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Complete Storyline "A Tale Of Two Fathers" Previously | Next

Storyline folder "Breaking Point"
Previously | Next

What previously happened: James has finally tasted success... when a complicated femur fracture puts him out of business. Not long after, his brother Henry tumbles into the worst mental health crisis of his young life and is for a brief moment ready to end it all; which entails serious consequences. His sister Angie, convinced their father is the culprit, goes to the public to defame the patriarch, and soon the family descends into chaos.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

James | May 13, 2019

Music.

The giant desk in the Crosbys’ office was cluttered with folders and documents of all sizes, shapes and importance. In the middle of it all, a massive, ancient laptop - propped up on two stacks of old equestrian apparel catalogues to provide airflow to keep it from overheating; but despite the measure, its fan clattered and hummed laboriously. The leaves of a sad table plant trembled in the warm breeze.

James - seated in his father’s office chair and his right leg put up on a separate one - sighed into the hand he was using to support his chin as he waited for the website to load. Eventually, the flickering screen lit up with text and colour, and both him and the semi-circle of riders behind him leaned forward to take a closer look: a simplified world map, peppered with tiny red dots, and below that, a long list with names and dates.

Remy pointed at the screen. “Here’s where you select the discipline,” he said. “And here is where you select the USA, here where it says ‘NF’...”

As he followed the older man’s directions, Jim felt like a grandpa, marvelling at the wonders of The Internet when laying eyes upon it for the first time. He clicked on the ‘USA’ tag in the drop-down menu - and again the website took excruciatingly long to load. A sigh came from somewhere across the room - Vitoria, who was half-sitting, half leaning against a stack of boxes, one of her feet propped up on the back of the chair Georgie was sitting on. On the other side, Dick towered over them with his arms crossed and his sneaker-clad feet wide apart.

When the website had loaded, Jim looked at it for a second before turning to the Canadian again. “But now it only shows… the shows in the US.”

“Well, yes. Where else do you want to go?”

Shrugging, Jim picked up a little yellow notepad and a short pencil from where they rested next to the laptop.

It was time to make a plan for the summer. Like many things, that had been his father’s area of jurisdiction. Every year he would gather the team around and make a thorough plan for the season; whom to send where, what the big shows were that required most training and attention, and when to put in breaks for each horse. Jim had never been particularly interested in the careful planning and decision-making that was involved in coming up with a sensible plan - and now that came back to bite him. Aimlessly, he scrolled through the list, but his undecidedness made the audience around him impatient. Dick unwrapped his arms and propped himself up on the desk, craning his neck to view the screen. “What would Mr. Cros do?” he offered a solution.

Remy leaned in to help. “Here, the Saugerties Spring Series, then Traverse City, and after that… maybe Bridgehampton and the rest of the HITS shows,” he listed. “That’s how Peter -”

“I know where we usually compete,” Jim interrupted them. “It’s not like we need to do it exactly the same.”

Dick raised an eyebrow. “What’s your plan then?”

Jim fell silent. After having looked at the list for some time, he scrolled back up and deleted the ‘USA’ tag from the search again. As the site reloaded, the number of ‘upcoming shows’ leapt from about 50 to over 600.

Jim let go of the mouse and pointed at the screen with his open hand. “St. Tropez. Knokke. Hickstead,” he read some of the names aloud, a smirk settling on his lips. “Who says we can’t go overseas?”

“The funds?” Remy said.

“We don’t have the third best horse in the States for nothing!” Jim grinned, leaning back in the rolling chair and folding his hands behind his head. He wasn’t wrong - Mike still held the third position in the USEF horse ranking list, even two show-free months after his rider’s accident. “With an experienced rider like you, we’d win the fees back easily.”

Remy’s eyes widened in horror. Had Jim forgotten about his eight faults in the 2* Grand Prix at Old Salem Farm yesterday? The start of his campaign with Mike - as brief as it had been so far - hadn’t exactly been crowned with success. Jim couldn’t be serious, could he?

“That’s… optimistic,” he said kindly, because he lacked the courage for a straight “no”.

Jim chuckled at his reply, graciously overlooking the worry line between the older man’s brows. Despite Remy’s reservations, he seemed to truly consider this alternative plan. He looked up and down the list for a few moments, then scooted backwards on his chair. “I’ll think about it,” he said to the others. “Gimme a day or two.”

With those words, he got up and smacked the laptop shut, and the group soon dispersed.

While Dick and Viti sauntered off to the stable, Jim picked up his crutches and limped towards the pastures, where Caddy was already waiting for him. As soon as the gelding saw the man, he trotted towards the fence, swishing his full, silky tail. Jim expected him with a smile. It had taken them a good while to warm up to one another, but at last there seemed to be an actual connection.

