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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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Ducktales Review: The First Adventure! or Baby Donald Says Eat the Rich

Welcome back. I’d been looking forward to this one for some time in the hopes of getting one thing i’ve been waiting for.. sadly that thing didn’t come, we’ll get to that, but this was still a fun episode so let’s hop right in. Spoilers in a second but my tag is spoiler tagged soooo. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We open in the 1960′s. Austin Powers just went into Cryo Freeze to prepare for Dr. Evil’s eventual return, The Marvel Universe was in full swing, a teenager in baltimore was battling racisim via a dance show, and Black Heron had just been caught by Agent 22, aka Beakly when she was young and just as gorgeous then as she is now. Heron once again engaged in her usual cartoonish supervillian, and now SHUSH has her. Meanwhile in a nearbye room a young accountant by the name of Bradford Buzzard is outlining his plan for Director Von Drake: The way he sees it every time a villian costs chaos Shush “Wastes” billions causing MORE chaos to stop it without controlling things. He proposes taking over the world, weeding out the chaos and ruling from the shadows. Naturally, Ludvig isn’t on board with any of this and points out they aren’t super villains. It’s here this episode fully defines something about Bradford’s character. Back in “Let’s Get Dangerous!” when Huey called him a villain, he said he’s not one... at least from his point of view. It’s here, in his youth we get a clear understanding why he dosen’t think so: So far most people we’ve seen in the world of Ducktales take the chaos and insanity of the world in stride: Either just numb to it like most of the citizens, Rolling with it like Daisy and Violet, or diving straight into it like.. pretty much the majority of the cast, either for the love of adventure and treasure like the McDuck/Duck family, or for their own ludcrious ends like Glomgold, Mark Beaks or Magica. To them the world’s fine the way it is and there’s to explore, take or whatever. To Bradford.. this is madness... he feels all these people are just a bunch of overgrown children, and in some cases actual children, are just making the world worse and worse until one day their going to break it. One day skill, intuition, wit, and knowledge just wont’ be enough. Someday Scrooge, SHUSH or whoever’s standing in the way of evil will fail and the world will fall. This simply can’t go on, and SOMEONE has to control this, someone has to take this world, shake the chaos out of it and MAKE it sane. Make it work the way it’s SUPPOSED to. And to Bradford that’s him. Someone has to, no one else will, so he will. To him SHUSH doing this is just the logical thing: They want peace right? Their fighting for good right? Then what’s better than making the world a utopia? Ending these conflicts and remaking it. The thing is.. that’s not what Heroes do. As we’ve seen in various stories where the superheroes, the Good Guys take over they do improve things.. but at the cost of free will. At the cost of free thought. At the cost of their morals. They become what they were fighting all those years and have to bloody their hands and keep them bloody just to make THEIR world right. And that’s not Utopia, that’s a dictatorship. The example I always come to, even though there were ones before and after this including Marvel’s incredible Squadron Supreme maxi-series, is Justice League the animated series’ two parter, like most of their episodes really but that’s not the point, a Better World, about an alternate reality where Superman kills Lex Luthor after Luthor kills the flash and hte League take over the world. The thing is.. the world isn’t BETTER. It’s just crime free. You can sweep the chaos and the crime under the rug.. but your not making a better world, your just making YOUR version of it. No one person is a god even if they have a power of one and no one person can or SHOULD be able to decide what’s best for everyone. It’s up to each of us to MAKE the world better, to fight for a better world. That’s what Ludvig knows full well and what Bradford just can’t see. You can’t control the world, you just have to accept the things you can’t change like it being chaotic and change the things you can like injustice.

Bradford however, who was hired as a favor to his grandmother, can’t though Von Drake lets him off with a warning.. and a laugh about an accountant being able to be a super villian. Bradford however realizes ther’es some truth to that.. he needs someone to teach him out to operate outside the law, and if SHUSH won’t take the world and remake it.. maybe it’s time someone else did. So in the prison cells of SHUSH, which are conveniently empty outsdide of Heron, Bradford outlines his plan to her. To create a massive orgnization to steal the world and give it the order it needs. To combine their skills: Heron’s for grandeur and crime, and Bradfords for strategy and focus, to take the world. The Orginzation for World Larceny, or OWL, fitting bradford’s hatred for theatrics. Heron objects, adding an F for fiendish, and Bradford relucntantly agrees to get her on board, lets her loose and fakes like he just saw her escape. FOWL is born. And the world would never be the same. Cue credits and cue the rest of the review under the cut.

After the opening we cut to 1994-5.. sometime around then as it’s hard to get an exact year, and that’s how the crew likes it. Point is it’s the 90′s, and Scrooge is.. busy running his company. We’ll get into the weeds of that in a bit, but this is a different Scrooge, one who while no less capable, has no thirst for adventure or drive. He’s not nearly as miserable as the Scrooge we saw back in Woo-Ooo but he’s still a much less complete man. Anyways alongside him for his planning is Duckworth, whose very much alive at this time, and who tells his boss his sister Hortense left something in his office for him. To no one suprise, that thing is the twins, at the tender age of i’m guessing 10. Since your probably curious, Della is still voiced by Paget Brewster, just using a slightly different voice like the Triplets and Webby’s voice actors do. It’s just a bit more jarring here since unlike those characters, we’ve seen adult della and thus are used to this voice coming out of a grown woman. It’s not bad and I got used to it eventually but it was jarring at first especially since once again Donald has a completely diffrent voice ACTRESS doing his voice. This time around it’s cristina valenzuela, of Miraculous Ladybug fame, who I know more for her song work and twitter than her actual work ,but am delighted to see her here and she does a terrific job. I genuneily did not realize it was her, and while not exactly like the late great russi taylor, it is just similar enough to work.

So we get to see what the Twins were like when they were the Triplets age: Della is about the same, but with more of Dewey’s impulsiveness, and Donald, much like he’d be a few years and some dead parents later, is a bitter, grungey musician whose constantly on his guitar and railing against the man.. which is Scrooge in this case which is fair. Hortense left a note.. which bothered me as I genuinely expected her to show up and was majorly disappointed she did not. We are in year 4 of this series, season 3 and STILL no appearance of Hortense or mention how she died, as she and Quackmore are still alive by the end of this. Given she’s easily my faviorite part of Life and Times, this bothered me, and the only reason i’m not more upset.. is the clever way they wrote around actually using her. The letter she leaves for Scrooge explaining things is the same one Della herself used in the comic strip, and using a bit of the postcard she left in the cartoons, when leaving Huey, Dewey and Louie with Donald, down to the Twins having left a firecracker in their fathers seat, thus leaving him in the hosptial. As disappointed as I am my favorite Ginger is completely absent once again, this is a brilliant reference, and I have to give them credit for it, so it’s a fair enough trade off. As for his “Angel Nephew and Niece”, Della wants to dive into adventure while Donald struggles to write a song, singing throughout the episode. It varies in tolerablity, though mostly due to the writing, Cristina is doing fine. Della however is disappointed to find her legendary uncle views his past exploits as merley a means to an end to get his fortune and now he has it he can just focus on building it in the boardroom. This is an intresting take.. and one I could easily have seen happening to the Don Rosa version seen in Life and Times. The Scrooge there himself saw building his wealth as the most important thing until his encounter with Teddy Rosevelt, who taught him experince was what mattered and the having isn’t as fun as the getting. It works for me: This is a scrooge who never got that lesson so once he got to be richest duck in the world, having achieved his life’s goal nothing was left. He’s not miserable like the Scrooge we saw at the start of the series, having lost his love for adventure after loosing his niece/daughter, and having lost his fight. This one has retired.. but because he likely just sees no point in going on. He’s the richest duck in the world, has a vast empire.. no amount of treasure is really going to add to that like it used to, and as he points out in a second Shush has tons of agents at this point to clean up what’s left of FOWL. He’s the man who has everything, so why keep going. It’s weird to see a scrooge without the hunger to keep going, but it makes sense when his belly is full. Without someone to get him to see there’s always another rainbow, he just stopped chasing them. Also a fun nod to the comics I almost forgot to mention is when hearing about the “Gift”, i.e. the twins, Scrooge dreads it’s another surprise party, a nod to life and times where Hortense threw Scrooge one that went.. badly and lead to their entire relationship collapsing. Though Donald did get back at Scrooge for screaming at his parents and Auntie Matilda

However his busy day is disrupted with a call from Beakly. They’ve found the last known cordinates of Captain Yellowbeak, but FOWL is on them and Scrooge is the only one Beakly trusts for this since they have a leak. Beakly is also director of SHUSH at this point, with Von Drake having retired or died or both at this point. Scrooge reluctantly accepts, while Della is excited at the prospect of a real adventure and Donald ends up sharing her enthusasim as it’d make a good song. Scrooge, naturally, has no intention of bringing them with him to their disapointment and leads Donald to sing another “Suck it the man song” which totally isn’t about Scrooge.... spoilers: It entirely is, he’s just a little dumbass grunge baby and I love him. We then get a cute sequence of Della popping up in Scrooge’s Luggage and Trunk to try and convince him to let them tag along, before we cut to the Limo, driven by Duckworth at this point, which solves that mystery. Scrooge is firm in having his butler take them back and have them work with him and Duckworth’s fine with that.. but wants overtime, which is fair. Scrooge, being Scrooge, grumbles about not being made of money, proven wrong by gold spilling out of him. Though I do like the update of Scrooge’s classic cheapness when it comes to pay: INstead of barely paying his employees like a monster, he’s simply reluctant to pay extra if he dosen’t have to, and would rather drag two 10 year olds with him on a dangerous adventure than pay overtime, which tracks. It’s also clear if he had to he WOULD actually pay it, either due to legal reasons or his moral standards, he just isn’t happy about it. So he agrees, though he wants Donald to leave the guitar behind which.. given the most Donald’s been able to come up with is “Suck it THE MAN” and “This guy’s a greedy asshole”.. he’s extremely correct and when Donald tries to pull a “YOU CAN’T CENSOR ME MANNNN”, Scrooge just chucks it out of the car. At the airfield while Della is excited like an rabid chipmunk, and genuinely thinks she can fly a plane because she’s played Outrunner 2.. which I have only vaguely heard of before now. And is apparently just a pc game where you run a lot so I genuinely do not get where Della gets piloting from that.. but she IS Dewey’s mother. So with that in mind the family take off and Scrooge explains what their after: The Papyrus of Binding. It’s a dangerously powerful magical artifact from Ancient Egypt that will make whatever’s written on it happen. The dangerous part is that it’s incredibly literal: As Bradford puts later in the episode, ask for unlimited power, it might zap you dead with a million volts, ask for infinite wealth, prepare to be crushed underneath it. It’s a nice twist on a Monkey’s Paw or Jackass Genie situation. Instead of either the source of the wish granting magic just being inherently evil, or some dickhead screwing with the hero.. it’s just an object that has no ability to interpret nuance, just like your phone with the goddamn autocorrect. It can’t judge intent or tone or meaning, it just gives exactly what it’s asked. It’s a thoroughly interesting concept.

Something I really like about this episode is the fact it answers some little questions. While none were Hortense related, and I am still grumpy about that even with this coming out a good 17 hours after I watched it due to getting caught up with other stuff, it does have little touches that explain small parts of the lore: Who drove Scrooge? As just mentioned, Duckworth. Who flew scrooge? Paid pilots. Did he have a plane before the sunchaser? Yup. It fills in some small gaps in the world. Stuff we weren’t dying to know but’s stil lintresting. Said pilots in this case however are Heron and Bradford. This episode also fills in Heron’s character, as while we’ve already seen bits and pieces this season she LOVES being a classic, take over the world james bond type villian, like she stepped out of a duck version of kim possible.. and i’m just now realizing there probably IS a duck kim possible somewhere in this world as while far after disney afternoon, it fits too neatly to not be wedged in there with your tailspins and goof troops. I wouldn’t be suprised if there were brid versions of every human based disney afternoon and one saturday morning show. My.. my head’s swimming from this. I could be, and probably am wrong but the sheer idea of this... it’s amazing. Back to Heron, she just LOVES being evil and destructive, letting the world know she exists and operating on a grand scale. Now we’ve seen more of her while she’s Beakly’s nemisis.. she’s really an evil scrooge.. yes another one. Like Scrooge, at least how he normally is, she simply gets how the world of Ducktales operates and can take advantage of that to the best of her ablility. Just like adventuering, cartoonish supervilliany is about risk and reward.. sometimes you faceplamnt hard, that’s the risk, but the rewards and rush is worth it. She’s as addicted to grandoise villiany as Scrooge is to adventure by this point. And like Scrooge, and unlike her partner Bradford, she sees the world as it is: Chaotic and one big sandbox to play in. She contrasts Scrooge by the fact that while Scrooge is willing to bust down doors, he still has morals, as well as the wisdom to not go overboard Heron often lacks. It also makes her a good contrast ot the equally skilled Beakly: While Beakly is taciturn, controlled in all things especially her emotions, Heron is bombastic, gloating and borderline insane, and while deadly in a fight, dosen’t exercise any control in her plans, preferring it big and loud despite her partner usually being right about reiging it in. So Heron evacuates dramatically, taking a grumpy Bradford with them, and sending the plane into a tailspin.

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I can’t wait for Next Year’s Tailspin episode. I swear to god. I’m hoping for Shere Kahn but this episode has taught me to be okay with disapointment, if a grumpus. Della however shows her natural talent and despite having no real experince with planes, lands it gracefully. While that’s going on, Bradford berates Heron for her plan, pointing out that they COULD have simply landed the plane, then captured the McDuck family and executed them quitely, versus leaving a chance they’ll survive which they do. They AREN’T supervillains.. or at least he thinks he isn’t. Heron does show off her competence though, pointing out that this way they can simply stay low, and FOLLOW the Ducks to the treasure. Bradford is impressed for a second.. till Heron’s evil shows as she plans to use the Papyrus. Bradford loudly objects to this, listing the possible risks shown before. If not used CAREFULLY, it could kill them, and she balks and wants him to just embrace being the Villian already. It’s what I love about their dynamic set up here: While they are equals, Bradford is a better strategist, able to think and plan way in advance, and prefers subterfuge, and if present day is any indicatoin probably used Heron’s flash to distract from the real mission or goal often or to do something on the down low while she kept SHUSH busy. His last two plans, while again requiring some pizzaz, relied on misdrection: having the ducks take care of an immidate threat like their used to.. while he gets exactly what he wants while their busy and whatever they get out of it is either nothing (Impossibin) or something he couldn’t use just yet and thus if he didn’t get it, no loss, but if he did it just moves up the timetable. Not only that but he’s outlasted all three other big bads, lying in the shadows till it was too risky to leave scrooge and play and even THEN, only coming out into the open when forced out. IT’s why he’s Scrooge’s most dangerous opponent: He knows how Scrooge’s other enmities operates as well as Scrooge himself. And since he knows everything he can maneuver Scrooge exactly where he needs him to do exactly what he wants. It’s unknown how the family will beat him, but he’s easily the biggest challenge they’ve had.

But back to the show and the past, Scrooge bonds with his niece and nephew, retelling stories of his past as they get closer, with Donald ending up high at one point and thus seeing the ship stranded on a mountain. As he recounts a fight with El Capitan, the villian from the ducktales 87 pilot, he counts the story as as a loss: He didn’t get anything from it, no treasure no new contracts. But Della shows him the point he’s been missing; He got a story. Sure he lost.. but he got experince, a tale to tell and a legend grown.Just because you don’t get everything dosen’t mean it wasn’t worth the experince and you can’t hold it in your heart. And this episode shows why this scrooge needed his family: Without Teddy to mentor him, he simply never got that adventure wasn’t about gains or what you get.. it’s about the thrill of it, the enjoyment of discovery and the memories you make.. it’s about the Journey not the destination.

As Scrooge starts to warm up to that, he finds a gap, with Della volunteering Donald to jump but Scrooge just having the kids hop on his back and pogo caneing across. The family find the Papyrus, and find out why the ship is all the way up here: Captain Yellowbeak, who’s a character from one of barks stories and the one who had the scroll last, wished to escape.. but that just stranded them. He asked for water.. and it drowned his crew.. and finally with the document hteir reading he asked for release... and thus is now a skelington. The kid are happy to have reached the goal.. while Scrooge is back on his Zack Morris phone trying to reschedule things and schedule a SHUSH evac, to the kids annoyance. However Scrooge raining on their parade gets interupted by Heron and Bradford, as Heron can’t resist popping out dramatically and Bradford is UTTERLY furious since she blew his cover, and Scrooge recognizes him from his christmas party, a nice callback. Scroog being scrooge figures out he’s the mole and Bradford runs , furious at Heron. Their conflict is an intresting one: Both have a point but both will not back down. Bradford is right this showboating nonsense has only hindered Heron’s plans.. and Heron is right that Bradford needs to accept he’s the bad guy. Even if he has well meaning motives, he’s the villian, he works with them, he leads them.. he is one. He just can’t accept he’s wrong or dosen’t have the answers... huh.. I wonder who that reminds you of. And that’s 100% intentional as Frank has outright compared Huey and Bradford and like last season it’s neat to have the main vilian contrast our chosen Duck for the season.

Heron outfoxes the kids and gets the papyrus and being just an enitrely black hearted bitch, plans to kill them just to spite scrooge.. writing that “his sidekicks will perish on this mission.”.... but Scrooge’s character development, and her choice of words, means nothing happens. As Scrooge outlines, “Their not my sidekicks their my FAMILY, and this isn’t a mission, it’s an ADVENTURE”. Scrooge has finally accepted his life for what it really is.. and the thrill of the chase over what lies at the end. There’s always anothe rainbow.. and he’s finally become the man who will chase every last one.

OF course this is interupted, and Heron escapes with the papyrus, when a skeletal pirate attacks.. why is Yellow Beak alive, why’d the scroll do this?

But we get a neat fight as Scrooge fights the skeleton while he sends the kids after Heron. Scrooge gets a cool looking swordfight, while Bradford gets the papyrus, and Yellowbeak even terrifies me what with his bestial roll and fucking centepede crawling out of him.. jesus those things freak me out. Meanwhile the kids battle Heron, who throws della overboard... and thus for the first time, Donald taps into his beserker rage, snikty snoink, and easily incapaciates the more experinced and fully grown adul, though Della since we’eve been following her kids for the past three seasons, is fine, if suprised by her brother being the goddamn wolverine.

