UPDATED: Info on The Metallic Dollsman: A Novella

Edit (17 Jan '14): I have updated this journal with new or modified details of the plot. The original plot summary can still be accessed via the LJ link.

(Here's a little update. Nobody has to read it.)

As far as some of you may know, I've been writing a short novel (or a novella). It used to be called The Man Beneath the Black Veil under a working title. I now officially renamed it The Metallic Dollsman (the meaning behind this will be explained).

Edit (15 Jan '14): During the second semester of my freshman year at University (last spring), I took an Intro to Screenwriting course as part of my film studies, which is what I'm majoring in. I completed a screenplay Crimson Sage, which acts as a prequel to The Metallic Dollsman. It is technically an expansion of Cassius' childhood, the main anti-protagonist. Given that the script was written after early drafts of this project, many details were changed in later drafts to remain consistent with the canon of the universe.

Since I first wrote and posted the main character's character sketch, some stuff has been cut out while other things have changed completely, like the title. (I felt the working title was too commonplace and easily forgettable.) I don't feel the need to edit/update that old character sketch, so here:



The Metallic Dollsman is a dystopian fiction with a mix of Gothic-fantasy elements that are undertones, not overtones. (Note: It IS NOT, I repeat IS NOT like or inspired by The Hunger Games. I notice now that whenever someone throws out the term ''dystopian'' that is the first thing that comes to mind, despite the fact that dystopian fiction has been written for years. Nowadays, I feel this genre has gone downhill significantly so at the same time, I feel conflicted with placing this story in this now sloppy, teen-dominated category even though the plot elements precisely fit the definition.)

It deals heavily with child abuse and the rape of a male survivor but in the end comes away with representing rape as not strictly being a gender-related issue (society seemingly makes it that way). The story is largely told through the eyes of Cassius (nicknamed ''Promise'' by another character), a middle-aged man and a former victim of prolonged sexual abuse and government oppression haunted by his troubling past (keep in mind, this is fiction so his character can't speak for all abuse victims). It follows the mental and emotional breakdown of Promise, revealed to be a former government henchmen—bounty hunter, interrogator, professional torturer, and exterminator—as he struggles to come to terms with the slaughter of numerous prized victims which upon their deaths he incarnated into a ''doll collection'' (hence the title) out of fear of abandonment. Most importantly, he battles with feelings of severe neglect and lack of affection from since he was a child, which he takes out on his preteen son who he emotionally and sexually torments for his own arousal and fantasy of power. What Cassius ultimately doesn't realise is his reckless behaviour and poor decisions are the root cause to his suffering, despite having been broken by the society around him.



The story is set in an unspecified universe in an unspecified time. It could be set on a futuristic Earth as we know it or another planet entirely parallel to our own (this is indicated by the heavily polluted conditions where masks have to be worn outside and the advanced technology of the society).

Edit (15 Jan '14): The vague setting has since been modified. In subsequent drafts, it is specifically noted that the year is circa 2112 and the main location is the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe.

Everything in this society is Government controlled, Government property—including the workforce, schools, hospitals, even the streets which are monitored 24/7 through hovering cameras, hidden recorders, security drones and by Government officials themselves. Phones and the Internet are also tapped. Failure to cooperate with the System could result in being ''escorted'' (technically abducted) by T.H.E.Y, a Government-branch which acts as much of a police force as it does a C.I.A. They are, in fact, a Government research facility dedicated to fixing everything ''wrong'' with society (in other words, what they deem is ''politically incorrect''). T.H.E.Y's headquarters is guised as a private detention centre located in a region dubbed ''Nowhere,'' which is in fact a ruined countryside somewhere in the UK that used to be largely populated. From the outside, the structure is walled off. From the inside, it is a huge complex of sorts that is as big as a small city. The research conducted there is completely undercover. Individuals abducted usually never return. They become official Government property and test subjects. If they can't be properly ''cured,'' they are then exterminated. T.H.E.Y is run and overseen by a man whose true name is never revealed but is called ''HIM'' by Cassius and others to protect his identity.

Edit (15 Jan '14): In Crimson Sage, HIM's real name is revealed to be Eli. Only his closest ''favourites'' (or ''lovers'') know his name.



Ironically, T.H.E.Y is a contradiction of itself. While T.H.E.Y strives to ''cure'' society of all its flaws, the people behind the System are no less flawed than the civilians they target. (For instance, homosexuality is an act not smiled upon by society and is deemed as a mental disorder that needs to be ''corrected.'' Ironically, it is revealed that Eli, the power behind the System, is an openly gay man.)

Before the Government System came into his life directly, Cassius had been controlled in other ways.