He lifted the lunge line he’d brought up in the air and let it dangle in front of the bay horse’s nose. “How d’you feel about the roundpen, boy?”

Jim thought he had a bombproof plan. He hated not being able to do anything with the horses other than sitting next to them to watch them graze. He hated how useless he felt - he had to do something, and lunging seemed to be the next best thing. But even holding the rope in one hand and one crutch in the other to keep the weight off his mending leg didn’t turn out to be the solution: he hadn’t reckoned with the overflowing energy of a gelding that hadn’t been in proper work for a while. After something that was more egg than circle, Caddy spooked and took off - and Jim, without a leg to catch himself, tipped over like a domino piece.

This happened one, two more times, until Henry happened to stop by and asked him what he was trying to accomplish.

“Shut up, Nug,” Jim joked as he gathered himself back up. “Get yourself a full leg cast and we’ll talk.”

“Sorry for asking -” Henry replied, his spirits dampened, but not without sass.

“Seriously, what does it look like? Just an idiot who can’t get over the fact that he isn’t good for anything but riding horses, and that he can’t do with a ---ing broken leg.” Grumbling, Jim turned around to pull his gelding closer.

No reply. As Jim peeked over his shoulder, he only saw Henry’s back as he left with large strides of his comically long legs, as if he was offended by something. Jim could’ve punched himself; didn’t he want to be more considerate with his little brother? Truth be told, he still found Henry’s suicide attempt hard to comprehend. Hindsight was damning; apparently there had always been a dark side to his little brother’s life, but unaware of that, and thinking he was just a normal kid like everyone else, he’d picked on him and pulled his leg like all siblings did to each other…

He reached no conclusion. To his surprise, Henry soon turned around the corner again, but this time he was carrying the rolling chair from the office on his bony shoulders. He entered the roundpen, walked past Caddy, who nervously walked backwards at the sight of the scary, new object, and dropped it into the sand next to Jim.

His brother’s face lit up as he realized what Henry’s idea was. Rolling up the lunge, he sat down on the chair sideways, so his cast was propped up nicely, then he signalled Caddy to move forward again. The bay followed his command and made a few tentative steps forward, and as he circled his owner, Jim gave a push with his healthy leg and the chair began to spin.

“You’re a ---ing genius, Henry,” Jim marvelled.

Henry leaned against the fence, satisfied with his solution.

“I don’t get why Dad doesn’t let you go to college,” Jim added. “Does he want this brain to go to waste?”

Henry chuckled at this, giving his brother a shy smile of appreciation as he settled into a more comfortable position with his shoulder blades against the roundpen’s wooden sideboards. He’d stuck one hand into the pocket of his jeans, the other was at his mouth as he nervously pulled at the skin around his fingernails. His weight resting on his left leg, he watched Caddy trot.

A few moments of silence went by, then Jim noticed Henry’s interested look and commented, “He isn’t doing too badly, is he? He’s really settled now… remember how he lunged?”

Henry merely gave a nod.

“Someone needs to ride him until I’m back,” Jim continued. He raised his eyebrows to cast a suggestive glance to Henry, but his brother immediately crossed his arms in defense.

“Uh, no thanks,” he said.

Jim nodded. “Sure, no problem.” He thought a little, then added, “Might just ask Dick, what do you think?”

Henry wasn’t used to being asked for his opinion, and was quick to agree - but immediately checked himself: “Or Viti, maybe?”

That seemed to make sense to Jim, who nodded quietly to himself as the chair spun. With a low “ooooy”, he reined Caddy back to a walk and waited until he was facing his brother again.

“Good idea,” he said, and observed Henry trying to hide a satisfied smile. A spark of connection, there it was.

“Sorry again for asking you to ride Caddy, that wasn’t - I mean, I shouldn’t have.. y’know.”

“It’s okay.”

There was this weird eye contact every time the chair had completed a circle and Jim was facing where Henry stood at the side fence, kind of a similar feeling to having said goodbye to a workmate and then meeting them again in the elevator on the way out.

Henry wanted to say something, but didn’t quite know how. He waited until he saw the back of his brother’s head - not as nicely groomed as pre-accident, he noted - then he finally dared to spit it out. “Jim, can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Um, so... “ Henry began, his voice breathy. “Where would I go if I wanted to go to… um, therapy?”

“Therapy?” Jim’s face appeared again, but instead of the expected amusement, his brother had only pulled up his eyebrows and seemed affirmative.

