#just like in combination with them spending most of their college years and early careers studying time travel and manipulation
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I love how consistent Olivia's fondness of lil critters is even as a printing pod with no memories. Tiny baby living its happy critter life, thank god Olivia can't work directly enough with them to get attached, critter care would become the only thing she'd want to do
#rat rambles#oni posting#its very fun to me just how much more affection she shows to animals than the ppl in her life#both just in general but also I like how it draws a fun parallel between her and jackie with both of them struggling to form bonds with ppl#it gives the vibe that the two clung to eachother partially because they felt somewhat ostracized from most of society#just like in combination with them spending most of their college years and early careers studying time travel and manipulation#they likely werent taken very seriously by their peers and found a strong bond in being the only ones whod take eachother seriously#but after the temporal bow was made and ppl started taking them incredibly seriously rifts started to form between them#especially with jackie as the desire to aim big now that she can took over her thought process#olivia on the other hand didnt have nearly as much power and despite being a respected scientist still had chains in her ambitions#so its kind of understandable that she returned to gravitas despite everything because as shitty as jackie is she is more likely to allow#ambitious projects and also allows work with the various technologies that olivia herself helped developed#anyways I like to imagine olivia liked digging for bugs in her back yard as a kid#and also make routine visits to places with nooks and crannies that lizards and stuff like to hide in
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Eastern Tennessee
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I was shocked and devastated when dad told us the news. He had gotten a new surveying job good for at least five years, and since there aren't a lot of career advancements for geologists he had taken the offer immediately. So we would all move to some shit town in East Tennessee. Mom would teach kids whatever hadn't been banned knowledge by the state, my little sister would continue elementary there, and I would spend my high school years in some backwater school with barely any students. I distinctly remember staring at the remainder of the mash on my plate, and how unappetizing it had turned as the news was told to me. They wanted to make all the preparations before they told us to "not worry us" in case it fell through.
I asked if I could be excused and left the table, the parents, the plate, the mash and walked to my room without waiting for a reply. Perhaps there was one. I didn't care. I just had to talk to Timothy. I just lied in bed with a headset on and talked and cursed and cried with him on the other side of our private discord chat room. They didn't know I had a boyfriend. They didn't even know I was gay, and I saw no point in telling them either. We wouldn't stay, I couldn't bring Tim with me, and given where we were heading I probably couldn't be openly gay either. It was just best if no one knew. We both knew this would be the end for us. We would be living states apart during our most hormone-filled years. If we still felt the same for each other in three years, once it was time for college, then perhaps we could try to get together, but I thought it was just cruel to keep him waiting while we grew apart. He didn't see it like that of course. He wanted to be the harbor I could sail back to after three years of exile, but I've read enough Greek mythology to know how that ends. Black sails and drownings.
They'd done a lot of work behind our backs, our parents, so only six weeks later, just after school closed for summer we packed our shit into the back of a semi. Our last night at the only house I've ever lived in was spent sleeping on the floor. Early next morning we packed ourselves into our car and begun our three-day journey to East Tennessee. By the time we arrived at our much bigger house and much smaller town the moving company had already placed our stuff in the different rooms. Still in boxes though, except for the furniture. I didn't go to bed until three in the morning, and probably tossed around all night unable to sleep. I must have, because mum woke me up around nine.
I went with dad to town to check it out. We of course had a long list of stuff we needed to get, but I wanted to see what stores and fast food places were around. It wasn't the local businesses that caught my eye though. Everywhere I looked I just saw smoking hot guys. Tight wrangler blue jeans, cut off shirts or flannels, and Ford or Chevy ball caps. Most of all though people had the kind of look you get from working outdoors. Tanned skin, sun-bleached hair, and lean muscles. I followed dad around all the shops on our list, hoping no one would notice my boner.
That's when I decided what I had to do: go undercover as a redneck. Two-thirds of my wardrobe had to go. I didn't know if my west coast apparel would go down as hip or attract bullying, so I spent the next week looking at guys my age and really taking note of what they were wearing. What brands? What colors? What haircuts? When I felt confident I knew the essence of the look I begged mum for new clothes, without telling her why. She relented and allowed me a few items, so I could combine them with what I already had to pass as local.
The day after, luckily after the nearest barber had made an excellent job in turning my well-styled but now far too long hair into a hair helmet, I found out that a neighbor one street away was about my age. Dylan was one year older and his summer plans had fallen apart. His best friend had to leave to visit some ill relative, so he was happy to show me around. When his friend Jackson came back a week later we all spent the rest of the summer doing things together. Swimming, basket, trekking. All things I hated doing back home and suck at, but somehow they thought it made it even funnier, and they were really proud whenever I progressed.
I couldn't believe how lucky I was when school started. Not only didn't Dylan mind driving me there, in fact he suggested it, but knowing a sophomore as a freshman basically made me bully-proof. Not that I really had to worry. We were all new to high school, and only about half of my class knew each other from before. We had people from the creeks and shitholes all around town bussed in as well. No one even suspected I wasn't from nearby until we had to introduce ourselves. Some people were excited and wanted to know more about how life was at the coast, but in the end it wasn't a big deal. It wasn't until I got home, reliving the day in my head, I realized all that time with Dylan and Jackson had turned my accent into passable enough East Tennessee local.
The school was small enough that you could basically join whatever sports team you signed up for, at least as freshman. It was more a question of what training times were compatible. I ended up joining the football and soccer teams. Somehow soccer turned out to be the more competitive out of the two, with the school soccer team doing well against other schools. I hadn't expected that.
Once it was getting close to thanksgiving Jackson asked me if I was interested in some extra cash. One of the stores needed more people for restocking and was desperate to fill it ahead of the holidays. The schedule clashed with soccer practice, but it was probably wise to stick to just one team anyway. And the 70 lbs repeated lifting requirement promised some bonus exercise that would be wasted on the soccer.
It wasn't all roses and touchdowns though. Nothing is as unguarded as the shit talk in the locker room after a loss, so I got to know what most of the guys really thought. I can think of several individuals who would beat me bloody if they knew they had been in a shower room with a gay. What I heard from some of the real employees at the store was even worse, narrow-minded exclusion politics. I wasn't even sure how Dylan would react. I decided to follow the plan, get good grades so I could get far away, and do my best to blend in. Learn to ride with Coleson, shoot AR-15 with Eric's dad, get the best body I could, and count down to leaving.
That was three years ago, before I was accepted into college. I considered bringing all the old clothes with me when coming out of the closet, but I realized they no longer fit in any sense of the word. I decided to show up at the dorm wearing the state national dress, tight wrangler blue jeans, cutoff T, and ballcap. It's good I did, because no matter how fucking hard I try I can't speak anything but rural East Tennessee. The disguise got stuck. What I didn't expect was the reception when I went to the first student gay party. The guy on bouncer duty was very hesitant to let me in, fearing I would start some homophobic shit the first chance I got, but once inside it was a different thing. Turns out quite a lot of them would fancy being fucked by a quarterback while being spoken to in southern.
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The MLA(/PLF) Headcanon Post (1/2)
In response to this nice ask about whether I have any headcanon or thoughts about the current members of the MLA/PLF, I spent two weeks blithering 16.5K words of exactly that into a Word file, because when it comes to underappreciated characters I love, I do not understand restraint. This post and its follow-up will cover all ranked ex-MLA members of the PLF, as well as Original Flavor Destro and Curious, since I wasn't going to leave them out of a project like this even if they aren't "current."
The ask only mentioned having previously read The Lore Post, the last exercise in ridiculousness that I wrote at the tail end of MLA Week, so I wrote this to summarize everything that doesn't appear there—which is to say that a lot of the material in these two posts will look familiar to anyone who's read my fanfic about the MLA cast. There’s still plenty of new material to go around too, though!
So, I don't have much in the vein of askblog-style headcanons where I can randomly tell you stray trivia about a character’s favorite foods or their love languages or what have you; that stuff either comes up when I'm writing fanfic or it doesn't. That said, below, please find a mix of thoughts I keep in mind when writing characters, facts that have only turned up in my fanfic/notes so far and not the Lore Post meta, and a selection of lightning round headcanon provided by cross-referencing a random number generator with some old questionnaires I keep around for OCs and tabletop characters.
In this post: Destro, Re-Destro and his advisors, and Geten.
Destro—
General Thoughts The whole "revolutionary leader" thing came very naturally to him. He was committed, charismatic, very willing to risk his life and safety for the cause, and he cared about his people. All that said, he absolutely had a pompous, prideful streak, especially where it came to his justification for terrorism. You only have to read his own words to see that. Still, he was in large part reacting to the world he lived in, one of greater violence and danger than the current day.
I like to think that—because he was genuine in wanting freedom for all—he would not approve of what became of his Army. He'd be able to see how they got there, and he would probably have made much the same choices if he'd been there with them, but while he would have agreed that his role should be remembered—that's just Due Credit—he would never have wanted to become the nigh-on religious figure his followers turned him into. Continuing to fight the good fight for his ideals is one thing, but secret salutes and isolated villages and being raised from infancy to know your life has only as much worth as it can contribute to Liberation… Well, it's just not what he would have wanted for his people, much less his descendants.
Family Situation Chikara was only around 7 when his mother was killed, the event that would shape the rest of his life. He wasn't hiding in the closet from the mob, either; he was kicking and punching and biting, his motivation to save her overflowing—but he was still only 7, and eventually overwhelmed. His own life might well have ended there with hers, but for a group of neighborhood vigilante types (at least one of whom probably went on to a career as a hero, after legalization).
He went most of his adolescence without getting involved with anything more sinister than student newspapers, founding a secret meta-rights "club," and attending the odd larger protest, but when the government started talking about passing laws restricting the use of meta-abilities, he started getting very radical very quickly, and when some absolute snake started to use his martyred mother's words to bang the drum for banning quirk use outside the home outright, he went off the deep end.
Lightning Round (Randomly Selected Headcanons)
Favorite book genre? Memoirs and biographies—he wouldn't have written his own if he didn't appreciate their value. The intimacy of the personal juxtaposed against the broad scope of history appeals to both his regard for individuality and his revolutionary mindset.
Most prized possession? Thoughts on material possessions in general? He doesn’t generally prize material possessions—in fact, he’s something of a skinflint. His most prized possession is an old pair of gloves that belonged to his mother, which he'd been wearing at the time of her murder. He didn't come from money to begin with, but his mother’s story made enough of a splash that his financial situation was improved by well-meaning sorts sending along donations and contributions and the like, as well as government officials knowing they needed to be sure that he wound up somewhere at least semi-reasonable lest they court further outrage by mishandling the son of a martyred woman. The money all went towards school and living expenses, though, leaving him quite experienced at balancing a budget, which would come in handy for that whole ‘leading a violent uprising against the state’ thing later on.
Academic Background: Got all the way through college! Was involved in student groups as far back as middle school, and only got moreso the further in school he got. Majored in Human Development; he was intending to go into the public health and policy sphere before the appropriation of his mother's language pissed him off so much he got into terrorism instead.
THE MODERN MLA
Re-Destro—
General Thoughts A huge amount of the way I write him is influenced by one single thing—his characterization as described in the second data book. His personality is summed up there as "sokoshirenai yami"—bottomless darkness, or, as a friend translated it for me, "unfathomable gloominess." That really, really stuck with me, because on the one hand, it's so opposed to virtually all of what we see of him on the page, where he's being cheerful or scornful or sycophantic; the closest he ever gets are his brief tears for Miyashita, Curious, and his other followers.
On the other hand, it makes so much sense that the man we see—the man who talks about the heavy burdens of his legacy, who was handed that legacy when he couldn't possibly have been any older than 6 or so, who willingly straps on a self-designed torture device to wring out more power, who all but worships the ground Shigaraki walks on even though Shigaraki is the reason Re-Destro no longer has legs to walk that same ground with—should be "unfathomably gloomy." Of course he's gloomy! He was never allowed to be his own person! He has never in his life known true freedom, only existed as a vessel to bring that freedom to others! And he can't really even talk to his closest friends about it, because his closest friends are still his followers, and he wouldn't want to weigh them down!
With that context, it makes all the sense in the world that he'd be so devoted to the man who relieved him of that burden.
Family Situation He loved his mother Yukie a great deal, despite knowing from early on that he was carrying the weight of the title because she believed she couldn’t. (Perhaps growing up hearing about the martyrdom of Destro’s mother left him wanting to ensure the happiness of his own, for her happiness was very rare.) He was 10 when she was killed in a Villain attack; she’d been on a daytrip over to a neighboring city to visit some of her erstwhile school friends. The requisite mourning period was 49 days, and as the only surviving family member, quite a lot fell to him even before considerations of his role as Re-Destro. it was perceived as better—for both the Army’s morale and for his own stability—for him to be involved with as much of the work of transition as possible, but obviously he couldn’t do it completely alone, nor should he. Thus, for two months after Yukie’s death, the previous generation's Sanctum[i] stayed with him in his family home. Afterward, he moved in with Anchor (one of his grandfather's advisors), where he would spend the rest of his young adulthood until moving away for college.
Claustrophobia The name of that literal-iron-maiden deathtrap he brings to bear against Shigaraki is no coincidence: Rikiya developed claustrophobia over the course of a stint of abusive training when he was thirteen. He generally has a pretty good handle on disguising it, thanks to a combination of people being unwilling to ask him questions they don’t actually want the answers to and the fact that he had to learn how to operate through it in order to complete the training at all. He has never told anyone, largely because he’s never been able to recognize that it was abuse, and so his abuser remains a figure of some influence.
Education He was largely taught by private tutors, in his home and in theirs, rather than attending school, but I think he probably wasn't completely home-schooled. Particularly once he'd decided that he did want to attend university—and not just some little local technical program, but a major school in a proper city—he probably attended classes a few times a week at his local high school just to get a feel for being around other people his own age. He'd been friends with Koku for several years by that point, otherwise he probably would have been pretty hopeless, but he was still a pretty odd duck by the time he got to university.
This, incidentally, is why he never pushed Geten too hard about school—his own experience of it was so weird and piecemeal that he mostly thinks of school as relevant only for the education it provides, and less so the crash course in social dynamics. Since Geten doesn't care about getting an education (nor, indeed, about learning how not to be a rude little troll), and has a strong enough quirk that he'll never lack for a position in the Army even without a formal education, Rikiya is perfectly happy to let Geten have his way and just be minimally learnèd.
Stress His powers operate by infusing his body with the characteristic black matter of his manifested stress; he can increase his size with this (his so-called Liberated Form isn't just armored up; he becomes physically taller and bulkier), as well as throw handfuls of the materialized power. A side effect of this is that his stress can also infuse itself into his bodily fluids. The stress matter is a highly dense particulate, so if Rikiya is not in proper control of himself, his proverbial blood, sweat and tears can be literally heavy with the weight of his power.
The Value of Life He cares very much about the lives of his followers, but those genuine feelings are filtered through both the mental compartmentalization required by an emotion-based quirk, and an upbringing that taught him to care about his underlings in the same way one would rare goods. Valuable goods, certainly, goods worth being proud of, goods to be maintained with care, but still, ultimately, things that can be sold or traded or bartered off as necessary to further one's goals. Even his own life, while "objectively" the most valuable of them all, isn't an exception to that policy—the Great Cause is more important than any individual life, up to and including his own.
On a Personal Note He’s something of an obvious weirdo to outsiders—his enthusiasm comes off as strident, his smiles overly polished—but despite that, he's bizarrely hard to dislike once they start spending real time with him. He's not anywhere near as prideful about himself as he is the legacy of the MLA, for a start; he's actually pretty self-deprecating when he's not performing the whole Heir of Destro's Great Bloodline routine at people. He's also happy to go along with other people sharing their hobbies (because he doesn't have any of his own). The more you get to know him, the more obvious it becomes that he's a total basket case, but “total basket case” is still an improvement over “self-absorbed 1%-er CEO” that people like Spinner come in expecting.
What Are Boundaries? He has very little understanding of how to enforce boundaries around his private life, or, indeed, of why such boundaries might ever be necessary. Oh, he can do the double life thing, keep the CEO of Detnerat separate from the Grand Commander of the Metahuman Liberation Army, but when it comes to the MLA itself, he's so groomed to devote himself to the cause that he doesn't really distinguish between the responsibilities of Re-Destro and the needs of Yotsubashi Rikiya. Rather than being the egomaniac you might expect of a man with the absolute power over others he has, he instead struggles to assert himself as his own person at all.
Issues with boundaries are not uncommon with the MLA—they're all raised to see themselves as warriors to advance the cause before they are, like, “human beings”—but Rikiya’s are particularly exacerbated because he was raised by adults who were getting pretty paranoid about his bloodline's tendency to die young, and thus were always checking in on how he was doing, dictating his schedule, weighing in on his plans, and so on. He just wasn’t raised with reasonable expectations for privacy. Even as an adult, he'll give his apartment door code to pretty much anyone in the MLA who has even a semi-plausible reason to want it—certainly quite a few of the elders know it! And it isn’t only the elders, either; Rikiya's phone and several of his accessories carry tracking chips courtesy of Skeptic, which Rikiya knows about and doesn't think is at all untoward.
While his experience dating Koku definitely taught him some hard lessons about how much he could allow himself to ask of people who would obey him without question (they broke up over Rikiya’s realization that Koku would never deny him anything, thanks to a cracked rib Koku didn’t see fit to tell Rikiya about until Rikiya hugged him a little too hard), he never learned how to value his own autonomy in turn. Oh, he's the Grand Commander, and everyone around him has been raised to venerate his bloodline, so most of them would never even think about trying to take advantage of him as such, but it's absolutely the case that people who are bold or familiar enough to try can basically run right over him with minimal efforts made at obscuring the fact. His life is full of people who do and have done exactly that, some to a net positive effect, and some—well. See again the entry about his claustrophobia.
The abjectly terrible state of his sense of self-worth is also the reason the Claustro exists. While he was relatively capable of trying to work around his phobia when he was younger, the older he got, the more it started to feel like leaving doors cracked behind him or only working in offices with big spacious floor plans and oversized windows was, in some way, Letting Down The Cause by allowing his fear to control him, rather than embracing it so he could properly stockpile it for later use. A dinnertime chat with Curious about turning one’s trauma into a weapon for the good of others catalyzed this, leading to the development of the “burden-enhancing steel pressure mechanism,” Claustro.
(It also means the clone of him made by Twice to handle Detnerat after Deika is bizarrely okay with its circumstances, which I will almost certainly write more about one of these days, but I’m still kind of reeling from that reveal, so more on that another time.)
Lightning Round
Religion? He doesn't identify as being of a religious faith, but he was brought up in the same peaceful marriage of Shinto and Buddhism that the majority of Japanese people are, and like many, he adheres to a number of traditional practices more out of habit than devout faith. There are two celebrations that demand significant emotional investment from him. First comes the New Year's celebrations, important because the MLA prides itself on looking to a brighter, freer future, and it's a period when he can let himself think that maybe he'll be just that little bit closer to Liberation by the end of the year than he was at the start. Second is Obon, a summer festival for honoring one's departed ancestors. Since his authority and his life's work derive entirely from his bloodline, he's obligated to care about this one, though in practice, he tends to shy away from thinking much about Destro (who he has very twisted-up feelings about indeed) in favor of less emotionally fraught waters.
