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loveshacks · 3 years

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diego and soundman's accents

this one was a little harder since neither of them are given specific bithplaces in canon. i had to make a few assumptions in order to assign them an accent ^^' but somehow i feel like i got a more precise idea of their voices than gyro and johnny's?

Soundman: in canon, he's never given a more specific heritage than "native american" which, thank you. thanks. that helps. also for all my ~15 minutes of forum scouring i could not find anyone else who cared to try and figure out what tribe he might be. So I will do my best:

We know at least that they live somewhere in the desert, with their intro scene having a backdrop of mesas and cacti. we also know that they ride horses, which helps to narrow it down a little. based on that im guessing Apache, since Apache people are more well known for their horseback riding than their neighbors in the desert, the Puebloans. Some Apache people did live in tipis like Soundman's tribe seems to, but the Apache groups that lived in the desert (Lipan and Mescalero) generally lived in wikiups, which are similar, but less easily transportable. Like I said he doesn't seem to be based on any specific tribe, so the references to Native culture are all over the place.

But as if Apache is specific enough! Apache itself has two distinct languages within it (Eastern and Western) and at least four dialects within those. I'm going to assume Soundman is Mescalero Apache specifically, which would mean he speaks Mescalero-Chiricahua. Here is a sample of someone switching between english and Mescalero- altho that's a much more modern example, i think we can assume that's pretty close to how Soundman would speak!

My guess is that he learned english entirely from his books, since his tribe seems to be pretty anti-contact, so i believe his english would be pretty accented and probably become more adapted/smooth throughout the race. ok transcription time!

/ aj wɛl k'las͜ t̬ɛ k'an.t'ɛ.nɛnt wɛt maj fiːt ɛ'lõ: /

"eye well c(l)ass t'e cantenent wet my feet el-oan" (VERY roughly) here's the IPA reader , i recommend Ines for best results

reader friendly text: aj wɛl klas͜ t̬ɛ kantɛnɛnt wɛt maj fiːt ɛlõ:

the mescalero language does not have the [ð] (that, the), [ɹ] (red), or the [w] sounds, so i figure the "th" jumps to the next best thing, a flap [t̬ ] (butter, medal) and an [l] is slipped in in place of the [ɹ] as they are both pronounced in the same area of the mouth, assuming he doesn't just skip over the sound entirely. as for the [w] sounds, the neighboring languages, Western Apache and Navajo both include a [w] sound in their alphabet, so i don't think it's impossible for Soundman to say 'wet water is wet,' assuming he had contact with people outside his tribe.

The biggest difference is in the vowels. Mescalero does not have the [ɪ] (will, hit), [ə] (alone), [əʊ] (own, loan), or [ɒ] (cross, hot), and those are just the sounds i needed for this sentence ^^'. They do however have 4 different nasal vowels, which are kind of hard to imagine the sound of if you aren't familiar with them, but think of how the french say "jean" and you have a nasal 'a' right there. So I think Soundman would often slip back into nasal vowels, especially in place of a vowel/nasal consonant combo at the end of a word: the end of 'alone' slips to the soft palate, and he doesn't hit the 'n' sound on its own. Mescalero also doesn't have any diphthongs, most notably the [au] in sound. so his name probably sounds more like / sã: mã / assuming it's not a translation of some longer phrase.

The vowels would be the defining feature of his accent, since it seems a lot of english vowels don't translate into mescalero. Also, didn't get to mention this, but mescalero also has quite a few sounds that are more...lisp-y (i guess?), like [ɬ], [ɣ] and and [k'] idrk if i can write out an accurate pronunciation, check them out on this interactive chart. So i think he would end up using those sorts of sounds pretty often especially in place of tighter consonants, so like 'slip' might become 'shlip' and 'contact' might become "conta(cht) " with the ending "k" sound going towards the soft palate and being pretty closed off.

Diego: he's a poor british dude, so you'd think we could just pin him with a cockney accent and call it a day. Sadly it's just not that easy. And i like making things complicated. Cockney accents are found among lower class Londoners- aka city dwellers, and Diego was born and raised somewhere in the countryside. A few miles (or kilometers i guess, we're in the UK now) can really be a world of difference on an accent. so:

during his intro his parents take him "into the mountains" so that puts us up in the north of the country- and then he flows down a river and grows up on a farm. So I am pinning him with a Yorkshire accent, since it's an area of countryside directly next to the mountains, while newcastle seems a little too north (but imagine geordie diego lol) and scouse (liverpool) seems a little too far south/also on the other side of the mountains.

Here is the oldest example i can find of a yorkshire accent, someone born in 1912, and luckily it doesn't sound tooo different from the modern accent, at least not to my american ears :~). But, given his goal of 'climbing the ranks of society' it also makes sense for him make an effort to cover up his natural accent in order to sound more posh (aka upper received pronunciation). I'm thinking then that his speech would be characterized by a lot of dropped r's/ non-rhoticity (obv), glottal stops at the end of words (mostly to replace t's d's and k's), omitting h sounds from the beginning of words, as well as diphthong vowels and a majority of frontal vowels. he might even roll his 'r's if they're in the middle of a word, like 'brando' / bɾɑ:ndɔ /

if he's really minding himself though, he'll be sure to enunciate his t's & h's, follow the rises and falls of upper RP, and not roll his r's, since that would give him away as a...u know, / blʊ:dɛ kʰʊ:ntɾɛ: fʊ:k /

the vowels would be a little harder to mind, since upper rp vowels are generally formed nearer the front of the mouth, while yorkshire vowels are less restrained, more open (formed with a low tongue/open mouth), and not very subtle. yorkshire accents can also create diphthongs where there are none, so floor may be pronounced, flu-or.

/ a:bɛts kʰɑ:ntʰ be: fɛkst jʊs laɪʔ feɪtʰ /

" 'abets c(ah)n't b(eh) fex'd, joos lai' fate" (roughly) IPA reader i recommend Geraint or Amy to get the best results.

kinda weird sounding. i know. like i said, i think he would have trained himself to hit his t's (otherwise it would sound like, "abe's, ka' fae' " ) and some more posh sounding vowels like in can't (caaahn't) and be (beehh). And then there would be the bits of his natural accent that slip thru the cracks, like the dropped 'h' in habits, and the long 'u' sound in 'just.' (dkm he might sound sorta like louis tomlinson)

so there u have it ^_^ i might do valentine, steven steel and hot pants next

#if u read this whole thing i give u a kis :*#steel ball run #jjba #jojo essays #linguistics

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365days365movies · 3 years

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April 1, 2021: The Gold Rush (1925)

If I’m going to start anywhere, it’s right at the beginning.

There’s absolutely no way I can start this month off without jumping headlong into the slapstick-filled era of the 1920s-1930s, and that begins (and arguably ends) with the man, the myth, the legend: Charlie Chaplin. And Chaplin’s got an interesting and tragic backstory, that it’s worth looking into. And he won’t be the first film star I get into, but we’ll get there.

Born in London in 1889, Chaplin was essentially raised in the world of the theatre, as both of his parents were entertainers. Raised in immense hardship and poverty, Chaplin’s early life wasn’t easy. His father left the family, and his mother struggled to provide. Eventually, she ended up becoming committed to an asylum, which led Charlie and his brother to live with their alcoholic father, which didn’t last long. Yikes.

Eventually, both parents were out of the picture by the time that Charlie was 14, with his father head, and his mother generally unwell, physically and mentally. Additionally, his brother enrolled in the military, leaving him completely alone. He left school and went to work, eventually becoming embroiled in the theatre and stage, and in 1908, the 19-year old Charlie joined a major theatre troupe, alongside another young actor named Stan Laurel. And in 1912, the group toured in the United States, where he was found by the head of the now defunct Keystone Studios, who were looking for a new star.

The first movie, Making a Living, didn’t go great for Chaplin or critics. But they didn’t give up, and put Chaplin in a second film: Mabel’s Strange Predicament. Here, Chaplin decided on a new costume. He wanted baggy pants, a tight coat, small hat, large shoes, and a little moustache. And with that outfit came the birth Chaplin’s most iconic character: The Tramp.

And BAM: history’s made. Because this film is RIDICULOUSLY successful, and very popular. A hell of a lot of films come from this, and by 1915, Chaplin was the biggest star in Hollywood history at the time. By 30 years old, he had founded his own studio, was funding his own pictures, and was the most well-known man in the United States outside of the President. And this was before he made his first feature film, The Kid.

1921 was the year that film came out, and I was originally going for that one as my first review...but I decided against it, in favor of another of his most famous films, The Gold Rush, which came out in 1925. By this point, Chaplin had also become a director, alongside actor and producer. He also...had done some not amazing things by this point. Yeah, Chaplin wasn’t the best dude, but that’s another story. I’m here to talk about this film, not about his real shitty track record with women and abandoning his children. Chaplin is a dark man with a dark history, I’ll just say that much.

But enough of that (for now)! Let’s get into the man and his works! After all, Chaplain also pioneered visual comedy in film, so this is going to be an interesting film! Let’s get into The Gold Rush! SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap

First things first, I’d like to make something clear: I’m watching the 1925 version, reconstructed using some footage from the 1942 re-release, which added narration to it. Because I’m interested in seeing the original, as meant to be seen by Chaplin back in the day, I’m not looking at the re-release at all. But if you’re interested (and have the subscription), BOTH are available on HBO Max!

We begin at the top of Chilkoot Pass in Alaska, a difficult terrain and a challenge to anyone looking to make it rich in the Klondike. Men are hiking up the mountain in hardship, to try get their riches. This takes place at some point between 1898 and 1899, by the way. One of these men is a Lone Prospector, AKA The Tramp (Charlie Chaplin), who walks along the narrow path while being pursued by a bear, but eventually escapes said bear, finding himself on the snowy mountainside.

Also here is fellow prospector Big Jim McKay (Mack Swain), who’s just struck it rich. But then, as both men are on the mountainside, a snowstorm hits. The Lone Prospector finds his way to a small cabin, in which the wanted criminal Black Larsen resides.

The Lone Prospector makes his way inside, where he finds and eats a partially eaten rack of meat. However, Larsen tells him to get out, opening the door, causing the wind to get in. In a humorous sequence, the wind is so strong that it prevents the Prospector from leaving, an blows Jim McKay literally though the building. But soon, all three are in the cabin.

Larsen now tries to get both of them out with the threat of violence. He fires a warning shot with a shotgun, leading to struggle between Jim and Larsen for the gun, with Jim gaining the upper hand and allowing the Prospector and Larsen to stay. The storm persists for three days, and the men grow hungrier and hungrier in the process. All the while, the shack becomes ever closer to just toppling over from the storm winds.