“Yeah…” Henry answered. “I’ve been talking to a few people online -” He scratched the back of his neck, his other arm pressed to his slender body like he did so often when he felt insecure. “I think it could be a good idea… get some help with all that shit.”

Jim said nothing at first, feeling the awe of being a select Person of Confidence and not wanting to mess things up at what felt like a crucial moment. “Yeah… yeah, that’s a good idea,” he slowly said. “Where would you go, well, honestly... I don’t really know.”

“Oh okay.”

“But, we could check some addresses later, if you’d want.”

“Sure?” Henry’s eyes lit up and his cheeks flushed red. He’d expected an off-hand answer, Jim’s usual snark - but his brother being this accommodating? This was new. But good. Definitely good.

“Sure.”

Henry, somewhat exhausted from the exchange and all the new feelings, excused himself and fled. Jim did a few more spins until he called Caddy to himself to call it a day. “That went surprisingly well,” he said to the bay, who bent his head to nibble at his cast. “But that still leaves the issue of where to go for the summer shows.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

AT LAST! oh man I was so thrilled to be on track with the story but then March happened; long story short I lost all my drive for animating and I still don't really have it back. It's a weird time and I don't want to go into detail that much, but I hope getting to animate our diploma project will change that! Our film is coming along very slowly, we're making progress putting the animatic together and design work is underway... but something is clogging my drive to create, which is pretty weird.

(speaking of, a clogged drain caused my flat to be flooded the past weekend and as long as we haven't gotten the wetness out yet I'm living in the biggest mess which doesn't really help the whole productivity thing xD)

ANYWAY doing this small animation was so healing, it took a while to edit the chapter but I'm pretty happy with it now, so I hope you like it too! It features yous favourites

I hope it's not too confusing with the timeline... the entire storyline happens in 2019, pretty much, but since that takes so long to tell I've started to tell present-day stories as well (Jim's road to Tokyo and the Thibodudes in Canada) - when in doubt just check the dates! If you have feedback, as always feel free to comment

featuring Jim , Henry , Remy , Caddy | Dick by Fibonacho | Viti by Aliyska | Georgie by decors (NOT Georgia T! haha i know it's confusing)

Art (c) by me, reference used: I spun around on a chair

TV Paint Animation, random framerate, background is a pencil drawing that was coloured in Clip Studio Paint, compositing done in After Effectts

Description

Complete Storyline "A Tale Of Two Fathers" Previously | Next

Storyline folder "Breaking Point"
Previously | Next

What previously happened: James has finally tasted success... when a complicated femur fracture puts him out of business. Not long after, his brother Henry tumbles into the worst mental health crisis of his young life and is for a brief moment ready to end it all; which entails serious consequences. His sister Angie, convinced their father is the culprit, goes to the public to defame the patriarch, and soon the family descends into chaos.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

James | May 13, 2019

Music.

The giant desk in the Crosbys’ office was cluttered with folders and documents of all sizes, shapes and importance. In the middle of it all, a massive, ancient laptop - propped up on two stacks of old equestrian apparel catalogues to provide airflow to keep it from overheating; but despite the measure, its fan clattered and hummed laboriously. The leaves of a sad table plant trembled in the warm breeze.

James - seated in his father’s office chair and his right leg put up on a separate one - sighed into the hand he was using to support his chin as he waited for the website to load. Eventually, the flickering screen lit up with text and colour, and both him and the semi-circle of riders behind him leaned forward to take a closer look: a simplified world map, peppered with tiny red dots, and below that, a long list with names and dates.

Remy pointed at the screen. “Here’s where you select the discipline,” he said. “And here is where you select the USA, here where it says ‘NF’...”

As he followed the older man’s directions, Jim felt like a grandpa, marvelling at the wonders of The Internet when laying eyes upon it for the first time. He clicked on the ‘USA’ tag in the drop-down menu - and again the website took excruciatingly long to load. A sigh came from somewhere across the room - Vitoria, who was half-sitting, half leaning against a stack of boxes, one of her feet propped up on the back of the chair Georgie was sitting on. On the other side, Dick towered over them with his arms crossed and his sneaker-clad feet wide apart.

When the website had loaded, Jim looked at it for a second before turning to the Canadian again. “But now it only shows… the shows in the US.”

“Well, yes. Where else do you want to go?”

Shrugging, Jim picked up a little yellow notepad and a short pencil from where they rested next to the laptop.