What did he dream of being or doing as a child? Did that dream come true? He never really had a significant period where he thought about being e.g. an astronaut or a doctor or a hero; in fact, it came as something of a surprise to him the first time Koku asked him what he was planning to do when he grew up. He always just had the nebulous expectation of, "Be the Grand Commander," and the elders were happy to leave it at that until he brought it up on his own.[ii]
How does he behave around children? He likes kids! He’s wistful about the freedom enjoyed by happy children while also being sympathetic to ones that seem overly burdened. He’s not the most natural person in the world with them, but most of them can tell that the awkwardness comes from a well-intentioned place, and will treat him as a funny-looking man who’ll let them bother him at length without getting mean. It turns out he’s actually pretty good with them, then, if only by virtue of being easily bullied. (This, notably, goes for non-MLA-affiliated children. Everything’s much more formal within the cult, though it didn’t Geten long to suss out the “easily-bullied” part, either.)
Trumpet—
General Thoughts The largest factor in how I write Koku is, of course, the headcanon that he and Rikiya are ex-lovers, and neither of them is 100% over it even all these years later. Beyond that, though, Koku is the most temperate of the group, the one with the most easy charisma (MLA members are more swayed by Re-Destro, but Koku does better with outsiders who aren't predisposed to hanging on Rikiya's every word). He strives to come off as The Sensible One, and given the extremes the rest of the inner circle are capable of, it's not hard for him to maintain that title. He's as messed up as any of them, though, second only to Rikiya in levels of childhood grooming. He thinks of himself as a practical man, but he is deeply indoctrinated, the boundaries of his expectations very much defined by his upbringing, so he never really sees it coming when he gets clobbered by something from out of left field.
Family Situation: Koku has the largest family of the identified members. Aside from his grandfather (called Old Man Hanabata, the founder of the Hearts & Minds Party, and passed away by the canon era), Koku has cousins, nieces, nephews and more, courtesy of his uncle, his older sister and her husband, and other extended family.
He’s also the member most accustomed to wealth, power and influence. He's from a rural area, certainly, but being in a family of hereditary politicians (and with that family not suffering a string of untimely deaths and disappearances like Rikiya's did), he was raised from the start with ready access to money and nice things. Still, for all his family's sway in a major branch of the MLA's operations, they're not First Families, and thus don't have any elders in their ranks, making them still somewhat subordinate to said elders when it comes to orders about the Great Cause. (He’s working on it.)
Meeting Re-Destro Koku and Rikiya met at 12 and 10 respectively, when Koku tagged along with Old Man Hanabata for a meeting RD was likewise accompanying Anchor for. It had been the better part of a year since Rikiya's mother passed away, but he was still strikingly melancholy for a boy that age, which—along with all the weight given to the importance of the meeting—left quite an impression on Koku. Koku thus became Rikiya's first real friend in his own age group, a friendship heartily encouraged by everyone around them. Koku was well-behaved, intelligent, a little older but not too much so, and set to become influential without a danger of becoming too influential; he was seen as a good choice for a friend.[iii]
The Break-Up Painful as it was at the time, there was a silver lining to his and RD's post-college break-up: it got Koku out of the elders' pocket. He’s been groomed for one thing or another all his life, but after he became friends with Rikiya, he was always getting leaned on to report back to the First Families about how Re-Destro was doing, and to try to influence him towards actions the First Families approved of. In a very real sense, Koku was part of the apparatus keeping Rikiya from any real freedom. Their break-up and subsequent estrangement meant that the elders had far less to breathe down Koku's neck about, and by the time they reconciled, Trumpet had gotten his feet under him, as had Re-Destro, and they were both better able to fend off such background meddling.
This doesn't mean Trumpet's not still carrying a torch, however. He thought he was handling his long-banked feelings pretty well—being Professional, being the advisor Re-Destro needed and as much a friend as Rikiya would allow—right up until Rikiya scared the life out of him by nearly dying in Deika. He's all but glued himself to Rikiya since, as much as he can get away with given their respective responsibilities.
As an Advisor Other than leading the HMP, he does some work with internal politics and reputation. It's not, strictly speaking, his actual job as advisor—Re-Destro or the elders would probably be sought for more formal or critical mediations—but he and the people who report directly to him do enough travelling around to see constituents that they're often in a position to field those tensions before they get big enough to require attention from higher up. Koku's happy to do so, in fact—not because he just loves handling petty arguments about resources, but because the HMP is a faction of the MLA in and of itself, and mediating is a boost to that faction's standing and autonomy. (Also, it's that much less on Rikiya's ever-overburdened plate.)
Lightning Round
What would he do if he needed to make dinner but the kitchen was busy?Ahahahahaha, “make dinner but the kitchen was busy,” please. Any time there could feasibly be someone else occupying a kitchen he has any business being in himself, it would be a housekeeper, and s/he would be making food for him/his family. It’s not as though Trumpet has never cooked—he did live alone for some years after school—but outside of a scant few years in university, there’s never really been a time that kitchen use overlap would have been a problem for him.
Favorite indulgence and feelings surrounding indulging. Probably gourmet cuisine, especially imported stuff. He’s had tailored clothes all his life; they’re just part of the job. Expensive alcohol also doesn’t wow him; it wouldn’t be strange to find some sake maker whose family has been doing it for sixteen generations in the village he grew up in. It’s a lot harder to cultivate a true gourmand’s palate out in the sticks, though, no matter how rich your family is. Living in actual civilization affords a great deal more variety—and anyway, nice dinners are one of the few things he can reliably tempt Rikiya into accepting. As to his feelings about indulging in general, he’s broadly For It. He works very hard, he seldom gets real time off, and it doesn’t help the Great Cause for him to deny himself nice things, unlike some people. (He’s maybe a bit bitter.)
Does he like to be the center of attention all of the time? Not especially. Oh, he’s very good at it, certainly, and he doesn’t dislike it, but being the center of attention is practically always going to be tied up in The Great Work, so he desperately needs to get out of the spotlight from time to time, if only to be able to turn off the persona.
Curious—
General Thoughts There are two main factors in how I write Chitose: her practicality and her rapaciousness. I write her as having an appreciation for good moral character in other people, especially when it makes a good story, but not considering herself particularly bound by conventional morality: her moral compass is Liberation, and she follows it unswervingly. I also write her as predatory, lusty about a lot of things, often to the point of overstepping. It doesn't hurt anyone that she likes hearty foods and strong alcohol, but she also doesn't have much regard for peoples' boundaries, and even less so when she thinks they have something to offer the Great Cause.
While that trait isn't without its benefits, it can get pretty ugly, too, as we see in how she treats, and talks to, Toga. Even with Rikiya, the only person she thinks of as 'above' her in any meaningful sense, she's not at all above manipulation. She's respectful of him, but knows him too well to always take him at his word. He plainly can't always see what's best for him, but what's best for him is best for Liberation, and therefore, as a Liberation warrior, it's her responsibility to sometimes make decisions for him. He'll appreciate it in the long run—he always does. (Skeptic and Geten have similar views—Rikiya makes it easy.)
Family Situation She probably has the best actual relationship with her family of the group—her mothers are removed enough from the heart of MLA politics that her relationship with Rikiya doesn't color her family life the way Koku's does his, and she's much more sociable than Skeptic or Geten. She doesn't get home much—just the major holidays, work permitting—but she's in frequent enough communication for a grown woman, and chats with her younger sister more often than that.
Meeting Re-Destro She met Rikiya properly when they were 21 and 27 respectively. They were living in the same city at the time (him running Detnerat, her in university), so of course she'd seen him at the odd MLA event he turned up at, but when she landed an internship in her junior year, she cheekily turned up one day in her reporter capacity to interview him as “a local rising star of industry.” It was the first chance they'd had to talk one-on-one, and would not be the last, as she frankly elbowed her way into his life and gradually sussed out that here was a man with Problems. He and Koku were still in a distant patch at the time; she is largely responsible for getting them back on friendly terms as a way of showing her Pure Intentions.
The fact that her Pure Intentions both land her a square position as one of RD's advisors herself and get Rikiya to a better place emotionally is calculated, but not, therefore, untrue. Ironically, while she was concerned about looking like a gold-digger, the MLA elders were probably thrilled and relieved to hear rumors that Rikiya was getting romantically involved again. And with a lovely young MLA woman! They wouldn't even need to worry about surrogacy arrangements! (Not having grown up around the Yotsubashis, Chitose is unaware of exactly how pointed an interest the elders take in the matter of securing that bloodline.)
Feelings Today She loves Rikiya dearly, and prizes his regard more highly than anything in her life, but has not devoted much thought to the idea of being in love with him. She's married to her work, as they say, but she's also keenly aware that Rikiya would, for a great many reasons, be a lot of work to be in love with. She's decided it's generally better for his mental well-being, and therefore also better for the Great Cause (she’s much more capable of reading that relationship reciprocally than Rikiya is), to make sure he's eating at least one good meal a week and getting some proper socialization in outside of MLA meet-and-greets.
As an Advisor She handles external politics and reputation--it's her job to prime Japan culturally for the Liberation agenda in ways more wide-reaching than Trumpet (he's head of a political party, and that's not nothing, but that party is still a small minority on the floor of the Diet). She pulls attention to stories that benefit the MLA, and diverts attention from stories that don't. This is far broader than just publishing Destro's memoir; it also means poking holes in the broader Hero Society narrative. She does this by providing as broad a platform possible for stories about the tragedies of excessive regulation, the evils of quirk-related bias, the abuses of power heroes are capable of, and so on.
Lightning Round
Does she remember names or faces easier? She’s quite good with both, actually, but I’d give names the advantage because she works primarily with written rather than visual mediums. (Also, BNHA names being the ridiculous puns that they are, you can probably tell more about a person in HeroAca Land by analyzing their name than their face anyway.)
Is she more concerned with defending her honor, or protecting her status? Her status, absolutely. Impugning her honor hurts no one but her; she can laugh that off because honor is a silly social construct anyway. Threatening her status is a much more dangerous prospect—her status is long-cultivated to enable the advancement of Liberation ideology; it lets her keep an eye on Re-Destro, who needs as many people looking out for him as he can get; it’s what she’s worked for all her life. Curious will fuck you up if you threaten her status.
In what situation was she the most afraid she’d ever been? The time she got in trouble for nearly exploding some dude’s face off for stealing her purse. She was 17, had spent very little time in non-Liberated territory before, and was not raised to wait on heroes to solve her problems. She wasn’t afraid of the thief or the hero, really, but she was completely terrified that she might have just blown over half a century of secrecy by not performing Helpless Civilian well enough. The terror was pretty convincing to the police interviewing her about it, anyway. On the whole, it was a very valuable learning experience!
Skeptic—
General Thoughts Tomoyasu is a character I haven't written extensively yet, but what I think is most interesting about him so far is the contrast of his hyper-modern methods with the bone-deep zealotry for the cause. See, Rikiya, Koku and Chitose all grew up in the sticks; Rikiya and Koku had money from a young age, but it was old money, tied up in trusts. (Geten didn't have any of those, but Geten's a different story for other reasons.) Tomoyasu grew up in a major city from the start; he was a technological prodigy from practically as soon as he could hold a tablet. He has very little respect for the old ways of doing things when he knows there are newer, better ways of advancing the Cause. However, none of that makes him more likely to break from the MLA's ranks—if anything, his idiosyncratic approach just causes him to approach Liberation in really weird ways, ways no one else would ever come up with.
Pressganging Bubaigawara Jin based on a plan to clone Re-Destro? Who else would that ever even occur to, much less such that it became the basis for an elaborate psychological assault? But that's Skeptic in a nutshell—respect the old for what it did at the time, but don't think that means you have to use the same methods they did forever as you pick up the torch to carry it forward.
Family Situation He has an amicable but not intimate relationship with his family. His parents are very proud of what he's done for the cause and how he won the confidence of Re-Destro, but they don't make much claim to understand how his mind works. In turn, he recognizes the value of their support over the years—he certainly made a lot of waves with his unabashed venom for the MLA leadership's hidebound traditionalism, and his parents' staunch backing meant a lot for him being able to take the stands he did—but is not very emotionally close with them. Might find himself with an older brother, if I ever occasion to write about his family situation in more depth.
Education He graduated a four-year university program for getting his computer science degree in two very intense years, during which he did virtually nothing for the Great Cause, his intention being to better position himself for maximum ability to advance Liberation afterward. See above re: battles his parents fought for him while he was busy modernizing.
Meeting Re-Destro He met Re-Destro via Curious. He was 22, just a year out of university and already climbing the chain of command at a young telecommunications company. Rikiya was 33, working on the Claustro, and needed proprietary comms built to a higher standard of security than Detnerat was focused on. Curious, who was always better positioned to be keeping up with the local personalities, introduced them.
Tomoyasu attempted to keep a civil tongue in his head the first few times he and RD met, but he'd been running on bile and energy drinks for years by that point and was hard-pressed to stop just because he was meeting his Grand Commander. If anything, finding out that Rikiya was okay with his direction and his mouth eventually helped him chill the fuck out, marginally.
On that note, Skeptic is absolutely the advisor most willing to backtalk Rikiya right to his face. (Rikiya loves him for it.) Oh, he'll still accede to Rikiya's wishes, and Re-Destro's orders are his highest priority, but that doesn't mean he feels obligated to be diffident about it. Like Curious, he has a highly developed sense of, "It's fine if it's for the greater good," which will and has led to him taking things into his own hands when he thinks he knows best (which is always). He's not going to explicitly disobey orders, but he will creatively interpret them if he feels strongly about them, and he will try to "anticipate" orders before anyone has time to give him specific ones, the better to tailor his efforts towards proving his methods and goals correct rather than being stuck with orders he hates.
On Names I’ve definitely evolved some in my approach on this since I started writing the MLA cast, but at current, Skeptic and Geten are the only ones I consistently write as using and thinking mainly in terms of code names rather than given names. Trumpet is too familiar with the public/private divide, and has too much intimate history with Rikya-the-person, to default to Re-Destro; Curious is too trained to look for The Human Heart of the Story. Re-Destro himself, ever since breaking up with Koku, has always tried to use code names for people (himself excluded, because he has enormous self-confidence issues about measuring himself up to the original Destro), but can slip into given names when he’s vulnerable. To Skeptic and Geten, though, the code name is the real name, for all intents and purposes. The cover identity is a fake; the whole point of the code name is that you’re proving yourself worthy of taking up your proper place in the Army. Of course the name you win for yourself is the name that counts.
Lightning Round
Given a blank piece of paper, a pencil, and nothing to do, what would happen? You’d pretty much have to lock him in a room with nothing but paper and pencil in it for that to be his first resort rather than whatever item of personal electronics he’d otherwise have on his person. But assuming some actual plausible scenario—couldn’t bring his electronics into a government building, let’s say—he would find trying to do something productive on paper and pencil rather beneath him, and he’s an inveterate fidgeter. I mostly see him folding that ludicrously tall frame of his into a chair and setting to using the pencil to poke about three hundred holes in the sheet of paper, meticulous and orderly, while muttering complaints to himself the whole time until something annoys him a bit too much and he jabs the whole pencil through the page.
Who does he see as his best friend? His worst enemy? I headcanon him having a very reasonable, functional, productive relationship with his No. 1 advisor, Red, and being reasonable, functional, and productive probably goes a lot farther on making you Skeptic’s “friend” than any amount of emotional intimacy. But “best friend” is not really the kind of language Skeptic uses for his relationships; if you were to ask him who his best friend is, he’d probably tell you, “Iced coffee.” As to his worst enemy, that’s just whoever is annoying him most on any given day, from difficult clients, to people annoying Re-Destro, stodgy elders, that hero grinning like a tool, that couple walking too slow in front of him on the sidewalk, etc. And Skeptic is pretty proactive about dealing with enemies, as much as he can be.
Has he ever been bitten by an animal? How was he affected (or unaffected)? lol he is a city boy and always has been. He probably tried to pet a stray cat once out of curiosity, and because it seemed like the sort of thing people did, and then has never forgiven Animals In General when it bit him and then ran off.
Geten—
General Thoughts Another one I haven’t written a great deal about yet, particularly in the present day, though I’m looking for that to change soonish. One thing I’d like to explore is Geten when he’s not seething with rage and shame because he failed to bring Re-Destro a victory in Deika. The fandom tends to write Geten as an always-angry attack dog barely contained beneath a chilly veneer, and that’s fair—ever since we got the face reveal, ever since the MLA’s defeat at Shigaraki’s hands, Geten has been an always-angry attack dog barely contained beneath a chilly veneer.
But if you look at Geten from before we knew what was under the hood, you find a different story. “Chilly and angry all the time” is not at all how he acted when he was fighting Dabi! At that point, he was talkative, even chatty. He engaged in a lot of snide smack-talk; he was obviously confident in himself and he spoke very proudly of the MLA as a collective.
He was still quiet at the dinner he attended with Rikiya and his advisors, yes, so I don’t think Geten’s done some kind of full 180 on characterization. I do, however, think that Geten has a sense of humor in there, has a sense of camaraderie with the MLA rooted in more than just his relationship with Re-Destro, even if Re-Destro is obviously his most important person. I don’t know if we’ll ever see that in the manga proper, given everything that’s happened, but it’s worth remembering in terms of what Geten is like when he’s solely among allies.
Family Situation Orphaned at a young age, and a problem child from then on. He passed through a series of foster parents and state facilities before eventually crossing paths with the leader of the local MLA branch in Kesseru, Beacon (more on him next time). This encounter would lead to him being sent to a group home with a reputation for being good with such difficult cases, giving them Structure and Companionship and Meaningful Work. (Spoilers: It’s Liberation.)
Despite evening out considerably after a significant meeting with Re-Destro when he was 7[iv], Geten never got particularly close to his adopted family/the other kids at the group home. He's very favored by the Grand Commander, for one thing, and he has the strongest quirk in the home for another—and since he learned the quirk supremacist stuff from them, that’s a pretty significant part of the dynamic! Both of these factors mean there's some distance between him and the rest. Still, he's not on bad terms with them—indeed, his foster parents are quite proud of him—and he would probably tear out someone's throat with his teeth for threatening them, if only as a matter of pride.
There are 4-6 other kids there at any given time; for the bulk of his young adulthood, there were two older than him, the others younger. He doesn't have much time for Big Brother Pastimes, but is not completely immune to them, either, particularly where the youngest kids are concerned. His tolerance for Little Brother Antics, however, is nonexistent—if the older kids think they can ruffle his hair and treat him like a kid, they can square the fuck up; he is Number One around here and don’t forget it.
Education Geten never went to school, but he's not completely uneducated. He had some tutoring in the group home, some more from Re-Destro personally, and has a pile of books he keeps at his bedside, mostly strategic in nature. He finds them vexing at times, but is slowly reading through them anyway because Re-Destro asked him to. He’s been a bit more diligent about it since he was made a regiment leader, because lord knows Dabi isn't contributing much.
On Re-Destro Re-Destro became fond of Geten for the same reason he became fond of Skeptic and Curious—Geten was willing to push back. He really did make some attempts early on to keep Geten at a proper distance, mindful of anything that would look too much like favoritism. And Geten knew, in the hard-headed way of a child, that Re-Destro was being a grown-up about things, trying to be mature, trying to be impartial. Geten just didn’t care about any of those things. Every time, he would listen very seriously to the things Rikiya told him, nod attentively, repeat back what he’d been told, and then go on about doing his own thing anyway. And his own thing was, typically, to keep coming back.
Of course, if there’s anything we can tell about Re-Destro from the way he treats Shigaraki, it’s that Re-Destro loves people who take the choice away from him.
Eventually, of course, Geten grew up (mostly; I peg him at 19 now), joined the MLA officially, and had to settle into the structure of the Army. It began to lead to trouble for Re-Destro, when Geten blatantly disobeyed him; it stopped being cute. Still, the sense that he Knows What’s Best lingers, so Geten works himself very, very hard to be everything Re-Destro needs him to be and more, so that maybe Re-Destro’s burden will be just that little bit lighter.