The Prospector ends up eating a candle with sat, he’s so desperate, and the men use a pack of cards to decide who’s going out into the storm to look for food. Larsen loses, and he heads out with his dog (who CLEARLY isn’t into this whole thing, by the way). But Larsen’s still running from the police, who are hunkered down in the storm. They find him, and another struggle ensues, leading to Larsen killing them both in the snow, and stealing their supplies. Meanwhile, in the cabin, then men are so hungry that they prepare one of the Prospector’s shoes. Delicious.

As these two dine on this Thanksgiving meal (which is shown in very funny detail, including eating the laces as spaghetti), Larsen actually stumbles upon Jim’s gold, and he hunkers down there through the storm. This leaves the men to starve in the cabin, and also leads to...a very ironic sequence, now that I think about it.

See, this film was mostly made in Truckee, California. And the most iconic thing about Truckee is that it’s the resting place of a group of travelers on the Oregon Trail. See, in 1846, a group of settlers took the wrong pathway on some bad advice, and wound up stranded in the snow as a result of one of the worst blizzards in California history. This party of travelers, known as the Donner Party (YUP), starved for WEEKS, trapped in essentially a snow pit. 87 settlers went in, and 48 came out. Most died of the cold or starvation. And some survived by, well...eating the dead. Yup. Cannibalism. Which is why this is so ironic.

For a hot second, Jim sees the Prospector as a delicious chicken, and ties to eat him, firing at him with a shot gun and driving him outside. Realizing his delirium, he quickly apologizes, and the two make tentative amends. However, in self-defense, the Prospector takes to sleeping with the shotgun. The next morning, the two struggle for the gun, and Big Jim nearly kills the Prospector, but is interrupted by the return of the bear!

The Prospector shoots the bear, and the two finally have food to eat. Soon after, the storm subsides, and the two head their separate ways, with Jim going back to claim his gold fortune, and the Prospector left in the snowy wilderness. By the way, EVERY SINGLE TIME I type “the Prospector”, I start typing “the Tramp” first, then correct myself. Despite this being the first Chaplin movie I’ve ever seen, it’s such an iconic character that I can’t help but think of him as the Tramp. I’ll probably slip up at some point later without catching it.

Big Jim returns to his camp, where Larsen ambushes him, knocking him out and stealing some of his gold. However, he’s pretty quickly killed by an avalanche, while Jim has completely lost his memory from the low of a shovel. The Prospector, meanwhile, makes his way to a nearby boomtown, built with the profits from the rush in the Gold Rush.

In this boomtown, we meet Georgia (Georgia Hale), a popular dancer that works in a local dance hall. One of Georgia’s fellow dancers has gone off with a wealthy benefactor, leaving her behind. At the hall, she’s being pursued by Jack Cameron (Malcolm Waite), an aggressive lout who’s pestering her for a dance. And just then, who should walk in?

Georgia pretty clearly wants out of the dance hall life, and is also looking for somebody to take her away from this place. However, that somebody is CLEARLY not the Prospector, whom she completely ignores. But when Jack comes back around to force her into a dance, she decides to dance with the most undesirable person in the place instead: the Prospector.

So, while this act is borne of pure spite for Jack, it’s still a dance. It’s interrupted by a nearby dog, but Georgia enjoys the dance quite a bit, to her surprise. Jack is still after her, and the Prospector actually comes to defend her, standing in his way when he tries to pursue her. This, predictably, leads to a fight between the two, during which Jack accidentally gets knocked out by a clock, which the Prospector takes as his own actions, strolling off in pride.

The next morning, the Prospector essentially tricks a man into bringing him inside his cabin to get a free breakfast. This is Hank Curtis (Henry Bergman), who welcomes him into his home for food, and to take care of the cabin in his stead. Curtis owns a mine with his partner, and they head there, leaving the Prospector in his home. All the while, Big Jim is wandering through the wilderness, trying to remember where his gold is.

Georgia is out and about as well, having some fun with friends away from the dance hall. They run around in the snow, throwing snowballs at each other. And as this is right outside of the cabin, of course the Prospector gets hit by one of them. Feeling penitent, Georgia goes into his cabin, after he invites the girls in for a warm fire. She finds a picture of her from the dance hall underneath the Prospector’s pillow, which the other girls mock. But Georgia is at least a little sympathetic.

This pleasant moment is interrupted by one of the girls’ cigarettes lighting the Prospector’s shoes on fire, causing all of them to rush out of the cabin. However, before they leave, the Prospector asks if Georgia would like to come to dinner, which she assumes refers to all of the girls. Still, she accepts, which overjoys the lovelorn Prospector.

But the Prospector, of course, doesn’t exactly have a lot of money; that’s why he’s out here in the first place. So, he goes around town and does some work for money, such as snow-shoveling. He also blocks the jail door with a giant pile of snow in the process, which doesn’t make them very happy. BUT STILL, he gets anough money, and by the time New Years’ comes around, he’s got enough money for a nice meal and a well-made dinner for him and Georgia, with whom he’s head-over-heels in love.

Shame that Georgia doesn’t share that feeling, and has COMPLETELY forgotten about the entire occasion. And so, the Prospector waits for her to arrive, while she’s at a party at the dance hall. He imagines that the dance hall girls, Georgia included, have arrived and are having dinner with him. In the process of this imaginary dinner, he puts two forks in rolls of bread...and creates one of the most iconic scenes of the Silent Era of film.

But alas, this is all in a dream. The Prospector wakes up, and midnight’s passed. At the dance hall, the revelers celebrate, with Georgia standing on the bar and firing guns into the air in the process. The Prospector is saddened, now wondering where Georgia’s been, and realizing that he’s been stood up. Auld Lang Syne plays in the score, and the partiers sing it together at the dance hall.

And it’s FINALLY AT THIS POINT that Georgia remembers that she and the girls were supposed to meet the Prospector. They head there, with Jack in tow. But the Tramp (told you I’d slip eventually) has headed to the party at the dance hall, looking for the girls that stood him up, and he sadly gazes through the window.

Meanwhile, at the Prospector’s cabin, Georgia discovers the loving meal and decorations put out, and realizes that the Prospector actually took this far more seriously than she’d thought. She realizes his feelings, and what she’s done, and feels sorrow about it. Jack tries to get her to forget it and kiss him, but she angrily rebukes him for it, slapping him in the face. They leave the cabin, with Georgia reflecting on the scene.

The next day, Big Jim McKay is trying to recall the location of his gold reserve. He goes to town, and resolves that he must find the cabin in the wilderness, and he should be able to find his way back from there. The Prospector walks right past him, still mourning his spurned love from the previous night. But said spurned love is writing him a letter, noting that she is sorry for what she did last night, and asks someone to give it...to Jack. Oh. What the fuck, Georgia? But Jack, being the dick that he is, sees the Prospector in the dance hall, and gives him the note instead, which leads him to try and find Georgia.

In the process, though, he runs into Big Jim, who needs the Prospector to lead him back to the cabin. He promises to make him a millionaire if he does, and the Prospector agrees, going up to Georgia on the balcony and kissing her, promising to make good and come back rich! The two head back to the cabin, where they stay for the night.

But that night, a vicious blizzard once again rears its ugly head as the two sleep, and literally blows the cabin to...well, to a rather precarious spot.

So, in blissful ignorance, the Prospector gets up first, and walks around the cabin, causing it to rock back and forth as the weight shifts. Big Jim also wakes up, and together, the two realize that the house is balanced on the cliff’s edge, and shifts position as the weight shifts within. That leads to a humorous sequence with a tilting set, and the Prospector looks outside a door on the side of the cliff, dangling off of it for a moment before coming back in.

Now realizing the situation, the two manage to secure a guy rope that ties the house to rocks on the cliff. However, the cabin is now tilted, making their escape even more difficult.

However, Big Jim manages to get out with some teamwork, overlaid by The Flight of the Bumblebee in the score, and he also helps the Prospector escape, just before the whole house falls off the cliff.

But lucky day! The cabin blew RIGHT to the spot where Big Jim found the gold, and the two are now multi-millionaires! The film cuts to one year later, with the two very wealthy men, and the Prospector’s been able to afford everything he’s ever wanted...except for Georgia, whom he never found. Yeah, she definitely wasn’t looking to be with him. Geez.

The Prospector gets in his old Tramp getup for a photograph taken by the Press, while on the ship heading back to the lower 48. But then...who should also be on that ship but Georgia. The two unite once again, but Georgia’s overheard that there was a stowaway on board the ship, and assumes that it’s the Prospector. She tries to defend him, but quickly learns that he’s become a multi-millionaire. With that, the two are reunited, and the photographer brings both of them up for a picture. He poses them in a way that brings them quite close...and the two kiss.

The end! That’s The Gold Rush, and I thought it was a surprisingly heartfelt film! Really, it was funny in some spots, but was a bit more sweet to me than funny. And I really liked it, in truth. I get why it’s considered one of his best! I’ll elaborate on my thoughts more thoroughly in the review, though. See you there!

#the gold rush #the gold rush 1925 #charlie chaplin #the tramp #the lone prospector #mack swain #tom murray #malcolm waite #georgia hale #henry bergman #comedy april #user365 #365 movie challenge #365 movies 365 days #365 Days 365 Movies #365days365movies #365 movies a year

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bernard-the-rabbit · 4 years

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Hi hi, I really like your artstyle, and your ocs Franco and Clelia interest me. And here there's little to none of them unfortunatelly. Can we have information on them? Like their story, their country, their personalities, tjeir relationship etc. They are siblings, right? Twins? Who's that cute little girl in Clelia's arms, who's the daddy (the laughing guy on magickkart's gift-art)? Her story? Their lives? Sorry, just curious here, I don't mean to be invasive, ignore me if you wish so!

BDJDHDJDJFJRJRJRJRJRJ THIS IS NOT INVASIVE THIS IS THE BEST THING EVER BECAUSE I LOVE MY OCs BUT I NEVER POST THINGS ABOUT THEM HERE BC NO ONE IS INTERESTED.

Franco and Clelia are siblings and they live in Italy. They were born in 1893, their dad died in 1894 and their mom (Pellegrina) decided to remarry in 1898 with the husband of her girlfriend (this is a little bit complicated. They had a secret relationship but this girl had to marry Nino, she dies giving birth and Nino is really depressed. Pellegrina marries him to take care of him and to have someone to help her taking care of her children)

Clelia is really loud and outgoing, she likes going to parties while Franco is more introverted. He is really weak so he didn't really go out in his childhood and he likes writing. Clelia usually forces him to go to parties and they meet Ludovico (the laughing dude in Magickkart's art) during one of these big parties. PAPAM Franco and Ludovico start dating, Clelia goes to live with them and in 1912 she marries this dude, Ennio.

Ludovico and Ennio go to war while Franco and Clelia take care of eachothers. Ennio dies 1915, shortly after his daughter is born.

So basically Clelia is left alone raising this kid, Adele, with Franco and Ludovico.

