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feverinfeveroutfic · 3 years

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chapter one: double deuces

chapter one of book three, of course ;)

"tell me a story (will ya, will ya) a real good story (I won't leave till ya) spill your guts old man; leave out any secrets, hiding in the... any skeletons, and all your other sins any skeletons, in the closet! any skeletons, any misfortunes any skeletons, hiding in the closet! any skeletons, any skeletons in the closet!"

“Happy birthday, my dear friend.”

Aurora had taken Sam out to that Vietnamese restaurant for lunch on her birthday. Twenty two years old and she could feel the very essence of age over her head. In New York for two years and it all felt like a blur and the clear real thing all at the same time. In a year's time, she would be on the brink of her mid twenties: it all felt so ephemeral and so quick at the same time. It felt so odd to think that not even four years ago she was still in high school and she had gone into a strange brand new place in the meantime.

Four years felt like a lifetime ago, especially since she looked on at her black hair and she swore it was growing lighter over her temples. It could have just been the reflection of the glass in the mirror for all she knew, but when she went to brush her hair, she swore there were some light tendrils near the crown. As long as it didn't turn into a striking pearly white silver color, she knew she would be fine.

Aurora raised her white china tea cup for a toast to her. The soft aroma of the green tea comforted her, and she followed suit with her own cup.

Ever since she and Emile had gotten together, and ever since she had gotten that dress for Kirk's wedding the next weekend, Aurora had been dressing up more nicely: at the moment, she had a rich deep purple velvet sweater wrapped around her body and a little red rose tucked behind her ear. Despite the bitter New York cold, she started wearing more floral print tights to go with her skirts; Sam had to take a second look at her face to make out the sight of the black eye liner about the smooth edges of her eyes.

Sam herself meanwhile found herself drawn more to black—Aurora said it was because of her hanging out with Testament the past couple of weekends as well as Joey on certain days after school.

“I think it could also be because I'm in the arts,” she told her the day before. “Marla wears a bunch of black and Belinda has been wearing a lot of it, too.”

“Hangin' around the arts and hangin' out with a bunch of heavy metal dudes,” Aurora chuckled.

The art scene seemed so far away from her given she was a student and she even began to struggle with classes in recent days. Indeed, the thought of forfeiting college itself to live down in the real bohemian side of New York City was more tempting than ever to her. But she had nestled in the Bronx, three floors over Frank and down the block from Charlie and Marla. It was either pick up and go live alone in another part of town or stay there and continue to do what felt like spinning her wheels day in, day out. Sam tried to not let her thoughts cast a shadow on her own birthday, but she couldn't help but look at her own reflection in her tea cup and frown.

“Maybe it's all the doing stuff after school that's getting to you,” Aurora told her. “We haven't really seen Marla in the past few weeks.”

“No, we haven't,” Sam confessed as she gazed out the window at the snow drifts along the sidewalk.

“Well, if it's any comfort, I've been getting antsy myself,” Aurora said. “Emile wants me to move in with him but it's gonna be hard to do it especially if it's just him who's helping me with the move.”

“And you're going from Long Island up to the Bronx, too,” Sam added, “it was bad enough for me to get my bed up the stairs in that building.”

“It was tricky for me, too,” Aurora continued. “And you and I also moved across country, too.”

“And how—from around the same area, no less. Well, San Diego is way further south in comparison to Lake Elsinore, but it's near the same range, though.”

“It's all within range of L.A., that's for sure. L.A. and Riverside.”

“Hey, if Greg, Eric, and Louie can talk nonsense while they're in the studio, we can, too,” Sam pointed.

“Makes sense—Southern California exiles, the both of us.” Aurora raised her cup again to her and they clinked them together before they took a sip in unison.

“When's your birthday, by the way?” Sam asked her as she held her cup close to her mouth. “I can't remember if you told me or not.”

“May twenty ninth.”

“Oh, I see. I kept thinking it was in October for some reason.”

Aurora chuckled at that. “Well, I haven't really made it much of a point because my parents always treated birthdays different in comparison to that of American culture. I always wanted an American style birthday party growing up in San Diego but that's probably the one thing they brought over from the Korean peninsula is the way birthdays are treated.”

“And how's that?”

“When we reach a certain age, they have different celebrations for them. Like your first birthday is 'dol' or three hundred sixty five days since you were born, and that came from the fact Korea didn't have as good of protection on their newborns as we do here: so when you made it to your first birthday, it was significant. The family says a prayer for the kid and then they eat rice, seaweed soup, and rice cakes—my mom has a photo of me from my 'dol', I'll have to show it to you if and when we go out to San Diego together. They have cake and candles just like Americans, but the cake is far different—it's a lot more savory than it is sweet. And on New Year's, they eat a soup so they can finish up the age they are for the certain year. So you're actually considerably older on the peninsula than you are here. If you're ten years old, in Korea, you're considered eleven or twelve.”

“Wow.”

“And when you reach fifteen years of age, and you're female, you're considered an adult. That said, I'm glad I'm a born American because I can't imagine coming to New York City as a fifteen year old.”

“I can,” Sam said.

“You can?”

“As a boy.” She thought about Alex right then.

“Now, boys have to wait 'til they're twenty before they're considered adults.”

“So Alex would still be considered a boy right now?” she asked her. “Being eighteen?”

“Yes!” Aurora then burst out laughing and clapped her hands at that. “Oh, god, I just pictured him in the traditional horse hair hat that boys have to wear on their twentieth birthday, and I also just pictured him picking up a giant rock and lifting it over his head, too.”

“How giant are we talking, exactly?”

“One that dwarfs his entire body.” Aurora raised an eyebrow at that.

“I dunno, Aurora,” Sam confessed with a shake of her head, “—he's pretty thin but he's also got that little bit of baby fat left on him. He looks pretty soft.”

“Bet you he's way stronger than he looks.”

“Joey is,” Sam continued as she brought her cup back up to her lips.

“Joey is!”

“Mr. Hockey Player—yeah, that boy's tougher than nails.”

“Well—we are going to be in the Bay Area next weekend,” Aurora pointed out. “A whole weekend of doing stuff while Kirk and—Rebecca, I think is his fiancée's name?—while they're getting married. We all can just hang out and be a bunch of genuine friends together for a couple of days.”

Sam squinted her eyes at that.

“What do you have in mind?” she asked her in a low voice.

“You'll see. And maybe Exodus and Death Angel will want in on the fun, too. Fun with the 'little four'.” She flashed Sam a wink as she sipped from her tea once again. Right then, the sole waitress in the restaurant showed up at their table with their bowls of pho: chicken for Sam, vegetarian for Aurora. One more toast and they both dipped into their bowls of fresh hot soup.

At least that night she was to have cupcakes courtesy of Marla, forty dollars courtesy of Belinda, and a jovial phone call from her parents that night. Nothing more, nothing less, but at the same time, she wished for more and she knew that her flight back out to California that next Friday was the start of something for her. Something big and grand, like that next weekend in the Bay Area. It would take place on a day that wasn't her birthday, but it would be something.

Since it was Wednesday, after lunch, she headed back to school for the rest of the day and then back to her place in the Bronx. She stepped in through the front door: the first thing she noticed was the vase of yellow tulips on the table. They had lasted so long, and for so long in the heart of the first winter following Cliff's passing, but she noticed the wilt as it began to settle in on the yellow petals.

She would keep them there on the table until the pure yellow color vanished and they lost their smell, much like with the black hat Cliff had given her.

Sam took her seat on the couch with her drawing pad rested upon her lap. She was an artist in New York City, and yet she lived so far from the actual art scene. The boots still on her feet and yet she had no means as to how to look for it outside of her school work. Marla and Belinda had their way, for sure, but there had to be something more. There had to be, especially since she began to put her head down and put more work into her art for her classes. The struggle still came down on her, even as she gave her fish tails more scales and her humans more of a shading around their heads. It all seemed to slip away from the in between her fingers.

Everyone seemed to be doing better: her classmates received more praise, even Belinda who, at one point, admitted that graphites were a challenge for her as well. And yet, when Sam drew a self portrait surrounded by roses and water lilies, one of the comments Miss Estes left for her on the back side of the heavy grained paper was “lots of effort.”

She was eager for the flight out to the Bay Area by the time that early Friday morning rolled around, and she and Zelda were seated next to each other. She had packed that copy of Siddhartha with her but she had no idea as to when she would get to crack it open over the weekend.

Zelda had put on a plain white T shirt and fitted black jeans, and she had combed her short bob of black hair back for the flight. Apparently all she had packed with her were white shirts and black jeans.

“Don't you wanna look nice like at Cliff's memorial?” Sam asked her with a chuckle.

“I've got some suspenders and a tie to go with them,” Zelda replied. “It's a wedding for a friend of ours, and he said that we can wear whatever we like. So I told him that I'm gonna be full punk chick there. I'm guessing you'll be the artist?”

“Of course,” Sam replied, “the full black, baby.”

Zelda raised a hand to her for a high five and the light for the seat belts flickered on right then.

“I'll tell you this, Zelda,” Sam began.

“What's that?”

She peered over her shoulder to make sure Marla and Charlie paid no attention to them, given they were right across the aisle from them. Sam then gestured for Zelda to move in closer to her: beyond her and outside the window, she noticed the first few flurries of snow against the pane. She hoped they would take off soon.

“I'm getting kind of bored of New York,” she whispered to her.

“Really?” Zelda raised her eyebrows at her.

“Yeah. It's just—falling into the whole 'same old, same old' thing. I'm an artist, I should be able to go places with it all.”

“Absolutely, absolutely.”

“And I just—” Sam shook her head. “It's a great big city but I feel like there's nothing for me there anymore. Two years there and I'm not feeling it anymore. I'm glad we're going back out to the Bay Area for just this one weekend because I feel myself slowly going insane.”

“And why are you telling me this in a whisper?” Zelda asked her in a soft voice.

“Because—I don't know how to break it to Marla yet, or Belinda for that matter. Aurora kind of knows, but not in that sense, though. I made note of it to her but she didn't really suggest anything to me.”

“You can come to Providence,” Zelda suggested, “there's tons to do in Providence. Narragansett and Natick, too.”