It was time to make a plan for the summer. Like many things, that had been his father’s area of jurisdiction. Every year he would gather the team around and make a thorough plan for the season; whom to send where, what the big shows were that required most training and attention, and when to put in breaks for each horse. Jim had never been particularly interested in the careful planning and decision-making that was involved in coming up with a sensible plan - and now that came back to bite him. Aimlessly, he scrolled through the list, but his undecidedness made the audience around him impatient. Dick unwrapped his arms and propped himself up on the desk, craning his neck to view the screen. “What would Mr. Cros do?” he offered a solution.

Remy leaned in to help. “Here, the Saugerties Spring Series, then Traverse City, and after that… maybe Bridgehampton and the rest of the HITS shows,” he listed. “That’s how Peter -”

“I know where we usually compete,” Jim interrupted them. “It’s not like we need to do it exactly the same.”

Dick raised an eyebrow. “What’s your plan then?”

Jim fell silent. After having looked at the list for some time, he scrolled back up and deleted the ‘USA’ tag from the search again. As the site reloaded, the number of ‘upcoming shows’ leapt from about 50 to over 600.

Jim let go of the mouse and pointed at the screen with his open hand. “St. Tropez. Knokke. Hickstead,” he read some of the names aloud, a smirk settling on his lips. “Who says we can’t go overseas?”

“The funds?” Remy said.

“We don’t have the third best horse in the States for nothing!” Jim grinned, leaning back in the rolling chair and folding his hands behind his head. He wasn’t wrong - Mike still held the third position in the USEF horse ranking list, even two show-free months after his rider’s accident. “With an experienced rider like you, we’d win the fees back easily.”

Remy’s eyes widened in horror. Had Jim forgotten about his eight faults in the 2* Grand Prix at Old Salem Farm yesterday? The start of his campaign with Mike - as brief as it had been so far - hadn’t exactly been crowned with success. Jim couldn’t be serious, could he?

“That’s… optimistic,” he said kindly, because he lacked the courage for a straight “no”.

Jim chuckled at his reply, graciously overlooking the worry line between the older man’s brows. Despite Remy’s reservations, he seemed to truly consider this alternative plan. He looked up and down the list for a few moments, then scooted backwards on his chair. “I’ll think about it,” he said to the others. “Gimme a day or two.”

With those words, he got up and smacked the laptop shut, and the group soon dispersed.

While Dick and Viti sauntered off to the stable, Jim picked up his crutches and limped towards the pastures, where Caddy was already waiting for him. As soon as the gelding saw the man, he trotted towards the fence, swishing his full, silky tail. Jim expected him with a smile. It had taken them a good while to warm up to one another, but at last there seemed to be an actual connection.

He lifted the lunge line he’d brought up in the air and let it dangle in front of the bay horse’s nose. “How d’you feel about the roundpen, boy?”

Jim thought he had a bombproof plan. He hated not being able to do anything with the horses other than sitting next to them to watch them graze. He hated how useless he felt - he had to do something, and lunging seemed to be the next best thing. But even holding the rope in one hand and one crutch in the other to keep the weight off his mending leg didn’t turn out to be the solution: he hadn’t reckoned with the overflowing energy of a gelding that hadn’t been in proper work for a while. After something that was more egg than circle, Caddy spooked and took off - and Jim, without a leg to catch himself, tipped over like a domino piece.

This happened one, two more times, until Henry happened to stop by and asked him what he was trying to accomplish.

“Shut up, Nug,” Jim joked as he gathered himself back up. “Get yourself a full leg cast and we’ll talk.”

“Sorry for asking -” Henry replied, his spirits dampened, but not without sass.

“Seriously, what does it look like? Just an idiot who can’t get over the fact that he isn’t good for anything but riding horses, and that he can’t do with a ---ing broken leg.” Grumbling, Jim turned around to pull his gelding closer.

No reply. As Jim peeked over his shoulder, he only saw Henry’s back as he left with large strides of his comically long legs, as if he was offended by something. Jim could’ve punched himself; didn’t he want to be more considerate with his little brother? Truth be told, he still found Henry’s suicide attempt hard to comprehend. Hindsight was damning; apparently there had always been a dark side to his little brother’s life, but unaware of that, and thinking he was just a normal kid like everyone else, he’d picked on him and pulled his leg like all siblings did to each other…

He reached no conclusion. To his surprise, Henry soon turned around the corner again, but this time he was carrying the rolling chair from the office on his bony shoulders. He entered the roundpen, walked past Caddy, who nervously walked backwards at the sight of the scary, new object, and dropped it into the sand next to Jim.

His brother’s face lit up as he realized what Henry’s idea was. Rolling up the lunge, he sat down on the chair sideways, so his cast was propped up nicely, then he signalled Caddy to move forward again. The bay followed his command and made a few tentative steps forward, and as he circled his owner, Jim gave a push with his healthy leg and the chair began to spin.

