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This content is produced in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and written by Brian Joseph Johns. There is no Shhhh! Digital Media in New York that has anything to do with this Shhhh! Digital Media in Canada, not to mention I've never been to New York.

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Tuesday, August 12, 2025

Tales Of The Sanctum: The Era Of The Spellbound - Episode 3: Ghosts Of A Distant Future (Started August 12, 2025 11:00 AM EST) - Written by Brian Joseph Johns

  [Spellbound - Siouxie And The Banshees] 


Do you like enigmatic characters, engrossing story, magic and the ever atemporal weave?

Play Baldur's Gate 3 [On Steam]


Oh, and hate isn't love and love isn't hate. Sincerity rather than polarity :-)

I'm very much on the red white, red black and red yellow team of my Shhhh! Digital Media colours. None of this content is produced at Dixon Hall Heyworth House. No blue yellow team for me.

I've never had hepatitis or any other sexually transmitted disease in my life, though I'd never abuse or harass anyone over their health issues, nor make health issues related to my body the weight of other people.

This content is created and produced at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Chapters

  1. Reali-Tea


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I'd like to point out that it was the incredible Gary Sinese Foundation that brought the issue of Veteran's rights to my attention. I've always had little respect for those who'd forget the great contribution made by those who've risked life and limb to defend those values that so many of us espouse. Perhaps the true measure of one's principles are by that for which they'd risk their life.

"None can speak more eloquently for peace than those who have fought in war."

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Because Barris told me to put it here. If I didn't, he said he'd walk. Geez. Stardom really gets to some people's heads. Maybe I could kill him and bury his heart beneath the floor boards! Or I could encase him in behind a brick and mortar wall, for shaming my family name of Amantillado! 

In all truth, there's a good chance that thanks to the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Jonathan Swift, Mary Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson, Herbert George Wells, Jules Verne, Dr. Seuss, Stephen King, Clive Barker and Pierre Burton (for The Secret World Of Og and his ground breaking interview of Bruce Lee) that all of us are literate. Actually that goes back much farther to the Phoenecians and their first 22 character system of symbols. Literacy is important. Really it is. Literally. It allows us to approach our employer at the end of the week (with a big club) and ask: where my money?! Math important too. It help us count our thirteen fingers and toes.


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Shhhh! Digital Media

Brian Joseph Johns



Reali-Tea

Summer, 2006


Neville walked slightly ahead of the group, with Nelony keeping pace beside him. She paid him little regard as he vied for the attention of the group. His voice most often the loudest and interrupting, a fact that Nelony had come to put up with.

In a way, she felt sorry for him, for it was obvious that he was always trying to jut his way into the like of others, rather than simply being comfortable with himself.

Gone were their school uniforms, their attire much more casual and expressive as teenagers on the front doorstep of adulthood.

Nelony was dressed very casually and comfortably, and despite the growing heat, her latest plant necklace hung in place, centered on her breastplate. Its green leaves and bright yellow flower standing out prominently beneath her cherry red lips.

Neville wore a stylish t-shirt, a rather expensive one for which he'd saved his pay from his part-time job for two weeks to be able to afford. The shirt sported a grafitti like motif in a variety of bright colours, the sleeves just short enough that they revealed the stylish tattoos on both of his arms.

Shaela walked side by side with Mila, Wes between the two of them despite the fact that they talked around him, though they both enjoyed having his company where it was. He remained quiet mostly, enjoying hearing their banter and remarking little unless directly broached by them.

Shaela of course wore the darkest of gothic shades, a long black lace figure hugging dress spanning down to her Doctor Martens, which fit her style perfectly. Her face was pale white with foundation, while her eyes were dark with eye shadow and liner, while her deep red lips underlined her entire look, her forboding blue eyes standing out amidst the cacaphony of shades.

Mila on the other hand was the apparent bookend antithesis, wearing a white summer dress and a white sun hat, protecting her pale complexion and make-up accented natural look, while Wes between the two of them seemed to be a great bridge for the dichotomy of their styles. He lay somewhere between gothic while still sporting a loose fitting tie and a tweed vest atop of his button down shirt. His dyed black hair, messy and spiked.

"No skateboard today Neville?" asked Shaela confronted him during a moment silence in their conversation.

"The bearing casings are shot. Besides, I'm kind of done with it. Saving up for a moped. That way, I can pick Nelony up and drive her to summer school," Neville admitted to them.

"Maybe in your dreams, but not on my flower here," Nelony responded defensively, gesturing to her eco-necklace.

"Can't blame a guy for trying," Neville's attention span was short, and after he'd replied to Nelony, he directed his gaze to another blonde haired girl ahead of them on the sidewalk.

"Excuse me miss. You dropped something," Neville ran up to her, and handed her a slip of paper he'd withdrawn from his pocket.

She looked at the slip of paper and her eyes rolled.

She picked up her pace to get away from them.

"I love it when they run. I might not want what I haven't got, but I want more than anything what I cannot have..." Neville laughed as the girl ahead of them picked up her pace, seemingly unphased by the rejection he'd just experienced.

