A Forged Writer

I’ve recently (as in the last year recently) gotten into visual novels and games stylized round the idea, mainly romance simulation games. You have a character and somewhat set story but every so often a choice somes up that can drastically change what happens to your character and how others interact with them. My favorite right now is the Voltage phone series, My Forged Wedding and Be My Princess, as ridiculous as the premises are. I’ve also taken to following a tumblr of a fan who consistently informs about updates, both the American version and the original (which is in Japanese), and even posts wonderful fanfiction to keep us amused between the slow updates. [it’s called volatageromancefans check it out on tumblr!!!] Her stories share more than the story-line with Voltage’s romance sims. After each post she gives three options the readers can choose from to decide where the story will go next. I really liked this idea and thought it’d be a great way to push me to practice my writing. So, I’m trying it out.

Here’s the first attempt at fanfiction, It’s My Forged Wedding following Kunihiko’s route:

The hurried clips of high heels echoed in the mostly empty subway tunnel. With a pair of legs well practiced in moving in heels, a young woman ran up the stairs, taking a little jump every few steps. Sliding round the corner she just made it into the next rain before the doors began to close. All the while looking every few seconds at her wrist, hoping her new silver watch was just fast. Yukiko was late.
She had had it all planned out. This time, everything was going to go smoothly, leaving her plenty of time to make the meeting. Of course, today, of all days, her boss decided to re-organize the office and go over each project’s progress. Checking through them again, and triple-checking, for an agonizing hour. She thought she could at least make the 5:30 Direct—which would get her there just on time, though no time to take a breath—but she had not only missed that but the 5:50 as well. So she took the regular 5:50 train, which stops every 2 minutes at all 13 stops separating her from her destination.
And now Ishikawa Yukiko was late, very, very late. So late in fact that at the 10th stop she received a text,

[I am sorry, due to a meeting with another client we can no longer wait. Please call to reschedule at a time more suitable for you. Thank you.]

She’d frightened a pair of grannies sitting across from her with a scream of frustration. As she finally exited the the train-car the hurried clip had turned into a slow drudge as she dragged her feet along. Yukiko climbed the last flight of stairs to the surface, a quiet neighborly street, making her sloth-like progression straight to the Long Island Bar. They had planned to meet her there afterwards anyways and now Yukiko was really in the mood for a hard drink and good company. She had first entered the bar over a year ago, fresh out of university and ready to experience life in the big city, and get a job. Really, mostly to get a job. She’d been invited to stay in a place above the bar by the owner, her relative and childhood friend, Aikawa Kunihiko.
He’d opened the Long Island as a hobby, he was actually the CEO of a popular IT company but had his employees run it for him, going in when absolutely necessary. However, as much as Kunihiko spent attention to the bar, besides a curious passerby once in a blue-moon it had almost no customers. It became more of a hangout for him and his friends from high school, the bar’s only regulars, who played together on a neighborhood baseball team. They were a strange group to Yukiko, all drastically different in personality and their career pursuits, with really no shared interest except baseball. Oh, Yukiko smirked thinking, and talking about girls. She laughed to herself imagining their various conversations. Remembering when she first entered the bar, she had no idea what she was getting into. So much had happened since then. Yukiko wondered what herself from a year ago would think of who she was now. Engaged to be married to the guy who tried to teach her how to swim and almost get her drowned instead. It wasn’t long ago that she called him Uncle Kunihiko, or Kuni-nii when she was young, even Old Man once, (just once, he got really pissed afterwards so she decided not to use that again) and now they were, well, …lovers. Yukiko winced as she hesitated even in her head. It’s not that it was awkward to think of them that way, of him, that way; she just wasn’t used to using such phrases to describe him. To her, he was just Kunihiko. She smiled to herself remembering something he said this morning. Then frowned, remembering the disaster the rest of the day had been.
Drifting through memories, she paid little attention to her surroundings, until a jolting tug and lost right show sent her careening towards the ground. Instinctively Yukiko raised her arms-sending her bags flying-to protect herself and barely avoided a face-palm with the asphalt. The girl lay for a moment, too stunned to move. She shakily took a breath in and immediately coughed out the dust cloud she’d inhaled. She swallowed, blinked the dirt from her eyes. I’ve got to get up, she thought to herself. As she started to lift her torso, wincing as gravel rolled off the newly acquired bruises, she heard loafers hit the pavement as feet approached her.

