#ive decided to answer this while out with my geese

[creaturefeaster]

how do you settle on songs to animate to?

I usually find a song that sounds like it'd be fun to animate to-- it depends on what I'm wanting to animate at the time, whether I search for something punchy or silly or intense. I rarely go for anything that's slow and gentle because I dont find it as fun to work with. But that's just my preference.

Then I either listen to it like 100 times on loop and see if my brain can imagine up something cool to enough of the verses to fit the rest of the story I want to tell to it, or I hear a song I've never heard before once and I see the entire thing in my head and I just wing it from there.

Really what I find are the most important elements to a song that can make it fun to create to are:

1) It has a strong beat 3/3rd or 4/4th beat to help with transition of scenes or to give additional impact for movement/visuals,

2) The subject matter/lyrics are either fitting (enough) to the story I want to tell, or vague so that I can do almost anything with it, &

3) It has a good guitar/instrument solo, so I can free-form a cool scene with little to restriction (I can't see the Chickenstab v Gary car chase happening anywhere else but that one goofy guitar solo!)

I don't always get all three with any given song, and I rarely get enough done in a WIP to check off everything I'd want to do with those elements, but... whatever lmao.

That's my process. Really it comes down to how you like to animate. I like action and a lot of movement, so I go for songs that I think work for that.

OH also one more thing... I don't recommend animating to an all-time favorite song of yours. Because you WILL have to listen to it a million times over. I'm lucky I'm the kind of person who can listen to the same song on loop for weeks no interruption, but even then the song can kinda grow stale on you if you have to repeat the same 5 seconds over and over again to watch your animation playback.

[magic5ball]

Nature Trail to Hell Arc IV: Megamart of Darkness (3)

Chapter 3: … And Put Up a Megamart

           It was like Christmas day all over again! For the first time in my ten year existence, someone had screwed up that wasn’t me! I never even realized this could be a possibility up to that point. And you bet your toenails I absolutely reveled in it.

At first they were honking like mad, protesting how I might work for Wegmart or somesuch (it had happened before, apparently). But all ol’ Bokrug had to do was give them a glare and they shut up good. I could understand why, though. For the Elves, apologizing is a fancy affair, with them all lining up in front of me, each kissing my swollen kneecap one at a time while I towered above them, laughing. I would have settled for a plain old “I’m sorry.”, but you know what they say, Elves will be Elves.

           One hour of kneecap smooches later, Birthday Boy stood in front of me, surprisingly dignified in his stupid hat. The rest of his flock (drove? Pack? It really is hard to decide what to call a group of these guys) formed a half-circle behind him, like his own personal orchestra (though geek choir would be more appropriate).

“Come now, o’ vagrant” he said, lifting out a wing for me “We must journey to the outskirts of the cursed lands so that you may know the direness of our situation.”

He pointed to the forest. I groaned, not exactly in the mood for walking.

“Fear not. We have procured some edibles to sustain us on are strenuous trek.”

An Elf wandered up to me, carrying the so called ‘blessed sustenance’ in their beak.

“Within this bag is the blessed manna bread, which will sate your hunger for your entire journey, as well as the meat of sacred to give you unspeakable strength, should the situation require it.”

All I saw was a half-eaten bag of beef jerky with a stale doughnut hole inside.

“The Blessings of Bokrug be with you!” the Elves honked, their half circle shifting into a path straight to the woods.

Birthday Boy didn’t start explaining until we reached the trees, a trial in and of itself. See, if it wasn’t cringe-inducing enough he had to explain everything to me in that dated voice of his, no, he just had to make everything rhyme!

           “Long ago in the Days of yore,” he began, “’Twas blessed land where we bore-our young, who pooped as they pleased in pristine ponds ‘til they turned algae green. It was this algae that we ate, from hours seven ‘til eight, when wily hours twist the day to darkness. And those who’d venture on yonder path, fed us wholesome grain, or faced our wrath, like the bull thistles blooming on a summer’s day.”

Somehow, he managed to keep his honker running the. Whole. Way. There. By the time we got to our destination, I knew more about LARP geese history than about my own family.

