Chapter Text
The Start
The puppet maker stood desolate within the shed he called a workshop, but also his home. All his works surrounded him, the greatest of the great & the worst of the worst. It all reminded him of a future he knew he would never have. A want for fame led him to create until he felt like there was nothing left to create & his time was up, a life wasted on making things that never got to see the day of light.
But he loved his works, even if the world didn’t even know they existed. He had perfected his craft. A master of puppets, skills that should take decades to perfect. He made as many types of puppets as he could, even sock ones! If he went outside, advertised his craft, maybe he wouldn’t be illegally living in a rundown shed outside of town in a forest that was said to have housed fates worse than death within.
Yet he loved the silent life. His creations would never come to life, scream at him, make him scared or try to hunt him down. They were not real. He was safe around them. Safe. Quiet. Alone. Perfect. The best life one could have.
That life was up, wasn’t it? It's going. Slowly drifting away into the abyss. Death comes for us all doesn’t it? We can’t escape it. Neither could our dear Marvin. I don't know if he had fully come to accept it, but a part of him somewhat knew.
He wanted to make something special. A project he had not thought about in years. Something he thought of when he was naïve, young & had little skills.
A quintet. The Marionette Quintet project. 5 Marionettes, each similar at a glance but a colour showed obvious distinction. He had to finish this. Had to. His past progress was mainly the stage that the marionettes could not only be housed in, but also perform on. He had this whole idea of making these Marionettes genuinely move, even if they didn't truly play the songs they could at least play along. The stage had some wiring in it that mainly was just some lights, Marvin would have to try & figure out the marionette stands & how to connect them to the stage later.
He would have to make the marionettes from scratch with his improved skillset. Not only were the older prototypes unbearably bad to the master skillset he saw himself with today, but they were completely lost. He also wanted to revise the design, he was more creative now & could do better than his old plans that had such a beginner glow that cursed them.
Instead of felt stuck on the face, he would paint on circles of colours that would be in place of blush. He would also make some changes to the overall mechanism, better ball joints & greater overall stability. He had access to higher quality material as well, especially wood.
He could make them look fully human. It could have been so easy. But he feared that. He needed them to look somewhat human, while still being distinctive & silly enough to not be the demons that would watch him while he slept on his worn down bed.
He sketched away in his worn down journal, basic rushed sketches just to try to understand what he truly wanted from his Quintet. They had to be perfect. & after pages of ideas, he put some together. A basic plan he could improve upon when sculpting the wood & properly making.
The blue one did not fully have a name. But that could be figured out later. The puppet maker knew that the name would come eventually, all he had was a Z. It seemed cool, unnatural. The vibe that this blue marionette gave. Maybe his name would just end up being Z?
With these final face sketches, Marvin got to work. For starters, he had to make rough estimates for how big the Quintet would be. Earlier notes showed around 33cm, the stage was built for marionettes that size. But that seemed… boring? Would it not be better for them to have variety? Well, Marvin got on it & eventually settled on the following:
Robert Howard Cantor, the Yellow Leader, a guitarist & vocalist. He would be 36 cm tall.
Joseph Robert Hawley, the Red Comedian, a guitarist & vocalist. He would be 34 cm tall.
Z??? S???, the Blue Cool, a bassist & vocalist. He would be 35 cm tall.
Andrew Horowitz, the Green Sweetie, a pianist & vocalist. He would be 32 cm tall.
Steve Gallagher, the Grey Chill, a drummer. He would be the tallest - 38 cm. He has to be the tallest as Marvin did not want the drummer to look too tiny while sitting down.
A major idea in his project seemed to be this obsession with difference. They had to be different heights, different colours, hell he wanted to attempt to make them with different types of wood. The forest outside was home to quite a lot of tree species, it felt like a gift from the Gods that he had such variety just steps out his home.
The puppet maker grabbed his rusting axe & opened the door. The familiar scent of rotting nature filled his deformed nose. He trudged along the water-logged grass & inspected every tree for quality. The forest was ancient, every tree was healthy & mature. It was as if the rest of the forest’s nature died to give the trees life.
They were perfect for Marvin’s craft. The only downside was how the majority of the trees seemed to be hardwood, not that softwood that would be ideal to carve but hardwood would make marionettes last longer.
