StarbornKarissa
Lack of Recognition
I think everyone should be recognized for their art on here. Surely there are SOME eyes in the world who will appreciate different tastes and styles of them, right? It's bothersome, how one picture will get comments in the triple digits, while a picture that may be much more stylized and cleaner, heck, more ORIGINAL, goes completely under the radar.
Let's all take the time to say something nice about artwork that may be underappreciated and unrecognized. Let's make a fellow artist's day. Let's aspire to INspire and provide some positive feedback so that they can improve and feel good about it.
~Starborn Karissa
The Mysterious Collide of
Shooting Stars
By: "Starborn" Karissa Wood
Chapter 1: The Wish
It was late, around 11:30PM on the first school night of the new year. It was also the first night of September, Kari's favorite month. Everyone had fallen fast asleep, but Kari was still up and zoning out her bedroom window. She just couldn't get to sleep, dwelling about the end of summer and her first day back to school. Kris woke up and glanced over at Kari, wondering why she was up so late and staring at the sky.
"Kari, you look so tired. Why aren't you asleep yet?" Asked Kris.
"I can't go to sleep, because summer would be over that much quicker! Besides, I'm kind of nervous about the first day tomorrow..." Said Kari.
"Don't sweat it, Kari! It'll be fine. We're going to be in the same art class, remember?" Said Kris, smiling.
"I am pretty excited about that!" Exclaimed Kari.
Art class would be the first class of the day for their first semester at North Remenia High School. Kari was happy to have someone to walk into her first class with, but it was the other classes she was worried about being late or totally getting lost to. Kris pointed Kari's gaze towards the sky again to try to ease her mind. The moon was shining through the trees and there were a lot of stars visible in the cloudless sky. Kris noticed a star that looked brighter than the rest and pointed to it.
"Wow Kari, look at that bright star up there!" Said Kris excitedly.
"Huh...? Wha? Oh!" That is really cool..." Said Kari, waking up from nearly dozing.
"Make a wish! It's the biggest star I've ever seen! Go ahead." Said Kris.
"It's so bright, we could both wish on it! Let's try wishing together." Suggested Kari.
"That's different! Do you think it would work?" Asked Kris, hopeful of the idea.
Kris and Kari closed their eyes and locked their hands together with their secret hand shake. They made their wish at the same time but kept their wishes secret to each other. The rule of not telling due to the idea their wish wouldn't come true was still fresh in their minds. The two friends opened their eyes and gazed upon the star again and mysteriously bright star split into two raging colorful balls of fire!
"Whoa, wait a second! Did we do that?!" Asked Kris, surprised.
"We had to have, right? Maybe it's a special wishing star! This is so cool!" Answered Kari.
The amazing sight in the sky went from fascinating to terrifying in seconds. The twin stars began to fly erractically at each other, growing brighter and brighter. They appeared to be in some kind of battle, flying faster and clashing with each other. Kari and Kris watched the action unfold before their very eyes. The feuding balls of flame soon grew as large as the moon and collided into each other, releasing a blinding flash of light that illuminated the entire sky!
The flash of starlight was seen all across New Igneous. Soon the light faded off, leaving only the two blazing stars visible in the sky again. The stars seemed to still be fighting against each other, but were at some kind of standoff. Kris and Kari stumbled over each other as they raced to Eric and Calvin's beds to wake them up. They just had to show their brothers the action!
"Big bro, wake up... This is super important!" Said Kari.
"Yeah, we gotta show you guys something... C'mon Calvin!" Said Kris.
"Time for school already?" "Urghh... I was just having a cool dream too..." The boys said as they reluctantly sat up.
"You've got to come see these stars." Said Kari.
Eric and Calvin started laughing.
"You woke us up to go star gazing? That's... no, I'm angry. That's not funny is it?" Said Calvin.
"You guys, this isn't a joke! There's really something up with the stars outside. See, Kari and I made this combined wish and..." Said Kris.
"Uh oh, now what did you do Kari?" Eric teased.
"Just come on, will you? This is like, craziness. You guys weren't awake to see the huge flash!" Kari said, leading them to the window.
