Welcome to the sci-fi fantasy electronic and alternative opera... I'm a secular Atheist/Agnostic that leans toward Buddhism and Taoism, but I do eat meat and fish. Chicken, pork and seafood mostly, but every once in a while I eat beef. I don't play guitar and I've never owned a guitar in my life, but they certainly sound good in the hands of a skilled player. Nobody has black skin, and nobody has white skin and no two people have *exactly* the same skin colour and that's a scientific fact: *everyone* has an entirely unique skin colour.

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Canada. True North Strong And Free. Free As in Friends. English. French. Multinational. We bicker with heart and very much so with a future for all in mind..

Friday, May 29, 2026

Shhhh! Digital Media Presents: Era of the Spellbound: Episode 14 - The Victory of Disaster (Started May 29, 2026 15:30 EST)


Despite this storyline taking place mostly in Shepperton off the Thames, United Kingdom, it is entirely written in Moss Park, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Shepperton is close to my heart in ideas rather than kilometers.

I am Brian Joseph Johns and this is Shhhh! Digital Media at https://www.shhhhdigital.com or https://www.shhhhdigital.ca in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701.




 

I am Brian Joseph Johns and this is Shhhh! Digital Media at https://www.shhhhdigital.com or https://www.shhhhdigital.ca in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701.


[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]

Do you like Dark Fantasy, Sword and Sorcery, while forever averting the greed of the Stygian Empire or the Priests of Set?



Chapters

  1. Nothing But A Kiss (Started May 29, 2026)

This content is produced by the artists indicated on the site, including myself, Brian Joseph Johns.

I, under no circumstance will trade, barter or otherwise swap my own identity for that of another person and I protect the same right for those who've contributed their artwork to the various projects under my management at Shhhh! Digital Media, my own company, no matter the colour symbolism involved. These rights are protected by law under the Charter Of Rights And Freedoms under section 7.


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If you enjoy reading the content on this website, then please consider making a donation to one of the following charities below, or by supporting Shhhh! Digital Media directly. Every little bit helps.

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Please support education and information access where you can in addition to these charities:


Muscular Dystrophy Canada
Muscular Dystrophy Canada’s mission is to enhance the lives of those affected by neuromuscular disorders by continually working to provide ongoing support and resources while relentlessly searching for a cure through well-funded research.


Sick Kids Foundation - Check out the Sick Kids Raffle!
Help research that provides cures and support treatment for sick children. 


Creating a world of possibility for kids and youth with disabilities.


David Suzuki Foundation
David's 90th Birthday!
Through evidence-based research, education and policy analysis, we work to conserve and protect the natural environment, and help create a sustainable Canada. We regularly collaborate with non-profit and community organizations, all levels of government, businesses and individuals.


The Cancer Research Institute
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Cancer Research organizations that combine the expertise of many different research firms and Universities to find innovative treatments and cures for Cancer.


Donate directly to FireAid today to help us start rebuilding our community. Direct donations will be distributed under the advisement of the Annenberg Foundation and will be distributed for short-term relief efforts and long-term initiatives to prevent future fire disasters throughout Southern California.


United Nations Fund
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World Veterans Federation (Under Reconstruction) [Wikipedia]
The World Veterans Federation is a humanitarian organisation, a charity and a peace activist movement. The WVF maintains its consultative status with the United Nations since 1951 and was conferred the title of “Peace Messenger” in 1987.


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."

Ralph Bunche, Nobel Peace Prize 1950


The Reeve Foundation provides programs for research, uniting Scientists and Specialists from many different fields to find treatments for spinal cord injury translating them into therapies and support programs.


For over 60 years, Heart & Stroke has been dedicated to fighting heart disease and stroke. Our work has saved thousands of lives and improved the lives of millions of others.


The ALS Society Of BC
ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease) is a progressive neuromuscular disease in which nerve cells die and leave voluntary muscles paralyzed. The ALS society provides a variety of programs to combat this disease and help those with it to survive.


Humane Society International
The Humane Society protects the health, lives and rights of animals the world over, ensuring that they too have a voice in this world. We are interdependent upon the complex web of life this entire planet over for our mutual survival. This is a world wide charity.