But where was there, you might be asking? Well, as Birthday Boy would say-

“’Till one day we encroached the wrath of wastrels longst strayeth from good path. Who sought paradise’s golden fruit as their own. We lost, o terrible tragedy, yet followed somber reality, as our greatest ally betrayed us, and the great pond of yore became asphalt.”

For those reading this who can’t quite get Birthday Boy’s pretentious picture, we had arrived at a parking lot. Now, even young me had seen a fair number of lots in his time, but never one this big. It stretched over the horizon, a never-ending desert of streetlights and maybe some handicapped spaces. (Which, if we kept walking any longer, I was probably gonna need.)

“Go forth child, and understand, who tooketh away our promised land.”

           As we walked across the parking lot, I couldn’t help but notice Birthday Boy waddled a bit behind me now. Something was coming up at the edge of my vision. At first I thought it was just a mirage, seeing all the heat radiating off the asphalt, but as we got closer, it became too big to be fake. Not tall in the usual way, though: heightwise it was only about three stories tall. But widthwise, well…

The darn thing seemed to go on forever.

What stood before us on that sweltering summer day was a giant rectangle painted so white it practically blinded me, its’ only other features being a sliding door, above which was a set of bold red letters, each the size of my house, proudly announcing the store’s name: a name I knew well from years of being stuck in a dressing room as my Mom forced me to try on just one more sweater before winter set in:

                                                    WEGMART

Birthday Boy spoke, his voice now as hushed as a goose voice could be (which was still subtle as a sack of sledgehammers). “Now we tread carefully with fear. If you are caught, I cannot help you here.”

           Conveniently enough (though it shouldn’t have been that surprising, considering where we were) two rows of cars formed a path to the place, like guards lining the world’s blackest red carpet. In other words, the perfect place for a goose to hide under. Walking down this path (only half obeying Birthday Boy’s instructions: I tread carefully, but I’m a Tostig and if you know Tostigs, we never tread with fear, at least not when we can help it) I found it kinda weird how this place made out to be this evil fortress of ultimate horrific doom didn’t have so much as a security camera to keep me out. The only thing between me and those automatic sliding doors was some wrinkly old guy wearing a blue traffic safety vest: the Wegmart Greeter Guy. For those not in the know, the Greeter Guy is this shtick Wegmart does where they employ some old guy who’ll work for pennies so visiting shoppers can be reminded of their own mortality. Something seemed a bit… off about this one, though. There was a broad grin on his face, too broad for a man his age; right hand raised in a perpetual wave at nothing. Seemed fake, though I figured this was yet another one of those byproducts of the high cost of low price or whatever they were saying on the news.

           I couldn’t step one foot past him before I hit something. Hard. I’d say it was like glass, on account of it being completely invisible, but really, it was more like hitting a steel wall that also gave you the worst case of static shock in the universe. Of course, young me being young me, this didn’t register until he’d waltzed into that deathtrap so many times he couldn’t feel his limbs. Heck, it wouldn’t surprise me the only reason I didn’t try to enter Wegmart a few more times was because by the last time, I was so zapped outta my head I stumbled into the cars by complete accident, giving the one Birthday Boy was under a static snap so strong it exploded in a ball of fire.

“Fool!” honked the goose “Do you not realized that your knaveous action could very well have delivered me to a premature encounter with dread mortis?!”

           I did not. And if it weren’t the fact he was explaining the situation to me, I don’t even think I would have cared that much. All I wanted was to go home, play video games, and spend the rest of the summer sleeping this crazy adventure off.

Fortunately, (or unfortunately depending on your tolerance for Shakespeare) Birthday Boy was fast regaining his composure.

“As you can see, they’ve torn asunder Holy Mountain. Sacred stream has become drinking fountain. A wicked grinning barrier they have erected. So long it stands, from elfin magic they are protected.”

“So… you mean to tell me that the greeter guy is some kind of magic energy shield thingy stopping you guys from getting your home back?”

“Your answer ‘tis acute. Now we must be astute.”

I saw a little black object flying in the sky. On account of the bright sun, I couldn’t see it clearly, but it freaked the everloving feathers off of Birthday Boy.