“I guess what I'm trying to say is I feel trapped. Two years ago, I came here to the Northeast for a change of pace and it feels like it's trapped me sideways. There's no way out unless I really genuinely leave. The downside of course is—leaving you ladies behind and leaving Anthrax behind.”

“Yeah, and—we kinda like you, Sam. I do, especially. And I know Aurora does, too. And Marla.”

“Aurora is one of my best friends. Her and Frankie. They're my best friends. I don't know how I would handle leaving them both behind for a change of pace. I feel me and Marla drifting, if I'm honest. Can't really blame her, though—school's getting hard on her.”

“Well—whatever you do, Sam,” Zelda started again, “I'll support you on it. If nothing, you'll get the full support from me.”

“Thank you, Zelda. That—that means a lot to me.” Sam showed her a friendly smile.

Zelda shrugged. “I'm from Rhode Island,” she replied. “Moreover, I'm a punk rocker from Rhode Island. We look out for each other more so than these metal boys.”

They touched down in the Bay Area at five in the morning, and right as the sun began to rise right behind them. The thick fog surrounded the airport and Sam thought about the one and only Christmas she and Cliff spent together.

“Looks like San Francisco,” she muttered. “Feels like it, too.” She closed her eyes as they rolled up to the gate. She and Zelda stepped out of the airport first and she breathed in that marine air. She swore that New York was in fact her one true home, but there was just something about California that brought her more so into that feeling. That feeling that she needed to be there. All the fleeting thoughts led up to that moment there on the sidewalk.

Cliff's remains were not very far away from there, either.

She, Zelda, Marla, Aurora, and Belinda all stood at the curb as Charlie and Emile fetched their rental cars. All those men awaited them not too far from there, and Sam was eager to see Joey again given he flew in from Syracuse. That morning in which he and Belinda woke up before her and flirted with each other went through her mind every now and again. She never realized how much she wanted him until he put his arms around her and they locked eyes with each other. She needed to at the very least see him again: he also promised her a birthday gift.

Within time, Emile showed up with the little black car for himself and Aurora, while Charlie rolled up to the curb in a short dark green van. The four remaining girls piled inside away from the damp cold; Sam wanted to refer to him and Marla in the front seat as “Mom and Dad” again but she decided not to as she shivered under her jacket.

It wasn't New York, but Sam had forgotten how cold San Francisco could feel once the winter time set in.

“Okay, so we're going to a place called Marin Heights,” Charlie told them. “I think that's where the guys—Metallica—got the loft for us.”

“I've heard of it,” said Belinda from the middle seat.

“Me, too,” Sam added from the way back; Zelda huddled next to her and shook her head about. Sam had no idea as to why she didn't bring a jacket with her given it was winter in California. But instead, she peered out the small notch of a window to the Bay itself. She remembered that Testament were to film a music video out in Alcatraz, and those cold yellow lights from the island itself pierced through the foggy darkness. She wondered if they had finally wrapped up the recording of their first album since she wasn't able to sit in with them over the past couple of weeks because of school. She also wondered if she would receive any credit on it like with Stormtroopers of Death.

Charlie wound through the city until they reached the freeway, which in turn brought them up to Marin Heights, nestled back in the hills on the north side of town: they reached a switch back on the hillside so Sam was able to see the very top of the Golden Gate Bridge as it rose through the fog. The clouds themselves split apart so as to let the first rays of sunlight through and the metal of the bridge shone that bright amber color with the sunrise.

No wonder Cliff loved it there.

She sighed through her nose and turned her attention back to the road ahead of her as it turned away into the hills. Within time, they reached the top, and a small villa of little brick two story houses nestled back in the trees. She wondered if the wedding was going to be there as Charlie pulled up to the gravel driveway and stopped before the one closest to the street.

“I think this is us,” he informed them. “Or it might just be check in, I dunno.” He climbed out and then Sam and Zelda followed suit. The latter raised her lanky arms over her head and closed her eyes. Meanwhile, the former spotted a tall lanky boy with long black hair perched on a stone post on the other side of the driveway. He faced the other way but she knew those rich jet black curls anywhere.

“Joey?” she called out.

“Hm?” Zelda asked.

“Joey's over there.”

Zelda peeked around the rear end of the van and she nodded at her.

“Yeah, he is! Go get 'em!”

Sam then ducked around the end of the van and hurried over to him.

“Joey!” she called out. “Joey!”

He turned to face her with his eyebrows raised. He had lost a little weight so his waist was rather slim like Joey's, and the black hair dye held up, but she knew those deep eyes anywhere.

“Oh, hi,” she greeted him as she skidded to a stop before him.

“Hi,” Alex replied back to her with a thoughtful look on his face. “What's happening?”

“I thought you were Joey for a second.”

“You thought I was Joey?” he laughed at that.

“You have similar hair to each other.”

“His has more of a pile, though. Like right on top of his head. That big pile of ringlets atop his head.” He gestured to the crown of his head. “Even though I'm sitting down, I think he's a little bit shorter than me, too?”

“I think so?” Sam shifted her weight right there. Stray strands of his black hair lifted off of his shoulders in the wind and he ran his hand over the back of his head. He shivered from the feeling over his skin.

“God, it's cold out here,” he muttered as he adjusted his jacket.

“Yeah, it's pretty nippy. Not New York, but it's that California cold, though.”

“You know, both my parents are from New York,” he said.

“Oh, yeah?”

“Both obscenely smart Ivy League professors. They came out here before I was born to teach over at Berkeley.”

“Is that why you had the gray streak?” she asked him.

“Nah, I have no idea where that came from.” He shifted his weight yet again on that post. He seemed uncomfortable sitting there but Sam had no idea where to go right then. Charlie's voice behind her caught her ear and she peered over her shoulder at his talking to James.

“Happy birthday, by the way,” Alex told her as he shifted his weight a fourth time. “Aurora told the five of us last week that it was her assistant's birthday and she didn't know what to get you.”

“Aw, thank you—it was back on the twenty first, though.”

“Happy belated,” he corrected himself, and she swore he winked at her. Someone called his name and he looked off to the distance.

“Hang on—” he said, and he darted past her towards Charlie.

“Sam?” Zelda called out to her, and she jogged back to her. Aurora had climbed out of Emile's car right next to them and she shivered inside of her windbreaker.

“What's up?”

“Apparently the wedding is today,” Aurora announced.

“Today?” Sam was stunned.

“Yeah. Three o'clock. I guess Kirk's lady couldn't wait for it a second longer so they're doing it today.”

“So we get a full weekend of good ol' fun,” Zelda added as she clasped her hands to her upper arms.

“Exactly!”

Sam turned her attention to Alex, who was talking to Charlie about something. His black hair twirled in the cold winter winds. Even from a distance, he had such a grave expression on his face that it made Sam think he was much older than in reality.

Belinda had the right idea: he was very precocious. But now she had a little bit of insight into the boy in that he was raised by intelligent parents. It was a start with Alex and she could only wonder from that point onward.

Aurora and Emile led her, Zelda, and Belinda into the cabin behind Charlie and Alex, and once they stepped inside of the cozy foyer, Zelda was eager to turn on the heater.

“Terrible idea not to pack a coat,” she muttered as she hurried down the front foyer in search of the thermostat, “terrible idea not to pack a coat!”

Sam and Belinda meanwhile took to the narrow stairwell in front of them, and they made their way up to that second level: to the right stood a couple of rooms, while to the left was the bathroom and two more rooms. The door at the far end stood slightly ajar, such that when they reached the top, they spotted that head of black curls outside the doorway.

“Hey, Joey,” Belinda greeted him. That lopsided grin and those big brown eyes returned the favor, and Sam's heart skipped a couple of beats at the sight of him. He didn't appear to be ready for a wedding at all with his plain white shirt, extra tight blue jeans, and ragged white socks.

“There are my girls,” he said as he padded closer to them.

“Oh deary me, you're gonna be down the hall from us?” Sam teased him.

“Yup, me, Frankie, and Charlie and Marla. We're gonna be all here at the end of the hall if you need anything.”

“You know the wedding is today right?” Belinda told him.

“Oh, shit, is it really?” Joey raised his eyebrows at that.

“Yeah, Aurora just told us,” Sam added, and her heart sank at the thought of him barely being in the know of these things. “Three o'clock. So Bel and I are gonna get settled in and get dressed.”

“Oh, damn, thank you,” he told her, and his brown eyes sparkled at the sight of her. Cold as the earth and as engulfing as venom. He doubled back to his room and Sam pushed open the door in front of her. Inside stood a small bunk bed and a heavy wooden dresser underneath the window.

“Top or bottom?” she asked Belinda.

“You're older and got way more inside, so top,” she replied as she lay her purse down on the faded blue comforter upon the bottom bed. Even though they had plenty of time before the wedding, Sam wanted to clean up, and change her clothes and look her best. She hadn't been to a wedding in what felt like forever: there was one from when she was three years old, but she had no memory of it and she had no clue as to who even got eloped then, either.

Belinda offered to curl her hair and do it up extra nice, but she promised her there was very little to actually do up given her hair sat flat on her head. If only she could make curls into a crown like with Joey, but she had what she had in the form of a red wine colored dress and a thin black sweater over the top: the dress was a bit snug around her hips but she need not obsess over something as trivial as that when she remembered what Joey wanted to give her.

She was about to head on back inside of their room when she spotted him on the other side of the hallway with the five men from Death Angel, if she recalled correctly. Once again with the quintets and she would learn all of their names in the meantime. But he had a box wrapped in old faded red wrapping paper tucked under his arm and she hoped it wasn't just a wedding gift, especially since he still hadn't gotten dressed.

He laughed at something one of them said and he turned around.

“Oh, there you are!” he called out to her, and he scurried towards her. The tape on the edges of the box and the crooked look of the paper itself told her he wrapped it in a hurry, but she didn't mind at all once she slid her fingers under the edge of the paper closest to her. Careful not to tear it, she unwrapped it and lifted the lid. Inside was a pair of black leather gloves and a red and white knit scarf, the latter of which she ran her fingers over to find it softer than anything she had felt before. It was as soft as a cat.

“It's your own pair of gloves plus a scarf,” he declared. “I just think about how cold you always get upstate.” He shrugged at that.

“I love it, Joey! It's so soft.”

“It's cashmere.”

Sam gaped at him. “Cashmere,” she echoed him.