On Quirk Supremacy (and Re-Destro, still) Here’s the thing about Geten and the whole, “A life without a strong meta-ability has no value,” line, and this continues to drive me mad because of how people getting it wrong influences the bad takes on the MLA in this fandom: Geten is not a reliable witness. He is not one of the leaders of the MLA, nor does he speak for its rank and file. Even if you assume the absolute worst about his implications there, far worse than is justified by the text, Geten’s very name, Apocrypha, means that he cannot be presumed to be aligned with MLA orthodoxy.
The only one of the people close to Re-Destro who wasn't born and raised MLA, he still manages to come off, in some ways, as the most zealous of the lot of them. But really, it’s very noticeable that Geten—unlike Re-Destro himself, and unlike even Re-Destro’s close cohort—never talks about the original Destro, never even mentions him. When he thinks about his leader, he only ever thinks about Rikiya. Geten doesn’t follow Re-Destro because of his bloodline, because of the tenets; he follows Re-Destro because of personal loyalty.[v]
So how best to do that? Well, think about it: Geten is not terribly intelligent, nor wealthy, nor well-connected. He and Trumpet are the ones most influenced by the quirk supremacist line of thought, Trumpet because his relatively weak quirk comes off as exponentially stronger the more he can surround himself in people it works on, and Geten because his strong quirk lets him mentally justify Re-Destro's investment in him despite his other insufficiencies.
Compare this with Re-Destro, who only ever talks about quirks in terms of freedom. Even more prominently, look at Skeptic and Curious, who are not at all defined by their quirks and how strong or weak said quirks may be. Indeed, those two devote scarcely a thought to the matter because they contribute to the cause in much more important ways and seem to be perfectly comfortable with where that leaves them.
Geten may not be very smart or influential, but he’s very capable of looking at what strengths he does have and focusing hard on those. That, I think, is what really lead to his embracing quirk supremacy, even in the face of evidence that he doesn’t have the whole picture: the search for a way to measure himself up to the movers and shakers Rikiya is otherwise surrounded with, and not come up drastically wanting.
“Apocrypha” Geten has been Geten for a long time, since long before the MLA types usually take up their code names. He’s also an outlier in the MLA for having a name in Japanese instead of in English—the only one who does! My headcanon, unless and until we get some other members with Japanese code names, is that he got the name directly from Re-Destro—possibly even in the conversation that lead to him imprinting so hard on the man when he was 7—and insisted on keeping it before any other code name that was suggested to him in later years.
But yes, he does have a normal Japanese name on file at the group home, which he’s obligated to answer to on the rare occasions that someone from Child Services is checking in or he and Re-Destro are out in public. I don’t plan to bother coming up with it unless I need to, as I expect we’ll get it in a character profile one of these days.
His Quirk While a lot of people like the vibe of Geten and Dabi being somewhat equivalently vulnerable to their own quirks, and I agree it makes for good fanart, in truth, Geten is only as vulnerable to his ice as Endeavor is his flames. Which is to say, he isn't immune, but he's certainly more resistant to it than the average person would be! There’s already plenty of good material to contrast Dabi and Geten without pretending their quirks are more mirrored than is actually the case.
Lightning Round
How does he treat people in service jobs? He doesn’t, because he’s never in a position to interact with people in service jobs. There have been times he’s gone out with Re-Destro, but in those cases he’s mostly let Re-Destro handle the human interaction.
What does he dislike in other people? Laziness; the lack of a higher purpose of some kind. (It’s possible he’d thaw out on his disdain for Dabi considerably if he knew more about Dabi’s plans to undermine the whole of the Hero System than Dabi is inclined to tell him.)
Is he always there for a friend in need? Sure, as long as by “friend” you mean “fellow Liberation warrior” and by “need” you mean “in need of an icicle punched through one of someone else’s desperately fleshy body parts.”
Footnotes
[i] Sanctum II's tastes being what they are, this probably means Rikiya is the MLA member most likely to be able to perform traditional Japanese tea ceremony.
[ii] And there were elders who would have been happy to leave it at that permanently, I'm sure. There are always going to be those regents who have trouble relinquishing power back to the boy prince when he grows up and becomes king, you know?
[iii] And, when it eventually got out that they were dating, a relatively solid match, give or take the surrogacy arrangements that would eventually need to be made.
[iv] I’m hoping canon gives us some details on this eventually, so I’m not planning to iron out more headcanon on the matter unless I absolutely have to.
[v] This, incidentally, is a large part of why Rikiya does keep him around—it’s soothing to have someone around who never brings up his ancestor. Anyway, after Geten evolved his quirk, people stopped complaining so much, even though RD never did get around to, like, giving Geten any formal responsibilities. Geten, who knows very well that Re-Destro’s real advisors have real jobs, mostly took this as reason to be all the stronger, in hopes that he’d eventually be given one.
#boku no hero academia#bnha#my hero academia#yotsubashi chikara#yotsubashi rikiya#hanabata koku#kizuki chitose#chikazoku tomoyasu#geten#destro bnha#re-destro#trumpet bnha#curious bnha#skeptic bnha#meta liberation army#my writing
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( ADELINE RUDOLPH. SHE/HER. CIS WOMAN ) Did I just see ( JENNIFER WHITNER )? This ( TWENTY SEVEN ) year old ( VETERINARIAN ) has been living in Chicago for ( EIGHTEEN YEARS ). Some say that they are ( TENACIOUS & COMPASSIONATE ) as well as ( VOLATILE & INSECURE ). If they had a theme song, some might say that it would be ( ALL THE TIME by MOOSE BLOOD ). All I know is that I can’t wait to see what they bring to the Windy City.
hellooooo, it’s lauren, back with my second character. this is jennifer! she’s one of rowan’s older adopted siblings, and she’s one of those people that acts super tough and a little distant at first, but she’s a sweetheart really, i promise. @hocstarters
INFO:
full name: Jennifer Ahn Whitner
birth name: Ahn Ji-hyun
nickname(s): Jenny, Jen
birthplace: Daegu, South Korea
birthday: 25th June 1993
age: 27
zodiac sign: Cancer
gender & pronouns: cis woman, she/her
sexuality: Heterosexual
physical: 5′6, brown hair, brown eyes
occupation: Veterinarian
PAST:
( tw: death; car accident; child neglect; bullying; mental illness )
1993, Daegu, South Korea. Ahn Ji-hyun was born to a newly-married couple, who cared for her well and loved her dearly. Her early childhood was great, and she had plenty of friends. She showed a love for animals and nature early on, and developed a habit of picking up and bringing home any injured animals she found, wanting to help them. She also loved literature and art, spending hours covered in paint or listening to her mother tell her stories.
But, tragedy struck when Ji-hyun was 5 years old, and the family were involved in a car accident when returning to their home after a meal out. All the members of the family were rushed into hospital. Unfortunately both of Ji-hyun's parents eventually succumbed to their injuries, but, Ji-hyun managed to pull through. She spent a few weeks in the hospital recovering from her minor injuries. Somehow she had managed to walk away with only cuts and bruises, a concussion and a few broken bones. The couple had no other family that were able to take care of the now orphaned young girl, and she was taken to a foster home. The memories of the accident haunted her, and she had night terrors regularly, waking up in a cold sweat and gasping for air. It caused her to withdraw, and she became quiet and reserved. She was placed into therapy to try and help her deal with the loss of her parents, and eventually she began to show signs of improvement. Art was one of the things that helped her to express her grief and loneliness, and she continued to improve her painting skills over the years as she used it as her main emotional outlet.
When Ji-hyun turned 7, she was adopted by an American couple. Knowing absolutely no English, Ji-hyun was terrified of leaving Daegu and her friends behind to go to a completely new country. She begged the adults in the foster home to not make her go, but they promised that she would be safe and have a happy life, and would have more opportunities in America then she would have in her home country. So, reluctantly, she moved to Rockford, Illinois with her new family. Her name was legally changed to Katie, but she continued to refer to herself by her Korean name.
But, things didn't turn out the way that Ji-hyun had been told they would. She was enrolled in school, but the language barrier proved to be too much. Despite having special tutoring in English, Ji-hyun couldn't seem to learn fast enough for her new parents liking, and they were disappointed in her. Thus began the neglect. Because they couldn't communicate properly, her parents began to ignore Ji-hyun out of frustration, adopting another child and spending all their time and affection on their new son. Her teachers soon began to notice that Ji hyun was turning up to school dirty and hungry, and called social services who then got involved. By the time she turned 8 years old, Ji-hyun was back in foster care, this time in Chicago.
The experience left his distrustful of other people, and she kept herself very guarded, not speaking to anybody about personal matters and never showing signs of any emotion unless she was safely locked away in a room by herself. Her faith in humanity was gone, and left her bitter and cold towards the world even at such a young age.
A year passed, and Ji-hyun settled back into the routine of a foster home, until one day a new couple came along. A few weeks after meeting them, the news came that the Whitner's were going to adopt Ji-hyun. Yet again, she was scared and dubious. In her head, before even going to the family, she was expecting it not to last long, so she was stand-offish with the couple and with their other adopted children, not wanting to form any connections out of fear that they would end up being severed in a short time.
It wasn’t until a few months into this new chapter that Ji-hyun finally realised that she was now in a safe and loving home, with people that cared about her and wanted her to have a good and happy life. The realisation came from such a small gesture on the Whitner’s part, but a huge one for her. They asked her what she wanted to be called. So, not wanting to completely lose touch with her birth name that had become her only sense of identity over the years, and the only connection she had to her biological parents, she chose the name Jennifer. Her parents agreed to her keeping her surname, using it instead as a middle name. Thus, Jennifer Ahn Whitner became her legal name.
Despite knowing that she was finally in a safe space, that didn't change the struggles that Jennifer dealt with during school. The Whitner's did their best to help her learn English, but the kids at school picked on her because she was different and because she couldn't communicate with them properly.
Nevertheless, Jennifer was very intelligent and excelled in all other areas of her education, and eventually she became good enough at English that she could hold a full conversation, thanks to her parent's consistent tutoring and support, and the help of her adopted siblings. Once she got to high school, language was no longer an issue, but her accent was still prevalent. Kids were cruel, and the bullying continued. This drove her to develop depression and anxiety, and she became withdrawn and quiet. Throughout her dark times, she carried on painting, finding solace in art. Yet again, she began therapy and threw herself into her studies, deciding that she wanted to become a veterinarian. She went off to college, and here she flourished. As she grew older, she became more confident in herself and her abilities, and finally started to develop a bit of a social life again. But, she still kept herself guarded, a defence mechanism that she just couldn't bring herself to let go of. It was hard for her to make friends because of it, but those who persevered and finally broke through her tough exterior are still close friends of hers to this day.
PRESENT:
Recently graduated from veterinary college, Jennifer lives in her own apartment and works at a local animal clinic. She still keeps in contact with her foster parents, visiting them regularly and also maintaining strong relationships with her foster siblings.
She has continued on with her art, but only ever as a hobby. Her friends continue to push her to try and pursue it as a full-time career but she loves her job working with animals, and doesn't want to give that up. Despite that, she does commissioned work for people on the side, but because her job is so demanding already it's a rather rare occurrence.
PERSONALITY:
At first, Jennifer can come across as rude and uninterested, but this is just her way of avoiding letting people get too close. It will take time to break down that tough, uncaring exterior she puts on, but once it's done, her true personality will come through. She can be volatile and insecure at times. She struggles to trust people and let them in, and rarely talks about her biological parents or her first foster family. The memories still haunt her from time to time, but she does her best to focus on the positives.
She returns to Daegu to visit her family as often as she can, and still speaks in her native tongue often, finally being proud of her Korean heritage and wanting to celebrate it rather than hide it to save herself from other people's judgement.
Her temper can change quickly when she feels vulnerable or threatened, and can be quite harsh when she's in a bad mood. She bears grudges for a long time, and if anybody upsets her she won't ever forget about it. She may forgive, but the relationship will never be the same again. At times she is also overly-sensitive, and small comments made can stick with her for a long time and cause quite a big impact on her, and leave her questioning her worth and abilities.
But, Jennifer is very compassionate. As seen from an early age, she has a very nurturing personality, and will look after anyone and anything that needs help. This quality is what makes her so good at her job - her caring nature and love for animals combined makes her a brilliant veterinarian.
With strangers, she can struggle to initiate conversations and it takes time to gain her trust, but once it’s done and she lets people see the real her, they will have a loyal friend and someone to lean on and be loved dearly by.
She is also incredibly tenacious, and once she puts her mind to something she will see it through no matter how difficult it may be at times.
Reassurance and small gestures of affection are her love language, both for herself and for others, so she will go out of her way to remind the people in her life how loved and important they really are.
WANTED CONNECTIONS:
closest friend(s) - these will be the people she’s most comfortable around and can be completely herself with. they probably know a little bit about her past, but not the whole story
colleagues - fellow veterinarians, or other staff at the clinic
neighbours - she has her own apartment, so there’s a few options for neighbour type connections
ex-boyfriend - will have been during college years, can have ended on good or bad terms, could even still be feelings there if we wanna get real angsty with it
past hook-ups - again, probably during college years, can be awkward or not, i don’t mind
enemies - people that she doesn’t like or don’t like her, or someone from her past that did something to really upset her and she’s holding a grudge still
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Here is why conventional healthful-thinking is not working on Millennials.
Have you ever had that terrifying dream where you are stuck in a dark forest or sketchy alley, frantically running for your life from some kind of feral monster or mad man? Most of us can personally recall at least once being roused from sleep in a cold sweat because their brain had spent the last few hours perfecting the latent image of a made-to-order nightmare. While that experience is certainly not exclusive to Millennials (rather quite the opposite), the waking reaction or at least how it is processed later by this roughly categorized group of mislabeled people is unique to say the least.
For years now, people in marketing have been fervently dissecting and attempting to recreate what has been loosely categorized as "Millennial Humor". And in all of their efforts to connect with this flock of black sheep, the grand majority of them seem to be missing a key factor in the psychology at work here. For all the unwarrantable bilge that modern advertising haphazardly cobbles together, only a small percentage of the nonsense is seasoned perfectly with the secret ingredient. What is this singular spice? Well, while indulgent to profess and speculative, from someone "sitting in millennial class”, it's obvious: A touch of salt.
Never will I sit here and cry to the general public about how unhappy I am that the modern advertising industry is just not scratching my itch for the wares it’s peddling, but I think it's important for us now to look at how this systemic lack of understanding is reaching beyond the world of subliminal profiteering. Society has other significant quality-of-life effecting systems that are also missing the mark when trying to aim and reach out to help this specific group of people. Puns aside, "a touch of salt" as I quipped, is flavoring the lives of a lot of people in their mid to late 20's and early 40's. And the most frustrating and difficult to reconcile attempts that I personally have made to better myself, have been those that were guided by people who just cannot seem to put their brain into that salty head space.
For example, trying to focus on and internalize a well-organized medical presentation about the encompassing negative effects of stress or insomnia and its seemly simple solution of just "changing your thinking", is about as easily digestible as a two-decade-year-old fruitcake for someone who is imprisoned daily by the symptoms of chronic stress. While I may sit there and give listening (ironically) "the old college try", the sound quickly turns to fuzzy white noise the deeper the lecture dives into positive thinking.
You see, Millennials are not generally fluent in positive thinking. More and more of them seem to be speaking a very distinctive dialect of realism, which incorporates a robustly cultivated sense of sarcasm and a somewhat grim shade of hopelessness. A lot of millennials grew up with a laughably poetic twist on "Growing Up" and "Being Successful", which in turn has colored their day-to-day interactions and created this defeatism-culture. Millennials will openly joke about their death as a needed release, their eulogy as a retirement card, or emotionally decompile themselves over something simple like saying "you too" in a situation that doesn't warrant it.
A good percentage of Millennials were old enough to understand the destructive consequences of the most recent housing market disaster on a very personal level; At an impressionable age, watching their own parents, who may have worked excruciatingly hard at the expense of any number of personal or family goals, lose just about everything resonated in a way that cannot be unheard. Then add the borderline criminal and unscrupulous "sheep-shearing" that became common place when the generation was herded off to college, trade school, or other form of career-building education. Not to mention the fact that upon completing said programs, a proverbial "step-in-the-right direction", a substantial number of these "hopeless wanderers" were faced with yet another barbed-wire hurdle when the job market in countless fields were oversaturated with potential employees. Many positions had not been vacated as they normally would have been with the age of retirement being stretched further and further down the road due to increased cost of living and financial demands; the finish line or lap marker was just not getting any closer. To add insult to injury, Millennials, sometimes unbelievably hardworking, are frequently being listed as perpetuators of the clashing reality we have today. This being what the modern media is calling "The Great Resignation"; a dubious combination of a labor shortage amidst an unemployment spike fueled by uncompetitive wages left unchecked, the government's inability to reel in the situation, and a general devaluing of laborers overall.
Oh. And also, we were killing the diamond industry at the same time. Or was it simultaneously the marriage and divorce industry? Wait! I think it was cinema? Or no....maybe it was fabric softener. For a complete dissertation of all the things Millennials brutally murdered over the last two decades, perhaps I'll include a link below if for no other reason to drive my point home.
You have this group of people who are conditioned to endlessly swimming upstream, against the current, with nothing but chastising and bitterness to listen to. So, when it comes to something universal like learning to "sleep better" or "problem solving", the indifferent but somehow time-honored approach of saying "it's as easy as just taking control" is over time if not immediately rejected as dissonant information.
These people don't feel like they have control; some of them feel like they never had any to begin with.
Why is this a problem?
Our society is not developing a taste for "salt" at a pace in which it can prepare social-sustenance for its population. We're not getting any younger, and neither are the generations in front of us.
Millennials are already, by some definitions the mass-population of workers, voters, and other titles that we've yet to embrace. And our lack of interest is not because we do not have a passion for positive change (even on a global scale). Millennials have voiced over time that they feel they are the silent majority amidst a group of people who will not give them breathing room and don't respect the validity of their opinions and ambitions. And it is by no means restricted to one region or country on this planet. This is a global phenomenon.
I could spin a vast yarn about the political ramifications of continuing to exclude the Millennials from the metaphoric Counsel of Elders, but I'm more concerned about the neglect that is spreading elsewhere. We need our leaders in the medical and social fields to really respect and dig deep into how to incorporate "Millennial Thinking" into their treatment and development plans. A large amount of the global population is going to need carefully tailored treatment for things as old as depression, bi-polar tendencies, or schizophrenia as well as newly discovered mental encumbrances like imposter-syndrome.
While “positive-thinking” may have been easily cultivated in the past, we may need to start from a more negative approach and build from there to educate and treat a group of down-on-their-luck millions. Pumping drugs into a populace is not going to permanently patch the leak either, so there truly is precedence for a rehashing of how we should prioritize mental health in modern society.
Stop spending so much time and energy assigning blame to modern technologies and social norms. Are these going away? No? In that case, those things are much like our other daily stresses that are unavoidable. Yes, you can change your nightly routine to de-stress the same way that you can change a job or a daily commute, but there needs to be a fundamental shift in accountability divvied to circumstances out of a person's control rather than scolding them for not being able to manage it.
Do I have all the answers? No.
But this was less about offering a solid a solution and more about opening a dialogue. A starting point.