“Flee!” he honked, waddle-flying for the woods. “Every elf now for himself!”

Something shot out from the thing: a little foam dart, not unlike the kinds I had in my toy aero guns (or had, until I discovered real ammo.) It landed inches from my foot. A second later, it did something no foam dart should do: it started dissolving the ground with a hiss. As if on cue, the sky around me started to darken. Looking up, I could now see the mysterious black object was a toy RC helicopter.

Thousands of them, all armed with those same dissolving darts.

“We must escape now!” Honked Birthday Boy “Those curs wield the dread power of Shampow! A power you could not hope to understand, one long forbidden from the clutches of man!”

“Yeah, I get the idea!” I cried as we ran all the way back to the stock pond.

           We didn’t reach there ‘til sundown. When we did, Bokrug was first to speak to me.

“I trust you know the direness of the situation?”

“Well, yeah. But I still don’t see how I fit into all this. You guys look pretty powerful on your own.”

“While we have had some success in hit and run missions-“ He gestured a wing towards the shopping carts and tiki torches wielded by his brethren “-We have lossed far more than we have gained. Only by penetrating the heart of darkness, and seizing the blessed water that once flowed through our LARPing grounds might we hope to end the conflict once and for all.”  He said to me. “As you witnessed, our sacred LARPing grounds have been overtaken by the evil known as Wegmart. Using the limitless power of the Greeter Guy, they have erected a massive magic-proof barrier we cannot cross.”

“And how do I fit into this?”

“There is but one thing that can pierce Wegmart’s barrier: An artifact of a bygone age known as the Baldwin 60000. But in order to steal this artifact, we must first animate it with a mysterious artifact known as gold dust.”

“Still not seeing how I fit in.”

“Gold dust, however, is an incredibly rare thing. The only satchel known to exist was only ever possessed by the man who founded this great land: A man named William Penn! Technically, he acquired it from the natives… Among other things, but that is a story for another time.”

“And where the heck do you get gold dust?”

“You shall find it in the pockets of the great man himself as he surveys his city!”

“Hold on! So you’d want me to climb to the top of City Hall, and pickpocket a national hero when you have a thousand little goose friends who can FLY?! How does this make any sense?!”

Said thousand little friends glared at me.

“I would suggest referring to them as ‘Elves’.” Bokrug whisper-honked. “In honesty, I find the distinction quite trivial myself, but it is a touchy subject for them. But! You are correct: that is indeed the most logical path, but as it would happen, city hall is covered in spikes. Birdproof spikes. Seeing as you are partially human, I have faith you just might be immune.”

“Huh! I always figured those spikes were leftovers from William Penn’s rebellious phase!”

“As truth would have it, they were made to keep away those who would sully Penn’s temple of tolerance.” Bokrug and his brood turned to face me. “So, Watterson Tostig, I must humbly ask of you: Are you up to the task? Will you help us?”

I thought long and hard at that- maybe longer and harder than I’d ever thought in my LIFE up to that point. F-Bomb had warned me birds were a bunch of sellouts, giving up their form so they could live on the surface. But they had problems, BIG problems. And, well, maybe I’d run away from things a bit too much that summer, sappy as it might sound. Maybe it was time to lend a hand to guys who didn’t have any, even if they weren’t real dinosaurs.

“Alright,” I nodded. “I’ll do it.”

Bokrug bowed his head. “Thank you, Watterson Tostig.”

On cue, a trench-coated man emerged from the woods, pushing a shopping cart with a pair of fire extinguishers strapped to the back of it. It took me a moment to realize the ‘guy’ was just four geese stacked on top of one another, like in those old cartoons.

“Our envoy shall take you to as far as City Hall. After that, may your Lord’s grace be with you.”

But before I got in the shopping cart, there was one last question I had to ask:

“Say Bokrug, why’d you have your little friend take me to a death trap to explain the situation when you did it yourself just fine?”

The bandit-masked goose shrugged. “You seemed to me a visual learner.”

I rolled my eyes. This guy was starting to sound like my teachers!