While heron is out for a second, Scrooge heads after Bradford, and vows to tell Beakly and chase him all across the world. However Bradford gets an utterly awesome moment.. he admits scrooge may be right and probably would.. but since he has the papayrus and is careful in everything he writes his request carefully and perfectly “As far as the ducks are concerned, I was never here.” Grante dit COULD have left scrooge out.. but since he didn’t sday duck family or specificy, and likely knew it’d do that, it instead just means the three bilogical ducks. Bradford dissappears, turning invisble and leaving the papyrus for scrooge, who foils heron by simply writing that this scroll will be lost until one day found by his heirs.

So Heron takes a fall and looses an arm, again.. or for the first time.. the family is triumphant and despite loosing his goal, Scrooge is convinced he and the kids will find it again. See above. Scrooge then pulls out his phone and tells Duckworth to rework his schedule.. but it’s so he can find someone to run his comapny so he can spend more time with the kids. As for why Hortense would allow this before her still mysterious passing.. i’m guessing A) she notices her brother is happier and more alive than he’s been for a while and B) they just blew up their dad’s ass with a firecracker, and she won’t be able to use it for a while, so she’s double mad, so if it means she gets a moment’s peace and is with someone she trusts.. why not?

So we end on Scrooge packing up, preparing for further adventures.. i’d love a spinoff of this one day. I mean Disney plus needs it, and since Frank is probably going over to Darkwing.. maybe matt could take a crack at this. Just saying. You have the cast ready, a giant world to explore, and 15 years worth adventures. Run that baby damn you! But yeah the inevitble happens and Bradford further proves his magificent bastardry.. by appling for the position of running the company as head of Scrooge’s board, and setting up said board. So now FOWL has unlimited resources, he has a direct eye on what he now realizes is his greatest threat, and the complete trust and faith of both Scrooge and Beakly. It also puts Beakly’s breakdown in context: We now see WHY she went as far as she did: While the revelation was bad for Scrooge, finding out one of his most trusted allies was a traitor the whole time and knew everything about him, for Beakly.. it had to be worse. Finding out one of your best employees, one of the FEW people you ever trusted, and someone you DIRECTLY RECOMMENDED TO SCROOGE, was not only the man who set up your greatest enemies, but had compromised your organization for most of your career. IT’s no wonder she broke down so hard.. while I already gave several reason adding “This level of betrayal and self doubt to the list” only makes it that much harder on her. But for now a partnership is started.. one that very well may end scrooge.

Final Thoughts: A pretty good episode overall. It’s well paced, to the point I probably forgot a LOT, has some good jokes, and fills in a lot of the gaps in the lore, while giving us a nice insight into bradford and heron. Even without hortense this was a pretty good episode.

Upcoming Reviews: LIfe and Times; Master of the Mississippi Ride of the Three Cabbleros: The Three Cablleros (House of Mouse) Tomtrospective: Lava Lake Beach

#ducktales #ducktales spoilers #scrooge mcduck #bradford buzzard #della duck #donald duck #black heron #bentina beakley #the first adventure!#the first adventure #cristina vee

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austarus · 4 years ago

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HR Wells x Reader Scars Across Time

**A/N: The picture/edit/gif does not belong to me. It belongs to @acewest360

Word Count: 6245

*Hey everyone! Please remember to hit that reblog button as well as liking and following! Sharing the content makes the world spin~ This is probably going to be the last fic I post until winter break. Things have not been going too well for me, I rarely have time to sit down for myself and write or play pokemon at all. But I promise I’ll be back with more fics and series parts with the winter season

“I can’t feel my fingers.”

“And this is why we keep our gloves on,” you emphasized, taking your gloves off and handing it to him to wear as the two of you walked to your apartment, “especially during a snowball fight.”

“But you’ve got to admit, I nailed BA pretty hard.”

“You did,” you giggled and pecked his rosy-cold cheek. “And I’m proud that you did. Knock some sense into him and Harry while you’re at it.” You mumbled the latter part to yourself. The other Wells doppelganger was still having trouble with his daughter, who’s back on Earth-2. She had ‘kicked him off his own Earth’.

“It’s too bad Jesse wasn’t here; I think she would have liked it.”

“She’s still upset with Harry, HR.”

HR did a half shrug, side-glancing at you as he took your hand in his, “She missed all the failed igloos and speedy snow angels, the laughs and arguments we all ended up having on who cheated or not.”

“She’s busy on her Earth being the Flash, though. That must be taking priority over everything else.”

“I know,” he sighed, taking your hand into his. You felt how frigid they were through the knitted gloves you had given him. His eyes met yours are the two of you walked, the chilly air piercing the layers you have on. The novelist hoped that his doppelgangers daughter has been taking care of herself as she takes care of her city. “Harry shouldn’t have avoided her and the issue between them though, that’ll only create a greater rift between them. I know he’s not good with emotions, but… Something doesn’t feel right, like… it just doesn’t add up.”

You only offered the novelist a half-shrug, not really knowing what to say. “I think they’ll end up talking it out, whatever it is that happened between them. They’ll eventually get through it together.” You unlocked the door to your apartment and pushed it open. The door creaked nastily from its hinges; you’ve been meaning to fix that. “Now, let’s first get you inside and thawed out, I’m pretty sure I have some cold sludge stuck down the back of my shirt.”

The two of you entered your cozy apartment, kicking off any spare snow remnant that had clung onto your boots and clothes. Both you and HR left your boots by the door. A shiver ran down your spine, the ice-water mix shifted in your shirt as you moved uncomfortably through your home. You attempted to not track any water on the hardwood floors, eagerly locating some dry towels while HR brought a laundry basket from one of the rooms. The taller man returned with one as you handed him a fluffy towel. You and HR stripped off the winter-y layers of clothes, placing them into the basket. Your long-sleeve shirt clung to your skin, the cool damp cloth making you a bit antsy to get out of it. The Earth-19 being took the basket to throw in the washer, adding in the appropriate amount of detergent and softener. He whistled throughout completing his task, towel around his neck. HR started drying his hair off as he walked back to the living room.

You turned on the weather channel, overhearing Iris mention something about a serious storm going to hit. Flipping through the channels, you finally landed on the Central City News station and just in time for the weather spokesperson to come on screen. The woman fully articulated the severity the storm could cause as well as how many inches of snow to expect with an estimated time. HR’s ears had perked up, eyeing you from behind the couch as you watched the news. You ran a hand through your damp-ish hair before deciding to set it in a towel turban. Well, it’s a good thing I went grocery shopping yesterday. I should still have the portable heater that Cisco made just in case. The candles and matches should be in a spare drawer somewhere.

You glanced over your shoulder to see HR with chaotically messy hair and the collar of his shirt soaked. You nibbled on your bottom lip while setting down the TV remote. “Hey, um… HR do you want to stay over the night? There’s a winter storm coming and stuff,” You sheepishly wrung your fingers for wanting to ask him to stay the night when you knew he probably had an upcoming deadline to meet. Am I being selfish? I’m mean… we’ve been together for almost a little bit over a year now. Gah, fuck, I’m overthinking again. Stupid past relationship trauma and emotional distress. You just didn’t want to inconvenience him.

You will never deny how safe you felt around him, how you didn’t need to be careful of how to act. You can be you. And HR can be the dorkily cute novelist that he is with no filter in regard to his ideas and thoughts and expressions. The two of you complimented each other, two wounded souls just fixing and adoring each other. It took a couple of weeks for you to open up about your past relationships to the novelist, which he listened with understanding and concern taking hold in his eyes. He had done the same thing you had done. HR had proposed to ask three questions and you would need to answer fully and honestly with the reward in return. A reward of something you had long forgotten because having HR understand your past like you had done with him caused your heart to swell to a grand scale.

HR’s gaze softened at you, a gentle smile gracing his lips. “I don’t mind staying the night.” It’s so much better than sharing space with one grumpy scientist back at the labs who’ll probably hurl objects at me if I do anything out of line in his eyes. He saw that bit of insecurity eating at you, and he would do all he can to brush it away. Your insecurities had lessened over time, but every now and then it pops back up. But it’s understandable, you were trying your best to be a good and considerate girlfriend.

HR’s heart melted when you perked up, a bright smile crossing your face as if your sullen thoughts had washed away in an instant. “That means we can even make s’mores tonight!”

“How-“

“-I bought this handy dandy electric s’mores maker-”

“-Birdy, we’ve talked about this. You can’t buy every single thing from Amazon.”

“But… but the s’mores.”

“Do I need to take your debit card from you?” HR joked at the pout you had given him, the both of you knowing he would actually do no such thing. But he worried of these little impulse buys you get yourself into. Especially when prompted by Cisco, Iris, and Caitlin.

“I will fucking fight you.”

“No, you won’t.”

“You’re right, I love you too much.”

“Was it really necessary though?”

“… Yes, the state of my survival depends on it.”

“Liar,” HR sighed to himself. “I’m guessing Cisco and Iris happened to be browsing through Amazon again when they got bored? And you happened to be with them? Browsing from page to page, especially the bargains section.”

“… Maybe~”

“…”

“Don’t worry, I made sure I paid my rent and taken care of the apartment before deciding to buy the s’mores maker.”

“Good.”

“Plus, I really bought it for you.” HR felt the tips of his ears warm a bit. “You said it was one of the things you used to make with your mom, but now you just don’t have the time to camp or be by a fire to make them. So… I got this for when you’d come over and stuff…”

“How did I ever get so lucky to have someone as precious as you in my life, my little birdy?”

Your giggle allowed his heart to jump through hoops. Hail started pounding on the windows of your apartment catching both your attentions. “We should probably go wash up. I think I still have some clothes you left when you slept over a few times.” An idea lit up brilliantly in your mind, your brain already gathering the necessary materials.

A smile graced HR’s face, feeling his heart flutter as you shuffled to gather his clothes. I would do anything for you. The taller man looked out the window, observing the outside world ravaging in the heaviness of white fluff. The power might go out soon. If we’re lucky, then it doesn’t. But mother nature doesn’t seem to be letting up anytime soon. “Which drawer are they in?” He questioned, padding off to your bedroom but throwing a glance at you.

“I think they might be in the top left drawer,” you lied to him, needing to buy some time. “I’m not really sure. But if not, you’ll have to look around for them in my closet or something.”

You hurried to the bathroom once he was out of sight, stepping closer to the closet. Twisting the handle, you were greeted with towels on one shelf and scented candles on another. Now, what to choose. You opted for the scents of Balsam-Cedar and Autumn Leaves from Yankee Candle. Scattering the small candle containers around the tub, you made sure they were positioned in a place to avoid any fires. This is going to look simply divine. You mused a cheery hum from your lips as you worked fast. The electric lighter was in a drawer along with the bath bombs for relaxation. You contemplated whether the tiny flower petals were a bit overkill, then figured that it would be. I’m extra as fuck anyway, so why the hell not. You pulled out the mason jar filled with pastel pink-blue hydrangea and hibiscus petals. With everything set up, you just had to fill up the tub with water and work your magic. Shutting off the bathroom lights, you shuffled over to your room right as HR let out an ‘aha!’ when he found his checkered cotton pajama bottoms.

“Come take a bath with me,” you started, taking his hand and squeezing it meaningfully with jubilant warmth within your eyes. “We can warm up faster in less time before the storm cuts out the power.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want to…” He trailed off; his other arm held his clothes to his chest. You knew what he meant and nodded assumingly. An ex many years ago had tried to drown you once, but… Your ex isn’t HR. The man in front of you is considerate, kind, dorky, and quirky. The man in front of you is more wholesome and beautiful inside and out than any other man you had been with. You knew the novelist would never dream of hurting you. We’ve proven that much to each other in the past year, we wouldn’t hurt each other no matter what.

“I trust you, HR.” You leaned up and kissed his nose gingerly, “You know I feel safer around you.”

“And I, you,” the taller man allowed you to tug him to the bathroom once you had pulled out your own pajamas and undergarments.

“Before we go inside, I’m going to need to you wait out here for a few moments.”

“Interesting. What are you planning, little birdy?”

“Who? Lil ol’ me? Nothing really!” You responded with a cheeky grin before entering the bathroom. HR just kept that boyish smirk on his face then sneezed. God, he loves you, but he needed to get out of these clothes soon. Another sneeze left him when the sound of water graced the silence in the apartment. The hail had stopped, but heavier clumps of packing snow fell onto the city.

“Done~” you mused with childish delight, opening the bathroom door and ushering him inside. HR held his breath as the scents of the forest greeted him. The candles were beautifully lit around the tub, flickering and wavering as it cradled the bathroom with a dim glow. The bathroom lights were off to allow the candles to work their magic in the darkness. Neither of you would deny the warmth the candles brought as the flames danced happily in their respective glass communities. Scents of cedar oak, maple trees, and autumn leaves flourished in the air, but it wasn’t overbearing. The running water moved gently as you had begun to strip down and out of your clothes. Your movements shook HR out of his trance, tugging his own clothes off, but stopped short of shrugging his pants off when he saw all of you. Your eyes caught his intense gaze. A tight knot formed in the pit of your stomach.

“HR?”

“You’re…” He couldn’t find the right words. Any word couldn’t justify the beauty in front of him. “You’re elegantly divine.” Is what he settled for as he felt hot oil splash onto his cheeks.

“It’s not something you haven’t seen before.”

“It’s something that I hope I don’t have the misfortune to never see.”

You screamed on the inside as your mind started spinning at his desire. A smug grin grew on his face as you looked away, stumbling over to a jar on the sink counter. HR fully stripped, coming up behind you with his arms encasing you and strong hands resting on your hips as he watched. He pressed a kiss to the top of your head. You leaned back into him, dropping a good two handfuls of flower petals into the water. His body, while chilled from your earlier winter-y activities still provided your own with a spectacle of warmth. Goosebumps gradually ran over every in of your skin. The taller man watched you with tired eyes.

“You know you’re going to have to let me go so we can wash up, right?”

HR pouted, to which you leaned up on your tippy toes to try to kiss his pout away. “Fine, but I think we both deserve some time to cuddle.”

“I was going to trap you in bed, regardless.”

A quiet laugh left his lips. Breaking away from his sturdy limbs and wonderfully sculpted body, you rifled through a drawer for a bath bomb. Milk and Honey~ Unwrapping it and disposing of its bindings into the trash, you set it down into the water as it instantly fizzed.

“Wait, you like bath bombs?” HR questioned with an arched eyebrow.

“Yeah, but only the organically made ones- that way it doesn’t irritate my skin.” You shut off the hot water and pulled out the necessary towels for the both of you. “Also, they smell phenomenal!”

“They do.”

“What’s wrong?”

“One year on this Earth and I hadn’t even noticed that you had bath bombs too. Do yours also release an underwater firecracker?”

“An underwater firecracker??”

“Yeah, little ocean sparks underwater that also stimulate the water to move like the waves as if pulled from the effects of the moon.”

You just stared down at the slowly fizzing bath bomb in disappoint. “Why don’t you do that? Rude.” The novelist craned his head down to kiss your cheek with a snicker at your evident disappointment.

You stuck one foot in, the warmth enticing you as a hum left your lips before going all in. A wave of relief washed over your muscles as a tired groan left your lips while shutting your eyes. Leaning back, your skin touched the cool marble of the tub as the water drifted in multiple directions. The water rose to just above the top of your cleavage. HR had followed suit once you fully entered, sitting across from you with his legs crossed. A sigh had left him as he felt the tension in his body break away, the scents also helping him ease into relaxation. After a moment he pulled you in between his legs and you humored him because his were so long that they needed the space. Your eyes finally adjusted to the brightness set by the candles from your position.

You eyed the scar on his chest, teeth raking over your bottom lip. The one where Savitar had left his mark. Those thoughts came back. Your throat dried instantly. Swallowing thickly, your mouth moved on its own accord. “I almost lost you.” HR froze as he leaned his broad back against the tub, an arm on the rim of the cool marble. You reached out a hand to trace over the scarred skin. The closer you had gotten- the more you looked at his upper body- was the more you mentally berated yourself under the soft glow of the candlelight. Scared paths and crossroads of tinged undertones on his skin, some faint- others dark and deep. A few were clean and a few others were messy. Even the scar, perfectly hidden by his left eyebrow seemed to be clearer to your eyes now. Your heart sank in your chest, frustration and anger and hurt welling up inside you at the pain HR must have endured over the years. But mostly, anger and hatred towards yourself. How have I been so blind? How many times have my eyes overlooked these? How pathetic and ignorant have I become? HR shivered under your touch, under your gaze over the ugly reminders on his body. “We’ve been together for a year,” you started, “a little bit over a year- and I’m a damned fool for never truly seeing how hurt you’ve been.”

“I…” The words died in HR’s mouth. The sullen look in your glassy eyes, the pained expression on your face. His heart felt heavy, yet it oddly thrummed loudly in his chest. The warmth of the water didn’t help how you were feeling.

“And for that, I’m sorry.”

“Just being by my side and seeing who I am- how I’m worth something, exceeds any grim reminder of my past.”

“But, I didn’t-”

HR took your hand and intertwined your fingers together, “You’re the light of my life, you allowed me to forget my past and accepted me, all of me. I don’t hold it against you that you didn’t notice, we’ve been going through one hoop after another with these crazed villains. Hell, I forget the scars are even there when you’re with me… I feel whole when you’re with me.” The novelist strained emphasis on the last sentence. You felt the tears start to riot in your eyes before streaming down your face. HR gently cupped your face, wiping the tears away with a dry hand. “I’m happy that you overlooked them. I’m happy that I could shed them when I’m around you.”

You were silent for a few seconds. “I’m still mad at Iris,” you whispered with a sharp sniffle, your fingers finding the scar over his heart once more. “No, I’m pissed that she didn’t the willpower and guts to speak up when she had a chance. We… we could have prevented… both of you could have-”

“-We could have gone through a million different avenues, but the results would have led to the same road.”

“Wouldn’t it? You, at least, couldn’t have been hurt if we had done something differently.”

“Iris could have been hurt.”

“You were hurt!” You snapped as your voice wavered. “You were going to die, had it not been for Julian and Cisco and Barry. I… I can’t lose you. Every night, a dark thought slips into my mind. You could have died- You could have died right there when you were just starting to live a life of your own. All because of Barry and Iris.” Your cheeks felt wet and only then did you realize that the tears had pooled up and escaped. His gaze softened at you, nonetheless, the tears didn’t take away from any frustration that you had presented.

