Austin Jennings

[Austin Jennings]

Austin Bryce Jennings

FREESTYLE APPLICATION Shawn Ashmore - Seventeen – Camp Jupitor- Heterosexual – Single How To Paint a Picture Part 1: More than a blank canvas You start with a blank space. It does not necessarily have to be paper or canvas, but it must be white. I say white because I need a word for it, but the right definition is “nothing”. Black is the absence of light, but white is the absence of memory, the color of emptiness, the beginning of a story waiting to be written. Being an artist is never particularly easy but when you’re a demigod things are complicated even more. The story was the same for Austin as well who, even from a young age, was always a little different. When he was growing up people looked at his shy and timid nature and they thought something was wrong with him. They saw that he had a horrible stutter and they said ‘That kid is slow’ or ‘Why can’t he learn to talk right’. In addition to this being raised in a small town in a single parent household didn't make things any easier. For the most part Austin was labeled the 'weird' kid during those formative years and he received his share of cruel taunts, jeers, and mocking words because his differences. Perhaps this served to push his shyness further or perhaps things would have been the same without that catalyst but considering how his life began it wasn’t really any surprise that the boy developed a habit of keeping to himself. As it turned out Austin wasn’t weird or slow at all. It took several years to really find out what it was but the young demigod just looked at the world differently than everyone else. He lived in a world of life and beauty and color, of fine details that no one else could seem to see, and although he didn’t know how to explain it at the time it was this different way of looking at things that would help him to become resilient enough to survive without any real friends and the trials that his life had in store for him. How To Paint a Picture Part 2: The first strokes No matter where you begin you have to establish the horizon. You have to mark the white with color. It’s the beginning of your creation after all and you might think that it’s a simple enough act to accomplish but you would be surprised. Any act that re-makes the world is heroic and sometimes you have to be very brave to make that first stroke. Austin’s love for art started with his first box of crayons. He picked up the color orange, the color that would eventually become his favorite, and put it to a blank page. From that moment on he had found the method of expressing himself that his childhood years had been missing. He was still young of course and his pictures were far from being masterpieces but they displayed more depth of understanding than most people learn to master in a life time. There was always something about his pictures, if not skill then at least heart. While other kids his age were busy making more of a mess than anything else Austin always had a purpose. His pictures were not sloppy, unintelligible things. He always had some goal in mind, something that he wanted to show to others even if it was just a picture made from his hand print. Even though he was a kid he thought things through, albeit with childish simplicity, and his art teachers always commented that he was very passionate about his work for someone who was so young. As he got older his skills continued to improve but there was still something always missing from the picture of his life. Austin didn’t know about his divine parentage at the time but there was something that made him special beyond his rare talent for art. He was the demigod son of the goddess Arcus and while this did explain where his great talent came from it wouldn’t be until he was thirteen on a cold night in late October that the truth was finally revealed to him. How To Paint a Picture Part 3: The truth in the details Remember that the truth is in the details. No matter how you see the world or what style it imposes on your work as an artist, the truth is in the details. The devil's there too of course, everyone says so, but maybe truth and the devil are words for the same thing. Just remember it’s the truth you are trying to show to others and the truth, like the devil, is not always something that they will like to see. The night that Austin was taken to the Wolf House changed his life forever. He has never been able to remember much about his time there but the wolf goddess Lupa did explain to him the mysteries of his identity and the truth was enough to rock the boy to his core. He had never known his mother and his father had never really talked much about her so finding out he was the child of a goddess left him with more questions than answers. Still, he didn’t have much time to consider the matter as his training soon began. The trials were arduous to say the least and Austin wasn’t really much of a fighter. Instead he conquered his training with the same fire and resiliency that had enabled him to endure the loneliness of being considered the weird kid by most everyone he knew. Now that same spirit helped him to remain steadfast in the face of the challenges that he was going through and brought him out on the other side with the knowledge that he had a purpose in a place called New Rome. The journey was not easy but eventually Austin did make it to Camp Jupitor where he discovered that he was not the only demigod in the world. It turned out to be a small comfort. He was still a no name recruit of little reputation and his mother Arcus and his talents as an artist didn’t do much to impress the leaders of the legion. Even among those who he should have found a common ground with he found that he was still the odd man out and when he was assigned to the fifth cohort he realized that this wouldn’t be changing any time soon. How To Paint a Picture Part 4: Hungry for the Future Remember to stay hungry. It worked for Michelangelo, it worked for Picasso, and it works for a hundred thousand artists who do it not for love, although that does play a part, but in order to put food on the table. If you want to translate the world, you need to use your appetites. Granted, there is no creation without talent but talent is cheap. Talent will not carry you. There is nothing as human as hunger though and that is the real muse of art. Despite the disappointment of finding his real place in the legion Austin still possessed that all important gift that keeps artists everywhere pursuing their craft despite the fact that many never make it big or receive any kind of recognition whatsoever. The young demigod possessed a drive and a hunger for the future and it was these attributes that kept him moving on even though it seemed like he was drastically out of place in the legion. Austin was a loaner, a dreamer, a guy of ideas and even though these weren’t things that were generally valued in soldiers his extraordinary vision allowed him to see things in a very pragmatic way. The Roman culture needed to be protected and even though he might not be a warrior at heart he discovered he could wear that mask if he was called to. It wasn’t that hard. He had been making it all his life with the realization that he stood out from the rest in some vital way. The knowledge of his heritage only served to enlighten him on what that difference was. Now he had a purpose and just like the vision of a painting in his mind’s eye he just had to keep working at it to discover all the many layers that this new purpose possessed. name;Rextime zone;CST

♥ STORM

[Harper Jones]

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