The story is messed up and i still gotta work on it. I know Adele will have a big part in Franco's life especially after his death. She is gonna have 2 girlfriends, the first one is a partisian named Ofelia that dies 1945 while the second one works in the farm of her family and they are gonna live together until they die.

#bern oc #historical oc

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under-sengoku-skies · 5 years

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I'm back babey! This is it folks. Tomorrow's the day Ikemen Sengoku's Sasuke aka the love of my life gets his EN route. To celebrate, I wanted to look into the OG Sasuke. The mans our mans was named after.

In honor of this momentus route release and reaching 200 followers I will delve deep into the lore of the man, the myth, the legend: Sarutobi Sasuke.

The Sanada Ten Braves, aka juyushi (真田十勇士) or Ten Heroes of Sanada, are as you probably know after playing ikesen long enough a legendary group of ninjas that served Sanada Yukimura and were led by Sasuke. As for their names ya got...

Sarutobi Sasuke (猿飛佐助)

Kirigakure Saizo (霧隠才蔵)

Miyoshi Seikai (三好清海)

Miyoshi Isa (三好伊三)

Anayama Kousuke (穴山小助)

Unno Rokuro (海野六郎)

Kakei Juzo (筧十蔵)

Nezu Jinpaichi (根津甚八)

Mochizuki Rokuro (望月六郎)

Aaaaaaaand

Yuri Kamanosuke (由利鎌之助)

The story of the Sanada Ten Braves was first recorded in Tatsukawa Bunko (立川文庫), a series of children's books written during the Taisho period (大正時代, 1912-26). The stories that made up Tatsukawa Bunko were made up by professional storyteller Gyokushusai Tamada (玉秀斎玉田).

So anyways, when you get down to it the OG Sasuke's character was thought to be a fusion of historical and fictional accounts of Ninja and the literary hero from Journey to The West, Sun Wukong: the monkey king. HOWEVER, recently there had been a lot more room for doubt that Sun Wukong was chosen as a model for Sasuke. There's also various other theories about real-life figures that could've been an inspiration. Ya got ninjas like Kozui Sasuke (上月佐助): master of Iga ninjutsu, Sarutobi Nisuke (猿飛仁助), or Mikumo Sasuke (三雲佐助) who was an extant Koga-ninja (甲賀忍者) who worked under the Toyotomi family if you've read Sasuke's JP route or spoilers for it then you're probably also freaking about this little easter egg.

The original Sasuke wasn't a whole lot like our ikesen Sasuke. He fit the general genki stereotype character with some mischief thrown in there to keep things interesting, and was an anti-hero who used his powers for good. Said powers were crazy Naruto-style jutsu.

So here's how things went down for Sasuke:

Deep in the mountains of Shinano (信濃) (now Nagano prefecture) born and raised, playing with monkeys (I mean it suits him, sarutobi literally means monkey jump) is how he spend most of his days (also probably where he got his "monkey-like agility"). Then one day he comes across a mysterious ninja master of Koga ninjutsu (甲賀忍術), allegedly while he was practice sparring with a tree, who laughs at his tree fighting and agrees to teach him some mad ninja skillz. Later he meets a theif who knows ninjutsu: Kirigakure Saizo. Honestly, this Saizo is a lot like his slbp counterpart. A sharp contrast to this Sasuke, who's basically just your average shonen protagonist. Obviously, they gotta become rivals. They battle it out and Sasuke ends up winning. After that the two of them join Yukimura's ninja avengers (the Braves). Seriously. Yuki is the Nick Fury to their avengers. They all have Naruto-esque superpowers. Eventually they fought for the Toyotomi army against Ieyasu at the siege of Osaka, only to lose. What happened to Sasuke and the Braves? Their fates were never revealed. What a shitty ending. But fear not! There's an alternate ending!... In which Sasuke gets his foot caught in a bear trap while trying to infiltrate Ieyasu's stronghold. Then he...... Realizes he couldn't complete his mission and he.... Kills himself. No happy ending here I guess, only ones that remind me of that one lyric from actual cannibal Shia LaBeouf.

THIS DUDE. Has SO MUCH SHIT NAMED AFTER HIM. AND HE AIN'T EVEN REAL.

Tatsukawa Bunko began a ninja boom in Japanese pop culture. The forerunner of this was the character who would become synonymous with ninja: Sasuke. You've got...

Smol 80s Steven Universe Sasuke

Yu-Gi-Oh card robo-Sasuke

Mitsuhide-lookin Sasuke

The OG wipeout style game show was LITERALLY CALLED SASUKE

He is everywhere. There is no escape.

Disclaimer: I am not a historian, my japanese skills are mediocre at best, and I don't have access to like actual archives or anything. Pls correct me if anything I said here was wrong.

S O U R C E S

#halley's otome history notebook #ikesen #ikemen sengoku #ikesen sasuke #ikemen series #otome

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mycasandstarrs · 6 years

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SPN 6x17: “My Heart Will Go On”

THEN: Ellen Harvelle and the badass woman that she was. Jo and Ellen’s final moments. Cas is in angel civil war. Souls are valuable af. Rufus Turner. Their experience with the Khan Worm. Bobby mourns Rufus’ death.

Oh come on dude. What a shoddy way to keep your garage door open.

This episode makes me so paranoid about the little things.

RIP first victim. Decapitated by garage door.

lmao, come on you two.

Dean beat Sam at paper/rock/scissors. Our very first clue that something’s up.

Sam and Dean looking out for their surrogate Dad. :’)

“I don't want to do crap. Leave me alone. Just, get out of my house, both of you. You're driving me nuts.”

“Bobby--”

“Now! For the love of Pete.”

Poor Bobby. He’s really going through it.

I somehow completely missed the fact that the boys were driving a completely different car the first time I saw this episode.

There she is.

“Anybody ever tell you you’re a pain in the ass?”

“That’s why you married me.”

These two really would’ve made a great couple.

At the crime scene.

Sam finds the thread of gold.

Wow, Dean.

Now with Shawn Russo.

Oh my god, Dean.

“Anyone own a slave?”

DEAN.

“Any ties to the Nazi party?” “ Did grandma ever piss off a gypsy?”

WHY DON’T YOU KNOW WHEN TO STOP.

“Okay, I-I'll just cut to the chase here. Um, your life is in danger.”

“What? What is that, a threat? Are you threatening me?!”

“No, no, no. No, no. I'm not threatening you. I'm just simply saying that if you don't watch your back, you're gonna die.”

Maybe they should have sent Sam to do the interview.

“Great grandparents born in Calabria. Emigrated 1912.” There’s the clue.

Eugh, I can’t even escape Trump.

There’s our culprit.

Aww no, hon. You should’ve stepped away!!

RIP Anne Witting. Strangled.

Another strand of gold.

“How’s he doing, by the way?”

“Oh, don't worry. I'm kicking his ass back to health and happiness.”

“Who asked you to? The hell with you.”

fff hahaha. Relationship goals.

“The families all came over to America the same year.”

“Hmm.”

“Yeah. 1912. But here's the real weird part. They all came over on the same boat.”

“What was it called?”

“The Titanic.”

There’s the grand clue.

“Mr I.P. Freeley.” He couldn’t have been more subtle about it???

Balthazar and his “excuses” for saving the Titanic: heated the movie (what movie?) and the song by Celine Dion (who’s that?).

“You totally Butterfly-Effected history!”

“Dude. Dude. Rule one, no Kutcher references.”

Oh Dean-o, we all know you love Kutcher movies.

“You have me confused with the other angel –”

OOHHHH.

Awww, the junkyard is now “B + E Scrapyard”.

MOTE: Fate.

A+ to Sam for knowing his Greek mythology.

And now for the personal dilemma.

“Apparently, a crapload of dominoes get tipped over if the Titanic goes down. And, uh, bottom line – Ellen and Jo die.”

“Okay, you two. Listen up. You make sure... Keep those angels from sinking that boat. Do you understand me?”

That 180 Bobby just did.

“You almost killed me, you lunatic.” They literally just saved your life, dude.

RIP Shawn Russo. Hit by a bus.

DEAN, LMAOO.

Sam notices Fate.

“What’d she look like?”

“Kind of like a librarian.”

“Your kind of librarian or my kind of librarian?”

Is that really the question you should be asking, Dean??

“talk” Forcefully.

There goes Fate trying to kill the Winchesters.

Cas saving their asses.

“nothing of import” Goddamn it, I still love it when Cas says that.

“Cas, you need new friends.”

“I'm trying to save the ones I have, Dean.”

HE MEANS YOU, DUMMY.

Cas is so pretty.

Bobby looks at Ellen like she’s gonna disappear at any given moment.

“Yeah, you ever hear the saying "you can't stop fate"? You know, cleanest fix would just be to sink the boat.”

“Why would you say that?”

“Well, because, right now they're all dying bloody. It's not the same as never being born.”

“You're talking about people – people who are loved...Who would be missed.”

I love the intimacy of the close ups here.

“We need you. Especially me.”

“I know.”

Fucking stab me in the heart.

(I’m hoping Mary and AU!Bobby are like this.)

“One Way or Another” by Blondie.

This whole “tempting fate” scene is hilarious. I love it.

Of all the ways they could have potentially went out...an air conditioner falling on them was the way it almost happened.

Atropos.

“You ruined my life.”

“Let’s not get emotional.”

lmao, Cas.

I personally understand/relate to Atropos, to be honest.

“I don't know what happens next. I need to know. It's what I do.” Yep, that’s very much me.

Atropos is the first to nearly directly expose what Cas is really up to.

“If you don't go back and sink that boat, I'm gonna kill your two favorite pets.”

Cas reconsidering everything just to keep the Winchesters safe.

lmao Balthazar.

“Let's sink the Titanic.”

There’s our title song. “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion.

Sleeping Winchesters.

Baby!

Cas!

“So, what happened?”

“Well, I insisted he go back in time and correct what he'd done.”

“What? Why?”

“It was the only way to be sure you were safe.”

Yeeppp.

“So, you killed...50,000 people for us.” More like, not letting them get born.

Dean looks especially shook about it.

“You don't have to be ruled by fate. You can choose freedom. I still believe that that's something worth fighting for. I just wanted you to understand that.”

Cas explaining himself ahead of the big reveal.

“Did...Balthazar really, uh, unravel the sweater over a chick flick?”

“Yes. Absolutely. That’s what he did.”

How did none of them notice that Cas was lying?

“I'll tell you one thing about Cas, he does not appreciate the finer things.” (He appreciates you.)

Aww Bobby.

“Poor bastard. Doesn't even know how good he had it.”

“Yeah, well, what he doesn't know won't hurt him. I say we keep our mouths shut.”

Amen.

