#desmond hates british people

[ethan-acfan]

Funnier alternative to "here we go again." Before desmond passes out.

I raise you. "Oh dear god, please don't tell me I'm BRITISH?" Before passing out.

Cue everyone laughing hysterically (even BILL let's out a small chuckle) while shaun silently seethes in the corner. When he wakes up, everyone is trying to be calm and normal, but they can't stop laughing.

It becomes a running joke in the group shaun hates everyone.

[icebearinacornfield]

Rating Alex Rider Villians on a scale of 1-10 on how supportive they'd be of me telling them I'm Agender:

[Just so we are clear, the concept for this came from a TikTok-er who does a good amount of Alex Rider content/analysis!)

Harod Sayle: 5/10 He's too focused on his own revenge plot against British school children to care and he wouldn't entirely understand it, but I get the vibe that he'd ask some follow-up questions about what I meant and then just be like "ok cool IG". He'd misgender me a lot, but it wouldn't be from a place of malice, it would just be because he forgot. He'd be quick to fix his mistake though. All in all, Harod Sayle's just too spiteful to have the energy to expend on being transphobic/enby-phobic/agender-phobic (I never know the right term to use, please send help!), so he simply wouldn't be. If I were British, however, he would be the most transphobic person on Earth to me!

Nadia Vole: 10/10 She'd ask for pronouns upon introduction and always make sure that she's using the right ones! If nothing else, Nadia Vole is a professional, and professionals use people's correct pronouns, names, and honorifics. I also get the vibe that she'd not put up with anyone's bullshit if they're intentionally going around not respecting other people's identities. She also just gives the energy that she's queer (especially in the graphic novel), but then again it might just be me projecting.

Mr. Grin: 5/10 Bro's literally just doing his job and couldn't give less of a fuck. He'd respect my pronouns and stuff, but it'd be out of total indifference to me. Just like, he doesn't have the energy to waste, so it wouldn't matter to him whatsoever.

Dr. Grief: -10/10 He's a racist/nazi/white supremacist/fascist jackass (probably a stronger word would be better suited for this, but I don't feel like putting it in), so going off of what we know already, I can make a very educated guess as to what his stance on me not fucking with gender would be...

Eva Stellenbosch: -10/10 Same with Dr. Grief. She'd also just straight-up hate crime me for fun, so there's that too.

Alexei Sarov: 8/10 He'd be a little confused/not know entirely what being agender meant, or even what it is for that matter, but after it was explained to him, he'd make an effort. He'd read up on the subject, he'd ask questions, he might mess up on pronouns and such pretty regularly, but there'd be an effort on his part and that's what matters!

Conrad: 1/10 He's a chaos gremlin of pure hatred and murder. He is alive solely out of bitterness and spite. He'd purposely misgender me/be actively transphobic just to feel something. Anything. Conrad just wants to watch the world burn and he's got the gasoline.

Damian Cray: 20/10 There was no heterosexual explanation for that man to begin with! I also can't see him being super big on gender in the first place. He'd be out there actively fighting transphobia and showing his support for all of the LGBTQIA+ community! He'd validate me and he'd be aggressively supportive as well!

Nikolai Drevin: 0/10 Y'all saw how he was to his son Paul Drevin. Paul has been head-cannoned/heavily implied to be gay and we all saw how THAT turned out... I just feel like Nikolai Drevin would not hesitate to force me to go to conversion therapy. That's it. Maybe he'd pretend to be supportive at first to lull me into a false sense of security so he could kidnap me for conversion therapy, but it'd be a complete and total act. Believe me, this man IS ABSOLUTELY NOT an ally!!! That being said, he wouldn't outright kill me/other type of hate crime me. Not that conversion therapy is ok or anything, but the bar is so low on this list at points and I'm forced to give credit where credit is due. He'd kill me because I beat him at something which is something he does with everyone else so it's an equal opportunity thing.

Desmond McCain: 3/10 He'd try and do an exorcism of me. not necessarily because of the whole agender thing (not that that would hurt his decision though), but just because of me as a person. I don't care if he's not that kind of religious, but that wouldn't matter to him. He'd become that type of religious. Desmond McCain would also try to talk me out of being agender (not that that's someone that can do) by telling me that "God didn't intend for you to reject your natural calling as a woman." which isn't something that I think that God would agree with because I just don't... Either way, he'd say that I was a sinful person and going to super-hell when I eventually and he'd mean it too even if he's just faking being a Christian.

Dominic Royce: 4/10 He'd be on the quiet side, but don't let that fool you! He'd actively be doing everything in his power to pass anti-trans laws even though legislating is not part of his job! He'd refuse to acknowledge my saying anything about being agender and say condescending shit like 'You're too young to know that!" or "It's just a phase!" and would be calling me "young lady" or "Ms./Miss" a lot which would just be super uncomfortable.

Owen Andrews: 2/10 Bro totally leaves Reddit comments about how being trans/non-binary/agender isn't real/is a mental illness or some bullshit like that in his free time for fun and probably believes it as well. That being said, however, I don't see him being super transphobic out loud to my face. He'd definitely misgender me every time and place he got, but I could probably beat him in a fight and he knows this.

Darcus Drake: 6/10 He'd use the right pronouns, he'd be respectful enough, but mostly he wouldn't be too bothered with any of it.

Dr. Raymond Feng: 5/10 He'd be skeptical about it, but he'd hear me out and just accept it. I get the sense that he'd be thinking 'oh is this internalized misogyny or childhood trauma or something?', but I stand by my statement saying that he'd ultimately be accepting and validating to me more or less. Not a strong ally, not a transphobe, just a man who presumably has a doctorate in psycology with no quams about imprisoning and interrogating a thoroghly traumatized child. And I for one think that's beautiful. (Not actually, I just wanted to put that last part down there.)

Dwain Garfield: 1/10 He's a Trump supporter. 'nuff said. Source? Trust me bro.

Vladimir Sharkovsky: -5/10 He'd hate crime me or, more accurately, have somebody else hate crime me for him.

Harry Bulman: 2/10 Bulman would've been out there writing transphobic AF articles LONG before meeting me. Harry Bulman would be writing articles about how being trans/non-binary/agender was the latest 'fad/trend', go out of his way to make fun of the trans experience, and spread misinformation about how "gender/women are under attack!". Now, I don't think that he'd actually believe what he's writing (except for the whole thing about it being a 'trend' or mental illness or whatever), he's just in it for the money/the clout. Not that this makes it any better, if anything that makes it worse. In any case, he'd laugh in my face when I say I use they/them pronouns and then tweet about it or whatever and call me a 'crazy, blue-haired liberal' or whatever despite me not having blue hair. In short, metaphorically (never literally) fuck Harry Bulman!

Colonel Aubrey Sykes: 1/10 He'd just call me a 'snowflake' and say that he identifies "as an attack helicopter" because like many transphobes, he hasn't evolved much since 2016-2017. Also, since I'm not a veteran or active service member of the military and an American, I just get the vibe that he'd already have had absolutely zero respect for me in the first place even if I was cis. Also, he just gives extremely misogynistic vibes too, so whether or not I was cis wouldn't change much.

[Probably going to do a separate list for SCORPIA members and the Nightshade board. The same goes for MI6/CIA/ASIS characters. It'll be fun maybe!]

[bolton-buried]

Took too long but here’s an OOC intro post I can pin. (It’s out of character because Harold wouldn’t think to write one.) You don’t have to read it to interact, but it contains some information on how I’m running this blog and on what’s happened so far. While the blog belongs to Harold—ostensibly—I may bring other characters into rp posts.

Putting it under the cut for space purposes.

General Character Info

Harold Bolton—call him Harry if you want. He’ll hate it but that’s 100% in character.

24, graduated art school in ‘22 after studying cinematography.

He/Him pronouns, in the “I really don’t care enough to turn off default settings” way.

An average-height man with dark hair and eyes, wearing a long, black trench coat and carrying a telescoping umbrella that he seldom opens. He is almost always dripping wet. He has a large nose, an idiosyncratic British accent, and consistently forgets to shave.

As far as paranormal phenomena, Harold doesn’t breathe and is constantly dripping wet—not just from the storm that follows him. His lungs and other organs are full of silt, making his voice come out gargled and making eating an impossibility.

Harold + other recurring characters from this blog.

The Story So Far

Blood on the Ice

When Harold was 11, his father went on a hunting trip, during which he went mad and killed his companion, whose remains were seen as an empty husk of skin and a pile of cockroaches.

On his way back to the small town above Newcastle, he killed another person who the autopsy found had no internal organs.

When his father reached their home, he chased Harold out of the house with his rifle. Harold fell through the ice above a river and was pulled out downstream, unconscious. He believes the Buried marked him at this point.

Harold, now an adult, visited his father in prison and was told the man had been well-behaved. However, when Harold arrived, his father began yelling “You’re too close, I can’t breathe!” And pounding the glass until it splintered and his fist was bleeding.

An Angel in Harold’s inbox explained that his father had written letters while in prison, and they were withheld from Harold. He sent one to this blog, where Nicholas explains that when around monsters (people touched by the fears) he becomes murderous, leading Desmond to wonder if Harold was marked by the buried even before falling in the river.

In later letters from Nicholas, it’s revealed that on his hunting trip he experienced a vivid hallucination of being tackled by a wolf that attacked his heart, and that’s when this all began.

For Harold’s birthday, the Angel pulled strings to get Josie from the Bookend sent to Nicholas’ prison, where he killed her and escaped, chasing a trail of spiders.

Harold left London to stay with Dez’s brother in order to hide from Nicholas and Kieran (another hunter)

HuntingHauntings

Check the tag (#HuntingHauntings saga).

Harold works for a ghost hunting show that he thinks is cheesy. Due to his large student debts, he can’t quit, despite doing all of the technical heavy lifting for Angie and Charlotte, the co-hosts.

An investigation into a supposedly haunted firing range revealed what Angie believed to be a rifle haunted by the ghosts of things it had killed. A spectral wolf appeared and chased Harold into the rain, where it dissipated.

When they went to film the next episode at the Bookend, they encountered 3 Leitners, one of which opened an emptiness into reality that both show hosts fell into

Harold took all three books and ran.

The show revamped with a focus on actual paranormal events after Harold saved Angie and Charlotte, with an episode on a mold-infested corner store, and the not-them.

Toe in the Water

Harold took the Leitners to Amelie, a librarian at the Magnus institute, and borrowed a book titled “Choke” while there.

By reading Choke, Harold learned about the existence of the Buried (though he knows it as Choke), and based on his observations, he deduced the existence of an opposing force, which he has dubbed Adrift.

Based on interactions between Amelie and the Unholy Bible and the blue book and the rain, Harold reasons that these two forces can be used to counter each other.

