Scarred
Once again, forces beyond my control (ie, my brain) decided that a short story I wrote at oh-god-thirty last night needs to be expanded upon. Roll back the curtains, get in line, and don't touch the guy in front of you, this is Scarred.
Like Canvas, this is a sort of horror-Barkeresque pyscho artiste story about Ryan. Ryan is an artist. A fairly good one too. He likes to carve things. Things in particular being human flesh (okay, I think I've abused the italics enough).
He's not crazy in the sense that he's off his nut. Instead, he has this pull inside that drives him to "make things beautiful" and that happens to be young woman on whose skin he sees patterns. The designs are always full body works, from toe to tip. The patterns differ from person to person, be it concentric cirles, swirling spirals, or more ornate things like Japanese kanji/hiragana script or flowing ivy (example).
He sees these and in compelled to bring them to life... whether the women want to allow him to or not.
Ryan started simple, trying to figure out why he was doing this and how to best achieve the results he craved. He doesn't wish to harm the girls, and doesn't see himself as doing so, he is merely enhancing their beauty. He keeps them fed, healthy, doctors the wounds after he's done, he's actually quite gentle handed with them. But he will complete his work. Afterwards, he holds on to them long enough to make sure they're healed correctly with no infection, then drugs them and returns them to society. Sometimes he keeps an eye out on them, but most of the time he moves on to the next "project".
Jani is his latest, a young asian woman a few years out of college who was celebrating a life in a new city and having just gotten a landed a new job. She never made it to her first day. Ryan sees on her spirals like ornate metalwork, within larger curving outlines across her form and he is ready to begin.
I know this isn't going to be a first-person story. To do so would lose Jani's perspective, and as the story progresses and she gradually learns that she likes what Ryan is doing and how she feels from it, that's just too big a part to cut off (no pun intended). I'm contemplating interspacing chapters with seeing how her search investigation is going (being as she's new to the city, no real friends, didn't even get to work, it's not like there's a big push to find her) but keep feeling that if the primary officer is a guy then I don't know why he's so devoted to finding her (besides duty), but if it's a girl then she'll end up his next victim for some reason.
I want to keep Ryan from being too crazy. He's nuts, don't get me wrong, but it's a weird kind of nuts. He doesn't see what he's doing as wrong or harmful, despite all evidence to the contrary, but he truely doesn't go about it in a harmful way. He's tried doing things openly, but the women just don't want to be branded on 90% of their body most of the time. So he's just decided to skip to the chase and be more direct, ie kidnap them and hold them until he's done.
Jani's going to have a strange character arc, as she begins to accept and even enjoy the scarification process she undergoes. Medically, scarring does realise endorphins in the body so there's something to her embracing it, but she's the first in a not short line who accept what he's trying to do.
So there's probably something in her background that would open her up to a little craziness herself and welcoming this vast change to her life and body.
Seems like there's going to be a lot of body image themes to this, as well as some fetishistic imagary as well. Which says just volumes about what's going in my head.
It's not at the forefront of what I have to work on, but I think I'll be using this story as a tinker project, seeing where it goes and how it shapes out.
And now, links.
~Wikipedia's say on Scarification.
~A body mod blog page, with the catagory of scars prominant.
~A long gallery of scar tattoos. Warning, the first couple photos are not for the squimish.
Like Canvas, this is a sort of horror-Barkeresque pyscho artiste story about Ryan. Ryan is an artist. A fairly good one too. He likes to carve things. Things in particular being human flesh (okay, I think I've abused the italics enough).
He's not crazy in the sense that he's off his nut. Instead, he has this pull inside that drives him to "make things beautiful" and that happens to be young woman on whose skin he sees patterns. The designs are always full body works, from toe to tip. The patterns differ from person to person, be it concentric cirles, swirling spirals, or more ornate things like Japanese kanji/hiragana script or flowing ivy (example).
He sees these and in compelled to bring them to life... whether the women want to allow him to or not.
Ryan started simple, trying to figure out why he was doing this and how to best achieve the results he craved. He doesn't wish to harm the girls, and doesn't see himself as doing so, he is merely enhancing their beauty. He keeps them fed, healthy, doctors the wounds after he's done, he's actually quite gentle handed with them. But he will complete his work. Afterwards, he holds on to them long enough to make sure they're healed correctly with no infection, then drugs them and returns them to society. Sometimes he keeps an eye out on them, but most of the time he moves on to the next "project".
Jani is his latest, a young asian woman a few years out of college who was celebrating a life in a new city and having just gotten a landed a new job. She never made it to her first day. Ryan sees on her spirals like ornate metalwork, within larger curving outlines across her form and he is ready to begin.
I know this isn't going to be a first-person story. To do so would lose Jani's perspective, and as the story progresses and she gradually learns that she likes what Ryan is doing and how she feels from it, that's just too big a part to cut off (no pun intended). I'm contemplating interspacing chapters with seeing how her search investigation is going (being as she's new to the city, no real friends, didn't even get to work, it's not like there's a big push to find her) but keep feeling that if the primary officer is a guy then I don't know why he's so devoted to finding her (besides duty), but if it's a girl then she'll end up his next victim for some reason.
I want to keep Ryan from being too crazy. He's nuts, don't get me wrong, but it's a weird kind of nuts. He doesn't see what he's doing as wrong or harmful, despite all evidence to the contrary, but he truely doesn't go about it in a harmful way. He's tried doing things openly, but the women just don't want to be branded on 90% of their body most of the time. So he's just decided to skip to the chase and be more direct, ie kidnap them and hold them until he's done.
Jani's going to have a strange character arc, as she begins to accept and even enjoy the scarification process she undergoes. Medically, scarring does realise endorphins in the body so there's something to her embracing it, but she's the first in a not short line who accept what he's trying to do.
So there's probably something in her background that would open her up to a little craziness herself and welcoming this vast change to her life and body.
Seems like there's going to be a lot of body image themes to this, as well as some fetishistic imagary as well. Which says just volumes about what's going in my head.
It's not at the forefront of what I have to work on, but I think I'll be using this story as a tinker project, seeing where it goes and how it shapes out.
And now, links.
~Wikipedia's say on Scarification.
~A body mod blog page, with the catagory of scars prominant.
~A long gallery of scar tattoos. Warning, the first couple photos are not for the squimish.