Dean looking after Bobby. :’)

#supernatural #spn summer rewatch #spn liveblog #spn 6x17 #my heart will go on

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badwolfandtimelords · 5 years

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Supernatural: The Essence of My Soul to Keep, Provenance Part 3

Pairing: Dean Winchester x OC (Claire Shanahan)

Summary:

Main story: January 1998- Portland, Oregon. Dean and Sam start over at another high school while John hunts down a mysterious aura. Meanwhile, an impossibly beautiful girl starts school at the same time as the Winchesters. Is she in any way connected to John's case, which could prove dangerous as Dean's starts to fall for her? Continues into the series main events.

This chapter: Provenance, 1X19. Somehow the painting is back after the Winchester’s try to burn it, keeping them in town longer than expected. Now they must dig into the past to try and learn more to finish this case, while also digging up things from their own past.

Find the full story on AO3 here.

The next morning saw the Winchesters back at the auction house once more in a frantic search. Instead this time, for Dean’s wallet rather than a haunted painting. Poking around easels, statues, vases, shrubbery, and anywhere else it could have fallen during their break in, no wallet could be seen. “How do you lose your wallet, Dean?” Sam hissed. Rather than replying, Dean managed to throw his hands up slightly as he continued to look around. However, a friendly voice instantly had them swinging around and stop in their search. “Hey guys!” Looking over, Sarah stood watching them with a pleased look on her face. “Sarah! Hey!” Sam greeted her, putting down the box he had been rooting through. “What are you doing here?” “Ahh…” Sam looked back to Dean for help, who in turn simply shrugged. “We... We are leaving town and, you know, we came to say goodbye!” It was then that Dean walked over to join the conversation. “What are you talking about Sam? We're sticking around for at least another day or two.” He grinned, earning a confused look from his brother and an unsure chuckle from Sarah. “Oh, Sam. By the way. I'm gonna go ahead and give you that twenty bucks I owe you.” When Sam saw Dean pull out the supposedly missing wallet from out of his back pocket, realization swept across his face. “I always forget, you know.” Dean laughed as he told Sarah. “There you go.” With that he held a twenty out to Sam, who after a look of disbelief, snatched the bill away. “Well I'll leave you two crazy kids alone, I gotta go do... something… somewhere.” He said before hightailing it out the door, leaving Sam to talk to Sarah. “That was quite smooth of you, sweetheart.” Claire scoffed once she and Dean were outside of the auction house. “What can I say, I’m a natural born actor.” Dean chuckled. “You deserve an Oscar after that performance.” She shook her head, glancing back to the building as they made their way to the car. Noticing no one was around them, Dean gave a short whistle. “Hey, come here.” He called to her. Twisting her ring around her finger, she looked between Dean and the building before following him into the car. Once they were settled on the bench, he gently swiped a finger through the air under her chin. “Hey, something’s been bothering you since last night.” He started gently. “What’s going on?” “Nothing.” She replied quietly, refusing to meet his gaze and instead continued to fidget with her ring. “No. It’s definitely something. It’s never nothing with you.” When she finally looked up at him, clearly to argue, he held up a finger to stop her. “In the years we’ve been together, you’ve almost always caught what I’ve missed. And sure, I can be a little slow, but I can pick up the signs from you when something’s wrong. Especially when you straight up tell me something is wrong.” “I didn’t-” “You shook your head last night when we burned the painting.” He cut her off. “Something’s wrong.” “Except I don’t know what it is.” She frowned. “All I can think is how it feels too easy.” “How?” Sighing, she sank in her seat before speaking slowly. “Those names in your father’s notebook were there for a reason. Something big is centered around this painting. Something big enough for your father to note. I mean,” She sat up to face him. “You and Sam burned that painting with no trouble. No spirit trying to prevent it. And yet a number of people who have owned the painting are dead-” Her eyes widening suddenly at something in her peripheral, she suddenly appeared in the backseat as Sam opened the door to the passenger seat and scrambled inside to sit where she had been a moment ago. “It’s back.” Sam said breathlessly. “What?” Dean asked in confusion. “The painting! I was talking to Sarah, and suddenly someone’s walking by carrying it!” From the corner of his eye, he could see Claire frown and disappear. “You’re kidding.” This made Sam huff. “Dean, do you really think this is something I would kid about?” “To stick around Sarah a little longer? Maybe.” In the backseat Claire reappeared as he said Sarah’s name. Upon seeing her clouded expression, he too frowned. “I don't understand, Dean, we burned the damn thing.” Sam stared at the hood in frustration, ignoring the jab about Sarah. “Yeah, thank you Captain Obvious.” Dean retorted. “All right, we just need to figure out another way to get rid of it. Any ideas?” “Okay, all right. Well, um, in almost all the lore about haunted paintings it's always the painting's subject that haunts 'em.” Sam thought aloud. “That presents far too many options for my liking.” Claire thought back to the number of people depicted on the canvas. “Yeah. So, we just need to figure out everything there is to know about that creepy-ass family and that creepy-ass painting.” Dean agreed. “What were their names again?” * “You said the Isaiah Merchant family, right?” The record keeper asked as he dropped a collection of large dusty books onto the tabletop already littered with various news articles and printouts. “Yeah that's right.” Sam confirmed. Glancing at Dean who was pouring over a printed info packet about guns, Claire called out to him. “Dean, focus.” “I dug up every scrap of local history I could find.” The keeper continued as he began to lay out what he thought the boys might need. “So, are you boys crime buffs?” “Kinda. Yeah. Why do you ask?” Dean glanced at Sam. “Well…” The keeper said nothing else as he held up an old newspaper. “He really should be wearing gloves when handling this old stuff.” Claire muttered as she leaned forward to study the articles. While most of the 1912 paper’s spread was dedicated to the sinking of the titanic, a small column on the right side that the keeper pointed to spoke of how a father in the area had killed his family and himself. “Yes. Yeah, that sounds about right.” Dean confirmed cheerfully. “The whole family was killed?” Sam asked. “It seems this Isaiah, he slits his kids' throats, then his wife, then himself. Now, he was a barber by trade. Used a straight razor.” The keeper explained. “Why'd he do it?” Sam asked in bewilderment. “Why does a murderer murder anyone?” Claire muttered over the rustling paper as the keeper turned the newspaper over to the backside. “People who knew him describe Isaiah as having a stern and harsh temperament. Controlled his family with an iron fist.” He read. “Wife, uh, two sons, adopted daughter… Yeah yeah yeah… There were whispers that the wife was gonna take the kids and leave. Which of course you know in that day and age, um ....so instead, old man Isaiah...well he gave them all a shave.” He finished, laughing at his own joke. Dean laughed too until he saw the unimpressed looks on both Sam and Claire’s faces. “Does it say what happened to the bodies?” He said, his laughter dying quickly. “Just that they were all cremated.” At this, the brothers looked at each other in dismay. “Anything else?” Sam asked gently, trying not to sound to disappointed. “Yeah!” The keeper scrambled for a book hidden under the album that had held the newspaper. “Actually, I found a picture of the family. It's right here... somewhere. Right... here it is!” He declared after flipping through the book. Turning it to the hunters, they were greeted with the sight of an image of the very painting they had tried to destroy. “Hey, could we get a copy of this please?” Sam gestured to it. “Sure?” The keeper replied. While Sam followed the keeper to get a copy of the photo, Dean watched Claire as she folded her arms and pursed her lips in thought. “What are you thinking, Clairey?” He asked quietly. “That the painting has changed.” She said, not looking up at him. “And that your job just became harder.” * “I'm telling you man, I'm sure of it! The painting at the auction house, Dad is looking down. Painting here, Dad's looking out. The painting has changed, Dean!” Sam said when they got back to the motel and sat at the table. Taking from Sam the copied picture they got from the library, Dean studied it carefully. “Just as I said.” Claire said into his ear as she too studied it. “All right, so you think that Daddy dearest is trapped in the painting and is handing out Columbian neckties like he did with his family?” Dean asked. “Well yeah, it seems like it! But if his bones are already dusted then how are we gonna stop him?” “Find something else that might have survived of his?” Claire suggested as she moved away from the boy to sit on the bed. Something was bothering her about the painting, but what she wasn’t quite sure. “All right, well, if Isaiah's position changed then maybe some other things in the painting changed as well. You know, it could give us some clues.” “What, like a Da Vinci Code deal?” Sam suggested. “I don't… know. I'm still waiting for the movie on that one. Anyway, we gotta get back in and see that painting. Which is a good thing, because you can get some more time to crush on your girlfriend." Dean added as he got up from the table and walked over to his bed, throwing himself onto it. From where she already sat on the empty side of the bed, Claire bounced slightly from the impact of Dean's added weight. "Dude, enough already." Sam warned his brother in annoyance. Dean crossed his arms after he propped himself up against the headboard. "What?" "What?" Sam mocked. "Ever since we got here, you've been trying to pimp me out to Sarah! Just back off, alright?" "Well you like her, don't you?" Dean asked. Relenting, Sam threw his hands briefly in the air and turned his head away. “Alright, you like her. She likes you. You’re both consenting adults.” He listed off. “What’s the point, Dean? We’ll just leave. We always leave.” At this point Sam’s voice was getting higher with each word he said in protest. “Well, I’m not talking about marriage, Sam.” Dean laughed. “No, I don’t get it! What do you care if I hook up?” “So then maybe you wouldn’t be so cranky all the time.” Although there was a smile on his face, there was no trace of joking in Dean’s voice as he said this, leaving silence in the air. Claire watched intently as both brother’s made faces at each other before Sam scoffed. “You better be going somewhere with this, love.” Claire said quietly, looking down at the crappy stitching on the comforter covering the bed. Taking her advice, Dean sat up straight. “No, seriously, Sam. This isn’t just about hooking up, okay? I mean, I- I think that this... Sarah girl could be good for you.” While Sam looked away, Dean kept his eyes on his little brother, his face completely straight. “And I don’t mean any disrespect, but I’m… I’m sure that this is about Jessica, right?" More silence from Sam. Glancing between Sam and Claire, Dean took a few calming breaths as he thought over what he was going to say next. “You know that I… know what it’s like to lose someone like that. And don't treat me like I don't know what it feels like, ‘cause I do. Think about when Claire d-died.” If he didn’t have Sam’s attention at mentioning Jessica, which he did, he certainly had his attention now at the mention of their long dead, to Sam anyways, friend. Except for a very few number of mentions of her in the beginning, after a while Sam had started to treat Claire’s name as a sort of taboo, worried about what his brother would say or do; because for a while, it had not been pretty in the slightest. Dean’s refusal to talk about her or anything that had happened was what had led to the whole “no chick flick moments” rule. If Claire was ever mentioned in a conversation willingly, it was Dean who would bring her up, unless Sam was looking to get a rise out of his brother. Now, even Claire watched him with eyes wide open in shock at the mention of her own name. When Sam finally gathered himself enough to speak, he looked up at Dean sadly. “Why talk about her now? It’s been seven years since we lost her, and only now you talk about how you felt?” “Sammy…” Claire regarded him sadly, tears pooling in her eyes when she heard the break in his voice. “Look, I tried to hide it, but I know you saw through it sometimes.” Dean took a deep breath to calm himself, supposedly looking away, while really looking at Claire, before continuing. “I was a mess. Even if we only knew her for a little while, she changed my life for the better. But I know she wanted me to move on and find someone else, and I think maybe that’s what Jessica would want for you.” “Yeah, well you moved on pretty fast.” Sam rebutted. “No. No I didn’t.” Dean said in a hard voice, tears now building up in his eyes as well. “You don’t think it hurt for me waking up each morning and not seeing there? Not being able to hold her again? Not hear her talk or laugh? We were planning on running away together, Sammy; you know that. Quit the business, take you with us and be together. Even if we had been 18… 19 years old, I would have married her without a second thought. Because I loved her, god, I still love her.” By now both he and Claire were crying as he let out everything he had pent up for the last seven years. Sniffling and wiping his eyes, Dean gazed his eyes to Sam who had tears of his own silently running down his face. “I didn’t even want to live without her. I tried and I tried, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.” “What are you sayin?” Sam croaked. “Remember my 5 states, 5 days trip?” Dean asked him, receiving a nod in confirmation. When this was mentioned, Claire froze, remembering exactly what Dean was talking about. Even though things had turned out fine in the end, she still cried for nights on end in the weeks that followed. “That week I had planned to end it all. To go out with a bang or something. I didn’t want to be without Claire, so I figured I’d join her. But I didn’t. I couldn’t leave you behind, and I knew she would have wanted me to keep on living, find someone else who could make me happy, and god forbid have fun once and awhile. So I did. Besides, if I had done it, she probably would have kicked my ass for leaving you behind like that.” “Yeah… I bet she would have.” Sam laughed a little, making Dean and Claire laugh as well. “I’ll always love her, and she’ll always be a part of me, but I had to learn to move on, and I’m sure Jessica would have wanted you to do the same.” Nodding in understanding, Sam considered the weight of what his brother had just told him, and seeing how right he was. “Yeah, you’re right.” He admitted. “A part of this is about Jessica. But not the main part.” This made Dean frown. “What’s it about?” When Sam kept quiet, he rolled his eyes and crossed his arms once more, leaning back against the headboard, seeing the touching moment was over. “Yeah, alright. Well, we still gotta see that painting, which means you still gotta call Sarah. So...” Without another word, Sam picked up his phone and dialed Sarah’s number. On the bed, Claire shuffled over to lay next to Dean. “I’m proud of you.” She whispered. While Dean didn’t look at her, he nodded slightly. He couldn’t help the slight smile that lifted his mouth however she followed her whisper with “I love you.” “Yeah good, good, really good.” Sam rambled on the phone, catching both Dean and Claire’s attention. “Smooth!” Dean whisper yelled across the room. Shaking his head at Dean, Sam continued. “So, ah, so listen. Me and my brother, were… Uh… Thinking that maybe we'd like to come back in and look at the painting again. I... I think maybe we are interested in buying it.” Listening carefully, his expression dropped as he jumped up from the table, his outburst making the other two watch him in curiosity. “What!? Who'd you sell it to?” Now Dean and Claire were up as well. “Sarah, I need an address right now.” * “Sarah’s here.” Claire shouted over the roaring of the Impala as it flew up the driveway, pointing to where a jeep sat parked in front of the house. “Son of a bitch.” Dean gritted as he brought the vehicle to a halt. “Sam, what's happening?” Sarah asked as the two brothers rushed out of the car. “Claire, house.” Dean muttered as he ran past Sam and Sarah. “On it.” Claire nodded before appearing inside the house. Inside it was quiet. Too quiet. Taking a breath, she tried her best to block out the sounds of the others outside as she studied her surroundings. While the first thought was this seems familiar, she shook away thoughts of the past while leaving the entrance to walk into the sitting room. Above the fireplace was the painting, looking as cold and unsettling as the first time she had seen it. Seeing someone sitting in the armchair in front of the fireplace, she circled around to stand before it. The sight that she was greeted with however drew a curse from her breath and left her stuck in place. As there was the sound of the front door banging open and the others rushed in calling for the woman, Evelyn, Claire felt a chill around her hand and up the back of her neck as the others walked into the adjoining room. In an instant, however, the feeling was gone, but nonetheless left her shivering. Looking up to meet Dean’s eye, she shook her head, making his shoulders drop. “Evelyn?” Sarah called out to the woman. Together the three of them cautiously made their way into the room, the boys watching the painting. “It's Sarah Blake… Are you all right?” Sam tore his eyes away from the painting however when he saw Sarah reach for the older woman. “Sarah don't. Sarah!” He shouted. It was too late however, as Evelyn’s head fell back, cleanly cut from the rest of her neck, causing the younger woman to scream in horror. The cold feeling was back, rushing up Claire’s spine, and clearly everyone else's as they all looked up to the painting to see Isaiah Merchant staring right back at them.