Cassius' parents are very dysfunctional and his general relationship with them is poor, especially his father who he attempts to earn affection from as a youngster but eventually grows frightened of him. He remains angry with him throughout his adult life. He always refers to his mother Sage by her first name while he never gives his father a real name; he was expected to address his superior with ''Sir'' as a child and as an adult, he refers to him dryly as ''my father'' or ''my dad'' in memory. This indicates he doesn't really see either of them as his parents.

Edit (15 Jan '14): In Crimson Sage, Cassius' father's full name is revealed to be Crimson Wicker.

His mother is young and neglectful and suffers from bouts of depression and compulsive, self-destructive acts, including hoarding. Cassius has a love-hate relationship with her. His father is a selfish alcoholic and drug addict, sadistic and abusive. Cassius' conflicting relationship with men and his disdain of them largely stems from his father's negative influence (ironically though, he is openly pansexual and usually has sexual relationships with males, but he normally shows no respect for them minus one ex-lover). The uncaring nature of his parents largely shapes Promise's bitter and often times cold behaviour in later life.

His mother Sage (half-Romani and half-English originally from Crouch End) gives birth to her son at the tender age of 12 after being repeatedly raped by her much older stepfather, a Irishman Crimson Wicker. When she is discovered pregnant, she is immediately removed from school, disowned by her family and sent to be ''corrected'' by T.H.E.Y at a Re-Education Centre (a mental asylum and reform school with stricter, dehumanising regulations) for acts of masochism, a label that replaced rape. She struggles to survive with her child in the cold, metropolitan city of an oppressed, declining London. She moves around from place to place constantly and earns a low-paid living by means of prostitution. Out of lack of love for her son, she doesn't give him a proper name. She calls him ''Kid.''



It isn't until Cassius is merely three-years-old that he meets his biological father for the first time when his teenage mother returns, begging for support from him when the rest of her family turns her away; he is unaware that his father is his mother's stepfather until years later. More ironically, Crimson is the one to rename him Cassius, a name meaning ''empty'' or ''vain.''

Whilst living under his father's roof, Cassius is subjected to the same abusive nature that his mother had been. His father doesn't regard him as his son and hides him away in an isolated, upstairs attic where he is given little clothing and only canned pet food to eat. His father later sexually advances on him without his mother's knowing (or she chooses to intentionally ignore it) and occasionally makes him ''entertain'' house guests.

When Cassius turns 10 or 11, his father throws him out onto the streets and forces him into child labour in order to support the household, refusing to let him back home until he does so. Whilst seeking temporary shelter beneath a bridge, he finds a job as a caretaker in a local school where he is bullied by the other kids because of his background, social status, and inability to read and write full sentences (but his level of intelligence is underestimated).

Due to his parents' abuse and neglect in his troubled home life, his social skills never properly develop which makes it extremely difficult for him to connect to others socially and emotionally. His anti-social behaviour earns him little company. Beyond his anti-sociability, he begins to exhibit other ''disturbing'' behaviours. At work, he advances on schoolboys and touches them inappropriately. He is caught masturbating several times a day in isolation until his genitals bleed. He physically attacks others, lashing out and threatening to kill them. Moreover, he shows complete lack of remorse for his actions.

Edit (15 Jan '14): In Crimson Sage, 16-year-old Cassius' bleak and routine life takes a drastic turning point when his mother becomes targeted by T.H.E.Y for his father's wrongdoings and is forcefully deported to be experimented on and possibly exterminated. Cassius does everything in his power to rescue her from the clutches of the Government, which doesn't end well.
After a gang rape incident by a group of schoolboys he knows, he quits his job and returns home to find that his mother had been ''cured'' and survived, a rare case. Only, it is far from a happy reunion. He is confronted with the truth of how he was conceived and that she doesn't love him as her child. He later witnesses first-hand her suicide by dousing herself in acid and cracking her skull against the wall, which traumatises him for the rest of his life, blaming his father for it. It is the first vivid death he sees in person and the first time he cries since he was an infant. His father takes his mother's absence as an opportunity to completely control him and threatens to own him as an object. He forces Cassius to help him dispose of the body and when T.H.E.Y suspects a homicide crime, he frames Cassius. Cassius suffers a nervous breakdown and is deemed disturbed where he is confined in a Re-education Centre for a year.

There, he is given a number as his name, S3241 while the other inmates dub him ''Sess'' (derived from the first character). He is branded with a permanent label: ''Abnormal''—a label that bans him from basic human rights. He eventually escapes the centre and constructs a murderous plan against his father. Since Cassius is heavily disturbed and immensely angered by what his father did to him and his mother, he feels that he has to remove him from existence entirely, otherwise he would never rest. In retaliation, he returns to his father's home where he slowly tortures and sexually mutilates him to death, including removing his penis and choking him with it, without feeling. His father is the first victim he knows to have murdered. He attempts to cover up any evidence before fleeing by setting the house ablaze, although he hardly realises that his father is still barely alive while left inside. This crime and a greater crime committed against the whole of London which makes him a prime target of T.H.E.Y forces Cassius to flee England for good and by chance he ends up Scotland.  



