Spork Lock is a fork/spoon who was born on Jan. 1st, 2004. Despite being one of the older members of the Legion, he has achieved very little within the group. He has been known to disappear for long periods of time, but always seems to find his way back to the community. Spork has only recently returned from one of his longest absences to date, one lasting somewhere around a year and a half. Spork is a character owned by Dan Hague.
thumb|300px|right|Evidence that Spork may not be entirely sane.
Spork's personality is secretly split. While he is normally a good person, he often finds himself covered in blood, carrying the dead, naked, mutilated corpse of a young girl, with no recollection of how he came to be in such a situation. This hints at something undiscovered within himself that may never truly see the light of day.
Even without this darker personality, Spork's sanity is still questionable. This becomes very clear with animations such as Thursday (also seen to the right), Sporkzavior , and Regular Squiggles.
Little else is known about Spork, except that he is helpful, elusive lately, afraid of spiders, and often is found speaking of himself in significantly higher regard than he actually deserves.
Spork has been around for quite a while, but he wasn't always a Spork. Dan first joined the Lock Legion after deciding to join both the Clock Crew and the Lock Legion, but failing to find a website for the Clock Crew. So he waited until a Lock Legion animation was posted to the Newgrounds portal, knowing a link to the Lock Legion website would be included in the credits, as they always are. Soon enough, MP3 Lock submitted his animation, Bounce, through which Dan found the forums and joined.
In the circles Dan frequented on the internet before he joined the Legion, sporks were often spoken of as being awesome things. To be honest, I have no idea why. But knowing this, Dan assumed the name Spork would be taken and was surprised to find that it wasn't. He immediately took the name, feeling lucky to have snagged such a "great name".
At first, Dan was like any noob. Perhaps worse, even. He drew up an fla for his character right before joining (as can be seen below and to the right in the far left of the image), but despite having this character, no animations were ever made using it. Instead, he posted on the forums and found himself clashing with members such as Lollerskates, who found him to be an easy target for trolling. In true noob fashion, Dan often overreacted to Loller's trolling, which, of course, only served to make him a bigger target.
In one particular instance, Lollerskates posted a link to Dan's website and mocked it on the forums. Dan, still new to the community and not knowing the capabilities of any of its members, feared he planned to hack his website, so he complained to a moderator. The moderator laughed at the idea that any member of the Lock Legion had such skills and assured Dan that his site was safe.
The above image shows the evolution of characters that took place over the course of Spork's membership in the Legion.
Evolution[]
After some time passed, Dan began to relax quite a bit as his noobishness dissipated and his experience with the Legion grew. But it wasn't long before Dan became bored with Spork and he decided to change his name to something else more fitting his interests.
Guitar Lock[]
And so he became Guitar Lock. His fla was simply a trace of a picture of a B.C. Rich NJ Beast guitar, the same kind of guitar he owned in real life, except he made it red, where his actual guitar is black. It was with this username that Dan actually began using his character in Flash. Though no actual animations were ever made with Guitar, a few animated signatures and other images were made and posted on the forums. But Dan quickly realized that a guitar was difficult to work with, so he decided he needed a new character, one that would be much easier to animate.
An image of Torture Lock combined with the Pokemon Meowth for the Lockemon fad.
Torture Lock[]
Dan chose the name Torture Lock for this task. This was truly a noobish decision, as torture is an abstract idea, which made it difficult to come up with a design concept. In the meantime, he chose to use a grey sphere with a purple-colored lock. Eventually he gave up trying to come up with a design and just stuck with this design. Here again, no animations were ever made, though he was used in some signatures and other images.
A concept for the briefly considered Psychotic Spork, made by Dan.
Psychotic Lock[]
Time passed and Dan decided that, due to so many members using grey spheres for their designs at the time, that he wanted something new with an actual design, not a sphere. So he changed his name to Psychotic Lock. Of course, this again was an abstract name, and just as before, he was unable to think of a design. In stepped Arrow Lock to save the day. Arrow drew up a dark blue ball with a jagged design on it and a single jagged desaturated yellow and blue horn. Dan recolored the design to better match his own personal favorite colors and added a spinning spiral to the lock.