After interviewing at the Magnus institute, Harold identified a new pair of fears, which he called the Known and Unseen—rudimentary versions of the Eye and Dark.

After a first outing to retrieve a painting that caused things around it to bleed, his theories spat out another pair of opposing forces: Blood and Decay. Faye corrected his names for the Buried and Vast.

After a dream while drowning laid the fears out for him, and a post from Amelie gave them names, Harold lined them up with each other.

Falling Up

During the events of the Bookend, Charlotte and Angie fell into a hole pulled into reality by a Leitner.

Harold reasons that since matter cannot be created nor destroyed and their bodies didn’t drop, they must still be inside the book. He feels guilty for abandoning them and he needs to get them out.

When speaking with Faye, they confirmed that the Vast doesn’t tend to kill its victims.

Harold took the blue book up to Yorkshire and jumped into the Bolton Strid with it, drowning himself and saving the book’s victims in the course of becoming a full avatar of the buried.

He had a dream in the Strid where he experienced 14 of the fears and ran from each in turn, before falling to the Buried and finding comfort in it.

He called an ambulance for the victims, and they are well on their way to a full recovery, with Angie and Charlotte back in London.

The footage of this event, recorded on his camera, is deeply marked by the buried and causes a claustrophobic feeling when viewed. Harold is alone in thinking it’s beautiful.

The Crushing Storm

Tagged (#the crushing storm saga)

Since Harold’s senior year finals week it has been raining on him. He doesn’t mind it that much, but the havoc it wreaks on some of his personal belongings irritates him.

For the third time, rainwater has begun to leak through his flat ceiling, and he anticipates the apartment flooding (again) and needing to move.

When compelled to answer a question about his mental state, the rain let up slightly when he let the weight off his chest, but came back just as heavily when he denied his answer a moment later.

Harold has deduced that the rains are a manifestation of Choke.

The puddles forming in the rain give Harold access to cramped underwater tunnels, which drag him to places where the Buried is strong—or where it wants him to be.

Harold realized that other people were falling into his tunnels through a statement an institute worker gave him. After he started pushing people in himself, his powers developed further, allowing him to control if the storm is real or only visible to him, and have a bit more control navigating the caverns.

Boltzmann’s Brain

At the Bookend, Angie read the two annotated papers by Robert Kirk that made up a Leitner and became convinced that she is the only real person in existence.

When Angie emerged from the book, this effect was still in place. She is rude and frightened, and Harold is struggling to talk her out of Solipsism.

She attempted to steal a bunch of lapis from a crystal shop, meaning to use it to enhance her “psychic abilities”. She was arrested and when Harold paid her bail, she mellowed out, realizing that even if people are fake, her experience of the consequences are not.

A Stranger Streamer

Harold won a giveaway to see one of his favorite twitch streamers (d.parfit.plays (fictional)) in a private Q&A

Desmond recognized Harold from his HuntingHauntings work and arranged a meetup for coffee. Tea in Harold’s case.

They began dating, and Harold’s attempts to keep it private blew up when he accidentally hugged Desmond during a livestream.

Dez used Harold’s phone to run a Q&A, mentioning that he’s been streaming the video of Harold drowning, because he knows it feeds Harold.

As Hunting Hauntings rebooted, Dez added supplementals to each video, explaining that he was being followed, and investigating into the Angel.

During a stream, Dez was attacked by the notthem, which managed to convince Harold the screams were just a prank.

Eight-Legged Angel

While Harold was confused of an aspect of the powers, he got an ask explaining it in terms he understood, signed “an angel”—only this ask was sent in before he mentioned the issue aloud.

Harold received several taunting messages from this angel, leading to it revealing that it has the letters his father wrote in prison, and while it will send the first one for free, to get the others, Harold will need to do exactly what it says.

The Angel had Harold find two statements in the archives, pointing him to the NotThem and the moldy corner store that became the first two episodes.

On Interacting with This Blog

I intend to have some posts that are like, actual narrative rp, and some which are in-universe posts. Please don’t respond to an in-universe post like it’s narrative rp or vice versa. If you do I will ignore it.

I will not rp a romance with someone I am not actually romantically involved with. Light flirting will usually be fine, but it will not be reciprocated and I will not hesitate to say you’re going too far.

If you’d like to approach me in DMs to plan out story arcs involving both our characters, they are open. I will not rp in DMs.

I will also not rp in post tags, those are simply for meta blog organization.

If my character is upset, that does not mean I am upset. If I am upset, I will say so in tags or DMs, not in the body of a post.

Feel free to tag me in chains and ask games and such, I might not interact on all of them, but I’ll probably see it.

The One Behind the Curtain

Names are all made up in the first place. Why do you want mine? So you can moan it? That’s gay.

I’m 20. Really not sure what else to put here since I, as a person, am pretty irrelevant to this blog as a whole.

Mountain Time so if I’m not responding, check the hour. I’m probably asleep or at work.

[simptasia]

I was actually going to send an ask about that cause i was talking with a friend recently, and we were talking about how much we love that Charlie was Made Mancunian instead of something like a Londoner as I know they were going for the Britpop/Oasis 'troubled British musician' aesthetic, but Mancunians are like some of the nicest people in the UK, its gotta be that tram. We were talking about How they never met, but if they did, how Charlotte and Charlie could have formed a really funny friendship due to that North/South Divide. Like people joke but as someone from the UK that north-south divide is nasty, like you tell someone from the North you're moving to London they look at you like you've gone insane/Bonkers if you will. I cannot overstate just how snarky that friendship would be. Especially since Charlotte is from Sussex, a manc like Charlie is going to be bullying her as soon as she walks through the door. Like the poorest part of Sussex still gets more money than the most deprived part of Manchester, which also leads me to believe due to how it is, both Naomi and Charlie's snark might have a lil venom in it due to it really is a battlefield between Northerns and Southerners. Desmond also like Desmond is half Peruvian which is probably why he isn't like this, but I'm surprised he doesn't just full ham sarcastic talking to other British characters again that north-south divide is nasty, and he's a Scotsman everyone south of him is a southerner even Charlie and Naomi who were probably like a three-hour car drive away. My final point is i really think it would have been funny as to an American audience and every non-British character (Except people like Daniel who spent time in the UK ) it must look like a really advanced form of hate like imagine seeing people with nonsense accents bully someone else who lives an hour away with a nonsense accent cause they get their drinking water from caves instead of vast lakes.

miles: whoa naomi and charlotte really hate each other huh

daniel, who knows better: they're good friends actually

miles: [confused in american] ???

alas lost was written by americans who had no idea of the nuances of british culture. like, the only reason charlie specifically has manc energy is because it comes from dom's own brick soaked soul

like without being told, i am sure than it was dom's idea for charlie to coo over baffonee pie, a beloved northern dessert

(that's banana and toffee pie, babes!)

i woulda loved to have known how they woulda written charlie interacting with my beloved science trio. sure it wouldn't have been my delightfully indulgent internal fanfics but I Want it

i think des never made any playful jabs about charlie being english because he's not the type of person to give a fuck. yes i know the rivalries run deep but des is 1. pretty non-judgemental, 2. he has more important things to care about and 3. english pussy got him acting unwise. uh basically class and money divide fucks over des' mind, not country/culture divide

the show was never equipped to handle this so this is just my imagination but it seems more like charlie would be the one who cares about things like where you're from. not in a nasty way, but he'd at least think about it. his relationship with that posh girl lucy would have, deep down, made him feel worthless. espech with charlie's fixation on Taking Care Of His Loved Ones

and charlie being a manc really does add a lot to his character in ways i doubt the writers even realised. the dream version of megan pace cooing to charlie that he's going to save them with his musical talent, like he grew up with this need to make himself better than how he started. the punk aspects of him also tie into him being a manc because the Fuck The System and I Wanna Escape attitudes are super fucking common amongst northerners. it's a running joke that northerners suffer and whine all the time. charlie is a very northern character, almost stereotypically so. this is partly cuz of dom and partly cuz they based him on aspects of the northern music scene

i'm not saying all northerners are whiny angry little punk bitches. but charlie is and him being a manc adds like, a layer to it? also also the intersection between lower class english views of masculinity + the idea that charlie is bi and trans is utterly fascinating to me

but i digress. i don't get to talk about charlie being from the north enough, partly because like, i know most lost fans are americans who would just be smiling and nodding dumbfounded as i meme'd

but i do like to be educational. long story short, guys? manchester is a highly industrial part of the north of england and is riddled with poverty and violence and basically everybody who lives there are like the most depressed people in england (dom himself has expressed that he's proud to be a mancurian but happy he escaped)

so, like, manchester is the detroit of england. i hope that helps

[xtruss]

Theodore ‘Ted’ Kaczynski is flanked by federal agents as he is led to a car from the federal courthouse in Helena, Montana, on 4 April 1996. Photograph: John Youngbear/AP

Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, 81, Dies in US Prison Cell

Harvard-educated Mathematician waged 17-year bombing campaign from isolated shack in Montana wilderness

— Edward Helmore and Associated Press | Saturday 10 June 2023

Theodore “Ted” Kaczynski, the Harvard-educated mathematician who retreated to a dingy shack in the Montana wilderness and ran a 17-year bombing campaign that killed three people and injured 23 others, died on Saturday. He was 81.

Branded the “Unabomber” by the FBI, Kaczynski died at the federal prison medical center in Butner, North Carolina, Kristie Breshears, a spokesperson for the federal Bureau of Prisons, told the Associated Press. He was found unresponsive in his cell early on Saturday morning and was pronounced dead around 8am, she said. A cause of death was not immediately known.

Before his transfer to the prison medical facility, he had been held in the federal Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, since May 1998, when he was sentenced to four life sentences plus 30 years for a campaign of terror that set universities nationwide on edge. He admitted committing 16 bombings from 1978 and 1995, permanently maiming several of his victims.

Years before the September 11 attacks and the anthrax mailing, the Unabomber’s deadly homemade bombs changed the way Americans mailed packages and boarded airplanes, even virtually shutting down air travel on the west coast in July 1995.

He forced the Washington Post, in conjunction with the New York Times, to make the agonizing decision in September 1995 to publish his 35,000-word manifesto, Industrial Society and Its Future, which claimed modern society and technology was leading to a sense of powerlessness and alienation.

“The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race,” the first line read.

It was reviewed by mainstream publications, with the New York Times’ environmental writer Kirkpatrick Sale venturing that the Unabomber “is a rational man and his principal beliefs are, if hardly mainstream, entirely reasonable”.

Ted Kaczynski, from a 1962 Harvard yearbook. Photograph: Harvard University/Associated Press

But it led to his undoing. Kaczynski’s brother David and David’s wife, Linda Patrik, recognized the treatise’s tone and tipped off the FBI, which had been searching for the “Unabomber” for years in nation’s longest, costliest manhunt.

