The Cyclops and the Existential Dread of Being

Two years ago, July 22nd 2022, was the day I was hit by a car and my life changed forever. I refer to it as my Baptism of Pain. I look back on who I used to be before that day and I don’t connect with her at all, she was a lost, frivolous, materialistic, childish girl. 

Then I was thrown straight down to Hell, but I crawled out, my eye wide open. Full of venom.

Is my life better now? Depends on how you define it, my life isn’t happier, or safer, or less lonely. But it is better because I finally see the truth. I see the cruelty human beings are capable of, even family, friends, and doctors. I see now how utterly alone we all are, and any authority you turn to is ultimately looking to exploit you.

I had once walked through life like a dream, believing that we lived in a world of order, and justice, and reason. Always assuming that, should the worst happen, someone would rescue me. Oh, some people pretended to rescue me, but they ended up hurting me worst of all.

No, hope is a mistake, trust is a delusion. 

I saved myself. 

Following the accident, my world became very small, I was just trying to survive, trying to endure the pain. I used to be an avid consumer of stories, not anymore. I don’t connect to much of it these days. But there were two characters I understood and who I could draw strength from. Big Boss of Metal Gear Solid, and Guts from Berserk. Through them I saw the same existential dread reflected, how does one begin again when everything has been taken from you? How does one continue in a life destined for suffering? Why continue struggling day after day when there can be no hope of peace in one’s future?

The answer is, you abandon the very concept of hope and replace it with willpower. I stick around almost out of spite, I’m still standing because I will it so, despite my body’s protestations. 

Wisdom coming at the cost of an eye is a price the god Odin himself paid. It is fitting then that Snake and Guts had their awakenings after their right eyes were blinded. Mercifully, I wasn’t injured so severely, but the Ptosis in my left eye has become a constant feature in my life, almost a trademark. It is the most visible mark of that baptism. 

One might imagine I would become bitter, and angry, and removed from society, and for a while, I was. I had every right to. But no, I later developed my own moral code to live by:

Strength. Truth. Integrity.

I choose to put the love and kindness into the world that I was never shown. I choose to love, and to love fearlessly, with not even the hope of reciprocation or even a thanks. I love you and I want the best for you. I want to help you in the ways I never was. I want you to feel safe and that you can trust me.

I’m not going to let this horrible world defeat me, I am going to defeat it with love.

I cannot be hurt anymore.

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Drawing Blood from Stone

“Drawing Blood from Stone”
This is a personal piece I’ve been working on for months, it’s taken me a long time to learn to work with colour.

This image came to my mind fully formed one day. It’s a visual manifestation of how I’ve been treated these past few years by those who I thought I could love and trust.

There are various tellings of Medusa’s story. The one I’m working with says that she was punished by Athena for having an affair with Poseidon. Her only crime was seeking love. And from then on she could no longer be loved, for every heart around her turned to stone.

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Cosplay Couture Peter Pan

From the archives, January 2014:

Cosplay Couture interpretation of Peter Pan

Costume and styling by Courtney Coulson

Photography by Luke Milton

Location University of Western Australia

Re-read Barrie’s Peter Pan if it’s been a while. I forgot how clever and twisted it is. Peter is an anarchic supernatural character who does whatever the hell he pleases. We’ve become too familiar with the watered down film versions so, once we returned to the original text, I was especially excited to explore a more tribal and chaotic Pan. Once again we were very lucky with local environments. You could travel quite far to capture this lush, jungle-like wilderness which is really just a patch of garden not too far from here.

– Luke Milton

Disney has the power to completely dominate people’s imaginations to the point that they can’t imagine certain characters any other way. After being pleasantly surprised by Frankenstein I wondered what other classics novels I was missing out on, I love the Peter Pan animated film but it doesn’t quite capture Barrie’s unique way with words nor the darker side of Neverland. Indeed it seems beautiful and inviting but this is a world where there is but a thin line between fantasy and reality and time, there’s this vague implaceable sense of unease.

Peter Pan embodies these qualities, his memories and imagination are interchangeable and he seems to be able to influence his world with his thoughts alone. Peter is ultimately an antihero, he can come off as a sociopath at times because he is so selfish and unempathetic, but these are the qualities of a very young boy, which is fine except he’s really centuries old and the leader of the Lost Boys, there’s an air of danger about him. He’s unpredictable, driven by impulse and seldom listens to reason, he’s also quite powerful.

Barrie is intentionally vague about Peter’s appearance, a beautiful young boy still with his first teeth  and “clad in skeleton leaves and the juices that flow from trees”. So I wanted his environment to influence his costume, not just nature but from what he had scavenged from the pirates and the natives.

As a nod to the Disney film I couldn’t resist adding the bandana as a take on his usual cap, I believe it’s what makes the character instantly recognisable.