There, he is reduced to begging for awhile before he finds financially unstable yet suitable work in a factory, but it's not enough to provide him with food and shelter. A girl his age shows him some ounce of compassion and saves his life from near death when he falls severely ill and is denied proper medical attention because of his homeless status. Her name is Cersephone, but she has renamed herself ''Forgiveness'' as part of a hippie identity. While Cassius doesn't know how to immediately react to her contact, she treats him as a human being in spite of his label. She shelters him at her council estate in a hippie colony and nurses him back to health much to his protests out of fear that they are going against the Government System and they would be caught for it (the lowlife of society are expected to be ignored and fend for themselves). Cersephone, on the other hand, shows no immediate signs of paranoia.

Cersephone is a bohemian and hippie at large (with an unusual name) who introduces him to art, punk-rock and heavy metal music, drugs (i.e. cigarettes and LSD), and motorbikes—all of which later become a part of his character. Refusing to reveal hi true name to her, she even gives him his first deserving name: Promise. It is the only name Cersephone ever knows him by.



Three years later, Cassius is ''arrested'' and removed from society by T.H.E.Y, where he is held at their headquarters in isolation. There, he is treated as a subject being punished for a ''crime'': he is Abnormal—he has been by default given he is the illegitimate child of a whore—and is there to be ''cured.'' Eerily enough, the people there seem to know nearly everything about his background, including the sexual abuse and murder of his father which they somehow have recorded on tape, and they try to use it against him.

While under constant restraints, he is physically and sexually assaulted for game and humiliation, such as being forced to perform oral sex for food.

It isn't until Cassius is greeted in person by Eli, also known as HIM, the dominant head behind T.H.E.Y, that he is spared from the fate of the other ''Incurables.'' Eli takes an immediate liking to Cassius and over the years, he goes from victim to becoming one of them. He tops a position as good and feared as Eli's, who regards Cassius as a ''favourite.'' Behind closed doors, the two form a concealed yet destructive and bizarre romantic relationship.

Cassius shamelessly abuses his power as his personal form of expression for telling the world he had been fucked over and now he is important. After exterminating the Incurables, he shows his worth by ''borrowing'' the bodies' prized belongings, displaying them from his belt. Yet, there are a few special victims he finds himself attracted to, regarding them as ''friends'' and permanently tattooing their names onto his skin. However, once they are deemed Incurable and he is expected to exterminate them with the others, he eventually finds a clever yet twisted way of keeping them his for as long as he wants. Once dead, he secretly removes their hair, skin and hearts, using them to sculpt life-sized figures which resemble the victims exactly as they were when alive. This becomes his ultimate ''doll collection,'' and his penultimate fantasy of comfort and affection where neglect does not exist.

But Cassius' life turns around when Cersephone becomes his new victim. While she doesn't recognise him and Cassius vaguely remembers his connection with her before T.H.E.Y, she constantly challenges his beliefs and forces him to question his humanity along with the sketchy reality he creates for himself, including his relationship with Eli which he only begins to realise the abusive nature of it masked behind false BDSM.

He decides to make a ''promise'' to Cersephone and offers to help her escape the fate he reveals to her if she is found Incurable, but in reality he is actually using her for his own gain. But things become complicated when he grows attracted to her and in a reckless ''accident'' supposedly gets her pregnant with a boy he later names Zanoah (meaning ''desertion''). In a series of devastating events, Cassius is faced with the decision of his life when he is forced to flee from the Government with only his young son.

More info about the characters:



Cassius (a.k.a. Promise)
Age: 50-62 Height: 6'1'' Weight: approx. 130 lbs. Eye colour: Icy coloured ''like glass'' Hair colour: Grey (in his youth, it used to be auburn-brunette with some grey strands from stress) Ethnicity: Mixed (half-Irish, ¼ Romani, ¼ English) Complexion: Olive, but later he is infected with vitiligo Reference(s) I usually use: None. I wish I did because he's hard to draw! I only finished two drawings of him. I just rely heavily on my imagination.

Cassius is insecure, disturbed, and suffers from a severe type of OCD and emotional issues (as a child, it is implied he suffered from RAD, reactive attachment disorder). He is often depressed, is an insomniac, experiences frequent migraines and eats very little because of it, but can occasionally experience ''high'' moments when he uses psychedelic drugs combined with other drugs. His basic diet consists of potato crisps, ''underground'' meds illegalised by the Government (i.e. sleeping and migraine pills, anti-depressants) and coffee. He is a compulsive caffeine and nicotine addict, and a Colace junkie (occasionally he takes LSD). He should not be mistaken for being a sociopath. His nature may be cold, at times ruthless, and he shows very little sympathy or empathy towards others, but he does have a conscience only with extremely repressed emotions.

