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thetypedwriter · 4 years

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Imaginary Friend Book Review

Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbosky Book Review

This is undoubtedly the weirdest book I have ever read.

You might be thinking… but, thetypedwriter you read fanfiction! This can’t be the weirdest thing you’ve ever read! Things like ABO universes exist!

You would think that, wouldn’t you?

But no.

I shall endeavor to give you a spoiler free synopsis of the book first followed by my thoughts and criticism, but note that this is an endeavor for a reason. I have now explained this novel in depth to two different people, and both times I have found myself completely and irrevocably stuck on how to even begin, let alone end.

With that forewarning, here we go.

The novel surrounds a single mother and her young son moving to a small Pennsylvania town in order to escape the tragedies of their past that include the passing of her husband and her current abusive boyfriend.

However, while things in their new home start out well-they find solutions to unemployment, poverty, the son’s dyslexia, etc, things start to go awry when Christopher, the son, is lured into the Mission Street Woods at the edge of town by a voice only he seems to be able to hear.

As Christopher continues to listen to the voice in the form of a cloud, or a plastic bag, or even inside of his mind, he starts recruiting his friends to build a treehouse in the woods that will transport him to a different time and place. The voice, lovingly called the Nice Man, instructs him to finish the tree house by Christmas Day.

Or else everyone will die.

As Christopher struggles with newfound powers and responsibilities, coping with two different worlds, his mother struggles with her son’s sanity, the town struggles with anger, blame, and temptation, and what follows is the chaotic descent of a small town into the throes of good versus evil, love and loss, and most importantly, trying to differentiate what is real versus what is imaginary.

In the simplest terms possible (a facetious statement if there ever was one), I thought this was going to be a thriller mystery book about a single mother and her young seven-year-old son Christopher leaving their home and her abhorrent abusive boyfriend in order to start a new life with hope and potential.

And it….is?

But it doesn’t stop there. Chbosky crams so many genres, themes, motifs, and messages into this book that when you think about it, it’s unsurprising that it’s over 700 pages long with the tiniest, most miniscule font I have ever had to squint at.

However, make no mistakes like I did, this book is horror.

Yup. You read that right folks, horror.

To preface, and I might have mentioned this in another post for another book at some point, but I vehemently dislike horror of any kind. This extends to books, movies, shows, etc.

I understand that horror is a great joy and pleasure for a vast amount of people and that it contains its own literary merit, tropes, and rules, and I can appreciate that for what it is from afar, but I personally take very little enjoyment from consuming anything horror related (I apologize to all the Stephen King fans out there in the world).

I did not fully realize the extent to which this book was a true horror.

This is entirely my own fault. I was very much blinded by the rosy colored glasses from college when I first read The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Chbosky’s first and only other novel.

Perks is wonderful. It is a tragic, yet fundamentally hopeful and loving bildungsroman that shows the beauty and the pain of growing up and accepting yourself. The movie with Emma Watson is what dreams are made of.

I committed author fraud when I picked up Imaginary Friend based on the pure speculation that I would most likely like it since he had written Perks, a book I adored as both a reader and a teacher.

I’ve warned readers against this in the past, but it seems like I should have taken my own advice: just because an author has written one good book or one book you like, does not automatically mean you will like their second book, or any of their other books for that matter.

This cannot possibly ring more true for Stephen Chbosky, as not only are his two books completely different in narrative and structure, but also vastly different in genre and purpose.

I should have stuck with my gut and realized that I probably wouldn’t like this book based off the synopsis, the genre, and yes, even the cover (it looks scary to me, okay?), but I said noooooo, it’s Chbosky, you have to read it!

And this is where we ended up.

First of all, I didn’t hate the book.

I can recognize that it is extremely well written, well crafted, and well developed. I can enjoy a slew of characters, and oh boy are there a multitude to pick from, and I can give credit where credit is due.

Chbosky is a talented writer. There is no doubt in my mind about this. The way he crafts words, the way he plays with texture and space, and with fonts and sizes, is nothing less of sheer brilliance.

He undoubtedly is also masterful at motifs, foreshadowing, and symbolism. Notably, there were so many recurring objects, colors, metaphors, and so on that were sprinkled out so consecutively and intentionally throughout the novel-some I didn’t even pick up until the end-that I was left reeling from how immensely talented and brilliant he is.

Things like his use of baby teeth, blue moon, and fogs/clouds/mist struck me in particular. I know this seems like gibberish, but Chbosky truly came across as understanding what he wanted to portray and how he wanted to deliver it.

However, the biggest compliment I can give to Chbosky is the sheer magnitude of his imagination and creativity. This book almost overwhelmed me through the use of ideas and concepts I had never really thought of before.

Alternate dimensions? Check.

Supernatural powers? Check.

Incredible use of diction and figurative language? Check and check.

Chbosky had so many wild and tantalizing beautiful turns of phrases, expressions, and descriptions that it left me with the same sort of gasping epiphany that Maggie Steifvater’s writing always leaves me with, the feelings that writing can be so utterly beautiful and compelling, that it can be all-consuming as well as never ending with its potential to stun, to create, and to warp to unique needs and purposes.

It definitely was a reading experience quite like any other I’ve had.

Be that because of the horror genre or because of Chbosky’s odd, yet addicting writing style and this has definitely become a book that left me more than a bit dumbfounded. Although I’ve sung its praises and admitted to my own faults at this point, this book isn’t without flaws.

To me the horror genre itself is just not my cup of tea like I’ve stated. Strike number one.

Second, the book was...abysmally long. Atrociously long. As I’ve also said before, I do not mind large books. In fact, big books when you’re reading something you love is a true blessing. Finding that fanfiction at 3am that hooks you immediately and you look up to see its 300k? Amazing.

Starting a new book series that you fall in love with body and soul and realize you have several installments left in the series to gorge and devour? Ecstasy.

Sloughing through a single book that starts to drag on and on repetitiously for what seems like forever? Borderline hell.

This book could have been 300 pages shorter and still contained everything Chbosky wanted to accomplish. It could have had the same brilliant writing, messages, and motifs, but without all of the never-ending back and forth between worlds and battles that just kept popping up time and time again. The abominable length considering its content is strike two.

Last, the ending was a bit of a cluster. At this point in the novel, so much is going on, you are being exposed to so many pov’s that it’s almost stress-inducing, and events taking place are cataclysmic and 10/10 on drama. Chbosky bit off more than he could chew here.

