Digital Dragons, Book One

Digital Dragons is a comic book project created with Minecraft (including several mods) and Comic Life 3. Born from a half-joke/half-desperation move to break me out of another prolonged bout of writer's block, as well as conveniently justify continuing my Minecraft addiction, the comic tells of the first few days of "Sharkerbob" seemingly awakening into his Minecraft avatar, whereupon he becomes stuck in the world of the game! Yes, it's just about the most cliché premise you could think of for a Minecraft "fan fic", but it fits the conceit of the game well enough, and made for an easy jumping off point for wacky early-game shenanigans. As improvised dialogue and characters, I also did not set up anything about the environment ahead of time (aside from one plot-relevant detail), so Sharkerbob's responses are real-time reactions to my own exploration of the area, making for some great organic writing.

This was a really fun project, and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed making it!

The comic has been saved as a PDF format, which you can download here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pJRZMOpaYo56VDtdX2YZUQwuVuQq9UaE/view?usp=share_link

Fractured Eras (The Time Walkers)

This was a write-up for a faux-MMO concept I was challenged to make by a friend. His proposal was to "make an MMO where every server was in a different time period of the world, and major events happening in one server would have a ripple effect in others."

This was the second of three concepts I came up with, and while he said I way missed the mark with this one, I still think it was by far the best of the ideas. In hindsight, this would work much better as a Table Top RPG. In fact, I recall I took some influenced from Mage: The Ascension for the magic mechanics and the idea of Paradoxi.

FRACTURED ERAS

Some theorize that time is ultimately just another dimension, akin to distance, depth, and length, that humans interpret as an irreversible linear progression. However, if it were possible to shift one’s perception and see time as merely another measurement of distance, one could theoretically “walk” from one second to the next. Each moment of time would essentially be its own separate reality; in order to time travel, one need only “step” into another dimension. In short: time is an illusion.

Sustra and the Glimpse of Dangling Wires

“Whoever invented Fall deserves to be shot!” proclaimed Dogoro, attempting to spit another errant bit of floral debris out of his face. Being merely a hat, he found the task difficult. However, his dutiful sacrifice at least spared his wearer the inconvenience of tumbling leaves and falling tree nuts smacking into her face.

Sustra said nothing, continuing down the forest path. She rather liked the scenic view of acres of trees splashing autumn colors over the rolling hills.

“Our next mission will be to find the God of Fall, and string her up by her ankles! Try Falling then, you harvest-haired trollop!”

Sustra glanced up at the vocal cloth adorning her head. “Your puns are slacking again.”

Dogoro scoffed. “You’re give me nothing to work with, damn you! Must you always be so silent? This is why everyone says you have no personality!”

Tabitha's Prologue

My early life was one of adventure. You might think it was worthy of a whole series of exciting memoirs, detailing my many, many adventures battling monsters and demons and dark gods, of helping my fellow champions save the universe time and again. But honestly, looking back, it all blurs together for me. Not to say I’ve forgotten the details, or that I confuse events; not at all. Each adventure is as clear to me as if it happened yesterday.

Bird Girl

1

CRACK!

Hmm. Just past second base.

Toss up… wind back… CRACK!

Bounced on the short-stop position.

Toss up… wind back… CRACK!

Past second again. Much farther this time. Still too low.

Toss up… wind back… CRACK!

What the…? Where did it… THUNK!

“Ow!” I said, more startled than hurt as the baseball whacked me squarely on top of my helmet, knocking it a bit askew. How had I even managed that hit? Must have bounced off the very top of the bat, with the right amount of spin to make it arc back.

I adjusted my helmet and sighed a bit, watching the ball roll off. I reached for another from the wire frame basket, only to realize that was my last one anyway. I sighed again and picked up the basket, walking first to the ball that had just beaned me on the head, then doing a zig-zagging loop across the field to fetch the twenty-nine other balls I’d been hitting back and forth for the past hour. I was really off my game today.

Live With It

She glides over the city like an angel, looking benevolently down on her flock. Nothing seems to be going wrong today, so she’s just doing a few lazy circles overhead, reassuring people with her presence. Despite all the warnings, despite what’s happened to so many other costumed heroes lately, she insists on making herself seen.

I would go on a little inner rant about what a stupid, narcissistic bitch she must be, but I know it isn’t true. She thinks she’s helping. She thinks she’s inspiring hope. She saw some show on television, or read a comic book, or one of those insipid hero vlogs, or god forbid, watched one of the old Team’s press releases, and got inspired. She woke up with powers one day, and because she was already a fan girl for the lifestyle, knew how to get one of those crazy outfits, and that put it in her head that this was meant to be.

I did the research. Flight, laser-beams, x-ray vision, can create force fields, but has to concentrate on it. When she puts up the shield, it creates opaque fields of hard light. That’s how I know she has her guard down right now.

Stupid kid.

Pretend

Ryoko sat calmly, listening to the rhythmic, muffled clack of the rails. Her eyes skimmed across the page of her book, but she had more attention on the peripherals of her vision than the words on the page. She took note as a man with a blue longcoat and black hair entered the car. She glanced up as he passed, noting the grey hue of his eyes, and the light stride of his walk, despite his height.

He wasn’t the oddest person to enter the car, but the way he scanned the room and paused for a moment to think of his choice of seat stood out to her. She was mildly surprised when he sat down on the same bench as her, just within arms reach. She kept “reading” her book, turning the page despite failing to remember half the words she’d seen on the previous one. It was one of those nostalgic romance novels, set in the time before the world went away. She wasn’t really a fan of them, but it had been the only choices on the spin rack at the station. This one, at least, had a shirtless hunk on the cover to appreciate.

“Long trip, this.” The man in blue leaned back, crossed one leg at the knee, and draped his arms on the back of the bench, till his hand was almost touching her shoulder.