HR recognized the bitterness in your voice. The fiery anger within your eyes as you looked up at him with desperation. The same anger that he had long disciplined himself to distance from. Anger blinds all gates of logic within the mind. Because in a way, you were right. Iris could have easily said something when she was disguised as his persona. Instead the queen of the castle seemed reluctant in sacrificing herself, instead allowing the pawn to take the fall. HR had thrown it all away to save someone who didn’t really care to know him and treated him with disdain at first. All to prove to the others that he was worth being on their side. To prove to Savitar that he wasn’t a coward like the projected future had revealed. But most importantly, to prove to himself that he’s capable of more than just standing on the sidelines as backup. The anger and distraught and hate. HR worked tirelessly to move past them. You were his future now. You and the fact that in the end he seemed to earn his spot. Sadly, even at the expense of his own life. At the end of the day those were the cold, hard facts. Ones he willingly chooses to not give in to.

“But I’m here.” HR wrapped his long arms around you, pulling you closer to him. You choked back on a sob. Your anger waned at his gentle touch. “I’m here and I’m alive,” he let out roughly, letting you cry it all out as he rubbed your back soothingly. HR knew everything you had said had been true. And even if it did work out in the end, he didn’t want to imagine a reversal of the situation. If it had been you who had traded places with Iris instead of him. The novelist can only hope that the team wouldn’t have to put anyone else in a situation like that. That Barry and Iris wouldn’t have to play close to this dangerous game of chess again. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” you sniffled, calming down with a stutter. You knew that anger blinds judgment. You didn’t hate Iris, but you resented her inability to save both her live and HR’s. HR wet his hands and cleared your face from any remnant of tears. kissing your eyelids sweetly.

“Interesting that you put hydrangeas and hibiscus petals.”

“How so? And how did you know?” you raised a questioning eyebrow at HR.

“The jar’s labeled.” You facepalmed at yourself. Of course, the jar’s fucking labeled, I’m such a dumbass. “But also, I studied the language of the flowers as well as the language of the colors for my writing.”

“So, what do hibiscus plants stand for?”

“From what I recall,” HR scratched the back of his neck in recollection, “they stand for love and affection between family members, friends, and others. A perfect statement of gentle feelings towards the others. It can even symbolize passionate relationships.” You had placed both hands on his shoulders as he spoke, mesmerized by his knowledge of the flower. He wiggled his eyebrows at his later statement, causing you to giggle with flushed cheeks.

“What about the hydrangeas?”

“Ironically, heartfelt emotions,” he kissed your cheek, rubbing the skin of your lower back as he continued. “Gratitude for being understood.”

“I would call it more of a fateful coincidence,” you mumbled, pressing your lips to his for a chaste kiss. But truthfully, he just wanted to roll around in bed with you and kiss you silly to his heart’s content… amongst other certainly heart-fluttering bedroom activities. When you pulled away, your eyes drifted over his figure. “Can- Can I ask you about them?”

Them. HR knew what you were referring too. That curiosity of yours is one day going to land you in trouble, birdy. HR mused to himself with a little noise of thought. He was well past the mental pain, taking up meditation and various things to acknowledge and push past it. But the idea of you feeling the need to know didn’t rub him the wrong way like it should have. Rather, it stirred something deep in his heart, a playful glint hidden in his eyes. “Depends on what’s in it for me, little birdy?”

You thought deeply for a minute and HR remained silent, running patterns over the skin of your arm. You felt warmth build up on your skin with every contact. “One night.”

“One night…?”

“One night, you can do anything to me- within reasonable bounds. You decide when the night can be.”

The Wells doppelganger immediately licked his lips and felt his blood rush at the notion. “Is that your final condition?” Because if it is, this big bad wolf’s going to make sure to devour his little red riding hood all night long. HR tilted your head back, a hooked finger under your chin as his lips skimmed over yours. There’s much planning that needs to be done.

“Y-yeah.”

“‘Yeah’ isn’t a word of confirmation.” Learned that one from a law buddy back on Earth-19.

“Yes,” you won’t deny the anticipation in your voice. The murky white waters retaliated with every movement from the two of you. “One question, one scar.”

“One question, one scar, one night.” The novelist smirked down at you, a cocky look on his face.

“Fair enough.” I essentially ordered one love romp of a night… I’m so fucked, literally and figuratively. I just hope I don’t have to come into the Labs the next day, neither of us.

HR watched you closely, grabbing the body wash as you decided with a focused look on what scar to choose. Your eyes roamed his body. You already knew of his mental scars, and he knew of yours. The novelist waited patiently as you quietly processed the image of them on his skin. Some scars on his body were from hitmen, bullies, or muggers- mainly during his young adult life or when he was creating STAR Labs with Randolph. That bastard probably sent some after me, wouldn’t be surprised since he knew I would be executed if I crossed dimensions. Bath sponge in hand, he lathered your body wash on the sponge with every intention that he would help wash you while he reiterated a scarred tale.

“What’s the story behind the one on your eyebrow?”

That one took HR by surprise; usually human nature would be intrigued with the most noticeable of things- big things. Instead, you pinpointed the one that was easily concealable in plain sight. Settling for the smaller scar in comparison to the others. The novelist took your arm, scrubbing your skin with lips pressed thinly. You opened your lips to ask if he’d rather you choose a different one, but HR cut you off in a matter of milliseconds.

“I got it back during my university years. I was an English Arts major,” he paused for a moment, switching to your other arm to give it the same treatment. “My father obviously didn’t approve, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to keep going with my literary studies, taking up photography in my spare time. One day, I was just walking through the city in the late evening. Dismal and dark, with fog everywhere.” HR rinsed off your arms, gesturing for you to turn around between his legs so he can start on your back. He plucked off the PanOxyl Foaming Wash bottle from beside a candle, using a different sponge specifically for the backwash. You had told him that sometimes you unfortunately get acne on your back and shoulders, so you use this backwash to keep it clean and acne-free. To your surprise he wasn’t revolted in any way, instead he admired your constant diligence with wanting to keep good hygiene, especially since so many factors can trigger different responses from the human body. You silently waited, listening intently as he continued. “I heard whimpers. Cries coming from down the alley. There was this… this small puppy- I-I can’t really recall what breed it was, but it looked hunger and tired and scared.” You looked back at him, heart aching as you saw his eyes show the pain in his heart too. “I thought to myself. How could someone leave a helpless baby animal to starve in the city’s alleyways? Why couldn’t someone have the heart to nurture it?”

“What did you do?”

HR ran the water over your back to remove any bubbles or foaming wash from your skin. “I saw myself in the puppy. Lost. Abandoned. Alone.” he whispered as he raised his chin, eyes finally meeting yours as you fully turned to observe him. Your gaze softened; your wet hand reached out to cup his jaw. Droplets of water fell from your skin into the colored water as he nuzzled into your touch. “I approached it, I wanted to keep it safe and warm. It didn’t object when I picked it up, cradling it like it the baby that it is. It trembled and shivered in my arms.” His heart dipped remembering the way the puppy felt in his arms. One of his larger hands held onto yours, the one cupping his chiseled jaw. “I had to do something, couldn’t just leave it there.” I couldn’t abandon it.

“There’s a ‘but’, isn’t there?”

“There always is…” He let out a mirthless laugh. “Things went south when a couple of drunk guys found me and the puppy. Turns out these were the same guys that had been harassing the little one through the alleys. They had been trying to use the puppy in illegal cage fights.” HR bowed his head slightly. “One thing led to the other, there was a knife and I was running like hell with the puppy. Until they cornered me, hence…” He trailed off, gesturing to his eyebrow scar with a free hand.

“HR,” you whispered, but he squeezed your hand as he took it off his face. Your other hand tightened into a fist in the water. HR’s eyes caught the movement but didn’t say anything.

“They roughed me up pretty good- I’m wasn’t- I’m not a fighter, but I would have been damned if that little puppy had been hurt. I ended up finding the little guy a home where he can be looked after and well-fed and safe.” You unclenched your fist, gently listing it to stroke his stubbly cheek as he concluded. HR ran his fingers down the length of your arm.

“You’re safe.”

“I know. You’re safe too, my little birdy.”

“I know.”

You twisted your body, stretching an arm out as you reached for his Old Spice body wash. It was your turn to help wash him. You started working away at his sturdy chest, obviously doing your best to not ogle at his abs and his entirely toned framework. But he caught your eyes drifting off more than once.

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For always listening to me.”

“I love you, HR. And I would do anything in the multiverse to keep you safe and loved. You’re my one one one after all.” You winked at him, eliciting a deep chuckle from his lips. Music to your eyes, smiling as the corners of his lips lifted upwards. “There’s that radiant smile I love so much.” The man blushed but continued to grin.

HR ran a hand through his hair before catching a glimpse of his hair in the mirror. He squinted a bit as he held a lock between two fingers. “Looks to be about that time of year again.” Your fingers threaded through his hair once he released the strand.

“I’m assuming a haircut is needed.”

“Yup”

“I will never understand how men ask for their hair to be done.”

“It’s honestly really easy, with the provided visuals of course. I should take you with me once.”

“I’d be okay with that.”

“Probably going to need to dye my hair black again.”

“I think I have some leftover dye in a cabinet somewhere. You know… I wouldn’t mind seeing silver streaks on you. Makes you look like a sly silver fox to me.”

“… I’ll keep that in mind for next time as long as you allow me to learn how to do those intricate braids in your hair.”

“You drive a hard bargain, Mr. Wells.” You leaned up to kiss his lips.” The novelist smirked against your lips as he ran a hand over your bum. Neither of you had noticed that the water was starting to become lukewarm, the candles and warmth of each other distracted the two of you. “It’s a done deal.”

Taking his Old Spice Shampoo in hand, you squeezed a good amount out meanwhile he tilted his head down closer for you to reach. HR’s hands settled on your hips, steadying you on his lap to have your legs wrap around his waist. You scrubbed and massaged his scalp, creating a bubbly hairdo for him. You couldn’t help the giggle that escaped your lips. But once your bright eyes met his baby blue ones, you felt your heart skip in your chest.

HR felt your hands slow as you retracted them but made no effort in submerging them in the water to get rid of the bubbles. Instead your smaller hands rested on his broad shoulders with the tips of your fingers doing a sort of feather-light dance against his skin. The novelist found himself mesmerized by your radiance, never mind the candlelight that continued to flicker around the both of you. You felt hypnotized by his baby blue eyes, pulling you into an ocean of wonder. HR licked his lips with half-lidded eyes as you moved to kiss him deeply, your lips slowly moved against his with a sensual kind of dance to it. The doppelganger breathed you in slowly and he pressed forward. His palm rested on your cheek while his other hand took one of yours to hold onto. The kiss broke but was soon reconnected. Over and over again. The moment wasn’t rushed. There was no hurry to get to the finish line. It was just you and him and the wisps of fire around the two of you. HR nibbled on your lower lip before you reluctantly pulled away. Your tongue ran over your swollen bottom lip.

“We should probably finish up before the power decides to run out,” you started in a low-ish voice. HR noted the slight jitter in it and his heart swelled at the effect of his kisses on you.

“I don’t think it might get to that point. We’d probably end up snowed in, but there’s a chance that the power might not go out.”

“It’s better to be safe than sorry.”

“I know. If we must, then by all means,” The novelist murmured, nuzzling his nose with yours before the two of you finished washing up.

HR stepped out first from the foamy waters of the tub, stretching a fine limb over for some dry towels. He handed one to you when you had stepped out after him unfortunately a little less graceful as you almost slipped on the tiled floor. HR’s hand reached out to steady you. Giving him a sheepish smile, you whispered a thank you to which he returned with a wink. He knew you could be clumsy at times, but nevertheless he’s grown to love that about you. HR had come to realize that him being able to catch you from tripping over your feet or stopping you from running into things would give him a sense of ‘being your hero’ or ‘saving you’. It was just a small thing that made him happy. A ‘your hero in-the-moment’ kind of thing.

You wrapped the towel around you to rid your body of the water and bubbles. The two of you had cleaned each other well which made you sigh in contentment because feeling clean and being clean made you feel satisfied and relieved after a long day. You couldn’t help the stare you had fallen into as your eyes roamed over your boyfriends’ body as he dried himself off. Subconsciously, you licked your lips at every dip of skin, every inch of muscle. Wrapping another towel around your hair, your eyes never left HR until he turned towards you. You blinked for a split second and hastily busied yourself with pulling your undergarments from your clothes pile. HR walked back past you with his pajama’s on. The novelist had every intention in extinguishing the candles that were left only to land a soft smack on your ass. You let out a little yelp in surprise at the impact.

“See something you like?” He teased as he blew the fire out. He knew. There was a large mirror in the bathroom after all. A smirk finally settled on his face, one that he had been repressing until he smacked your ass. The heat had stayed on your cheeks from the bath and getting caught.

“Maaaaaaaaybeeeeeeee.” To be honest, it was a nice ass.

HR chuckled, “Well, since you’re done why don’t you get that cute ass of yours in bed while I go and get the smores maker?”

“How can I ever refuse such a generous offer?” You hummed, leaning up to kiss him. The Wells doppelganger nipped at your lips in return then broke away from you. He stepped towards the door. “HR?”

“Hm?” He turned back to you with curious eyes. There was a soft glow that had settled within your eyes. The sight made his body tingle.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

#harrison wells x reader #harrison wells imagine #harrison wells #harrison wells fanfiction #hr wells x reader #hr x reader #hr wells #hr wells imagine #the flash #the flash imagine #the flash x reader #the flash cw #DC comics #dc #DCTV #dctv fanfic #team flash #team flash x reader #team flash imagine

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lilacerull0 · 4 years ago

Text

LITTLE WOMEN FANFICTION

CHAPTER 3: SEVEN

Escapism

"Please, picture me in the trees...

...before I learned civility."

- seven, Taylor Swift

***

one.

- Let's run away.

It's barely a whisper. It's said more to the open sky above them than to anybody else.

- Let's run away.

It's more than a whisper now. It's a call. An invitation for something greater than both of them. And Laurie would gladly buy a ticket for that particular train. He would. But the sun is so wonderful and the clouds are so enchanting in their unusual shapes that even getting up seems like a chore. He wants to stay here. On the grass. But Jo is persistent in her wishes. Jo March never, never, gives up.

- Won't you say something, Teddy? Can't you just see it? We could be anything, do anything, go anywhere! The world could be ours!

She, unlike him, is on her feet. She always seems to be. Gravity isn't very fond of Jo. Or at least that's what Jo will tell you. Laurie doesn't know if that's true or not, but he likes hearing her talk. He finds himself generally attached to sounds. The chipering of birds. The first note you play on the piano. Amy's chaotic laughter. Beth's soft chuckles. Meg's little mumbles. Jo's wild exclaims. That's one of the many reasons why Laurie loves the Marches. It's like these sisters have discovered an utterly fresh, vivid and extraordinary way to be alive. It's a pleasant contrast to what he's used to.

It's always quiet at home.

"What do you say Theodore Laurence, kindest and most noble of knights of this kingdom? Shall we follow the wind and see where it leads us?"

"I wouldn't want it any other way."

"Then you accept my proposal?"

"I sure do, Miss March."

People's faces usually look radically different when lightened up with smiles. They look prettier, more beautiful and somehow truer to themselves as opposed to non smiling faces. Jo's doesn't. She is smiling at him right now and her face doesn't look any different. It's just as true and warm as it was a thousand smiles before. And would Laurie even be allowed to call himself a comrade of Jo's if he didn't gift her with a smile of his own in return? He grins at her with no specific thought behind the expression. This is how people are supposed to be smiling, he thinks. Wide and real. Yes, people are supposed to be smiling just like this.

For a second, Jo and Laurie are the same person. Hair wild, shirts half unbuttoned, cheeks flushed. Laurie's hands are splattered with dirt from the ground whose hostility he was taking advantage of moments prior. Jo doesn't seem to care about that. Once he's up and standing, she grabs his arm a bit forcefully (which he doesn't mind), a bit theatrically (because this is Jo and life is a theatre piece) and they start running, both of them now embellished with dust. There's a lot of stumbling (and stumbling is blamed on the seemingly nonexistent objects that appear and disappear under commands of fairy like creatures) and there's a lot of laughter (laughter that comes in its most natural form and doesn't show any interest in being contained under anyone's wishes, especially not the ones of the world).

"Oh dearest, the world might not be for us, but us we are for the world."

***

two.

Freedom is both the most basic and the most complicated aspect of life to be gained. It is so simple of a concept, one could easily and rightfully so believe how all of thought guardians (more commonly referred to as humans) should have the right to not only experience, but spend their entire lives swimming in shinning lakes of freedom. But it's not how it all works. Some have tiny bits of freedom. Some don't have it at all. Some have loads. Some have just enough. Too much, sadly or sadly not, have none.

Jo sometimes wishes she were a tree. High up in the sky, stretching out her branches towards infinity. She isn't a tree though.

Imagination is of grave help despite what anyone says. To a normal person, the tree is just a tree. Tree and nothing else. To Jo March, a tree is so much more. It's an opportunity. An adventure. It's a solace and a home. A sanctuary. She's climbing up one of her leaf providing friends as she's trying to figure out how to describe this moment the best. Her reflections are interrupted by a voice which surprisingly doesn't come from the bellow, but from the above instead. Once Jo spots the speaker's ground conquerors (or "shoes" if you are of dull old sameness and don't find the pleasure in crafting phrases unlike our Jo), she immediately recognizes their owner. She still isn't sure why Teddy let Amy paint his shoes with images of flowers, but she is mesmerized with the final result. And although she shall never share this with the oh, so great artist, Jo thinks Amy's creations to be exquisite.

"I presume you are coming here to put your mind at ease."

"That is correct, my boy, and I suppose you are here for the same cause. "

By the time they exchange these lines, Jo has already climbed up to the place where Laurie is. She finds herself a steady enough branch and rests her head against the surface of the wood. Her friend is positioned in a similar way, his leg gently swaying to a peculiar beat of his own making.

Two figures, who almost seem to be one with the wooden fellow, occasionally take an exceptionally deep breath. Their hands colored with bruises, souvenirs from many extraordinary expeditions, their clothes decorated with leaves. Seemingly they are flowers, nature is their most beloved companion.

It's quite a story how Jo and Teddy, these flower resembling humans, coexist without many syllables shared. The phrases they do sometimes grace each other with can end up being translated as meaningless or lacking in thought. But Teddy and Jo, among everything else, are inventors. They invented a language which only functions for them. What is mean to others represents to them a code. What is strange to some, playful and witty to them it is. What is impossible to comprehend, they understand with little to no effort.

"Language of flowers is the language of flowers for a reason. Nobody, but flowers, thinks it much sense."

***

three.

"I'M ALIVE! LOOK AT ME, EARTH!!! I! AM! BREATHING!"