Authorities in April 1996 found him in a 10-by-14ft (3-by-4-meter) plywood and tarpaper cabin outside Lincoln, Montana, that was filled with journals, a coded diary, explosive ingredients and two completed bombs.

But Kaczynski, who was initially regarded by some as a radical environmentalist, was primarily an anti-technologist. Academics judged his “manifesto” as a synthesis of the work of others: the French philosopher Jacques Ellul, British zoologist Desmond Morris and American psychologist Martin Seligman.

But once revealed as a wild-eyed hermit with long hair and beard who weathered Montana winters in a one-room shack, Kaczynski struck many as more of a pathetic loner than romantic antihero.

Even in his own journals, Kaczynski came across as not a committed revolutionary, but a vengeful hermit driven by petty grievances.

“I certainly don’t claim to be an altruist or to be acting for the ‘good’ (whatever that is) of the human race,” he wrote on 6 April 1971. “I act merely from a desire for revenge.”

Kaczynski hated the idea of being viewed as mentally ill and when his lawyers attempted to present an insanity defense, he tried to fire them. When that failed, he tried to hang himself with his underwear.

Kaczynski eventually pleaded guilty rather than let his defense team proceed with an insanity defense.

David Kaczynski, left, and his older brother Theodore John Kaczynski, center, in a sandbox with neighbors. Photograph: AP

“I’m confident that I’m sane,” Kaczynski told Time magazine in 1999. “I don’t get delusions and so forth.”

Ted Kaczynski was born on 22 May 1942, in Chicago, the son of second-generation Polish Catholics – a sausage-maker and a homemaker. He played the trombone in the school band, collected coins and skipped the sixth and 11th grades.

Kaczynski had skipped two grades to attend Harvard at age 16 and had published papers in prestigious mathematics journals. His explosives were carefully tested and came in meticulously handcrafted wooden boxes sanded to remove possible fingerprints. Later bombs bore the signature “FC” for “Freedom Club”.

The FBI called him the “Unabomber” because his early targets seemed to be universities and airlines. An altitude-triggered bomb he mailed in 1979 went off as planned onboard an American Airlines flight; a dozen people onboard suffered from smoke inhalation.

Kaczynski killed computer rental store owner Hugh Scrutton, advertising executive Thomas Mosser and timber industry lobbyist Gilbert Murray. California geneticist Charles Epstein and Yale University computer expert David Gelernter were maimed by bombs two days apart in June 1993.

Mosser was killed in his North Caldwell, New Jersey, home on 10 December 1994, a day he was supposed to be picking out a Christmas tree with his family. His wife, Susan, found him grievously wounded by a barrage of razor blades, pipes and nails.

“He was moaning very softly,” she said at Kaczynski’s 1998 sentencing. “The fingers on his right hand were dangling. I held his left hand. I told him help was coming. I told him I loved him.”

When Kaczynski stepped up his bombs and letters to newspapers and scientists in 1995, experts speculated the “Unabomber” was jealous of the attention being paid to the Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.

A threat to blow up a plane out of Los Angeles before the end of the Fourth of July weekend threw air travel and mail delivery into chaos. The Unabomber later claimed it was a “prank”.

The Washington Post printed the Unabomber’s manifesto at the urging of federal authorities, after the bomber said he would desist from terrorism if a national publication published his treatise.

Patrik had had a disturbing feeling about her brother-in-law even before seeing the manifesto and eventually persuaded her husband to read a copy at the library. After two months of arguments, they took some of Ted Kaczynski’s letters to Patrik’s childhood friend Susan Swanson, a private investigator in Chicago.

Swanson in turn passed them along to former FBI behavior science expert Clint Van Zandt, whose analysts said whoever wrote them had also probably written the Unabomber’s manifesto.

“It was a nightmare,” David Kaczynski, who as a child had idolized his older brother, said in a 2005 speech at Bennington College. “I was literally thinking, ‘My brother’s a serial killer, the most wanted man in America.’”

Swanson turned to a corporate lawyer friend, Anthony Bisceglie, who contacted the FBI.

David Kaczynski wanted his role kept confidential, but his identity quickly leaked out and Ted Kaczynski vowed never to forgive his younger sibling. He ignored his letters, turned his back on him at court hearings and described David Kaczynski in a 1999 book draft as a “Judas Iscariot [who] ... doesn’t even have enough courage to go hang himself.”

Ted Kaczynski on 21 June 1996. Sources say he died by suicide on Saturday. Photograph: Elaine Thompson/AP

‘Unabomber’ Ted Kaczynski Died By Suicide in Prison – Report

Harvard-educated mathematician carried out a 17-year solitary bombing spree that killed three people and injured 23 others

— Associated Press | Sunday 11 June 2023

Ted Kaczynski, known as the “Unabomber”, who carried out a 17-year bombing campaign that killed three people and injured 23 others, died by suicide, four people familiar with the matter told the Associated Press.

Kaczynski, who was 81 and suffering from late-stage cancer, was found unresponsive in his cell at the federal medical center in Butner, North Carolina, around 12.30am on Saturday. Emergency responders performed CPR and revived him before he was transported to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead later on Saturday morning, the people told the AP.

The people were not authorized to publicly discuss Kaczynski’s death and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

Kaczynski’s death comes as the federal Bureau of Prisons has faced increased scrutiny in the last several years following the death of wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein, who also died by suicide in a federal jail in 2019.

Kaczynski had been held in the federal supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, since May 1998, when he was sentenced to four life sentences plus 30 years for a campaign of terror that set universities nationwide on edge. He admitted committing 16 bombings from 1978 and 1995, permanently maiming several of his victims.

A Harvard-educated mathematician, Kaczynski lived as a recluse in a dingy cabin in rural Montana, where he carried out a solitary bombing spree that changed the way Americans mailed packages and boarded airplanes.

His targets included academics and airlines, the owner of a computer rental store, an advertising executive and a timber industry lobbyist. In 1993, a California geneticist and a Yale University computer expert were maimed by bombs within the span of two days.

Two years later, he used the threat of continued violence to convince the New York Times and the Washington Post to publish his manifesto, a 35,000-word screed against modern life and technology, as well as damages to the environment.

The tone of the treatise was recognized by his brother, David, and David’s wife, Linda Patrik, who tipped off the FBI, which had been searching for the Unabomber for years in the nation’s longest, costliest manhunt.

Authorities in April 1996 found him in a small plywood and tarpaper cabin outside Lincoln, Montana, that was filled with journals, a coded diary, explosive ingredients and two completed bombs.

While awaiting trial, in 1998, Kaczynski attempted to hang himself with a pair of underwear. Though he was diagnosed by a psychiatrist as a paranoid schizophrenic, he was adamant that he wasn’t mentally ill. He eventually pleaded guilty rather than allow his attorneys to present an insanity defense.

[the-skysurge]

Main OCs

Full Name: Muhammad Ariff Harris Bin Taufiq

Nationality: Singaporean

Race: Malay

Birthday: 27 April 2001

Height (Human): 167cm

Height (Werepanther): 187cm

Likes: Rock music, sports, science, sleeping, running, pranks, cats

Dislikes: Being alone too long, people who romanticise mental illness, vampires, demons

Abilities: Lycanthropy (Panther)

Lore Summary: Ariff grew up in a fairly rich family in Singapore. His parents dote on him and his younger sister but never to the point of spoiling them. He had a normal upbringing until his early teen years when he first transformed into a werepanther. After attacking his sister twice accidentally, he went through therapy to cope with his intense emotions. When he first met Ebony, he hated his guts, to the point of physically bullying him in school. A horrible incident happened involving Ariff’s best friend Delta and he had to fix himself again with the help of Ebony. Their friendship started after that. Now, Ariff is a charming guy who enjoys playing his guitar, joking with people and working out.

—————————

Previous Name: Ashley Matthew Brooks

Current Name: Ebony Lee Brooks

Nationality: American/Singapore PR

Race: Irish

Birthday: 21 June 1999

Height: 185cm

Likes: Drawing, rock music, sleeping, Maths, eating, reading

Dislikes: Socialising, arrogant people, bullying, preppy girls, being called 'emo', sports

Abilities: Shapeshifting

Lore Summary: Ebony was a runaway from Minnesota, USA. He lost his mother to cancer and his biological father abused him ever since he found out he was a shapeshifter. He ran away to New Orleans where he is taken in as an orphan and allowed to start a new life. He is then permanently moved to Singapore where he meets Ariff for the first time. Neither of them started on good terms and Ebony had to endure bullying once again. This changed after a horrific incident involving Ariff and his best friend Delta, where he was brutally injured by Ariff in a bid to save Ebony from his wrath. Delta survived and joined Ebony in helping Ariff with his anger issues. Ariff and Ebony became best friends the longer they spent time together. Eventually, Ebony managed to get adopted by a Singaporean family and feel how nice it is to have a family again.

—————————

Full Name: Raymond Liu Xiang Qi

Korean Name: Liu Hyunsik (류현식)

Nationality: Singaporean

Race: Chinese/Korean

Birthday: 3 October 2001

Height: 170cm

Likes: 80s/90s rock music, reading, soccer, watching documentaries, k-rock

Dislikes: being called a 'freak", tardiness, immature people

Lore Summary: Ray was born a regular human to a pair of Singaporean parents, with a Korean mother and a Chinese father. At the age of 11, he was kidnapped during a trip to the US and subjected to an inhumane experiment which turned him into a wolf-human hybrid. He escaped the facility, but not without killing his kidnappers. He was found and returned to his parents in Singapore, who were initially unnerved by his new appearance but were glad he was alive. His new look has also resulted in him being bullied by his schoolmates to the point of wanting take his own life. It was then when he met Ariff online who managed to talk him out of it. They remained good friends ever since then. Ray lives a normal life again, living past the age he was told other experiment subjects died at.

—————————

Full Name: Kastor Adams (fake last name)

Nationality: British

Race: N/A

Date Of Birth: 31 October 110

Physical Age: 21

Height: 198cm

Likes: Murder, flying, watching TV, gossiping

Dislikes: Humans, technology, blending in

Powers: Telekinesis, pyromancy

Lore Summary: Kastor is sent to Earth from Hell to banish heavy sinners in person. Upon arriving in the UK, he has nowhere else to go or stay, until he gets summoned to a random house owned by a gay couple. The men, Desmond Park and Flynn Harper, had apparently summoned him as a joke at a party the night before but only had Kastor show up the next day. With no other option, Kastor uses their house as a place to rest while he completes his task. He also picked up a job as a Starbucks barista to earn some money on the side. After a few years, he completed his task (with some trouble here and there) and allowed to stay on Earth for as long as he wished.