#supernatural #supernatural fanfiction #dean winchester #dean winchester x oc #oc #own character #sam winchester #season 1 #provenance #fanfiction #romance #angst

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kidsviral-blog · 6 years

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When Children With Autism Grow Up

New Post has been published on https://kidsviral.info/when-children-with-autism-grow-up/

When Children With Autism Grow Up

I was 23 and needed a summer job; he was 21 and needed full-time support. He’s one of an estimated half million people diagnosed with autism who are soon becoming adults — and who society is entirely unprepared for.

The heat that afternoon was intense. Weather maps across Iowa were deep red, and warnings flashed across the screen. A high school football player on the other side of the state had died from heat exhaustion the week before. Cornfields wilted and shrank into hills of despondent brown.

I was running late as I parked and shuffled to a dilapidated satellite classroom building. I introduced myself to a teacher sitting at a desk and told him that I was there to meet a 21-year-old man named “Scooter” — a childhood nickname, I’d later learn, that had stuck. (I’ve changed all names and some details to protect him and to comply with privacy laws.) I needed a summer job after my first year of grad school, and he needed staff.

My experience with autism had been limited to movies and anecdotes from friends who worked in “the field” — care industry shorthand for post-institutional residential and community-living nonprofits supporting people with developmental disabilities. (“We’re always looking,” the agency had said, and hired me without any sort of drug screening and a cursory, astonishingly fast background check. The drug screening was my only concern while filling out applications.)

The teacher looked like he was close to retirement age and wore a hearing aid. He asked about my experience working with people diagnosed with autism. “None,” I said, and his face dropped.

“Don’t stand directly in front of him,” the teacher said, “and avoid making eye contact. He might perceive that as a threat. He’s very keyed in on body language. Introduce yourself, but let me take the lead.”

I was led to a corner of the room I hadn’t before seen. It was darker than the rest of the space and a few decibels quieter. In the nook, I saw Scooter. He had a stringy mustache and hair with great curling wings. One of his eyes wandered slightly. He sat behind a crescent-shaped table padlocked to the wall at both ends of the curved top. Scattered in front of him were piles of flashcards, jars of beads, toy cars, unfinished puzzles, crumbs from lunch, and a laminated piece of tagboard with a strip of Velcro down the center. As soon as he saw me, his face tightened into a sort of grimace, baring his teeth, but the rest of his face, his eyes, posture, and hands were unexpressive as he blankly leaned out into the dim classroom.

“Well, hi there,” I said, waving. I began to clam up in all of the pits of my body.

“Well, hi there,” Scooter said, and he let out a deep laugh.

The person I was going to meet that day had been a child in my mind. In front of me was a man. A man only two years younger than me.

The three of us sat at the table while Scooter and his teacher went through flash cards, and Scooter looked at me a few times with a penetrating glare. His expression settled into a sort of skeptical normalcy. I felt like I was being sized up, and I now realize that I was. Scooter has had dozens of staff come and go in his lifetime. He was right to wonder whether I would be sticking around.

As medical phenomena go, autism is a recently identified one, although perhaps not as recent as the current vaccination panic suggests. The term was coined in 1912, and the first person ever diagnosed with autism is now 81 years old. And yet the contemporary situation is an unprecedented one: Though the data we have is under constant scrutiny for its accuracy, methodology, and usefulness, the Centers for Disease Control reports that the current rate of autism diagnosis in the United States is 1 in 68. This is a continuation of a trend identified by the Environmental Protection Agency that started between 1988 and 1992, when the worldwide diagnosis of autism spiked from 6 in 10,000 kids to 24 in 10,000. Scooter, born in 1989, is part of a coming “tsunami” of autistic adults. Signed in August of last year, the Autism CARES Act has devoted $1.3 billion in federal spending to research, which is a drop in the bucket autism currently costs the United States annually. That number only stands to go up. Simply put, we have no plan for any of this.

People diagnosed with autism and other developmental disabilities used to be stuffed into institutions, and the horrors that took place within them are well-known. I’ve read about Achilles tendons being cut to prevent people from running away, teeth being pulled to prevent biting, cattle prods used to electrocute, endless streams of sedatives. While most of that has stopped, with the glaring exception of overmedication, the current system of care is hyperaware of this history.

Ideally, those who work with this part of the population now strive to empower them, to remove labels and barriers and work toward independence. And yet this is the ugly fact, a vestige of the institution era: The chief witnesses to Scooter’s life are not friends and family but scores of paid providers. People like me. We accommodate, teach, and encourage. We support. We never punish. And yet our interests are split between doing genuine good for another human being and getting a paycheck. So we’re also probably looking around for something that pays better than $10 an hour and doesn’t involve regular emotional, and sometimes physical, beatdowns. And that, in turn, affects people like Scooter.

View this image ›

Mac had long hair, had studied English in college, and was a competent thinker and dedicated stoner. When I showed up to work on the first day, he stood by the Smoke Shack, a repurposed bus stop shelter, and was halfway through an American Spirit. His belly and hips were pressed forward. He said, as if informing me, “You’re Bob.”

I grinned and lit a cigarette.

“Smoke that fast. You have to work.”

Mac had known Scooter for five years. Scooter had been living in group homes since he was 11. For the last decade, Scooter would see his family about once a year, if that. He has no friends. Mac explained that my job was to help him transition into the agency’s day program, a place for people to socialize, do activities, and complete sub-minimum-wage work.

We entered what Mac called the Autism Room, or A Room. One man, in his forties, overweight and wearing a Ron Paul T-shirt, was vacuuming while doing a spot-on impression of the vacuum. Another, in his late thirties, was eating a box of raisins and singing his name. A third, approaching 60 and wearing overalls, took off his shoe, jumped out of his rocking chair, bit his shoe, began to cry, and then sat back down. The people supported, like Scooter and the rest of the men, were referred to as “individuals.”