This is just one of the many declarations that have furiously been shouted at the void today. Young people often have trouble befriending compromises, especially if those compromises are to be made with the creatures you live in close proximity with. Jo has again been fighting with her sisters for reasons she cannot exactly recall right this instant. It's funny, because this always happens to her. Something sparks her temper, she recklessly gives into it and at the end, it's all about the anger she doesn't know how to release. She usually goes on long walks or takes deep breaths. She basically tries to isolate herself from everyone until the storm passes.

Teddy has a different solution for her troubles, troubles that naturally turn out to be his troubles too because they are Jo and Teddy, Teddy and Jo, and they have the same troubles (which is both wonderfully relieving and awfully annoying at the same time). Jo wouldn't even call Teddy's solution a solution. They are both making these announcements of nonhuman frequency and dancing their heads off, and as ridiculous as it is, Jo feels it liberating. They aren't improving anything (just the opposite, screaming random things into the air represents the peak of impulsive behaviour) and the conclusion is: no profitable discoveries in the "containing yourself" department. But who cares? Sometimes you have to let it all out. Dance and shout the worries away. It wasn't a coincidence that Jo met Teddy under the circumstances that she did. They were both of hot tempers, strong wills and free spirits. And they needed to dance it all out out. Despite the absurdity and inappropriate mannerism a foreign eye would most certainly find in their actions.

"There exists no right nor wrong way to express one's self."

***

four.

Laurie is surprised with how much he is enjoying this. It's all very simple. Yet, he feels at peace. He feels like everything inside him has a chance to rest.

It's the fireplace and captivating movement of the fire flames.

It's the soft "click" he discovers every time Meg takes a step. Her shoes are marvellous singers.

It's the chattering of dishes he recognizes somewhere in the background. It must be Beth, cleaning the table after the meal.

It's Amy giggling mischievously after coming up with what Laurie supposes to be some kind of scheme or more accurately, a master plan. He wouldn't know what is it about, but whatever it is, Amy is destined to succeed in it.

It's Jo. This is all because of Jo. He wouldn't have come across the hidden delights of the "uncomplicated" and "boring" if it weren't for her. She takes a seat beside him interrupting the spectacular date he had with the fireplace, rests her head on his shoulder and sighs. It's like this with them. Touching has never been a big deal.

"Beautiful."

That's all Jo says. "Beautiful." He doesn't question it. He understands what she means even though he cannot explain it. He understands.

"Warmth. Choreographed chaos. Lines overlapping. Minds intertwining. Familiarity greeting you "hello". People. Family. Home."

***

five.

She cut her hair. She cut her hair and everything is supposed to be at least a little better if not completely fine. But she can feel the tears forming in her eyes as she's approaching the house. The money in her pocket is so incredibly present. No, the money is not just present in her pocket. Everything those dusty pieces of paper represent carries weight. A weight so grand Jo could swear there is somebody following her, kind of like the money has taken the shape of a person and is now accompanying her, monitoring her every move. What kind of world sees a green, ugly paper and claims of it a metaphor for greatest treasures? And the tears? The tears she cannot comprehend. Why would she care? It's just hair. If anything, she should be bursting with joy right now. She got rid of the womanly burden. But it doesn't feel right. It's all extremely selfish of her. Selfish and thoughtless.

Her sister is... not well. Her father is out there doing all sorts of heroic things and instead of crying over her sins, she's crying over this. For once she does something right, for once the part of her that's wrong different isn't screaming. And then it hits her. It's not just a part of her that's different wrong. It's her. The moment she realises this she steps into the house. Everyone is either too distant or too close to notice all that is hiding underneath her seemingly admirable actions.

Her body is barely handling the atmosphere. It's barely cultivating the facade. But her body is also covered with Teddy's waistcoat and just as she remembers this little fact she sees her best friend right there in front of her. He is not too distant nor too close. He is right where she is.

They have the same hair.

Jo is pulled towards him because this is Teddy and hugging Teddy is like hugging herself. They stay like that for a few moments, their realities greeting each other like two fellow soldiers, finally reunited in battle.

It doesn't make her feel any less hollow. It doesn't change anything. It doesn't alter the wrongs. But it does make it a little better. It offers an assurance. An assurance embodying validity so present, money can do nothing but hold a candle to. An assurance of rational absurdity. Because that's what Jo and Teddy are.

They are rationally absurd.

"It's a childish belief that all twins look the same. There exist many ways to be somebody's twin."

***

six.

She is holding his hand.

He has just told her how he doesn't fit within himself. He has just told her that and she is still here, laying on the floor with him, covered with blankets. She said it made sense. She must have been too tired or something. She must have misheard. She must have.

"Jo, are you there?"

She does not respond. She only squeezes his hand. It's not about the gesture itself. It's about everything the gesture holds.

Promises. Lifetimes. Daylights. Midnights. Setting suns. Growing spirits. Flowery Youths.

She is holding his hand.

" Mutuality sure is a wonderful creation. What is more wonderful though is mutual understanding. Mutuality means the returning of the same. Mutual understanding means accepting and loving of the different."

***

seven.

"I could run away for real this time. Explore the unknown, unravel the mystical. Encounter the miracles. Touch the heavens..."

Her words are empty. They don't mean much. They are empty and desperate. Empty, desperate and meaningless.

Her sister got married. Meg got married and she is talking to herself about running away. The wind is dancing with her again long enough hair, tangling its fingers into her rough curls, reminding her of the countless times it has done the exact same thing before. Mocking her with its endless supplies of stability and comfort. Jo is leaning over the wooden fence, despite the wishes of her dress which keeps complaining about her unlady like methods. Jo honestly does not care about the fancy bridesmaid dress and its wants. If one has the will to climb fences, one shall enjoy the act of doing so, no matter what some piece of fabric might have to say. She is trying to hold back rivers her eyes miserably wish to let flow. She cannot cry. She must not. She has an ongoing bet with Teddy about this. He was daring enough to assume she will turn herself into a paddle today and she ought to prove him wrong.

"What might a lady like yourself be doing here instead of enjoying the jolly ceremony out there in the open?"

"I am no lady Teddy, my being is in no need of such chains."

Laurie doesn't pressure her into answering the question (she would have answered it in the first place if she had the intention to) and steps on the fence beside her. He starts humming a random melody, rhythmically moving his fingers to the sound. He must be composing something again, thinks Jo and silently envies his creative range. It's been too long since she's written anything worth sharing.

"What are you thinking about?"

"Everything."

"Isn't that a bit too much of things?"

"Oh, it's just a little over the top Teddy, but I believe I can handle it. This mind is no stranger to overcrowding."

The same tree they used to climb when they were younger is now observing them, representing an eternal and haunting reminder of everything that once was. Jo is frightened. That silent way in which Teddy is looking at her is frightening. He is looking at her in ways she longs for to be different and his eyes have too many freshly discovered stories to tell. She is frightened she won't find those stories to be very pleasant.

"Do you remember that day when I told you how I wanted to run away?"

"How could I not?"

"I need to run away again."

Laurie doesn't need to hear it twice. He jumps over the fence and starts running, his arms widely spread, his tie and jacket long forgotten. It isn't real. Jo knows they will never go anywhere. The sun is setting and the lines of separation are clearing up. The sun is setting and challenges, struggles and complications lie ahead. She knows all of this. Yet, she hikes up her skirts like she's sixteen again and follows the path her boy has chosen for as long as she knows how to. Jo and Teddy run through the endless fields of gold, specks of sunlight meeting their bones. Teddy and Jo, Jo and Teddy, high in the sky for one last time before nightfall.

They keep falling over each other and eventually end up wrestling on the grass, occasional screams and consistent laughter adorning the air around them.

The last song of Meg's shoes. The last symbol Amy will ever paint on Jo's hands. The last wide smile of Beth's. The last understood conversation of birds. The last fellow of the trees. The last arrangement of flowers.

The last.

"Oh, to live in a world where there are childhoods, fields of gold and raging hearts."

"Grab a coat, leave a note and run away with me."

- William Chapman

#louisa may alcott #little women 2019 #little women fanfiction #laurie laurence #jo march #amy march #my writing #beth march #meg march #taylor swift #folklore #evermore #jo × laurie

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keeroo92 · 5 years ago

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Sparda S/O Quiz

In Discord someone mentioned making a quiz to see which Sparda was their *ahem* preference, and I couldn’t resist. Like all relationship tests, don’t take it too seriously. Have fun, I’m curious what you guys get!

1. My ideal partner is _____.

a) Caring

b) Clever

c) Mature

d) Funny

2. When I’m upset, what I need most is _____.

a) Someone to help me see the silver lining

b) Someone to listen

c) Someone to help me find solutions

d) Someone to distract me

3. I value ____ above all else.

a) Courage

b) Tenacity

c) Depth

d) Loyalty

4. My family will ______ when they meet my partner!

a) Adopt him

b) Google him to find out if he’s dangerous

c) Think I’m only dating him for the sex (at first)

d) Invite him over to watch the next big game

5. We first met at _____.

a) A gaming convention

b) An estate sale

c) In the park

d) The state fair

6. After dating for a few weeks, I’m shocked when he says he’s never seen _____ and force him to join me for a night of cuddles. It becomes his favorite movie.

a) The Notebook

b) Lord of the Rings

c) Gladiator

d) The Terminator

7. The first time we slept together, it was ____.

a) Awkward

b) Slow

c) Hesitant

d) Chaotic

8. In public, my partner likes to ____.

a) Kiss my cheek

b) Hold hands

c) Walk arm-in-arm

d) All of the above

9. My first impression of him was that _____.

a) He would never lose hope

b) He seemed out of place

c) He looked lonely

d) He hid a heavy burden

10. His nickname for me is ____.

a) Not something he’ll say in public

b) Subtle and sexy

c) Indicative of how much he values me

d) A reference to an inside joke

11. The first time he said, “I love you,” he ____.

a) Apologized

b) Looked happier than I’d ever seen him

c) Didn’t expect to hear it back

d) Was smirking

12. Before a road trip, he makes sure to ____.

a) Make a new playlist

b) A, C and D

c) Get the car looked at, just in case

d) Pack plenty of snacks

13. If he were to propose, it would be ____.

a) With a speech he practiced for days

b) Tastefully elaborate

c) By accident

d) After someone else’s wedding

14. One of his greatest flaws is _____.

a) Self-doubt

b) He struggles when things don’t go according to plan

c) He takes forever to get ready

d) He has no sense of direction

15. He refuses to buy _____.

a) New clothes

b) A cell phone, manual included

c) A pet

d) Kitchen supplies

Now for the fun part! Tally up your answers – every A is a point for Nero, B’s for V, C for Vergil and of course, D is for Dante. Whoever scored highest is your best match!

Mostly A – Nero

Nero’s authentic awkwardness is endearing and his gentle care even more so. It might take time for him to open up, so be patient. Try talking about music or tell him a funny story to make it easier. Don’t take it personally if he fumbles his words because once he starts to care there’s no hiding his affections; he’ll blush and scratch his neck when he says something suggestive, his eyes will follow you everywhere, and heaven help the poor idiot who hurts you. A consummate protector, Nero would give his life for the one he loves. All he needs in return is someone who respects and admires him, a warm soul to walk beside him as he comes into his own.

Mostly B – V

V’s wit and raw sexuality hide his more private self. To catch his eye, you’ll need to keep up with his nimble mind and match his every quip. Even if you aren’t as skilled as he is, the fact that you try makes him curious. Be prepared for a whole new level of intense eye contact and sultry smirking as he woos you, and try not to jump when he uses his cane to touch you. A man of planning and patience, he won’t rush the process, but the wait is worth it when he commits. His love is blisteringly passionate and he holds nothing back, giving you everything he is if you only offer him the same. With him, you’ll learn to value the simplest gesture and never waste a moment.

Mostly C – Vergil

Vergil is the embodiment of control. Never does he act without thinking (except when Dante’s involved at least), but his calculating nature conceals a core of pure impulse. To attract him, you’ll have to both outwit him and let him win, tease and succumb. Anything less will bore him; he needs to be challenged. Just be ready for him to raise the stakes and conquer you in every way imaginable. Once he feels comfortable around you, he might let a tiny detail of his past escape. If you judge him, you will push him away. Calm logic is the name of the game, but he learns to treasure the moments you reassure him as well. Above all else, Vergil needs an equal and once he finds them, there is no line he won’t cross to keep them safe and happy at his side.

Mostly D – Dante

Dante is a roller coaster of laughs and good times. Earning his friendship is simple, but working your way into his heart won’t be easy. He’s met plenty of interesting people in his travels so make sure you highlight what makes you unique to snag him. Always open to new experiences, it won’t take much for him to want to know everything about you. He’s warm and funny and something about him speaks to how he will never betray your trust, so telling him about yourself shouldn’t be too painful. Even if it is, he’ll crack a joke or two and break the tension. He’d love it if you return the favor. His playful nature makes for some truly incredible time in the bedroom, though he might need a little guidance at first. Rest assured, being with Dante will be an adventure of epic proportions.

#my writing #does this count as fanfic #sparda quiz #dmc dante #dmc nero #dmc vergil #dmc v #dmc #devil may cry #just for fun

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queer-as-in-slightly-odd · 5 years ago

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Here’s your gift!

@caitlinesmewilliams - I got you in the gift exchange, and I wrote you a Ricky/Nini one-shot, which I hope you like! It’s called ‘We’re Breaking Free’, and I’ve cross-posted it to AO3 in case you want to read it there (here’s the link). If not, I’ve posted it under the cut :)

In a rare moment of quiet, Nini sits backstage, quietly strumming. Her chords clash a little with the familiar beat of ‘Getcha Head in the Game’, barely audible from the makeshift stage in the school gym. She didn’t plan on bringing her ukulele tonight, but on her way out of the door this morning, she grabbed it on impulse and took it with her. As a good luck charm, perhaps. I need it now more than ever, she muses with a dry smile, thinking of the talent scout from the Y.A.C., Kalyani Patel, out in the audience.

She relaxes a little, though, as she reflects upon the first act thus far. She can’t deny it’s been… a little chaotic, particularly with Gina’s surprise return, prompting a very sudden cast change which, she thinks with a grimace, probably seriously confused the audience. She’s pretty sure they pulled it off, though, and Gina’s incredible dance break in ‘Status Quo’ made it worth it.

Suddenly the sound of drums pulsing through the walls stops, and she pictures Ricky, suspended on wires at the turning point of the song. And she smiles – something she’s finding herself doing a whole lot more lately, when she thinks about Ricky.

That said, on this particular occasion, she’s not sure whether she’s smiling at the thought of Ricky himself, or simply remembering what happened when they first used the wires at the dress rehearsal yesterday.

Most of the cast had been sceptical when Mr Mazzara, of all people, had arrived at their first meeting after the disastrous tech rehearsal, and told them that his robotics club had constructed a pulley system in the gym by which they could lift Ricky off the ground for the scene.

When they tried it, however, it worked fairly well – the harness held, and it turned out that Ricky was perfectly capable of singing whilst being hoisted up. The problem came when the industry-grade steel cable made Natalie’s hands sweat, and she lost her grip.

With a terrified yell, Ricky plummeted about eight feet before EJ and Seb seized the cable, halting Ricky’s gut-twisting descent and leaving him spinning in his harness, seven feet from the ground. A nervous laugh rippled around the gym as Carlos, looking distinctly pale, proposed using one of the climbing ropes instead. Ricky was white as a sheet when they brought him down again, but he quickly saw the funny side and was laughing with the rest of them.

Nini shakes her head fondly, but frowns as she realises that the production has been silent for a weirdly long time. The band stopped playing almost twenty seconds ago, and Ricky’s only supposed to wait about five seconds before giving them his cue line. Suddenly, though, the music starts up again, and she lets out an involuntary hum, hoping that there’s nothing wrong.

Less than a minute later, she sees someone – who looks suspiciously like Ricky – march past the open door. She carefully puts down her ukulele and jogs to the door to ask him how the scene went, but by the time she gets there, he’s disappeared. She looks the other way, where Kourtney, Carlos and Seb are looking in the direction Ricky vanished. Nini’s unnerved by how concerned they look. “What happened?” she asks, as Big Red’s voice sounds over the speakers, announcing the intermission. “We’re not sure,” Kourtney says with a shake of her head. “He sort of froze,” Seb adds. “While he was in the air. And he dropped the ball.” “Why, what’d he do?” Nini asks. “No, as in, he literally dropped his basketball,” Carlos says, widening his eyes to emphasise the point. Nini feels her heart sink. “Did he say where he was going?” Carlos shakes his head, but Kourtney speaks up. “He’ll be back for the second act.” Her voice is confident, and Nini hopes she’s right.

“Gabriella, you’re on in one minute!” Natalie calls, and Nini relaxes. They’re about five minutes into the second act, and as far as she can tell, nothing has gone completely wrong. She follows Natalie to the wings and, as rehearsed, looks around the set and the gym as she walks casually onstage. This is right; this feels good. “Wow, this is your real stage?” she says curiously, but her voice shakes on the final word as her gaze falls on EJ, wearing Troy’s basketball shirt. Ricky’s basketball shirt. No. No, this is wrong. Where the hell is Ricky? “Guess you could call it that,” he replies, looking altogether too relaxed in this topsy-turvy situation. “Or, just a smelly gym.” It kills her to break character, but she has to make sense of this. “What’s going on?” she hisses, surreptitiously covering her microphone with one hand. “Where’s Ricky?” EJ frowns minutely and, without replying, passes her the basketball. She narrows her eyes at him as she catches it, but dutifully makes a shot, watching with a bizarre sense of satisfaction as it misses the hoop and bounces off the backboard. “Whoa!” EJ says, jogging across the stage to retrieve it. “You shoot hoops too?” She stutters; she’s suddenly having difficulty breathing. Ms Patel can’t be impressed by this; she has to do better. “I once, uh, scored forty-one points at a league championship game.” “No way.” “Yeah,” Nini says, functioning purely on autopilot. The words are muscle memory to her, but she can barely hear them. Her mind is swirling. “The same day I invented the space shuttle, and microwave popcorn.”

The rest of the scene is a blur. Again, on impulse, she whispers desperately to EJ for an explanation, infuriated by his plea for her to trust him. At her cue, she all but runs offstage. As she exits through the temporary stage door, she can hear the words of Ashlyn’s beautiful song taunting her from behind.

What I did felt right, but was I wrong? Is this where I’m supposed to be at all?

Everything after that passes in a blur. She’s so angry, at everyone. At Ricky, for bailing on her – on them. At EJ, for letting him go and just taking the part so readily. At Miss Jenn, for casting her in this role she feels she’s so abjectly failing. At Kourtney, for inviting Kalyani Patel when she’s sure she’s never going to get in. At herself, for thinking she could do any of these things.