"You disgust me!" Nelony smirked at Neville.

"What? Would you think better of me if I'd been crushed by your rejection of me? Who's the creep now?" Neville challenged her.

"You! Instead of waiting and trying again with me later, you instead went right away for the nearest woman matching my description! You don't want what you cannot have. You want what takes the least effort!" Nelony reasoned with him, perhaps slightly flustered that he'd embarrassed both her and the other woman he'd approached.

"Are you saying that you're worth it?" Neville countered her.

"You have no clue, do you?!!!" Nelony responded.

"If you'd have waited and tried again with her later, that would mean that you really want her!" Wes responded to Neville's antics.

"You're just jealous that I went for someone else, not to mention, you'd have preferred it if I was destroyed by your rejection. Gives you a sense of power!" Neville turned his back on her just as they arrived at the front door of their favourite tea shop: Reali-Tea.

"Lets just get our morning tea and crumpets and get to class..." Shaela interjected.

"I take it that you two have a history?" asked Mila of Nelony and Neville, as Wes secretly tried to stop her from asking, shaking his head and mouthing: NO! NO! several times.

Just as Neville was about to answer Mila, the loud siren of an ambulance interrupted their conversation as it pulled up to the corner shop next to the tea shop.

A pair of paramedics jumped out of the ambulance and retrieved a gurney from the back of the vehicle, then wheeling it into the front door of the corner-lot shop.

"What happened?" asked Nelony, turning to face the shop.

"That's the store that old man runs..." Neville responded as a crowd slowly started to gather.

Neville and Wes peered into the window of the shop, catching a glimpse of the paramedics performing Cardio-Pulminary rescucitation on a balding, older man who lay on the floor unmoving.

"I think he's pushing up daisies..." Neville remarked, looking to the flower around Nelony's neck.

"Sorry..." Neville added, a look of mischievous malice on his face.

Nelony just shook her head in disgust, when out of the corner of her eyes, she caught a glimpse of a man leaving the shop. 

A familiar man, in a hood and cloak.

"Look! Its Mr. Norbid!" Nelony exclaimed, as the man turned to get a glimpse of her.

Their eyes met and time seemed to stand still.

"One by one they all will fall. The truth be gone and that is all," Mr. Norbid said to her as time remained at a stand still.

"No!" Nelony tried to scream, but nothing, no sound, no air came out.

Mr. Norbid then turned and disappeared around the corner and a moment later, time resumed.

"Who did you see?!!!" asked Wes of Nelony.

"It was... I... I can't remember..." Nelony responded, the name and face now gone from her memory.

Nelony saw a vision of a withered squirrel caught in the grip of a man who's face she could not recall.

"What happened?" asked Mila of Wes and Nelony.

"I saw someone... someone who hurts squirrels... He... I can't remember. His name was just on the tip of my tongue..." Nelony responded, once again receiving a blurred flash of a memory.

"He was wearing a cloak and maybe a hood..." Nelony shook her head.

"I think the old man's gone..." Wes looked inside of the store through the glass window.

A bald Japanese man well into his nineties appeared shriveled and gaunt, his face lifeless as he lay on the gurney.

The paramedics pulled a plastic cover over his face and wheeled him out to the ambulance.

Mila watched as the old man was carted over to the back of the vehicle and carefully fastened within.

The life that had once flowed through his body now long gone.

Shaela looked up at the sign above the shop's front door:

Sato's Curios And Treasures.


Within the shop, they heard a yelping sound, as if coming from a tiny animal.

Nelony and Mila immediately ran in through the front door of the shop, and wandered within until they found an apartment in the back. There within on a tiny cushion within a wooden box, a tiny pug puppy jumped up at the sides, yelping at them playfully.

"He's got nowhere to go. They'll put him down..." Nelony spoke sadly as she bent down to comfort the poor little animal.

Mila quickly grabbed a tiny blanket that lay beside the wooden box and used it to line her purse. She then bent over and picked up the puppy ever so carefully and placed him gently in the purse.

"He's got a home now. I wonder if he's got a name?" Mila stroked his head, as Nelony bent over and picked up a card that had been fastened to the wooden box.

"Here," Nelony handed the card to Mila, who then opened it and read it aloud:

To my best friend Mishima Sato on his birthday. May this new friend bring you much joy and luck!

B.W.

PS: His name is Happiu~isuka.

"That's Japanese isn't it? What does Happiu~isuka mean?" Nelony asked Mila.

"I think it means: vomits happiness..." Mila responded, then looking to the puppy, who'd just vomited in her purse.

As Mila gently wiped the puppy's face with a tissue, a frail old man suddenly grabbed her wrist.

She looked to his face, and for a moment saw someone very familiar to her, the feeling quickly receding only a moment later.

The withered old man stared at her for a moment, a distant and forboding look in his eye. He released her wrist, and then turned and headed out of the door of the shop, and for the ambulance, getting in the back to accompany the deceased man on the gurney on his voyage to the morgue.

"Mila. We'd better get out of here. I have a very bad feeling about this..." Shaela arrived from outside of the shop.