[classywastelandbread-blog]

Bonus Story from Good Directions: Bastian and Efi’s Story (INCOMPLETE)

It’s not mentioned yet in the posted chapters (1-19) but Bastian and Efi used to be very good friends. 

This little blurb won’t have any spoilers for the “A Plot Train” as I’ve taken to calling this hot mess of a story, but it covers the background of some of the characters. It’s been sitting in my Google Drive for more than a month and I’m not sure when I’ll get around to finishing it, but I thought I’d post it anyway. 

When Bastian woke up, he wasn’t sure where he was at first. It was simply a blank room and he was strapped to a bed. The nurses told him he was at Watchpoint and he wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

His mouth was bandaged shut so he couldn’t speak and his arms weren’t moving. Nothing was, but he tried not to panic at it.

They told him he was at Watchpoint as if he’d forget so soon. When they changed his bandages, they told him there’d been an accident – clearly that had to have been the case. He had so many questions but lacked the ability to speak.

They dosed him on morphine and he slept.

When he woke up again, he could move arms. One was missing at the elbow; the other had two fingers missing. As the machines around him started shrieking, he found himself thinking crazily that now his fingers were trapped perpetually in the shape of the finger-guns he’d shoot at Ginny...

His last thoughts when they dosed him with sedatives were of Ginny and her gap-toothed smile.

They changed his bandages and told him he was at Watchpoint; that there had been an accident. It seemed that they didn’t know what else to tell him.

He slept and he thought because they bandaged his arms again and bound him to the bed. There was nothing else he could do.

The nurses came back. They checked on his chart, his medication, his IVs. Seeing him awake they asked him if he knew where he was as if he could answer. Sympathetically, they told him he was at Watchpoint and there had been an accident; did he remember it?

He couldn’t move his head to shake it yes or no. Eventually they left, murmuring sympathetically about the poor broken man in the room.

One day a little girl, instead of the nurses, came into his room. Her skin was as dark as charcoal but her eyes were light brown and her smile was brilliant. She sat next to his bed until a nurse – a massive woman that seemed to fill the space in the doorway – came to collect her.

Her name was Efi Oladele and from then on she visited at some point every day because she said he looked lonely. The nurse, Orisa, sometimes accompanied her.

The nurses visited. They told him he was at Watchpoint; that there had been an accident; they asked if he remembered it. Efi visited and Orisa came to collect her. He slept.

So passed weeks of his lonely time in bed.

A new doctor came by, Dr. Kayode Winston. He checked his chart, introduced himself when he saw Bastian was awake. When he asked his first question, he seemed to realize that Bastian couldn’t respond.

His bandages were removed and Dr. Winston examined him. He could move his head, his arms, all the way down to his hips; his jaw was still bandaged shut.

Dr. Winston asked him if he knew where he was; Bastian rolled his eyes and nodded his head yes. The man smiled and admitted that it was an admittedly bad joke. He asked if he knew who he was; Bastian nodded yes again. Then he asked if Bastian remembered what happened, why he was at Watchpoint; Bastian shrugged. There was red, black, gold; Ginny’s gap-toothed grin, a brindled orange feather braided in auburn hair.

Patting his arm sympathetically – careful of the various tubes and wires – Dr. Winston finally explained what was going on.

Bastian had been in an accident. Both legs were broken but his arms had escaped relatively unscathed. He had bitten off a portion of his tongue, he suffered severe cranial trauma, his jaw was not working quite right – the reason for the stiff apparatus and bandages around his head.

He tried to ask about Ginny but his lips and jaw wouldn’t move. Dr. Winston sat with him until he calmed down.

When Efi visited she gave him a crude drawing that she explained was what she thought he looked like. She told him that one day they would all get better and all be happy together. That was the next picture: Bastian (though she didn’t know his name), her, Orisa, and a few others she clearly knew from another ward.

He realized that she looked thin and there were bags under her eyes that no young child should have.

Orisa’s face was drawn when she came to collect Efi and she looked down at her with a kind of hopelessness that made Bastian’s heart hurt.

The nurses came. They changed his sheets, checked his IV, asked him if he knew where he was. He ignored them; they gave him empty platitudes and left.