The book choked itself at the end, which, after reading for 700 pages is not the feeling you want to have. The ending left me befuddled, disappointed, and also bereft of a conclusive end and explanation for the shitstorm that had just rained down. It was not the ending I wanted, could understand, or could even really grasp. Strike three.

This book has a plethora of merits followed by three enormous criticisms. If you like horror, then you’ve already crossed hurdle number one. If you can accept it’s repellant length (let alone have days upon days of free time to actually ingest said behemoth) then that’s hurdle number two.

Hurdle three is up to you. Perhaps you would like the ending where as I found it lacking in structure, content, and answers. I like my endings tied up with neat little bows. I don’t like to be left thinking...hmmmm what does this mean?

If I am going to read your massive book, I deserve an ending that satisfies the journey. Authors telling readers that it’s up for interpretation makes me want to strangle something. It comes across as enormously pretentious to me and oftentimes lazy.

In the case of Chbosky, I think he had given himself so many loose threads that the neat little bow I desired was next to impossible.

So he didn’t even try.

Score: 6/10

Recommendation: If you love The Shining, are lacking bouts of creativity and imagination, have lots of free time during Quarantine, and don’t mind having an Inception-esque ending where you might not get all the answers you want, while being tasked with concocting it for yourself, Imaginary Friend might be your new best friend.

Bonus: Here’s a pic of my kitty photo bombing this book shoot. Hope she brightens your day!

#imaginary friend #stephen chbosky #perks of being a wallflower #horror #horror book #stephen king #the shining #literature #books #book blog #book review #book rec #Book Recommendations #book reflection #book analysis #popular fiction #top books #booklover #book

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rebelscum-2187 · 4 years

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So after nearly 22 years of life on this planet, I’ve come to the conclusion that I am high functioning autistic. I believe I fell through the cracks of an early diagnosis for the following reasons:

1.) I am Female (I learned how to mask myself very early on)

2.) I have a gifted IQ (above 130) and was classified as such in 4th grade so no one considered that I could be both ASD and intellectually gifted.

I am in the beginning stages of unmasking and am currently seeking an official diagnosis. Right now, I’m trying to write down everything I know about my neurodivergent experience so here’s a list of things I’ve experienced and believe to be relevant. If you can relate or you understand please comment and share! I’m new to this community and it feels so good to finally meet people who understand and can relate. Ok, Here we go.

“So the general population doesn’t memorize scripts to movies or watch the same one every day for a year?”

“People think it’s weird that I prefer to have subtitles on when I watch stuff, even though I don’t have damaged hearing”

“I watch movies with subtitles because I won’t understand what’s said if I don’t read it. I have no hearing issues.”

“I cannot hear/understand someone if I have one ear bud in and one out. Too much sensory input at once.”

“I thought I had a hearing deficit because I literally could not understand people at church or parties or other places with a lot of background noise, and I was so confused when they told me my hearing was normal.”

“I love star wars. Not just love but I could tell you what planet each character is from and what kind of ship they use, what model droid that one is and I will gladly talk about it all day if you let me. Everyone now gets me Star Wars stuff for my birthday and holidays”

“Eye contact is so uncomfortable for me that sometimes it ‘burns’ to maintain it, but then I overcompensate and stare too intensely. Over the years, being female, I’ve forced myself to make eye contact for a certain number of seconds and then look away a certain number of seconds but I’m concentrating so hard on that, that I don’t remember anything that was said to me.”

“Giving me verbal directions is a special kind of hell. I need it written down.”

“I can memorize pictures of things and exactly where every kid sat in my 10th grade US history class as well as my 9th grade geometry class.”

“I never fit in anywhere, in my childhood, most of my adolescence, except the swim team and my new church.”

“Team sports are the worst. I can’t communicate fast enough, I’m bad with hand eye coordination and keeping track of a ball. I excelled in individual sports and fell in love with swimming.”

“I often found it much easier to make friends with older kids because I could have intelligent conversations with them and their good social skills could make up for my lack of social skills.”

“But, I had a few friends that were considerably younger who I could still play imaginatively with dolls when I was 13 and one particular friend was 9. I had a lot of trouble getting a long with her sister who was the same age as me.”

“It physically pains me to hear someone mispronounce a word, spell something wrong, or make a grammatical mistake. I corrected my cousin A LOT when we were kids, she frequently got mad and I couldn’t understand why. My grandma would tell me to stop because correcting people is rude.”

“One of my special interests as a kid was dolphins. I was 5-6 years old and I remember being so excited when my mom let me check out like 10 books from the library and I read them quickly and multiple times.”

“I corrected a teacher one time about dolphins. She said dolphins weren’t whales and I knew FOR A FACT that ‘dolphins were a type of small whale’ because I read it in one of my books. She laughed at me and so did the rest of the class and I felt stupid even though I was right. This led to me suppressing my knowledge and real self and ultimately more masking.”

“As per that last one, my memory is impeccable.”

“I had another special interest in dogs when I got a bit older. My mom bought me a book with every kind of breed of dog, where they came from, their temperament, their size, everything. I can still, to this day, tell you the breed of dog just by looking at it.”

“I always wanted a best friend but never had one. I had groups of friends but never someone who would call me their best friend. When I got a boyfriend in high school, I was so excited because he called me his best friend and he was mine and I finally had that feeling reciprocated. He also had a gifted IQ and dyslexia, ADHD and a few other things so we understood each other quite well.”

“I can’t tell if someone is flirting with me because I can’t read between the lines. I also don’t know how to flirt because if I like a guy too much I get soooo nervous and I stumble over my words and it’s a disaster.”

“When I liked this guy (last year, 2019) I would freeze up so bad when I talked to him that I rehearsed every conversation I wanted to have with him so I wouldn’t mess it up. I would write topics in the notes section of my phone before hanging out with him so I’d remember what to ask him. It made for very awkward and forced conversations and probably drove him away.”

“Sarcasm and jokes almost always go over my head. The boyfriend I had in high school was very funny and outgoing but used a lot of sarcasm and it always caused disagreements because I took him seriously when he was being sarcastic.”

“I talk slowly and very monotone.”

“I have no difficulty reading in my head and can read/comprehend it well, but reading aloud is difficult and I often stumble over words and mess up.”

“I need directions repeated multiple times before I understand.”

“I went to the beach to hang out with some church friends yesterday. They all play spike ball and are so confused as to why I sit there and don’t play. I’ve tried playing spike ball but it involves way too much hand eye coordination and I’m so bad at it that it’s embarrassing. So I don’t play.”