She kicks a chair backstage in fury, feeling her heart pound in her chest as she watches it topple over and skid across the wooden floor. A figure bedecked in an elegant black pant suit appears in the doorway, looking worried. “Nini, you okay?” Miss Jenn’s voice is soft and full of concern. “Will be,” she says, pressing a hand to her temple. “Just… a lot going on.” “I heard about the talent scout,” she says. “It’s not surprising that you’re stressed.” She nods slowly. “It’s not just that. But thanks.” “Do you want to talk about it?” she asks, and Nini hesitates, picking up the chair she kicked and sinking into it. “I guess I’m just scared of screwing up,” she says quietly, and Miss Jenn lets out a low chuckle. “Are you serious? You’re killing it out there.” “Thanks,” she says, not even slightly believing him. “But this is not my best performance.” “It’s not supposed to be,” she says, and Nini does a double-take. “What?” “Nini,” she says, crouching down in front of her and taking her hand, “I spent nearly fifteen years assuming that my best performance had already happened.” Nini nods, wondering where she’s going with this. “But the truth is, it turns out you guys are my great performance. My magnum opus, if you will. This isn’t Broadway, Nini – no one here is looking for the perfect show.” She cracks a smile. “Which is good, because God knows we haven’t had it tonight.” Nini laughs and sniffs, feeling her eyes moistening. “This isn’t going to be the best performance of your life, because you’re only going to keep getting better. That talent scout is looking for potential, and that’s what she’s going to see in you.” She squeezes Nini’s hand and stands up to go. “How do you know that?” Nini asks desperately, and Miss Jenn pauses at the door. “Because I did.” She smiles once more and disappears out of the door. After a moment’s thought, Nini exhales deeply, gentle wipes her eyes and follows her out.

By the time she’s back onstage, she’s forgotten her anger. EJ’s explained what happened – what Ricky told him to do, and why. She’s not even concerned about the Conservatory anymore – as EJ begins the chorus of ‘Breaking Free’, she remembers what Miss Jenn told her: she saw Nini’s potential. Maybe Kalyani Patel will too.

And then she sees Ricky, standing at the gym doors with Gina, and the last embers of her fury at him evaporate as well. As EJ lets her go – possibly in more ways than one – she looks into Ricky’s frightened eyes, and she realises that she loves him.

“You know the world can see us, in a way that’s different from who we are…”

As she walks towards him, she pulls out her phone and flicks on its flashlight. Since Big Red hasn’t put a spotlight on him yet, she’ll do it herself.

“Creating space between us, ‘til we’re separate hearts…”

He shakes his head and murmurs, “I’m really… not at my best.” And her heart aches because of how wrong he is. She’s known him for nearly their entire lives, and this, right here, is the best version of Ricky she’s ever known. He’s open and vulnerable, and he might have given up on something he was committed to – but this time, he did it entirely because he wanted her to succeed. “Just look at me, Ricky,” she says, slipping her phone back into her pocket as Big Red finally gets his act together. “Right at me.” The music starts up again, and Nini lifts the microphone to her lips again. “But your faith, it gives me strength…” A grin breaks out onto his face as he joins in. “Strength to believe…”

She can’t help smiling as she pulls him back to the stage. They’re going to be okay.

#rini #nini salazar-roberts #ricky bowen #hsmtmts #fanfic #gift exchange #friendom gift exchange

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johnny-and-dora · 5 years ago

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darling, you’re my everything

for @amyscascadingtabs - happy birthday my love! <3

“Hey, Ames?” He begins, and everything is perfectly fine until she looks up at him and he literally feels any capacity for rational thought leave his body and he’s almost asking something stupid, like ‘wanna get married?’

or, april 29th, 2017.

read on ao3 -

The morning of April 29th is – unsurprisingly, given the shear dopeness of the romantic epiphany the night before it – mildly chaotic.

Later, when he’s drifting off on the couch while Amy makes flashcards for the sergeant’s exam, he’ll begrudgingly admit that he probably should have been paying more attention to his futile attempts at a romantic breakfast; for now, as Jake stands in their kitchen wearing his girlfriend’s pink fluffy dressing gown and daydreaming of Amy walking down the aisle, the burnt pancakes are very clearly her fault.

Because it’s all he can think about, now, like someone opened the floodgates to a whole new subcategory of Amy fantasies he’s been deep diving into all night, unable to sleep – Amy showing off a sparkling engagement ring, Amy as a glowing vision in white, Amy laughing at him as he fumbles with the rings or his vows or otherwise somehow manages to make himself look like an idiot in front of everyone they know.

(And yes, when he pictures it currently their wedding looks suspiciously like something out of Tangled, but he can work on that. Or maybe not, except he’s not exactly sure where you buy that many lanterns from and if they need a permit for that and he has zero idea what they’re going to do with a horse and a chameleon afterwards so overall it’s probably best that he leaves the planning to Amy, if she…)

(Well, he’s pretty sure she’s gonna say yes. God, he hopes so.)

The point he’s agonisingly slowly lumbering towards is that he has not had a lot of sleep, wrapped up in fleeting dreams of proposing and weddings and maybe being actually, properly married, officially Not Dying Alone and all the euphoria that comes from realising that he’s ready for that, that he might have been lucky enough to have found someone to tease and to surprise and to love for the rest of his life. It’s a lot to process.

Therefore, his burning of what was going to be a super romantic breakfast is by his logic, completely and utterly Amy’s fault. That being said, he’s not a complete monster - it’s not like he has the heart to tell her that she’s entirely to blame when she traipses into the kitchen in her old lady glasses and his hoodie, looking hopeful at the promise of breakfast.

“Pancakes?” She asks – the hope quickly eases into familiar endeared exasperation the second she clocks the blackened breakfast crime scene he’s been caught red handed in. Jake rubs the back of his neck sheepishly, hoping that he’s not visibly radiating the I wanna marry you vibe that he can feel strongly emitting from his chest.

“Uh, they were formerly pancakes at some stage before they mutinied against me to become gross charred bricks.”

“Mmm.” She hums sarcastically as if they appear even slightly edible, then quickly kisses the pout off his lips.

“Sorry. I got…distracted.”

“It’s okay, babe, we’re out of milk and orange soda anyway – let me go.” She firmly dismisses his protests before he can even say anything, a sign of the truly spooky psychic link their partnership has naturally formed over the years; he sighs one last lament over his culinary failure as she disappears into the bathroom and quickly returns with contacts in, her hair in a messy bun and a soft smile on her face.

Just like that, the pancakes don’t even seem to matter anymore - then he has the disgustingly cliché thought of we’ve got forever for pancakes anyway, like forever with someone isn’t merely a faraway abstract Disney concept and more of a real, tangible thing. Jake feels the very strong urge to lie down and preferably take a day or two to process that feeling on top of all the other ones that seem to be clouding his ability to be a rational human being.

He hopes he’s not going to be this weird all the time now, but judging by the direction and speed of his current train of thought there seems to be very little hope.

She’s leaning over the kitchen counter scribbling down a shopping list when he comes to his senses, because of course she is - he resists the urge to tease her now that he really, truly knows her and he knows her lists are an anchor that keep her organised, keep her steady, keep her sane.

Instead, he watches as she taps the pen against her lips, brows furrowed in deep thought as she mentally categorises the contents of their fridge, and imagines the glint of silver on her ring finger.

He’ll blame on overtiredness and being a general lovesick idiot, later; in the moment of mild chaos, it is absolutely her fault.

Everything is perfectly great until before he knows it he’s almost asking ‘wanna get married?’ - like he’s asking what she wants for dinner or what the weather is going to be like today. Like he’s not asking the most important question of his whole life before 9am on a rainy Saturday while trying to waft away the smell of burning from permeating the kitchen, while half asleep and wearing her pink fluffy dressing gown.

Like he didn’t just have baby’s first romantic epiphany less than twelve hours ago and isn’t still very much almost giddily coming to grips with what that actually means. And all because she’s scribbling down a shopping list for three items that he knows she’ll remember, and how stupidly endearing and consistent and so very Amy that simple action is.

He almost says something very, very stupid – like ‘wanna get married?’ or ‘wanna secretly elope to Paris?’ or ‘we could just go down to the registry office, like today, because I’ve recently realised that you’re the one person I want to spend the rest of my life with, if that’s cool with you’ – and then he gets distracted practically praying that his poor, poor brain to mouth filter that has to deal with this shit on a daily basis hasn’t packed its bags and retired to Florida, because ‘wanna get married?’ is definitely absolutely not how you’re supposed to ask the love of your life to wed you in holy freakin’ matrimony, he knows that, and he doesn’t even have a ring yet and-

“…Jake?” Amy’s doing that face reserved just for him where she’s half amused and half genuinely concerned, and he expertly deduces that he’s been weirdly silent for far too long and therefore hasn’t just acted on one of the more questionable impulses of his life, brought to you straight from the guy who once owned six separate massage chairs. Small mercies.

“Yeah. Sorry, it’s nothing.” He waves a frantic hand in panicked dismissal, downplays it like his heart isn’t doing awe-inspiring acrobatics in his chest right now, bounces on the heels of his feet a little to try and dispel the nervous energy that’s coursing through his veins.

In the moment he realises he hasn’t just accidentally proposed to her, Jake also makes the executive decision to get some kind of proposal plan together soon so he doesn’t risk accidentally dropping a proposal into casual conversation – because yeah, ‘wanna get married’ is perfectly okay, but if he’s gonna do this, he’s gonna do it properly.

No ‘Celebration’ blaring loudly in the background or confetti cannons or cheap plastic one dollar rings this time. He’s going to do it right.

If he’s going to propose to Amy Santiago, certified actual most incredible amazing human/genius on the entire planet, it is decidedly not going to be while he’s wearing a pink fluffy dressing down and shoving a failed breakfast into the trash. That’s a Peralta guarantee.

“Okay, weirdo.” She gives him a smile with a fleeting hint with suspicion before going back to digging through her purse, and his heart rate slowly but surely returns to normal.

Jake’s going to need a binder. Maybe even with the good types of tab this time, if he can figure out what criteria makes a good type of tab first.

He also needs to calm down so he’s not on the verge of a cardiac arrest every time he’s in close proximity to his girlfriend, because he’s pretty sure that even if she wasn’t the best detective he knows she’d figure him out before he can even scrape the finances together to buy a half decent ring. Maybe he just needs to lie down in general.

“I’ll be back in fifteen minutes. Try not to burn our apartment down in that time?”

“Coming from the woman who seemingly insists on testing our smoke alarm twice a week.”

She rolls her eyes and gently reaches up to cup his face and kiss him goodbye, which is mostly sweet and only slightly satisfying because he knows that means she doesn’t have a good comeback. As the door swings shut behind her he busies himself with cleaning up the kitchen, overwhelmed with another wave of excitement at the idea of marrying his best friend.

Because he’s ready, now – really, he’s probably been ready for a while, deep down. Maybe the second that she kissed him in the back of the ambulance in Florida or when he forfeited yet another bet just to see her smile or when the Nine-Nine was saved from getting shut down and she showed him just how hot she finds his moral compass.

The typo in that crossword puzzle shines out like a beacon in the night; but thoughts of Amy and loving Amy and marrying Amy have been brightening up the darker corners of his life for longer than he’d care to admit.

It’s all her fault – all that determination and kindness and brilliant enthusiasm. The way she’s so stubbornly cemented herself into his heart a, refusing to leave just as she refused to let him work their first case alone, demanding to be taken seriously with a fierceness that both irritated, impressed him and slightly turned him on. She is warmth, joy, that bubbling kind of laughter that just lights him up every time he gets to hear it – but she’s also tougher than she looks and stronger than she knows. There is absolutely no-one else like her.

And the plan, absolutely, startlingly clear in his otherwise sleep deprived and cloudy mind, is to marry her.

(And, on an unsurprisingly extremely chaotic yet magical evening in mid-May, he does.)

#b99 #b99 fic #jake x amy #peraltiago #my writing #this is pure chaos and perfectly represents the state that my overtired brain has been in for the past few weeks #i hope you enjoy <3 #shut up sian

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qorillas · 8 years ago

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some gorillaz headcanons

2d was a teenager during the 90s which means that he knows all the lyrics to all the quintessential 90s songs. when noodle was little they would blast backstreet boys and nsync throughout kong studios and dramatically sing along and jump on the couch pretending to put on concerts. it helped get noodle used to performing and also taught her how to pronounce words in english. even now as an adult noodle will start playing i want it that way on the home speaker system and 2d will show up in the doorway twenty seconds later dramatically screeching “TELL ME WHY AIN’T NOTHING BUT A HEAAAARTACHE.” they both go OFF and have accidentally broken multiple items because they were jamming out so hard.

murdoc is half mexican from his mom’s side. it’s part of the reason he went to mexico after phase 1 and why he can speak spanish. he learned rudimentary spanish from visiting his mom in the sanatorium as a little kid, but since he couldn’t visit her much and she died when he was about 11 or 12 he had to teach himself the rest of the language in his 20s.

more under the cut!

murdoc also inherited curly hair from his mom and when he was little he had a puffy shock of dark thick curls on his head! ever since he was a teenager he’s straightened it every day and added a lot of mousse to it though, both because he got teased for his hair and to cultivate a more “punk-emo” look. he’s still pretty self-conscious about it and so he doesn’t let anyone see him without straightened hair, even in his 50s.

russel isn’t naturally bald; he shaves his head because his anxiety gives him pretty bad trichotillomania. part of the reason he got into taxidermy is because he liked the feeling of the animal furs and skins on his hands, and also because it gave him something to do with his hands, which helps take his mind off of the impulse to pull his hair.

2d is actually pretty devious, and capitalizes off of the fact that everyone assumes that he’s dimwitted. he pulls a ton of pranks and has a habit of muttering super sarcastic retorts under his breath, or interjecting a wry comment into a conversation that nobody realized he was paying any attention to. he also irritates murdoc on purpose and eggs him on, then pretends like he has no idea what’s going on and that murdoc’s being mean to him for no reason as soon as russel storms in, like an annoying little brother. noodle used to think this was hilarious as a little kid, and later picked up on this habit too. when they want to they can be the bane of murdoc’s existence.

noodle was so busy as a teenager and young adult that she never had any time to be in any sort of relationship, though she did develop small crushes on some of the girls that 2d or murdoc would bring by. she only recently started dating since the end of phase 3 (around the time of the doyathing video) but hasn’t ever really had anything very long-term yet. she currently has a massive crush on cherry from studio killers and keeps suggesting to the guys that gorillaz do a collaboration with them.

cyborg noodle’s head, although currently occupied by a bonsai tree in noodle’s room, is still fully functional and cognizant of what its body is doing. katsu likes to curl up and sleep on top of cyborg noodle’s head because it’s warm. cyborg noodle likes to spit death threats at katsu when she does this. it also likes to yell insults at people walking past and seems pretty disgruntled with its new role as a flowerpot. however, it’ll tell 2d what its body’s up to if he asks nicely and it’s in a good mood, and on quiet nights it will have long conversations with noodle about its identity, what advice noodle would give to her 15-year-old-self, and what it is to be human, though cyborg will never admit this and noodle will never tell.

cyborg’s body, following directions texted to it by 2d, biked all the way to crawley to visit 2d’s mom. it turned out that rachel pot had been pretty lonely, with 2d’s dad gone and an empty nest after 2d left. cyborg’s body has since been adopted by mrs pot for all intents and purposes, and while at times she struggles to learn how to take care of a robotic, headless 15 year old war machine, she is a doting adoptive mother and cyborg’s body is very well cared for. she’s currently biking around lincolnshire for a trip to meet fans and promote the new album, but it took a lot of convincing on cyborg and 2d’s end until rachel allowed cyborg’s body to take such a big trip by herself. “it’s just a little girl!” mrs pot said. “it’s a robotic assassin that’s killed multiple people,” 2d said. “a fifteen-year-old robotic assassin,” said mrs pot, “much too young to be biking around alone.”

russel’s fashion sense is second to none. everyone assumes noodle’s iconic outfits are her own doing, but in reality russel helped her put them all together. she’s never really been one for fashion anyway; she inherited 2d’s love for graphic tees and murdoc’s sloppiness, but the band’s pr team insisted that she at least try to wear something nice for the music videos and commercials she was going to appear in. the two of them spent hours picking out what she would wear — russel going back and forth between fabrics and colors, and noodle not paying attention and scrolling through cat videos on her phone.

each member of the band has radically different social media presences: noodle has a public instagram, vine account and snapchat, and a private account on almost every other social media. she posts a lot of chaotic videos of the band and updates from the studio in the latter two. murdoc has a public twitter and private facebook, but not much else because he’s been banned from most sites, and also because he’s the quintessential “old man on the internet.” he frequently posts fb updates with off-color phrases that were meant to be put into google search. 2d has a private soundcloud and instagram, both of which are ~~***ultra-aesthetic*~~ and filled with really calming sounds and images. he also has a private facebook, but overall he doesn’t use social media too much. he had a snapchat for one day but it was almost immediately confiscated because he didn’t realize that uploading a not-so-family-friendly snap to his story meant that everyone would see it, and also because of blatant misuse of the dog filter. russel doesn’t have any social media whatsoever; he’s convinced that it’s all a scam for the government to compile a database of facial recognition and private information on people, and he will not have any of that.

the four of them have a group chat via imessage. it’s about as chaotic as you’d expect. they each have a nickname, but murdoc’s is frequently changed to the mud man, sir mud, murdick, the bath or cucumber emoji, or the phrase “local man ruins everything, more at 10.” noodle spams the chat with memes and roasts everyone, 2d tends to send random non-sequiturs or accidental texts, but will whip out super big words or law jargon just to piss everyone off, russel doesn’t respond much but when he does he either destroys someone with a roast or is sending a reminder about practice times or telling everyone to come downstairs, and murdoc has a bad habit of accidentally taking unflattering selfies and sending them with no context. each of them is blocked from the chat on separate occasions at least once a week. the current meme in the chat is catching murdoc cuddling katsu and taking a picture before he can push her away and pretend like he hates her.

everyone in the band knows the lyrics to love on top. it is a tradition to play it every time they are on the road. the game is that whoever can make it through the most octave jumps without their voice cracking wins for that car ride; surprisingly, noodle and russel are tied for the most wins. if you do not sing you are subject to being forcibly expelled and forced to walk underneath family rule #23. if you object to love on top, you can propose playing fergalicious instead, but ¾ of the band has to agree with this movement in a formal election process.

last but not least: everyone in gorillaz is queer. actually this is one is canon, jamie hewlett and damon albarn broke into my house and straight up told me this to my face. sorry i don’t make the rules

#gorillaz #gorillaz headcanon #mine #meta #a happy family

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spclmxrbsprgrm · 6 years ago

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AWARENESS

“Music is permanent; only listening is intermittent”.13

John Cage

*13

Christoph Cox cites in his book Sonic Flux, Sound, Art, and Metaphysics Deleuze’s suggestion that we think of sound as,

“[a] continuous, anonymous flux to which human beings contribute but which precedes and exceeds them—an ever-changing and variegated sonic domain of incalculable size and infinite temporal dimension to which new material is added every moment.”14

Cox also calls on John Cage’s 4’33’’ to reveal this vast stream that surrounds us. As I previously mentioned, with this piece, our perception starts from the expectation that sound will reach us in a certain way. This expectation is a construction, and is one that makes us deaf.