—————————

Real Name: Eliiah Osei Pierce

Nationality: Singaporean

Race: African-American

Date Of Birth: 24 November 1997

Height: 188cm

Likes: Joyrides, baking, swimming, nature, isolation

Dislikes: Crimes, hitchhiking, bugs, clubbing, bright places

Powers: Telepathy, darkness manipulation

Lore Summary: Elijah used to be a missing persons case in Kansas that went cold, until he awoken from a years-long slumber in a forest. He discovered his new abilities as he wandered the country to figure out who he was and why he was there. Going by the alias ‘Abyss’ for the time being, he took up odd jobs while he got used to his new abilities and recover his lost memories. Dalraxach is the demon bound to his body and desires to take control of it, but after a while they grown to like each other. At one point, the two were forcefully separated by some adversaries desiring his power. After reuniting with Dalraxach, he gave up his search in America and decided to move to Singapore, assuming his luck would change there. He was right, as he met a girl who kept pestering him at one of his jobs and calling him her missing older brother. After a while, he begins to trust her and follows her home one day, where the rest of his memories came flooding in. Now, he pursues a career in teaching and teaches the English language in a secondary school.

[clockwork--artist]

“But that’s not how it works!”

“Okay, but get this.”

I have two morons Professor Layton OCs that I’d love to introduce to you all! Meet Tom and Davina! If I could draw them in the PL artstyle, I would. Unfortunately, I cannot not. :pensive: 

Prepare to see more of these losers in the future!

More information on the two below the fold!

“Though seemingly reserved and not very expressive, Tom is a sharp-tongued and witty English boy living in America. He has a bit of trouble with reading, but this doesn’t affect his ability to read sheet music and his excellent piano playing, nor his puzzle-solving skills. Despite being a brilliant bluffer, he doesn’t hide his feelings for a certain friend very well.”

You heard the blurb! It’s Tom Clarke, a character I once described to a friend as “a British dumbass with smartass energy.”

Some basic info:

His full name is Thomas Mark Clarke. His parents (and me, lol) made it rhyme on accident.

He’s 13 in Unwound Future.

He’s supposed to be 5’7”, but I feel bad for Layton when I draw Tom taller than him.

He thinks he’s straight, but he’s probably some amount of Demi.

He’s from the Northern UK. His hometown will appear in a story I swear I’ll write.

Some fun facts:

He’s not one to become invested in any media, instead opting to engage in what his friends enjoy. As such, Davina convinced Tom to learn the entire soundtrack of The Eternal Kingdom on piano. He went above and beyond, translating the entirety of The Eternal Diva into melody-compliant German as a joke.

Tom takes fencing classes and formerly took dance classes. These aren’t the most beneficial skills in the world, but his dad made him take them.

Speaking of dance, his six years of dance class never made him hate the activity. He loves to dance when he has the chance. He’s surprisingly good at waltzing.

He’s way too good at ice skating. It may be on account of his six years of dance, but either way, he’s way too good. Just because you lived in an icy climate for the first ten years of your life doesn’t mean you get to be a show-off.

His parents forgot his middle name. They keep calling him Michael, but he’s adamant that it’s Mark. They don’t listen. Davina is conscious of this but calls him Michael to piss him off.

Tom likes the more riddle-y kinds despite his literate ineptitude. He’s good at math puzzles but doesn’t like how much you have to think about them.

Tom plays chess and is surprisingly good at it, maybe even falling into the tryhard category. He doesn’t play for fun but will let inexperienced players clown on the craft to get used to it and have fun. He primarily plays black.

He’s not really one to visually express his emotions. The most you’ll ever get out of him is a small smile, a raised eyebrow, or the look you get in a restaurant when you’ve been waiting for your food for 20 minutes and are very peeved, but you don’t want to look impolite as you wait for 40 more minutes. When you do get emotion out of him, it’s usually when he’s speaking and is very distinct.

He moved to California (Japanifornia?) just after Last Specter. He– very distinctly– did not want to move. Tom’s fine with America, now.

He’s related to Flora. They’re third cousins, to be exact. No one knows/has realized it and won’t for a while.

Luke and Tom have been friends since around the age of 5, and they’ve been pen pals since about the age of 7. Even after Tom moved, they kept in close contact!

When he met Randall, he (without hesitation, mind you) said, “The Masked Gentleman is a twink?” It’s the hardest Davina has ever laughed.

-------------------------------

“Underneath a timid and aloof demeanor, Davina is a bright young girl invested in the arts and humanities. She has an eye for art on par with the professor’s and is an artist herself, taking any time she has to draw the things around her. Her love of music and ancient civilizations has led to an admiration for The Eternal Kingdom and the work of Desmond Sycamore.”

Yep, it’s Davina Alavara! She’s Tom’s best friend and occasional travel partner! Every adventure she’s been on wasn’t planned, and she didn’t sign up for any of this.

Basic info:

Davina is 13 in Unwound Future.

She’s just a bit shorter than Luke, so like 4’10”.

She is very ace.

As stated in her blurb, Davina is from America, specifically California (Japanifornia?), and is Latina!

Some fun facts:

As stated in the blurb, she is obsessed with The Eternal Kingdom. She has sketchbooks upon sketchbooks filled with the costume designs, the set, Janice Quatlane, etc. She even memorized all the songs.

She has an interest in Mezo-American-related archaeology, as well as the obligatory Azran. Davina was never too invested in Azran-related study until she found out about Sycamore, and then it spiraled out of control from there.

She got obsessed with the legal system for some reason. She knows tons of penal codes and general strange law knowledge off the top of her head now. She still seems pretty interested in a certain attorney and his prosecutor rival.

Tom roped her into fencing. She thinks it’s payback for making him learn all the Eternal Kingdom songs.

Davina was super scared of Layton (and Emmy, but less so) for a while, not exactly knowing why. She didn’t trust him and found him intimidating. She warmed up to him, eventually.

To be fair, she’s not really a social person— not as of late, at least. She’s good at talking to new people, she just has trouble finding enough confidence to approach. Getting Davina to trust you enough to start making meaningful conversation is another story.

Strange insults and threats are Davina calling card, so prepare to be told to jump off a microwave or whatever non-anachronistic equivalent to a microwave is.

Davina’s very good at slide puzzles but has no idea if that’s because she’s insanely perseverent or if it’s a genuine skill. To be fair, she never really solved puzzles before meeting Tom and had no idea what a hint coin was until meeting the professor. 

She’s a living storage unit, thanks to the massive bag she carries everywhere. Davina clears it out occasionally, but it just gets filled back up again. She always has her current sketchbook, a folder of loose blank paper and sketches, her pencils and pen, a glasses cloth, a pocket dictionary, and a handkerchief.

Davina plays chess with Tom sometimes and isn’t very good at it. She “developed” a method of play she calls “Ammunition Chess.” Whenever she takes a piece, she will either forcefully knock it off the board or pick it up and chuck it at her opponent/spectators. It has gotten her in trouble multiple times, but she doesn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon.

Davina loves drawing portraits of her friends and people she meets and has a folder full of pages upon pages of them. She doesn’t seem to like to draw herself, though.

If Davina is in a car that isn’t going incredibly fast, has windows she can roll down, and at a level she can comfortably look out of, she will stick her head out. You cannot stop her; you can only advise her when it’s a good time to stick her head back in. Also, prepare to hear commentary about how pretty the landscape is if you’re going somewhere rural.

[iraniq]

Birthdays be like...

# Thomas Andrew Felton:

/the scene happens in England/

- you woke up early to prepare breakfast

- barely slept the night from excitement

- half way through someome kissed your ear

- "woke up 2h ago to walk Willow, saw all, but thanks for trying"

- "go away, it's a surprise"

- "let me help in then, love!"

- "you can't help in your birthday surprise"

- "watch me"

- ends up helping in his birthday surprise.

- you singing 'ophelia'song to him, incapable to replace it with Tom and still spunds good

- he made thousand videos and pics of you stumbling with the song

- no pancake hit the floor!

- still officially forbidden of giving Willow secret not dog food

- talking about Willow, she came fast when she heard voices

- ending up making dog friendly pancake

- flipping it right on her face /was already cooled/

- Tom got it all on video

- "look now, oh hi Willow, catch"

- "did you just flipped the pancake to fall on her face?"

- before you can say yes, there was no physical memory of the pancake

- watching cartoons on the couch

- "looks like someone is sleepy"

- "nooooo"

- "well if you hadn't stayed till 2 in the morning last night..."

- "was excited for your birthday"

- "and you said it like thousand times"

- "i am excited for birthdays, and yours is a special one"

- forhead kissed

- he muttes something that endes with 'love', but tight hugs and stroking hair, is one way ticket to dreamland

- bonus: Willow is a warm pillow on your lap

- afternoon long walks

- laughter

- singing on the streets

- silly pics

- pillow fight at home

- Willow stole yet another one

- "Willow's pillow fortress is getying bigger"

- "because you can't say no to your child, and instead taking them from her, you keep on buying new ones"

- fancy, low key filthy sexy looking dress for dinner

- a comedy movie no one watched...

- ... because pillow war revange

- and somewome had to keep an eye on popcorn

- food thief detected

- sloberly kisses and yet another pillow missing

- "just jump in the pool with the dress, love"

- drying hairs in the midle of the night

- matching pajamas

- Willow at board

- "your child just stole my sock"

- "she is your child now too..." - halj asleep deep british voice

- "ok, then, our child, just stole my sock"

- more forhead kissed and love mumbles

- snuggles

- "will meet you im dreamland"

# Erich Blunt:

*Ok we have all seen the tik tok - "take your clothes off" and how the girl spits her drink, and we all reacted like that*

- after midnifgt visit at the big house

- you have a special 'multipass' key card

- wake him up at 12:02 with *coughs* love

- everywhere

- i mean everywhere

- possible

- in the house

- then maybe at 5 o'clock in the company

- the boss chair, that's unfortunately a super normal one, because he refused to have fancy cabibet

- in the virtual relity room

- junk food at the sunrise on a super random place

- naps in the big, too fancy for naps, bed

- mid afternoon flight to a dessert rave party

- yes... plain checked

- matching outfits at the party

- the looks he gives you

- yes... at some random spots in the crowd

- his poker face is out of this world

- stargazing and hand holding

- tents at feativals are not soun proof...

- both umable to human the next day, dozzing off in the plane

# Julian Albert Desmond:

- a workoholic, scientist, perfectionist... with a metahuman bad experience inside his head... He could tell by the air in the room, something was off...