Opposite each was a member of the “staff”: a reformed redneck with trendy sunglasses and a Metallica T-shirt, an aging Gen X’er with a pink poodle haircut and psycho-’50s-housewife-chic miniskirt, and a hipster who talked at length about shoegaze-y post-punk and horrorcore-trance hip-hop. Everyone had a clipboard and documented, ad nauseam, their daily assigned individual, from lunch choices to the size and consistency of their bowel movements.

Scooter was the youngest in the A Room by almost 10 years. He and Mac and I sat in a corner, Scooter in a plush recliner and Mac and I in stiff plastic chairs. Mac tossed the clipboard under his chair and said we would fill most of it out at the end of the shift.

“Hey, man. Um, dude. What’s up with you today, Scooter? Remember, we met at your school?” I asked.

Scooter looked at Mac.

“Don’t ask open-ended questions,” Mac said. “You have to use phrases that he knows and yes-or-no questions. Yo, Scooter. You want to go for a walk on the Key-Wash trail today?”

“Yuh,” Scooter said.

I couldn’t tell if he had said “yeah,” “huh,” or “no.”

“Key-Wash?” I asked. “So are these phrases, like, written down somewhere?”

“No, just pay attention. That’s a ‘yeah.’ Everyone assumes he’s saying ‘no,’ or ‘huh.’ Scooter, do you want to go for a walk on the Key-Wash trail? Yes or no.”

“Yes.” Scooter said.

“Scooter, do you want to go for a walk on the Key-Wash trail? No or yes.”

“No,” Scooter looked puzzled.

“So which one is it?”

“Do you want to go for a walk on the Key-Wash trail?” Scooter said.

“He talks in the second person,” Mac said. “So ‘you’ sometimes means ‘I.’ Also, questions are sometimes questions, but other times they’re statements. It’s part of his echolalia. Give him two choices and he usually picks the first one. Are you getting all of this?”

“Yeah, um, yes,” I said. I wrote “echolalia” on my palm and googled it when I got home.

Mac slathered Scooter with sunscreen and then documented that he had administered the medication “SPF 30 sport sunscreen.”

We piled into a junky minivan and Mac showed me how to fill out the mileage tracking and use the company card for gas. He prompted Scooter to buckle up and told me that we couldn’t take the thing out of park until everyone had their seatbelt on.

After Scooter clicked his buckle, Mac said, “You’re all telphered in and…”

“Telphered in and goin’!” Scooter rocked forward and back in his seat excitedly.

“I have no idea what that means,” Mac said. “Someone taught it to him a long time ago and now it’s just a thing that he says. He’ll say it pretty much every time if you prompt him. Some people go overboard and get him to say off-the-wall shit, but it’s not like he doesn’t have a sense of humor. Scooter,” Mac said. He changed his voice to mimic an announcer: “Nothin’ runs like a…”

“Nothin’ runs like a Deere.”

“Um, wrong one, dude. He does love John Deere, though. Scooter,” he gave a sneaky nod in the rearview mirror. “Try again. Nothin’ runs like a…”

“Stripper,” he said and smiled.

Mac made it a point to tell me that the whole “intellectual age” thing, that Scooter is like a 5-year-old trapped in a 21-year-old’s body, is bullshit. “He understands everything we’re talking about right now,” he said, “so don’t be shitty to him. Treat him like a person.”

Scooter sat in the backseat, watching the slumped cornfields as we whipped past them. We drove over a dam, past a large irrigation reservoir, and arrived at a trailhead. A sign read “Woodpecker.”

“I thought we were going to the Key-Wash trail,” I said.

“I don’t know where the Key-Wash trail is or if it even exists. All trails are the Key-Wash trail.” Mac logged the van’s mileage. “He won’t be upset as long as you guys go for a nice long walk. Where we at, Scooter?”

“The Key-Wash trail,” he said.

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Illustration by Eric Petersen for BuzzFeed News

I was off on my own a few days later. I parked the van in front of Scooter’s house and waited for him to come out the front door. I had a vicious hangover. When he appeared, he was wearing a new pair of shorts and clean white shoes, had shaved his mustache, and sported a fresh crew cut.

“What’s up, Scooter?” I said when he opened the door of the van.

“Where’s Mac?” he asked.

“Just you and me today, dude.” Scooter climbed into the backseat. “You’re looking sharp, man. Nice threads. Where ya headed?”

“To the A Room.” He looked out toward the front door of the house, disconnected from our conversation, and slowly buckled his belt.

“Are ya all telphered in and…”

“Huh?” he said, suddenly engaged.

“Are ya all telphered in and goin’?” I said in my best Scooter impersonation.

“Are ya goin’? You don’t want to go to the A Room today?” he said.

“Which one is it? Going or not going?” I asked.

“Are you goin’ to the A Room?”

“Groovy,” I said. My guts began to angrily rumble.

When we arrived and I parked, Scooter did not get out of the van.

“You don’t want to go to the A Room today,” he said.

I tried being nice, being firm, everything I could imagine. And finally I said, “I can wait all day, dude,” took a few steps from the van, and lit a cigarette. But that was a lie. Twenty minutes later, I said: “Scooter, please. I have to go to the bathroom really bad.”

Scooter sat in the backseat with the door open and said nothing. The sun pulsed down in oppressive waves, cooking whatever foul thing was roiling in my intestines and heating the van to what I hoped was intolerable for Scooter. And then Mac happened to come outside for a smoke.

“How’s it going, fellas?”

“We’re stuck,” I said, “And I’m about to fill my shorts.”

Mac laughed. He poked his head into the van. “Sup, dude.” He pointed at me and then at the building, so I ran in. When I came back out, Scooter’s binder in hand, negotiations were still heated.

“Check it out, dude,” he said, showing Scooter. “We’re going to get out of the van, go rock, go to the bathroom, go for a ride in the van, then go home.”

“You want to stay in the van?” Scooter said.

“Can you move to this seat so we can talk better?” Mac pointed to a seat closer to the door. Scooter did. Over the next half hour, Mac continued to prompt Scooter to complete the next step of getting out of the van. Move to this seat, move to that seat, put your feet near the edge of the door, put one foot on the ground, put your other foot on the ground, grab this handle, and finally out.

The victory, if one could call it that, felt so small that I wanted to stay home the next day and the rest of the summer. It would have been easy for me to leave. But it was a job.

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Scooter and I soon spent six hours a day, five days a week together. I eventually didn’t need Mac’s help as often, which I think he respected. We would shred confidential documents from nearby businesses so Scooter could make money, and then head down to the Dairy Queen on payday. I would ask Scooter what he wanted, already knowing that the answer would be a medium chocolate ice cream with sprinkles. I would get a small root beer float. “How about this weather?” I would say, or, “They sure make one hell of a cup of ice cream here” or, “These are the days to remember.” He would just say, “Yuh,” and eat too fast.

“Slow down or you’ll get brain freeze,” I would say.

“Your brain freeze,” he would reply between bites and laugh.

We walked many miles of trails and worked through sorting and matching tasks. A lot of time was spent sitting in silence. When he was unable to regulate the information coming into his brain, I would perform a process called the Wilbarger Protocol. It was intimate. I would move a soft brush on Scooter’s arms, legs, neck, and back. Then he would put his hand in mine and I would grab his fingers one at a time, compressing the joints in toward his palm. Firm but gentle, confident but caring. I would watch his face, look for some tension to drop from it and then linger there, count to 10 in my head, and then move on to the next one. We were an impossible duo, a temp and one of the hardest guys in the agency.

But things got rough by the end of the summer. He started to refuse activities, and then he got aggressive, reaching for other staff members’ faces, toward their groins, pulling people’s hair. He never tried to hurt me. I wasn’t sure why. Maybe he wanted me to stay.

Before long it was my last day and I was checked out. He refused to leave the A Room at all, which just meant less work for me. I was happy to sit in a chair and play with my phone. But then it was time for Scooter to go home.

The dude in the Ron Paul T-shirt vacuumed, and his staff orbited. I called Scooter’s house, and the staff who answered said he’d be there soon but that Scooter’s roommate was going berserk and kicking holes in the walls.

“Are you done?” I said in a low, firm voice.

“Are you done?” he replied, laughing.

“Whatever, dude. I can sit here all day. They’ll give me overtime.”

Scooter said, “Whooossshhh,” and laughed again. The vacuum shrieked.

“Seriously, dude, I just fucking want to go home,” I said in a half whisper and stood up. “Out of the chair, let’s go.”

“Get out of the chair.” He said in a rough voice.

“So what, are we just hanging out here? Just chillin’ one last day? You haven’t had enough of me yet?”

“Oh, I’m just hangin’ out.” He said with a high-pitched, mocking tone. Repeated it for another hour. Whooshed every time I spoke to him.

When we parted, neither of us said good-bye.

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Illustration by Eric Petersen for BuzzFeed News

It was about a month before I caught myself sitting alone at the DQ, slurping down a root beer float, or hiking Woodpecker with the hopes that Scooter and I might run into each other. Mac and I had become friends, and he gave me updates on how Scooter was doing while we played disc golf or went out drinking.

Mac showed up one day, pale, wearing a hat.

“Bad haircut?” I jabbed, and then he took the hat off. His scalp had bald patches and open abrasions. Scooter had had an episode and was hospitalized, Mac said. He put his hat back on. We ate Indian food and didn’t talk about it much more.

Scooter has never been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, but he almost certainly has it. He has alleged that his father sexually abused him, but the claims were unfounded because it was Scooter’s word against his dad’s, which is common. By one estimate, people with intellectual disabilities are four times more likely to be sexually abused than people without.

Scooter’s allegations of abuse come in huge outbursts, and he echoes things that must have been said to him while it was happening. “You are a fucking retard, aren’t you?” and “Does that dick feel good in your ass?” and more that I can’t bring myself to repeat. During post-traumatic episodes, almost all of his frustration eventually manifests as physical violence.

Over the Indian food, my nostalgia turned into guilt, which, in the weeks that followed, turned into outright pain, a longing to be there for him. To help Mac and the other staff and ultimately Scooter. He would listen to me, I was certain. I could help him somehow. That thinking was rooted in the relationship Scooter and I had built together, but also, I now realize, in a sort of compassionate hubris. I can take care of him because he can’t take care of himself, I thought, and got a job part-time at his house.

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“It is Bob!” Scooter exclaimed, rushing to me. He looked tired, ragged, the stringy mustache coming back in, the wings starting to curl behind his ears.

“What’s up, Scooter-duder?”

“What’s up, Scooter-duder? Oh, I’m just hangin’ out,” he said and laughed.

“We’re still on that, huh?”

“Yuh.” Scooter said and then reached out for my face with both hands. I ducked out of the way reflexively. Mac appeared out of the bathroom and tapped Scooter on the shoulder.

“We don’t need to be doing that,” he said, and looking at me: “You ready for an adventure?”