"Whoa..." The boys responded as they got a glimpse of the stars themselves.
Chapter 2 Coming Soon!
Kari's Diary - John's Rebellion
Wednesday - Happy Earth Day!Hello! I thought I'd update you all on John and Abby from Kari's Diary - Auto-Mobile Home.
Kris, Calvin and Shade have been visiting them while they are here, and by the sound of the letters coming through the portal, everything is going great. They've all been spending a lot of time exploring the area, even bringing the parents along for possible new discoveries to be logged. Eric and I have been visiting Remenia and joining them as well, but not as often because of having to go to school. Shade has been writing to us about the experiences we've missed, and I've gotta say it's been interesting over there... 
Take a look at this. Shade's Letter
Dear Eric and Kari,
Hey, how are you two? I trust you've been well at school. Speaking of school, we brought John and Abby to North Remenia school to show them and their parents where we go! I thought it'd be cool to show them how a school works, since they've never gone to public before. John and Abby were really interested in it, and to our surprise, so were their parents! We told them all about how people come to learn and make new friends and make lives for themselves. We warned them though that some stuff isn't always fun, like homework and little things like that. They didn't care one bit and I don't blame them, because neither do I!
I probably shouldn't have said that though, because it encouraged their parents to want to leave that much faster. Can you believe that? I tried to correct my statement by saying that homework actually helps the learning process. Their parents urged John and Abby to go home with them, but you wouldn't believe what happened next.While Abby was on the verge of tears, John was furious. He completely defied his parent's orders. Fight the power!
He turned his head and said "Sorry Mom and Dad, but I am staying. Even if I have to stay alone!" and he charged towards the school entrance! It was like some awesome movie scene where the main hero charges into battle or something, like "I Have. To. Do. This." Students on campus saw the action too and I lead them into a group clap for John. Oh c'mon, it was soooo the right time. 
Abby said "John's right, I'm tired of having to move! I want to stay here with my friends!" and she soon followed him in the march! I really wish I had a drumset... I can't believe you missed it you guys! The look on their parents' faces were just... You had to see it. Well, okay I'll describe them the best I can... first they were all " 
" and then changed to " 
" like they had a major realization. "Perhaps we have overlooked the children's lives a little bit." I think they're going to stay here with us!! 
Anyway that's all I got for now. Hey hurry back, will ya? There are classes opening up to the public here at North Remenia School. There are night classes too! There are teachers that are going to educate people on the entire Remenian world! People from all the continents are going to contribute by visiting and sending books! Hey, you know what? This could benefit all of us! I'm totally going to sign up. Later!
~Shade Wulfe
Kari's Diary - Auto-Mobile Home
~**April 17, 2015 Friday**~
It's 11 o' clock at night, and my brother Eric and I just got home from Remenia. We met up with our fox friends Kris and her brother Calvin. Kris is a white arctic fox with two tails and blue highlights, and Calvin is a blue fox with five tails and blonde hair. When I say fox friends, I mean anthromorphic fox citizens on two legs! There seem to be a lot of residents in Remenia who are like that too, like cats and other species. It's too bad that Earth doesn't have cool people like that! I think it would make our world way more interesting. 
We met them not too long after we discovered Remenia. Speaking of interesting, we saw something we've never seen before, a moving house with wheels! It was so weird, because it wasn't like a trailer or anything. This appeared to be a drivable house! How cool is that? 
Apparently, the driving part of it was on the side of the normal house part. Picture the nose end of a soda truck for a grocery store or something... that attached to the side of an actual house that you'd see in a quiet neighborhood. We just had to check it out.
We followed the drivable house a little ways down the road from our friend Shade's house. (Shade is a wolf-anthro who lives with her otter sister and cat named Alice.) She happened to be outside and saw the moving house too, so she decided to join us! The people driving the house seemed pretty interested in Silver Steed Beach, which isn't too far from Shade's neighborhood at all. The house stopped a little ways away from the ocean - who knew the wheels could handle beach sand anyway? I imagined it being adaptable to any terrain. We hid behind sand dunes and rocks to wait and see if anyone came out. Eric and Calvin kept joking around that they were probably aliens, but I totally disagreed. There were absolutely no space probes! 
