’s season 7 finale. After having now seen that episode I would like to add… “Way to go Your Majesty!”

Keeping You Comic Con-nected!

Linda Marie

Twitter: @LindaMw87 Instagram: comic_con_crazy Cosmunity: ComicConCrazy

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