The Global Foodbanking Network
Ensuring that people the world over have enough food day to day in order to survive and lead healthy lives. In this challenging day and age services like this are becoming more and more essential. This is a world wide charity.


The Edgar Allan Poe Museum
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.


Wikipedia
The model for what may become the Encyclopedia Galactica, a complete reference and record of history, events and knowledge of humanity and its journey beyond. It is the encyclopedia of all that we know, what we surmise that we've known and will learn in the future. Yes, Wikipedia is a charitable organization of great importance. If you enjoy what I am doing here then please take the time to donate to Wikipedia. Surprisingly only 1% of Wikipedia's users donate yet the site serves pages to millions every day.


Humble Bundle
A video gaming storefront benefiting a vast variety of different Charities in the United States and United Kingdom (hopefully soon to be expanded to include other areas of the world?). By software their software bundles and choose which Charity your money benefits and how much of your money benefits that Charity. See? Gamers can do their part too.


Multiple Sclerosis is a degenerative disease currently affecting an estimated 2.3 million world wide. By donating you are contributing to effective research in finding a cure and tipping the scales of MS research to change lives forever.


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Thank you for your support

Shhhh! Digital Media

Brian Joseph Johns


Shhhh! Digital Media Presents:

Tales of the Sanctum: Era of the Spellbound - Episode 9: The Tarot Be Joined

by Brian Joseph Johns





Nothing But A Kiss




Shaela sat silently in the kitchen poised precariously upon the stool that held her. She was leaned forward, her elbow on the island countertop before which she sat, her chin propped upon her hand of the same arm of that elbow as she waited for Mila to return from the front door.


Instead, she was greeted with an eerie and disheartening silence, given the nature of the subject they'd previously been discussing. Yet, she waited, shifting from arm to arm (and elbow to elbow) as she did, until she could wait no more.


"Mila? You do have a house guest here you know, as familiar as I am to you..." Shaela said with simultaneously accentuated interest and boredom, hoping that either sentiment would draw Mila back to finish their conversation, given the importance of its subject matter.


Her response was silence. Plain and simple, though with Mila, nothing ever truly was as such.


Shaela stepped up onto her Doctor Martens and stepped around through the living room (which Mila seldom used except to clean it), pausing long enough to admire one of her paintings along the way, and then continuing along towards the front foyer and finally to where the door still stood open and...


Wes' eyes were already open, for her simply couldn't keep them off of Mila as he kissed her. The subtle curl of her eyelashes and the pointed curve of her eye's edge, revealing a little pocket of her eye white beneath, as she stared off into the dream-space of their kiss.


Despite his eyes being focused solely upon her, he couldn't help but catch the reflection of Shaela's bright red hair, the sunlight catching it and illuminating it as if it were fluorescent. Even from the extents of his peripheral vision.


Mila only stopped when she felt his lips and tongue suddenly become stationary, as if he'd somehow become inanimate. Her eyes opened as her lips pulled away from his, and she noticed that he was staring off into the space just to her left, and slightly behind her.


She turned, adjusting her top as she did, and completely suspecting of who she might spy within her gaze thereupon. However, she'd given no thought as to what she might say.


However, she didn't have to say anything at all, as Wes said it all. Stumbling over his own words, and perhaps his own guilt.


"Shaela...? I... I didn't know you were..." Wes' words jumped from him before Mila had a chance to address her guest.


Shaela had honestly felt nothing offensive about what she'd witnessed, perhaps a tinge of guilt over having breached its sanctity. That was until Wes had opened his mouth and vented his own guilt upon her, as if that very kiss was meant for her, and only for her.


"My best friend. There you are, and with a kiss that has thoroughly killed my heart..." Shaela flashed a glance to Mila as she spoke, and at the moment she felt Shaela's weave in her most sensitive parts.


Only briefly, and perhaps unintentionally, but it was there nonetheless. 


"Shaela... two of us made that choice. Together. Don't hold it..." Mila began, but before she'd finished, Shaela had ventured back into Mila's home towards the kitchen, disappearing around the corner a distance beyond the front doorstep and foyer.