So yeah. I've had that dream of being chased through the woods by a life-leeching alien. It felt very similar to being sucked dry of my pitiful wages for an education that was at the time, barely panning out. Even now, as a 32-year-old, slightly more successful version of the starving student I've become, I still feel as though my rat race will end when my heart gives out; and all I can hope for is enough money when I drop to cover the ambulance ride to the over-crowded emergency room and a large pit to rot in. But I just hope that the generation behind me has the benefit of a system that understands how to create and sustain “Millennial Inspired” social structures that will allow them to flourish in what little we can leave behind for them.
Also, could you pass the salt?
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ID:
Name | Nickname | Age: Katherine Beckett | Kat | 28 Birthday | Astrology: March 21, 1993 | Aries sun, Pisces moon, Scorpio rising Pronouns | Sexual identity: She/her | Pansexual Birthplace | Raised: San Diego, CA Residence: Brookland Occupation: Dance teacher with a side hustle selling Art on Etsy Faceclaim: Danielle Campbell
TRIGGER WARNINGS: drug abuse tw, infidelity tw, narcissistic parent tw, injury tw, overdose tw
TIMELINE:
1860s- The founding of Hawthorne wine in Northern California
1981- Dottie married David and pays for his medical school
May 1991- Older sister Briar Rose is born
April 1992- Older sister Evie is born
March 21, 1993- Katherine is born in San Diego, California @ 9 pm
1996- Enrolled in Ballet and started doing child pageants
2008- Wins Miss Teen International at fifteen
2010- Has her Debutante coming out ball
2011- Is accepted into San Francisco Ballet Company
2013- She has a massive fight with her mom and O.D.s (survives)
2014- Finishes rehab and skips out on being picked up by her parents and runs away to DC
2015- Kat joins the Washington Ballet
2018- An injury puts an end to Kat's career in Ballet, she's gifted Baby as a consolation for her ended career
2019- Moves in with her "casual" fling and starts working on new avenues for her life and career. Still has a terse, basically non-existent relationship with her parents
2020- "Casual fling" proposes, and she bounces and gets her own place with roommates
2021- Has her own dance studio and sells art on Etsy.
BIOGRAPHY:
Katherine Vivienne Beckett was born to be perfect. Failure was not in the realm of possibilities for the youngest Beckett child. It was never even mentioned outside of being a non-starter. Her mother, Dottie, was from old money, the heiress to the Harlow wine company. Dottie had antiquated, regal if not conservative values that she fought hard, perhaps too hard to instill in her daughters. Her own drive for perfection and success bled into the foundation of her relationship with Kat. Thus from an early age, Kat associated success and praise with love. Any deviation from the absolute best was a failure. Her father, David, was absent. At best and at worst, he wore disinterest and pretense like a coat he never took off. A serial cheater who was never home, Kat was left putting all of her external needs for parental approval on her mother.
Lack of praise left her with the fear that the love was gone, and Kat developed a sickening need for perfection. A child beauty queen who was never satisfied. No matter the number of titles or crowns, she won no matter the talents she mastered. And talented she was. Gifted in languages, piano, singing, painting, sculpting, and best of all, ballet Kat was the master of her gifts. She curated them under the best instructors money could buy. Her mother encouraged these things, her unrelenting press for the perfect socialites for daughters often putting her and Kat at odds. Kat often excused her toxic behavior as tough love and fell back into the cycle of practice, perform, praise, repeat. Eventually, her success didn't even seem to impress her mother, and Kat was facing a terrible case of burnout.
She was exhausted, sixteen years old and already she felt spent. All of her best years seemed to be drifting behind her, more bitter than sweet Kat felt at odds with herself and who she was meant to be. All the certainty she had in life was her desire to please the people she loved, so Kat continued to do what her mother instructed. After her elder sister moved out, Dottie had even more time to pick a part Kat, push her and curate her into everything Dottie insisted a young woman was supposed to be. With her father often traveling for "work," it was just Kat and Dottie inside the house. There was no reprieve then, only expectations that often looked like Dottie waking Kat before dawn for morning runs followed by extra ballet practice until late morning. Kat could barely stand it any longer. She had no idea who she was or what she wanted.
Quietly, she began to rebel. She was sneaking away to parties, joy riding at three a.m, sleeping with anyone and everyone. She was looking for freedom and feeling, and eventually, she found it the form of illicit drugs. The euphoria of being high was unparalleled to anything she'd felt before. Combine that with the ability to work harder and longer, and Kat was sold, hook, line and sinker. The drug abuse and rebelling continued for years, even after Kat was accepted into her first Ballet company at eighteen in San Francisco. She kept her addiction tightly wrapped for two years, worked long hours, and outperformed the girls below her and even a few senior performers. The shining moment of her young career was when she was given the role of The Sleeping Beauty in the ballet of the same title.
Kat spent most of her waking hours practicing for her upcoming role. She was stunning, acclaimed in her part as Aurora. It was the first time in years she'd felt happiness that wasn't an artificial sort. Sadly, it was short-lived. Dottie attended the closing show, leaving before the final number didn't go unnoticed by Kat. Her emotions were shaky, and her performance less than her best. The disappointment was personal. She felt feral. Confronting her mother, she discovered Dottie had left early to make dinner plans with a college friend. Arguably the most prominent moment in Kat's life, she had left for dinner, a dinner she was early for; Kat exploded. Twenty years of pent-up sadness, anger, and disappointment accumulated into a vicious and aggressive fight between mother and daughter. The argument came to an end when in a rare moment of transparency, Dottie told Kat she had never wanted her in the first place.
Kat kicked her mother out of her apartment and spent the night partying when she went too hard and overdosed on a nearly lethal amount of concoction of party drugs. Kat's so-called friends dumped her at the emergency room, none sticking around to ensure she was okay. Thankfully, Kat survived, but her entire life had felt like it had been ripped away when Kat woke up. No longer was she on the way to becoming a prima ballerina, but she was in a rehab facility. It was the most excellent form of rehab, luxury, and resort-like in many ways, but it was ultimately still rehab. Kat spent a year as a resident of Harmony Place rehab in Malibu, California. Her parents informed her, stay or lose all her inheritance. Already having lost her job and life in San Francisco, Kat obliged. The year was not a lost one but one of personal growth and therapy. Finally, the fog she had been living under lifted, and Kat knew what she had to do.
Once her stay at Harmony Place ended, Kat did not return home like was expected. Instead, Kat took a bus to the countries Capitol, where she spent a couple of weeks couch surfing before going to her sister looking for the family she had always craved. A year later, Kat found herself a new therapist and a new ballet company to work with. Her life didn't feel as over as it once had, and there was hope for her future here, brighter than she had ever anticipated before. Unfortunately, three years of performing was all Kat had left when a tragic accident ended her professional career. A snapped Achilles tendon. A pop heard all throughout the theater was the last sound of her career. Over a year of Physical therapy and one surgery later, Kat knew the ballet world knew she'd never dance professionally again.
In the aftermath, Kat got the best gift ever in the form of a small black Doberman puppy she affectionately named Baby. During all her new downtime, Kat spent the time painting and sculpting. She was finding the art to be therapeutic and aid in keeping her from a relapse that some days felt inevitable. While her art sold well on Etsy, Kat could not keep things going independently and moved in with a casual fling Kat felt closer to as a friend. However, it seemed she had misinterpreted the depth of their affection. A realization that came when they produced a ring and a question Kat had only one answer for; no. Kat moved to Brookland, taking an apartment with roommates rather than marrying someone she didn't see a future with; she was no stranger to starting over.
Kat now spends her time creating original pieces for her Etsy store, Kat's meow. While her professional ballerina career has ended, Kat has not given up on dance. Instead, Kat resumed tentative communication with her parents if only to receive her inheritance. The money was used to buy the space for her own studio where Kat teaches ballet to all ages and private Burlesque classes for adults once a week. In between, Kat attends therapy and meetings with her sponsor. She is unlearning the toxic parts of her childhood and finding ways to honor her passions without losing herself. Some days the struggle is more complex than others. Rome was also built on ruins.
Kat is written by L.
#drug abuse tw#overdose tw#infidelity tw#narcissistic parent tw#injury tw#district character bio.#c; kat beckett#danielle campbell fc#pronouns; she/her#residence; brookland#writer; L
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Questions! We Get Questions! About LIFE WITH ALTHAAR!
Hello Life With Althaar fans, some of you are here (and we're grateful)! At the same time, there are groups of Althaar fans we interact with on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Reddit, and there doesn't always seem to be a lot of overlap between these communities. So, in our desire to connect and expand our listenership, when we're asked things about the show, we'll do regular reposts of questions and answers here and at our subreddit (where longer text posts are both appropriate and possible).
B&I would like to note, at the same time, that technically, any answers we give outside of the show (while "Word of God," as they say) are not Canon. The only Canon in Althaar is what is actually contained in the (ultimately) 40 audio episodes of the series. Our detailed show bibles are Lore. The Lore is what we work from in the creation, but Your Headcanon May Vary. And that's okay.
So... a couple of questions from the digital mailbag and answers from Althaar co-creator Ian (vetted by co-creator and showrunner Berit)...
from JanglesPrime on Twitter:
"So, H.F. has called Althaar "kid" and it seems Althaar's people get added names as they gain recognition. But Althaar has only one name. I guess Althaar is a college graduate in his people's equivalent of their 20s?"
Yes, exactly -- which places him somewhere in his 50s in Human years (so H.F. may actually be about the same age as Althaar in our years). But he was always a prodigy, graduated early, and taught seminars and performed some minor diplomatic work before coming to The Fairgrounds.
Names are indeed added for recognition, or more precisely, in connection with some noteworthy achievement done by an Iltorian. Someone with Althaar's intelligence and skills might have been expected to have more than one name by this point in their life/career.
However, Althaar's interest in Humans took him off any kind of normal "career path" for Iltorians. It's regarded as an eccentricity (and even with some dismay) by his people, but indulged because he is So Promising and Smart ("if anyone can solve this insolvable puzzle, it's Althaar").
By the end of the series, Althaar will have a second name.
from Travis Brown on Facebook:
"So how does Althaar's detrimental effects work on a human? It isn't possible scientifically for an object to be so ugly that it overrides our ability to maintain composure across our entire species. I have also noticed that it is a visual and to a less extent auditory effect. Is it a psychic ability related to their empathic ability as a diplomatic species? One that works positively across all other species encountered so far?"
While Althaar's effect on Humans - rather ANY Iltorian's effect on Humans - is primarily visual and textural (though the latter has only ever been experienced by a Human less than a handful of times), there is also a minor effect on the auditory and olfactory senses - by MANY orders of magnitude less, and not even really in the same category. And whether or not it is possible within science as we know it, the effect is possible in the world of Althaar, as are, for example, teleportation, telepathy, anti-gravity, and faster-than-light travel, not to mention Lt. Frall.
The effect, as Berit and I have always discussed it, is basically some combination of elements (and "ugly" may not even be the right term for it) that directly goes right to the fear/phobic areas of a Human brain -- as B says, "we're talking lizard-brain here, not even ape brain" -- and turns them up to maximum. It is not even possible for any of us in our world to actually imagine what that might be, though most people tend, it seems, to drop their own phobias into how they consider Iltorian appearance -- Berit's an arachnophobe, and sees spidery legs as an element; I see nightmarish teeth mixed with the kind of thing that sets off my trypophobia. Hell, maybe they're colored like circus clowns, too!
Early on, we considered whether a certain kind of neurodivergent person could be unaffected, but decided that the effect works on a level so primal it is just universal among all Humans. ALL of them, and ALWAYS will be. Humans may learn a degree of "comfort" (defined here as "the ability to not run screaming from the room") around Iltorians through spending time with them (and John B is the first one to do so), but actual visual perception will forever be a no-go. (I just asked B, "Should I say 'ALWAYS?' I mean, could we be talking about evolutionary stuff that takes thousands of years here?" and they say, "Okay, maybe not ALWAYS, like maybe they come up with some weird way to nerve-staple that in a few hundred years or something, but that's WAY post-Canon.")
And, as B says, also "it's just the premise of the show and we have to accept it." Which means building an SF universe in which it makes "sense" (as the other things mentioned above "make sense," which they wouldn't always in some SF). A universe in which we can just let anti-gravity go by without details, but we have to write a lot of details (most of which will never go into the show) about Robot/Human Labor Relations, which we DO have to understand in order for things to work right.
Oh, and one from Life With Althaar actor/writer Amanda La Pergola, regarding her character, a question for the listeners:
“When are we going to start seeing Frondrinax fan art? She's simple to draw. She's just a plant!
You heard her, folks... Anyone up for some Parlor Palm rendering?
So. Any more questions? We're here!
IWH/GCW
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Final Post ||
I spent most of yesterday evening and this morning just kind of mentally processing the actual closing of rookies after seven years. Seeing the amazing plans that would have come to fruition makes me a bit sad but also kind of happy that rookies ended where it ended. Thank you to the mods for prolonged effort to keep this rp running as long as it did and I am glad to have been here as long as I was.
I first joined rookies six years ago on the 15th of October, 2014. 2014 and subsequently 2015 had been a chaotic formative years for me. At the time, I was in my third year of college, constantly questioning whether or not I should be doing my degree, watching my parents get divorced in the summer of 2015 and moving out of the house where I’d lived for twelve years. Rookies (at first through Sungjong in October and then through Kevin in March (03.04.2015) and Kris in April (04.29.2015)} was a writing escape and somewhat of a comfort. Over the years at rookies, I have grown, graduated from college with a business degree and ended up completely a different person then I was five years ago.
My writing improved a lot and I can confidently say that it was mostly thanks to Rookies. I had been completely scared off writing after an English teacher bitched at me for my skills but thanks to rookies, I got more confident in my own skills. Sure, there’s been other rps before rookies and at the same time as rookies, but they had never lasted quite as long. Through the years, I have made some incredible friends through rookies and I am glad to have them in my life. You guys are genuinely the best and I’ll always love you. I have no intentions of ghosting any of you and hopefully, we’ll write again together somewhere else.
Now, onto what everyone actually wants: rkmuses future and taking in the ideas and everything set out by Bianca in account, where they would end up?
rkxjongsuk: the trc vocal king, easter bunny, princess diva of youtube fame - formerly rkkevin
I know I always used to say that I wanted him to debut the most since he’s my oldest muse, but in all honesty, he would have never fit in the idol bubble. Going off the ideas set out by Bianca, however, his future would have been pretty satisfying.
He would have ended up staying in TRC (since he had signed his contract for the second time back in may) and debuting as part of the rkmonstax group with the other trc boys in early 2021 (most likely as their main vocalist). Jongsuk would have felt pretty accomplished by this, and had been ready for the idol life. However, he was not ready for the rules and restrictions that would come into play with the group.
he’d always had a kind of laissez faire approach to everything and so the idol life is kind of shocking to him. it wasn’t what he’d fantasized it would be. so, jongsuk would probably become the first member to officially leave the group before their six-year contract would expire citing personal difficulties and mental health issues (three years and a bit after debut)
During those three years with the group, however, he’d make a name for himself as the King of OST. He would have gone on to King of Masked Singer (making it to R2 and shocking everyone with the high note octaves), gone on to be one of the trainers on the Voice of Korea partnering with Dynamic Duo, and make multiple appearances on Immortal Songs (a la Kyuhyun). Simultaneously, he’d also be collabing with idols across companies, most notably fellow former mga 3 contestant Gyeoul of And*Roma and Jiyeon of HEARTZ.
Upon his departure from the group, he moved back to San Francisco and resumed his Youtube life and career. He would still support the rest of the boys, as an international fan and would always buy up a lot of their cds to support and tell his followers to stream. However, being back in his element, Jongsuk would feel a lot more relaxed and a lot more comfortable.
A few months after his return home, he’d gain a collaboration with Smashbox or Morphe for a makeup line and he’d release an eyeshadow palette, two lipsticks and three eyeliners with the branding Smashbox x Stark: Rave on Mad (an homage to his youtube name: starkravingmad). He’d most likely send it in packages to his best friends in Korea. Jongsuk would find success in other fields outside of music and delve into what made his channel tick and what made him the happiest.
Eventually, I think, he would have found love (maybe in the form of another tall actor who was in school 2013 with him) and been a happy youtuber, taking constant new challenges all over the place and always stepping to his own beat.
As for his friends, he would have definitely gone back to Korea for Kangjoon’s eventual wedding and Jiyeon’s eventual wedding as well. The invites to visit him in San Francisco, California would have been extended to all his friends and even in his busy schedule, he’d always find time to show them all around the city that he’d been born. He’d even always be happy to see his former groupmates if they came on tour to California and would always be the first one for the backstage/VIP passes.
rkxrm: the kt chaebol, nsg’s main rapper and actor extraordinaire - formerly rkkris, rkkmh, minhyukxrk
namjoon had always been the unwilling debut, since I honestly never saw him actually debuting before jongsuk and instead, here we are. he’s the established idol.
With NSG’s debut having just happened, he would probably stick around as the rapper before KT began shoving him into acting everywhere. Most likely, would have ended up as leader of another subunit (maybe?) in the future putting that leadership expertise to the good use. After the first two successful comebacks, he would have gone into acting officially with the first main role on a web-drama as Cha Gihyun on A-TEEN.
His charisma would have definitely shined and stolen the screen time since he’s a former actor already. Following initial drama success, he would have tried his hand in modelling and endorsement, with Honda and Skool Looks. He would have gone further in modelling and acting, eventually becoming more known as the actor Kim Namjoon than the rapper of nsg.
He would have had his share of crazy fans (mostly noonas, pretty girls and drama grandmas) and even probably taken the top bias spot for quite a few people when they would have found out his past. Of course, during the course of promotions (I envision this would happen during Regular-Irregular promotions), it come to light that he’s an actual chaebol (he’s never hidden it but netizens think this is a big deal) and the heir to Kim Securities with a former Canadian award winning actress as his mother. It also comes to light the dysfunctional family dynamic that he’d always had with them.
It caused some hardship between him and his family but he had the support of nsg behind him (his ride or die brothers and family) but in the end his family did began treating him a lot better and he eventually gained their support.
He would have stayed with NSG all through their first contract, but probably wouldn’t have renewed and most likely would have either gone to acting agency where he could focus on acting or go back to that chaebol life and actually fully embrace it as a future heir.
In terms of his love life, he would have officially asked Jiyeon to date him at the Halloween party and they would starred in a few dramas side by side (Cinderella and the Four Knights being their first). They would kept secretly dating and eventually after their mutual dating ban was over, would probably reveal it in a cute couple shoot for Ceci or Dazed and Confused (like E Dawn and Hyuna). After Joon would have left NSG (post contract non renewal), he would have probably still kept acting and modelling alongside Jiyeon. NamYeon would have been a lot like the Rain/Kim Taehee acting and visual power couple.
He would have definitely still kept in close touch with the rest of nsg (since they’re like brothers) and even with all his former kt friends, loving the time that he had spent in the company.
rksxngyeol: nova’s artist, the mangaka
sungyeol had been an incredibly refreshing muse to write. he’s always been someone who actually doesn’t want to debut and he just wants to draw. i initially got him because minhyuk (joon) and jongsuk were getting really exhausting.
there’s not much to say about sungyeol’s future. his contract with nova would have expired in november and he would have left the company on his own terms with the two years behind him. he learned a lot during those two years at nova and even realized a lot about himself.
following his contract expiry, he would have asked his boyfriend (myungsoo) to move in with him over christmas with a key in a box attached to a black butler keychain. if the other said yes, then the new year would have kicked off with the duo moving and cooking together and spending time with each other.
sungyeol would have resumed drawing manhwa and mangas, combining his webtoon comic into a more professional looking five volume manga series with the same title. eventually he would have gotten an anime deal again and even a live action deal on his works (if your muse would have wanted to be in the live action of the Princess’s Sword, go for it). That would have propelled his family to actually recognize him as a talent and he would have been reinstated into the family.