By spending time in aural contemplation of the unintentional sounds made during the performance of 4’ 33’’, our thresholds undergo an adjustment or tuning to what Cox calls background noise, or:

“...the intensive murmur that fills every silence or, rather, that of which so-called ‘silence’ is made. Indeed he (Cage) takes ‘silence’ to be something inaudible – namely, the transcendental dimension of sound: the perpetual sonic flux of the world that is the condition of possibility for the audibility of any sound” .(2018,23).

Here, background noise is presented as the elemental basis and the starting point from which to experience further spectra of sonic flux.

Based on this, I think that the idea of silence is something that has been created in response to a dualistic way of conceiving reality, something based in a visual sense, created to structure the feeling of the sonic stimulus we receive. This construction decides what sound is, or is not, in the range of our attention or curiosity, and this is conformed by very diverse aspects; cultural, political, social, situational, attitudinal, and even biological. This builds a barrier to a full awareness of the diverse process and stimulus present in our surrounding reality. If this sonic flux is what is discerned and “sampled”15in a sonic experience of here and now, it can be said that the premise of sound as one of the multitud of different fluxes that make up our world is an important part of contemporary thought. It is present in the pathway from Cage to Club.

When Cox writes about this infinite and atemporal flux, he is opening a window to the understanding of how the sound that passes through us is built and reinterpreted.

To understand how sound is used in the club, we have to center our attention to how DJs works. They usually work on two levels. One is the sample or production level, where sound modules, or samples, are treated as ‘blocks’ being arranged and mixed in some way between other decisions and processes to finally conceive a ‘track’. They press those tracks, originally in vinyl records. Most of the time these are records made in collaboration with independent labels and other DJs, or self-managed pressings for promotions or testing.

They use these records as ‘modules’ to compose a DJ mix. Here they are working on the set level, a level over the production level. The DJ mix is seen as a stream of affective sonic impulses flowing and influencing a culture narrowly linked to the listening of recorded music.

Cox argues that “mix is to reinscribe, to place the floating sample into a new chain of signification”(2017, 480) and this can “make possible profoundly egalitarian music”(Ibid). Christian Marclay, one of the first artists to experiment with turntables and manipulation of records to create new sounds conceived that “recorded sound is dead sound, in the sense that it’s not ‘live’ anymore. Old records have this quality of time past, this sense of loss. The music is embalmed. I’m trying to bring it back to life through my art”16

DJ’s splice part of a recorded reality, scatter and re-loop the samples to contribute to the creation of a new one. A new reconstructed sonic reality. That for the DJ’s and dancers, could stream forever like an eternal Jazz jam, but under the influence of an overwhelming sound and media machinery.

The interpretation the DJ creates from his sampling of the sonic flux is presented on the dancefloor of a club as a DJ ‘set’, and as a sonic opportunity for the co-performers to interact with it over an extended amount of time, opening wide the flux experience. Each set influences a youth that will sample it, and bring it back as anew artistic creation, contributing to the culture and to the atemporal sonic flux.

The Club, in contrast to other art manifestations, recquires a different temporality to enter and transit the stream proposed by a more ‘traditional’ work of art. And not only because the ‘opening time’ of the place where this happens, like museums or music venues. Also the time the artwork need to be perceived.

The proposed reality of Club experience needs a ‘warming up’ time to get in and also a ‘coming down’. It does not start and finish in exact moments, and the diverse phases are not clearly divided. A Club experience can start in the cue of the Club (or at home), and can finish in the afterhours (or in the middle of the night), this remains to the raver open experience.

The whole temporality maintains the potential for 48/72 hours in a row at times. One can go in or out the times one can manage. DJ sets could stream for long hours changing the ‘vibe’ and the sonic reality of the arena.

Here I want to separate the dynamic of a band concert or live set to the dynamics of a DJ set. DJ sets are preferred usually to maintain the ongoing flow of the music, and the decks allow different DJs to keep playing for a long time, play other DJs tunes, test pressed records and white label unreleased pieces or some ‘gem’ vinyl records as well.

Returning to the idea of sonic flux drawn before, I believe that the interaction with them, conscious or not, both in club settings and in experimental music, can be a way of collective learning and self-awareness.

Cox’s work is centered on a flux made of sound, but it joins the conception of great flows cataloged by Manuel DeLanda in the book A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History. For example, the flow of history includes lava, minerals, biomass, genes, bodies, food, language, money, and information. With this way of thought, many new ones are revealed. Now I am thinking of pandemics, catastrophes, weather, pollution, spirituality, consciousness. The streams that constitute culture and nature, “are congealed and dissolved, captured and released through immanent historical processes that are isomorphic across these various domains”.17

By experimenting with them, we experiment with ourselves, and in Club context, in a chaotic co-created embodied technological reality.

Experiencing the act of rave can “subsum the human within the general field of fluxes that constitute the natural world”.(Cox, 2018, 263) I conceive these experiences to be a key factor for social and human evolution. I believe this really influences Club cluture, and can be a fundamental factor for this to be conceived as a ”‘revolutionary’ culture holding the potential ‘to ultimately change the course of human consciousness “.18

13 Cage, John. Introduction: Themes & Variations. Station Hill, 1982.

14 Deleuze cited in (Cox, 2018,63)

15 See (Cox, 2018, 23)

16 Christian Marclay in (Cox, 2017, 327)

17 Manuel deLanda in (Cox, 2018, 2)

18 Fritz in (St. John 2009, 5)

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nelrunari · 5 years ago

Photo

❖ AND THE DREAM CALLS: Byte.

Character Name: Byte

Real Name: Bennett Vitale, but he prefers Byte. Just Byte. Whether this was a safety measure to keep his identity secret to the general public or just a fun little jab at his own abilities has yet to be disclosed. Maybe it never will be. Either way; it’s one of the few things he’s particularly insistent about.

Pronouns: He/They/It

Age: Around 23-24 ish. He doesn’t keep track of his birthday.

His birthday is January 11. He’s a Capricorn and the rest of his natal chart is...out there.

Trigger Warnings: amputation/prosthetics, animal experimentation, government surveillance

Appearance: In a sea of city lights that seem to blot out the sky, it doesn’t come as much surprise that Byte is fairly pale; almost sickly so. Any signs of life are seen in the regular bruise or red-tint coloring in his fingertips and bright green eyes, starkly contrasted by the dark circles that lay underneath no thanks to many restless nights. He cuts his own hair, usually in one go if he can help it, and as a result it often comes out looking choppy and uneven. He does keep good care of it though, and the dark purple coloring shines as brightly as ever.

As far as clothing is concerned, it’s comfort over practicality--which is something he’s frequently advised to reconsider given his skillset. Most of it is in dark blacks, silver, or browns, even down to his mechanics. The only part that isn’t is a pair of neon yellow high-tops; yes, they light up. He loves them.

His left arm is fully mechanical. Previously only a job done halfway, he figured there was no harm done in replacing it entirely. For what it’s worth, it’s high-quality metal, and a good example of his own capabilities in crafting. It sometimes glows an iridescent yellow, particularly when his magic is in use.

Personality: A walking enigma; he hates the idea of socializing, but handles it easily and without much stress at all if in the position where he has to. More ambition than you could imagine a human could have paired alongside an unwillingness to pry himself from his bed in the would-be mornings. He greets the world with an optimism he doesn’t believe in and he has more than enough confidence to override any doubt or fear that snuck its way into his system.

He wants to be more, so much more, but when faced with the hard facts of life his dreams seem to drift further and further away into the same cyberspace they were born from, the same space he can’t help sticking his fingers into to find out more.

Despite all this, though, living in Asphodel has made him wary, and he tends to keep even those he considers “close” at a safe distance, unwilling to open his heart out to anyone. What are they going to do if they reach past every wall? It’s too much of a risk, like everything else. It just isn’t worth it. He’ll be fine; this is...not fine, but fine enough.

He just won’t think about it.

More positive traits: adventurous, alert, brilliant, confident, curious, efficient, flexible, hardworking, imaginative, loyal, observant, resourceful, self-sufficient.

More negative traits: amoral, apathetic, cocky, deceptive, greedy, impulsive, lazy, messy, paranoid, selfish, tactless.

MBTI: istp.

TEMPERAMENT: choleric.

ALIGNMENT: chaotic neutral.

Background:

C:\system\override\access.exe

{

SEARCHING (access_point);

...correcting PATH.

...loading WORLD.

...correcting…

{

(access_point); FOUND.

ENTER PASSWORD ?

> █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █

ACCESS: GRANTED

> hey. can you hear me? is this reaching you?

…

> cool. okay. we can keep going then. don’t worry; im not up to any tricks

…

> yet :]

AN ERROR HAS OCCURRED.

> shit

TROUBLESHOOT?

> hold on. i can fix this.

…

> or maybe not. :\

> listen. i just really, really, need your help.

Times have changed. There are stories of things that may have once been seen, but now are lucky to be heard, passed on from one generation to the next.

Here’s what’s commonplace: technology, and lots of it. Magic, brought back from the dead by some wannabe hero lost to time. Advertisements. So many fucking ads. There’s no blocker in existence that hasn’t already been shot down or coded over or...whatever, the point is, they’re everywhere. The ads. The all-seeing eyes. They’re inescapable.

Here’s what isn’t: trees, the sun, most plant-life in general. Getting a bouquet for Valentine’s Day is basically the same as being proposed to, nowadays. Also the wedding should be the day of or the day after, considering access to said flora shouldn’t even be possible. There hasn’t been a floristry open in years. So They probably know about it, and that lovebot’s days are numbered.

There are gardens. Conservations, really, that’s what They call them, but gardens sound much nicer. Sneaking to the edges of the city, you might be able to catch a glimpse of one. It’s not a wise idea though. You’ll probably get caught. Maybe you’ll be lucky, let off with just a warning and a slap on the wrist.

…

Probably not though.

Asphodel’s great, really, if you can ignore the lingering feeling of eyes boring into the back of your likely-jacked head. Byte’s learned to do this by never going outside. Easy. He’s rigged a good few security measures into his own personal devices, and tossed out a handful of hosts to take the blow for him if someone tried to dig a little deeper. He’s grateful for the fact he has more than enough magic to spare that this isn’t a strain at all, and it just becomes part of a daily routine.

...Oh, right, the magic. Byte has a lot of it. It’s both a boon and a bane.

He’s a technomancer, if you want to be specific, but he prefers the term tech warlock, or wizard, or something that seems just a little more fantastical. It suits his dreams more. The idea of moving past technology and magic altogether to become something stronger, someone more powerful that even the big guys up top couldn’t stop him if they tried to.

The lights of passing trains speed by, lighting up a darkened room. The decker curses to himself as he raises from his chair and pulls the curtains closed. Maybe another day, then. He’ll try a little harder.

…

The faint glow brings back a memory, fluorescent whites and reds speeding by. It makes him dizzy, and his grip on the curtains tightens. What he remembers doesn’t make sense; he’s never been outside of Asphodel, there never were fields of green or ice-coated mountaintops--not here, never here. There hadn’t been life like that in centuries. Maybe it was a dream he had, some time ago. That’s a little more reasonable.

God, he’s exhausted.

Memento: His companion, Gig! It was a normal rabbit, at one point; then time took its toll and...he made some adjustments. Now it’s more metal than blood, and functions just about as well. To keep its cognitive function, he implanted an AI that connects directly to his magic; so he can understand it perfectly. The AI allows Gig to understand others, too, but without the same magic connection, most of what is returned comes out in the form of angry thumps. If nothing else, he’s a good traveling partner!

The antennae attached is just for show, and has no effect on Gig’s functionality.

Natural Abilities: Byte’s family line is known to have a decent grasp on technomancy, and Byte isn’t any different in this regard. It’s a natural gift, and he took to it quickly.

CYBERNETICS. He made his enhancements himself! His left arm is fully mechanical. Extra measures were taken to ensure it could handle small to moderate amounts of water, including a period of trial and error after submerging it when it was unattached to test its resistance. It’s a pain to replace, so he often spends time making adjustments and keeping it in working order. In addition to this, he tried an experiment on himself: applying internal cybernetics to his eyes. The goal was to make it so he could simultaneously work more and sleep less, to cut out the middle man, and although it only half-way worked, he thankfully didn’t lose his vision. It appears as twin piercings above each brow, and in a line under his eye. The addition allows him to map out his present surroundings and pinpoint any “obscurities,” though this is limited to a small vicinity and has to recalculate whenever he enters into a new area, as well as seeing more clearly in low-light. On Aergia 003, he was able to access databases through it as well and manipulate the data discovered hands-free. He still needs sleep though, that sucks.

CYBERKINESIS. The ability to manipulate technology. A majority of his own abilities are hands-off, such as reconstructing broken models without ever touching the pieces. If given the time to study something new, he could probably bring it back to working order. Includes the basic function of digital/data magic and its properties.( NOTE: Requires already existing resources to work properly. )

SPELLCASTING. A basic skill for every mancer! Byte’s abilities are limited to small blasts of electricity, considering he hasn’t put much work into strengthening them. As a result, he’s also prone to shocking himself. And he has. Many times.

ELECTROKINESIS. It’s rather weak due to a lack of practice and proper use, but it’s possible to be honed. Minor applications include an electric aura--the ability to surround himself with an electric charge, leading to a nasty shock (though often this is a subconscious defense), and electric infusion. The latter allows him to imbue objects or people with electricity, though he only used it to give a few faulty electronics a “jump start.”

ENERGY RESISTANCE. While he still takes moderate damage to large bursts of energy, he’s able to withstand it a little better than someone who isn’t tied so closely to it.

Power History:

TECHNOMAGICAL CONSTRUCTS. On Aergia 003, he could create multiple constructs at at time; usually small robots to complete day-to-day tasks he didn’t feel like doing. However, if he put in the work, he’s just as capable of creating weaponry, drones, devices, or other stronger crafts.

IMAGINATIVE TECHNOMAGIC. While limited to small constructs, he could create any technomagical device by simply imagining it. It could’ve been stronger, but he likes having materials to experiment with, so it wasn’t as honed as it could’ve been.

HACKING. As straightforward as it sounds, given the world he’s from is almost strictly-cyber, this was an important skill to develop. And he was good at it. Mostly stole information, rather than changed it, but it hasn’t stopped him from the latter.

Extra:

Bastard-adjacent.

Technically speaking, he doesn’t have a job; he’s never really needed one. He gets paid for the odd job here or there, but he’s never taken something on as a career.

He’s from Asphodel, a city on Aergia 003, which is a planet in the Eucleia galaxy. The city itself is a mess of skyscrapers, advertisements, and hardware, and most people tend to favor going place-to-place either by foot or speed-train. The city is oxygenated by gardens in the outskirts, kept under watch by an assortment of carefully-chosen government workers. Civilians such as Byte aren’t allowed access to them, and it’s the only place surrounding the city that has the slightest implication of sunlight. As a result, he hasn’t really seen most plant-life. Or the sun. Or anything that isn’t a city seemingly stuck in a permanent state of “night”.

Technomagic is common in Asphodel, as it's how most people function from day-to-day. Byte just has a slightly better grasp of it than most. He will brag about this.

This stronger understanding is also why he goes by Byte, he’d prefer to stay under the radar. He isn’t big on those in power, and he doesn’t want to work for or potentially be hunted by them. He regularly deletes files he finds on his existence if he uncovers them. The worst thing is being known.

On a lighter note. Those Sour Patch-themed videos Markiplier did? Very big Byte energy.

PINTEREST BOARD: HERE.

PLAYLIST: HERE.

#nelru apps #pc ( orion )#char ( byte )

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prideguynews · 6 years ago

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The ‘gay small movie Oscars’, the Iris Prize, is occurring in Cardiff, Wales as I article this. The 6-working day celebration of LGBT+ movie is centred about its justly prestigious Iris Global Prize. This is the most valuable LGBT small movie prize in the planet, worth £30,000, which lets the recipient to make another small. The initial of the 35 films in opposition have now screened, and after additional it is an eclectic and interesting bunch, covering a variety of themes about sexuality, gender and additional.

This 12 months the screenings of the shorts have been brought together into thematic groups, so choose a glimpse below to see our feelings on the Iris Prize Global Shorts from Day 1 of the fest.

Wild Beasts (Villdyr)

With Close friends Like These

The initial screening brought together a selection of films centring on strategies of friendship, having in the two the positive and the adverse.

Wild Beasts (Villdyr) Director: Sverre Kamme In the snowy isolation of rural Scandinavia, a group of young teens are hanging out, figuring out their lives and making an attempt to find anything to do. However, one particular of the boys may well have sensation for his male good friend that he does not very totally recognize and is not guaranteed how to convey. Wild Beasts is an intriguing and properly shot movie that manages to capture the uncertainties and damaging impulses of adolescence, wherever young people today usually glimpse for a sensation of management in the improper areas. However, when properly observed, the movie could have carried out with digging a small deeper into what is genuinely likely on amongst these people today. That stated, it certainly does not outstay its welcome and has a couple of emotionally resonant times. 3.five out of five

Pink Tablet Director: Xiaoshan Xie China has a odd and challenging to get the job done out mind-set to gay content. In latest several years some Chinese films have been banned or cut prior to release in their homeland to get rid of LGBT-themed scenes, when other people have been authorized out unscathed. Equally, there have been gay-themed films that Chinese authorities have permitted to be screened at worldwide festivals but not at household, when conversely some films (and filmmakers) have been pulled from overseas competition line-ups. I say this not for the reason that it took place to Pink Tablet, but for the reason that I believe it claims anything about the context of how anything like this movie can get designed and the planet it comes from.