Mac and I had to take Scooter to a pre-appointment; he was getting his wisdom teeth removed. Long overdue. Dental work causes so much anxiety for Scooter that in order to do it safely, he needs to be fully anesthetized, and they need to see him before they will put him under.

“Scooter,” Mac said as he drove, “what should we have for lunch after we’re done at the dentist?”

“Do you want to go to McDonald’s?” Scooter said. McDonald’s was more than lunch. It was the ace up our sleeve.

“Sounds like a plan, dude,” Mac said.

Scooter tried to pull the receptionist’s hair when we went to get his paperwork. He tried to pull a little kid’s hair on our way back to the far corner of the waiting room. Nobody looked at him. Everyone stared into their devices. White lab coats occasionally floated through the space.

“Bob,” Mac said, and nodded toward Scooter. He grimaced. Scooter has been in and out of inpatient psychiatric units his whole life, and the lab coats reminded him of that. He moaned and bent over, nearly touching his chest to his knees, and then threw himself into the back of the chair hard. He started reaching over my shoulder toward the person sitting closest to us, a young mother, trying to get at her hair or face.

“Let’s keep our hands to ourselves,” I said in a low, calm voice. Mac was in a vaguely athletic stance, ready to react.

Scooter looked at me, continued to make pained faces and reach.

“Scooter, stop,” I said.

Scooter suddenly stood and fixed his gaze on the woman. His arm was out and he started walking toward her, his face unrecognizably vacant.

I felt my own energy rising and stood right in front of him, puffed myself up to look big and imposing, and I said, “Sit down, now.”

Getting hit in the face doesn’t hurt. Not at first. At first you aren’t sure what happened, but it’s vivid and embodied in retrospect. Scooter slapped me three times and, after a few attempts, boxed my ears, which sent me into a dizzy high. Overcome with a vibration, a warble in my gut of an instinctual magnitude spread to all of my limbs like an electric charge. Fight or flight or keep your fucking cool. Always try to do the lattermost. Finally, he grabbed my beard. Pulled slow, hard. That hurt right away, like a thousand pinpricks. Mac was there, holding Scooter’s hands against my face, trying to keep him from ripping out hair, asking him to let go.

“Scooter,” a nurse said, and he was off, Mac and I flanking him on either side. I glanced back over my shoulder as we walked to the exam room. Everyone in the place stared at us, wan and terrified.

We got through the rest of the appointment, received pre-op instructions, and kept Scooter from tearing out the nurse’s hair. The whole ordeal felt, at once, bizarre and pointless. Of the vast, innumerable infrastructures of society — dentists’ offices, hospitals, mental health counselors, DMVs, voting stations, restaurants, bars, public parks — I have never been to one that was adequately prepared for someone like Scooter. And if that isn’t enough, the general public responds to him with fear and feels better when he’s out of sight.

An exit sign glowed like a beacon near the exam room. Then we ate McDonald’s; it was terrible.

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Illustration by Eric Petersen for BuzzFeed News

A few months later, I was working close to 30 hours a week. Every shift was Scooter and me. That was on top of full-time school, teaching, and writing my graduate thesis — an experimental, heavily fictionalized, and nonsensical book-length essay about working with Scooter. It was unreadable. In all, I spent about 50 hours a week with him or writing about him. And I dreamed about him almost nightly. Most of the time, he didn’t have autism, and we would talk, at length, about my work. Everyone who I’ve told this to in the field has said they’ve had such a dream about someone they support. All this and I was his “preferred staff,” not a friend.

One day, an administrator, I’ll call her Ann, was in the house with Mac when I showed up for my shift. She was, and I suspect still is, the only consistent female presence in Scooter’s life and another paid provider, and she was holding a pair of medical safety scissors.

“We have a job for you,” she said with faux gravitas. “Scooter has really bad dingleberries.” Mac let out wicked, high-pitched laughter.

“Got it,” I said. I had no limits. They didn’t have to ask. I gloved up and took the scissors, went into Scooter’s bedroom, and sat down on the floor while he sat in his rocking chair.

“Dude,” I said, “you and I need to do something.”

“Yuh.”

“It is going to be uncomfortable at first but will make you feel better when we’re done.”

“Yuh.”

“I don’t know how to explain this, so here it goes.” I looked up at him and made prolonged, serious eye contact. “Sometimes, our turds get caught in our butt hair. Guys like you and I, we have a lot of butt hair, so the turds make something called dingleberries. And dingleberries make us feel uncomfortable. So I’m going to take these scissors and cut out the dingleberries. Is that clear? Can you tell me what we’re going to do?”

“Bob’s going to cut your dingleberries.” Scooter spoke these words with an air of knowing.

Scooter got into the shower and I turned it to the temperature I knew he preferred. Ann and Mac hovered outside the door. I rolled up my sleeves and asked him to “bend over,” aware of his history of abuse but unable to think of more neutral phraseology, and he did.

The dingleberries were in a dense clump. Some were the size of walnuts. All of them were dry, hard, and matted in. I started by asking Scooter to wash with a soapy cloth, and then grabbed each one, careful not to pull, and clipped it out. I dropped them into the tub and they made audible thuds. As I continued to trim, I thought about how it must have been to live that way for months if not years, unable to tell anyone he needed help.

Scooter is of the generation that is bringing autism out of the shadow of Rain Man and into the cultural consciousness as a real thing. That damage has been done, however. I once told a woman I was attempting to court that I worked with a guy with autism — that it was hard work, but rewarding. “What’s his gift?” she asked. Savantism is a phenomenon experienced by 1 in 10 people on the spectrum. People like Scooter have to work hard to learn basic skills, and Scooter’s family didn’t have the resources — money, time, education — to teach him.

Intensive early intervention strategies like applied behavior analysis can help teach communication skills and “socially appropriate” behavior. iPads and apps are the new frontier of autism communication systems. After listening to people like Carly Fleischmann and Ido Kedar, we know that people who are unable to speak are still able to think and feel. They can tell us what it is like for them to have autism, but we must be careful not to generalize too much. The spectrum is so immense it is almost useless. As Hans Asperger said, “The autist is only himself.” Or the new adage, “If you know one person with autism, you know one person with autism.” And that person is a whole, complete person, inseparable from their “disorder.”

“You’re doing a good job,” I said, but Scooter didn’t show any discomfort. Mac and Ann giggled. It occurred to me, as I trimmed this man’s pubic hair, that there is no substitute for self-care. Nearly a dozen staff had started and quit in the two years I worked with Scooter. One guy took his first lunch break and never came back.

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And I would leave too. A year later I had finished grad school and was set to move out of state. I put in my two weeks with relief. We all worried that Scooter would get agitated and aggressive, that the disruption of his routine would be too much for him to handle. So after talking it over with the other house staff, but not Mac, I decided I wouldn’t say good-bye.

Scooter sat in his rocking chair and I stood in the doorway to his room. It was the beginning of another hot summer. The light coming in through his blinds, brilliant white bands on darkened floorboards.

“Scooter, I’m proud of you,” I said.

“Bob will be back tomorrow?” he asked.

“Not tomorrow,” I said.

“Bob will be back in two weeks?”

Two weeks was an amoebic time frame for Scooter. It meant he would see me later in the vaguest sense — after a vacation or in the parking lot of the Dairy Queen.

I still work in the field, albeit many states away; it’s now my fifth year. I’m in it until I burn out completely. It feels good to have a mission and to dedicate my time to the advancement of others’ well-being. I continue to unlock new chambers of empathy on my very best days and leave work feeling ecstatic clarity. Scooter did that for me first. That’s the selfish edge of altruism. And there’s my paycheck, which helps get me through the door on the bad days. I spend a lot of time thinking about the power dynamic that existed between me and Scooter, how much of an outsider he is. That he lives in a sort of alternate reality, and I’m just a tourist in it. There’s a lot of truth in his status as “other,” but that kind of thinking keeps him on the outside. The reality is that everyone with autism lives in the same ambiguous, fraught, difficult-to-navigate world as the rest of us.

I’ve since been promoted a few times and spend most of my day at a desk, distanced from the hands-on work. Clearing and constantly running into bureaucratic hurdles is exhausting, occasionally infuriating, almost always tedious. My problems are all abstractions. I don’t get hit anymore. I don’t feel all that fear and adrenaline. And I miss it. I miss Scooter and other people I’ve supported. Now I often feel like just another murmur in a strange and hidden system of tax-dollar expenditure.

Scooter is going to live in a group home for the rest of his life. His needs, his desires, his day-to-day life will always be contingent on the presence of staff. Does he need this level of support? Certainly. But how did he end up here, so far away from the availability of solid, meaningful relationships? Because it’s not Scooter’s disability that isolates him; society does. As a newer, much larger, and more visible generation of kids is growing up in the same system, an important question arises: Can this be changed?

During my drive out of state, I would break down into heaving sobs. I had to pull over and confront, for the first time, the fact that I loved Scooter and all of the people I was leaving behind. It can look strange, it can encompass all of our frustration and warmth and indifference in equal measure, because being a person is complicated, but treating everyone with unconditional and irrational kindness is the only thing that makes sense.

In his room, Scooter’s eyebrows were scrunched low. He looked down at his hands folded in his lap. He rocked for a bit, and we remained in silence.

“Bob will be back in two weeks?” he asked again.

“In two weeks. Good-bye.”

“Bob will be back in two weeks?” he asked, and I walked out the door.

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betcheswritingsample-blog · 7 years

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Why You Couldn’t Have a Romance like Jack and Rose did Today

If you’re like me, you watched Titanic for the first time when you were young and it awakened your sexuality you grew up with a fantasy that one day you’d meet a man like Jack Dawson and have a similarly epic romance that you’d tell your grandchildren about. Well, I’ve since grown up, and I’m here to tell you that falling in love ain’t like it was back in 1912 when men kissed you on the hand and listened to your problems without the explicit intent of getting in your pants right after. No, the world is a different place now, and a love story like Jack and Rose’s just wouldn’t be the same. Who knows, maybe when I’m 100 years old one of my nudes will be unearthed from my iPhone 6s by some archaeologists and I’ll proudly tell them about how I met that particular dude on Bumble and everyone will cry. But I doubt it. However, for the sake of this article and in honor of the 20th anniversary of James Cameron’s only good film Titanic, I’d like to illustrate (get it? Because Jack was an artist?) what it would be like if Jack and Rose met today. We’ll go through the timeline of their love story and see how things would play out in the 21st century so we can all cry into our pints of Halo Top about how romance is dead. (Let’s overlook some of the obvious differences for a sec, like how today we have a handy dandy tool called a “radar” that prevents us from hitting icebergs, and that Rose probably wouldn’t be engaged against her will at 17 as a rich white girl from Philly... but who am I to say?).