“You’re a ---ing genius, Henry,” Jim marvelled.

Henry leaned against the fence, satisfied with his solution.

“I don’t get why Dad doesn’t let you go to college,” Jim added. “Does he want this brain to go to waste?”

Henry chuckled at this, giving his brother a shy smile of appreciation as he settled into a more comfortable position with his shoulder blades against the roundpen’s wooden sideboards. He’d stuck one hand into the pocket of his jeans, the other was at his mouth as he nervously pulled at the skin around his fingernails. His weight resting on his left leg, he watched Caddy trot.

A few moments of silence went by, then Jim noticed Henry’s interested look and commented, “He isn’t doing too badly, is he? He’s really settled now… remember how he lunged?”

Henry merely gave a nod.

“Someone needs to ride him until I’m back,” Jim continued. He raised his eyebrows to cast a suggestive glance to Henry, but his brother immediately crossed his arms in defense.

“Uh, no thanks,” he said.

Jim nodded. “Sure, no problem.” He thought a little, then added, “Might just ask Dick, what do you think?”

Henry wasn’t used to being asked for his opinion, and was quick to agree - but immediately checked himself: “Or Viti, maybe?”

That seemed to make sense to Jim, who nodded quietly to himself as the chair spun. With a low “ooooy”, he reined Caddy back to a walk and waited until he was facing his brother again.

“Good idea,” he said, and observed Henry trying to hide a satisfied smile. A spark of connection, there it was.

“Sorry again for asking you to ride Caddy, that wasn’t - I mean, I shouldn’t have.. y’know.”

“It’s okay.”

There was this weird eye contact every time the chair had completed a circle and Jim was facing where Henry stood at the side fence, kind of a similar feeling to having said goodbye to a workmate and then meeting them again in the elevator on the way out.

Henry wanted to say something, but didn’t quite know how. He waited until he saw the back of his brother’s head - not as nicely groomed as pre-accident, he noted - then he finally dared to spit it out. “Jim, can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Um, so... “ Henry began, his voice breathy. “Where would I go if I wanted to go to… um, therapy?”

“Therapy?” Jim’s face appeared again, but instead of the expected amusement, his brother had only pulled up his eyebrows and seemed affirmative.

“Yeah…” Henry answered. “I’ve been talking to a few people online -” He scratched the back of his neck, his other arm pressed to his slender body like he did so often when he felt insecure. “I think it could be a good idea… get some help with all that shit.”

Jim said nothing at first, feeling the awe of being a select Person of Confidence and not wanting to mess things up at what felt like a crucial moment. “Yeah… yeah, that’s a good idea,” he slowly said. “Where would you go, well, honestly... I don’t really know.”

“Oh okay.”

“But, we could check some addresses later, if you’d want.”

“Sure?” Henry’s eyes lit up and his cheeks flushed red. He’d expected an off-hand answer, Jim’s usual snark - but his brother being this accommodating? This was new. But good. Definitely good.

“Sure.”

Henry, somewhat exhausted from the exchange and all the new feelings, excused himself and fled. Jim did a few more spins until he called Caddy to himself to call it a day. “That went surprisingly well,” he said to the bay, who bent his head to nibble at his cast. “But that still leaves the issue of where to go for the summer shows.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

AT LAST! oh man I was so thrilled to be on track with the story but then March happened; long story short I lost all my drive for animating and I still don't really have it back. It's a weird time and I don't want to go into detail that much, but I hope getting to animate our diploma project will change that! Our film is coming along very slowly, we're making progress putting the animatic together and design work is underway... but something is clogging my drive to create, which is pretty weird.

(speaking of, a clogged drain caused my flat to be flooded the past weekend and as long as we haven't gotten the wetness out yet I'm living in the biggest mess which doesn't really help the whole productivity thing xD)

ANYWAY doing this small animation was so healing, it took a while to edit the chapter but I'm pretty happy with it now, so I hope you like it too! It features yous favourites

I hope it's not too confusing with the timeline... the entire storyline happens in 2019, pretty much, but since that takes so long to tell I've started to tell present-day stories as well (Jim's road to Tokyo and the Thibodudes in Canada) - when in doubt just check the dates! If you have feedback, as always feel free to comment

featuring Jim , Henry , Remy , Caddy | Dick by Fibonacho | Viti by Aliyska | Georgie by decors (NOT Georgia T! haha i know it's confusing)

Art (c) by me, reference used: I spun around on a chair

TV Paint Animation, random framerate, background is a pencil drawing that was coloured in Clip Studio Paint, compositing done in After Effectts