After testing many trees with his skillful eye, he decided on the enchanted peleliae tree for Joseph, Robert, & Unamed Z since they were the main 3 & would be the ones who would have to move the most. A tree species known for being incredibly durable. On the outside it was a dark grey, but the inside revealed beautiful white. The species was rare, only growing in a few spots across the world naturally, there had been a plan to try to grow them in other places yet the tree refused to grow. The puppet maker only took what was necessary to make his 3 puppets.
& for Andrew & Steve, it was decided to use the less rare beaubile tree. This may have meant they would be just a tad bit more fragile then the main primary trio, however the wood was still mystical and was stronger than natural wood. It was not as rare as peleliae, it was actually the most common blessed tree. Marvin chopped down extra of this tree for testing purposes. He had to make some prototypes, this wood was perfect for them.
The first one he wanted to make was just a test. It didn’t have to be fully finished, just half finished. The puppet maker chopped a cube of beaubile that used rough measurements from his earliest sketches, then manually sanded it down till the face was extremely human-like. He had done this hundreds, if not thousands of times before so it was no surprise it was perfect first try.
Then he chopped more cubes & shaped them, a torso for everything to attach. 2 arms & hands to get a feel for the overall shape of the puppet. He made the legs, but one of them wasn't his best work. This prototype could also act as the basis for the Quintet’s clothing, seeing how everything will fit.
He used ball joints to connect everything, it was the best way he knew & would give away immediately that these creatures were not human. He had carved out the face (this took him the longest out of everything else in the process) & roughly decided where he would paint. He put one eye within an eye socket & gently attached eyelids. They didn't move, they were just decoration. But…
Oh! He… made the entire face before any sort of mechanisms? If he did the mechanisms now then… what if the face got destroyed? He could easily craft another head shape, but every face took so long & he didn't want to break the face especially on a prototype he needed for reference. The eyelids & mouth needed to be controlled by the signals from the stage, moving in time with the music. He put the marionette into a cupboard slammed it shut so he didn't have to see his mistakes.
This was the point when he realised he messed up this half baked prototype completely. The marionettes would need electrical wiring within them somehow. This was not Marvin’s expertise, but he was completely determined.
This time, he used a metal wire frame. He carved the wood, sanded it down then drilled holes through each limb & inserted the wire. He kept the look of ball joint limbs, they also helped to conceal the metal. Before carving a face, he roughly sketched the eyes, mouth & nose. He cut through certain points of the face which could be covered back up with paint. He carved basic eye sockets & attached wires for eyelids to work before adding the wooden eyelids themselves, & added wires hidden within the lower mouth segment so it could move.
He carved a hole through the neck into the bottom of the head so the wiring attached to the rest of the body. He put a voice module into the throat as well, it was a spare part he had lying around. He put in a fabric tongue that would match his certain marionettes colour, light grey, & some plastic sharp teeth as another reminder these creatures are not alive & are just silly.
He glued the face together & once dry got to carving the eye sockets properly, & also the nose. This had worked much better then the other prototype. Marvin wanted the Quintet’s hair to be soft & life-like, not that cheap plastic that was awful. He cut a chunk off of his own dirty blonde hair & took it to his make-shift sink (a bucket with rain water). He washed the hair with flower essences until it shimmered in the light. The puppet maker used a towel to dry off the chunk & he got to trying to curl and style it.
He used some mysterious goo to keep the hair together, he styled it into curls and dyed it grey. He had a mini wig for his second prototype that he stuck on with a different goo. He painted the creatures cheeks with grey circles, the eyes were painted grey, so were the eyebrows. Where he had glued the face together left obvious marks that were made to look intentional as he painted thin black lines.
Using scrap cotton, he made templates of clothing that would fit the marionette perfectly. He made the little ties, the dress shirts & trousers. He also made some little bean bag type of shoes which added another non-human element to the puppet. He put wiring in them for not only stability, but there was an opening on the bottom where the wire could attach to the stage.
He made another pair of these clothing, & another wig (this time an orangy brown) for the failed marionette. Marvin felt.. bad for leaving the poor creature just all cold & that unfinished in a cupboard.
It is said that he made another prototype just in case before finishing the real Quintet. But then our story sadly skips, he went missing. But no one cared about him, there was no one to report him missing. No one would ever figure out the man’s fate. The shed was abandoned with all his creations left to rot with time.