Mila followed Shaela, as did Wes, just behind her but by the time they'd reached the kitchen, only  the echoes of Shaela's exit portal remained.


Mila went to step into the portal after her, but Wes grabbed her arm and held her back.


"You'd be going in blind! Don't! I was there when she studied trans-locational shadow weave. Its dangerous, Mila. Don't follow her. Its designed to trap her adversaries, and she likely didn't realize she'd used that method before stepping into it..." Wes held onto her tightly, not daring to let her go, for he knew what lay in wait for her if she did.


"But... we're both..." Mila resisted him, perhaps some distant echo of her dedication to her craft. As if Shaela was somehow beyond it. A divide as Mila's want of Wes grabbed hold of her.


"Why should I have to justify my love life... to my friends... to one of my best friends. A Wytch like myself..." Mila instead of struggling against him, turned to face him.


"No. Mila, Shaela is not a Wytch like yourself..." Wes held onto her arm, as the portal opening fluctuated not unlike the petals of a growing flower, rippling with the urgency of life as if beckoning her.


As if it had watched her pruning her Bonsai, as she shaped her ever expanding world around her home. Shaping the entire community, one branch - one clipping at a time. Shaping reality like any architect. An artist in the truest sense.


"You are so different. But you are not what that book of shadows instructed about the weave. It was darkness of the purest sense. Purposeful. Secretive. That tunnel twisting into our reality...? Its a trap. She did not intend it, but its a trap nonetheless. Everything about Shadow Wytches is deceit and deception. Stealth on an entirely different level. Do not chance it," Wes urged her as he held onto her.


"But I'm..." Mila began.


"Capable? You most certainly are. Many times over, but for a different purpose. Work with Shaela... and do not follow her. Ever. Promise me, that when we see Nelony again, that we'll tell her the same. Urge her never to do as such," Wes pleaded with her.


Happiu~isuka's claws could be heard clicking upon the hardwood floor as he clunked down the last step from Mila's upstairs and into the living area where they'd stopped.


"R.r.r.r.r.rrrRUFF!" the little dog barked at the two of them, perhaps grouchy, or hungry, or both.


By that time, Mila and Wes were already lip-locked.


To be continued...


Written by Brian Joseph Johns and this is Shhhh! Digital Media at https://www.shhhhdigital.com or https://www.shhhhdigital.ca in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701.


Credits and attribution:


Special thanks to Udemy, whose courses I have relied upon for the last few years to allow me to grow my skills at my own pace, even finding time between my frantic work pace here at Shhhh! Digital Media.


Thank you to ComfyCloud, whose web based desktop interface and cloud based rendering solution is one of the best solutions I've found yet. I first learned of ComfyUI from YouTubers MickMumPitz and PixelArtistry. If you're looking to get into using AI on your local machine under ComfyUI, then I'd highly suggest checking either of their sites for tutorials covering the topics you'd like to explore.

Thank you to Grok AI (via ComfyCloud) who was the key artist behind: (Danger Tiger), (Tea Reading), (Sailors at Port), (King's Court), Tarot Cards: (The King of Pentacles), (The Page of Swords), (The World), (The Inverted Hanging Man)

The image of the glossy red nail polished thumb holding the inverted tarot card was sourced from Paloma Glow, and in accordance with the Creative Commons 4.0 license, as found by this search on Google under images, where the license details are indicated.

Thank you to Kling O1 Image (via ComfyCloud) who was the key artist behind: (Nathalie and Gwendolyn).

Thanks to this Reddit post for the interpretation of The Hanged Man Inverted.


Special thanks to Perplexity AI and their Comet browser, who have recently become a part of my software toolkit. Their AI powered helpers accelerate your research, reference at every step of the way, not to mention built in tools for content generation, though Shhhh! Digital Media does not rely on text generation for any of its stories, though I do work with AI for suggestions, and scientific accuracy of concepts in Butterfly Dragon, and for delving into the more esoteric traditions of mysticism that are aligned with the story and background of Era of the Spellbound.


Special Thanks to the Natural History Museum in London, England and of course to the Royal Ontario Museum in my own home of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.


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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