Dr. Winston visited. He updated Bastian on his progress and overall health as he was aware of it. He called him “John Doe” and Bastian wanted to correct him but he still couldn’t speak.

Rolling his tongue in his mouth, he could feel the jagged edges where he had reportedly bitten a portion off; he wondered if he’d ever speak again.

Efi visited. She looked better than she had the last time but she looked thinner. But her smile was as bright as ever when she saw him. She told him that he was the only friend she had left; everyone else had died or gone home to die.

There was a peculiarly matter-of-fact way she spoke that broke Bastian’s heart.

But Efi smiled and patted his mostly-whole hand and fingered the plastic hospital bracelet. She told him that Orisa told her that they weren’t sure what his name was so he was called John Doe. She told him that she didn’t like that name; he looked like a Sebastian. She used to have a friend named Sebastian – his room was down the hall but he died of a blood clot and she hoped that he stuck around longer than her friend had.

Her honesty, while morbid and depressing in such a young child, was refreshing. Bastian decided he liked the sound of her voice as she chattered away at his side.

She continued to read his bracelet and then asked if it made him uncomfortable. He was rewarded by her smile when he shook his head no.

They had the same blood type, Efi announced happily. It was sad that they weren’t attached to the same doctor but she had seen Dr. Winston come by his room and wondered out loud if Dr. Tsoukalas would let Dr. Winston take over Bastian’s care.

Bastian hadn’t known that, but it didn’t matter because he had no way to ask the doctor the next time he visited, anyway.

Efi chattered at him until Orisa came to collect her. The woman’s honey-colored eyes were swollen as if she hadn’t slept in days. Still, she was gentle with Efi and swung her around at the foot of Bastian’s bed to her glee. Bastian tried to smile; he thought that Efi understood despite the bandages as she waved over Orisa’s shoulder at him.

The nurses came. They chattered like a flock of geese at each other was if he were an inanimate object. They changed his bandages and clucked their tongues at the wounds.

Dr. Winston visited again; this time he brought a pad of paper and a plastic Ziplock bag of pens and pencils. He suggested Bastian try to write his answers.

They gently slipped a pencil into his left hand so that it was pinched between his pointer and middle fingers – the only one remaining – and braced against his thumb. Writing was slow – he was originally right-handed and there were less fingers now for him to work with.

For simplicity, Dr. Winston wrote two letters in the top corners of the pad: Y and N. He asked yes/no questions and Bastian could point; he could write if he needed to.

It was frustrating, the complexity of his thoughts being stifled to the tiniest of trickles due to his still-healing injuries.

Do you know how long you’ve been here, Dr. Winston asked.

N, Bastian pointed.

Do you know your name?

Y. He wrote S E B before running out of space on the first half of the page. The second half took A S T I before he ran out of space again.

Dr. Winston asked if Efi had actually been calling him the correct name the entire time.

Y, Bastian pointed. On another page, he struggled through his last name.

The doctor said he knows that family; Bastian pointed to the Y Dr. Winston had rewritten at the top of the page. Was it the same family that manufactured war machines for the military? He pointed again at the Y.

They moved on. Bastian didn’t wonder about the awkward transition; he understood. The Metzen family’s most famous contribution to automated tanks was the Bastion unit, ostensibly named after their son Sebastian Metzen. An odd legacy to have and one that Bastian didn’t expect any doctor that had taken the Hippocratic Oath to appreciate.

Dr. Winston asked again if Bastian knew what happened; again he pointed to the N.

Bastian was glad for the opportunity to communicate with someone, no matter how rudimentary it was. He scribbled D R . S ? on the board.

The doctor made a face and admitted that he was working on taking over Bastian’s case from the Dr. Tsoukalas that Efi had mentioned.

Efi visited and Orisa carried a small plastic box with art supplies. As the little girl chattered, she colored next to Bastian’s bed. She checked the tag on his arm and declared that his name had been changed: Sebastian M – was that his real name?

She had dimples when she smiled; it reminded Bastian of Ginny and she had a gap between her front two teeth too. Efi declared that she liked that name but what kind of nickname could she give him?