“Yeah—it was marked down, though. But it's cashmere. I wanted to give you something nice and good and good and nice.”

She slipped the gloves on and they fit around her fingers as if they were made for her. Joey offered to put the scarf around her neck; he stood before her, a country boy in a plain white shirt before a California girl in a dark red dress, and he wrapped the scarf around her.

“You look beautiful,” he whispered to her. “Happy birthday. Double deuces as of ten days ago!”

“Thank you—” She put her arms around him and she held him close. His slender little body was as soft as that scarf, and he smelled of fresh baked bread, something she would be willing to experience as long as he didn't have a drop of alcohol on hand.

Maybe there was in fact something more to life than being in that groove all the time. Maybe she could find a way to break out of her shell, and she could owe it all to him.

And she still hadn't told her parents about him.

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0blivion-laughs · 3 years

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RAY CAESAR

Many call Ray Caesar the Godfather of Digital Art, and his process is completely digital from its beginning through the printing stage. Though he is certainly seminal in his oeuvre, it is his fantastically disturbing content that has made him a cult favorite, from collectors like Madonna and Elton John to the population at large who not only know of his heartache, but embrace it. Caesar frequently talks of suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder. Combine this with his time working in Art and Photography Department of The Hospital For Sick Children in Toronto and you are faced with a sea of controversial imagery.

“When you grow up in a dark place filled with fear and pain and cruelty, there is a tendency to find hidden places of pleasure and beauty within that world of the night,” mentions the artist. “I have always thought that the greater potential for evil and darkness that there is an even greater potential for good and light. There is a natural inner drive within the human mind to find balance in any situation and find ways of coping in a sea of turbulence. We are all stronger than we give ourselves credit for and when our conscious mind cannot handle something overwhelming in the darkness of the real world, our subconscious becomes very creative and takes its own path into an inner light. For me art is an expression of living in that duality and a visual voice to express fear and rage and sadness… and hope and calm and ultimately, love.”

SALAD DAYS

I was born in London, England in 1958, the youngest of four and much to my parent’s surprise, I was born a dog. This unfortunate turn of events was soon accepted within my family and was never again mentioned in the presence of polite company.

I was a rambunctious youth as was natural to my breed but showed a fine interest in the arts as I drew pictures incessantly on anything including the walls and floors of every room of our tiny house. After some trouble with intolerant neighbors, my family was convinced to move to Canada and it was not long before the burgeoning town of Toronto became our new home. Unfortunately the drawing continued to become somewhat atypical and aberrant and it was impressed upon me that such images might not be suitable for public viewing. In the summer of 69, there was a valiant attempt to stop me from doodling infamous contemptible fascist dictators upside down on my stomach with a ballpoint pen. I was consoled however by the encouragement to continue penciling in faces of flamboyant cowboys such as Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, The Lone Ranger and Tonto on my toenails but was expressly forbidden to talk to them at night. It can be said that there are defining moments in a dogs life that can only be described as pivotal. Mine came when I received a gift of a flesh toned 12 inch plastic movable human doll attired in cheaply made military fatigues called “GI Joseph”. I however named him “Stanley Mulver” and immediately resigned his commission from the light infantry. My Mother helped in this by sewing small business suits and leisure wear out of leftover Christmas fabric embroidered with holly and snowmen, tinfoil shoes and one tasteful Safari suit made of tight fitting powder blue rayon that proudly shone cobalt in the summer sunlight. It wasn’t long before I had begun making enlarged wigs out of gray plasticine. These wigs soon became huge pompadours for Stanley and looked even more grand when I meticulously imbedded small hairs from my daily body and face shavings. This hirsute practice along with walking upright allowed me to fit in with other children even though my father considered it a waste of time. In short, Stanley had become a visage of the Man I could never be, of that elusive self one sometimes glimpses down the tunnel of infinite reflected mirrors. Although ridiculed by my peers, I proudly wore Stanley around my neck at all times as if to say “SEE! This is the man I will be, a good man, a kind man”. I have worked in many fields over the years, attended obedience classes and art colleges, jobs designing horrible buildings in architectural studios, medical art facilities, digital service bureaus, suspicious casino computer game companies, eventually working at computer modeling, digital animation and visual effects for television and film. Some award nominations have been attained and I have been driven in long black liquor filled limousines and walked on hind legs down red carpets in Pasadena while wearing strange smelling rented tuxedos. Things change and summer years come to an end. My change occurred one night when my Mother visited me, which was slightly unusual because she had passed away some months before, a victim to the cigarette habit she could never quite lick. Facing a wall and slowly turning I saw the right side of her face ablaze in light, her hand trying to cover the light as if she were apologetic for having it seep through. Words were said about following rabbits down holes and I was shown galleries of work which were to be my own. My Mother was not the first visitation I have had and it seems she will not be the last. I live in a brick house with my wonderful wife Jane and a coyote called Bonnie. I like eating avocados and I don’t really mind being a dog.

THE HOSPITAL FOR SICK CHILDREN For 17 years I worked in the Art and Photography Department of The Hospital For Sick Children in Toronto from 1980 until 1997. I worked in a department that documented such things as child abuse, surgical reconstruction, psychology and animal research. They were years that I will never forget, years of witnessing great sadness but also great miracles. I often awake in the middle of the night and realize I have been wondering the hallways and corridors of that giant hospital. As I lay there in the dark, I struggle to remember the fading words of those that still haunt my memories of so many years ago. It is so clear to me that this is the birthplace of all my imagery. It is appropriate that I now live my dreams for those that didn’t get a chance to live theirs…. to do otherwise would be a sin.

Much of my work at the hospital was tedious and boring in that I produced tremendous amounts of statistical data before the advent of computers and dealt with a lot of sensitive photographic material and work for publication. Another part of my job was overwhelming in that at any given moment I could typically find myself hovering over a tiny premature infant covered with tons of equipment. I would have to sift through the equipment to make a technical diagram, a teaching tool to allow intensive care nurses to have some idea of all that tangle of machinery that kept that tiny infant alive. Other times I would have to draw a similar thing of some poor animal in the research dept that had the misfortune of being a lab animal. To this day I have developed a profound love for animals that is very important to me. On a few occasions I dealt with forensic material for the court or sensitive medical documentation that would for me be overwhelming. I worked on board games and flash cards for brain damaged children and some of the early computer animations of the cryogenic removal of a brain tumors. Teaching hospitals are like tiny cities and whenever you think you have seen it all, reality slaps you in the face and shows you something that makes you re-evaluate everything. I learned in my life that human hands can be cruel and unkind but more often they can perform heart surgery or write a check to build a new wing of a hospital or just simply brush away a child’s tear.” Miracles do exist but they are often the product of our own actions and the incredible work of of the unsung heroes that care for children.

MY PROCESS

I create models in a three dimensional modeling software called Maya and cover these models with painted and manipulated photographic textures that wrap around them like a map on a globe. Each model is then set up with a invisible skeleton that allows me to pose and position the figure in its three dimensional environment. Digital lights and cameras are added with shadows and reflections simulating that of a real world.First the models are sculpted similar to pushing and pulling the surface of a piece of clay. I am often reminded of being in preschool with my huge chunk of Plasticine. I once modeled a Plasticine shoe but my father forbade me to wear it in public. I then create an inner structure of joints similar to a skeleton that allows me to pose the figure with a spine, shoulders, elbows and even finger joints. Many heads are modeled with many a different expression and these can be blended to create a subtle look similar to the one my wife has when I have done something suspicious.I color the models first in a very simple way, then each surface in the model is wrapped with a texture that may be painted digitally such as a flower petal or from a digital photograph such as a wood surface. I collect textures the way some people collect little silver spoons and I have a story about each texture in my collection such as the one about my father’s hip operation scar or the picture I convinced my gastroenterologist to give me of the inside of my colon. My favorite textures to collect are skin textures, as I have a legitimate excuse to ask people to expose large areas of bare skin.As my work is printed I am often asked about my original, but it exists only in the computer in a dimensional world of depth, width and height. I am fascinated by the concept that this 3 dimensional space exists much as another reality and even though I turn the computer off, I am haunted by the fact that this space is still there existing in a mathematical probability, and the space that we live in now might not be all that different.

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frederator-studios · 7 years

Video

vimeo

Austen Payne - The Frederator Interview

Austen Payne is a budding dungeon master, a storyboard artist at Smiley Guy Studios in Toronto, and a bonafide Cool Kid™. “One Hell of a Party,” the short she created with a team of fellow Seneca Animation 3rd years, is enjoying a glitter-glue coated festival run: it nabbed the Golden Reel Award at Nevada International Film Fest and Best Canadian Short at Toronto After Dark. “I didn’t know that was a category!” - Austen.

The positive response is no surprise to us - “One Hell of a Party” is one hell of a student film. Check it out above - then give a looksie to our convo with Austen, where we discuss the artistic merits of “Baman Piderman,” D&D as a crash course in storytelling, and the underrated genius of never giving up.

So what drew you (heh) to animation?

In high school, I was really into art and comics - and then I took a class on filmmaking, and I really loved it. Once I realized that animation was like the marriage of drawing and filmmaking, I was hooked. I went to Sheridan for fine arts for 2 years, then to Seneca for their 2D animation program.

What inspired “One Hell of a Party”?

In 1st year, I got sick with the flu, and one night really couldn’t sleep with a fever. So I was just laying awake, being really nice to myself and thinking about how I would never manage to come up with a whole story - I always think in shots, or scenes, but hadn’t ever thought of a real narrative. And then I just decided to do it, right then, fever brain and all. I thought about what I like, and I like demons. I thought about what you do with demons: you summon them. And I just kept like that, and by the end of the night, I had all of the story beats figured out. Then I held onto the idea super tight for 2 years, until 3rd year came around, when I pitched it to my class. And it was one of the ones we decided to make!

How did you decide you wanted to be a board artist?

I knew I wanted to board really early on. I mean, comics and films are my two favorite things! So I focused on it as much as I could in school, and there was some compromise involved. At one point, I just straight up didn’t do my assignment for board class, and brought my professor the boards that I was doing for an internship application. I was like “Well, I have this!” and he was just like, “Ah! This is great”. I got lucky.

That’s badass! Sounds like you had cool teachers?