“Are you alright Yukiko?!?!?”
“My dear, what a spectacular tumble! Like something out of a movie!”
Two familiar voices floated over her head as Yukiko let two pairs of hands help her up.
“Saeki is this really the time?—ah. Careful,” they continued bickering back and forth, all the while delicately lifting Yukiko.
“I’m just lightening the atmosphere, Takao. Here, sweetheart take my hand. I’m diminishing the embarrassment by noting the beauty and grace in which she fell!”
“Just lean and us, there, slowly. Honestly I have no idea what you’re on about. No, make that all the time.”
“Hmph, a lawyer just can’t appreciate the art of everyday situations. Yeow, that’s quite an array of colors.”
“Oh dear, looks like it’s bleeding.”
“Shall we get her inside?

The flurry of movement and sound passed over Yukiko’s head, as she swayed between the men. She let them lead her to right, practically carrying her towards a glass door next to a chic sign naming ‘The Long Island Bar’ as the buildings interior. They gathered her scattered belongings as they went, Saeki holding the door open wide to maneuver through the entrance. The bar was spacious, lighting brought through large windows expanding across one curved wall. On the other side was the bar itself, a dozen or so little tables placed between. They remained empty as all the inhabitants were gathered at the counter, laughing over something the bartender was showing on the countertop. The ring of a bell broke their attention and as they turned the bar fell silent as the tree-bodied creature came into view. Just as sudden’y the volume was back on as all the men started talking and moving at once but calm was quickly regained when a voice rang clear above the rumble. “Yuki!!” The bartender jumped the counter and reached Yukiko in three bounding steps. He gently cupped his hands round her face and looked searchingly over her face. Slowly waking to her surroundings, Yukiko looked into the eyes of her fiancee. Eyes that were usually crinkled up in laughter, curled down, narrowed, deep with concern.
“Yukiko! Love, what happened?!!” He glanced between her and the two men who’d assisted her inside. Before anyone can react, the gravel and dirt-smeared woman stirs.

What is Yukiko going to do?
Should she:
A. Ignore Kunihiko and the others’ concern. All she needs is a drink. A long, hard drink. Right. Now.
B. Collapse against Kunihiko. Someone else can explain, she’s too exhausted to talk, too exhausted to think.
C. Milk the attention for all it’s worth. Break down with the sob story that was today.

Concept of Contrasts

 

I’ve lately gotten back into my Adobe suite, mainly Illustrator and Photoshop. I’ve got a spark of graphic art ideas popping out of me. It’s been pretty fun playing around on the computer again. I also have decided to finally complete some of the “projects” i’ve started along the way. Hopefully soon, I’ll be posting two short graphic novellas. And hopefully this will really get me going on starting the Big Novel. ……well one can dream right?

Anyways, here’s two pieces I’ve done recently:

I call them Slob and Sophistication. See if you can guess which is which…

A Girl From July

Somethin’ I wrote in the summer after watching something? I don’t actually remember what this refers to anymore. Just a video, of a girl, and her paintings. Well now it’s a poem of…
enjoy:

Untitled

Lifting, the mind
Ever watchful
Waiting till the stars
Paint the way home

A little girl
Drags her finger
Across the page
A trail of blue paint
Delicately thought out
Maps to the heart
But the tall one never
Gives much notice
And so
The true meaning
Is lost

And all they are

They are just
Silly doodles
Of a 5 year old

And you wonder why
She became so distant
As she got older
Accusing you:
“You don’t understand!”

Well
From the very beginning
You never tried to

A Story of After

Hey it’s been awhile. So here’s a whole story:

 

The Place After

Then everything stopped, and she opened her eyes.

She was in a room, or in not-a-room. There were no walls, no ceiling but – somehow – she knew that space did not go on forever. It was all white, or colorless. Or rather there nothing yet to see. And then, something. The space filled, dropped shades to form shapes, objects, figures. It wasn’t a place she’d ever been to and, although it looked nothing like one, she thought it to be a sort of station. An in-between place. Point of transit. The waiting room.