- a surprise was way beyond imaginable

- imagine everybody's faces when you casualy dropped at the station, introducing yourself

- "she is a spy" - Cisco said

- "Julian mentioned he had a girldriend...but i thought it was just for the excuse" - Barry said

- "nope, alive and in the flesh"

- you announced his upcoming birthday in a week and asked for help

- they were all instantly in

- same day, Barry got 'late'

- the captain gave them a case in the far abandoned aide of town, Caitlin was in the car with him, non stop talking, how Ciaco and HR are unbarable. Iris and Barry...

- he wasn't paying attention at this point

- the building looked suapicious

- they entered, only to see the whole Team Flash, including Dr. Wells and Jessie, holding a cake, with this so familiar red sugar you have been buying lately

- he knew your surprise will pop up eventually

- you knew he was late after work, no more metahumans hate, but you nevwr poked the subject

- "no one told her" - Barry reasured

- "she is overworking today, and instructed us, quoting 'get his ass the cake, or i will end you!', she is scary for a librarian" - Iris noted

- "she certanly is"

- all laugh

- "candles blowing in abandoned and possibly dangeroys area, great"

- all laughing again

- *insert Julian's sarcastic remarcs*

- "people skills, Julian"

- A fot Ain't even trying at this point

- afterwork party at the park

- Julian being soft

- Caitlin being low key jealous

- romantic dances under the stars

- you wearing a long mid transparent nightgown and his "explorer hat"

- *insert adult content here*

# Logan Maine:

*AU where they woke up the passangers a week before artiving at Thea, notjing hit the ship*

/haven't yet finished the tv series, so some info might not be true/

- after Mia, Logan didn't plan on having friends, or being close to someone

- not that he planned to befrend Mia...

- aftee several days of you being sweet carring and maybe a bit rude, and an epileptic episode later, he was tolerating you

- maybe more than toleraring, but he wasn't gonna admit it

- he was astonishing cook to start with

- you tried making cake, when you found out

- failed!

- but the unhealthy ammount of chocolate syrop on it, fixed it

- him dipping fries in the chocilate...

- *Logan what?!*

- walking around the 'garden'

- him pushing you towards the spraying water

- trying to name the plants only to end up with: "if it's not weed..." - he laughed

- "you are failing at being horrible"

- "trying to be, but that smile of yours isn't helping"

- marker writing on the station windows, connecting stars in odd shapes

- sneaking on others

- "is Baum a perv, or just a perv"

- "Shun and Lana are totally a thing"

- low key stealing extra pills for his epilepsy

- who'll suspect the cool sweet kid's teacher

- stealing food from your supervisor's cabim, after you went asking her, what Logan liked, so you can make a romantic dinner

- she didn't gave you much info, but the odd plastic half liquid sweets you stole definwtly tasted good

- "the A woman stealing? Your crush on me is ruining your good name"

- "maybe i am tired of a good name"

- "don't tell me you go to another planet to be a criminal"

- "lools like i might have the best teacher"

- "only om small crimes, like stealing a pretty girl's heart"

- his odd winks

- that smirk

- kisses in the dark

- he "found" some extra blankets

- 2 burritos on a way after midnight open space gazing

- Shun may have cought you drawing the odd funny shapes, but told no one - you were holding hands, giggling drawing one ovee another, was way too cute to tell on

# Draco Lucius Malfoy:

/Around 6th-ish year maybe.../

- how you pick a present for someone who has everything, literally everuthing

- bargins with Pansy for info

- Theo gives it all free

- Blaize asked for unknown favor

- no one actually gave you smth to work with

- Draco was bitter

- even the good fight with Potter didn't lift his spirit

- nor the -10 points

- you even owled Narcisaa, but nothing

- difficult problems require simple solution

- his favourire clothes of yours

- your Gucci pefulme on his scarf

- this beyond ordenary way you bite off from his green apple

- the thing with the shy eyes and devil smile you love pulling on him

- touching his hair

- scratching his hands with your long nails gives him the good chills

- changing in that gorgeous emerald green dress he bought you for the Christmas ball

- pinky hand holding

- getting cold, so he can give you his coat

- him and his long coat

- messy pearl hair

- stolen kissed under his tree

- brushing your nose in his cheek

- teasing each other

- in your own bubble in aftwenoon class

- again -10 points... each

- professor Lupin felt the pain of ceperating the lovely sight you were, so he can continue his lesson

- party at the boy's bedroom

- eating the cake his mom send you, instead of dinner

- whole friends group having pure childish fun, sharing silly stories

- levitating around in pretend swim manner

- cake

- *coughs* wine *cougs*

- late night walk to the astronomy tower

- him showing you the stars

- the Dragon again, because you can never place it right

- him knowing you pretend not to know, so he can have an excuse to give you silly shoulder kisses

- you tip toeing to reach him

- passionate kisses under the stars

______________

@diyunho @lovermrjokerr @darthjokerisyourfather @littlebeautifly

Whoever enjoys it as well 😛

[insanityclause]

I've only just been introduced to Zawe Ashton and she turns to me and whispers, "Let's make a run for it!" The actress has been holed up in her publicist's office for the past few hours. Her minders are just out of earshot. "I need some natural light," she says as we scarper out the front door and head down a Soho street to a cafe. "I'm going to get into so much trouble," she laughs.

Ashton is very much a woman on the move. And she likes to do her own thing. We might know her best for her portrayal of the wannabe punk Vod in Channel 4's student-life sitcom Fresh Meat but there is far more to her than acting. She also directs, produces, and writes. Over the past decade she's been energetic in theatre and film, and soon she's going to be published. There's just no holding her back, and here she is again, coffee ordered, keeping one step ahead.

She is down from Manchester, where she's been filming the fourth – and final – series of Fresh Meat. Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong's brilliant creation has helped turn Ashton into one of television's most striking new actresses, but now she is moving on. A new Channel 4 comedy drama – Not Safe for Work, which begins at the end of the month – is going to show Ashton in a very different light.

Following the chaotic personal and professional lives of a group of dysfunctional government employees who have been forced to relocate from London to Northampton, Not Safe for Work sees Ashton playing Katherine, a recently divorced woman coming to terms with her displacement from the capital and having to live in a flatshare at an age when she thought she'd be having babies.

At first the show might seem like a big departure from Fresh Meat; Ashton is playing a proper grown-up, who wears a suit and actually washes. It's a role in which she speaks in her natural voice, too; still low but not as deep as Vod's. But look closer and it's evident that many of the issues facing Katherine and her co-workers are not that far removed from those affecting Vod and her fellow students at the fictional Manchester Medlock University; all are just trying to find their place in a world where things seem less certain than they used to. They're part of a new lost generation immediately recognisable to Ashton.

"My first impressions of Katherine were how on-the-money her struggles are in terms of a lot of people I know," she says. "That postgraduate-in-the-age of-austerity sort of thing. I know people who are moving back home, who can't afford to live in London any more, have long-term relationships breaking down, and are suddenly single in the age of the internet and wondering if they can still meet anyone at work. It felt really well observed."

Ashton has just managed to buy her own place, describing herself as "very, very, very lucky" when so many people her age (she is 30) and older are in no position to. "Living with the notion that you might never have a permanent spot in the world is really quite a powerful metaphor," she says. "I feel it really looms large and it becomes a symbol of lots of other things." Whether it's your career, your relationship, or your home, for people of a certain age, Ashton suggests, nothing seems permanent any more. "There used to be this lovely kind of linear flow."

Not Safe for Work was created and written by DC Moore, a former star of Channel 4's new-talent strand Coming Up, who, like Ashton, attended the Royal Court Theatre's prestigious Young Writers' Programme. A superb cast also includes Sacha Dhawan as Katherine's coked-up boss, and Sophie Rundle as The Most Irritating Girl In The Office. Ashton is not wrong about the show capturing the cultural zeitgeist.

Public-sector cuts are the reason for Katherine's relocation to Northampton so there are implicit politics in Not Safe for Work, but that's not an area Ashton wants to get into. She won't tell me how she voted in the recent election – she offers a firm but jovial "No comment" – but on cuts to the arts she is as forthright as you would expect from someone who, as a child, paid £2.50 to attend weekend drama classes at the Anna Scher theatre, a community-based drama school in Islington, which in its time has also welcomed Kathy Burke and Dexter Fletcher through its doors. Later she joined the National Youth Theatre, itself a registered charity, and she worries about how the next generation will be able to develop if such inclusive facilities disappear. "For students who are attempting to have their life be about something that isn't vocation based, it's harder to just explore your depths," she suggests.

Ashton's family were always supportive of her decision to work in the arts. The oldest of three children, she grew up in Hackney. Her mother, Victoria, had emigrated from Uganda as a teenager and became a teacher in London. Her English father, Paul, also worked as a teacher before moving to educational programming at Channel 4. The considerable amount of time she spends with them is, she admits, "embarrassing". Her newly purchased home is close enough that she can call by whenever she wants.

It was Victoria, in particular, who encouraged young Zawe – pronounced Zow-ee – to try out acting, and she bagged her first role when she was eight, as an extra crossing the road in the Channel 4 sitcom Desmond's, which happened to be Ashton's favourite show at the time. She went on to win parts in children's television programmes that included The Demon Headmaster before graduating to, among other things, Holby City and Casualty. She made her big-screen debut in St Trinian's II: The Legend of Fritton's Gold. Prior to Vod, perhaps her finest moment was in Dreams of a Life, a documentary about Joyce Vincent, a 38-year-old woman whose decomposing body had lain in a north London bedsit undiscovered for three years before it was found in 2006 by council workers. Ashton played Ms Vincent in the recreation scenes, her performance winning her a nomination in the Most Promising Newcomer category at the 2012 British Independent Film Awards.

Later that year she also won the award for Best Breakthrough On-Screen Talent at the Creative Diversity Network for her work in Fresh Meat. With Vod, just as it is with Katherine, the fact that Ashton is mixed race is never made out to be an issue that needs to be addressed in storylines. It simply isn't mentioned. Anyone of any ethnicity could have played these characters. Was that a sense that she had strived to achieve? "I'm glad it seems effortless," she says. "It's something that I've worked really hard at. I think I've always felt that I want to do a very specific type of work and I've made informed decisions. You know, hopefully be part of a quiet movement or revolution." She pauses to giggle. "Without sounding too Che Guevara about it."

She says that as a child she would hand back scripts to her mother and tell her that she didn't like how certain characters were represented. At the same time, she doesn't want her background to be ignored. "I don't want to be 'de-ethnicised'. I hate it when people say, 'Oh I don't even think of you as a woman', or, 'I don't even think of you as a black woman.' Well what do you think of me as then? A loaf of bread? But any actor of any race can tell if a part is well written or not. It's really just about reading stuff that feels well-observed and truthful."