Oh yeah - my boarding professors played a really important role. One of my most memorable moments was at the end of 1st year, actually. I had the BEST storyboard professor - super passionate about boarding, really cool, and loves teaching. I brought some stuff to him that I was working on, and was talking about how I knew that I wasn’t ready to apply to some position yet - and he just goes, “Oh I don’t think that’s true”. I was just like, “Whhaaa?”. He said that in a couple years, he thought I could be boarding professionally. It was the first time that anyone had said, “You can do this” to me - it was a moment that kept me going through school, and that I still carry with me. Oddly, it was my boarding professors who encouraged me to go for it - my teachers in other subjects said it was too hard.

Oof! Speaks to the power of discouragement… what else can you recommend to budding boarders?

Definitely keeping up with the best people who are working professionally, because it gives you a sense of the caliber of work that’s required.. Know what a professional board looks like (and they can look really diverse!) and research how board artists got where they are. Also, asking a lot of questions - your professors want to help you, and mentors are really important! And lastly: don’t give up! It is really hard, really time consuming, and really competitive - but you know that going in. The fact is, it’ll never happen for you if you quit - and if you don’t quit, others will, while you keep improving - and then there will be better odds that it does happen for you then that it doesn’t!

Tactical! Enough work stuff, let’s talk parties. Does the short accurately depict Seneca’s scene?

Ha, I wouldn’t really know! I didn’t go to a single party the entire time we were working on “One Hell of a Party”! Sweet irony. The film definitely represents parties I’ve gone to - when I’ve done that sorta thing. Drinking just kinda makes me sleepy.

Saw you’re a D&D fan though! Any go-to character you play?

I’m usually a ranger, but lately I’ve been a DM, so I’m making up characters! I just created this awakened undead skeleton named Rook, who’s a very cheerful, pretty innocent sweetheart, for a skeleton. He gained sentience and came to hate the necromancer who brought him back to life to be a slave, so he ran away, learned magic, and then got revenge on his old master. Now he’s joining the story - my players just met him - but I can’t wait to play as him in another game!

Has DMing helped you with your storytelling skills?

Oh yeah - it’s helped me take a step back and approach humor in a new way, too! Like I listen to Critical Role and Adventure Zone, these D&D podcasts, and they’ve really influenced my comedy sense. Like laughing along with these guys, I wound up asking myself ‘Why do I find this stuff funny, and other stuff not?’. I’d never thought of comedy as something that you learn, but it really is! I’m honing my own sense of humor, getting a handle on it.

What are some elements, comedic or other, that you would bring to your own cartoon series?

I’m really interested in character acting - I love when characters have distinct ways of moving. I think there’s so much you can tell about a character through how they move. One of my favorite shows that does it so well is actually “Baman Piderman” - their characters feel more alive because of the attention put into their mannerisms.

“Baman Piderman” is a modern masterpiece. Any other favorite shows?

Oh geez, that’s a tough one. There are a lot. “Gravity Falls” - Alex Hirsch is a huge inspiration for me. “Fullmetal Alchemist” - both, though I like “Brotherhood” just a bit more. “The Misadventures of Flapjack”, “Rick and Morty”, “Steven Universe”, “Mob Psycho 100”, “Transformers Prime” - the 3d TV series - I like the “Transformers” franchise except for the movies.

What about favorite artists or writers or sundry creative humans?

Ahh! Okay, there’s so many. Ok: so Alex Hirsch for sure. James Roberts, a writer for IDW Transformers comics. Matthew Mercer inspired me to start DMing, and I’ve learned a ton about story from him. Dana Terrace, an incredible board artist / is amazing at everything. And Jenn Strickland, another awesome board artist and animator! Christine Liu and Lauren Sassen are two more amazing board artists. There’s Alan Ituriel (created “Villainous”) and Jhonen Vasquez who created “Invader Zim,” the first cartoon I was ever obsessed with. JN Wiedle is an awesome cartoonist and comics artist, and Bahi JD and Yutaka Nakamura are some of my favorite animators. I’m also super influenced by “Akira” and Studio Ghibli’s films!

Last query! Whatcha workin’ on?

Well aside from my work-work, I’ve got quite a bit going on! I’m developing two web comic ideas, and I’m doing the art for a comic called “The Goosefighter,” written by Marilyn-Ann Campbell, for Toronto Comics Anthology Vol. 5. It’s about a student who has a stand-off with a goose - so it’s about looking evil right in the face. Up my alley!

Thanks for chatting with us Austen, you rock! Looking forward to all of your upcoming projects!

- Cooper

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gospacegay · 7 years

Text

Dark Destiny

A thing I wrote over two days when I was supposed to be working. It’s medieval rusame, with hints of fruk and japan randomly tossed in. Not G friendly (gore, murder, sex references). Also... is it Braginski or Braginsky? I’ve seen both used a lot.

Ivan gazed over the icy cold throne room with disinterest. The shining black stone of the room only reflected the fact that there was so few subjects in attendance. This wasn't by chance. Ivan Braginsky, the king of the bitter north, was quite unhappy. When he was unhappy, heads had a tendency to fall off.

“Your highness, dinner is prepared.” Toris, his most loyal servant announced. The sparsely populated royal court seemed relieved to hear this, herding towards the door. Most nobles didn't have the guts to look at their own king, let alone speak to him.

“My own loving people, they won't even to speak to me.” Ivan mourned to the plainly dressed servant. “Under normal circumstances, I would say it's because you control them in life and undeath. Respectfully, you also gutted the lord of Yarlasky in front of his wife.” Toris pointed out weakly, also avoiding eye contact. “I suppose that would be intimidating.” the pale king sighed, slumping in his chair.

To go through another meal with thirty or more people, all scared of his every breath. It was exhausting just thinking about it. “Bring my meal to my private chambers. I require privacy for arcane studies.” Ivan decided suddenly, marching off with purpose. He didn't even wait for a response, charging out of the room. On the other side of the castle, past a gauntlet of defences, was Ivan's sleeping quarters.

A small laboratory had been set up off to the side, for if he was particularly sleepless. Born being able to here the whispers of the dead made sleep a luxury. Of course, demons and ghosts didn't torture his sleepless nights anymore. He was the most powerful necromancer in all the northern lands. He could steal and sculpt lost souls to his will. Flesh and bone were his artistic medium.

Still, a new issue kept him from rest. King Braginsky badly desired a mate of his own. Oh to still the miserable quaking of his dark magic stained heart. He supposed the war with just about everyone to the south was dragging down his morale as well. That damn new religion was taking entire countries by storm, and Ivan wanted nothing to do with it.

It was those pesky light worshipers. They claimed necromancy was evil, and black magic was a disease. No one had the right to call Ivan or his precious sisters diseased. Well... maybe Natalia was a little mad, but she was just... odd. No worse than other magically inclined royal families.

Entering his lavish bedroom, Ivan sealed the door shut behind him. Hurriedly, he drew a small magic circle with enchanted sand. A much larger sacred circle of salt sealed it in. Focusing on his inner strength, the whispers of magic came as easily as breathing. “Oh great spirits beyond, tell me of my future mate.” Ivan commanded with rumbling authority.

The air chilled sharply around him, silky voices floating from beyond the great barrier of death. They spoke softly in Ivan's ear, so gentle they were barely words.

Wall of black meets point of white...

So follows a great battle...

Sapphires framed by gold...

Untold wealth and victory to follow...

The spirits evaporated away, leaving the king alone in his quarters. He groaned in frustration, having heard the poetic nonsense several nights in a row. The dead had been so much clearer in the past. There was a rapid knocking at the door, followed by a muffled “Dinner is here, your highness.”

With a brief burst of Ivan's potent magic, the doors were opened from afar. Unnerved by the sight after all these years, Toris hesitated before entering. “Put it on the dresser. I wish to meditate.” Ivan dismissed, not even looking over his shoulder. “My lord, important military reports have arrived by raven.” Toris informed, edging closer to the agitated king. When there was no response, the lesser servant put the scrolls on the ground and backed out warily.

Scrolls arriving by raven was generally a bad thing. It meant standard horseback or pigeon wasn't fast enough. He flopped on the floor, lazily reaching for a scroll. Closing the door with a mental flick of his mind, the king began reading intently.

General Yao had been defeated to the east, slain by a proclaimed hero from the south. This was quite a feat considering Yao was one of Ivan's greatest tacticians. The man was cunning, heartless, and reliable, as to be expected of a vampire. The second military report only confirmed the obvious, with better intelligence gathering.

The pathetic king of Britannica, Arthur Kirkland, had gone and raised another 'hero'. The betrayal stung fiercely, consider both kings had once attended magic classes together. Arthur ultimately specialized poorly in woodland magic, while Ivan mastered all manner of dark arts. They used to be friends, or at least work acquaintances. Fine. Ivan didn't need friends anyway.

He'd just slay this assassin like all the others before. He still had the preserved corpse of the last 'hero', Sir Eduard Vock of the Western Sea. Such a pompous title for someone who died instantly. The fool's family was still requesting the body for burial. Ivan denied them the right, artfully carving the man's skull into a macabre wind chime.

00000

Two days past, and the ravens continued arriving with great urgency. They all bore the same grim message. The holy hero of Britannica was on a war path, topping forts in a direct line to the capitol. The only general to survive the massacres was Winter, a loyal subject of the court. He had served Ivan's father for years prior to being murdered.

There was no delicate nobility in the throne room this morning. Ivan paced, mind running rampant. As much as the citizens feared him, they feared being killed by Britannic invaders more. Dozens of requests for aid were starting to arrive by pigeon and horseback. Something had to be done.

“Sir, General Winter has arrived from the eastern gate.” Toris announced, shy like always. “Send him in.” the king ordered, settling on his silver throne. Moments later, a gaunt older figure shuffled into the room. Most of his features were obscured by bandages and armour, but the sky high rank was visible enough.

“My highness, It is an honour to meet with you.” the figure greeted with lopsided kneeling, voice roughened from years of bitter cold and chain smoking. “Rise and tell me your news.” the king demanded with ease. The older general obeyed, replying “The Britannic assassin travels in small numbers, with a group of specialists. Wall climbing equipment, magic, and trickery. The attack was at night. We were unprepared for such clever tactics.”