1. The Initial Gaze

If you’ll remember, Jack notices Rose before she notices him. He spots her leaning against the railing of a balcony, staring out into the distance wistfully like some Bachelor contestant in her opening package while her voiceover narrates how she wants to find love before her eggs dry up. The thing is, in this day and age Jack’s Tinder/Bumble/Hinge would be literally blowing up. Being the most attractive man to ever live for thousands of nautical miles means that he would have his pick of the litter on this boat, so chances are he’d probs be too preoccupied with all the hot girls on his phone to swoon over some random ginge in a lace frock he sees IRL. Even if he did end up showing interest in Rose, he’d def explore his other options on the side.

2. The Slightly Overdramatic Meet-Cute

If Rose had been born in the late 90′s/early 2000′s, her anal retentive mother probably would have put her in therapy the day she started preschool. Thus, Rose would have a prescription to anti-anxiety meds by now, making her whole running-to-the-back-of-the-ship thing way less dram.

3. Let’s Talk About Jack’s “Artwork”

I don’t know about you, but if I discovered that the attractive boy I had spent all morning flirting with was actually shamelessly carrying around a notebook full of pornographic images, I might be a little freaked out. I’ve seen To Catch a Predator. So if Rose started looking through Jack’s binder full of naked women nowadays, she might run the other way. Especially because he carries that leather bound thing with him everywhere he goes, instead of keeping his collection of nudes on an app with a passcode like a normal guy.

4. That Rowdy Party in Steerage

First of all, Jack wouldn’t have been impressed by Rose’s ability to pound back a few sips of Guinness. Everyone knows “first-class girls” can and frequently do drink. Second, no one brings bagpipes to raves anymore. The speakers would be blaring Despacito and everyone would be grinding on each other instead of tap dancing while small children watched. I know I’m not really one to judge because I met my boyfriend of almost two years at a frat house over a game of pong, but I don’t really think that getting frisky to some house music while you’re covered in a mixture of alcohol and sweat constitutes the best setting for a romance. Am I wrong?

5. The Flying Scene

After Rose seriously ponders throwing away Jack for her crazy-ass fiancé who I’m pretty sure wears more eyeliner than she does, she sits through an insufferable tea with her mother and decides she can’t even. She then goes crawling back to Jack who is staring out at the ocean like a sad boi, though he may just still be dealing with a hangover. Thus ensues a scene that has never failed to make me cry all 42 times I’ve watched this film. But I hate to break it to you, this iconic moment wouldn’t be the same today. J+R would have had to wait in line behind everyone else trying to take Instagram pics to even set foot on the bow. Even if they did get to have one of the most earth-shattering make out scenes in cinematic history, Jack would probably ruin the whole thing right after by whispering in Rose’s ear: “I’m not looking for anything serious. I just wanna have fun, OK?” Remember, this is a boy who prides himself on sleeping under random bridges and shit. He’s not looking to settle down any time soon.

6. Jack’s Farewell Speech

For me, this scene is the most tragic. Not only because we know we’re about to lose one of the sexiest fictional characters to ever exist on screen, but because I feel physical pain due to the fact that I doubt I’ll ever hear a straight man in this era articulate sentiments like Jack does here. His whole “promise me” monologue is like Shakespeare compared to the diarrhea I hear coming out of guys’ mouths today. Not only that, but in this scene Jack literally gifts Rose the will to live, even though she has given up everything she had and obviously shows signs of clinical depression. Meanwhile, I’m still waiting on my boyfriend to gift me anything he hasn’t bought on Amazon Prime for under forty bucks.

7. Old Rose

Rose, if you were a millennial, you wouldn't be revealing this story for the first time after 84 fucking years. “A woman’s heart is an ocean of secrets”? Please. You'd definitely write at least one finsta post about this experience for the likes, you attention whore.

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amongushq · 7 years

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Welcome (back) to Among Us, OLIVIA! THEODORE KARAVADRA ( with the faceclaim of AVAN JOGIA ) has found shelter in CAMP JUPITER and NEW ROME, where we hope HE will fit in nicely. Please make sure to check the “after applying” section of our navigation here!

Despite his obnoxious prankster status, Theo seems to be created to be a very likeable character. He has a very detailed backstory and it’s interesting to see the contrast between him and his brother, especially considering they have exactly the same parents and upbringing: is there a reason why Theo is so different from his younger brother? The interview format worked really well for this app because it allowed us to see how he might interact with other people and how he thinks. Plus, the little jokes he made, had more than one admin cracking up. Overall, this is a very nicely written app that lets us get a good sense of the character, and how he’s probably not too affected by the Recall, which is a nice change of pace.

AND YOU ARE…?

What is your full name, and when were you born?

To be honest, Theo was rather relieved that this interviewer seemed to have very little idea of who he was. And as he leaned back on two legs of the chair he was sitting in, he rested his hands behind his head. “I’m Theodore Sardar-” he paused before giving his last name, wondering if it would garner the look of recognition that usually came with uttering the word. “-Karavadra.” As if on cue, the interviewer’s eyes widened a fraction of an inch, and Theo gave a sigh as he hoped his heritage wouldn’t be made a big deal of. It was nearly impossible to forge a name of your own when your family was one of the most prestigious in New Rome along with the Aquinos and other well-known names. “But everyone calls me Theo and I was born April 1, 1993.”

Have you been claimed, or do you belong to a legacy? If yes, state your godly parent / heritage.

“Yeah well— I’ve always known I was a kid of Discordia’s. It’s kinda hard not to when your family tree is constantly being shoved down your throat by your old man, right? Unfortunately I could tell you all of my ancestors up to Grigori Rasputin, a son of Mercury and legacy of Trivia. But yeah— Discordia’s been the most frequent ‘patron’ of my family.” Theo leaned forward with a bit of a smile on his face. “Isn’t it really fucking weird that Discordia is both my mom and great-great-grandmother? And then throw in Nox as my grandma and it becomes pretty apparent that I’m a mutt of Roman-ness. But if you ask my father— he’d wax on and on and on about how great and impressive it is,” the young man finished with a roll of his eyes. “Just call me the Roman stallion. Or would it be Trojan horse? Don’t tell my dad I compared myself to something Greek, his head would probably explode from rage. Actually…maybe that’d be something funny to see.” Theo waved a hand in front of himself as if to dismiss the idea. “Aww chill dude, I was just kidding— I’m not out to murder my dad.” But he couldn’t resist yet another tease. “…yet.”

Where are you currently based? Are you attending a Camp (Half-Blood / Jupiter), or are you living full-time in New Athens / New Rome? Is it a combination of both?

“New Rome born and raised. I’ve seen the Greek camp and stuff, and a decent amount of the mortal world— but this has always been where home is.” Technically the Karavadra family had come to New Rome in 1912 and hadn’t left since. As tensions for World War I had built, Theo’s ancestors had wanted to find a place where they knew they’d be safe, as well as a place to build an empire of a family. And the most obvious answer had been New Rome. “And I’m still wasting away in the First Cohort as the old man I am. They haven’t managed to get rid of me just yet.” It wasn’t that Theo was particularly dedicated to the cause of fighting, only that college was a place he knew he didn’t want to go. After all wasn’t that where dreams went to die? So what if Theo didn’t have a specific ‘dream’? That didn’t mean he wanted it to die.

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? ( If you’re applying for a canon character, are you diverging from book-canon? If so, how?)

Being born as the eldest son in the direct Karavadra family line was not something Theodore ever asked for, and it certainly wasn’t something he ever wanted. As the oldest, his birth should have signified the coming of the next great head of the Karavadra family, and as a child this was made known to Theo even before he could understand the words of greatness his father spoke to him. He was vigorously trained from a young age in the arts of battle when it came to weapons, words, and manipulation. It was the way the Karavadras had always made their way in the world, and the way their most common ancestor of Discordia had often liked to function as she wrecked havoc on other’s lives. But he wasn’t alone in his training as only two years after Theo’s birth, a second son was born to Jefferson Karavadra and Discordia in the form of Jackson. It was Abraham’s crowning glory, as he had succeeded in attracting the attention of the goddess not only once…but twice. It also meant that he had not one- but two chances to form the perfect son.

From a young age, Theo began to prove that he was not the perfect heir his father had always wanted. Instead he was a boy that skipped out on lessons, smiled too much, pulled far too many pranks, and tried to find as many ways as possible to go against his father. It soon became apparent to Jefferson that Theodore was far from the son he had hoped for. Meanwhile, Jackson flourished under their father’s tutelage, proving time and time again that he was the shining example of their father’s wishes. But Theo worried for his younger brother. Jackson was most certainly the more serious of the two boys, and Theo had caught him more than once being not so nice to their peers. He was concerned that under their father’s influence, Jackson would become someone less adept to kindness than a person should be. In response, Theodore tried to spend hours upon hours with his brother, and the boys, different as they were, were nigh inseparable throughout their childhood years.

Together, the boys were a trickster force to be reckoned with. They were the perfect pair. Theodore was in charge of coming up with nefarious pranks that left him howling with laughter, and Jackson was in charge of schmoozing over whoever it was they had pranked in order to escape their deeds unscathed. After a particularly large prank they had played on a member of the Senate, their father called the two boys into his office. Once the older man had scolded the two boys thoroughly, they sought refuge under a shady tree in their yard. It was there that Theodore came up with the ultimate way to thwart their father’s authority. In a world that was prim and proper and perfect, their father would never entertain the thought of calling the boys anything but their full names. It was Theodore’s idea to, from then on, be known only as Theo, and for Jackson to go by Jax. Since that day, anyone who called either by their full name received an entirely disapproving stare followed by a request to never call them by their full name again.

While Jax took the more traditional route, as well as the route their father wanted— Theo was content to remain in constant opposition of his father, and live his life to what he felt was the fullest. While Jax got promotions and medals, Theo got laughs and tan lines. If there was anything that scared Theo, and there wasn’t much that did, it was that he would become yet another fixture of society. Theo wanted to truly experience the world, to live as if every day were his last. And he would.

What were you doing prior to the Recall?

“I was doing what I always do,” Theo said with a wide smile. “Cracking jokes and taking names. Okay maybe not so much the taking names part. Unless you count the Trojan Horse.” Theo looked at the interviewer, trying to gauge whether the joke had gone over a second time. “Still no chuckle? Not even a little smile? Damn dude, tough crowd.” Stretching his arms high, as if he was tired of sitting and answering questions, Theo let out a small groan. His life hadn’t changed all that much with the arrival of the recall. He’d already been in Camp Jupiter, and he didn’t venture out into the mortal world all that often. “So that’s everything, right? Cause I’ve got a sweet lady at home that’s calling to me that goes by the name of Liz Anya. Get it? Lasagna?” He waited a few moments before standing to leave. “Alright well— it was great seeing you, Paul.” A name for the interviewer that he’d made up. “Same time next week?” he said with a chuckle at his own small joke. But the real laughter would come after he left, as he cracked up thinking of the interviewer’s face when they realized Theo had glued them to their seat.

#accepted #theodore karavadra

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