“That same night, a group of them said ‘let’s play uno!’ And I was so happy to play something familiar that didn’t involve a lot of coordination. Then they said ‘we’re playing SPICY uno, right?’ And immediately my heart sank because I knew they were playing a different way that I wasn’t familiar with. Again, receiving verbal directions was hell and I didn’t understand it. I was so bad at it and wasn’t getting it, and in the middle of the game I had the urge to cry. I wanted to cry because I couldn’t even get this right. I suppressed the urge, of course, so they wouldn’t think I was even more weird than the already suspected. Another group of people that I wouldn’t fit in with.”

“Making friends has always been so difficult. Once I make a good friend I hang on to them for as long as possible even if they’re not very nice because I’m scared I’ll have to make a new one if I lose them. And we all know how hard making new friends is for me.”

“I’m a perfectionist. Especially with my art projects. When I took a painting class I realized I do it the wrong way. You’re supposed to paint layer by layer over the entire canvas and focus on small details at the very end. I work on one small area at a time and do small details too soon. I often spend way too much time on small details before I realize that the larger shape of the object isn’t proportionate and then it’s too late.”

“I won’t even attempt tasks if I know I can’t do them perfectly.”

“I have perfect pitch. I don’t know if that has anything to do with autism or that I just started music lessons when I was young. I can tune instruments perfectly without a tuner or reference note and I never understood why my orchestra teacher had me play the A key on the piano over and over again while she walked around and tuned everyone’s instruments when I could do it without any reference. I can hear it in my head.”

“When my parents got me a keyboard at age 7-8, they were impressed because I could sit down, without listening to any song and find the notes of a song I liked by ear. I still do that today but my piano is very out of tune and it bothers me.”

“Autistic boys tend to isolate and not care about concealing their stims or weird behavior but girls don’t. I am a ‘loner’ and always have been but I want so badly to belong and have friends and socialize, but I’ve always been so bad at it that I strike out every time. I often drink at social gatherings because it helps me loosen up and talk more freely. I guess it helps me lose the mask for a while.”

“I HATE people touching me. I’ve always hated it and still hate it to this day unless it’s someone I’m super comfortable with. I’ve been told I have the ‘dead fish hand shake’ and I’m an awkward hugger. My friend picked me up from behind and carried me for a few seconds because we were all goofing off and having fun but afterwards I was so mad at him I got really quiet and didn’t talk for a while. I told him later on the ride home that if he did that again I would slap him. “

“Everyone thinks it’s weird that I don’t like touching people, and some of my friends who also don’t like touching people were abused and I always thought, ‘there had to be a reason, maybe I was abused as a kid and repressed it.’ It’s been so long and I’ve finally realized that maybe it’s just because I have Aspergers or ASD. “

“When I make sarcastic remarks or jokes I often have to clarify because I say them in such a monotone way that people think I’m serious.”

“I’ve always joked that I’m just really clumsy and uncoordinated, and chalked it up to being tall and lanky. That’s why swimming was the perfect sport for me. Little to no risk of injury and not much hand eye coordination needed to be good at it. Just hours of practice, technique and endurance.”

“I also injure myself quite a lot because I’m ‘a klutz.’”

“Stims: I scratch my head and then smell my fingers and I will do this for hours if I am able (I know that one is weird so I only do it at home) popping my knuckles a ridiculous amount of times when I feel uncomfortable and don’t know what to do with my hands. I twirl my hair constantly (that one is pretty socially acceptable so I do it in class nonstop). I tap my foot or bounce my leg, I make weird facial expressions and forget to hide those. People notice but they often think it’s funny because I’ll make a face if someone says something dumb and make an expression that people seem to relate to. I scrunch my nose if I’m uncomfortable or just whenever.”

Special interests: Star Wars, Disney (I know every word to every Disney song and I watch animated Disney movies over and over again, like literally every night) dolphins, the ocean, dogs, theology/the Bible.

“With my art work, and other things, I will get so focused on a painting that I will work non stop for 8-9 hours (all day basically) and not eat because I’m so focused that I forget to eat.”

“I think I slur my words a lot and sometimes my friends will laugh and be like ‘did you just say ____.?!?!’And I’ll clarify and they will continue laughing and say ‘oh it sounded like you said this.’ I hate when that happens.”

“Loud noises really bother me. I jump if I hear an unexpected loud noise and I hate people yelling, even if it’s not directed at me, it makes me want to cry. “

“I loved the color blue so much as a kid (I still do) but my entire wardrobe was basically different shades of blue t-shirts. I also only ever wore baggy t-shirts and baggy cargo shorts (I kinda dressed like a boy) because it was comfortable and I didn’t like getting comments if I looked “cute today”. I hated the attention. I also never ever wore my hair down to school. It always had to be up in a tight pony tail. I still don’t like my hair being in my face to this day and wear it up almost every day.”

“The other day, I was hanging out with a friend and she was trying to tell a story but I kept getting distracted and interrupting her. She said, ‘Emily, you kind of interrupt people a lot.’ At first I was hurt, but then I realized it’s not entirely my fault and it’s an autistic thing.”

“I mask so much that I have rehearsed responses to social interactions and will often get so nervous or start speaking from the script before I realize I’ve said the wrong response. Of course I’ll think about it all day after that and think of ‘well great, so and so thinks I’m weird now.’”

#autistic community #autistic life #aspergers #autistic problems #autistic girl

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wxldchxld · 4 years

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An updated timeline:

So, I have reworked a couple of things in Beck’s history but I haven’t written them ON Beck’s history page yet bc that’s going to be a bear to deal with. I’m just going to post this as a hc for right now, and hopefully update the pages in a couple of days.

Look this is LONG and there are trigger warnings for suicide attempt mentions as well as abuse and animal cruelty. None of it is explicit. It’s even more vague than my current history has it. So I’m begging you, if you write with me or want to write with me, please look at this updated canon. But I will put it under a cut for the sake of triggers as well as the insane length that it got to.

Birth - 6

The daughter of a political marriage between the Wolf and the Fox clan leaders. Named Dahlia Adelaida Beck by birth. Born at the height of the winter solstice, marking her as a priestess among her people.

Nicknamed Dolly by her grandmother Alma.

Lives with her mother Élea, her father Oskar, her brother Fenris, and her grandparents Alma and Percy on their family owned land in Montana. She gets Ringo, her first familiar here and learns how to ride a horse, and some basic camping/fishing/farm skills from her father and grandfather. Her grandmother teaches her basic knitting/sewing/cooking. Her mother is, in large part, absent during this period of her life. She and Fenris are inseparable.