His arm was feeling better so she gleefully read out loud the letters he traced on the blankets beside him. She read them out loud.

B!

A!

S!

L! No, T! Sorry, she hadn’t seen it.

I!

A!

N!

Bastian like the Bastion tanks, pew-pew, Efi had cried, making finger guns. She giggled when he made the same motion back, much easier for him because he was missing his ring and pinkie fingers.

She reminded him of Ginny, who he was beginning to remember more and more; he wondered what had happened to her but wasn’t sure if he wanted to know.

One day Efi wanted to be an engineer, he was told; well, what she actually said was that one day she wished she could be an engineer…it was an odd way to phrase it but Bastian couldn’t really ask. She didn’t much like the OR-15 war machines with their blank faces but she liked the way the Bastion models had a little strip of optical lighting even if she thought the ones with red glass was eerie.

Leaning close, she’d whisper that sometimes she’d pretend that Orisa was a war machine. But Orisa was too kind – she was the kind of person that would stop traffic to help a line of ducklings cross the road, to climb a tree to rescue a trapped kitten. To Efi, Orisa was the strongest person she ever knew – even stronger than her parents! That’s why she sometimes imagined Orisa in the shape of a war machine, even if her nurse was incapable of such violence. Surely more strength would let Orisa help more people.

It was another odd thing to say but Bastian let her keep talking. She was nice to listen to and she, unlike the nurses that visited him, didn’t treat him like something that wasn’t alive.

When she came back to pick Efi up, Orisa hung the pictures Efi had drawn for him that day on the wall where he could see it with Bastian’s permission. Efi waved and smiled over Orisa’s shoulder as she was carried out.

The nurses came. They changed the bandages and his sheets but this time didn’t replace the ones holding his face shut. When they left he had lighter bandages, letting him see his injuries for the first time. They told him, speaking to him like a child, that he couldn’t, shouldn’t, mustn’t scratch or pick at his wounds as they left.

When Efi visited, she squealed in glee though at first Bastian was worried she was afraid of him. She told him she liked being able to see more of his face now even if it looked like a squished pumpkin.

Orisa scolded her for her indelicate phrasing but there was something like joy in her honey-colored eyes. He realized that for whatever reason she had been worried about Efi so even if he had been insulted by her words he couldn’t find it in himself to be unhappy with either of them.

He tried his best to smile and Efi squealed again and asked if she could draw him.

The picture she gave him when it was time for her to leave was hideous, much like a cartoonish version of Quasimodo or Igor with a narrow, nearly rectangular face, a lopsided mouth, and two eyes that were uneven in size. At that point he wasn’t even sure that it was just the way she drew or if that was how he looked.

Orisa looked horrified to see it but when he gestured, she smiled softly and hung it on the wall with the rest of Efi’s drawings. She told him that soon he’d run out of space; Efi liked that idea if Bastian did and promised that she’d work on her art for him.

Dr. Winston visited. He told Bastian that he was healing very well but the nurses were concerned with a possible infection in one of his legs and Bastian tried to convey without the use of his jaw, which ached, that he appreciated his candor.

The doctor helped him into a wheelchair and rolled him around the hospital. He took Bastian outside where they encountered Efi and Orisa reading together under a tree. They joined them in the middle of the novel but it was wonderful to Bastian to breathe in the fresh air and feel the sun on his face.

When they parted, Efi gave Bastian a crudely-drawn picture of him in his chair in front of the fountain with the glass tiles. Orisa and Dr. Winston traded looks.

The nurses came. They changed his bandages and spoke nervously to each other about something on one of his injured legs. One of them left and came back with someone that wasn’t Dr. Winston who barely acknowledged Bastian. He said the A-word that Bastian had been dreading but they didn’t do anything then; they left in a clump and only one of them seemed to remember that his wounds were still exposed to the air. She hastily rewrapped the gauze and left.

Dr. Winston came with the other doctor. He explained that it wasn’t an infection; they tested his blood and the nurses were overreacting. They left though Dr. Winston’s expression was drawn.