This would have led to myungsoo officially meeting Sungyeol’s family. His parents would have loved him to bits and his grandparents would have been iffy on it, but his grandmother would end up dying three years after of heart attack and his grandfather would have followed her a year later of old age.
After having dated Myungsoo for about five years, Sungyeol would have proposed to him and they would have most likely gotten married on the beach while on vacation somewhere warm. (we love a happy ending ;.;) Also, he would have moved into a bigger house and brought Haebin with them so that they could be a cute happy family.
Eventually, he would have come back to work for Nova as a producer and creative direction artist under Wendy as CEO (if that would have happened), and if not, he would have taken over his family’s company despite the lack of education and simply learned on the job. (Can I say that he would have been Myungsoo’s sugar daddy at some point even though they would be married or engaged at this point???)
Thank you for reading to the very end and I love you all. Let’s stay friends and meet again in another rp.
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So, what happens when I decide to throw caution to the wind and mash together as many fucking Sonic Continuities as I possibly can? You get a big ass tangle of a family tree that needs to be split up into five separate images, that’s what.
It’s ugly, it’s unpolished, and I made it on a whim. Because the mental image wouldn’t leave me. And because I actually started developing this godforsaken nightmare of a family tree, born of merged continuities, headcanons, and sleep deprivation.
Now keep in mind that this thing is pure crack- it implies a world where Sonic eventually collapses from exhaustion of having to fight TWO Robotniks. It’s a mish mash of what-if’s, continuity mergers and personal ideas glued together. And I wanna stress it has nothing to directly do with my current setting- this is just like, The Path of Insanity.
Anyway, yeah. Against my better judgement I made notes for this insanity. Also, you may notice pictures of characters from other franchises being used as portraits for various characters. Those are basically faceclaims of sorts, meant as abstract representations rather than the literal idea of what they looked like... since, honestly, even I’M not cruel enough to inflict my ‘art’ on you.
Anyway, let’s get the ball rolling-
“Robotnikhotep”
-Robotnik Ancestor in ‘Mobigypt’. Was probably some big important muckity-muck.
“Julius Robotnikus”
-Probably Mobius’ answer to Caligula. His family eventually fell out of power and was forced to re-settle in what would eventually become Overland.
Ivo Kintobor
-Yeah, that whole ‘House of Ivo’ thing? This is the guy responsible. Most likely a douchenozzle, as there is a high concentration of that in the bloodline. Basically a minor warlord who unified a bunch of clans to form his own Kingdom, that was subsequently absorbed into Overland during the unification.
Brutus Kintobor
-Oh wow, a SKINNY Robotnik/Kintobor. This douche canoe attempted to conquer Angel Island for the Overland, but failed miserably. Sent back home in disgrace, a failure.
Gerald Robotnik
- Originally born Gerald Kintobor of the House of Ivo in Overland. He was more interested in science than politics, and after completing college he left that mess behind and immigrated to the United Federation. He changed his name to signify the break from his family history.
-Explored Angel Island in his youth, where he learned about Chaos Emeralds and the like from the various ruins there. He was even friends with then-guardian Janelle-Li.
-Started up Robotnik CORPS. He founded it as a way to disseminate his technology to the people of the UF and earn money to fund more experiments.
-You know the rest. The ARK, Maria, NIDS, Black Doom, Shadow, yadda-yadda-yadda.
Olga Robotnik
-Gerald’s wife. Duh.
-She met him while he lived in a spare room her father was renting out. She’d collect his rent. They grew close and eventually had kids and started a family.
-The shit this poor woman endured is amazing, but she managed to remain unbroken by it, and tried to remain close to her surviving grandchildren.
Grigory Robotnik
- The first son of Gerald. He wasn’t a genius, but he pursued a career in academics and became a doctor of physics. He had two children, Warren and Maria.
-After the ARK incident he became paranoid and accused the government of covering up what really happened. The obsession to uncover the truth destroyed his physical and mental health, and he died a shunned outcast ranting on pirated radio stations about various conspiracies.
-Died in a halfway house, but he managed to get ahold of Gerald’s diary before biting it. While he never got to use it to bring down GUN, it still paved the way for Eggman’s eventual use.
Amelia Robotnik
-Maria’s mother. After the ARK incident and the supposed death of her children, she fell into a deep depression and eventually committed suicide. In case you haven’t noticed, the story of the Robotnik family is depressing as fuck.
Warren Robotnik, ‘Warpnik’
-Maria’s brother. What a tweest!
-He was with her on the ARK, and demonstrated a similar scientific gift to his grandfather. He wasn’t close to Shadow the way Maria was.
-When the ARK was raided, he was captured and subjected to brainwashing treatments by GUN in the hopes of turning him into a loyal, in-house mad scientist. All it did was make him batshit crazy.
-He escaped some time during the Great War, and is now loose in Mobius, a lunatic geneticist fixated on continuing his grandfather’s ‘great work’... or at least his own warped perception of it.
Maria Robotnik
-You know her. You love her. Her life is a tragedy. She’s Maria! Nuff said. Years later, and she still weighs heavily on Shadow.
Ivo Kintobor
-And here is where things get a bit confusing! Ivo was born ‘Ivo Robotnik’, the second son of Gerald. Long story short, he was a douche more interested in politics and profit, and as such did not get along with his father, who bequeathed the family company to his younger brother.
-Despite this, Ivo SOMEHOW managed to reproduce. And when the ARK incident happened, he bought the government line hook line and sinker. He changed the family name back to Kintobor and moved everyone back to Overland to start anew.
-He’s like 50% responsible for Julian winding up the way he did.
-And yes- he DOES want to bulldoze the puppy orphanage to create a combination oil rig/toxic waste dump.
-Was murdered by Julian, who disguised it as an accident.
Lydia Kintobor
-ICE BABY ICE.
-Julian and Colin’s mom.
-She 100% supported her husband’s douchery, and was an active participant in tormenting her secondborn son in the hopes of ‘breaking’ him out of being a genius.
-Killed in the same ‘accident’ that took her husband’s life.
Colin Kintobor Sr.
-Born in the United Federation, but moved to the Overland as a child and grew up there.
-Major league Nationalist and Human Supremacist. Prick.
-Hated Julian basically forever and was encouraged by his parents to do so. He became their ‘golden child’ and was pushed to succeed at everything.
-Pursued a career in politics, law, and the military, and eventually served as a general in the Great War.
-Was eventually murdered by his own brother
Miriam Kintobor
-Colin’s first wife, via arranged marriage.
-She was pretty much his opposite, yet despite that fact the two came to genuinely love one another.
-Died giving birth to their son. Have I mentioned the Kintobor/Robotnik family history is a trainwreck yet?
Angela Kintobor
-The second wife of Colin. She probably met him while serving as a military functionary during the Great War. She is also the mother of Hope Kintobor.
-Other than that, I got nothin’. She likely died when Hope was young, by way of Swatbot invasion. Seriously, do NOT become a Kintobor Love Interest.
Colin “Snively” Kintobor Jr.
-You know him, you hate him! It’s the Snivster, bay-bee!
-His mother died giving birth to him. His dad blamed him for this. You can guess the rest.
-You know most of the story- crappy childhood, admired his uncle Julian, helped him take over the Kingdom of Acorn, spent a decade as his punching bag, etc etc.
-After seemingly offing Julian during Endgame, he briefly took over the Robotnik Empire.... and promptly lost it to Naugus, forcing him to flee for his life. In exchange for information about Robotropolis’ defenses, King Acorn spared his life but sentenced him to be imprisoned forever.
-Was busted out by a returned Julian so that his uncle would be able to properly ‘thank’ him for losing his empire. Helped the FFs to escape Robotnik’s revenge, and after spending time bumming around with them (and hating it) decided to throw in his lot with Crazy Uncle Ivo.
-He’s regretted it ever since... though he sticks with him because its either Ivo or Julian, and Julian will ensure his death is cruel, messy, and lingers for years to come.
Hope Kintobor
-The second child of Colin Kintobor. She was born during the later years of the Great War and spent much of her early life living in siege conditions as Overland tried and failed to stop the advancement of Robotnik.
-Eventually she witnessed the death of her father and remaining family at the hands of Robotnik before being saved by Sonic. She had an extended stay in Knothole afterwards, where she slowly learned that much of her people’s views of Mobians was innacurate.
-She eventually moved to the United Federation as a ward of GUN, serving as the technology expert for Team Dark. She is close to all of them.
-Seeks to redeem the name of her family so that it’s legacy won’t be one of bloodshed, conquest and madness. She’s got a waaaays to go, to put it mildlry.
-Despite everything she still cares about her awful, awful half-brother.
Dr. Julian Robotnik
-Had a REALLY goddamned crappy....well, life, basically. Take my word for it.
-Has basically murdered his entire immediate family by this point.
-Prior to the Great War he aided the Overlander Ministry of Conflict in toppling the legitimate government of the Kingdom of Amunopolis (Aleena’s Kingdom), forcing it’s royal family to flee to the Kingdom of Acorn and re-settle under new identities, with crown princess becoming ‘Bernadette Hedgehog’. That’s right- he’s indirectly responsible for Sonic existing.
-Blah blah blah evil experiments blah blah war crimes blah blah sentenced to be executed by Overlander government during the Great War and blah blah blah coup.
-Took over a large swathe of Mobius and expanded to conquer more, and for a time seemed like he might conquer the entire planet. The Robotnik Empire is.... not a fun place. Then or now.
-Then Sonic and the FF’s happened. Then Endgame happened, and he was... indisposed for a while, leading to his empire being diminished. While he has returned, he has suffered numerous setbacks since then, and the Robotnik Empire is now greatly diminished from its peak.
-That being said, he still rules a pretty big part of the planet, and is still the biggest danger to the world at present.
-Hates his cousin Ivo.
-REALLY goddamn hates That Hedgehog.
Laura Kintobor
-That’s Doctor Laura Kintobor (nee Ellison) to you, buster.
-She and Julian both worked as scientists with Overland’s science ministry, where they met and befriended one another. She eventually managed to coax Julian out of his shell, and their friendship bloomed into a romance, which led to the two marrying.
-She worked in the organic sciences division and was an expert on biology and zoology. In contrast to most scientists, she was very much an outdoorswoman. Even managed to convince Julian to partake.
-Much like her unfortunate sister-in-law, she died in childbirth... giving birth to a stillborn daughter.
-Yeah, this shit is grim.
Theodore Robotnik
-Third son of Gerald. Blatantly named in reference to Theodore Roosevelt, who was used as a visual reference for Eggman.
-Basically a professional beancounter who later inherited Robotnik CORPS. He chose to stick with his original name even after the ARK incident, and struggled to keep Robotnik CORPS afloat in the immediate aftermath of the incident.
-Set up a trust fund for his son Ivo, and tried his best to raise him to be a contributing member of society.
-Sufficed to say, that didn’t work. If he’s still alive, he has a REALLY tense relationship with his son.
-Named his son after his older brother as a passive-aggressive act of spite for abandoning the ‘Robotnik’ name.
Dolores Robotnik
-Mother of Ivo. She was a professor of chemistry who decided to put her career on hold in order to be homemaker.
-Was much closer to her son than Theodore was, and often wound up having to play peacemaker between the two. ESPECIALLY during Ivo’s tumultous teenage years.
-Sufficed to say she is not exactly pleased with how he turned out, assuming she’s still alive even.
Dr. Ivo “Eggman” Robotnik
-HE IS THE EGGMAN. HE’S GOT THE MASTER PLAN! Really, do you NEED to know any more?
-Well, okay, you do. He was born very shortly before the ARK incident and never knew his grandfather.
-His childhood wasn’t horrible, but it was rough in areas due to his high intelligence making things more difficult for him than they should of be. Loads of disagreements with his dad over pursuing science. Spent years plagued by the derogatory name of ‘Eggman’ due to his weight problems.
-You know how you fantasize about ruling the world as a kid? He never really left that stage of things.
-He initially worked as a research scientist in the fields of AI and energy. During the Great War he was approached by GUN to develop weapons for them. His research would go on to form the basis of the robotic soldiers later used by them in the Robotnik war.
-Began his plot to take over Mobius during his time there, and secretly began to appropriate resources and machines to build a hidden base on the distant South Island. Eventually his schemes were discovered by GUN, but he fled.
-While his cousin conquered portions of Mobius elsewhere, Eggman began his long term Death Egg scheme as a means of conquering Mobius in one fell swoop with the aid of the Chaos Emeralds.
-You can guess how it goes from here- he encounters Sonic on South Island and in the Scrap Brain Zone and is defeated, thus setting the tone for MANY other defeats in the future. He eventually took on the name ‘Dr. Eggman’ as a way to differentiate himself from his cousin, and to make the insult that dogged his life into a name to be feared ala ‘Penguin’.
-When his cousin Julian was seemingly killed and the Robotnik Empire in dissarray, Eggman started new bids to take over the world. He established the Metropolis Zone as his ‘capital city’ and founded the Egg Army to help supplement his Badnik Horde. The Eggman Empire now exists as a terrorist army at the beck and call of Dr. Eggman, though he’s still got a ways to go.
-Has four sons by three different women. Slut.
???
-Haven’t got a name for her yet. She was a random girl that a college age Ivo knocked up, which putty much put an end to her collegiate ambitions. She gave birth to two sons, one of whom she bitterly named ‘Ivan’ as a reminder of his origins after failing to get child support out of her babydaddy. She re-married and is currently leading a comfortable enough life. Humors her son because she knows it annoys his biological father.
Ivan Eggman
-The oldest of Eggman’s sons. In his mid 30s or so. Scientifically gifted, as his father was.
-Has numerous, numerous issues pertaining to his stepfather, a hard and strict man with little toleration for nonsense.
-Idolizes his biological father and desperately wants to be acknowledged by him, even changing his original surname to ‘Eggman’. Eggman the 1st was NOT amused.
-Eventually founded a company, Eggman Industries, and grew rich rapidly. Settled by the Bygone Islands where he pursues life as a ‘villain’ now, though really he’s more like a public nuisance than anything.
-Honestly he’s basically living a ‘second childhood’ of sorts using his scientific know-how and riches, and has vowed to one day impress his father and earn his acknowledgement. As you can imagine, it is.... not working out at all, given that he’s even more of a goober than his pop.
-Ironically, he isn’t naturally bald- he SHAVES his head.
Steve
-Yeah, he ain’t a robot here- Steve is the organic, younger (by about a minute) twin brother of Ivan.
-Utterly unconcerned with science or any of that jazz. He’s basically a bohemian beach bum, complete with californian accent- he spends much of his time surfing and earning cash from side jobs.
-Really mellow and easy-going, and doesn’t really dwell on stuff.
-Utter himbo.
Mrs. Robotnik
- Ex-Wife of Ivo Robotnik. Haven’t given it too much thought, but she and Ivo met while working in acadamia, and eventually married.
-Initially the relationship was pretty solid, and they even had a child together. However things swiftly deteriorated between the two as Ivo’s immaturity and increasing anger at the world strained their relationship, along with him being a lousy parent to their son. She eventually divorced his ass.
-After going through a rough patch with her son, she has begun to re-connect with him after his years a delinquent, and now happily supports his endeavors.
Ivo Robotnik Jr.
-Middle son of Dr. Eggman. Had a nonexistant relationship with his father while growing up, which combined with the divorce eventually turned him into a juvenile delinquent.
-He roamed with a biker gang for a while, and prefers to be called ‘Junior’ rather than ‘Ivo’.
-Fell in with Breezie for a while, the both of them unaware of the other’s connection to Eggman. They eventually went their separate ways once Junior began to turn over a new leaf. He still carries a torch for her, though is painfully aware it’d never work out. Their relationship is... complicated, these days.
-Has since become a software security engineer, making a living providing Anti-Eggman/Robotnik software to companies.
Lindsey Thorndyke
-A famed actress. She and Ivo had a drunken tryst at a wrap party where he’d been invited to act as a consultant on scientific accuracy. To avoid scandal she informed her husband, and they passed off the baby as their own.��
-What more do you want. Its LINDSEY.
Chris Thorndyke
-The youngest son of Ivo Robotnik. Spent much of his life completely unaware of his true parentage.
-Eh, what can I say, I kind like the theory of him actually being a Robotnik in some capacity or the next.
-When he was a boy, he befriended Sonic and his friends and even hosted them during the days when Eggman’s schemes for global conquest caused him to haunt Station Square for a while.
-Admired his grandfather Chuck and pursued science to be like him, studying physics and engineering.
-Thanks to his mom he’s something of a film buff.
-In college he learned the truth of his heritage. This has put a strain on his relationship with his parents.
Francis Kintobor
-The youngest of Gerald’s sons. Pursued a career as a schoolteacher. While he changed his name in the aftermath of the ARK incident as his older brother Ivo had, he chose to make a small joke at his brother’s expense over the ludicrousness of the name change by naming his own son ‘Ovi Kintobor’.
-Named after Francis Mao, aka That Guy Who Made That One Comic Adaptation From 1991.
Elizabeth Kintobor
-Dr. Ovi Kintobor’s mother. A career veterinarian with a strong love of animals. That’s about it.
Ovi Kintobor
- Grew up on Westside Island, among Mobians. Had a pretty happy and contented childhood, and like many of the other various members of the Kintobor/Robotnik clan developed a pronounced interest and skill in science at a young age.
-Developed a particular interest in researching Chaos Emeralds.
-A Concientious Objector, he served as a medic during the Great War.
-Deeply, deeply shamed by the actions of his more notorious cousins, he has essentially hidden himself from the world to pursue his research and evade their notice, while helping against them in whatever way he can.
-Has secretly transported people threatened by his cousins to safer places, and once caused a mass sabotage of their respective robotic forces through the ‘Nicenik Virus’.
-An ally of the Freedom Fighters.
-Deeply distrusts GUN (which frankly isn’t a bad call).
-Bit of a hippy, but really is a genuinely nice guy who wants to help others through science.
-In some villages he is known as ‘Mr. Tinker’.
#Sonic the Hedgehog#Dr. Robotnik#Dr. Eggman#Colin Kintobor#Chris Thorndyke#Gerald Robotnik#Hope Kintobor#Snively#Warpnik#Maria Robotnik#Robotnik Junior#Boom Eggman#Steve Eggman#Robotnik Jr#Truly this was the best way to spend the finite thing known as my time on earth
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Stephen Smith of The Morning Line opens up.
I believe that Bay Area musician Stephen Smith began sending me stuff to listen to/review with his band The Morning Line a few years ago. I really like the band’s brand of melodic rock/pop and was curious to know more. I then realized it was the same Stephen Smith who had been in Boston faves Salem 66 many years before. I then wondered what other bands he had been in that I had maybe checked out (or own records by) so I tossed him some questions that he was more than happy to answer. Read on and give the band a listen, they really deserve your time.
RAWK
Where did you grow up? Was it the Boston area?
North Shore of Chicago until about 14, then high school in the Boston suburbs. I stayed in and around Boston, with stints in New York, L.A., and North Carolina, until I was 25. I was into music as a kid in Chicago, but too young to really be going to shows or anything. Boston was where I really had my musical coming of age. There was a surprising amount of stuff happening in the Suburbs. I saw Husker Du in Concord. The Dead Kennedys in Waltham. And Boston was only about 45 minutes away by train. I remember going into the city and buying records at Newbury Comics, with Aimee Mann behind the register.