At three Beck makes her first shift into a fox, marking her in the eyes of everyone as a feral witch. Whatever meager affection her mother had for her evaporated completely at that moment.

On her sixth birthday she is given a mare who her father has named Dawnbreaker.

Three months after her sixth birthday her father passes. Her mother takes them on a vacation back to her family home in Sweden that lasts the remainder of the year. They stay with her maternal grandparents, Linnéa and Stefan Tandy

A month after Beck’s seventh birthday, Linnéa and Elea have a falling out over the way Elea is treating her children. Elea consistently refuses to take care of Dahlia in particular, and she begins to learn to fend for herself, which is deeply concerning to her grandmother.

Her maternal grandparents ask for custody of both Dahlia and Fenris. Elea responds by taking both of her children back to the states to California where she resumes her master’s program.

Shortly after her mother reverts to her maiden name, and forces her children to do so as well. Dahlia, furious and still deeply grieving her father, declares that her name is Beck, and refuses to answer to anything else.

Elea’s abuse of her children gets worse. Fenris, who was a more passive child, rarely got physically punished like Beck, but he still suffers from severe emotional abuse and manipulation. Beck is, for the most part on her own. She stays out of the house as much as she can, sleeping in parks or other abandoned places, and learning to steal for her food, as there is little to hunt for in the city. This is embarrassing to her mother, and she’s frequently punished for it.

Beck meets Cora, an older witch ostracized by the local covens, who becomes Beck’s mentor in everything she can teach her.

Beck finds the city suffocating, and she frequently wanders out into the countryside when she can, and cries when she cannot. Elea finally consents to bringing the horse her father gave her to a stable outside of town, and lets Beck walk to the stable several times a week. In this time, Dawnbreaker becomes her second familiar.

Both Fenris and Beck are homeschooled by coven members at this time. Most of them are apathetic, some downright hostile to her. She is eventually diagnosed with dyslexia, but is given little help with it.

8-9

Beck is able to stand the city less and less. She begins disappearing for longer periods of time. At first days, then weeks, and eventually she begins to take Dawnbreaker away for months at a time.

Elea, who is using Fenris’ birthright to rule both her people and the Wolves, sends men after her. The fights between them grow even more violent and bitter, and Elea struggles to even cast the appearance that her house is in order. She begins to drive a wedge between Beck and Fen, who still loves his sister dearly. But this backfires, and gives Beck even less reason to return home.

Beck’s mother finds her one final time. When they are brought to Elea this time, they are not taken to the family home in the city, but a secluded section of woods. Her mother proceeds to have her bound, and forces her to watch as Dawnbreaker is hanged from one of the old trees in an attempt to keep her from ever running again.

Several months of inconsolable grief, where she scarcely eats or leaves her bed at all, send her brother Fenris into a mad rage. He begins to plan his revenge in secret. At the next coven meet, he reveals her heinous crime and kills her. The witches absolve him of the murder of another witch in light of what Elea did, and they help cover up the crime.

Shortly after Beck moves in with Cora, but Fenris refuses. He tells her he was offered a chance to learn powerful magic from a coven member, a man Beck doesn’t trust. For the first time in their lives, they are truly separated.

11-13

Fenris and Beck try repeatedly to mend their relationship and get back to where they were as children, but they fail every time. Beck grows more restless, more wild, by the day, and the magic and fear and anger are twisting Fen into someone she doesn’t know.

Before she can even turn twelve Cora’s loving support is no longer enough for Beck. She has no desire to stay in a house, among people, not even someone she loves. She and Ringo leave the safety of Cora’s home permanently, returning only for visits.

On her thirteenth birthday, Beck is attacked by a mountain lion. After a long battle, before the creature makes its killing blow, she catches the animal’s eye. Understanding sparks between the two of them, and this time when she tells it to go, it obeys. Both she and Ringo are nearly killed in the incident, but her familiar manages to limp to the nearest town and bring back help.

She is taken back to California and returned to her brother rather than Cora. Fenris has grown in power and status among the witches there. Her appearance strikes Fenris with a cold terror, and though he is extremely kind to her in helping her heal, Beck feels as if something is deeply wrong.

14-16

After a long recovery, Beck begins to get restless again. She yearns to return to the wilds. The city suffocates her more and more by the day, but her brother refuses to let her go.

Tensions between Fenris and Beck reach a boiling point, and she is eventually confined to a room until she agrees to stay in the city with him. The change overtakes Fenris as the year drags on, and he’s not the sweet young boy she once knew. She feels as if she’s living with her enemy rather than her brother.

She is enrolled in a coven school, where they attempt to continue her educate while working around the fact she is almost completely illiterate. This is where she meets Harper, just two months after her 14th birthday.

Beck and Harper fall into a quick, extremely heated teenage passion. All of the grief and loneliness they feel slowly evaporates. Beck reconnects with some of her old friends at this time too. When she’s with them, she feels as happy as she can possibly feel living in a cage, but things only seem to get worse and worse every time she goes home.

On her seventeenth birthday, Harper gives her a ring. Harper is anxious to leave home to move to New York, and asks Beck to marry her the second they’re both eighteen and to move away with her. Harper doesn’t know what’s going on between Fen and Beck. She doesn’t know about the healed bruises and the shouting and the threats. Beck refuses to take the ring without being able to tell Harper the real reason why. Even if Fen did let her leave, she would never survive New York. They don’t break up but Harper vows to leave for Juliard the second she can. With or without Beck.

Between life with her brother and the ever looming deadline of Harper leaving, Beck becomes increasingly fragile and hostile. She knows she cannot stay.

Harper, older than Beck, leaves for New York a few months later, and without her protective presence, things at home get even worse. When she tells another coven witch, the woman either doesn’t believe her, or she’s too frightened to listen.

After several failed escape attempts, and Fenris’ control getting tighter and tighter, Beck eventually attempts suicide. She is taken to a hospital, a place she’d been a handful of times before because of her brother’s wrath, and a woman there offers her help. She accepts and is stolen away.

Beck is introduced to the Sisters of the Holy St. Marciana of Mauretania, a group of humans, witches, and other supernatural beings who masquerade as an order of nuns. They operate in secret under many names and in many places, helping those that no one else will help. After a brief recovery, Beck leaves them, but not without a promise to help if they call on her.

Beck returns home to her family land, despite knowing her grandparents have long since abandoned it. She finds her father’s old VW bus still in (mostly) running order and begins to use it for travel.