“Peasant casualties?” Ivan asked, already knowing the answer. “Incredibly high my lord. They will stop at nothing to get your attention.” the general confirmed, coughing heavily towards the end. “See the healers in the main wing. You have earned it.” Ivan dismissed. This hero had captured the king's attention indeed, in the worst way possible.

00000

The snow frosted capital city was buzzing with the news. Their feared necromancer king was challenging the proclaimed hero from the south to honorable duel. The event was being sang about on every street corner of the city, for better or worse.

“My lord, are you certain this is wise?” Toris stammered, wringing his hands. “Yes. No challengers for the throne beat me before. I have trained years for this.” Ivan replied, almost giddy in anticipation. He was dressed in plate mail, a sword and painted round shield held waiting. A tabard depicting the royal black eagle on red fields was worn proudly. His armored feet clicked on the smooth floor of the throne room constantly as he paced

How long had it been since the infamous king had fended off a challenger? “How can we be certain the invader accepted the request?” Toris wheedled away like he always did. “Do not question my judgments servant, for I have been blessed by gods.” Ivan barked, fed up with the meek act. Pondering striking the shorter man, he was interrupted.

“Blessed by the gods, huh? Awful cocky for a guy that's about to get crushed.” a stranger taunted from the wide open entrance way. “The hero of Britannica I presume.” Ivan greeted coolly, grinning widely. He didn't care if he looked insane, the pale king was going to enjoy this.

“What are the rules of this duel, skeleton king?” the figure demanded, totally covered in gleaming white Armour. A blue and white fabric tunic covered his own chest piece. His impractical two handed sword was lovingly polished to a shine, drawn and at the ready. Twenty of his comrades trailed behind him, ranging from obvious wizards to brutish mercenaries.

“There will be no assistance from the outside. Consequences will happen otherwise.” Ivan began, pointing to the literal wall of skeleton archers behind him. “This better apply to you bub.” the helmet wearing hero scoffed, humorously light about the situation. “Of course. It is a battle to the death, after all. I can think of nothing more honorable.” Ivan crooned in a sickly sweet tone, putting on his helmet.

“Of course, you'd think that you – Holy shit!” the distracted hero screeched mid sentence as Ivan charged. Laughing manically, Ivan tried slamming into the offensively geared knight. The king's attempt to knock him over with the shield failed, but only barely. Slightly more agile in lighter equipment, the challenger was quick with his own silly sword. Didn't he know shields were superior?

After several lunges and trip attempts, Ivan fell back into a defensive stance. This guy was fast, and quite amazing in battle. Panting from his bold exertions, the king would have to reserve his remaining energy for a different opening.

The other man wasn't fairing well, but still had great range with that heavy sword. Ivan's shield was starting to look quite dented from fending off it's mighty blows. “Give it up skeleton man. I'm faster, and hit harder!” the other knight boasted, breathing just as hard.

“You forget I am wiser!” Ivan roared, recklessly flinging his shield at the man. Using the natural flinching reaction, the king charged into close range. Smashing the helmet clean off with the pommel of his short sword, Ivan flipped the light blade over and pressed it to the young man's exposed neck. “Damn it... Just... make it quick okay?” the knight sighed in resignation, knowing this was the end.

Ivan didn't listen, utterly transfixed by the stranger's face. It was tan, framed by golden blonde hair. Handsome features centred around blue eyes that shone like jewels. It was a crime against nature to kill someone this beautiful. The teasing phrases of three days ago looped in the king's lonely mind.

Wall of black meets point of white...

So follows a great battle...

Sapphires framed by gold...

Untold wealth and victory to follow...

His fabled mate couldn't be this pest, could he?

“Drop the weapon.” Ivan hissed, conflicted and horribly attracted at the same time. Pinned to the wall at blade point, the stranger obeyed grudgingly. “Toris, shackle him and strip him down. I want him secured in my chambers.” Ivan ordered loudly, unable to tear away from that handsome expression of fear. He even had freckles. Ivan adored freckles.

It was best to quadruple check the prophecy before getting his hopes up though. “What the hell! What are you going to do to me!?” the man demanded as he was cuffed and hauled away by undead soldiers. “Nothing sinister I assure you.” Ivan sang in response, feeling his heart flutter in his chest. The king had plans for this young man.

00000

Five days passed by without a word from the king of Britannica. After discovery his prisoner was a son of Arthur Kirkland, a ransom demand was immediately sent off by raven. Ivan had admittedly expected that he might have to haggle the price down a bit, but to not receive any response at all? That was unusually harsh. The southern kingdom was a day away by magic raven, so time wasn't an excuse.

Of course, the hero known as Alfred Kirkland was hardly suffering. After a day of being in barbed cuffs on the cold floor, Ivan couldn't help but spoil the man. Steel shackles were traded for soft leather restraints, and soft bedding was provided. Warm sleeping wear was supplied and cleaned daily. Fresh food was always on demand. A frown simply didn't suit the attractive blond's features.

Entering his bed chambers, Ivan greeted his prisoner happily. The golden blond captive looked up expectantly, asking “Any birds or scrolls yet?” The king shook his head, frowning slightly. Having been off chain since three days ago, Alfred had dozens of opportunity to escape the room. He didn't appear to be doing so, quite depressed.

“Cheer up, he might comply if I threaten to send a finger.” Ivan soothed. The younger man just sighed and curled up on Ivan's plush bed. He started sniffling, looking absolutely crushed by the news. “I just... I don't get it. I know I pissed him off... but to send nothing at all?” he whimpered. Ivan floundered in situations like these. He almost physically hurt when the young man was sad.

“Don't cry, little one. I'm sure he is late to answer.” Ivan reasoned, itching to wrap himself around the prisoner possessively. “No... No! I've had enough! I'm not a pawn!” Alfred declared, switching from upset to prideful in seconds.

He rolled over, looking at the king with bold blue eyes. “You clearly want to get with this. Don't you have any court positions open?” Alfred gestured to his own athletic body as he spoke, clearly unafraid. The bluntness of the question stopped Ivan in tracks, a hot blush creeping up his face.

“I... um... yes.” the king stammered, heart racing.

“I'll be whatever you want, advisor, duke, whatever... I'll kill for you if I have to. But you gotta help me kill my dad. Just the worst god damn thing you can do to a man... What's the highest position you have open?” Alfred continued, so determined it was sexy.

“Queen. Most people don't wish to associate with necromancers.” Ivan replied quietly. Alfred cocked a brow in surprise, commenting “Queen huh, that’s... well... hmm. Screw it, I'll do that. All of it, just kill my dad and destroy everything he ever loved. Besides, you're probably a decent size anyway.”

How could Ivan say no to a deal like that?

00000

Two months had past since his son was officially captured, but the king of Britannica was not bothered. The boy had always been nothing but a pest, threatening Arthur's rule. Today several nobles fraternized in the cream and gold colored throne room. The stoic, if grumpy, king was a beloved figure by his citizens. A spring festival of light was being planned in his honor. A lesser ceremony was being held next Sunday for the presumed dead Alfred, but Arthur had no intention of going.

“My dear, there's been terrible rumors lately about the king of the north lands.” His fair queen, Francine, fretted from her own chair. Arthur looked at his beautiful wife, the royal daughter of the neighboring francs. “He is a savage and a necromancer. That's hardly a surprise.” Arthur dismissed.

“They say he's taken a wife, and a new advisor... That he's looking to take more land...” Francine whispered, clearly taking the rumors to heart. “Don't be daft. He has plenty of land. His advisors would be unable to handle more work load. Black magic can never prevail over the light.” Arthur insisted stubbornly, so assured in his own words. “If you insist, love.” Francine agreed airily, clearly not believing him.

It was true the dark king was making moves though. A massive army was pressing in from the north. Although King Braginsky primarily used tireless undead for foot soldiers and archers, the army still had a notable human component of wizards and tacticians. This ensured the force would take at least two days to arrive. Just enough time to reinforce the already fearsome city walls.

A ragged bloody soldier stumbled into Arthur's near divine throne room. “My lord, my highness. It's a massacre.” the man gasped, barely alive himself. “You are dripping blood on my floors.” Arthur scolded in disapproval. The soldier took no heed, stumbling closer. “Felsbrook was overrun with undead. I rode my horse as fast as I could to warn you.” he continued, coughing harder.

Suddenly wracked with spasms, the soldier screamed and fell to the floor. He stilled in true death, pooling blood everywhere. Foul necrotic parasites could be seen pushing around under his skin. One noble fainted at the sight, while others recoiled in horror.

“Kiku, please dispose of this wretched creature. I must attend to military matters.” King Kirkland ordered, taking the time to walk around the festered body. The raven haired fire wizard complied silently, sombre brown eyes always watching. It was difficult for him to protest otherwise as a mute court wizard.

Taking a quick stroll to a nearby castle wall, the king looked pensively outward. You could hear a siege long before you could see it. In this case, you could smell it even before that. The faint odor of smoke and rotten meat was unmistakable. Braginsky's forces were much closer than previously expected. Improvisations would have to be made.

00000

Things were not going well for Arthur Kirkland as he huddled in his grand throne room. He had been played brilliantly. The loud and noxious forces to the west had only been slaves and festering zombies in forced march. Having pushed most of his men to the western wall in anticipation, the east was thinly manned. A massive force of skeletal soldiers scaled and took the west gate in under an hour.

The tactic was so unexpected that there was no possible defense. Since no one generally survived the necromancer king's wrath, Arthur had been unsure what the best defense style was. How ironic was it that his foolish son's tactics would be his downfall. No doubt the barbaric King Braginsky had stolen such strange ideas from Alfred's skull after killing him.

There was pounding on the barricaded door. The group of elite soldiers bunched around the king tensed. “Oh daaadddy... Let me innn!” a hauntingly familiar voice taunted through iron reinforced wood. “Alfred?” Arthur croaked in horror. He had hoped it was Francine, who had fled with their young son Peter and the court wizard over an hour ago.

There was a crack of sound as wooden barricade beams were splintered from immense invisible force. Arthur was well enough at magic to recognize the signs. The massive door swung open with a dry squeal, revealing three ominous figures surrounded by skeletal archers and warriors. One was obviously the dreaded skeleton king. He wore a black cloak with a red eagle.