Eventually we saw a family of five come out and set up a picnic table - two human kids (A brother and an older sister), two parents and an odd looking white cat. You wouldn't believe it but I can't make this stuff up - the cat had feathered wings! Okay I'm sure someone would make something like that up, but I'm not a liar here. Honest. .... 
I'm not one for eavesdropping, but we overheard some conversation between the owners of the automobile house (or so we called it.) The boy seemed kind of frustrated, like he didn't want to come on the trip to the beach at all. His sister wasn't in any better mood either. We all decided to go say hi to them and try to cheer them up while their parents were inside. They told us their names - John and Abbigale. Their out-of-the-norm cat was named Couscous, or Cousie for short. We all seemed to click rather quickly. It was pretty cool to make even more new friends.
John and Abbigale began to tell us a bit about their house. They seemed a bit reluctant to talk about it, but they did it out of politeness of our curiosity. I guess their parents made a vow years before John and Abbigale were even thought of to travel and see everything about the Remenian world and even document new discoveries. "The family dream" Abbigale described it as, or so her parents continuously go on and on about. John told us about how he and his dad don't always get along because of their disagreements with the "family dream" concept. It sounded to us like all the two children just wanted was a rooted-in home where they could establish a life of their own, and not be forced to be dragged along with their parents' idea of an ideal life. They were kids who actually WANTED to go to school and meet new friends and learn like any other kid would. "My parents say we are on vacation now. What's vacation? We're constantly on the move and always seeing new things. I like seeing new things, but we always have to move right when I feel comfortable and secure in one spot. It's disheartening always having to leave the friends we do make too. It's unfair!" They were saying. "We know what our parents are like, and we've been taking the ride forever. I want to know who I am and what my purposes in life are!" I couldn't have agreed so much more if I tried. Their parents seemed selfish to me, but I never said anything like that to them. For one, it would have been rude, and two, they probably felt the same inside anyway. 
"You guys should get out of here. I hate to be rude, because you all seem like such nice people, but I'd hate it if we got close and we had to leave again... just like the others..." John said. I thought it was extremely unfair for them to keep going on with a life they aren't happy with. We just had to try to help... but how, we wondered? I sure as heck didn't know. Do you know how hard it can be to convince two stubborn oldy-timers? Believe me, my parents are the same way! Eric and I know all too well! Plus, we were all strangers as far as they were concerned. If they never listened to their own kids, what makes you think they'd ever listen to us? 
Calvin and Shade really wanted to see the inside of the house. John and Abbigale figured eh, what the heck? Might as well show them that the house was no different than other houses besides the wheels. We all checked out the inside and met the parents while we were at it. They seemed kind and welcoming, but you could tell they were really into their work. They had journals and exploration books everywhere with information from almost every continent in Remenia! I couldn't believe that this house was capable of that sort of travelling. The inside of the house was interesting - there was a fully functional kitchen, two bathrooms, a living room and even an upstairs area with two bedrooms! The furniture and appliances were all there intact as well! It's a wonder the cockpit can pull the place. Anyway, while Calvin and Shade were inspecting the place, I noticed John being a bit distant from us. He was kind of just standing with his eyes to the floor and his arms crossed, like he was thinking about something serious. Out of nowhere, he says: "I'm busting outta here."
Abbigale and Couscous looked at John like "What the heck do you mean by that?" 
I couldn't help but think the same. He was contemplating running away it seemed, and I thought about how dangerous that can be for a kid. Where was he going to go? He barely knew about the area. We sort of talked to him a bit about his idea of bailing, and he said that he wanted to teach his parents a lesson. That seemed a bit harsh, so I suggested that maybe we could all just go for a walk and show him around. Kris liked the idea, and thought that maybe if John and Abbigale's parents saw how great of friends they all were, they wouldn't want to take off again. We were all about standing up for these people. Extra back-up this time! 
As we all planned out, John and Abby's parents came in and announced that they would be staying at Silver Steed Beach for a week. That gave us a lot of time to put our plans into motion! It all seemed so encouraging.