Efi didn’t visit.

The nurses came and tittered at them, at him. A male nurse kicked the female ones out and was kind enough to help him take a proper shower. Bastian was mortified but bore through it. The male nurse wasn’t chatty but he was kind enough and he tried not to take his frustration out on him.

He was allowed to look in the mirror for the first time.

Efi’s drawing hadn’t been too far off. His wavy blond hair had been shaved on the sides to accommodate a crown of scarring; his head was misshapen, not unlike the smashed pumpkin Efi had claimed it to resemble. There was scarring and black stitches along his cheek that made him look like a scarecrow from a horror movie and when he opened his mouth – painfully, as his jaw was so stiff it was almost immobile – he saw the large chunk missing from his tongue.

He was taken back to his bed.

He couldn’t sleep.

The nurses came and another doctor that removed the stitches crowning his head. The bandages around his arms came off replaced with taped-on gauze pads.

Efi didn’t visit.

[magic5ball]

Nature Trail to Hell Arc IV: Megamart of Darkness (1)

Chapter 1: Dorkheads and Dragons (er, Dinosaurs)

           Little fun fact about the Pennsylvania Elves: they’re not actually elves. Heck they’re not even Pennsylvanian most of the time! They’re just a flock of geese that are way too into live action roleplaying for their own good that, for some odd reason, decided that their homeland was some Pennsylvania backwater they only visit during the summer. I’ve heard tales from up north, talking about how they’re just regular geese up there, but I’ve never seen it. What I did know back then was that geese were right nasty little pricks if you get them in a bad mood, with a bite that could crimp chromium steel. I also knew (and this is what saved me) despite all their defects as both elves and Pennsylvanians, they were birds, which are dinosaurs, which meant I shared DNA with the turds. Which meant I just might be able to reason with them.

           I’d been formulating how to best negotiate with my captors for a good half hour when we arrived at their camp. Granted, my stomach was empty, and my mind works five times slower without my morning bowl of Lucky Loops, so it was kind of a futile effort. Most I came up with was the ol’ puppy dog eyes, and if that trick couldn’t get me anywhere with raptor gangsters, it certainly wasn’t going to get me anywhere with these persnickety pricks. At the very least, Camp Wood-Elf looked festive. Ominously so, but worst came to worst I could pretended I was at a party while they ate my soul alive (‘alive’ relatively speaking, of course).

           Not much to say about place, really, besides it was a round clearing in the woods; probably (definitely) once an old campsite. Like I said, the place looked festive: party streamers, balloons, gaudy polka dot table cloth hung everywhere. Only instead of a cake, in the center of it all was a cat climber so new it still had the price tag surrounded by a stone circle filled with strange smelling wood. Above the thing hung a banner reading ‘CONGRADULATIONS! IT’S A BOY!’ in colors that made my eyes bleed.

           Not missing a beat, the honky little turds tied me up Joan of Arc style to the climber using the power of duct tape (or as they called it, geese tape). With the last of my energy, I asked them what in the hey was going on (in the dinosaur tongue, of course). You should have seen their stupid faces when they realized I honked their lingo! They were just staring at me dumbfounded, like this was the first time anything unexpected had happened to them their entire lives! Shame the moment only lasted a few seconds before one of the geese (little me couldn’t tell you which. They all looked the same to him) spoke up in an archaic version of the dinosaur tongue. And considering this is the dinosaur tongue we’re talking about, that’s saying something!

It went something like “Be silent, knave! Thou hast interloped upon the bountiful realms of the wood elves of Keystonia! Have all the patience for now, for with the passing of chrono sands thou shalt receive judgement from the Indelible Monarch of Potter County!”

           As if trying me to a cat climber wasn’t bad enough, now they were back to forming a circle with their shopping carts. A bit much if you ask me, seeing how the most I could do was wriggle like a snake in a vice, the climber teetering, but never quite tipping over.

           Then they stopped. A new circle was formed, shopping carts on the outside, a single elf in front of each on the inside, all looking at me like I’d been the guy to buy out the Butterfly Farm and turn it into an oil field. From beneath their feathers they took out pointed party hats, wearing them over their beaks like masks. The one directly facing me, who wore a particularly festive hat reading ‘BIRTHDAY BOY’ in bright yellow letters, waddled up to me.