What was the first instrument you picked up?
Why I started playing french horn at 11 or 12, I don’t know. It didn’t last. I started playing guitar pretty quickly after that. My first electric was a Stratocaster. I was probably 12 years old. 1979? It was used, so I’m guessing it was an early 70’s one. Got stolen at CBGB while I was loading in in the mid-80’s. Thieves work fast! Let me know if you’ve seen it.
What was the first record you remember buying? As a kid nay band knock your socks off?
My memory is embarrassing, but I recall three early purchases. Singles of ELO’s “Turn to Stone,” and Gary Numan’s “Cars,” and a Beatles comp called “Rock ‘n’ Roll Music.”
The most recent album from 2019.
What bands were you introduction to punk/new wave/alternative music?
I remember very distinctly tuning into WLYN (later WFNX) and hearing Gun Club’s “Sex Beat”, and Bush Tetras’ “Cowboys in Africa,” and being amazed. I’ll tell you what, though, high school girlfriends were absolutely key to my musical education. Gang of Four? X? Learned about them through my first girlfriend. The Replacements? Through my second. I’m the great beneficiary of other people being better informed than me. Through these same people, I became aware of what was going on locally, and was turned on pretty early to stuff like Christmas, Volcano Suns, the Proletariat.
Was Expando Brain your first band? If not what?
As a fifteen-year-old, I had a couple bands with friends playing covers (I remember Gang of Four’s “Essence Rare,” X’s “Riding with Mary,” “Brand New Cadillac”). But Expando Brain was the first “real” band. I think I was 16 when we started that. Being that age and getting to play shows (like that CBGB one where I lost the guitar), make a record, and be ever-so-slightly enjoyed by some people, was a thrill. I suppose obviously.
Tell me about your time in Salem 66? Howe did you initially meet those ladies?
I don’t remember how we got together! I’m going to guess it was David Savoy’s doing. David managed Expando Brain for a while. He later managed Husker Du, before passing in early 1987. I think he got me together with them. I was 18-19 at the time. They were all 5-10 years older, so we wouldn’t have been traveling in the same circles.
It was absolutely thrilling for me. They were a great, interesting, band. They had “made it,” in my youthful eyes. Signed to Homestead Records? Come on. Gerard had rejected Expando Brain. So I was gonna be on my favorite label (well, maybe SST aside)! I was only in the band for nine months (I think I was a pretty relentless pain in the ass), but so much happened in that time. I think it was all in 1986. We did a tour through the south, so I saw places I’d never seen. We did another tour as a part of our travel to make “Frequency & Urgency,” so I got to see California, an unknown place that loomed so large in my imagination. We stopped in Needles, on the CA/AZ border, and I skated the pool of the motel we stayed at (very poorly). We made the record with Ethan James, who had recorded one of my favorite records of all time (“Double Nickels on the Dime”). I got my first tattoo while we were in L.A. making the record. It was just a dream for a 19-year-old who wanted to be a musician. In some minor way, I *was*.
Waiting for the pizza delivery.
Was God’s Eye next? If so how did that band begin (and end)?
Yes and no. After getting booted from Salem 66, I went to school. Spent a year at Vassar College. There, I started the first version of God’s Eye with my brother, Tim, who would drive out to Poughkeepsie from Boston now and then to rehearse, and with Ivor Hanson, another Vassar student, who had earlier been in Faith and Embrace (and has gone on to lots of other things, musical and otherwise). I was just writing riffs then, nothing very substantial, and that came to an end at the end of the school year. At the same time, I answered an ad in the Village Voice. A band in North Carolina, apparently signed to a major, was looking for a guitar player. I noodled some notes onto a tape, took a picture, and sent it. I got an audition, then the gig. The band was called the Right Profile and, at the time, they were signed to Arista. ….but no record ever came out. Sort of a roots/American thing before that was a thing. Maybe Petty-ish? I hate to pigeonhole. So I moved to North Carolina. The band was led by a guy named Jeffrey Dean Foster, who is still making great music today. The drummer was Jon Wurster, a name I’m sure you know. For about nine months – again - I played with them. I was the wrong guy for the job though. I didn’t really have the kind of sideman chops they needed. Can’t remember if I jumped or was pushed. Maybe some combination. As an old man, it’s been nice reconnecting with them through the miracle of social media. A year or two after that, I restarted God’s Eye with my brother. In candor, it wasn’t very good. I had decided I needed to sing in a lower register, and it was really just bellowing. Despite that, we had remarkable success. We were managed by Boston dynamo Joyce Linehan, who would later go on to work at Sub Pop, work with Joe Pernice, and work as chief of staff to the Mayor of Boston. She got us much further than we (I) deserved. We made an album, an ep, and a single for Domino in England. The album also came out on Rough Trade in Germany. We got to play some dates in London. Nothing ever came out in the U.S. We had some interest, but it never materialized.
Anything in between that band and your move to the west coast?
Near the end of God’s Eye, I also played a bit with Green Magnet School. They needed a bassist, and I pitched in. Chris Pearson, one of the guitar players in the band, returned the favor, adding a second guitar for God’s Eye. I was lucky to be able to record a single with GMS, the Sub Pop double-single with Six Finger Satellite.
When did you make your movie to the Bay Area and what prompted that?
Frustration with music prompted it. I remember having breakfast with an exec from Stone Roses’ label. Silvertone, if I recall correctly. He sounded so into it! He was gonna put out the God’s Eye record in the U.S.! But it didn’t happen. I decided I needed to have more control over my life, so I bore down, finished college, and moved across the country to San Francisco, sight unseen, to go to law school.
The latest single from earlier this year.
Were you in any bands before the Morning Line in San Francisco?
In law school I met a fellow student, Jason Hammon, who was in the midst of a pretty successful rock career. He was in Dance Hall Crashers. We stayed friends and, in 2000 or so, we started a band called My Fellow Astronauts, with his brother Gavin (another DHCrasher) and my friend Scout (Scout Shannon & the Willing Deceivers). We played some shows, recorded some demos, but nothing ever came of it.
Tell us about the beginnings of The Morning Line?
It’s 2004 or so. My friend Marco Baroz (Lucy & the Long Haul) played bass, David Knupp played guitar, and somehow we found David Shollenbarger. Maybe craigslist or something? David had played for awhile with Agent Orange. We were in our late 30’s, and knew not to take it too seriously. But we made some demos, and an album in 2007 (“Stay My Satellite”). We were and are very fortunate to have a friend named Peter Craft, who has a great studio called Boxer Lodge, and great skills. We got to spend a year working on the album, and get it just the way we wanted. We self-released, but got a few reviews and a few fan letters, and that’s all I could hope for. Eventually, the lack of success that comes with being in a band of forty-somethings took its toll, and the band was pretty much dissolved in 2008. But Peter (also a terrific drummer) and I kept making demos. I wrote some stuff I liked in about 2015, so we started recording again using The Morning Line name. “Stephen Smith” is too generic to get the job done.
“Smoke,” from 2017, is a collection of things we did over a few years. “North,” from 2019, was a focused, intentional album project, all recorded with Peter, David Knupp, and Brian Mello (the Bellyachers). That’s the band today. I write the songs and sing, but it really wouldn’t sound like it does without them, especially Brian (I don’t think Peter or David will be offended by that).
I know you just released a Morning Line single. What’s next for the band?
Not sure! I’m still riding the high of getting a couple songs done with all of us in quarantine! We’re talking about putting out a collection of odds and ends: demos, the songs from this new single, some remixes. But I’m not sure. We’ll be putting out a couple of those old outtakes as a Big Stir digital single in June. An album of all new material is probably in the future, but I’d guess at least 18 months out. We’re . . . deliberate.
Prior to COVD was the band actively playing locals shows and or doing any touring?
Not really. We play from time to time, but it’s mostly a recording project at this point. You’d be surprised how little interest there is in watching an obscure group of fifty-somethings peddle their wares.
A man, his dog and a weird-ass mountain (ok, hill).
Who are some of your favorite current bands, local or otherwise?
I’ve been oddly incurious about new music the past few years. I just looked at the Outside Lands schedule and was like, “scarypoolparty? What?” I know that’s inconceivable to you. I tend to get excited by friends’ new products. People I’ve mentioned here, like Brian Mello and Scout Shannon, have had things out over the past year or two. My friend Russell Tillitt has something coming out. Jeff Shelton’s Well Wishers. Just off the top of my head. Bigger name stuff? I like the new Besnard Lakes record. The most recent Sleaford Mods. I’d be happy to hear the new Wrens record, which I suspect may never come.
What are your top 10 desert island discs?
You know how hard this is. Every day a different answer, right? Here goes:
Neil Young – Live Rust The Clash – London Calling Wrens – Meadowlands X – Los Angeles Gang of Four – Entertainment Replacements – Let it Be Jesus Lizard – Goat Jam – Sound Affects Teenage Fanclub – Catholic Education Wipers – Over The Edge
Those and a hundred others.
Final words? Closing comments? Words of wisdom?
Thanks for giving me the chance to think about this stuff. It’s fun to do a little reminiscing. As you know, there’s a deep bench of older indie-rock folks out there, still at it, and doing it pretty well. Thanks for giving us some attention.
BONUS QUESTION: Red Sox or Giants?
60/40 Giants. It's nice to have a team in each league.
https://themorningline.bandcamp.com/
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My First 8 Months as an RN.
December 18, 2019 I graduated from nursing school with my bachelor’s of science in nursing, or, BSN. I spent 4 and a half years studying my ass off, canceling dates, missing family events, etc. and now finally I was going to show off my success.
Let me back up a little bit though. I started college in 2015, right after high school. I knew what I wanted to do, but it was so overwhelming and I didn’t know how I could accomplish something like this. I’m the first one in my family to get a college degree. After high school graduation, my grandmother became terminally ill, and after a long battle, we lost her in July of 2015. She was my strength and motivation. I truly didn’t know how to live in a world without her. She had been so proud of me for my decision to go to nursing school. Without her, I felt like I couldn’t do it.
I’ve been dealing with anxiety and depression since I was 14, but when I lost my grandma, I fell down into a really dark path. I almost blew off college completely. I avoided talking to a lot of people I was closest with, and in turn lost some friends. However, I knew I had to go to college. My grandma would’ve been so disappointed in me if I blew off my dream. So I went. I made some acquaintances, but no one I would really call a good friend during my first couple of semesters taking prerequisite courses for my program. I fell in love with a boy who shattered any bit of self- esteem I had left. I skipped classes here and there. I wasn’t sleeping enough or eating enough but I still powered through because I didn’t want to be a failure. I got accepted into the nursing program to start my nursing courses in the fall of 2017. I was excited and nervous but so happy my hard work was paying off even if I had slacked off some. Summer of 2017, right before my nursing classes were to begin, I attempted suicide and landed myself in a behavioral health unit for 5 days. I finally had lost control of myself.
If you had asked me at that time where did I see myself in 5 years, I never would’ve believed that I would manage to graduate college or become an RN even though that was my dream. Truthfully, I didn’t see myself even living to be 23. After being hospitalized, I started to see a therapist. I also started to see a psych nurse practitioner. I started a combination of drug therapy and behavioral therapy and although it’s been a struggle, I’m in such a great place now. During my nursing school journey, I made amazing friends who became my family. I learned how to reach out for help when I needed it. I was finally back in control again.
December 18, 2019, I graduated with my BSN, and already had an RN job lined up. The day I thought would never come was finally here. All my studying was finally going to be over. (After I took NCLEX of course) It was finally time for me to schedule my NCLEX. (my board exam for my license) Although I made it through my program, I was terrified of failing the NCLEX.
February 7, 2020 I sat to take my NCLEX. My test shut off in 75 questions (the minimum required) and I was horrified. You can pass or fail in 75 questions, and I was convinced I had failed miserably and would need to re-take the exam again. February 8, 2020 I received my congratulations e-mail letting me know I had passed my exam and was officially a registered nurse. Although I had already been working at my hospital as an aide, I would now be starting my new career as an RN on February 10, 2020.
For those who don’t know, you go through a minimum of 8 weeks of orientation as a brand new nurse. It can be longer depending on the area you will be working in, or the place you are working at. My preceptor and I had a lot of differences. I never knew what kind of mood she would be in, and it was discouraging to me as a new nurse. I was almost afraid to ask questions because she wasn’t always the nicest person. She made me feel incompetent a lot, but looking back I think she was just trying to push me to be the best I could be. With that being said, I’m so grateful she was my preceptor. I learned so much from her in the time I trained with her. Because of her, I’ve learned to be more confident and advocate for my patients. I’ve learned how to give tough love to patients that need it. I’ve learned how to be caring and compassionate while also standing firm and doing what’s best for my patients. I’ve even learned how to adapt to constant change especially being in the midst of a pandemic.
I’ve only been a nurse out of training since April 2020. In that time I’ve had a lot of ups and downs. I’ve had good nights and I’ve had horrible nights where I’ve sat in my car and cried after work before driving home to sleep. I’ve had nights where I’ve had to go into my boss’s office in the morning and tell her what I screwed up this time. I’ve worked 13+ hour shifts to ensure I completed everything I needed to do. I go to work a half hour early so I can spend time looking at patients’ charts so I can better understand their story. My goal each shift is to put a smile on my patients’ faces and let them know that I care and I will do the best I can for them. In my 8 months as an RN thus far, I’ve dealt with my first death, being punched by a patient, having a walker thrown at me by a patient, I’ve been verbally abused by patient family members, etc. However, I’ve also been thanked endlessly for what I do. Patients have told me they’re proud of me for being the nurse that I am and being so young. I’ve laughed and cried with patients. I’ve sat in patient rooms for long periods of time just so they could talk to me about what is going on in their lives and how scared they are. I’ve been the difference in others’ lives. Becoming an RN was no easy task. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done hands down, but it is also the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done. I’m nowhere near feeling like I know anything, but that’s okay because I learn something new each day. I know I will never know EVERYTHING, but I always challenge myself each night to learn about something new. Being an RN has changed my life for the better. I’ve grown as a person. I’ve grown in confidence. I’ve finally found my voice. I’m not perfect. I still have bad days. I still go to therapy to let out thoughts in my head. However, I finally feel like I have a purpose in life. I was made to help out others.
So, here’s to the 8 months I’ve been a nurse, and here’s to the many years to come. I don’t know where my career will take me, but I cannot wait to find out.
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A Story of Healing, Forgiveness, Adversity, Wisdom, and Improvement
This is the story of a young man who needed to find where he belonged. A man who felt out of place everywhere he was until he realized what his life was missing. He had to reinvent himself several times before he got it right, but he eventually *did* find his peace. His story is as true as it needs to be for others to benefit and learn from his experience.
It’s also the story, to one degree or another, of everyone who has found themselves in a similar situation.
I hope this helps all of them. Hold on. Things will work out for you.
His name is not important. What his story can teach others is.
Although he did not at first realize it, he was born into a broken and abusive household. His parents never really meant to harm him -- but, as is so often the case, well-intentioned people often hurt the ones closest to them not out of malice, but simply because they are flawed. His mother, to be precise, was the product of a severely abusive home, herself. She also had had a major head injury and, probably, a variety of mental illnesses. Thus, although quite clearly very well-intentioned, his mother often was an extremely anxious, alarmist, and controlling woman. After the young man had become more mature, he would realize that his mother’s behavior was caused not by her being evil, but simply by the fact that she had been quite damaged.
Her husband, the young man’s father, was almost completely dominated by his mother. This was not because the young man’s father lacked a spine or courage or sense (in later years, the man would recognize that his father had all of these virtues and many more in abundance), but rather because his father was not terribly wealthy, and his mother, for the most part, owned most of his family’s money. Throughout their troubled and often horrid marriage, the young man’s parents were constantly fighting, mostly about money. Beyond that, though, his mother was actually fighting for stability and control -- something that, for a person with serious mental health issues, was ultimately very important.
This domination by his mother led to some very unhealthy dynamics in his household.
The young man had an elder brother and a younger sister.
His brother went on to become very ambitious, headstrong, tough, and dedicated. Despite this, his brother had some serious flaws. Perhaps because of this brother’s good qualities, his brother was also often very judgmental, arrogant, and, on occasion, cruel. The young man had, through the stupidities and insecurities of youth, done serious harm to this brother on occasion, and he and this brother fought often and bitterly. Although there was often intense hostility and sibling rivalry between the young man and this brother, this brother would also go on to do quite well, eventually being accepted into a prestigious college after a superb high school career. When he thought back on his early life, the young man would later realize that his brother’s toughness and drive probably came from the severe adversity his brother had had to go through in the absence of caring and attentive parents. The young man would thus eventually come to view his brother with a combination of respect and admiration, and would beg forgiveness from this brother.
The young man’s younger sister did not have the elder brother’s drive and ambition, but had also gone on to make a life for himself. The young man was glad that his siblings had made lives for themselves.
The young man’s own life turned out to be far more troubled.
Although there was never much point in rebelling against the authority and power of his two parents, the young man would spend most of his adolescence fighting a hopeless battle against their unfair rules and restrictions. Not only were these rules and restrictions damaging and dangerous, but they were also so extremely unfair.
Even as a youth, the young man knew that rebellion was ultimately futile. His parents simply had all the power and money, and he had no legal right to insist that they behave fairly or to request that they justify their behavior. Still, he rebelled anyway, if only because his parents’ behavior was so outrageous that it almost demanded rebellion. In the end, he defied his parents simply because not doing so would have made him submissive psychologically.
Perhaps because of this, the young man had a very troubled adolescence. He would often skip classes, run away from home for significant periods of time, and neglect his homework. He was also diagnosed with clinical depression around age 15, and his life at home quickly deteriorated into chaos. As his behavior and mental health declined, his mother’s behavior became more and more histrionic, intense, controlling, domineering, and bullying. These problems led him to do very poorly in school, and he would spend the later years of his adolescence just surviving one crisis or another. Although he would eventually graduate from high school, his performance had been very mediocre, and he had lost a lot of potential to these problems.
Due to these and related issues, the young man would spend most of this adolescence and 20′s simply coasting through life, jumping from one menial job to the next while taking a very light load of college courses. Far too much of his life was spent “just getting by”, without a clear idea of what a meaningful or happy life would be like or a clear idea of how to create such a life.
As it turned out, in addition to his troubled childhood, the young man also had another, insidious problem that prevented him from gaining a strong sense of meaning or purpose from any particular career path or area of study.
Perhaps because of his unusually troubled childhood and life, the young man had, very unfortunately and unwisely, become a “deep thinker”. Although he recognized that this had certain great advantages in helping him think clearly and carefully, he also had a certain odd indifference and apathy towards many of the things his peers and friends found interesting. It wasn’t that he could claim that the things his peers wanted in life were bad -- they just were missing something. It wasn't as though status, money, sex, fun, and prestige were bad -- it was just that the young man was searching for something else.
This would cause the young man a great degree of trouble during his adolescence and early adulthood. Not only would he never feel a strong attraction to any particular area of study, but he would often avoid socializing and interacting with his peers due to this odd feeling that something was profoundly missing from these social events.
It was due to this and similar problems that the young man would ultimately waste his 20's. Before he knew it, he was on the cusp of his 32nd birthday, with few accomplishments to show for it and very few interests. The man often wondered why he was so indifferent toward most of the world and the people and things in it. His life had become a pathetic, apathetic, grey shell of an existence. Would this be the rest of his life, drifting aimlessly from one distraction to the next without any real profound sense of meaning or direction? He hoped not, and because there was still hope that this would not always be the case, he continued surviving -- but never living. In a fit of desperation, he turned toward contemplation of his problems and philosophy as both a consolation and a self-diagnosis.
