#neptunehigh

Akira, who I’ve talked about a little when I first posted the new image.  From another story made with the same friend I did all this vampire business with. 

The image on the bottom in profile is the first one and the only one I ever felt was successful in looking like the character. The current one looks like the right feeling now too, though I think I put too much color in the skin, haha.  

I like Akira more as a little weird and off putting and threatening looking rather than the soft and pretty from the upper old images, but Akira was a favorite for a while, which meant eventually cutesy lovey romancey nonsense had to happen, regardless of character.  

There was a lot more of Akira than I remember, haha.  

I've just been enjoying playing with original characters with my friend this week. She and I made these stories together 20 years ago and we're just revisiting characters and revising things and filling in backstories and it's fun.

Here’s Dylan, who is from the same story/universe as Akira, though Dylan lives in the river society there and Akira in the mountain one.   This whole saga came from a camping trip in 2001, and, for some reason, I decided to draw Dylan every single year on the anniversary on his creation.  So I have a very strange progression of this kid from 2001 to 2007, when I stopped just because I probably forgot, I dunno.  His first image is in the top left, and next to that is 2003, which is both his best year in terms of how he looked and the image that felt the most like him when I looked back through everything.  He’s always felt kind of childish and fun - he liked pretending to be a rock star in a universe that by all accounts should not even have them, so I don’t know what we’ll do with that if we decide to make tweaks to this - so the newest drawing is a bit impish in the face, haha.  

Marlon, from the same universe as Akira and Dylan, same village thing as Akira.  

The most Marlon Looking image of him is actually in my friend’s possession, it was a gift I made for her back in the day and ended up capturing how we saw him better than his initial drawing - in the center here - just because he’d had time to BE something rather than just being kind of conjured up from parts like the first one.  The other two are from a few years later, and the pencil one is closer to how he felt, but both are also from a weird detour we took in character, so I don’t even know.  I could explain it, but it’s a hot mess.  I know only that he wouldn’t have been able to have that nose prior to 2005 according to my anime marinated brain at the time. 

I spent last night and most of today laughing with my friend about the stories we used to write and draw and roleplay and act out and just generally Make together.  We were both howling about it and so I started redrawing some of the characters I made for a story we concocted on a camping trip together in June of 2001.   My friend brought along a baby names book she had bought in the grocery store check out line which we consulted like a sacred text to give all these people names that were ~meaningful~ to the story.  

I tweaked them both to not be painful to look at because 2001 me was armed with Crayola everything and Anime.  Colors and shapes could become alarming. 

The top one is Akira, who is the genderless reclusive village ‘elder’ despite looking very young.   Akira has just always been there and no one has questioned it for decades.  Akira is able to do magic, though I literally can’t remember how many people in the town know this at the start.  Most people are kind of low-key afraid of Akira and just kind of happy they don’t have reason to interact. 

Hey, Mr. Dollar,

              This is a bit Doogie for me, but my aunt is making me write these. She tells me she isn’t going to read this, but I’m hiding it just to be safe. Somewhere she will never find it. A friend taught me the hiding spot years ago. However, I wonder if she came up with it herself or if it has been a secret passed through the ages. Someone will come up to me and learn this secret, finding you, and thus finding truths I am hiding from.  

I’m only writing this because my aunt thinks I need it. Actually, the person that thinks I need this is some therapist she helped about a month back. A girl like me needs to find some outlet, some way of letting my feelings go. As if my feelings need to be set free. Escape into the world of the living and find peace amongst those it could call a friend. I, however, think that’s bullshit. My feelings are well placed where they are, but if it gets her, my aunt, off my back, I guess I’ll write this.

So, here I am, writing this to you because just writing to no one made me seem a bit crazier than finding someone I could address this to. Also, it made me feel like I was slightly losing my mind. Maybe I am. If you don’t believe me, you could look at all the torn papers scattering my bedroom floor. It took forever to figure out how to write this, or if it made me sound more or less crazy addressing it to someone. Finally, I made a decision.

              I have never really known what to write about, but I guess this week would be a good enough start. It was my first week back at Neptune High. Neptune is the death of the middle class, or at least that is my claim. Some of the richest families in the country live there. And then the workers that they exploit. Very few families don’t work directly or indirectly with them. My family is sadly, or not so sadly, working indirectly with them. I guess that depends on who you ask. Some say we are in the pockets of the rich; others say we wage war on them. I say we are just making money. Money it’s a simple enough motive to me.

              And Neptune High? It’s where the spawn congregate. We huddled masses. “Send me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses.” And they will send back their jaded, their spoiled, their exasperated. Think hunger games; the only people that make the rules and have an extremely unfair advantage, the rich. I can think of only one difference, there is no happy ending for the girl whose only crime is being born in the wrong area. There is no love story for her, and no one congratulates her when she offers herself to the masses as the martyr neither side wanted.

              My first day started out about like any other year of Neptune High. Other teens running this way and that. Everyone discussing what they had done this summer. My family vacationed in Cabo this year. That must be why you have such a nice tan. I know, right. I’m going to have to keep it up. You know I had to work two jobs this summer, and I still don’t know if I can afford to even think about going to any of the big colleges. I know I’m gonna have to get like all the scholarships to even think about going somewhere other than the community college. Ah, yes, the echoes of all of my people, beckoning me back to the sea, back to the king of the sea, back to the person we must all bow down to.

Oh, and a crowd around the flag pole. That was ordinary or as ordinary as anyone could predict. I was slightly surprised they were already putting someone up there. I mean, that had to be the record, right? Putting a kid up there on the first day of school. Last year, I think they had made it almost an entire month before they had strung up one of them. Wow, I really hope someone on the newspaper is recording this. Of course, they shouldn’t take a picture of the kid, just a note saying that the flag pole was used this early this year. All hail those who know of something else to use it for.

I felt terrible for the kid. He looked so scared. His dark skin had SNITCH written across his chest. I assumed he was naked underneath all the duct tape they had him taped up there with, but I didn’t really stick around to find out. And there was a lot of it, and a lot was needed. He was pretty tall. Actually, he was fairly tall. And by fairly, I mean his body made it up halfway up the pole. It was actually quite impressive that they could string him up in the first place.

              The smart thing would have been for me to walk away. Sadly, I’m not that smart, or if I was, I had some very stupid streaks, this being a major part of that streak. Still, what is a little insanity amongst the already stupidly insane?

I grabbed out my black hoodie and threw it on. I pulled the hood up, pushed past all the gawkers, and pulled out my pocket knife. And yes, my dear Dollar, it is, in fact, not allowed to carry a weapon on school property, but it’s only a punishable offense if you get caught.

I began cutting him down. It took a few seconds to cut through all the duct tape, and there was a lot of it. When he was finally down, I said, “There are some not bad pieces of clothes in the theater department. If you hurry, you might beat the theater geeks. They probably won’t miss them too much, and if they do, then get them washed and back in there before they notice you. Oh, and don’t pick something that looks like it’s from the fifties. They’re doing West Side Story.”

              And with that, I walked away from the kid. He was on his own. I had done my civic duty of the day. He could go follow the instructions I had given him. I was sure I had done enough for him. My karma would right itself once more. I was sure. Maybe I did feel my karma needed just a bit of work. I don’t know. But, how does that old adage go? Something about good deeds and being punished?