His mysterious companion was well armed with a huge black sword, wrapped in red clothe with a black eagle. It had to be this rumored queen, or at least a general. The third figure was a young maiden in a black bonnet and dress, dark magic oozing from her trim figure like shadowy tendrils.

The red cloaked stranger flipped his helmet visor up, flashing a cheeky grin. “Hey dad... Don't you love family reunions?” Alfred greeted, his smile as dangerous as it was bright. “You were supposed to be dead.” Arthur sputtered, terrified. “Now, dear brother?” the delicate female asked, sickeningly sweet. “Yes Natalia. You can play.” King Braginsky confirmed, giving her a chaste kiss on a lace gloved hand.

She started giggling wildly, the room seeming sharply darker. The twenty trained soldiers sudden dropped their weapons, clutching at their necks and choking for air. One man took off his helmet, falling to his knees and vomiting blood. All the others followed suit, gurgling and dying slowly as they writhed on the ground. Arthur watched, petrified in horror.

The woman started singing to herself as she sat in one of the blood pools, a dying man's head in her lap. She appeared to be carving hearts out of her victim's skin with razor sharp nails, smiling joyfully.

“What are you even doing here, Alfred?” King Kirkland balked, unable to stop staring at his own impudent son. “Well, if you haven't noticed, I'm the new queen of the north lands. Vanya here thinks I'm hot stuff, and he's such a sweet heart. The sex is just phenomenal!” the boy prattled on, holding hands with the villainous figure beside him

“Please, my love.” Ivan protested modestly, wearing a dopey smirk. It was disgusting to see how much that dark magic lunatic lusted after the least competent of Arthur's many sons.

“But enough about me... You abandoned me! Did you even read the ransom requests he sent? I'm your own blood and you just... So you brought this upon yourself.” Alfred stated evenly. “What are... are you doing?” Arthur babbled, suddenly unable to move his arms or legs. “Do you like that daddy? It's a nice little trick my husband taught me. Dark magic is so... convenient.” the honey blond prattled as he drew his sword.

“You don't have to do this, I'm perfectly willing to negotiate. Just think about what your doing, son!” Arthur begged, starting to cry. “Good bye dad. I'll tell your future grandchildren you said hello.” Alfred crooned, sword point aimed at his father's throat. “Grandchildren?” Ivan echoed, looking horribly lovesick and pleased. Arthur wanted to throw up.

“Yes my king. I said I'd do all this queen stuff didn't I?” Alfred soothed. He then plunged the sword forward sharply. Everything went black for Arthur Kirkland.

#rusame #evil is hot #let's get medieval #russia #america #hetalia #fruk #wizards #i blame disney #Ivan is a necromancer #love

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katherineshep · 7 years

Text

A coolest experience in a while

Have drawn out half a 30-sheeted sketchbook in one evening. How? Oh, it's a nice story to tell...

Today I've had maybe the most hardcore and in the same time exciting drawing experience I could get, not studying for an artist - I was drawing from a model. In drawing class.

First, it always seems to me that I'm missing interesting events, in recent times I need more and more bright emotions - to nourish my creative abilities, for example, and also so the unpleasant daily routine didn't ruin my mood. So when this drawing class jumped on me in Google results (because few days ago I accidentally googled affiche of interesting events in my city instead of movie affiche), I just couldn't miss the possibility, especialy when drawing of full body from a living model to have some insights on body anatomy is just super-cool for any beginner artist. So I ordered my place in the event and was in great anticipation of today's evening.

First, the place where class was held was just adorable. Kyiv has plenty of plants that have bankrupted or that were plundered bolt by bolt, so the forgotten plant buildings are sold to people who can make these walls a thing of art by making it a loft-style exhibition or conference halls, coworkings, stylish caffeteria or whatever that building will fit for. The building I came to was one of those long time ago abandoned plants, especially the first floor with its 7-meters-high ceiling (that first floor was definitely a manufactory itself and once there were machine-tools which assembled the details for ships). Brick walls and all and ventilation (and god knows what else) tubes at the ceiling were painted in white, which, along with beautiful lightbulb chaplets that lighted the hall in warm colour, made the hall very bright and cozy. There was a tiny stage at the center of the hall with chairs set around it - lots on the front side, some on the rear side. The hall was empty because I messed up the time and came too early, so I had enough time to see all the new place and even to go grab a coffee.

Then, when the time came, people began to gather. I did not expect much people at first, but when the master of the event was doing the last preparations for the class, he told me that they gather here every week for around three years now (that's when I clearly felt that I must be wandering not the right places in the Internet XD ). When the standing chairs were filled by half, I understood that at least half of people who came there today have met here pretty much - there were lots of friendly talks out there.

More people were coming. The masters of the event have brought free tea and drinks. Artists were unpacking their sketchbooks, albums, pencils, pastels, one girl had a set of Copic markers (they are daaamn expensive here so I was like "ohh there's those markers of my dream, OH MY" - not that I am experienced enough to paint with markers at the moment, but still, a person must aim for new heights or there won't be a progress). Though, the view of Promarkers which my neighbour put at the chair near her have plastered my gaze to them as well XD I've read they're very good and I was curious in actually seeing someone drawing with them, you know, as a live test and inspiration.

In few minutes all the chairs were taken, even there was need in more of them, because there was about 35 artists sitting there (good that that hall we were in had chairs to fill all the hall while the class was using about a quarter of all the space), and they were of all ages. Finally I saw the girl in a sample dress near the stage, in few seconds she took off her wear and walked up the stairs to stand on the stage in the light of floodlights.

What a model we had! First of all, I was in complete awe - she had eastern face (I mean, chinese, or japanese, or korean - I'm not good at defining precisely, no such experience). Not that it was super-rare to see a person with eastern face, but we're definitely not the country young people from Korea or Japan might dream to live in, so if we have some people with that appearance, it's either those few tourists that happened to stay here, or just Ukrainians who have one or both parent of eastern roots. Meeting a drawing model is rare, having an eastern drawing model is a jackpot.

Along with that, only a few days ago I've tried to sketch eastern faces, african faces and indian ones, as these people have slightly different facial features from our common europoid face type. I've got Shepard's father to sketch, after all, I have to know how to draw the face that gave my Shep eastern features)

The model chose a pose, and the master commanded to begin drawing.

In first two seconds it was odd to see a person completely undressed - in not an intimate athmosphere, I mean. But then the oddity was gone, as well as the thoughts of watching my neighbours' work were forgotten - I had 5 seconds (!) to make my sketch before the model changes the pose. The order was following: a bunch of five-seconds sketches, few of 10 seconds then, twenty seconds per sketch, thirty seconds. A minute (thank god!), then five, ten, fifteen. Saying sincerely, at first 5-seconds-sketching I didn't manage to even have a decent curves or something, so I decided to practice skeletons (I mean these, they help to build angles and length of limbs correctly). Ten seconds didn't give much help, the proportions of were just awful. On fifteen (or the next step was twenty?) I learned to draw skeletons faster than before and to give pretty good pose, given the scarcity of time. And - you know, this extreme warm-up is actually one of the best training of speed of drawing and fast capturing the basic points of the figure by eye. You instantly feel like your eyes become sharper, your feelings crystallize, your hand glides the paper with pencil more easy (and the best-looking drawings are those which are drawn with confidence, I usually create those in a MASSIVE inspiration flow, and when it subsides, I cannot see whether I draw right lines anymore). The more time I was given, the more detail I could add, the more I could capture with precise and even measure the model's body parts with a pencil when my eyes failed me. Then the count was is minutes, and after few poses we finally had a break - after more than an hour of fast sketching.

That was the moment when I withdrew my gaze from a model and felt... so aliiive and massively mindfucked at the same time. I walked around the hall, had some tea and had a talk with one girl in the row after me. In a row with many other things we discussed drawing instruments, and then I noticed an awesomely shadowed drawing in her album. I asked how to make such a beauty in such a short time...

She drew a messy hatching in one line with the side (!) of her hand-sharpened 6B Koh-I-Noor pencil and then wiped the drawn area with a finger, giving a bigger pressure to one side of the area and lesser to another.

There was a peeeerfect shade. And that felt like supernova exploding in my head - I knew that technique of shading, but as well as my drawing class teacher in university taught me to do separate hatches, I was usind said technique. Shading with wiping the area felt a very long and tiresome work... but hell, it only needed a very soft pencil to use that way of shading! It was so obvious! A girl explained, that my mechanical pencil is good too, but it'll need so many more hatching that it'll slow me down.

So I took one of my usually unused Koh-I-Noors from my pencil box (luckily, I've had 3B) and used it for a next sketch.

The second session had three poses of 20 minutes each. Then I saw the results of the advice of my new friend: shading with soft pencil was like +100500 boost to my shading skill. The sketch I was drawing now looked much more real than any of the previous (and by 10-minutes sketches I managed to make 2 pretty decent, but they lacked shading because I had no time to hatch them with separate lines my mechanical pencil produced).

That was the best my work in this evening. During the next pose my brain become exhausted and I was loosing an ability to see proportions and shades. But I went on - I had to.

The model took a beautiful fabric to hold with her for the last sketch. Damn, that woman was a Goddess at all, with or without a cloth, in every pose she made, in the way she looked. You know, when you start learning to draw and you sketch people, and in most perfect case - strangers in the public places, you try to absorb the details of their faces and eventually start to see a beauty in every feature, then - in combination of them. Some features can be not perfect, but they combine on a person's face in such a way that all together is truly beautiful! Then you understand how unique each of us are. Then you start to be excited with human body - all the smallest noticeable facial expressions, how the light caresses the skin, how the tiny wrinkles at the outer corner of the eye reveal a person who smiles a lot. Sometimes you not only see an emotion (joy, sadness) or the state of a person (for example, his/her anticipation or tiredness), but also the trace of experience from their life on their faces, like wrinkled forehead shows the person who is being confused a lot in his life.

And here, with a model in front of you, you notice some things - like whether the belly is flat or whether you like breasts shape - for only a moment! Let's face the truth, we are being constantly fed with beauty standards from TV and magazines so the thought of that sort may show at first. But then in like two seconds those tiny imperfections do not bother you anymore. Because you're an artist at work, you see the beauty in human body and you must pass it on, that's your purpose in this moment. Then you get to know the feeling, that whatever that body is, it really IS beautiful as a creation of life, and there can be beauty in any of model's unique features. The pesron in front of you is a masterpiece of nature even without a body of a top model, and you must respect that. You must carefully put that beauty into your drawing - not lying, not giving your figure on a sketch the features she doesn't have. When you draw a real person, you must be sincere as mush as you can, only then you give proper respect to that person's unique nature.