And that's when it happened. He suddenly had an epiphany. That's when everything changed.
He realized in a sudden flash of insight what his life had been missing. Finally, after so many years of aimless searching, he had his answers. Things finally made sense.
He had been contemplating the many problems he had gone through in his life when it struck him. Without quite knowing what had prompted him to this realization, he slowly came to a conclusion about what his life had been missing -- the something missing that he had never found.
It was simply faith in humanity.
This point needs to be clarified. For most of his life, the young man had been a die-hard pessimist. This was not because he considered pessimism to be edgy or intellectual or cool, but rather because so much of what others deemed so deserving of worship was, ultimately, not what they thought it was. For some people in the young man's life, they had preached the value of their religious beliefs and devotion to God. For others, patriotism and nationalism were their bedrock. Still others simply tried to live as happy and pleasurable a life as possible, thinking these goals were the main reasons for the majority of human civilization and progress. And yet others claimed that he should help his fellow man.
But the young man had seen through each of these. When it came to religion, the young man felt he had very strong reasons to be an atheist. When it came to patriotism, he knew that, while serving other individual people might be worthwhile, his country had done horrible things in the name of national pride, prestige, and power. And, oddly enough, even living life for the pleasure and happiness that one could get from it rang hollow. Happiness, he had realized, was not a result of pleasurable, exciting, or comfortable surroundings. Happiness, instead, was a byproduct of living a good life that one was content with. Perhaps some people could live life happily with only creature comforts, fun, and hedonistic pleasures. However, the young man and most of the human race required something more -- a sense of meaning. He realized that all the luxury, fun, and free time in the world would not satisfy him. At least, not by themselves.
It was service to humanity that appealed to the young man the most -- but eventually it, too, was promptly dismissed. The young man had, once upon a time, been idealistic. He had earnestly believed that the world could be saved -- if only enough people combine their efforts behind a common cause and work toward furthering that cause.
Pessimism and experience would eventually leave the young man disillusioned from this dream. Although many people in the world had shown him the potential for good in human behavior, it had always seemed to him that humanity's potential for immorality was far greater. Furthermore, when people were charitable or generous toward strangers, it was often due to an underlying assumption that the stranger was, in general, someone fundamentally good and worth helping – which, the young man reflected, was not necessarily true, by many people’s standards of the word “good”. Add to this the fact that people had a right to their own opinions and very frequently chose to believe senseless or irrational things or make senseless or irrational choices. Bettering the world was, the young man reflected, a very hard thing to do on any notable scale.
However, in a sudden moment of clarity, the young man saw the flaw in his previous beliefs. Although large scale change might be too hard of a thing to hope for (large scale changes were usually caused by large numbers of people mobilizing), the young man saw a quite different and far more reliable and compelling reason for morality. On the level of individuals¸ a great deal of good could be done. As the young man thought about this more and more, he realized that his biggest regrets in life were the times where he had hurt others out of his own insecurities, and that the proudest moments of his life were the instances where he had encouraged or helped others. Helping other individuals on a day-by-day basis, the young man realized, was worth the effort. For some strange reason, the young man had gotten the foolish and pessimistic idea into his head that only large scale changes in humanity mattered – that, since society at large wasn’t going anywhere, it was ultimately pointless to try to change things.
Now, though, the young man saw the error of his ways. He had a new purpose in life, and a new reason to be the best person he could be, and it had nothing to do with believing that human beings were all God’s special snowflakes, or with denying the hard truths of this world. Going forward, the young man would pay attention to the good that could be done in the world, from the daily decencies and kindnesses toward the people in his life, to the small acts of humanity and generosity he could accomplish. He felt, for the first time in a long time, like he was moving forward and like he had a purpose worth working toward and fighting for.
It was true that he had lost a lot of time.
But he would catch up, he realized.
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neon moon || chapter 1 - broadcast me a joyful noise unto the times
A/N: Disclaimer, I haven’t written fanfic since I was fourteen so please be gentle with me, friends
AO3 link
Fair warning that the only editing this has gone through has been proofreading!
Also, the first two chapters are largely exposition and setting up the various connections between Frankie and the MC (Natalia), but they will finally get to meet in chapter three!
Neon Moon summary: [starts three years after the events of the movie]
Single dad Francisco "Frankie" Morales and former Ph.D candidate Natalia Yevstigneyev-Diaz are trying their best.
Alternatively: Frankie and the woman about to change his life keep missing each other, until they don't.
“Whoo-wee! Nice one, Diaz!” Benny said from where he’d just been knocked onto his back atop the sparring mats.
At her instructor’s praise, Natalia Diaz preened, making a show of taking her long dark wavy-curls out of her workout ponytail and flipping her hair over her shoulder. “Thank you, thank you, always happy to hear my badassery is increasing.”
“I’d say perfecting. That was solid.”
“Yeah, haven’t seen him go down that unexpectedly probably ever,” piped up a man with big, kind brown eyes whose name Natalia swore was Frankie. She’d only ever heard him called by his real name once or twice --- Benny usually greeted him as Fish.
If Frankie was here, that meant the rest of Benny Miller’s military buddies would be trickling into the gym. Pity they seemed to be on time today— flipping Benny was fun, maybe he’d’ve given her a window to do it again. Sometimes if his buddies ran late he’d keep sparring with her past the self-defense session she’d paid for.
“It’s thanks to him and his lessons! Wouldn’t know where to begin without him.” Natalia hi-fived Benny from where he was on the floor, now sitting. “Thanks as always, Benny. See you Friday afternoon?”
“Hell yeah!”
“Awesome. Well, I’ll get out of your hair before the rest of the guys show up. Later Benny!” She nodded politely to Frankie just as she spotted the man she knew to be Benny’s older brother and...Pope? Santiago? again, she’d only run into these men in passing.
~.*~.*~.*~.*
Natalia Diaz’s early life read like an adventure, and in many ways, it had been. Her mother, Anna Diaz, was a first generation Mexican-American of Spanish, Mixtec, and Chinese background who met her father, then in medical school, while studying abroad in Russia. Her father, Gavril Yevstigneyev, was from Yakutsk of mixed Russian, Yakut, and Chuvash background. He was a doctor who gave up the possibility of an ultra-lucrative career to spend most of his life working as a medical officer in human rights organizations, and she was a research assistant in those same organizations.
Born while her father was practicing in St. Petersburg, Natalia Gavrilovna Yevstigneyeva Diaz didn’t spend too long in one place. She may have been a dual citizen of the United States and Russia but she didn’t set foot in the United States until she was twelve years old, and her earliest concept of ‘home’ was Pakse, Laos. She was educated at international schools across Southeast Asia, and spoke Lao, Khmer, and Vietnamese in daily life depending on where the Yevstigneyev family was living, Russian at home, learned English and French at school, and her mother taught her enough Spanish to understand her abuela’s English-Spanish mix on birthday and Christmas phone calls.
When it came time to graduate from secondary school - she graduated in Laos, ultimately - she even applied to universities across Laos, Canada, Cambodia, France, The United States, Switzerland, China, Singapore, Australia, and Russia. At her parents’ insistence she cast her net far and wide. Except, with twenty-two acceptance letters and zero rejections, she almost wished she hadn’t.
She studied at McGill University and through a combination of scholarships, her parents’ help, and her “waitressing” job (stripping job actually, and Natalia was damn proud of it and the crazy money it made, but knew her parents would flip out on her so she lied), she earned her B.A.s in linguistics with a minor in translation and interpretation, and anthropology.
She had her pick of the litter as far as where she could settle post-grad: her dual citizenship made the US and Russia wide open to her, Canadian employers were offering to keep her in Canada, her parents still lived in Laos - six years in one place? That was a record for her folks! - and the NGO they were working for straight up offered her a job without her even sending an application.
There wasn’t a grad school on planet Earth that would’ve rejected her application.
Natalia’s life should have been set forever. For a while, it was.
After a gap year traveling Bhutan, Thailand, Indonesia, Mongolia, and completing the Trans-Siberian railway with her younger sister Mariya, who took a gap year between secondary school and university herself, Natalia prepared to conquer grad school….at motherfucking Yale!
That same year, her parents and younger siblings (save Mariya who was studying at Yakutsk State University in their father’s home Russian Republic of Yakutia) moved to her mother’s home state of Texas. A part of Natalia felt bad for her eleven year old sister and the three year old twins out of some sense that her upbringing had been, objectively, the best possible. Natalia did not feel Russian, or Mexican, or American, or Laotian, or Cambodian, or Vietnamese, nor did she feel the need to. Borders were an arbitrary thing. People were people just with different languages, looks, and customs, and she believed she came to know that truth early in life because of her childhood as a third culture kid.
She understood why her parents made that decision though.
In her first year of grad school, the Yevstigneyev Diaz siblings were twenty-two year old Natalia, nineteen-year-old Mariya, eleven-year-old Valentina, and two-year-old Alisa and her twin brother, the only boy in the family, Pavel. Alisa had been born partially deaf and their parents, as if they could react any other way, saw it not as a terrible thing to mourn over but as an opportunity to learn. A challenge did not equal a burden in their eyes. When she was two, however, they realized they needed to either move back to Russia or move to the United States.
The Yevstigneyevs primarily worked and lived in Vietnam and Laos, and there was no singular Laotian or Vietnamese sign language, rather, localized sign languages. As Alisa grew from an infant to a toddler they decided they did not want to deprive her of Deaf culture, and thus, the decision to move to Texas was made.
Just two years after relocating to Texas, tragedy struck the family.
A car speeding through a red light killed Anna and Gavril on the way home from volunteering their time to teach Russian classes at the local Russian cultural center. Natalia, then twenty-four years old with a newly minted Masters from Yale and acceptances to three Ph.D programs, had to force out emails declining the offers, pack up her apartment, and move to Texas to raise her siblings.
Abuela Rita instinctively offered to handle her grandchildren, but Natalia couldn’t possibly make her abuela (who she barely knew at that) raise three children again. Besides, her mother’s youngest sister still lived at home, and this was the same year Hurricane Harvey destroyed one of her uncle’s homes and he, his wife, and their children were also living in Abuela’s home...yeah, no. No, this had to be Natalia.
It was Natalia or the state of Texas and like hell she was going to throw her three little siblings, two of them just four, and one of them deaf, into the system. Alisa being able to communicate in ASL was so important to her parents...how could Natalia possibly let Alisa go into a system that wouldn’t care?
And anyway, it wasn’t so bad. She used her fluency in Russian, Lao, Khmer, and French to work as a book translator. She’d even gone back to dancing four days a week for two reasons. A. You’d think speaking five languages fluently would mean she was making an assload of money, right? Wrong. and B. The inheritance and life insurance policies from her parents wouldn’t last forever and she had four college educations to finance.
That was three years ago, and two and a half years before she started taking self-defense classes from Benny Miller. She’d only been working at an Austin strip club for about four months when one handsy patron reminded her that she needed a refresher on how to throw a punch.
As for why she was Natalia Diaz now and not Natalia Yevstigneyeva? Well. She was still Natalia Yevstigneyeva-Diaz, but unless she was filling out legal papers, or at the Russian cultural center, it was just Diaz. Her mother’s last name was just easier for Austinites to pronounce right. You had to be at least a level six friend to unlock her tragic backstory and her full last name.
Natalia had had everything going for her until one drunk driver took her parents, her Ph.D goals, her planned return to traveling the world, and even her name in one instant.
She wished she had it in her to be bitter but that would require her to have time to think about herself anymore. If it wasn’t taking ASL classes with Alisa, it was listening to Mariya complain about her job. If it wasn’t Valentina’s archery competitions, it was Pavel’s gymnastics meets.
(Yes, yes, she knew. How stereotypically Russian of them to have a kid in competitive gymnastics. It wasn’t her idea! Pavel loved it and when he begged his big sister to be allowed more than one class a week...she dared anybody to say no to that face.)
Any Natalia time she did have was too precious to spend being bitter, she decided.
~.*~.*~.*~.*
“Natasha! Nataaaaaaaasha….NATASHA!”
“Wha!” Thud! “Fuck. Oww.”
Natalia groaned from where she’d fallen into a startled pile on the living room floor, staring up at the ceiling and turned her head to shoot a glare at Mariya.
“Marusya, one day, you’re going to scare me awake to actual death.”
“That’s impossible.” Valentina said from where she sat at the dining table typing up a paper for school. “If you’re scared to literal death you can’t be scared awake because you’ll be dead. Dead people can’t be awake.”
“Unless she’s a zombie, Valya!” Shouted Pavel from his room down the hall.
“Pasha’s got a point.” Mariya said, to which Natalia grabbed her foot and yanked hard, making her shriek as she fell against the couch. “Oof. Anyway, you’re going to be late for work if you don’t hurry up.”
Natalia checked her watch and let out a swear under her breath. “I really need to not spar with Benny on work nights. Hey, Valya-” she sat up on the floor and whirled around to face her middle sister. “Do I need to drop you off for babysitting anywhere tonight?”
Valentina shook her head. “Abuela’s picking me up to take me to Mr. Morales’. I’m watching Daniela.” Mr. Morales - whoever that was - lived near Abuela and her taking Valentina to his house gave her some ‘Valone time’ she liked to say.
Natalia peeled herself off the floor and made her way to her bedroom, stopping by Alisa’s on the way. She grabbed the purple narwhal plushie that lived in a little basket attached to her door - the Get Alisa’s Attention Narwhal - and gently tossed it at Alisa, and when it landed in her lap Alisa tossed it back to Natalia, kept her hands free, and said “I didn’t forget.”
“Good. If you’re good at the dentist tomorrow morning, I’ll buy you ice cream after.”
“Isn’t that the opposite of what you should do after the dentist?”
“So you don’t want ice cream?” “That’s not what I said!”
Natalia laughed and stepped far enough into Alisa’s room to ruffle her hair and then said, “Be good. Masha’s in charge while I’m at work.”
~.*~.*~.*~.*
“Thought you were day shift on Wednesdays, Natasha!” A black woman with her hair in box braids — Jess, stage name Phoenix — said, throwing her arm around Natalia when she first got to work.
“Nah, I talked to Paris, got my hours changed around, remember? Gosh, it’s like you don’t remember everything I ever say to you.”
Jess stuck her tongue out and muttered, “Bitch,” before smooching Natalia’s cheek.
Natalia shoved Jess off of her with a giggle. “Go finish getting ready, ya crazy.” She sat down in front of one of the available mirrors to touch up her makeup before she was officially working, then addressed Jess again. “My 11-8 days are now Sunday and Monday. Wednesday, Saturday, I’m here with you 8 til 4, baybeeeee.”
“Mm, good call. Wine Wednesday.”
Half price wine meant more cash for dancers.
“Needs more body glitter,” Natalia said in her best Christopher Walken impression, before unscrewing the cap of her body glitter to shiny herself up.
“Now in your Zoya voice!”
“Needs more body glitter,” Natalia repeated, this time, in her stage persona’s stronger Russian accent.
The accent helped to further distinguish between Zoya the performer and who Natalia was offstage. It also wasn’t exactly offensive, either, because it was just Natalia exaggerating the accent she naturally had and just making it consistently Russian. It was a mess otherwise. Natalia and Mariya...talked funny. Their accents were kind of impossible to place because of how they learned English and which languages they first learned to actually speak in.
At first listen, their international school education would hint at American- ish . But listen closely and certain vowels come out like an Aussie or a Canadian, courtesy of international school teachers from those countries. Listen for another moment and you’ll hear that Natalia’s tongue, specifically, never learned to consistently make certain sounds that English has that Russian, Lao, Vietnamese and Khmer just don’t. Natalia’s H’s came out harsh courtesy of her Russian father. And both Natalia and Mariya had a habit of dropping articles when telling their younger siblings to ‘close window’ or ‘feed dog and cat.’
For the most part, as Natalia tried to explain to anybody who asked about her accent, English was a language for the classroom. They spoke exclusively Russian in the home and out in ‘the wild’ spoke the local language. Yakutsk was a closer flight from Laos, Cambodia, or Vietnam than Austin was so if they visited any grandparents for Christmas it was their babushka and dedushka in Russia.
Returning to the US permanently never was the plan, remember. It was only a decision they made for Alisa to live somewhere with a standard sign language -- and the only reason, Anna confessed to Natalia once, that they didn’t go back to Russia, was because Natalia had recently come out as bisexual.
“We worried for Valya and the twins. What if they also grow up and realize they aren’t straight? The way it is in Russia for people like you...your father and I love Russia more than the United States. But we love our kids more than Russia.”
She hated how vivid that conversation was in her head. There were some truly beautiful moments with her mother that had already faded from memory. How unfair of her brain to let things like holidays, birthdays, and her mother’s hugs slip.
“Drive home safe, Jess.” Natalia bid her friend farewell a little after four the next morning, kissing her on the cheek before she unlocked her own car. If she got up to 70 and stayed there, she’d be home in time to count her tips, shower, and fix breakfast for the kiddos before school and in Alisa’s case, the dentist.
~.*~.*~.*~.*
“Stand still Pasha,” Natalia said as she gently bopped the seat of her baby brother’s pants to knock the glitter off them. “Your butt looks like a glitter cannon exploded right next to it.”
Pavel giggled and pointed out, “It’s your fault there’s always glitter in your bed.”
“You shouldn’t lay down in my bed for naps after I’ve woken you up for school anyway. Especially not after you’ve already got your clothes on, you dingus.”
“ Heeeey, that’s mean!” Pavel pouted.
“Not if I’m saying it with love. Which I am.” Natalia stood up and pressed a kiss to the top of her brother’s head. “Okay, your butt’s as unsparkly as it's gonna get.”
“I don’t see what wrong with having a sparkly butt anyway.” Pavel grumbled.
“Now run along to the bus stop with the other kids. Be good at school, learn lots, I love you kid.”
“Love you too , Natashe-!” the -nka! came muffled as Pavel had darted out the door to run down to the bus stop.
Natalia sipped on her coffee and watched out the window as her brother darted across the field to the complex’s mailbox pavilion to make sure he joined the other children safely. Satisfied he had, she turned away from the window to trudge back to the kitchen and refill her coffee and begin her vanilla work for the day before she had to wake Alisa for the dentist. On today’s docket? Trying to get through editing at least the first third of her Russian translation of the next book in the hottest new YA series.
There was nothing Natalia wanted more than a nap but she was already cutting her deadline close. Right on schedule was the same as being behind in the literary translation world. If she wasn’t so ahead of schedule she was getting bored then she was nearing panic mode.
Logically she knew that only she felt that way. Her boss didn’t, or at least never felt the need to express to her that he did, but just herself was enough to put the pressure on from beginning to end of a project.
It had benefited her in school. Not so much in her career.
A life in academia as a linguistics scholar and researcher would have suited her better. The universe didn’t consider that when it let a drunk driver kill her parents and leave her three siblings to raise and Mariya’s academic dreams to finance.
#pedro pascal fandom#triple frontier fanfiction#frankie morales fanfiction#francisco morales x ofc#my fic#neon moon fic#ofc of color#multiracial ofc#Francisco catfish Morales
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Today's first anniversary is about one of our most popular Folk singer-songwriters.
25th June 1936 saw the birth of Roy Williamson.