There were others. Like her, who just opened their eyes and suddenly, were there. Waiting. To go where ever it is they were all going. In the middle, cutting through the space was a gap. A line, that lead off to where she could not see. Sitting in the gap was an old train, or several trailers. Horse drawn carriages, then one of those high-speed floating subways; the San Francisco trolleys; a dozen elephants.

“It takes a different form depending on the viewer.”

Dream of fragments

I have this story that’s been building inside my head since middle school. But I can only see it in little pieces like clips of tv shows they put up online to get you to watch. Like it’s always there, I’m always watching but sometimes, I lose the signal. Or all it shows me is a wall or the ground. Or the battery runs out and I’ve gotta wait till something comes along and give it life again.

 

Here are a few fragmented fragments. Little pieces of segments from one part of a story:

 

We have decided to call it home. I am quiet. Must not make a noise, no matter what.

Carving the Mountain

Sketch of skater from a longboard group-skating video. They’re called the Long Board Girls Crew, from I think South America? check them out on Youtube of Vimeo.

I am not myself…

I am not myself

This morning I woke up

I was a humming bird

But one who had lost it’s wings

Left twitching on the sidelines

All I can do is keep moving

As if my deliberate motions,

My constant motions

Can somehow mask the little ones

That I can’t control

Broken Shapes

Thought I’d break the writings pattern and post visual art. This is a studio photograph I took of a collage piece I made.

 

This is an artistic photo of an art piece, which is not show in it’s entirety. Used a Nikon D70 and studio lighting. A multi-medium collage using colored paper, pencil, pen, sumi ink, dried leaves, photo scraps, and other misc. material on calligraphy paper.

Characterization

Sorry that it’s been awhile, got to be more diligent about posting.

Here’s just a little blurb I found in an old notebook and updated:

I liked his hands the most. The way his skin wrapped around his fingers like old tan-hide. All the crevices and wrinkles that held hundreds of stories of battles and adventures. The dried clay, that had been layered over so many times it had become part of the skin, and could no longer come off. They were hands that had been places. Hands that had worked, and touched and felt. Fingers that had laced with many other fingers. Knuckles that had been bruised and cut. Palms that have stung, after an angry slap. That have wiped away tears. Hands that had cradled his own weeping head. His hands weaved and painted the stories I heard by the fire.  I liked the way the hands enveloped me when they picked me up, as if I was a doll, and threw me in the air. How they felt when he caught me. No matter how roughed up he looked he always gave a gentle and warm hug. How strange it is, now. The words he spoke to me, the experiences we had together, have drifted away. So much time has passed that I can no longer picture his face, or listen to a memory of his voice. Even his name has finally slipped from my mind. But, if he were to walk up to me, and shake my hand, I would know him in an instant. In a touch.

Eternal

Before I share today’s creation…

I watched West Side Story yesterday after, over 10 years(?), well a long time anyway. I had recently seen the revival on Broadway, just the first week of the new year, so the story and songs were fresh in my mind but it was soooo different seeing the film. They are both spectacular and in some places I like the musical much better. However, the actors, and the filming, editing, music, it’s amazing when you get to see it so up close and to think they did it back in the 50’s and 60’s. Truly a masterpiece in the world of film. And it stands up to time. You could compare it easily with any film today and still it’s just, breathtaking.

anyways….

Boundless wonder

An oddly shaped shrub, slumped over

it’s small arched opening

becomes an ancient doorway to

a mystical world within the forest

Linked branches weaving in and out

connecting two trees

forming them around each other

in a gentle embrace

Wood sprites performing the waltz

Iridescent moon shines on the earth floor

awakening the tiny spirits in the moss and fungi

to celebrate a secret festival known only

to the mystical creatures of the woods

Wind rustles of leaves and swaying branches

to the ears of those who learned how

whispers, of beings from a forgotten time

when the forest was listened to

and in return, came alive and walked amoung us

Or perhaps

such things only existed in

the endless imagination of a child’s mind.

But just because it’s happening in you head

doesn’t mean it’s not real