In the early spring, Beck returns to the wild herds of Montana, where Dawnbreaker lived in the months they were separated, and where she was born. She meets a golden stallion and instantly recognizes him as one of her foals. The stallion begins to follow her around tirelessly, and Beck tries again and again to send him away. But the stallion will not be shooed, and eventually Beck lets him remain with her. She calls him Grani, and soon after he joins her, he becomes her familiar.

Beck begins to do odd jobs and magical favors for people in order to gain certain magical objects, slowly building a steady collection in her bottomless bag.

Beck remains constantly on the run, knowing her brother’s men are only a breath behind her at any moment. She has the van enchanted so it can be easily concealed, can travel off-road, and can haul a horse trailer.

19-21

Beck mostly still lives in the wilds, but takes several jobs helping children and adults escape situations similar to hers. Victims of domestic abuse by powerful people that are beloved or feared by everyone else. These jobs are the only time she goes into cities, and often while she’s doing research and laying low, she steals from wealthy nearby homes and businesses.

During one of these thefts Beck steals a kitten after it follows her out of the mansion she’d just robbed. The kitten becomes her final familiar, and when she gains her sentience, she re-names herself Angrboda.

In the fall before her 22nd birthday Beck sees Harper jogging in Central Park while working on a job. Knowing it was a bad idea, she still approached her. Harper was different in almost every way, and yet some how she was still as hopelessly passionate and deeply furious as the day she’d left for New York.

22-24

Beck and Harper fall back into a relationship. Perhaps both of them knew it was a bad idea, or maybe it was only Beck, but dread grew alongside passion. Harper could scarcely stand her absences, and life in the city was hell on Beck.

They dated for two years. Harper even consented to moving out of the city center to a farm near Roxbury. Marriage was a frequent topic between them both, and yet it never happened.

Eventually even Harper’s power on the East Coast wasn’t enough to keep Fenris away, and the fear of the conflict that would ensue between the witch factions and fearing her brother and deeply missing her life on the road, Beck left. She couldn’t bring herself to say goodbye, and it has been her greatest regret.

24-present

Beck lives in the wilds with her familiars, constantly traveling, and for the most part very happy. There are people she misses, and places she knows she can never return to, but she’s free. Even on nights when she’s hungry or the weather is bitter and savage, she’s free.

She’s mastered several other forms in this time, and I didn’t want to break down their discoveries by age, but they happened over the years, not just after she turned 25.

#hc

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rebelcthulhu · 5 years

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In honor of Dragon Age Origins reaching 9 yeas old yesterday I think a celebration is in order! I’ve decided to do so by listing 9 headcanons about my Hero of Ferelden, Mikah Brosca!

1. Out of all the companions Mikah is the absolute WORST when it comes to waking up early!

2. Even though it was very hard learning anything to begin with as castless dwarf in Dustown thanks to Rica becoming a consort Mikah and her both learned how to read and write, though Mikah struggled a lot more with it and would often get letters and words confused. (Dyslexia)

3. Often times durning quests and adventures Mikah was mistaken as a human child because of her youth and short stature as a dwarf.

4. After coming to the surface and earning possibly more money than she’d ever seen, Mikah began to buy and hoard odd things like pillows, furs, and small trinkets.

5. Even for a dwarf Mikah has a pretty bad mouth and she often had to catch herself during conversations before letting the F bomb fly freely.

6. Out of all the major quest in DAO the one that was hardest for Mikah personally was the tower of magi. In no small sense, though she was able to save the mages and recruited them for the Wardens, she came out feeling wholly different if a bit traumatized from what she witnessed there. She never wishes to go back again if she can help it.

7. Aside from Alistiar out of all the companions Mikah became closest with Morrigan, Leliana, and Oghran. She considered all of them to be her friends of course, and would have gladly died for any of them who joined her, but in terms of being easiest to talk to she favored them the most.

8. Till this day one of the biggest regrets Mikah has was not being able to talk Leske down or for not being able to find a way to bring him with her to the surface from the start. She often has recurring nightmares about him, and if it weren’t for Alistair’s comfort and reassurance during these episodes she wouldn’t know what to do.

9. Though Mikah survived the battle with the archdemon she still bares the scares from the fight. After striking to early the dragon was able to pin her down and in doing so nearly disemboweled her. She has two large scares from the demons claws starting at her midsection and ending at her pubic bone.

#anyway heres my shit #Mikah Brosca #disembowelment #warning slight gore #Happy 9th Birthday DAO!!#sorry i'm late as always #MyOc(s)

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blackkudos · 6 years

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Danny Glover

Danny Lebern Glover (born July 22, 1946) is an American actor, film director, and political activist.

Glover is well known for his leading role as Roger Murtaugh in the Lethal Weapon film series, The Color Purple (1985), To Sleep with Anger (1990) and Angels in the Outfield (1994). He also has prominent supporting roles in Silverado (1985), Witness (1985), Predator 2 (1990), Saw (2004),Shooter (2007), 2012 (2009), Death at a Funeral (2010), Beyond the Lights (2014) and Dirty Grandpa(2016). He has appeared in many other movies, television shows and theatrical productions, and is an active supporter of various humanitarian and political causes.

Early life

Glover was born in San Francisco, California, the son of Carrie (Hunley) and James Glover. His parents, postal workers, were active in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), working to advance equal rights. Glover's mother, daughter of a midwife, was born in Louisville, Georgia and graduated from Paine College in Augusta, Georgia.

Glover attended George Washington High School in San Francisco. He attended San Francisco State University (SFSU) in the late 1960s but did not graduate. SFSU later awarded him an honorary degree. Glover trained at the Black Actors' Workshop of the American Conservatory Theater.

As an adolescent and a young adult, Glover suffered from epilepsy but has not suffered a seizure since age 35.

Career

Glover originally worked in city administration working on community development before transitioning to theater. He has said:

I didn't think it was a difficult transition. Acting is a platform that can become a conveyer for ideas. Art is a way of understanding, of confronting issues and confronting your own feelings—all within that realm of the capacity it represents. It may have been a leap of faith for me, given not only my learning disability (dyslexia) but also the fact that I felt awkward. I felt all the things that someone that's 6'3" or 6'4" feels and with my own diminished expectations of who I could be [and] would feel. Whether it's art, acting or theater that I've devoted myself to I put more passion and more energy into it.

His first theater involvement was with Conservatory Theater, a regional training program in San Francisco. Glover also trained with Jean Shelton at the Shelton Actors Lab in San Francisco. In an interview on Inside the Actors Studio, Glover credited Jean Shelton for much of his development as an actor. Deciding that he wanted to be an actor, Glover resigned from his city administration job and soon began his career as a stage actor. Glover then moved to Los Angeles for more opportunities in acting, where he would later go on to co-found the Robey Theatre Company with actor Ben Guillory in honor of the actor and concert singer Paul Robeson in Los Angeles in 1994.