-Courtney Coulson

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Cosplay Couture Khan

From the archives December 2013:

Cosplay Couture interpretation of Khan Noonien Singh/John Harrison from Star Trek: Into Darkness

Costume (Shirt, jacket and coat) and styling by Courtney Coulson

Photography by Luke Milton

Location Claremont Quarter carpark

I love Star Trek, Benedict Cumberbatch, Khan and the costume designer Michael Kaplan and this year they all came together in one to create a seriously cool villain.

The moment I saw Khan I was in love with his fashion-forward look, Benedict always rocks the long coats and high collars. And that hair, I had to get it cut like that whether I did this shoot or not, it’s so damn cool!

My auburn hair has kind of become a signature part of my look throughout these shoots, but every once in awhile I find it’s not approriate for a certain character, Khan being one of them. I used a temporary rinse, the auburn still kind of shows through, but it’s darker at least.

I spent a long time really considering the designs and styling, I redesigned the silver coat a few times. The black jacket is a reference to the shirt he wears once he has been taken aboard the Enterprise with subtle nods to the other variations of the Starfleet uniform. For these designs I was looking at asymmetry and complex lines, triangular shapes being my main inspiration. There’s something about triangles that are aggressive and masculine to me.

Khan wears five coats in total, two silver, one black and one brown, the fifth being the alternate brown coat he wears in some promotional photos which has a similar but distinctly different look to the one used in the film. My silver coat is a mash-up of all of them. I chose silver because nothing sells the idea of futuristic like silver. The upper half is lined with a silk/cotton which was originally peach, when I dyed it grey it still retained a lot of that pinky quality on the other side. Unfortunately it doesn’t really read on camera but it does have an odd shimmery quality, grey with flecks of pinks and purple. The collar and right lapel is quilted, which was the most time consuming part. The lower half of the coat was left deliberately unlined to keep it as light as possible, it creates quite a dramatic look when walking or it’s windy.

And it was pretty windy when we shot, great for the coat, but not so much for the hair. I had to use so much product and continually comb it to keep it up. Thankfully Khan has it down just as often as he has it slicked back so I had options to play with.

The last time I “played” Benedict, in my Sherlock shoot, I kept the make-up fairly subtle and androgynous, it was all about trying to emulate the shape of his face. This time around I did pretty much the same thing with the exception of the eyes. I went with a really heavy all black smokey eye, because nothing says fashionably badass quite like it!

Finally the biggest challenge turned out to be body language/mannerisms. I have spent quite a while studying the way Khan moves, it’s this distinct, rigid economy of movement. He’s got the posture of a supersoldier as you would expect. Although he gets to move around a lot in combat, his general state of being is standing or sitting perfectly straight with only the slightest robotic tilts of his head. Usually I try to mix a bit of fashion modelling in there, but it felt wrong for Khan, in fact a lot of things did. So Khan ended up being more subtle in a way, I focused on channelling that imposing unnatural posture, the intense facials expressions.

-Courtney Coulson

Courtney is by far a bigger fan than I am of this particular character, and to be honest it wasn’t something I was overly excited about when we first started discussing this one. However, seeing the amazing designs for the jacket quickly changed my mind. I love the sleekness and audaciousness of futuristic clothing – it’s hard thing to get right, but I think Courtney managed to find that balance. I knew straight away that the silver jacket was going to be the star of the shoot and she ended up making the very impressive black under jacket as well.

Location wise this was all about finding sleek, white, metal environments. The car park is a little grungier than I intended but I still think it works. Khan is often seen operating within the futuristic city in the film, so it’s not a bad fit, even when nondescript signage and things appear in the background. I really wanted these to almost look black and white, with the main bursts of colour being the lips and eyes. The goal was to make things as slick as absolutely possible.

Luke Milton

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Metal Gear Triptych: Postscript

I tried to get this comic done in time for the one year anniversary of the hit-and-run on July 22nd. Then I had a power outage in my house for nearly an entire week. Oh well, my life is just a series of challenges. This comic is something of a closer, a postscript, to my journey of healing.

One year ago I nearly died, I couldn’t walk, couldn’t trust my own brain, I was abandoned and threatened by my family. MGSV allowed me to both escape my pain and confront it. I was Venom Snake, waking up with amnesia to a world that didn’t make sense, sadly there was no Revolver Ocelot on a white horse to save me. I was Kazuhira Miller, burned by my own rage, rendered unable to walk, thankfully they were able to put pins in my broken leg and save it. Then there was the nerve damage causing a constant phantom pain all over my body.

I’m stronger now than I was before the accident, I’ve started bodybuilding, and practicing Krav Maga, I’ve nearly returned to full-time work, finally got my driver’s license and I’m trying to join the army reserves. Metal Gear saved me from suicide, it’s inspired my art and costumes and writing, it’s motivated me to live and become something formidable.

All this pain, reminds me of what I am, I’ll live, I’ll become all I need to be.

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