In it, a teenage girl’s lifestyle is upended when a homophobic classmate publicly reveals a website page from her diary, which demonstrates she has sensation for another female. Just one of her male classmates still demonstrates curiosity in her, and he may well be inclined to go to serious lengths to make her ‘normal’. Inspired by accurate occasions, Pink Tablet is a provocative and complex movie, wherever its doable to examine items in various methods that give a distinct spin to occasions. For illustration, you could see the primary boy in the movie as wrestling with his individual sexuality, or just as a peaceful but decidedly straight young gentleman. In truth, distinct viewers at the Iris screening took it distinct methods. It guarantees that even when it goes to some darkish areas it hardly ever feels gratuitous. 4 out of five

Three Centimetres Director: Lara Zaeidan Final 12 months a one particular-shot movie won the primary Iris Prize. Three Centimetre is also just a one shot but usually takes on distinct issue make a difference and a distinct, possibly unforeseen, venue. The entire thing usually takes position in the gondola of a ferris wheel in a decaying enjoyment park in Beirut. Four young feminine pals go for a experience, with one particular specifically loud, mouthy female dominating the conversation with discuss about how you do not shed your virginity if its only in three centimetres. When the conversation turns to acquiring about an ex by wondering of them being gay, it results in one particular of the women, Marwan, to appear out. This revelation will get an array of reactions, from worry to anger to dismissal.

Smartly designed, the one particular-shot mother nature of the small movie could have appear throughout as an affectation, but immediately turns into integral to the small and significantly less distracting than it could have been. The Lebanese placing also provides to the movie, so that as a western viewer it troubles perceptions of the middle-east and also make you mirror on the similarities and variation amongst reactions to somebody coming out in distinct nations. 3.five out of five

Don’t Connect with Me Bro (Nenn Mich Nicht Bruder) Director: Gina Wenzel A feminine soccer workforce is baffled when a boy demonstrates up for exercise, right until Cheyenne discovers that new boy Dany is actually transgender. Dany commences to befriend some of the male soccer players, including Cheyenne’s boyfriend, Josh, and he hopes that Cheyenne will maintain his key. Though he immediately starts to find acceptance in this ragtag, chaotic and relatively violent crew, a sense of threat hangs in the air due to what the other boys do not know, and the electric power Cheyenne has about that. This German small productively results in a sense of menace that grows as it goes on.

Some may well choose problem with regardless of whether it is rather stereotyping young ‘chavs’, or certainly regardless of whether its stunning and relatively disturbing times border on exploitative, but it certainly has an impact. It also does a very good work of looking at the reckless and damaging impulses of youth, and the threat of electric power imbalances among all those who do not recognize duty. 3.five out of five

Calamity

Gender & Relatives

The next screening focussed on gender difficulties and films featuring transgender characters, and additional specifically their connection with loved ones.

There You Are Director: Lisa Donato Jessica requires to go household to see her dying grandmother. However, when she is now residing as a trans female, her loved ones have generally acknowledged her as Jason. In buy to check out to mix in in the course of this challenging situation, Jessica attempts to determine out how to go for a boy once more. When she will get household her mother is as challenging as generally, but other people may well have unforeseen reactions. Penned by and starring trans actress Jen Richards, I observed There You Are most interesting for causes that genuinely should not be interesting at all. In the movie the way the emotional character beats and shifts get the job done is carried out in a rather mainstream design, to the issue wherever the most cynical viewer could see it as a small sentimental. However, it is still very rare to see this carried out with trans stories, which tend to be dominated by arthouse outlooks and a focus on the adverse sides of the trans encounter. There You Are demonstrates that possibly just as important are the stories that show a small additional hope, not the very least that in contexts like this it will help underline that trans people today are part of ‘us’ and not just a ‘them’. 4 out of five

Profane Cow (Vaca Profana) Director: Rene Guerra This is one particular of all those films that I can imagine leading to massive arguments amongst viewers who could glimpse at it in radically distinct methods. Nadia is a trans female who’s been mainly acknowledged by her neighborhood in a weak part of Brazil. Just one of her pals has a modest baby she wants to adopt out, so Nadia agrees to choose the baby, satisfying her prolonged held dream of motherhood. However, items get sophisticated when the birth mother has next feelings. It’s certainly an intriguing and at instances provocative movie, when delves into the concept that the longing for motherhood significantly transcends the actual physical means to have a baby, as nicely as the point that the actual physical means by itself does not make you a very good mother. However, the way it does it is perhaps problematic.

Although I do not believe it is making an attempt to propose that trans people today are in essence doing the role of somebody who’s a distinct gender than the one particular they ended up assigned at birth or that they are ‘weirdoes’, but the movie does perform into all those stereotypes at instances, not the very least when Nadia decides to wear a pretend baby stomach. This and a couple of other difficulties signify that when the film’s surface area is trans-positive, beneath it could be viewed as significantly additional problematic. 2.five out of five

Calamity Administrators: Severine be Streyker, Maxime Feyers Middle-aged couple France and Lucien return from a crack to unexpectedly find their son Romain and his new girlfriend Cleo in their household. France insists they stay for evening meal, as she wants to fulfill her son’s new appreciate curiosity. What none of Romain’s loved ones know while, and what he hadn’t wished to convey to them nonetheless, is that Cleo is a trans female in the early times of her ‘treatment’. When they realise this the loved ones does not know what to do, as it is a situation none of them has at any time even contemplated.

Calamity is a small which is shut to outstanding. The decision to focus on the mother and to flesh her character out so that we know she is not happy and stuck in an unfulfilling standing quo guarantees the movie avoids the melodramatic. Equally, the short’s humour will help to carry the viewer into the characters’ encounter. It also properly contrasts the appreciate and contentment of the young lovers with the emotional desert of the moms and dads, so that France’s desire for items to go back again to ordinary is not just about transphobia but also about validating the staid selections she’s designed in her lifestyle. However, there are a few far too many times wherever Calamity can’t very stability its loved ones tale with its self-consciously filmic times and an unevenness in its technique to a heightened fact. Although its still a very good movie, I did experience that it could have been additional. 3.five out of five

Michael Joseph Jason Scott

Masculinity

The closing screening of Iris Prize Shorts on Day 1 of the competition focused on difficulties surrounding masculinity.

Crashing Waves Director: Emma Gilbertson A extremely small small, Crashing Waves right away stands out for the reason that most of it is expressed via dance. Two young gentlemen (who, for want of a superior term would be classed by some as ‘chavs’) fulfill just outdoors some substantial-increase tower blocks on an internal-city housing estate. The tensions and doable connections amongst them appear out via dance, which in the beginning looks like it may well explode into violence or as a substitute could erupt into enthusiasm. But even when dancing the gentlemen simply cannot escape the planet they stay in. The movie is only four-minutes prolonged, but it lingers in your thoughts partly for the reason that it is so unforeseen and partly for the reason that it is extremely nicely carried out. Dance is usually filmed terribly on display, but Crashing Waves realises that the digicam is also a dancer and not just a window/lens. As a final result, it pulls the viewer into this sensual pas de deux. 3.five out of five

The War Place Director: Ben Hantkant Each 12 months at Iris there is at the very least one particular movie that absolutely flummoxes me and I experience like almost everything about it has flown about my head. The War Place is one particular of all those videos. I’m not even one hundred% guaranteed I can properly explain what it is about, but it sees a young gentleman dealing with lifestyle in the Israeli Army and the pressures and strategies of masculinity and bravado it areas on conscripts, especially if that form of machismo does not mirror who they are inside of. However, the entire thing usually takes areas in a form of darkish, dreamlike fantasy of projections and online video installations, as nicely as toy army gentlemen and efficiency art.

It’s the form of movie that will speak to some and get their brains performing, when other people will be still left absolutely cold. However for me it is the latter. I also speculate regardless of whether Israeli navy company is one particular of all those items which is challenging for outsiders to properly recognize with no having lived in the region and being familiar with the cultural and societal context of nationwide company. As this is a movie about it that is so open up and experimental, it leaves few openings to let outsider to properly get inside of. Although possibly I just want to enjoy it a few additional instances. 1.five out of five

Michael Joseph Jason Scott A gentleman hooks up with a guy on the web and invitations him round to his New York condominium. The visitor looks keen to maintain items nameless and get to the bedroom ideal absent. However, every single gentleman may well have distinct strategies about what they want to get from the fulfill, with one particular wondering about their long term and another considering anything significantly darker. Michael Joseph Jason Scott (titled immediately after the names one particular of the gentlemen guesses could be the other’s) is a additional clear-cut and easier enjoy than many of the other Iris Prize shorts.

That is not to say it is straightforward while, just that it is additional very easily accessible. Quite a few viewers customers will be capable to relate to problems about who you are inviting into your household, as nicely as the hope and feeling of prospects when you believe you have designed a connection with somebody. Although there are a couple of times, specifically in direction of the end, that could have benefitted from a small additional subtlety, it is still an pleasing enjoy. 3 out of five

Wren Boys I’ve viewed Wren Boys a couple of instances now and each individual time I genuinely want to like it. This is, immediately after all, a movie that acquired a Greatest Brief Film BAFTA nomination and a British Independent Film Awards Greatest British Brief nomination, as nicely as screening at the likes of Sundance, the BFI London Film Pageant and SXSX. However, every single time I’ve viewed it, it is felt to me unfinished and a small far too delighted with alone, and which is not for the reason that of its open up ending. I can recognize why many do like it while, as the concept at the rear of it and how it attempts to unpack that are attention-grabbing. The basic set up is that it is Boxing Day, and an Irish priest in County Cork is driving his nephew to jail to see one particular of the inmates. I won’t say a lot additional as part of the way the movie works is a gradual unravelling of the assumptions the viewer can make about who these people today are, as nicely what other characters are wondering and assuming about them. It also attempts to offer with a region trapped amongst an previous, rigid, Catholic, dogmatic way of being, and a new, enlightened region that has gay marriage (and certainly now has a gay chief). Even so, for me it works superior in concept than exercise, especially as a couple of its ‘twists’ experience like relatively hassle-free sleight of hand. 2 out of five

Something About Alex (Anders) Director: Reinout Hellenthal Something About Alex is a challenging one particular to discuss about just for the reason that the primary thing any viewer is likely to want to talk about about it is also a main spoiler. Alex has developed up on a farm but is upset when he discovers his sister and her boyfriend are transferring absent to the city. Realising that almost everything will improve, Alex finds it increasingly challenging to cover his accurate feelings. The movie works nicely just as what in the beginning seems like it could be a coming out tale, but in direction of the end it turns items on its head with a main twist, so that when we’ve been viewing the ‘truth’ it may well not be as other people perspective it.

Something About Alex is based about what is actually a rather straightforward concept, but it is a challenging one particular to pull off. It is while a extremely intelligent way to appear at the difficulties it is dealing with from a distinct angle, in methods that may well be easier for the viewers to empathise with than additional normal methods of accomplishing it. Even superior is that it is carried out in an very easily accessible and nicely put together way, assisted by a very good efficiency from the young direct. For me it was the greatest movie of Day 1 of Iris. 4.five out of five

Reviewer: Tim Isaac

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The post Iris Prize Festival LGBT+ International Short Films 2018 – Part 1 (Short Film Reviews) appeared first on PrideGuy - Gay News, LGBT News, Politics & Entertainment.

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iimmcrtalis-archive · 7 years ago

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Biography:

Intro

"Right, listen up. If you have ale, then you have a friend in Grog Strongjaw. A goliath of towering height and size, this barbarian has an appetite for the two great loves in his life: combat, women, and ale. Wait...

Easily the brains of the group, Grog is often consulted for his vast knowledge of shapes, colors, and shiny things. Also ale.

In his early years, armed with his two-handed great axe, Grog often enjoyed proving his might amongst the ranks of his family's wandering herd. But after coming upon an unsuspecting elderly gnome in the woods, he objected to the killing of such an innocent life. A creature of impulse, Grog felt only pity for this terrified little thing. His disobedience cost him dearly. Beaten bloody and banished by the herd leader, his uncle Kevdak, Grog was abandoned and left to die.

Exiled from his herd, it was then that the relative of the very gnome he fought to save, saved him. It was the kindness of a gnome cleric named Pike that healed Grog, bringing him back from death's edge. And they have remained close friends ever since.

Most nights, Grog can be found challenging entire taverns to wrestling matches! Or accompanying Scanlan to the nearest house where you pay for, er, lady favors. Also ale."

Background

Grog is a refugee barbarian, having been banished by his people. Grog is physically the strongest member of Vox Machina and often attempts to take the majority of damage due to his high armor class and constitution.

Before the Stream

Shortly after Vox Machina's adventures in Stillben, Grog left the group and traveled back to Westruun. After not hearing from him for several weeks, the rest of the party traveled there as well and met Pike Trickfoot for the first time. She told them that Grog had been acting strangely and had marched on his own through the Bramblewood Forest towards Gatshadow Mountain. Deep within the mountain, they discovered a mind-controlled Grog, the reanimated corpse of his father, Stonejaw Strongjaw, and a dying mage attempting to become a lich. The party slayed the mage, but not before he embedded his phylactery into Grog's chest.

While in the Frostweald, Grog entered a portal alone to retrieve an item. A nymph, named Nahla, was on the other side protecting it. Instead of attacking him, she liked what she saw. After a while, Grog returned looking quite satisfied with himself while holding the item the group needed.

With the help of Eskil Ryndarien, the phylactery was successfully removed from Grog, although it left behind some lingering necromantic energy.

At some point, Grog inadvertently almost killed Trinket when he hit the bear's backside with the flat side of his axe, causing Trinket to charge through a heavily trapped area of a dungeon. Vex was not amused.

Grog was the one who decided to keep one of the penises of the trolls, that his teammates shot off, as a souvenir. It was later used as a distraction in an encounter

Grog has previously been mentally dominated by another opponent, which caused him to turn against his group and almost kill a few of the party's members.

During a mission, Grog was fighting an umber hulk just like in "Into the Greyspine Mines" (1x02). He ended up getting confused, and, in an attempt to bull rush the creature, he fell 170 feet to the cavern floor. He was knocked unconscious and almost killed by the impact.

Grog and Scanlan managed to intimidate a group of hostile mages in a fighting pit when Scanlan summoned a pony, that Grog abruptly decapitated and smeared its gore on his body while screaming.

Grog was responsible for a blue dragon, Brimscythe, turning against Vox Machina when he found a treasure room and went into a "rage loot"; when the dragon emerged, Grog paused to acknowledge it before he continued looting the room. Grog's choice almost cost some members of Vox Machina their lives, but it also significantly increased their party funds.

Grog convinced the group that in order to find good security for their new keep, which they named Greyskull Keep, the potential guards would have to fight each other to the death.

On the road from Emon to Kraghammer, Grog successfully prevented a fight between a roving band of goliath barbarians, led by his uncle Kevdak's son, Zanror, and Vox Machina after he recognized his cousin. The truce was only temporary, though, and Grog left with the understanding that their next meeting would almost surely be their last—though this later turned out not to be the case.

Stats:

Name: Grog Strongjaw Nicknames: Greg, Phillip, Jumbo Titles: Grog the Victorious, The Bearded King, Grog ‘ Peanutbutter ‘ Strongjaw of the house of Peanutbutter, Grand Poobah de Doink of All This & That, The First Tourguide of Whitestone. Age: ??? ( probably late 30′s ) Birthday: Unknown Gender: Male as heck Sexuality: Heterosexual (Questioning???) Birthplace: somewhere Residence: Whitestone, Emon. Where ever his family is. Relatives:

Pike Trickfoot - Surrogate Sister

Unknown - Mother [ Unknown. ]

Stonejaw Strongjaw - Father [ Deceased ]

Kevdak - Uncle [ Deceased ]

Zanor - Cousin [ Alive ]

Height: 8′7″ ( Enlarged via Titanstone Knuckles: 12′7 Weight: 645lbs Character’s body build: All muscle baby. Eye Color: Black/Dark Brown Hair Color: Presumably black, based on his beard. If he could grow more hair. Type of hair: N/A (Thick af beard tho dude.) Hairstyle: Bald as hell. Complexion and skin tone: Gray like stone. Flecked with silver & blacks. Scars: A large scar on his chest, across his heart. Brand from the Slayer’s Take on his right arm. Various scars from other injuries in battle. Mannerisms: Tends to zone out when too many people are talking. Rushes in, impulsive. Driven to be better than his enemies. Competitive. Protective of Pike. Makes a lot of jokes, usually at the expense of others In a good way. Tries to impress or intimidate most people. Usual Body Posture: Proud. Defensive. Sometimes more casually, and uncaring. Tattoos:

Tribal tattoos on most of his body, including over his head and down his face.

The same tattoo of a Bear Kevdak had, but on his back.

(ngl here probably something to remind him of pike. ok? matching tats. Lemme live.)

Class: Barbarian │ Fighter race: Goliath.

Stats Level 17 (Barbarian 15 / Fighter 2) Character Physical Mental HP 230 STR 26 INT 6 AC 17 DEX 15 WIS 10 DC – CON 20 CHA 13

Abilities:

Grog has a few abilities that allow him to inflict more damage in combat and demoralize the enemy. The primal path of his rage is that of the berserker—his rage is a means to an end, in which his thrill is derived from the chaotic nature of battle. He later took two levels in the fighter class, gaining use of Second Wind and the Great Weapon Fighting style in addition to the use of Action Surge.

Goliath Abilities

Mountain Born

Natural Athlete

Powerful Build

Stone's Endurance

Additional Features

Beard Growth (Belt of Dwarvenkind)

Darkvision (Belt of Dwarvenkind)

Dwarven Resilience (Belt of Dwarvenkind)

Elemental Resistance (Fire/Cold/Lightning) (Titanstone Knuckles)

Enlarge (Titanstone Knuckles)

Siege Damage (Titanstone Knuckles)

Feats

Great Weapon Master (taken at level 12)

Tough[

Mobile

Barbarian Abilities

Brutal Critical (2 dice)

Danger Sense

Frenzy (Path of the Berserker)

Intimidating Presence (Path of the Berserker)

Mindless Rage (Path of the Berserker)

Persistent Rage

Rage

Reckless Attack

Relentless Rage

Retaliation (Path of the Berserker)

Fighter Abilities

Action Surge

Fighting Style: Great Weapon Fighting

Second Wind

VERSES:

Chapter 1: ( #Strange Bedfellows ) During the first chapter of Critical Role, Lady Allura asks Vox Machina to find her friend, Lady Kima, who disappeared into the mines of Kraghammer upon learning of a great evil resting beneath it during a vision quest.

CHAPTER 2: ( #In My Own Hubris ) The second chapter of Critical Role begins after Vox Machina says goodbye to Pike Trickfoot temporarily in the holy city of Vasselheim. Trouble with the law splits the party into two separate groups as they attempt to make amends, and during their stay, they encounter new friends, new enemies, and new revelations before eventually returning home.