Glover has had a variety of film, stage, and television roles, and is best known for playing Los Angeles police Sergeant Roger Murtaugh in the Lethal Weapon series of action films, starring alongside Mel Gibson and Gary Busey . Later he once again starred with Busey in the blockbuster Predator 2. He also starred as the husband to Whoopi Goldberg's character Celie in the celebrated literary adaptation The Color Purple, and as Lieutenant James McFee in the film Witness. In 1994 he made his directorial debut with the Showtime channel short film Override.

Also in 1994, Glover and actor Ben Guillory formed the Robey Theatre Company in Los Angeles, focusing on theatre by and about Black people. During his career, he has made several cameos, appearing, for example, in the Michael Jackson video "Liberian Girl" of 1987. Glover earned top billing for the first time in Predator 2, the sequel to the sci-fi action film Predator. That same year he starred in Charles Burnett's To Sleep with Anger, for which he won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead.

In common with Humphrey Bogart, Elliott Gould and Robert Mitchum, who have played Raymond Chandler's private eye detective Philip Marlowe, Glover played the role in the episode "Red Wind" of the Showtime network's 1995 series Fallen Angels. In 1997, under his former production company banner Carrie Films, Glover executive produced numerous films of first time directors including Pamm Malveaux's neo-noir short film Final Act starring Joe Morton, which aired on the Independent Film Channel. In addition, Glover has been a voice actor in many children's movies. Glover was featured in the popular 2001 film The Royal Tenenbaums, also starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Anjelica Huston, Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson.

In 2004, he appeared in the low-budget horror film Saw as Detective David Tapp. In 2005, Glover and Joslyn Barnes announced plans to make No FEAR, a movie about Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo's experience. Coleman-Adebayo won a 2000 jury trial against the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The jury found the EPA guilty of violating the civil rights of Coleman-Adebayo on the basis of race, sex, color and a hostile work environment, under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Coleman-Adebayo was terminated shortly after she revealed the environmental and human disaster taking place in the Brits, South Africa, vanadium mines. Her experience inspired passage of the Notification and Federal Employee Anti-discrimination and Retaliation Act of 2002 (No-FEAR Act). As of 2013 the No Fear title has not appeared but The Marsha Coleman-Adebayo Story was announced as the next major project of No Fear Media Productions.

Glover portrayed David Keaton in the film The Exonerated - a real-life story of Keaton's experience of being arrested, jailed and then freed from death row.

In 2009, Glover performed in The People Speak a documentary feature film that uses dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries, and speeches of everyday Americans, based on historian Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States".

Glover played President Wilson, the President of the United States in 2012, a disaster film directed by Roland Emmerich and released in theaters November 13, 2009. In 2010, Glover participated in a Spanish film called I Want to Be a Soldier. In 2012, he starred in the film Donovan's Echo.

Planned directorial debut

Glover sought to make a film biography of Toussaint Louverture for his directorial debut. In May 2006, the film had included cast members Wesley Snipes, Angela Bassett, Don Cheadle, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Roger Guenveur Smith, Mos Def, Isaach de Bankolé, and Richard Bohringer. Production, estimated to cost $30 million, was planned to begin in Poland, filming from late 2006 into early 2007. In May 2007, President of Venezuela Hugo Chávez contributed $18 million to fund the production of Toussaintfor Glover, who is a prominent U.S. supporter of Chávez. The contribution annoyed some Venezuelan filmmakers, who said the money could have funded other homegrown films and that Glover's film was not even about Venezuela. In April 2008, the Venezuelan National Assembly authorized an additional $9,840,505 for Glover's film, which is still in planning.

Public appearances

Glover appeared at London Film and Comic Con 2013 at Earls Court 2 over 2.5 days during Friday 5th to Sunday July 7. He participated in a panel discussion in McComb, Mississippi on July 16, 2015. The event, co-sponsored by The Gloster Project and Jubilee Performing Arts Center, included noted authors Terry McMillan and Quincy Troupe.

On January 30, 2015 Glover was the Keynote Speaker and 2015 Honoree for the MLK Celebration Series at the Rhode Island School of Design (Providence, RI). Glover used his career and personal story to speak on the topic "Creativity and Democracy: Social Change through the Arts."

Personal life

Glover purchased a 6,000-square-foot (560 m2) house in Dunthorpe, Oregon, in 1999. As of 2011, he no longer lived in Oregon.

On September 2, 2009, Glover signed an open letter of objection to the inclusion of a series of films intended to showcase Tel Aviv at the Toronto International Film Festival.

On April 16, 2010, Glover was arrested in Maryland during a protest by SEIU workers for Sodexo's unfair and illegal treatment of workers. He was given a citation and later released. The Associated Press reports "Glover and others stepped past yellow police tape and were asked to step back three times at Sodexo headquarters. When they refused, Starks says officers arrested them."

Activism

Civil rights activism

While attending San Francisco State University (SFSU), Glover was a member of the Black Students Union, which, along with the Third World Liberation Front and the American Federation of Teachers, collaborated in a five-month student-led strike to establish a Department of Black Studies. The strike was the longest student walkout in U.S. history. It helped create not only the first Department of Black Studies but also the first School of Ethnic Studies in the United States.

Hari Dillon, current president of the Vanguard Public Foundation, was a fellow striker at SFSU. Glover later co-chaired Vanguard's board. He is also a board member of The Algebra Project, The Black AIDS Institute, Walden House, and Cheryl Byron's Something Positive Dance Group. He was charged with disorderly conduct and unlawful assembly after being arrested outside the Sudanese Embassy in Washington during a protest over Sudan's humanitarian crisis in Darfur.

Glover's long history of union activism includes support for the United Farm Workers, UNITE HERE, and numerous service unions. In March 2010, Glover supported 375 Union workers in Ohio by calling upon all actors at the 2010 Academy Awards to boycott Hugo Boss suits following announcement of Hugo Boss's decision to close a manufacturing plant in Ohio after a proposed pay decrease from $13 to $8.30 an hour was rejected by the Workers United Union.

On November 1, 2011, Glover spoke to the crowd at Occupy Oakland on the day before the Oakland General Strike where thousands of protestors shut down the Port of Oakland.