I spoke to DC Moore, Not Safe for Work's creator, about Ashton as both writer and performer. "She really responds to scripts," he said. "There was the odd moment when she sniffed out something that didn't feel right. There's always a difference in someone who performs if they also write. It really informs the conversation. And similarly if you're a writer who has done a bit of acting. It helps to understand the processes."

In the past Ashton has directed two short films and written plays. She has just delivered another, For All Those Women Who Thought They Were Mad, to the National Theatre. She wrote it six years ago for the Royal Court and it was shortlisted for the Young Writers' Festival but nothing ever came of it. It has now been updated and she hopes it will finally make it to the stage.

Then there's the feature film that she is writing and will direct, details of which she says she can't tell me. You get the impression that in the current climate, Ashton is keen to create her own circumstances and opportunities. As with so many of her peers, she pursues numerous outlets because who knows when one might be taken away? Moore says he understands that urge. "It broadens your scope to take on so many things, but it also means you've got other ways of playing what is essentially a big game. It's a wise move."

And there's yet more coming from Ashton. One of the things she is most excited about is the book deal she recently secured. "How can I describe it?" she says. "You know these books of essays by female voices that are very in vogue ? Well it's not that!" She laughs. "It's a mixture of fact and fiction and kind of based on some of the awful character breakdowns that you sometimes receive as an actress – that are really two-dimensional."

Acting, screenplays, directing, books. I can't help but marvel at how prolific she is. "It's quite funny because it's so much more natural in the States to do so many things and, having spent a bit more time there, you just fit right in if you do many, many things. I'm just coming to terms with the fact that I will always do lots of different things and I can't really stay in one place too long."

Our time is over. Ashton politely excuses herself to return to the office and, presumably, call off the search party. Through the window I see her rushing up the street. Will she find her permanent spot in the world? Who knows. Maybe she'll never need to.

[yandere-flower]

How would the boys feel about their kids wanting to do what their parents do when they grow up. Like would Sawyer and Desmond be okay with their kids having such a dangerous job? -Gnome

YES

Desmond would HATE Liam and Oliver being detectives, especially homicide. While he may be more understanding of Liam, and kid who literally witnessed a murder, Oliver is a soft spoken lil cutie who needs to chill out. He’d def try taking Liam to a more, desk job approach and just tell Oliver straight up no.

Ezra LOVES the fact that Eliza, Emerson, and Emmy want to be bakers, his kids never leaving him would be his dream. However, it’s probably more like Eliza wants to host Great British Bake Off, Emerson wants to own his own bakery, and Emmy’s just a child and Ezra is projecting rn. Oh well.

Listen, I love this prompt, but Hanami could NEVER work at a desk or behind a computer. She probably watches CSI and gets super pumped about busting bad guys and she asks dad to explain it, but Mizu just bores her to death.

Sawyer of course always says Ivy and Iris are part of the family, but he probably doesn’t want them busting knees or head locking people. Although, he def teaches them how. For protection.

I think naturally Luca would want to be a history professor like Cliff, he probably gets to go to class and pick on students and question their questions just to feel smart.

Antonio loves the fact that Ramona wants to be an artist like him, but of course she’s like 7 so all her art is glitter and rainbows. He adds a little section to his gallerys for her work,

[kalyan-gullapalli]

Post # 117

The biography of a national anthem

In 1997, the Republic of South Africa adopted a hybrid song of sorts as its national anthem. The song had verses from 5 languages - Xhosa, Zulu, Sesotho, Africaans and English. Therein lies a tale.

The tale actually begins in 1897, when a teacher in a missionary school near Johannesburg, Enoch Sontonga, composed a hymn (a prayer) in Xhosa, called Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika - meaning "God bless Africa".

This song - Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika - originally composed as a school anthem, became popular in many church choirs, until it came to ears of the founder of the Ohlange High School choir, one Mr. John L Dube, who went on to become the founder of the African National Congress.

The song was soon adopted as the official anthem for the ANC and became a symbol of the anti-apartheid movement in the country. It was considered by many to be the unofficial national anthem of black South Africa, representing the suffering of the oppressed majority. Because of its connection to the ANC, the song was banned by the ruling government of South Africa.

While all this was happening, in 1918, an Afrikaaner called C.J. Langenhoven wrote a poem in Afrikaans, called Die Stem van Suid-Afrika, literally meaning, The Voice of South Africa or The Call of South Africa.

Die Stem also became immensely popular and was used throughout 1920s by the South African Broadcasting Corporation at the close of daily broadcasts, along with the common anthem sung by all British Commonwealth nations - God Save The King.

In 1938, South Africa proclaimed Die Stem and God Save the King as its co-national anthems. In 1957, God save the King was dropped and Die Stem officially became the only national anthem of the apartheid-promoting, ruling regime of South Africa. Naturally, the blacks in South Africa hated Die Stem.

In 1991, Nelson Mandela was released after 27 years in Polsmoor prison in Robben Island. He came out of jail, freer than the imprisoner. In 1994, elections happen for the first time in a post-apartheid era, where blacks are allowed to vote. ANC wins hands down and Nelson Mandela becomes president of a rainbow nation, where the minority whites, who control the police, the army and the economy, are scared of retribution from blacks. He becomes convinced that "this was no time for petty revenge. Now was the time to build a nation."

So he doused the demands to remove Die Stem as the national anthem and proclaims that both Die Stem and Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika as the co-national anthems. He uses every available opportunity to unite the nation and make 42 million people march forward as one country.

The book and the movie made on the book - Invictus - shows how Mandela used a sport - Rugby - to unite the nation. In 1995, South Africa's dominantly white Rugby team - Springboks - sings Nkosi Sikelel 'iAfrica on the final match day, wins the match and 42 million South Africans - black, white and any color in between - jump, scream, shout and rejoice on the streets of South Africa as one country.

There is an unbelievable scene from the movie, where an ecstatic Nelson Mandela, while handing over the World Cup to the winning captain of South Africa - Francois Piennar - says, "Thank you for what you have done for the country." An equally emotional Francois Piennar replies, "No, Mr. President. Thank you for what you have done for the country."

In 1996, a committee representing all segments of the South African population, sat together and employed five of the eleven most widely spoken official South African languages to compose a hybrid national anthem.

Xhosa (first stanza, first two lines)

Zulu (first stanza, last two lines)

Sesotho (second stanza)

Afrikaans (third stanza)

English (final stanza).

The first half was musically arranged by Mzilikazi Khumalo (left in the photo below) and the latter half of the song was arranged by Jeanne Zaidel-Rudolph (right in the photo below), who also wrote the final verse in English.

And so it came to pass that, in 1997, the Rainbow Nation, as post-apartheid South Africa was called by Desmond Tutu, adopted a rainbow song as its official nation anthem.

Here it is...

[bxstvrd]

ENTER STAGE RIGHT... JONAH PRYCE AS “THE VILLAIN”

content warnings for: infidelity, disassociation, emotional abuse, gaslighting, disordered eating / body image issues

FULL APP // PINTEREST // WANTED CONNECTIONS

&& basics–– full name: jonathan alexander pryce sinclair age: twenty-one (sensitive little cancer, his birthday’s july 1st) sexuality: bisexual baby (literally bc he’s still parsing all of this / figuring out this part of his identity) gender & pronouns: cis, he/him/his character comps: kendall roy ( succession ), the man in black ( westworld ), bojack horseman ( bojack horseman ), adam groff ( sex education ), tim riggins ( friday night lights ), max evans ( roswell new mexico ) full statistics page here

&& history––

jonah’s got legacies on both sides of his family. his father, william pryce, is the heir of a meat distribution company based in pennsylvania that’s become one of the largest beef distributors in the continental united states. his mother, charlotte sinclair, is from old money that’s now tied up in several magazines / newspapers in the tristate area

his whole childhood, he could never figure out why william hated him so much, why william would never give him an ounce of paternal love, not the way he did with jonah’s brothers. and then one night, in a drunken tirade, william reveals: jonah’s a bastard. he’s not william’s son, but rather a product of charlotte’s infidelity

the truth of who he is makes too much sense to jonah, contextualizes everything that’s ever happened to him, and it breaks something in him. he grows into the role of the ‘destroyer’, the villain, the bastard. he learns coldness from his father, apathy from his mother, and shoulders the guilt of his own birth as though he’s not just a child, as though he did something to deserve this. he comes to realize, it’s not that he did anything wrong. simply put, jonah was just born wrong.

theater helps, and he’s good at it too, but it doesn’t undo the ache of being cast aside. jonah becomes obsessed with finding his birth father and finally, after sixteen years of pretending, he confronts his mother, who reluctantly gives jonah his name: desmond burnes.

desmond burnes is a playwright, much to jonah’s delight. and he’s an alderidge alum (which is why jonah even applied here to begin with). the summer before he goes off to college, jonah decides to go to new york to track down his dad, using a summer theater program at columbia as a guise for tracking des down. and at first, des is everything he wanted in a parent: thoughtful, attentive, engaged. but the more jonah gets to know him, the more he realizes how hot and cold des is, how similar the two of them are, in all the worst ways.

the summer ends in turmoil, as you would expect. jonah developed a bit of a crush on hugh, the prop designer for des’ play, not realizing that des and hugh were already entangled sexually. jonah finds the two of them together, and it breaks him, not because he’s jealous, but because he realizes: des will never be the kind of father jonah’s needed his whole life. it leaves a hole in his heart, a void he thinks will never be filled.

until....enter stage left!! orson hobbs. that slimy mother fucker saw how much pain there is in jonah, but also saw how he could harness that deep, deep agony for something great. and jonah, for what feels like the millionth time in his life, put all of his trust and love and hope into the wrong fucking person because he was so desperate to be good in jonah’s eyes, so desperate to have someone who saw him and wouldn’t leave, like everyone else before orson.

his relationship with helen really threw a wrench in that though. orson always liked jonah broken, and with helen, he finally sound some sense of healing. so he reeled jonah back in, using the role of achilles as the hook line and sinker, and jonah, oblivious to how he was being manipulated, fell for it all. he’s always been so susceptible to changing himself for the approval of other people, always twisting himself into whatever shape he thinks people want to see. it’s only towards the end, days before the curtain rises for troilus and cressida, that jonah understands: orson never cared about him. orson likes him broken, docile, his. and orson will cast him aside if he refuses to comply.

orson’s death has shaken him to his core because, even though he didn’t kill orson, a part of jonah knows that, if he saw orson that night, he would have. knowing he has that rage in him, knowing that that’s what he’s truly capable of... he’s never felt more wrong, more evil in his whole life, and hell, maybe that’s just who he is. maybe he’s failed, so many times, at being good because he’s got a black mark on his heart, just like des, just like william.