I've being pulling the last drawing untild the model started to TURN. Slowly, but to turn away from you - and you can't have the same pose from where you are anymore. That's when my tired brain started to guess the wrong shades and lines to finish the sketch, and I had to stop so the drawing wasn't ruined. Better it be unfinished, but beautiful sketch, than the messed up drawing.

So I got up to my feet and silently walked behind all the chairs - to have a secret look at other artists' works. Every of the artists had different style, instruments, techniques: while one made a pencil sketch, others managed to draw a full-coloured drawings. They also had very different level of profficiency, but that didn't stop any of them. On the contrary, you mustn't stop when the drawing, a hard thing actually, doesn't goes as planned at first - because every your sketch is a tiny stone in a foundation of your skill, an if you want to build something above the ground - forge yourself as an artist with a constant work.

So, after that walk, the light discomfort I, a damn beginner, felt in a hall full of drawing people finally fully subsided.

Now - I'm very tired and sleepy, because drawing, especially so fast and unusual, is a hard mental work.

But it was one of the greatest evenings since... maybe the last cosplay festival. And along with feeling exhausted, I feel very much content.

/And sorry if you see any typos. I strongly need a rest now, but I coundn't not to leave this as I, well, like to write down bright moments of life so there were nice warming posts for me to reread and recall once again./

#drawing #theartistsway #artists on tumblr #artists of tumblr #katherineshepart #irl #katshep talks #positive #sketching #inspiration

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jk-snoddy · 7 years

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“DAMN IT, ICARUS!” Stories of Flying Too Close to the Sun.

Theme: RISK (...but mostly failure)

When I think about the creative risks I’ve taken in the past few years the first thing that comes to mind are the failures. In my eyes, the word “RISK” paints pictures of potential danger, humiliation, and disappointment. It’s like streaking naked across a college campus, in the day, at lunchtime. But it also paints the slim opportunity of being an outlier in that wide margin of likely failure. I faced this predicament when I decided to make my first narrative film in college. It was garbage, it pissed me off every step of the way.

Me and my friends, Denny and Joe, had banded together in the spring of 2012 and decided to start a film production team at our college. We made two mediocre music videos, did video documentation for hire, and thanks to Denny's big mouth telling any and every one that "WE HAVE A COMPANY!" we became known as "those video guys". I don't know where we got the gall to think that we were official in any way, but for some reason, we had our heads puffed up by our third gig. We felt like hot shit.

Fast forward to December 2012, it was near the end of the semester and Denny just kept talking about how he wanted to make this movie he’s had in mind for the past seven months. The idea had to do with a young male coming out of the closet to his father. He was super gung-ho about shooting it and creating a story about LBGTQ characters. Although I didn’t connect with the story, the last time I made a narrative film was in high school. I felt this urgency to get behind the camera again and direct something that wasn’t a music video or someone's band in a basement. So I figured with a little common writing sense and empathy I could tell this story. So I told him “Fuck it, I’d be down. Let’s make a movie.” On the last day before Christmas break, I was called in for a production meeting in the school atrium. Before I could even blink, Denny had arranged a small quasi-core production team consisting of a screenwriter, David (who eventually became one of our main actors), our sound guy, Mitchell, and Georgina, our production assistant, Denny who acted as producer, and me as the director. Joe went MIA before the production began. Before the end of that day, I was sent a potential draft of the “screenplay” David had written. The ball was starting to roll a little bit faster than I was used to; this wasn’t all talk anymore. But I had to keep up. Don’t even get me started on the title the producer had in mind.

January was dedicated to editing the script that was written in less than a week. For some stupid reason, I decided to take part in some of the writing duties. For the entire month, I had my stale revisions shat upon by the team who would constantly go back and forth on what it should be and what it shouldn’t. February came and we were casting for each role, finding a cinematographer, setting up our Kickstarter page (we didn’t reach our goal), and trying to deal with our own classes/lives which were crumbling right at our feet due to mounting stress. March arrived. The semester was halfway done; my personal work and my grades were suffering. The cast was finalized, and we were set to shoot during the week of spring break. I felt nothing but tension as the first shooting day drew closer. I didn’t have a decent night’s sleep since January. We reserved every Canon MK II and light kit that the film/animation department had to offer, along with sound equipment, batteries, and CF and SD cards. We had to keep track of all of this stuff. Every employee at my school’s equipment stockroom loathed us.

The first day of spring break arrived, principal photography was a complete nightmare. We had the police called on us for shooting near a restaurant, that wasn’t even on screen. It turns out that you can’t trust a fine art photographer to do the job of an actual cinematographer just because the camera has a video button. It was the first time I ever had to fire someone. The first week passed and we were missing so many scenes, the production dragged on for the remainder of March into April. After the first week, we lost our half of our core team. Our sound guy, Mitchell, was a Berklee student at the time and had to focus on finals (along with arranging our score and doing ADR). Our PA had to continue her own classes and studio work. We were down to a skeleton crew and we had to recruit our other friends who were willing to help out. Because we were using school equipment at the time, we had to keep checking out (and extending, and returning) cameras, lighting, and sound gear constantly. Everyone at the stockroom wanted to kill me.

Because we didn’t have a budget, we poured our non-existent cash into coffee and donuts for every set. Turns out you can’t expect an entire cast and crew to run off of Boston cremes. Nor can a 20-year-old subsist on junk food for a month straight and be a good communicator and college student. My diet for the majority of the semester consisted of Dunkin Donuts, black coffee, vending machine pastries, and Adderall.

(There are only plain donuts left.)

This film was no longer a labor of love and enthusiasm, but a chore. We started off cock-sure of our abilities to make this movie, but the moment we got started we were hit with reality. Each day brought a new plateau of pressure and it was far too late to back out.

Being on set wasn’t an exclusively negative experience. Each day of shooting was a healthy learning experience that helped us understand what it takes to be a make a film. I was learning how to effectively express my needs to the performers and how to really direct a story through enforcing subtle undertones to their roles. Directing for me was becoming an intuitive process that became easier to tap into. Because we let our cinematographer go I took on the role of DP myself. It was rewarding because I was able to achieve the shots I was trying to capture in terms of the look and feel. It was hard, but it felt better shooting it than trying to relay shot ideas to someone who was always in their own head. But figuring out how to properly light a scene was more experimental, which meant using more time on set figuring out the composition. We powered through the month of April to get the final pick up shots that we needed and we completely wrapped by the end of the month.

As soon as the school year ended we were trying to set a hard deadline for the final cut before the screening date. FUN FACT: just because your producer is enthusiastic about being an editor, doesn’t give them the chops to actually cut together a movie. We screened the “final” cut to all of our friends, classmates, crew members, actors, and co-workers at the Fenway Health Clinic screening room. It was the biggest disappointment I ever had to sit and watch. There was audio out of sync, a lot of areas where my experimental cinematography style justed looked tacky and wrong, the stale writing was really prominent. It was a shit-show. Most of my classmates, friends, and other creative contemporaries had to sit through that film and I knew that they felt embarrassed for me. From the time that I saw the first rough cut, I knew that it wasn’t going to be the best thing ever. I was honestly hoping Denny could’ve made my stale shooting into something palatable, I was wrong.

The director is supposed to be the calm face of the production. Every day I brought my anxieties, neuroses, and vulnerabilities with me on set. My fragile ego at the time couldn’t handle outside ideas and criticisms from my producer (or anyone on set) because I felt I was CONSTANTLY RIGHT. The fear of not knowing what I was doing balanced the sting of being told I was wrong. I was like an open nerve of my own exposing. To this day I still think about this project and how I handled myself with the crew and actors. I was struggling to manage as a leader alongside everyone else’s opinion and hurrying the fuck up. A bad day on set is pretty discouraging. But three bad days in a row, including class the very next day, then more filming immediately after, was like shooting my motivation in the face in broad daylight.

It’s been a while since I made something of that scope. Mostly fearing to make the same mistakes I made the last time. But the fear of failure will never justify your losses when you never continued moving onward. That’s a big failing on my part as an artist and storyteller. Virgil Abloh (Founder of Off-White, Creative Director at DONDA, friends with Kanye West) said “Find the domino effect. Create the project that’s latent with intention and see what comes after it”. This slightly justifies the artistic risk in making bad work, learning from it, and continuing forward. Looking back, all I did was think about this project and see it as a critical failure on my end as a storyteller. When what I really should've done is embraced it as a part of the process. All this time I hated myself for how it came out, that I forgot that we, a group of early 20 something's, actually had the audacity to finish an entire movie.

I could go on and on about how the resources were bogus, or the lack of money and manpower held us down. But it’s inaccurate. There was no amount of cash or gear that could’ve saved us from ourselves. We took on way more than we should’ve, didn’t plan each step well, and we failed as a result. I think about the unnecessary urgency we had put on ourselves to get this film made instead of slowing down and using the standard process. The heartbreaking part was the toll it took on my personal relationships with everyone in the project. I wouldn’t have guessed how much the tension would fracture my friendships. If I ever get the chance to make a movie soon (god willing) I’ll walk onto the project with my battle scars from the last time. I’ll use paranoid due diligence to make sure I'm not creating a product that I'll look back onto 8 years and cringe about its inception.