While Cassius was never officially schooled and is illiterate, his intelligence shouldn't be underestimated because of his inability to read and write full sentences (he improves in this area a bit later on, learning how to write his name and simple phrases). He has some theatre talent in singing and acting, especially acting which he uses to conceal his true intentions; he is an effective liar. He claims his mother gave to him her talents; she was a gifted piano player. He has some skills in doodling and self-implied tattooing but his real artistic merit lies in making humanised dolls. His favourite type of music is punk-rock, heavy metal, and sometimes 70s rock 'n' roll amongst other rock and genres. He has an obsession with motorbikes.

Cassius usually keeps his hair very long, about the length of the middle of his breasts (which he sometimes plaits) and has multiple piercings and tattoos. His preferred fashion is punk-rock with knee-high Gothic boots, though not overdone and his colour choice is low-key. Although later on, he chops off his hair, removes his piercings and simplifies his dress. His most distinguished pieces of clothing include a black leather jacket, a tank top with distinct black letters hand-painted across the chest reading ''Fuck Everybody,'' and a pair of blue jeans with a hand-painted rose on the back of the pant legs with the words ''Eat shit and die.''



Cersephone (a.k.a. Forgiveness)
Age: 50 (her story doesn’t continue beyond this point) Height: 5'5'' Weight: approx. 113 lbs. (thin build, little figure and flat chested until pregnant) Eye colour: Blue-grey Hair colour: Naturally dark haired, dyes it ginger Ethnicity: Irish Complexion: Pale Reference(s) I usually use: Young – Evanna Lynch, Saoirse Ronan, Janet Devlin, Hannah Murray; Older – It's difficult finding women who look anything like the younger counterparts! I'm still working out her design, especially for how she looks later in life… She looks different every time I draw her. I only finished one drawing of her.

Cersephone is a dreamy individual, a common bohemian and hippie who influences a large part of Cassius' character in later life, including drugs, music, and motorbikes. While she seems calm from the exterior, she has a lot of inner issues which she solves with psychedelic therapy (the full nature of her problems is never explained, although she does reveal she has always been an orphan). Not much is known about her past other than she lives alone, living out of a suitcase and paints in her spare time. She is freckled, has a nose piercing on her left nostril and signature beauty marks outside the corner of each eye near the bridge of her nose.



Zanoah
Age: 12-13 Height: 4'9'' Weight: 97 lbs. Eye colour: Blue-grey Hair colour: Dark (cross between a dark brown & black) Ethnicity: Mixed Complexion: Oriental Reference(s) I usually use: I haven't drawn him yet…

For only being a tween, Zanoah is very mature and often times acts more responsible than Cassius; he disapproves of his father's reckless behaviour. He is usually reserved but also intelligent; he self-taught himself to read and write and helps Cassius read material he can't. He is also skilled with technology. Due to his father's lack of bonding, the two of them share a strained relationship and don't seem to have very much in common. While he is easily fooled by Cassius' deception as a young child, as he grows up into an adolescent he begins to suspect the true nature of his lies and ''twisted truths.'' For instance, Cassius never reveals the full nature of his relationship with Zanoah's mother whom he hardly talks about, which Zanoah is made to believe died while she gave birth to him but he gradually starts to doubt this.  He also challenges the possibility that Cassius may not really be his father. Beyond the external conflict he has with his father, Zanoah is also painfully repressed. At times, Cassius takes advantage of him both emotionally and sexually, creating a falsehood of power. Out of fear and threats from his father, he never reveals this to anyone. But later on, Zanoah looks for ways to turn against him…

Zanoah is small and skinny with freckles and dark, untamed hair. His clothes are ill-fitted, which consists largely of greys and maroons. He has a prominent scar across his nose, the circumstances of which aren't explained until later. Cassius claims Zanoah bears a strong resemblance to his mother, skin complexion aside.



Eli (a.k.a. HIM)
Age: 60s-80s (10-20 years older than Cassius) Height: 6'4'' Weight: 200 lbs. Eye colour: Green Hair colour: Dark Brown Ethnicity: Black Briton Complexion: Chocolate Reference: Gary Dourdan (as a younger version, especially how he appears in Crimson Sage)

His character rarely appears in person and is usually mentioned in passing, remaining a mysterious dominant figure which very few people actually ever meet face-to-face. He does appear in person in Crimson Sage, however. Cassius is one of few individuals who know what Eli, or HIM looks like. He shares a sort of romantic and sexual relationship with Cassius, only Cassius doesn't realise until later that he is being used as a puppet with sex being used as a tool of deception.