&& random facts––

smokes too many cigarettes & doesn’t drink enough water

hates birds

sketches when he’s bored, likes drawing butts

is a staunch vegetarian, trying to go vegan but likes cheese too much

would cry @ everything if he didn’t have to deal w the embarrassment of being vulnerable in front of people

doesn’t know how to swim

knows literally every single thing there is to know about david fincher, one might call him... obsessed??

always looks like he just woke up from a nap... probably because he did

and in that vein, Nap King, he’s been diagnosed with a mild form of narcolepsy, don’t fuck w jonah’s naps

allergic to cats, but loves them so much its stupid

compulsively buys candles when he’s sad (so always buying candles because he’s always fucking sad)

gets HEATED about the great british bake off. don’t talk to him about it if you don’t want to open a pandora’s box of his love for mary berry

favorite color is yellow

always cold

disaster bi: clumsy as fuck. horrible driver. can’t sit properly in chairs. never knows what time it is

[icebearinacornfield]

Rating Alex Rider Villians on a scale of 1-10 on how supportive they'd be of me telling them I'm Agender: SCORPIA addition

[Just so we are clear, the concept for this came from a TikTok-er who does a good amount of Alex Rider content/analysis!)

Julia Rothman: 0/10 She'd call me 'girly-pop' in a heartbeat. Julia Rothman is such a Girl Boss (derogatory), that she'd become transphobic. She'd not believe that I was actually agender and be fully convinced that I'm only saying this because of internalized misogyny or something. She'd be calling me 'young lady', 'girly', 'Ms./Miss', any and all gendered terms because she'd know that it made me uncomfortable and that I hated it. Also, seeing as I'm not a literal underage boy, she probably wouldn't care too much about me in the first place... I don't think that Julia Rothman should be around children in general. She needs some Jesus...

Zeljan Kurst: 4/10 I get the sense that he'd find me pretty annoying as a person, so I'd already be on thin ice as it was. He wouldn't understand what being agender was and he probably would just have me labeled in his head as a girl, but he'd use the correct pronouns and otherwise not make a big fuss out of it. Zeljan Kurst really would just be trying to do whatever he could to not have to deal with me more than he absolutely would have to.

Max Grendel: 10/10 He gives supportive grandpa vibes! He might not always understand or get the pronouns right all the time, but he cares! A bit lost at times, but immaculate allyship!

Major Winston Yu: -1/10 Not only am I an American (i.e. NOT British) and am actively beefing with the concept of England in general, he'd already be having issues with me. Not only that, but he wouldn't understand what was going on and absolutely refuse to learn/get an explanation. He'd be misgendering me left and right in the most oddly polite way ever. Like, bro would look me dead in the eye and say "My dear girl" and then start ranting about his plans and how great England is or whatever.

Brendan Chase: 7/10 It'd start off fine with him being very accepting and supportive, but I could see it getting really weird real quick. He'd probably start asking me some really personal/probing questions about being agender and wouldn't see anything wrong about asking about it. But if/when I told him that it was personal/I wasn't comfortable with the questioning, he'd back off and apologize right away!

Abdul-Aziz Al-Razim: 0/10 He'd want to study the psychological pain of experiencing gender dysphoria and transphobia... He also just gives homophobic/transphobic/misogynistic energy in general. He'd actively hate crime me and observe my response for ~ScIEnCe~ and pleasure.

The Grimaldi Twins (they'd want to be counted as a single person): 6/10 They'd be pretty chill about it, I can't see either of them taking issue with me being agender. They'd be supportive, but they wouldn't care too much. It's pretty much just that. Nothing really to say here. If they killed me mafia style, it'd be because of something I did to fuck up their plans. Not because I'm agender. We stan equal opportunity kings! (Not really though.)

Doctor Three: 11/10 He's a strong ally! Dr. Three understands and respects how gender is fluid/relative/a social construct and he'd be very supportive! He'd also be out there actively fighting transphobia in the medical community through normal personal measures, but also through murder if he must!

Oliver D'Arc: 4/10 He just wouldn't care that much. If I told him my pronouns, he'd just be like 'ok' then immediately proceed to misgender me. He would never do anything outside of that though.

Yassen Gregorovich: 10/10 As a professional, Yassen would be using my preferred pronouns no questions asked! He'd also politely correct people who got the pronouns wrong or kill them because he's a ride or die like that (I may not be a Rider, but I feel like Yassen would still have my back in this area though).

Desmond Nye: 100/10 HE IS AN ALLY YOUR HONOR!!!! DESMOND NYE HAS PRIDE FLAGS IN HIS OFFICE AND ALWAYS ASKS FOR PREFERRED NAMES AND PRONOUNS! AND HE RESPECTS THEM! WHEN HE WAS IN CHARGE THERE WERE VERY STRONG ANTI-DISCRIMINATION POLICIES IN PLACE AND I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL! (As you can see I am very calm and normal about this headcanon.)

Nile: -11/10 He'd only be this level of unsupportive because he'd hate me and want to make me feel as uncomfortable/invalidated as humanly possible. If it was anyone other than me, he'd be fairly supportive, like, a solid 5/10! But we do have to take into account that Nile is totally very petty and that I'd bet good money he'd get very creative with his transphobia in a not-good way. In short, NILE IS A HATER!!!

Karl Steiner: -2/10 He'd psycho-analyze me and try to gaslight me into being cis. He'd straight up become a conversion therapist in an instant, but he'd also try to ease into the role to not scare me off and then go from there. But that would be his secondary goal. His primary goal would be to see if I'd make a good assassin and IDK how I'd do on his tests and that's not what we're talking about here. All in all, would not recommend this man as a therapist for anyone ever.

Anthony Sean 'Ash' Howell: 5/10 He'd just nod and say "nice" before going back to smoking and being angsty which, honestly, slay! (Not the smoking part! Don't smoke kids, it's very, very, extremely bad for you!) I can't see him being transphobic, but I can't see him being an ally either. He's just a guy. He's just Ken.

Gordan Ross: 8/10 He is a supportive man! As long as I was tuned into his lessons and knew what was going on, then we'd have no problem! I could also see him correcting people if they misgender me which is an added bonus.

Eijit 'Jet' Binnag: 8/10 Jet would use the correct pronouns and would have a general understanding of what being agender means, she'd also occasionally correct people if they used the wrong pronouns. Mostly all she'd care about was whether or not I put effort into her classes and knew what was going on.

Amanda: 10/10 Asks for pronouns, uses pronouns, corrects people when they use incorrect pronouns, not notes! Only good ally vibes!

Walker: 8/10 He's got nothing against being agender and would definitely use they/them pronouns, but he'd also just say some really out-of-pocket stuff about trans/non-binary/agender people and unintentionally make things uncomfortable. So, he gets points off for that, but having said that, Walker would totally correct people if they got my pronouns wrong and it wouldn't JUST be because he's a little bitch who likes to correct people to be annoying!

Klaus: 1/10 He worked with so, so, so many terrorist groups and is a mercenary. This man would not be out there saying trans rights! He probably wouldn't hate crime me if we were both students because he wouldn't want to get in trouble with Jet, Gordon, Amanda, Walker, or Yassen. I also couldn't see him going out of his way to hate crime me. Klaus would refuse to use the correct pronouns and constantly refer to me as a 'girl' when he thought he could get away with it. If he did use they/them for me, it would be because he was forced to. That being said, it wasn't like he would've been talking to or interacting much with me in the first place, so he'd be easy to ignore and it would be mutual.

[heartattack-tm]

Whelp (Part 2) 💰 Desmond 💰 Trial 5 💰 Confession

His tears don't stop coming as he looks down at the ground, too ashamed to look at the others. What was there to say, he killed three people. But then again, he didn't want to leave them with any unanswered questions. 

"Okay to tell you the truth my name isn't Desmond Slater, it's Luther Umberlin. And while that might not mean anything to any of you it sure does to the British police. I was a part of a british street gang. We were notorious for causing ruckuses and never getting caught. I was in it for some time. But after a few years I quit and became a thrift shop owner, hiding behind the Desmond Slater persona I had created."

He takes a slow gulp as he continues.

"Now the thing is I found out that the British police had found out a huge cover up going on and raided the gang's base. They managed to retrieve a list of all the members, current and ones who had left. I was one of them. So knowing that any one of my former buddies could rat me out I decided to sign up for Heart Attack so I could redo my identity."

"Now to the murder. When the motive came I knew I was in big trouble. If my past was revealed everything I hoped to hide would get unraveled. So I decided to kill Holly. I hate to say it but she is an extremely target. She's too trusting and bound to a wheelchair. Of course I had a crush on her though so not wanting her to suffer I enlisted the help of Damien. I wanted him to put the right amount of sleeping pills into a drink and give it to her so that she wouldn't be conscious when she dies."

He was way to okay with it though, to point that I felt that he was too dangerous to keep alive. So when we had deposed of their bodies I told Damien to take care of the crime scene. While he was busy doing that I stabbed him in the back with the ice pick. Also fyi the note to Holly was written by Damien while Damien's death letter was written by me."

After he finished his explanation he looks at everyone else. His tears were beginning to stop.

"I just want you all to know that I truly didn't want any of this to happen. I just didn't want my life to crumble when I spend so long to make sure it wouldn't."

[interminal]

Muse Questions.

01. What is your character’s favourite physical activity?: he likes hiking, target shooting, fencing. ...fighting, even if it’s just friendly sparring.

02. What is your character’s favourite weather?: warm. as warm as possible, and humid so the heat sticks to him. minimal wind, but warm wind’s okay. essentially the kind of weather that most people would consider suffocating. he likes hot, muggy evenings, as long as he’s surrounded by citronella candles.

03. What is your character’s favourite season?: summer. he has chronic hypothermia, literally.

04. What is your character’s least favourite season?: winter. see above. his pussy frozen.

05. Is your character a morning person, night owl, or something else entirely?: he um. both? both. he has a sleep cycle of like... 48-72 hours of being awake and then 5-8 hours of sleep, rinse and repeat, because he’s found that he doesn’t dream so much if he’s exhausted when he falls asleep. which isn’t good for him, but either he’s adapted to surviving off very little sleep or something about his undead fuckyness means he doesn’t need as much. 

06. A stranger makes a crude comment to your character. How do they react?: if it’s something he’s not sensitive about, he probably laughs. if it is, or if it’s someone he’s already decided he has a problem with, the situation goes from 1-100 real fast. he might start swinging.

07. What is your character’s favourite beverage?: coffee :) vodka :) whiskey. he doesn’t like anything overly sweet, so besides water, the only other things he has interest in drinking are like...unsweetened lemonade or iced tea. 

08. Does your character know how to swim?: no, he’s scared of open water.

09. It’s the first day of truly good weather that your character has seen this year. What do they do?: probably lies out in the sunny vegetable patch in a futile attempt to get some warmth back into his bones.