#AINAP #film production #risk #icarus #filmmaker #filmmaking #screenwriting #when it all goes wrong

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megamanx1994 · 6 years

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Captain Falcon: The Last Mimeosome Chapter 2

Chapter 2: A Stasis Pod (Disclaimer! I own nothing of Smash Bros or Xenoblade X!) I woke up after another all nighter and headed down to the lab. “Good morning Nicholas,” said Professor Elvin, “Burning the midnight oil again?” “Yeah, sure looks like it,” I said. “You’ll make yourself sick if you keep doing that you know,” said Luna walking down, “So how are things with you and Sakura?” “Pretty good,” I said, “She’s traveling to train up for some martial arts tournament and Daisy’s off for some convention, so looks like I’m on my own.” “Well you got me and Dad,” said Luna. “That’s true,” I said. “It’s a good thing we have you at the labs, because of your healing factor,” said Professor Elvin, “No matter what injury you get, it heals up in a hurry.” “Thanks to you,” I said with a grin. I noticed something under a cover. “What’s that?” I asked. “Just something I’ve been working on,” said Luna. “Is it an upgrade for my armor or more of a….. self project?” I asked. “It’s a little of both,” she answered. I was about to take a peek. “Uh uh,” she said. I got a text from Colleen. It read ‘You free? I could use your help on a mission.’ “It says I should meet her at B.L.A.D.E HQ,” I said. “Need a lift?” asked Luna, “I’m going that way to hand some tools to my friend Alexa.” “Might as well take it,” I said. We made it to Blade HQ. I was helping Luna carry some of her stuff. I was also busy bumping into others. “Sorry,” I said, “Pardon me.” “Watch where you’re going,” said someone. I bumped into a table and their rifle dropped. “Great,” said someone, “Would you be….. careful?” I got a good look at him. It was my old pal Gwin. “Gwin?” I asked. “Nicholas!” he said as he greeted me with a hug, “Oh my god!” “Its been years,” I said. “Come with…. Actually wait right here I’ll be back.” He went to get something. “I’ll see you later Nicholas,” said Luna, “I’ve got a date with the training grounds.” Luna met up with Alexa at the Training Grounds. “So do you have your thing ready?” asked Alexa. “Indeed I do,” said Luna, “Its something I’ve been working on for a while.” “Is it some kind of skell weapon?” asked Alexa. “Its armor,” said Luna. “Aw, lame,” said Alexa. “You’ll be taking that lame back once you see it,” said Luna, “Ta-da!” She took out some kind of watch. “Um…….” Said Alexa. “Wait for it,” she said. Luna pressed a button. A strange liquid went around her body forming armor. “Holy shit,” said Alexa. “This exo skeleton armor is made from a liquid is known as Labranyum, and is controlled by my brain,” said Luna, “This armor coats around my body while granting me enhanced endurance and strength.” “Shut up,” said Alexa amazed. “Not only that, but in battle the armor also repairs itself,” said Luna, “While allowing me to enter environments that no human could survive in.” “So if its advanced, couldn’t it make you vunerable to it?” asked Alexa. “True, that’s why I made this neuro transmitter,” said Luna, “It means I maintain control of it.” Gwin had something for me. It was a cake. “I made it myself with the help of Irina,” said Gwin. “It looks great,” I said. “Nicholas?” asked Irina, “Hey, how have you been?” She gave me the cousin kiss. “So where can I find Colleen?” I asked, “I was asked to accompany her on a mission.” The three of us were walking by the combat arena. This is where Blades train and hone their skills. “That bald guy over there is Boze Lowes,” said Gwin, “Just try to stay on his good side.” “He’s one strict dog,” said Irina, “Last guy that ticked him off ended up not being able to sit for months.” “Ouch,” I said. He looked at me. “Nicholas Shay I presume,” he said. I was surprised. “How do you know my name?” I asked. “I know more than just your name son,” he said. “So this is the infamous soldier who took out the Slipknot army,” said a blade soldier, “Not bad, or was it all just luck?” I was looking at a soldier with blonde hair. “Look lady I’m just here to meet my partner Colleen,” I said. “Lady?” asked the soldier. “That’s a dude,” said Gwin. “But what about the hair, and that dress?” I asked. “It’s a Tunic.” “I think Zelda’s gonna win this one,” said another soldier. “My name is Link Jackass,” said Link. “Wait…” I said, “You’re Link as in….. hylian army link?” “That’s right,” said Link, “The one who took down Volga’s army single handedly.” “……..but you’re a runt,” I said. “OH YEAH CAN A RUNT DO THIS?!” he shouted. He grabbed a ball and chain and threw it at me. I quickly evaded. “Now you’re in for it,” said Irina. He got out his sword and started to attack me. I countered with my robotic arm that now had a blade installed. “You wanna get nuts?” I asked, “C’mon, let’s get nuts!” I read his movements to see when the right time was to counter. Link kept coming at me without breaking a sweat. “Not bad,” I said. “I could say the same about you,” said Link. We kept clashing. Link them saw an opening and hit me by the knee. I quickly got back up and did a sweep kick knocking him over. Boze blew his whistle. “A fine example of a fight,” he said with a grin. Colleen saw me. “What’s I miss?” she asked. “A lot,” I said. A white haired woman was behind her. “Who’s the other woman?” I asked. “My name is Elma, leader of the Skeleton Crew,” said Elma, “And you must be Nicholas.” “I am,” I said, “So what’s this mission?” We were all in the debriefing room. Elma’s commander Vandham was briefing us. “We’ve heard rumours that C.H.A.O.S has a hidden base in this area,” he said, “If we can find anything that’s useful we may have a shot at fighting them.” “Looks like S.M.A.S.H isn’t the only group hunting them down,” I said. “That’s right,” said Vandham, “So the mission is simple; go in, find anything useful then get the hell outta there.” “You can count on me,” I said as I transformed into my armor. “Me too,” said Colleen. We were heading to the said location. There weren’t any guards around. “Its gotta be a trap,” I said, “I say we scan around the perimeter and see if anybody is there.” “Good strategy,” said Elma, “No wonder you asked him to come along.” “Well he is my best friend,” said Colleen, “Let’s split up.” “Roger,” I said as I activated my thermal visor. Colleen, Elma and I searched the entire base to make sure there were no guards. “Clear on my end,” I said. “Clear on this end,” said Colleen. Elma was still looking around.”Elma, what’s your position?” asked Colleen. She saw some kind of capsule. “A stasis pod?” she asked. She examined it and saw something inside of it. “Someome must be inside of it,” she said. She pressed a button and the stasis pod started to open. A blue haired boy came out of it. “Looks like you’re still in one piece,” said Elma. The boy started to come out and almost fell. “Careful,” she said as she helped him up. The boy looked at Elma. “I need to ask you something….” He said. “What is it?” asked Elma. “Come closer,” he said. “What?” asked Elma. “……..Will you go skating with me?” he asked. “Um…… yeah,” she said, “Why not?” Colleen and I met Elma at her location. “Did you find anything?” I asked. “This young boy,” said Elma, “He was stuck in this stasis pod.” The young boy was starting to walk better. “It’s a good thing that I found you,” said Elma, “My name’s Elma. You wanna tell me your name?” The young boy tried to think. “What is my name?” he asked, “I…. I don’t know.” “Wait,” I said, “You’ve forgotten who you are?” I asked. “Yeah,” said the boy, “I remember being placed inside this capsule, and everything going dark and then nothing….. I can’t remember a thing past that!” “You can tell us everything later when we’re back at HQ,” I said, “But first you’ll need a weapon.” I gave him an extra rifle. “You’ll also need this for close combat,” said Elma. She gave him a longsword. “These look familiar,” said the boy. We headed back to Blade HQ. “So it looks like the place was abandoned,” said Commander Vandham. “Unfortunately,” I said, “But we did find somebody locked up in it.” Elma showed him the boy we found. “He’s lost his memory, probably from the stasis hangover,” she said, “We told him we would help him rediscover it.” “I see,” he said. The boy was looking at some weapons at a store. “You seem pretty intrigued by what we have here,” said Alexa. She pointed at a laser sword. “That is what we call a photon saber,” said Gwin, “Used by the Galactic Knight class blades. “He can be in your care for now Nicholas,” said Vandham, “Elma can help you.” “As you wish sir,” said Elma. We were walking around Blade HQ. “Wow,” said the boy, “Its so cool how you’re able to cross a sword with lasers to make such a cool weapon.” A few minutes earlier he got a facial tattoo of a cross on his face. It was a pretty nice touch, and gave me an idea of what to call him. “If you say so,” I said, “How about you come with me and do some errands? Maybe you’ll start to remember something Cross.” “Cross?” he asked. “I gotta call you something don’t I?” I asked, “Like the name?” “Yeah,” he said, “Cross, its great!” “Well let’s head out,” I said, “I gotta deliver some stuff to Dr. Light.” It Comes Back to You from Smoke+Mirrors 4 AM beside myself And what I think of mental health All the things that worry me All the things you don't believe I've been told just what to do Where to look and point my view All the things that I could be I think I learned in therapy Am I just a shadow you drew? It comes back to you, it comes back to you All the things that you had lost will find their way to you It comes back to you, it comes back to you Looking back into the past and I can see it through We were at Dr. Lights lab delivering some tools. He was repairing the damage did to Guts Man. “Dr. Light?” I asked. He saw us. “Oh hello Nicholas,” he said. Rock and Roll were assisting him. “Nicholas, welcome,” said Roll, “Keeping out of trouble?” “Yeah,” I said. “And who might this young man be?” asked Dr. Light. “This is Cross,” I said, “I’m helping him regain his memories.” It comes back to you, oh, oh [3x] It comes back to you Mocking birds and diamond rings Oh, I have thought of greater things All the things that fly by me All the lives that I could lead Maybe I was born for that Or maybe I was first to last You could call it cowardice But leave me to my studied bliss Am I just a shadow you drew? Cross was looking at the armor. “Amazing right?” asked Rock, “He created all of these.” Dr. Light cleared his throat. “My name’s Thomas Light,” said Dr. Light, “I’m the creator of these robot masters, and of Megaman. “You’re his father then?” asked Cross. “In a sense yes,” he said. I laughed. It comes back to you, it comes back to you All the things that you had lost will find their way to you It comes back to you, it comes back to you Looking back into the past and I can see it through It comes back to you, oh, oh [3x] It comes back to you I then went to visit my friend Madelyn Olivia Alanzi whom I call “Hope”. “Hello Nicholas,” she said, “How are things going?” “Pretty well,” I said, “This is Cross.” “Hi,” said Cross. “Its nice to meet you,” she said. “He’s lost his memories so I promised him I’d help get them back,” I said. “Well if anything is troubling you, please feel free to come to the cathedral,” said Hope, “Its all part of my duty as a mediator to help those who are lost to find their way.” Cross smiled. "Thanks again for the lunch yesterday," I said, "It was delicious." "Even when you're not hungry, you have to remember to eat you know," said Hope.

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