CHAPTER 3 ( #The Hanging Tree ) The third chapter of Critical Role begins as a mysterious couple known as the Briarwoods arrive in Emon for a formal feast. Knowing that they were responsible for the deaths of his family, Percy decides it's time to achieve his vengeance. Following his lead, Vox Machina is accused of destructive behavior and kicked off the Tal'Dorei Council. Now they need to clear their names, but the cost might be Percy's soul.

CHAPTER 4 ( #This Means War ) The fourth chapter of Critical Role begins shortly after the defeat of the Briarwoods. As Sovereign Uriel Tal'Dorei III announces his abdication, four dragons calling themselves the Chroma Conclave attack the city of Emon. After saving whomever they can and resettling them in Whitestone, the members of Vox Machina rally their allies to kill the dragons and take back their home.

CHAPTER 5 ( #Leave The Past Behind ) The fifth chapter of Critical Role picks up after Vox Machina killed Umbrasyl and saved the city of Westruun. With three more dragons of the Chroma Conclave threatening the world, unlikely heroes must gather the power of the Vestiges of the Divergence and overcome their personal struggles to save civilization.

CHAPTER SIX ( #What Lies Beneath ) The sixth chapter of Critical Role begins with one member of the Chroma Conclave, Raishan, proposing an alliance with Vox Machina to take down the leader, Thordak. Although the party does not trust her, the dragon's strength and knowledge would be a great asset to them. As Thordak swells with madness and power from his position within Emon, time is running out until the final confrontation with the Cinder King.

CHAPTER SEVEN ( #Rally Around The Family ) The seventh chapter of Critical Role begins after the destruction of the Chroma Conclave. With the major threat taken care of, Vox Machina sets out to tie up some loose ends, including the final leg of Keyleth's Aramenté and the ever-present threat of Hotis's return.

CHAPTER EIGHT ( #Gods and Monsters ain’t shit. ) The Current happenings, and final arc. Main Verse tbh.

MODERN: Grog probably owns a gym. Or a bar? Both??? Needs to be actually thought about tbh.

DRAGON AGE INQUISITION

• Companion: Once part of a roaming group of Qunari, Grog spoke out against their violence towards an old Dwarf. His tribe broke him and left for him dead. But he was saved by the old dwarf, and taken in by him. Raised along side of Pike Trickfoot, the two became family & traveled together. or something like that. All you gotta know is he’s a tal-vashoth fuck for hire.

DC: idon’t even know man. probs some cool superstrong dude.

Fallout: Super Mutant. Totally. Just w/ like. A Good Sense and would fight anyone for his lil pals. Probably.

Overwatch: probs big dude w/ an axe & throwing hammer. Tanky motherfucker too.

Mass Effect Trilogy: Krogan krogan krogan kr o g an

Mass Effect: Andromeda: still krogan. like i cannot explain to u how much i love my boy as a krogan hes like a fckn easter egg in the fckn game ffs okay ??? l i k e HES A KROGAN MAN krogan berserker who is REady to FIGHT EVERY B DO Y

Elder Scrolls: fuck man iunno. probs like. Rad af Half Orc? Half Giant?? who is just like lmao fuckin come aT ME YOU DRAGON FUCK. Definitely Would Steal A Horse to look Cool.

Other’s may come out eventually. Keep an eye out for specific posts per au.

also: RULES ABOUT GROG

• I don’t write him completely as he is in the show. Close tho. I want to try and adhere to most of the canon. However, one to note, is that Grog doesn’t really forgive Scanlan At The Moment. • I do write him as someone who has ADHD, which is p much fuckin canon more bc Travis has implied it! • I will ship him, but not with Pike!! Their relationship is strictly platonic!!! • As far as I’m aware, Grog is Straight. Maybe Questioning but still.

#c: Grog #;; shut up commander ( ooc )#:: Character Profiles #long post #me: i should do ppls character profiles #also me: i love grog???

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thisishowyouletgoandfindyou-blog · 8 years ago

Text

Up From Chaos

No one covets a stressful childhood. But the later-life benefits of growing up in a tumultuous home are beginning to come to light, upending conventional wisdom in the process.

By Megan Hustad, published on March 7, 2017 - last reviewed on March 14, 2017

Illustration by Gérard Dubois

Sarah* grew up as an only child in a middle-class Los Angeles home that wasn't nearly as sunny as it appeared from the outside. On the rare evenings when her father was home for dinner, she wished he had stayed at the office. She was used to the tension her mother alone brought to the dinner table. But having two problem drinkers to contend with was more than a 10-year-old could handle. An evening might proceed smoothly—or someone might have a bottle broken on his head.

Her childhood left an indelible impression on Sarah, who is now in her late fifties, a happily married grandmother of three as well as a published author and writing teacher. She recalls growing up "in constant emotional danger. There was never a time when I felt comfortable, when I could relax." She remembers thinking everything was her fault and says she still tends to apologize too much today. The smallest affectionate gesture can send her back to her youth, feeling trapped, anxious, and desperate for escape. "I feel sorry for my husband," she admits. "He'll take my hand while we wait at an intersection, and my gut instinct is to yank it away and start running."

But Sarah also credits her upbringing for giving her the observational skills of a master spy. She can sense when people are hiding something from her, and her reading of the power dynamics in any room comes as if by instinct. "I can see how people stand in relation to each other in an instant," she says. "I can see where fear is coming from, where openness is coming from." The skills needed to navigate her turbulent childhood appear to serve her well as an adult.

What possible benefit is there in a tumultuous childhood? It is not an easy question to ask, particularly as each stressful upbringing is stressful in its own way. Some involve grinding poverty and some, overt abuse, while others are built on constant destabilizing neglect, or "undercare." These varied experiences are now the basis of cross-disciplinary research indicating that stories like Sarah's are not just the result of make-lemonade-out-of-lemons pluck. Early lives shape the very hardware of our brains, leaving some people impaired in certain respects, but others measurably stronger. As it happens, some of the adaptations taken on by children in stressful environments can come in handy later on.

Few who suffered deeply during childhood would wish the same experience on their own children. But as one self-identified survivor of a painful childhood concludes, "I'd be lying if I didn't acknowledge that misery benefited me in some ways."

A New Perspective

The downsides of a rough upbringing are well-documented. The standard model holds that early suffering leads to further setbacks as an adult because those who emerge from a punishing childhood are so damaged by those years that they may never live up to their full potential. They may be more prone to depression and score lower on tests of intelligence and memory. They also appear to be at greater risk for a range of physical ailments, from chronic back pain to heart disease.

Adults who experienced significant childhood stress can display a hostile attribution bias, meaning they perceive threats in situations that others properly view as neutral. Such a cognitive glitch can hamper the ability to form the kind of alliances that professional and social success most depends on. "It is essentially a biological phenomenon," or a dysregulated fight-or-flight response, says Daniel Keating, of the University of Michigan. "It means that the system designed to regulate your stress response is either undershooting the mark or overshooting it." Overshooting leaves you "reacting to things that are not significant threats in the world, but are either imagined threats or neutral things that you interpret as threats." It also makes you slower to return to your baseline. The effect can produce kids more likely to act rashly, even when unprovoked, who turn into sullen, withdrawn adolescents and, perhaps ultimately, adults who fly off the handle without warning.

But a nagging sense that the conventional wisdom painted an overly hopeless picture prompted Willem Frankenhuis and Carolina de Weerth, of Radboud University in the Netherlands, to publish a well-cited review suggesting that the script could be flipped, or at least amended. Recent studies had shown that individuals who'd had chaotic childhoods exhibited an enhanced ability to detect and monitor threats and to recall negative events. Was it possible that, under the right conditions, kids from stressed environments would perform better than expected at efficient information gathering, assessing people's reputations, and other reasoning abilities?

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"Most of the research on young people from adverse environments focuses on what they're bad at," says JeanMarie Bianchi, of Wilson College. "Our goal has been to uncover the psychological strengths of this population, because we know very little about what they're good at."

Researchers who have pursued this work, like Vladas Griskevicius, now at the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management, see the core question as a natural outgrowth of life history theory, which proposes that people structure their lives depending on their childhood environment. Broadly speaking, those who grow up in safe, predictable environments with adequate material resources tend to employ "slow" strategies—they study hard, delay gratification, put off marriage and reproduction, and generally follow the advice given to most middle- to upper-middle-class kids on how to stay on that course. Those who experience considerable upheaval early in life tend to employ "fast" strategies—for example, having sex earlier or becoming parents at a younger age. The fast strategist's "reward horizon" is shorter, and their future less assured; they will take a smaller immediate reward instead of a larger payoff later.

But instead of thinking in terms of whether a slow or fast life strategy is "good" or "bad," couldn't one think in terms of what was appropriately adaptive in each environment? A child growing up in a stable, loving home who is presented with a candy bar and told that if she waits a half hour, she can have two, would be wise to wait. But if her home is chaotic and her caregivers deliver only sporadically on their promises, it would be quite reasonable to take the candy bar while the getting is good. Grabbing what you can when it's in front of you in this context is not "impulsive" or "shortsighted," as those behaviors are typically—and disparagingly—labeled. It's strategic.

To assert that the latter behavior is adaptive is one thing; to say that a harsh or unpredictable childhood environment could yield objective future benefits is another.

Illustration by Gérard DuboisThe Upside of Unpredictability

To pursue the question of potential upsides of chaotic childhoods, Griskevicius and a team led by Chiraag Mittal focused on two elements of executive function: inhibitory control, or inhibition; and task switching, the ability to disengage from one task and pick up another. They hypothesized that people who grew up amid unpredictability would fare worse on measures of inhibition but better at task shifting, especially in situations that evoked elements of their childhood.

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They primed half of their subjects to think about instability by having them read an article titled "Tough Times Ahead: The New Economics of the 21st Century"; the other half read a text about a person looking for lost keys. In computer-based challenges routinely used to measure inhibition, people who grew up in unpredictable environments showed no significant difference from their peers under the control condition of having read the article about the keys. Primed with the article about economic uncertainty, however, they performed significantly worse.

The results were different when it came to task shifting: In the control condition, the two groups performed similarly. But in the uncertainty condition, those who experienced unpredictability in childhood outperformed their privileged peers—they were faster in shifting focus without a loss of accuracy.

Developmental psychologist Bruce Ellis of the University of Utah describes this trait as the ability to "unstick yourself," a type of cognitive flexibility that correlates positively with traits such as creativity. It may be that individuals raised in stressful environments have a greater willingness to leave something undone—a lack of perfectionism that helps them do what's necessary without dwelling on what could have been—compared with those raised in homes with the luxury of routinely expecting perfection.

"We are not in any way suggesting or implying that stressful childhoods are positive or good for people," Mittal and Griskevicius have insisted. Still, a closer look at the potential strengths of every individual, no matter his or her background, could help overturn stereotypes, both in the culture at large and in the minds of those who have grown up in uncertain environments that tend to foster self-doubt.

Kids who grow up feeling that nothing is under their control may turn into adults who don't particularly value feeling in control, but that could be an asset for those making their way in a treacherous economy. Consider Steve*, a New York-based software developer whose most vivid childhood memories of Christmas involve hiding under the couch in the basement to avoid getting caught in his parents' verbal crossfire. "They spent so much time fighting with each other that they did not have much energy left over to tend to us," he says. Steve recalls wanting to help around the house, but never being told what to do or, when he completed chores, whether he had done an adequate job. Around age 10, he started cutting his arm with a razor blade, hoping to get attention—to no avail.

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"Even during the good times there was a sense that you were on borrowed time and disaster was just around the corner," he says. "And it always was."

As an adult, though, Steve has proven to be highly flexible, with a willingness to take significant risks with little hesitation. He is sure that his upbringing has helped him through rough career patches. When facing big questions—where to work or how much to invest in a relationship—he has a high tolerance for ambiguity, for living in that in-between stage in which one does not know whether success or crushing failure awaits.

Evidence of other possible cognitive advantages is gradually emerging. Chiraag Mittal, now at Texas A&M, is looking into the effects of childhood environment on memory. His early findings indicate that people who grow up in unpredictable environments are better at what's known as working memory updating; they have the ability to forget information that is no longer relevant and to attend quickly to newer data that is.

Bianchi believes that growing up with stress may promote certain forms of associative learning—the ability to recognize that multiple elements of one's environment are connected in some way or that certain behaviors will be rewarded or punished in a given scenario. Growing up in an environment that's constantly in flux, she says, may make people "more aware of and responsive to changes in the environment." In the lab this means subjects may be quicker to perceive that they have been given wrong instructions to a computer game—and to change their behavior accordingly. "This would have profound implications," Bianchi says. It means that people who are used to being able to rely on rules and to trust instructions—such as those who grow up in more stable environments—may stick with the rules even in the face of negative results. Meanwhile, those from stressful backgrounds may be quicker to explore other possibilities and stumble upon novel solutions.

Illustration by Gérard DuboisSorting It Out

Stress is not one-dimensional, and while socioeconomic background is a factor in examining its effects, it is far from the only one. Clear childhood stressors such as divorce; domestic violence; physical, sexual, and emotional abuse; and the mental illness, alcoholism, or drug abuse of a household member are not limited to any one demographic. Growing up in poverty but with a stable family life poses different challenges than, say, being raised with the trappings of privilege but knowing that an otherwise indifferent parent's affection is contingent on how well you perform. Several cultural critics, surveying the state of the millennial generation, suggest that those within it who had upbringings high in parental praise but lacking in competition have too little experience with loss and may now lack confidence, resilience, and decisiveness.

The amount of stress one experiences in childhood also appears to be a factor in predicting future cognitive benefits. A pair of longitudinal studies by Mark Seery, of the University at Buffalo, found that people who reported experiencing moderate stress throughout their lives tended to score higher on measures of resilience (and were less likely to have chronic back pain) than those who reported either little stress or extreme stress.

The re-evaluation of stressed childhoods is part of a larger reconsideration of the mental and physical impact of stress. Of particular interest is the effect of norepinephrine, a chemical messenger that's triggered to help us pay attention when we notice something new, unexpected, or frightening. In moderate doses, it can be a "sort of wonder drug to the brain," says clinical psychologist and cognitive neuroscientist Ian Robertson, the author of The Stress Test. Norepinephrine helps the brain make new connections, with positive effects for both learning and memory. There is also something of a reinforcing loop between norepinephrine and IQ; the higher your IQ, the more norepinephrine is released when you're faced with a challenging problem.

This hormonal effect may help explain why those raised in tumult could be better and faster at assessing threats—for example, reading emotions or intent in other people's faces. There may a tipping point, however. Too much stress, Robertson says, can lead to excess norepinephrine production and an ensuing, cell-damaging flood of cortisol, which in excess can lead to vascular difficulties in midlife and is associated with early mortality.

"The effects of stressors depend on many factors," says Frankenhuis, now codirector of the Research Network on Adaptations to Childhood Stress at the University of Utah. Innate biological differences in temperament, driven by a combination of inherited genes, can promote profoundly different responses to similar upbringings and lead to starkly different adult outcomes even for individuals within the same family. Positive aspects of an otherwise highly stressful childhood can also blunt the effect, such as optimal nutrition or supportive extended family members. And the varied types of stress in tumultuous households—for example, acts of commission vs. those of omission—can affect children in different ways, Frankenhuis maintains. A slap in the face is not the same as a failure to console a crying child, though both have consequences.

Someone like Sarah, who grew up in a home inundated with persistent emotional stress and tension—conditions that emotional intelligence and acuity could potentially mitigate—may emerge with stronger, or different, cognitive benefits than someone raised in an environment where "blunt force" stressors like physical abuse could not be prepared for or dodged in any way.

Illustration by Gérard DuboisCrafting Happier Endings

Left alone with an abusive, paranoid schizophrenic mother for much of her childhood, Lillian*, 85, admits to being generally suspicious of people's intentions. But she is also extraordinarily willing and able to shift directions—her CV includes stints as an actress, portrait painter, theater professor, college dean, community organizer, and entrepreneur. Her husbands' careers required several moves, including an extended stay in Japan, forcing Lillian to routinely adjust her own professional goals. "I had no difficulty doing this," she says. "I counted on the permanence of nothing in my life except my ability to meet the challenge of change."

Greater knowledge of the cognitive adaptations that stressed kids like Lillian tend to make could lead to curricula and school environments more geared toward their strengths and attentional styles. Today, Ellis says, most interventions for kids identified by teachers or social workers as high-risk take their metaphorical inspiration from cats' claws—kids "come into school like a cat with its claws extended." And all efforts to help them are variations on "trying to get the cat to retract its claws—to be more trusting, to be more comfortable in school, to be more connected to the teacher." In other words, they are pushed to act more like kids from low-stress, low-risk environments. But reprogramming people is hard, he says, and educators could find it easier to work with children's adaptations rather than fighting them.

Tumultuous childhoods, as novelists and therapists have long known, can make for more complex and compelling characters. "People who haven't suffered are as interesting as shrubbery," says therapist Ian Morgan Cron. "With happy people," he half-jokes, "you think, Oh man, I can't get any purchase in this conversation with this person, because there are no cracks."

But Cron has seen in his practice how growing up in a culture steeped in negative assumptions about one's intelligence, temperament, and mental state can lead an individual to play out self-fulfilling prophecies: I'll never recover from what I went through. I didn't have the foundation you need to get the most out of life. Skeptical of their own prospects, such people might shy away from opportunities or get lost in the pain and bitterness of their experiences.

While a fuller understanding of the effects of chaotic beginnings gain societal traction, individuals who can learn to grapple with the stress of their past and overcome bleak views of their future can generate new hope. "We are the stories that we tell about ourselves," Cron says. "At group retreats, I ask people to turn to the person on their right and say, 'Would you please just tell your life story in five minutes, in which you appear as the victim?' When that's done, I say, 'Now turn to that same person and tell the same story from the perspective of you as the hero.' And they say, 'What? Is that allowed?' Well, sure.

"You have agency in this matter, even without revising history. It happened. We're not going to deny the facts," he says. "But the way we interpret history is up for grabs, and it can have a tremendous amount of healing power."

People who have already embraced every aspect of their past don't need convincing. "I'm not a denier, but rather a realist," says Lillian, who recently self-published her first novel. "I've learned to creatively change what can be changed and to live with what can't be altered. And I always turn to the fact that I'm still here and actively in the mix. I strongly believe that we all have so much more within us than we allow to develop. The possibilities are endless—not threatening."

*Names have been changed.

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