Political activism

Glover was an early supporter of former North Carolina Senator John Edwards in the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries until Edwards' withdrawal, although some news reports indicated that he had endorsed Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich, whom he had endorsed in 2004. After Edwards dropped out, Glover then endorsed Barack Obama. In February 2016, Glover endorsed Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Glover was an outspoken critic of George W. Bush, calling him a known racist. "Yes, he's racist. We all knew that. As Texas's governor, Bush led a penitentiary system that executed more people than all the other U.S. states together. And most of the people who died were Afro-Americans or Hispanics."

Glover's support of California Proposition 7 (2008) led him to use his voice in an automated phone call to generate support for the measure before the election.

On the foreign policy of the Obama administration, Glover said: "I think the Obama administration has followed the same playbook, to a large extent, almost verbatim, as the Bush administration. I don't see anything different... On the domestic side, look here: What's so clear is that this country from the outset is projecting the interests of wealth and property. Look at the bailout of Wall Street. Why not the bailout of Main Street? He may be just a different face, and that face may happen to be black, and if it were Hillary Clinton, it would happen to be a woman.... But what choices do they have within the structure?"

Glover wrote the foreword to Phyllis Bennis' book, Challenging Empire: How People, Governments, and the UN Defy US Power. Glover is also a member of the board of directors of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a think tank led by economist Dean Baker.

InternationalAfrica

Glover is an active board member of the TransAfrica Forum. On April 6, 2009, Glover was given a chieftaincy title in Imo State, Nigeria. Glover was given the title Enyioma of Nkwerre, which means A Good Friend in the language of the Igbo people of Eastern Nigeria.

Caribbean and Haiti

On January 13, 2010, Glover compared the scale and devastation of the 2010 Haiti earthquake to the predicament other island nations may face as a result of the failed Copenhagen summit the previous year. Glover said: "...the threat of what happens to Haiti is a threat that can happen anywhere in the Caribbean to these island nations... they're all in peril because of global warming... because of climate change... when we did what we did at the climate summit in Copenhagen, this is the response, this is what happens..." In the same statement, he called for a new form of international partnership with Haiti and other Caribbean nations and praised Venezuela, Brazil, and Cuba, for already accepting this partnership.

Iraq War

Danny Glover has been an outspoken critic of the Iraq War before the war began in March 2003. In February 2003, he was one of the featured speakers at Justin Herman Plaza in San Francisco where other notable speakers included names such as author Alice Walker, singer Joan Baez, United Farm Workers co-founder Dolores Huerta and Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland. Glover was a signatory to the April 2003 anti-war letter "To the Conscience of the World" that criticized the unilateral American invasion of Iraq that led to "massive loss of civilian life" and "devastation of one of the cultural patrimonies of humanity". During an anti-war demonstration in Downtown Oakland in March 2003, Glover praised the community leaders for their anti-war efforts saying that "They're on the front lines because they are trying to make a better America.... The world has come together and said 'no' to this war – and we must stand with them."

Venezuela

In January 2006, Harry Belafonte led a delegation of activists, including Glover and activist/professor Cornel West, in a meeting with President of Venezuela Hugo Chávez, with Glover calling Chávez "remarkable". In 2007, the Venezuelan government allotted $18 million to Glover for a film about a slave uprising in Haiti with Hugo Chávez hoping "to mobilise world public opinion against imperialism and western oppression". Glover was also a board member of TeleSUR, a media network primarily funded by the Venezuelan government.

During the beginning of the 2014 Venezuela Protests, Glover shared his support to Chávez's successor, President Nicolas Maduro, calling members of his government "the stewards" of Venezuela's democracy. Glover also told Venezuelan government supporters to go fight for the sovereignty of Maduro's government.

Music

Glover has become an active member of board of directors of The Jazz Foundation of America. Danny became involved with The Jazz Foundation in 2005, and has been a featured host for their annual benefit A Great Night in Harlem for several years, as well appearing as a celebrity MC at other events for the foundation. In 2006, Britain's leading African theatre company Tiata Fahodzi appointed Glover as one of its three Patrons, joining Chiwetel Ejiofor and Jocelyn Jee Esien opening the organization's tenth-anniversary celebrations (Sunday, February 2, 2008) at the Theatre Royal Stratford East, London.

Honors and awards

Utah State University

In 2010, Glover delivered the Commencement Address and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Utah State University.

Starr King School for the Ministry

Also in 2010, Starr King School for the Ministry awarded the Doctorate of Humane Letters (Litterarum Humanarum Doctor), in absentia, to Mr. Glover. His call to humanity to see itself as the recipient of a legacy of caring and commitment that began with prior parental and religious communities and that it should carry on for the sake of those who will follow are in alignment with Starr King's values. Mr. Glover was awarded the doctorate specifically for his long history of passionate activism, including support for the United Farm Workers, UNITE HERE, The Algebra Project, The Black AIDS Institute, as well as his humanitarian efforts on behalf of the Haiti earthquake victims, literacy and civil rights and his fight against unjust labor practices. Mr. Glover is co-founder and CEO of Louverture Films, dedicated to the development and production of films of historical relevance, social purpose, commercial value and artistic integrity; we honored his commitment to using film to lift up and advance social justice issues, such as his then recently released project "Trouble the Water", a documentary about New Orleans in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina.

Glover has had a close association with Starr King School through his role as guest lecturer in its course on Non Violent Social Change and lending his support and presence to events sponsored by Starr King's Masters of Arts in Social Change (MASC) program.

Deauville American Film Festival

He was also the recipient of a tribute paid by the Deauville American Film Festival in France on September 7, 2011.

Wikipedia

#Danny Glover #07-22

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pussiehands1 · 6 years

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meta #7 // ‘you and i understand each other’ tw: childhood/sexual abuse, partial headcanon/speculation based, homophobic slurs, autism mention.

The closest thing Mac has to a healthy bond is with Charlie, mainly stemming from the fact they’ve known each other since childhood and they therefore know more about each other than any of the other members of the gang. Since there’s a lot of ground to cover I’ll try and split the parts into periods of chronological age rather than of specific moments ( although they will have examples ). Some of this is speculation based, anything that is not followed by an episode number or ‘in one episode’ is headcanon surrounding other elements of the show. You’re welcome to ask but this won’t be expanded on in this meta.