Dan stuck with this character for quite a long time, including the character in many signatures and pictures, but still never creating a full animation. Every time he tried to make an animation, with any of the characters, he always quickly became bored with the concept and scrapped it.
Clown Lock[]
After a while, Dan decided to stop working in Flash and instead just lurk the forums. He decided a name change would be a way to symbolically show this change in his active status. He chose the name Clown Lock. A design was never created for this character and after only a short time Dan decided to become active again. He wanted to change his name yet again, finding it difficult to come up with a design that he liked for Clown. The problem was that he had already changed his name so many times (more than any other member ever had) that he didn't want to create a new character. Instead he decided to go back to a previous name.
It took some time, trying to decide between Psychotic and Spork.
Pros and cons for the names Psychotic and Spork
Pros
Cons
Psychotic
Cool lookin design
Cool sounding name
Spent the most time using this name
Most popular name choice
Easy to animate
Design is a sphere
Was designed by Arrow, not by Dan
Name is abstract
Spork
Was the first name used
Was designed by Dan
Name is not abstract
Design is not a sphere
Design is easily anthropomorphized
Is tall and skinny, which can be hard to animate
Not a popular choice
Not as cool looking
Ultimately, Spork won out and it has been with this name that Dan has remained ever since. Spork is now the longest name Dan has ever used and it was only after this that Dan finally began completing animations.
This collage contains every instance of Nightmare to date. The center one on lined paper was the first, the one on the left was the last.
Nightmare[]
Dan was sitting in a photography class in high school one day, bored and doodling. It was common for Dan to draw things using only straight lines and using only the colors red and black. He doodled a version of Spork that was all black with a red lock, using only straight lines. He liked the design so much that he kept drawing it and even named it Nightmare. The character evolved a bit over time and Dan even created a back story for him, going so far as to storyboard out two episodes of a planned series about Nightmare. The storyboard still exists, and even years later, it still remains one of the top priorities for animations Dan would like to do if he ever returns to Flash animating.
Spork Jew[]
Many groups of risen to mock the Clock Crew and the Lock Legion. Sometimes those groups become series, like the Lock Legion did, but none ever last very long.
thumb|300px|right|Super Spork Jew Vs. Mecha Hitler, Dan's most popular animation. An episode 2 is planned but may never see the light of day.
One day, MP3, Spork and several others started a new group called the Jew Jihad. The group was meant to never become serious, but rather just to sort of mock the other groups that are often formed and usually release terrible animations.
Dan joined the JJ as Spork Jew and participated in a couple of the group's Time Trial collabs. But no animation Dan has ever done has ever been more loved than his Super Spork Jew Vs. Mecha Hitler animation. This is the one animation people always ask for a sequel to. There is a vague concept for an episode 2, but who knows when it will ever be done.
The Man Behind The Spork[]
The man behind the Spork.
Dan Hague is a small (a mere 5'9", 135lbs), long-haired metal head who was born on September 12th, 1987 in Loveland, Colorado. Shortly after his birth, his family moved back to St. Peter, Minnesota, where his family was originally from. Dan lived there for most of the rest of his life.
Throughout his life, Dan has been mostly alone, having almost no real-world friends. Most of his friends were online, and the ones that weren't, Dan only realized later, were never really his friends, but rather were just people he stuck to who just never told him to go away.
As a result of this, Dan has grown up to be a very shy, socially awkward guy who experiences quite a bit of anxiety when interacting with people he doesn't know well. This keeps him from meeting new people.
In the early years of Dan's life, he was an incredibly spoiled child who got everything he wanted, threw massive fits when he didn't get what he wanted, and made his cousins' lives hell when they babysat him, as a result of this spoiledness. Fortunately, Dan settled down over the years, and while he's still very spoiled, he is no longer proud of it and subsequently does what he can not to accept offers to be given things and tries not to ask for anything.