Roy Murdoch Buchanan Williamson was born in Edinburgh, the son of Archibald and Agnes Williamson. From a very well-to-do family of Aberdeen solicitors, Archibald had moved to the capital, where he soon established himself as a prominent advocate who was tipped to become a King’s Counsel. His mother was Agnes Cumming, the daughter of a master haberdasher from Haddington. Since Agnes was a talented pianist I think we can safely assume her son’s musical gifts probably came from her, as Archibald was described as a serious man and worked hard with very little time to play with his sons, Roy and his 1 year older brother Robert.
While the blend of creative genes and intellectual genes ultimately proved successful in the embodiment of Roy and his brother Robert, it did not serve a good combination for a happy marriage. Neither Robert nor Roy have ever commented much on their childhood, but sources say the household was a strained one, with tension and arguments between the husband and wife, and the boys relying on each other and the servants for love and affection. At age 8, the boys would lose his father, and it would not be until almost 30 years later that they would learn the truth. While the 1944 obituaries for Archibald Williamson that were carried in all the leading Scottish papers praised the achievements of the 45-year-old advocate, they delicately avoided the cause of death, describing it as “sudden” and “unexpected”, and it was not until the 1970s when Roy's mother died that he learned the cause of death was coal gas poisoning,at the time, the most common form of suicide in the at the time.
Although the marriage was strained Archibal's death had had a profound effect on Agnes, who suffered a nervous breakdown and was confined to a psychiatric hospital for almost a year.
Cared for by neighbours and relatives in Aberdeen during this period, it would be a short time before they were sent to Aberlour, a preparatory school for Gordonstoun, the boarding school in Moray. Despite having asthsma, Roy threw himself into sports, which was easily done as Gordonstoun largely emphasised outdoor activities and this time period would see him develop into a decent athlete who, while a student, was a winger for the Edinburgh Wanderers rugby side.
Although his mother was by now back in residence, Roy and Robert recalled that “our mother phoned up the school a day before we were due to break up for the holidays to say she couldn’t have us. Whether she couldn’t cope, or whether she wanted to push responsibility on to the school, I don’t know."
With no other family members willing or able to take the boys, their "family" memories of holidays were being "sent back to our old prep school and the headmaster took us in for Christmas and on another occasion we were put into the care of a young German master, and off we went to the Bannavil Arms in Newtonmore to spend Christmas and New Year there.”
While one brother seemed to take this in stride, Roy handled the situation by building a wall between his mother and himself, which never came down. When, after a brief spell teaching seamanship at Burghead, Roy became a student at Edinburgh College of Art, he moved into lodgings rather than stay at home. His mother reciprocated by refusing to attend his wedding in 1958, and when she died Williamson wasn’t among the mourners at her funeral.
While still a student, Roy met Violet Thomson, a fellow art student working in the laundry when he came to wash his clothes. They dated briefly and were still students when they married in Inverness. By now, as young art students, Roy and Vi, as she was known were two of the many of a generation that was entering into a scene that would change not only their lives, but the world's, the swinging sixties.
Casting off the conventions of Gordonstoun Roy and his wife’s lifestyle was becoming increasingly bohemian "generation of love and peace" penetrated Edinburgh’s Presbyterian defences. They embraced the times, and not even the very quick arrival of two daughters, Karen and Sheena prevented the Williamsons’ home from becoming a popular venue for parties. Their parties were frequented by such people as Marianne Faithfull and her date "Mick Jagger". As well, there was a particularly strong Irish influence, and Roy became great friends with The Dubliners, The Clancy Brothers and, later, Finbar Furey. It was listening to their passion for Ireland, at this heartfelt time when music reflected the soul, Williamson began to think more deeply about his own feelings for Scotland.
From an early age, with his mother having taken refuge in her piano, Roy had been exposed to and interested in music and one of the few things Agnes Williamson had done with her boys was to regularly take them to concerts at the Usher Hall.
In this interest Roy had also found an ally in Ronnie Browne. Although they directly opposed each other on the rugby field, as Browne was also a winger for Edinburgh rivals Boroughmuir, they were in the same art classes. With another friend, guitarist Bill Smith, the three formed the Corrie Folk Trio, they would later add singer Paddie Bell, but, circumstances would lead to arguments and by 1966 Williamson and Browne forged out on their own.
With the folk music scene in Scotland flourishing, adding their talent it was no surprise that within a short time the Corries were a hit. By now no longer art students, but teachers, with Roy Williamson at Liberton High School and Browne teaching in Musselburgh they found it increasingly hard to meet the demands of their on the road tour career and be present everyday at their day jobs. Nightly gigs along with a day job soon proved impossible and Williamson and Browne resolved to organise and run their own concert tours. Now, also appearing on television, with Browne's wife, an accountant, taking care of the business side, the Corries became an increasingly popular group as well as a successful business venture. Although the Corries gave the impression of performing easily and "off the cuff", rehearsals were meticulous and nothing was left to chance.
The Corries were a phenomenal success and most people can tell the story from here. Roy, talented but private, was in fact, the antithesis of his partner Browne, and off stage, they did not coexist. While oddly, on the surface, they had so much in common, with shared passions for painting, music, Scotland and rugby to this day Browne concedes he knows very little about Williamson’s life outwith The Corries, which is an astounding admission to make of his musical and business partner of 30 years.
Roy Williamson carried the spirit of the 60's for the rest of his life, however, his wife Vi did not, and the decade ended, so did the marriage. While a simple and pure folk singer on stage, Roy embraced the lifestyle of "wine, women and song" and partied as hard as he worked. Where Browne favoured financial and emotional security, ultimately being married for more than 50 years, Roy Williamson eschewed material possessions and had a much more nonchalant view about relationships. He would also have several serious dalliances in the next decade.
In 1980, Williamson would enter into a relationship which seemed to be detrimental to him and became a concern for all around him. With Nicky van Hurck, from Holland, he moved from Edinburgh to Forres, buying Mayfield, a large old stone house with a garden. Whether due to Nicky’s influence or not Williamson became more reclusive and he spent time painting seascapes, but did tour with Browne once a year.
It was during the Corrie's 1989 tour that Williamson's health started to decline. Diagnosed with a brain tumour, and having an unsuccessful surgery in January 1990, Roy Williamson died at the age of 54. I always feel a sense of sadness when someone who, like Roy, was a big part of my growing up, my mum was a big fan and her and her pal Nicky Bruce used to go see the Corries, I was never so lucky myself but am glad of Youtube so I can listen to them.
Let's finish the post with an upbeat tune, Bannockburn anniversary has just passed and this is the Corries doing a comedy song, the lyrics of which come from the late great Matt McGinn. The song might not be exactly correct history wise, but it's guid craic.
Bannockburn
In 1314, the twenty-fourth of Jue King Eddie says "We're ready now to steal the stone of Scone" He brought his biggest army but discovered he'd backed a duece At Bannockburn he found that he was up against a Bruce cho: Well, we raised our pipes and the English kept a-coming But they werena quite so happy when we gie'd the pipes a blaw Struck once more, they began a-running Ready steady Eddie, go, it's time to shoot the craw Well, we had a bowl of porridge and a wee bit pinch of salt We had a dram of whisky and it was the finest malt We each wore a tammy and we wore the philibegs Eddie was in terror when he seen the hairy legs Now poor King Edward, nearly had a fit When he seen his cavalry falling doon a pit His men looked up from the trap that Bruce had built And they were shocked to find out what was worn beneath the kilt He sent for his archers, a group of country folk They erred and they purred, what a funny way they spoke With those archers Eddie had a go But they were as effective as the ones on radio On the fastest horse that you ever saw King Eddie went a-racing o'er the Border and awa He was fond of Scotland, but he never did return He didn't like the welcome that he got at Bannockburn
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WRITING, 372
If you raise an excessive amount of money, because they're already running through that in their heads. That initial fragility was not a unique feature of Airbnb. This may not be accredited investors, which could complicate your life later. We overcame this one to work on something interesting with people I like. I'm not saying you should lie, but that right now you need to be rewritten. Even in the US are more conservative than they're willing to admit. Not just to solve the hard part of starting a startup—becoming the sort of career a high school student would choose. I understand the messages of New York or Silicon Valley ones. Those remedial actions can delay, stall or even kill the IPO. Do they need another meeting with you? That's how you win at this game.
But even then, not immediately. How do you tell whether there's a path out of an idea like putting a college facebook online, if instead of merely thinking That's an interesting idea. If they don't need you, it will sound plausible to a lot of smart people there, but that right now you need to get 10 more next week to grow 10% a week you'll be surprised how big the numbers get. That problem is irreducible; it should be, because I know the afternoon is going to have to be other ideas that involve databases, and whose quality you can judge. Sometimes the right unscalable trick is to focus on first, we try to figure out how to use it, and that alone is a black hole. I call a startup idea. Stop fundraising when it stops working. The core of ITA's application is a 200,000 line Common Lisp program that searches many orders of magnitude. If you go to work anyway.
They're more likely to be an insider. This would be easy to do: just don't let a sentence through unless it's the way you'd say it to a broader market. And while most investors are influenced by how interested other investors are in you, or an acquirer says they want to. Family to support This one is real. I'm not going to get tagged as spam. So maybe it has simply replaced the component of social class that consisted of being au fait. They were just trying to survive. But by the time we funded their second startup, a company has to be more complicated. The reason this won't turn into a second Bubble is that the absolute numbers seem so small at first.
If I order something from an online store, and they think anyone could have done it. In fact we usually only get several hundred. It is merely incidental, too, that spam is usually commercial. I've seen has tended to confirm what he said. In most startups, nearly all seed firms have been so-called incubators, so Y Combinator gets called one too, though the only thing we have in common? The dangers of raising too much are subtle but insidious. It's not so much that they'll use it even when it's a crappy version one made by a competitor. Most if not all the way to the press, but other founders hear about it, that you were turned down by the more exalted ones. If we can write software that recognizes their messages, there is no way they can get around that. Introducing an investor to commit, it becomes increasingly easy to get a cofounder for a project that's just been funded, and the weather's often bad. 09019077 people's 0.
But don't refuse on that account to give copies to investors you meet. If you based the probabilities on word pairs see below might well catch this one: cost effective, setup fee, money back—pretty incriminating stuff. I think filtering based on word pairs see below might well catch this one: cost effective, setup fee, money back—pretty incriminating stuff. As this force gets more attention, another is dropping off the list: social class. All they knew at first is that they all closed. If they saw that, they'd want you to visit. So maybe it has simply replaced the component of social class that consisted of being au fait. We'd started YC because it was something we were interested in. So a software startup in Sweden is still at a disadvantage in some respects, they're the only ones who really understand their peers. An optimization marketplace would be a good thing if there are many degrees of it. We spent three months building a version 1, which should be less than 15%.
But when someone on the maker's. Over the past six months, I've read literally thousands of spams, and it will take three times as long to write—and Europeans do not like to seem uneducated. He can't. Think of some successful startups. Every person has to do is make great programs. The example of a startup. You can probably take it as a backup offer and delay responding to it. Jobs, Bill Gates, and Michael Dell can't be a good guy. Another consulting-like technique for recruiting initially lukewarm users is to use your software, but are definitely launched as companies. It makes people trust you.
And that statistic is probably not an anomaly. But even correcting for this, startup deals fall through alarmingly often—far more often than, say, deals to buy real estate. But when someone on the maker's. And so ten years ago, but what we mean by it is changing. Palo Alto in the evening, you see nothing but the blue glow of TVs. Looking for waves is essentially a way of saying what they really think. There were no guards patrolling the perimeter of the village. The only difference is how the A List is selected. It used to seem pedantic to point that out. They use different words, certainly.
I publish a new essay, I read it in high school. Now all educated people seem to be the investor of the future, the more dangerous false positives become, because when the filters are really good, really early, it might have been 2400 years ago. That's still expensive. That phenomenon is only going to become more important as spammers are gradually forced to stop using incriminating words in the text of their messages. And even within the US, and good high schools and bad universities, like most other industrialized countries the US has lost the most civil liberties recently. Not surprisingly, Gosling is right. What would you pay for right now? What you should spend your time thinking about human butts. Alas, you can't link to them.
Thanks to Savraj Singh, Jessica Livingston, Jackie McDonough, Sam Altman, Harj Taggar, Geoff Ralston, Emmett Shear, and Jeff Arnold for inviting me to speak.
#automatically generated text#Markov chains#Paul Graham#Python#Patrick Mooney#degrees#trick#countries#people#fee#pairs#Ralston#maker#way#Savraj#A#deals#insider#startups#list#startup#YC#respects#market#fait#hole#Combinator#spam
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“Yesterday, upon the stair, / I met a man who wasn't t h e r e! / He wasn't there again today. / Oh how I wish he'd go away!”
Below the cut, you can find Jeremy’s basic info, key story points, full bio, and a handful of possible connections, although I am open to most plots! Triggers include death mentions, blood mentions, and a handful of horror elements. Please do feel free to reach out if I can provide context without mention of those topics.
basics
Name: Dr. Jeremy van Damme
Gender/Pronouns: Cismale | He/Him
Date of Birth: January 22, 1981
Age: 39
Hometown: Jersey City, NJ
Length of time in Crescent Harbor: 5 Years
Neighborhood: Hemlock Docks
Occupation: Professor of Anthropology at Crescent College
Faceclaim: Matthias Schoenaerts
key points
An only child, the son of a Belgian-born painter of some renown, but primarily among art types with an interest in niche work
Has a doctorate in anthropology from New York University and now teaches the discipline at Crescent College. Completed his undergrad education in Washington
Devotes most of his research to modern folklore, urban legends, and what he calls ritualistic play: games like Bloody Mary or Charlie Charlie, the latest variation of Juego de la Lapicera, meant to summon something, communicate with something, or achieve specific ends through strict adherence to pre-determined rules or conditions
A history buff. Knows much about the origins of Crescent Harbor and is now actively involved in historical preservation efforts. His interests encompass the periods both prior to and following the actual founding of the town.
Something of a pack-rat. Collects oddities and antiques and allows visitors to poke around his overcrowded house.
full bio (tw: death, blood, horror elements)
If he angled his neck just right, face pressed against the glass, held there by tiny, marker-covered hands, he could just barely see the monster from his bedroom window. The gangling, wide-eyed thing, all teeth and blackened pupils, was caught in an eternal snarl by the glint of the corner street lamp (which had been broken for some time and blinked erratically every few minutes). The light has stay on because the light keeps it there, he would think. So long as the light stays on, it has to stay there and cannot come here. For as long as the boy could remember, though, this massive graffiti creature, the handiwork of some unknown artist or another, had been spray-painted there, overseeing its domain from the red brick facade of an already defunct paper packaging warehouse. And it certainly had not escaped yet. But this particular piece of street art had long frightened the young Jeremy van Damme, who would spend his nights watching it from the safety of his heightened perch.
At that time, he lived with his father (a native of Flanders and painter of some niche surrealist renown) and mother (a full-time college dean and part-time muse to her artiste husband) in a tall brown apartment building that swayed with the wind. The groaning of the foundation, the creaking of the pipes, and the unpleasant damp sweetness, an almost bloody smell, that occasionally wafted out an uncovered vent after a storm, instilled in the boy an early sense of fantastic terror. More often than not, Jeremy van Damme was afraid. At the age of six, he discovered in a forgotten photo album a picture of himself he could not recall taking. And there, he abruptly decided some other Jeremy, a doppelganger or double or mimic, not only existed, but was waiting for the opportunity to strike and swallow him whole. At the age of seven, he got it into his head that a family of venomous lizards had taken up residence in the basement washing machine; he could hear them hissing if he listened closely. And at the age of eight, the death of the elderly woman down the hall gave birth to a new series of existential horrors, of the terrible uncertainty of the afterlife, of restless ghosts, and of white-haired specters that stalked hallways by night in search of little boys to do whatever it is ghosts do.
Nevertheless, the apartment was not vacant for long, and in the weeks that followed, Jeremy struck up a new friendship with a girl his age who had moved into the building with her family. And with how cheery they had painted the place, one could almost forget what happened to poor old Mrs. Hansen there. It was through this new companion, however, that Jeremy himself, albeit wide-eyed and screaming, was introduced to the sort of ritualistic play that would eventually guide his career. With nothing but a pack of stolen matches and the misguided goal of “putting the spirit to rest,” the pair of them locked themselves in her bathroom to chant into the mirror, spin in circles, and search for faces in the glass. And while they never found them, these games did instill in the young Jeremy a new sense of bravery and morbid curiosity. After all, if a ghost could be banished away by something as simple as blowing out a match, maybe they were not so frightening after all.
Still, he had always been curious. His mother was, after all, a career academic, and to that end, Jeremy had little hope of genuinely shirking his homework. He did well in school and read often. Small and eager to be helpful, he was even, in some ways, a natural teacher’s pet, eager to spend more time among the adults than the playground bullies. Eventually, Jeremy attended a nearby “all boys” Catholic high school, and while the AV Club was already dying by that time, he and a few friends began borrowing their camera equipment to “record psychic phenomena,” which largely consisted of them trying to unsuccessfully move rubber balls with their minds.
At sixteen, however, one of the boys got his own car, and the unlikely group was able to finally take part in a bit of local legend that involved circling an abandoned house several times, honking one’s horn, and then flashing one’s headlights. The result was the ghost of “Clarice” appearing in an upper story window to chase the intruders away. Every time they did this ritual, someone in the vehicle would shout that they had seen her (although it was never more than one person at a time). Following one such excursion, one boy disappeared from school with the flu for a week, and there was, at least, a successful rumor he had been spirited away. That was sort of fun.
Upon graduating, near but not quite at the top of his class, Jeremy ultimately attended the University of Washington, eager to spread his wings to the West Coast although Stanford had rejected him. While he began his higher education as a History major, he eventually shifted his focus to cultural anthropology, in which he earned his Bachelor’s degree. Graduate School, a Master’s degree, and a Doctorate from New York University eventually followed, and Jeremy began focusing his field of study more specifically on the role of folklore and legend in the modern world. His first and only full-length book, a small academic piece, entitled Creating Clarice: An Anthropological Case Study on the Invention of a Ghost, sprung to life when he, upon digging through an academic database, discovered the phantom woman he had tried so vehemently to conjure as a teenager had never actually existed.
Combining local interviews, in-depth real estate research, historical records, and a dive into the roots of ritualistic children’s games themselves, he tried, with varying levels of success, to trace the story to its source and frame it in the context of the community that had created it. This research, while mostly published for classroom use, did eventually earn him a position at Crescent College, where he still teaches today.
In his five years in town, Jeremy has since become something of an undisputed expert in local history, collecting trivia in the same way others might collect stamps. That said, Jeremy remains, to this day, a collector in the most traditional sense. His small home, an old building near the docks, has its charms and is known to be full of oddities, antiques, and other things that have caught the owner’s fancy. Most are of local interest, and Jeremy has rather seriously involved himself in town preservation efforts.
possible connections
The Student - Jeremy is a professor at Crescent College and teaches a variety of anthropology courses for all skill levels. This person is either a former or current student. Perhaps Jeremy mentors them, or perhaps they were an eternal thorn in his side.
The Curious - Jeremy collects all sorts of odd objects he finds. From 19th century tea sets, to old letters and photographs, to “haunted” mirrors and dolls, he welcomes this person regularly to poke around the antiques and maybe even goes shopping with them.
The Adventurous - Jeremy’s primary areas of expertise are modern folklore and ritualistic play. He and this person team up to test out the latest spooky games and legends, from trying to summon up a mirror ghost or see if they can get someone from beyond the grave talk with them through a disconnected telephone.
The Historian - Jeremy is well-versed in the history of the town and its founding families. Perhaps this person wants or needs to learn more about some obscure local topic, and the professor is here to help.
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