It was getting late, and Eric and I had to get back to Tauger City. Kris, Calvin and Shade agreed to keep us both posted on what was going on with John and Abby. We are going to try to go to Remenia every day this week to see them all. I'm sure their parents won't ever want to leave - we are quite convincing! Well, I am anyway. It's getting late right now actually, and I should probably get to bed. Eric's already out like a light.
Until Next Time! ~Kari 
Kari's Diary - The Walk Home
~**April 13, 2015 Monday**~
Hi, I'm Kari! You know that blonde haired girl you're always seeing in the art on here with the occasional hat? That's me! Actually, I love hats. I wear one at any opportunity. Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself here.
My brother Eric and I are from Tauger City. (Eric's got the brown hair and hazel eyes in the art.) He's two years older than me and can be way protective of me.
We go to the same school, called Tauger High School. We also live with our mom and dad. Our life was like any other kid's life, going to school and doing our homework (which I hate a lot... 
) and doing normal everyday things with family and friends. One day when we walked home from school, our walking route was cut off due to bridge construction! It was totally inconvenient. Eric and I were forced to follow a trail we've never explored to go around the work zone to get home. I was a little nervous because the trail went deep into the woods, and who knows if an animal or something was going to pop out! 
Eric said it would be okay and lead the way, and it made me feel better. 
The trails that we walked on were part of a nature preservation called the Bird Sanctuary. It was really quiet and I kept looking over my shoulder. It was like someone was watching me. I had to stop at this river, because it was so pretty! I grabbed my phone and took a picture of it, and Eric kept telling me to go back to him so we wouldn't lose the trail. I told him to relax, because there was no way we could lose it - it was wide and only a couple of feet away for pete's sake!
I guess my brother's not all for the beauty of nature, because he kept asking what was so great about it. As soon as I was about to start an argument with him, things got really weird fast! We heard this crazy deep voice. It told us that it would show us what was so great about the river. At this point I was really scared, because I thought some creepazoid was following us home or something. All of a sudden, something I never thought I would see in my whole life appeared before our eyes - a huge dragon! You wouldn't believe it man, a shiny green river dragon with long whiskers and a body that was at least 100 yards long all coiled up and stuff! Eric and I freaked out and yes, we totally ran away!
The trails were long gone at this point, we were just trying to survive now. We noticed the dragon was on our tails, and we ran faster than that time we ran the mile in gym, no question! We eventually found a clearing in the woods and tried to catch our breaths. Things got way too quiet. Eric peeked out to see what was happening, and the dragon was circling around the area and wouldn't let us free. My bro was trying to stay calm for my sake, but was visibly panicked anyway. I saw this yellow glint in the corner of my eye and it was coming from a tree... I couldn't help but go look at it real quick. The yellow light was some kind of odd marking I couldn't recognize. In fact, it looked almost tribal. Eric told me not to touch it, saying I got them into enough trouble. Yeah, like I knew a giant green dragon was waiting to snack on us! Dumb boys!
Anyway, I dared to touch the marking anyway. I couldn't help it, it was calling my name! Oh c'mon, you'd do it too...You wouldn't believe what happened next - a huge blue vortex opened and sucked us in! It brought us to the world of Remenia. It was our very first visit there. There was one problem though - we were flung into totally different areas and couldn't find eachother for a while. That's for another day though... Point is, we found Remenia, almost like we were lead there. Maybe the dragon wanted us to go. I think so. Seems we are actually significant to their world - we're the two main heroes! We have powers too, and we're both still working on discovering our true potentials. I think it's so cool! Eventually we found our way back to Tauger City through a secret portal. It kind of looks like an ancient artifact, a big round frame you can just jump into. It was connected to an item that looked the same on Tauger city's side too! We hung it up in our room so we can visit Remenia anytime we want or need to. Mom didn't know why we had it, so we just said it was for decoration for our closet door. I'm glad we can visit Remenia more than once, because we made friends there already! We're so lucky.
Anyway, that's all the time we have today. Until next time! ~ Kari