“Fiendish cur! Who amongst our vile enemies has sent you to taint this blessed land?!”

“Wha-“

The little turd (whose name might have been Kelly Fitzpatrick or something, but for simplicity, let’s just call him Birthday Boy) bit me right on the knee! Have you ever been bitten by a goose before? Because believe me, it is a whole other realm of agonizing pain. Fortunately, one of the first things A-Hole made sure to (have F-Bomb) teach me was how to keep my cool under interrogation. Sure, maybe I screamed loud enough to spook every squirrel within a five mile radius, but the beans (whatever they were) remained in the metaphorical can. Not that this stopped Birthday Boy any.

“Hast the divine word of the Indelible Monarch fallen upon deaf ears? I asked you, o wretched hybrid- Who hast sent thee?! Tako Shak? Milky D’s? WEGMART?!! Answer at once, or I shall subject thee to the most eldritch forme of thine archaic tounge, upon which even the most scholarly citizens undergo cessation from sheer inspidness-“

“I’m from Tako Shak. And I’m not here to ruin your happy little elf paradise. In fact, I’m a refugee that escaped.”

The campsite grew so quiet you could hear the crickets chirping… in Canada!

One of the geese in the circle spoketh (really no other way to put it) first:

“’Twas an interrogation most underwhelming. I find thyself unamused.” Several other geese bobbed their heads in agreement.

“Crap.” Whispered another. “This was supposed to last all afternoon. Now how’re we going to kill the next three hours?”

Birthday Boy didn’t miss a beat. With a bite to my other knee he got the crowd’s attention.

“Thou maketh claims grandiose! But as they say in the colloquial- canst thou walk the walk?”

I nodded, confident in my testimony. “Take off my shoes, if you dare!”

Two geese immediately waddled up to do the deed, pulling as hard as geese could until my shoes came off with a POP!

Sure enough, there were still deinonychus feet under there. The crowd ‘ooh’-ed as well as geese can, which came off as more of a honk. I was living in the moment, at least until Birthday Boy decided to be a total buzzkill and ruin it!

“Silence, thou reckless wastrels! Hast thou forgotten how Wegmart hast attempted to use dinosaur human hybrids to infiltrate our divine kingdom, and how similar creatures were utilized in the first great kingdom in times of old? In just the past five months, twelve similar attempts have been undertaken in an attempt by Wegmart to seize our remaining LARPing grounds!”

I tried to imagine twelve other half dinosaur boys walking into this forest and getting captured. Then I tried not to think of what must have happened to them.

“Still, there be-eth a single test upon which to determine where this vagrants loyalties lie! He must speketh the Elvish Tongue in its’ most divine incarnation! The Tounge of old Kanata”

He turned to face me. I could tell that, were it not for his stiff beak, he would have been smirking.

“So, o wastrel, dost thou speaketh French?”

If there was ever a time my four years in Honors Spanish had felt like a giant waste of time, it was now.

“Uhhh… Parez vouz… IlikebigbuttsandIcannotlie!”

I offered a silent prayer to the Lord, hoping that by some weird coincidence, that actually meant something. Didn’t get my hopes up, though. The geese were honking like crazy, which probably wasn’t a good sign.

“You… you unruly cur!” Honked Birthday Boy, barely maintaining his archaic accent. “How dare you! How dare you combine the blessed tongue with the mindless dread hymns of Sir Mix-a lot! Such a crime will not go unpunished!”

The geese hissed, just like a snake about to pounce, but even more bloodcurdling. They demanded my blood, and nothing could quench it but my death (I was dead, but you know what I mean).

Several demanded I burn at the stake, to which Birthday Boy said

 “Burning at the stake will do no good! We will not have the ghastly smoke of this villain clog our migration skies. This soul must be purged in the most paramount of fashions. Take him to PARADISE!”

There was a chorus of honking as they loaded the cat climber onto their backs, carrying me away on the world’s fuzziest coffin.