Downfall[]
An MSN convo with Spitfire (I think).
From about midway through 6th grade, up through the end of 11th grade, Dan was constantly mocked and insulted by most of his classmates. As a result of this, Dan became deeply depressed, lost all self-esteem and self-confidence and turned to the internet to find acceptance. These experiences in his personal life were the reason Dan didn't respond well to being trolled when he first joined the Legion.
These were very difficult years for Dan and likely had much to do with why he never completed projects during those years of his life. It can be difficult to finish projects when you've lost all self-esteem and confidence. It's easy to feel like everything you do is garbage.
Love[]
As sappy as it sounds, the one thing Dan wanted his whole life was a girlfriend. He felt confident finding love would end his depression. It wasn't until he was 19, however, that he finally found what he was looking for.
Dan and Nicole dated for about 3 years, 8 months. During this time, Dan finally found happiness. He stuck to her side like a puppy. Because she became his only interest in life, most of Dan's hobbies fell by the way-side. He pretty much stopped making animations, playing his guitar, learning programming or doing any of the other things he had previously spent his time doing.
In an attempt to get have a better chance at a decent job so he could take care of her, Dan began attending ITT Tech for an associate's degree in Visual Communications.
At some point Dan became fed up with constant nagging from his family to get a job. In a fit of emo, he decided to completely stop doing any of the things he enjoyed and to leave the Lock Legion. At the time of this writing, Dan has still not gotten a job, but does, on rare occasions, indulge in various hobbies. Dan has only recently rejoined the Lock Legion, though making animations is not at the top of his priorities.
Heartbreak[]
Sometime over the course of the christmas/new year holidays of 2010-2011, Nicole left Dan. For the next 6 months or so, Dan was unable to function and spent every waking second watching TV and movies in order to distract himself. It was the last quarter of his associate's degree and Dan very narrowly managed to pass his last classes. Somehow in the last 3 weeks of class, he managed to blow through the whole 3 months of homework for his classes and managed to pass his classes, graduating with a 3.5gpa and receiving honors.
Still utterly broken and feeling entirely not ready to go looking for a job, Dan decided to continue on to the bachelors degree for Digital Entertainment and Game Design as an excuse to put off looking for a job.
By the 7th month, Dan began to regain the ability to function and his mood improved. Today, Dan has almost fully recovered and only occasionally falls back into depression. This is something he feels a new girlfriend will fix, though he does not feel it'd be fair to look for a new girlfriend until he at least has a job to pay for taking her out.
A comic made in MSN by Dan illustrating his frustration with his slow computer.
Where Is He Now?[]
Dan is currently in his second quarter of classes in the bachelors program for Digital Entertainment and Game Design. Over the course of the next 2 years, it will be Dan's task to construct a full game for the capstone project which will be required in order to graduate.
Dan is still unemployed, as he feels inadequate at any of the sort of tasks he'd be required to do in order to maintain a job. He also feels that having a job would force him to give up all of his hobbies and give up on all of the many plans he has. It remains to be seen what is in his future.
Future Plans[]
There is a very long list of things Dan would like to achieve. Most of them will never likely happen, but a few of them, in no real particular order are as follows:
Programming:
A pixel art mausoleum made by Dan.
Finish learning AS3
Finish learning PHP and MySQL
Redesign website from scratch
Learn C# and maybe C and C++
Learn Javascript
Music:
Dan's part for a collaborative pixel art tower.
Learn to play numerous Pantera songs
Write black metal songs
Write metal songs in a genre like Pantera
Games:
Create a classic fantasy medieval RPG game
Learn to make smart phone apps and games
Play through several games I own but have still not played
Purchase and play Diablo 3 and Star Wars: The Old Republic
Other:
Watch the massive list of movies, TV shows and podcasts that have yet to be viewed
Learn Japanese and possibly numerous other languages
Get back into making animations, both in Flash and 3D Studio Max