"Keep the puppy safe. Lets get our tea and make it to class," Nelony urged Mila, Neville and Wes now tapping on the glass window from outside and urging them to pick up their pace.

The five of them made their way into Reali-Tea to get their tea and crumpets as a group of local workers arrived to seal off the old man's shop, putting a sign across the door:

CLOSED PERMANENTLY. 

THOSE INTERESTED IN THE PROPERTY MAY SEND INQUIRIES TO SHEPPERTON REAL ESTATE AGENCY.

To be continued...


Credits and attribution:

Special Thanks To Rocket Fuel Lakeshore Blvd West, perhaps the best place in history to get a coffee, circa 2001-2004. Miss you all very much.

Artwork: Amy Wong, Wendy Pusey, Ghastly, Birdman, Brian Joseph Johns, Daz3D, Unreal Engine...

Tools: Daz3D, Corel Painter, Adobe Photoshop, Lightwave 3D, Blender, Stable Diffusion (Easy Diffusion distribution), InstantID, Sadtalker, Google Colaboratory, Microsoft Copilot (Windows 11), Hitfilm, PhotoPea (a great web based Photoshop stand-in if you're on a low budget or in a pinch), Borderline Obsession...

DeepSeek AI for suggestions on exercises to improve aspects of describing scene and settings with a more sensory focused grammar.

InstantID by: Wang, Qixun and Bai, Xu and Wang, Haofan and Qin, Zekui and Chen, Anthony. Research Paper Title: InstantID - Zero-shot Identity-Preserving Generation in Seconds.

Sadtalker by: Zhang, Wenxuan and Cun, Xiaodong and Wang, Xuan and Zhang, Yong and Shen, Xi and Guo, Yu and Shan, Ying and Wang, Fei.
Research Paper Title: SadTalker: Learning Realistic 3D Motion Coefficients for Stylized Audio-Driven Single Image Talking Face Animation.

Gratitude: Our Mentors, Senseis, Sifus, Sebomnims, lifetime inspirations, family, friends, the Nomads (ask Stanton about that one), the Music, the Movies, the Theatre, the Arts, ASMR, (both YouTube and Bilibili and the many other creators on those platforms), the Gaming and Developer communities and of course, the audience.

Martial Arts (in the words of real experts and at least one comedian): https://brucelee.com (home of the real Dragon and an entire family of inspirations), http://iwco.online International Wing Chun Organization (International presence of a very scalable intensity martial art, protected and developed by Shaolin Nun Ng Mui) and the alma mater of Jinn Hua's own specialized variation thereof, https://iogkf.com International Okinawan Goju-Ryu Karatedo Federation (even Hanshi had his teachers), https://itftkd.sport International Taekwondo Federation (Here there be Taegers), https://tangsoodoworld.com Tang Soo Do World (the path of Grandmaster Chuck Norris), https://www.aikido-international.org International Aikido Federation (how else would Navy Chef Steven Seagal liberate a Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier from a team of hijackers?), https://www.stqitoronto.com Shaolin Temple Quanfa Institute (The City Of Toronto's own Shaolin Temple), https://www.enterthedojoshow.com Master Ken's Ameri-Te-Do presence (If we can't laugh at ourselves, then we can at least laugh the loudest at others, and other Zen)

Magic (performance, illusion and perhaps the real thing): Magic Week Archive (I'm currently growing this section so stay tuned)

Special thanks to Aitrepreneur, Mickmumpitz, Hugging Face and the YouTube educational content producers, including those catering to the AI content production pipeline and of course AlphaSignal.

Shi Heng Yi Shaolin Training For Self Mastery 
A reknowned Sifu under whose tutelage you can study the theory and practical applications of the Shaolin Arts for health, physical and mental wellbeing in every day life

Shi Heng Yi Shaolin Training For Self Mastery 
A reknowned Sifu under whose tutelage you can study the theory and practical applications of the Shaolin Arts for health, physical and mental wellbeing in every day life

Jesse Enkamp: Karate Nerd
Jesse, a reknowned Sensei who runs his own dojo, explores the world of Martial Arts, traveling to many exotic locations to meet practitioners of a variety of different arts

Sensei Rokas: Martial Arts Journey
A reknowned Sensei of Aikido who in seeking to understand the roots of Aikido and its applications, seeks to stress test its effectiveness in a number of real world situations while studying its history

Seamus O'Dowd
An extensive growing archive Katas, Techniques and Waza (mostly Shotokan)

Iaido: Train For Katana Mastery Like Samurai 
The original weapons focused curriculum under which Samurai became masters of their art

Tapp Brothers Exercise For Better Motion 
Extensive courses for calisthenics and body strength, stamina and flexibility

Special thanks to Canva for inspiring other creators and giving them the tools

Special thanks to Captain Crunch and his wonderful sister!

Special thanks to Bandcamp for giving indie music artists a home under one roof

Something to give you perspective: The very first teacher had no formal education, didn't graduate and was self taught, but only because they had no other choice. We do.

This content is entirely produced in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701 under the Shhhh! Digital Media banner.

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