10. What was your character’s last nightmare?: desmond related. shit happened. i will not go into it.

11. What was your character’s last pleasant dream?: he does not have those! i’m sorry. at best his dreams are partially good but ruined by bad things, or supposedly pleasant what-ifs that just make him sad when he wakes up. the last one of those he had was about his brother.

12. What is your character’s worst fear?: he has a lot of physical fears (deep water, heights, dragons, meat, etc) but his fears get worse when they’re things he can’t physically avoid. ironically i think his worst fear is death, but not dying. he only has very vague memories of what happens to him after he dies, and he tries to never ever dwell on them, because shit’s terrifying. whatever it is, he knows that without his conditional immortality, it would stretch on forever. he hates the idea that things can just exist without end. 

13. What is your character’s favourite colour to wear?: black. emo bitch.

14. From your point of view, what is your character’s worst flaw?: he just has so many. his stubbornness. his lack of empathy. the fact that he’s very bad at communicating, especially wrt his feelings. and also he’s british.

15. From your point of view, what is your character’s greatest strength?: ...his stubbornness. like his determination to hold onto harmful things, not accept help, not trust people etc etc etc are flaws, but my man is just so resilient, both physically and mentally. he’s not exactly healthy about it, but he has and will come back from nearly fucking anything. he gets knocked down, he gets back up again!

16. Is your character an introvert or an extrovert?: introvert, insofar as he’s deeply uncomfortable around most people, and hypervigilance is exhausting. if you’re one of the very few people he trusts, he’d rather be in your company than without it.

17. What method of transportation does your character use?: he lost his driving license bc his therapist, his psych, and his probation officer all agreed that he was fucking insane, so he’s left with either walking, or Travelling Via Dragon. he really likes walking, and sometimes goes off and hikes miles and miles and miles without realising it when he needs to clear his head, but he’ll take the dragon if he needs to get anywhere further afield. even if both of the “seat” options kinda freak him out.

18. How does your character feel about sex?: he loves it. big up to whoever invented sex. if he digs a little deeper into his head, he has some very complicated feelings about it, but as a rule he tries hard not to dig at all.

19. Has your character ever deliberately set out to emotionally hurt someone?: yeah of course he has. in a lot of ways, the emotional harm he’s done to people runs deeper than the physical. he’s been incredibly violent, but he’s also engaged in a lot of straight up mental torture, and in some cases, fucked up as it may be, those mental and emotional scars are what he’s most proud of. 

[kassandra-lorelei]

ROBIN MICHAEL JARED STEPHANIE

THANK YOU MY DUDE

Sorry this took so long - we left for the theatre earlier than I expected. 

Let’s see. I’ll start with Robin, because she’s really themain protagonist (kinda the way Selina Meyer is in Veep) and go through thelist from there

Full Name: Robin Ruth Carter (in the pilot her last name isCarter, but she soon goes back to her maiden name of Jenney)Gender and Sexuality: Cis female, heterosexualPronouns: She/HerEthnicity/Species: White AmericanBirthplace and Birthdate: A small town in Texas, some timein the 60s. She refuses to specify when she was born, but at time of writingshe’d be in her mid to late 50s.Guilty Pleasures: She rarely feels guilty about anything shedoes, the woman has little to no shame.Phobias: Aging, in some respects. She knows that as anactress her time on stage or on the screen is limited to how good she looks,and thinks that her career is all she has. She’s also not really a fan ofspiders or insects.What They Would Be Famous For: Her ideal method of gettingfamous (again) would be to make a return to the limelight. She’d more likely bein the headlines for storming a theatre stage and punching the lead actor, orsomething.What They Would Get Arrested For: She’s actually arrested inthe pilot for fighting her husband and his mistress.OC You Ship Them With: Her best friend, Michael. They had anaffair before the start of the show and there’s a lot of unresolved tension. Myideal end of the show is the two of them getting together properly.OC Most Likely To Murder Them: Probably their Broadwayproducer friend, Harry, who becomes her boss in the pilot. Or her ex-husband’sgirlfriend, Sabrina.Favorite Movie/Book Genre: She loves action thrillers andromance novels. But only the good romance novels, none of that sappyover-the-top crap.Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: When the guy in themovie/book grabs a girl to kiss her after she was mad at him, and suddenlyeverything’s all better. It pisses her off no-end, because she’d personallykick a guy in the nuts if they tried that on her.Talents and/or Powers: Acting is really all she knows how todo because she’s spent so long doing it.Why Someone Might Love Them: Because she’s strong, and smart(if a little over-dramatic sometimes), and when it comes right down to it sheadores the people who are closest to her.Why Someone Might Hate Them: Because she’s spiteful,bad-mouthed, and often bad-tempered too.How They Change: She goes from only really wanting fame andusing the people she loves to actually including them in her plans and trulyappreciating them. She also learns that their successes are not her failures, and that she can be a great actress in her own right.Why You Love Them: Because she’s an arsehole, but it’sbecause she’s been hurt and she’s trying not to be. When she opens up, she’sfun and kind of takes Stephanie under her wing because Stephanie’s actualmother is a huge disappointment of a person. I love the found-family dynamic.

Full Name: Michael Robert HenningGender and Sexuality: Cis male, heterosexualPronouns: He/HimEthnicity/Species: White AmericanBirthplace and Birthdate: Brooklyn New York, NY, January 5, 1958Guilty Pleasures: He really likes letting Robin loose on people who deserve it, even if what she says is devastating and he knows he should feel bad about it.Phobias: He isn’t crazy about flying, though he puts up with it when he absolutely has to.What They Would Be Famous For: Probably for being Robin Jenney’s other half, or for helping her out of some scrape she’s gotten herself into. He’s more of a behind-the-scenes kind of guy.What They Would Get Arrested For: Probably for helping Robin in something which he knows is illegal but he can’t stop her from doing it so he rolls his eyes and goes along with it. Though he’s more likely to be the person that she calls to bail her out of jail, like in the pilot.OC You Ship Them With: Robin, the two really just bounce off each other nicely.OC Most Likely To Murder Them: No one, really. He’s a decent person, apart from the whole affair he and Robin had. And Jerry, Robin’s ex-husband, wouldn’t try to get revenge that way.Favorite Movie/Book Genre: He likes crime dramas and detective novels. Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: The whole “dashing hero” cliche from romance and high dramas. That’s why he prefers grittier stories - the protagonists are less annoying to him.Talents and/or Powers: He’s good at organising things, and at managing people. That’s what makes him a good acting agent.Why Someone Might Love Them: He’s a nice person, and he’s there for other people when they need him.Why Someone Might Hate Them: He doesn’t always put up with other people’s shit, and has a penchant for doing the right thing even if it makes him unpopular.How They Change: He realises just how much he cares about Robin, and how much he enjoys spending time with her, no matter what that entails. Why You Love Them: Because he puts up with Robin, but also doesn’t put up with Robin if she goes too far. He protects her when he can, and is in many ways her moral compass, and the two really do need each other in a lot of ways.

Full Name: Jared Martin Desmond WrightGender and Sexuality: Cis male, bisexualPronouns: He/HimEthnicity/Species: Black BritishBirthplace and Birthdate: London Borough of Ealing, 12th November, 1994Guilty Pleasures: He will eat an entire tub of ice cream by himself and then deny it. Living with two other people, he gets in trouble over all the empty cartons a lot. The worst part is that he can do it and stay in shape.Phobias: He hates clowns, they give him the creeps.What They Would Be Famous For: If not for acting, then for being a model.What They Would Get Arrested For: Probably something he either didn’t mean to do, or something he was pushed into by Stephanie and Robin. He’s a bit like Michael in some ways, so the two of them can bond over how ridiculous the situations they find themselves in are.OC You Ship Them With: None. I’ve figured that he’ll have relationships over the course of the series, but I haven’t quite worked out who he’ll end up with.OC Most Likely To Murder Them: Robin would come closest to hurting him (even if she wouldn’t kill him), because she’s jealous of the fact that he and Stephanie are young so their looks are getting them parts.Favorite Movie/Book Genre: He doesn’t read a lot (other than scripts) because his work keeps him busy, but he loves superhero movies at the end of a long day when he wants to relax.Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: How the hero’s gun in movies never seems to run out of bullets. He thinks it’s good for tension if they do.Talents and/or Powers: He is extremely talented as an actor, and it gets him a lot of jobs. He’s also a good cook, and takes care of it a lot in the apartment.Why Someone Might Love Them: Because he’s funny, even if unintentionally. It makes him rather adorable sometimes.Why Someone Might Hate Them: He tries to control everything a lot, because he thinks he knows what might be best in that particular situation.How They Change: He learns to let go and relax a little bit more. He’s helped along his way throughout the series as he becomes better friends with Robin and Michael.Why You Love Them: Because in a lot of ways he’s like me, lol. He can’t handle not having things in his own control, and when he feels awkward he tries to remove himself from the situation.

Full Name: Stephanie Brianna MarcusGender and Sexuality: Cis female, haven’t decided on sexuality but I can see her quite strongly as asexual and focused more on her friendships than on relationships.Pronouns: She/HerEthnicity/Species: Her father is Black American, her mother is White American.Birthplace and Birthdate: Manhattan New York, NY, 3rd March 1995.Guilty Pleasures: Taking long baths that use up the hot water, and that mean Jared and Robin have to wait to use the bathroom. And she really does feel bad about it afterwards, so she tries to make it up to them.Phobias: She’s a little claustrophobic, but doesn’t really have many actual fears.What They Would Be Famous For: If not for acting, then probably for being the Most Cheerful Woman in America.What They Would Get Arrested For: The same thing that she pushed Jared into doing, because she thought that maybe there could be a way of spinning it into something good.OC You Ship Them With: Again, no one. She has a boyfriend at one part of the series, but they break up. She much prefers being friends with people, and she adores her friends.OC Most Likely To Murder Them: No one, she is Actual Sunshine.Favorite Movie/Book Genre: All kinds of romance novels and soaps. Robin gets her into the old Douglas Sirk melodramas and the Howard Hawks comedies, too.Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: She’s actually kind of a sucker for cliches.Talents and/or Powers: Apart from acting, she loves to bake and to garden. She’s also the only one in the apartment who loves to sing and dance, and will often host one-woman renditions of her favourite musicals around the place when no one else is at home.Why Someone Might Love Them: Why wouldn’t you love her? She’s a delight.Why Someone Might Hate Them: Her cheerfulness gets on some people’s nerves, and she crumbles underneath her very dominant mother.How They Change: She learns to stand up for herself more against her mother, and to live her own life the way she truly wants it.Why You Love Them: Because she is perhaps the nicest person I’ve ever wrote. She’s adorable, and impossible not to love, even if some of the things she says can be a little naive sometimes.