Childhood:

Mac and Charlie have known each other since they were children although there’s never a clear cut reason as to how they’d met or why. My speculation is that they met on some kind of playground. Since both their mothers are lax when it comes to their whereabouts / their actual safety, their early days could have consisted of a situation where Charlie attempt to run away from home only to end up on the bad side of Philly where he finds Mac. The two strike up a friendship and then they attend the same school etc. The only glimpse we see of Mac and Charlie as children is in the Christmas episode (S6E13). Where they spend the day throwing rocks at trains as their own special tradition. Without any money but a strong bond, Mac and Charlie pick out piles of rocks for each other as gifts. Charlie picks smooth rocks ( and chomps on the rough ones until they’re smooth because they hurt Mac’s hands ). Mac picks the misshapen ones because Charlie likes to make stories about them. The fact their parents allow both of them to spent time together on a very family orientated holiday shows the kind of family bond that they have. Regardless of the holiday/time, they always find time to share it with people they love - each other. As well as this, Charlie becomes the first person to actually buy Mac a gift, something that he always wanted, years later after finding out about the traditions he had as a child. Charlie, who is usually emotionally ignorant of most, shows an act of selflessness that’s arguably only present around Mac - this being one of those times.

Charlie for a lot of reasons views Mac as safety, specifically regarding Charlie’s years of sexual abuse at the hands of his Uncle. The song ‘Nightman’ (S4E13) and the play itself tells a story of how Charlie perceives the events of the molestation from Uncle Jack, who is the Nightman ( he comes in the night and he touches the ‘baby boy’. Charlie’s Mom being a prostitute and potentially ‘selling’ Charlie - the troll - 'you gotta pay the troll toll to get into this boys hole' etc) . In the original script Charlie writes Mac as The Dayman who is regarded as the hero of the song, he protects the baby boy from the Nightman. This plays out until Dennis decides he wants to be the Dayman instead which Charlie gets angry about. As mentioned above he and Mac were together as children. My personal thought is that Mac used to stay over at Charlies and offered protection unknowingly, Uncle Jack couldn't have came into his room when Mac stayed over and therefore he kept the Nightman away. In the song, Charlie refers to the Dayman being someone who is a fighter of the Nightman, a friend for everyone and a master of karate. The last two are things are what Mac would define himself as. Mac is by far the easiest member of the gang to communicate with, he gets so excited about making ideas or talking to people because its in his nature and he also has a wild obsession with martial arts. Charlie especially had NO other friends as a kid, so to him Mac is the ultimate best friend and he would almost worship their friendship at that age because of how their mentality works. Charlie’s ability to extend himself to be like Mac (when Mac dances Charlie copies the dance moves (S6E2), when Mac is standing in a specific way Charlie will copy (S7E4), Charlie laughs at Mac’s jokes even when he doesn't understand him etc). Mac projects a lot of 'badassary' onto people and Charlie has no reason not to believe it. If Charlie can believe he's like the Dayman then he in turn can fight the Nightman, which in turn would make the abuse stop. Charlie then adopts the role of the Dayman at the end of the play which then allows him to move on with his life.

Teenagers:

Mac and Charlie as teenagers used to canonically hang out and get high, they were then later joined by Dennis (S7E12). This didn’t just happen at school but also at Charlie’s house where they used to dwell in the basement. During this time they begin to grow into their own personalities and since they’re the only real comfort each other have, they probably talk about girls they like or what interests them. As this would have been in the 80s, it’s unlikely that Mac would confide in Charlie about his types of fantasies regarding men. Charlie who also has very toxic relationship with men ( Mac being the exception ) would most likely try to steer away from this kind of conversation. As two guys who are experiencing changes there is a possibility that they may have kissed a couple of times, if only to break their kissing virginity, but with how their relationship then develops it’s unlikely anything more came from it. Mac and Charlie also used to ‘wrestle’ together and gave each other ringworm which then spread to the whole team. As this would have been a pursuit of Mac, mostly because of how its regarded as a manly sport - but also to get closer to other guys - Charlie is the one that offers support, agreeing to help Mac home in the skills before practice. This kind of support also stems into adulthood both as a physical and emotional trait.

Adulthood:

The close bond that Mac and Charlie have has grown from the above section and developed further as they reach adulthood. Dee and Dennis both go to college and these two are left alone again. They slowly become, at this point, the only people they can each rely on. They have a closer bond than Dee and Dennis, who arguably should be closer considering they’re related. The shows makes us aware of this by placing them as direct parallels to them (S7E7, S11E1). In the games especially they’re very supportive, often their cards involve team work like mending a broken bottle, their flag is composed from a joint imaginative idea rather than depicting themselves and during emotional battery, Mac tries to amp up Charlie not to cry. Dee and Dennis however are very competitive, they have to force themselves to team up (Dennis gluing his hand to Dee) all for the sake of winning. Mac and Charlie in this regard become a collective, two halves of a whole that’s a title that should only really be reserved for biological bonds. The show makes a good point here: You choose your family, which is what they regard themselves as.

Mac will always have a soft spot for his parents, however, and while the other members of the gang don’t mention it, the relationship between them and Mac is toxic. Charlie however continuously goes with Mac to see his dad in prison (S2E10,S3E11,S10E7) for no other reason than to support him which often ends in terrible situations. Not only that but Charlie sits back and watches as Mac’s Dad rejects him, not telling him how much Mac’s Dad hates him from the lack of love in his voice. Pair this in direct contrast to how Dennis delivers the news regarding the letters he was hiding from Luther (S11E10) or how Charlie reacts to Dee mentioning that her mom used to call her the worst (S10E9). Charlie takes notice of Mac’s feelings whereas the other members don’t and Charlie does not offer this kind of support for any of the others. In the same way, Mac gives Charlie support in his ideas and in Charlie’s lack of understanding and mental capabilities (S8E1) regarding his Dyslexia. While there are times where they will argue or friction will occur, the two get over the arguments quickly and this isn’t brought up later.

It’s normal for Charlie and Mac to be paired together, episodes that stem - but are not limited to (S1E1, S2E3, S3E9, S4E5, S4E10, S5E11, S6E5, S7E4, S8E1, S9E7, S10E1, S10E10, S11E8, S12E4). These schemes are often out of the blue, random and generally obnoxious. They are plans that nobody else wants to get involved in that the other’s can’t understand. Wheres most character dynamics have changed regarding canon ( Mac / Dennis. Dennis + Dee / Frank. Frank / Charlie etc ) these two have remained consistent in their support for each other. From S2 and them going to spend Frank’s money all the way to S12 where they catch a leprechaun. No matter the situation the two can usually convince each other to do what the other wants. It’s a mixture of their own head-space and complete trust in each other. Charlie, just as he did when he was a teenager, supports Mac in his pursuits and selflessly lends a hand (S6E4) without a want for anything. Whereas Dennis + Dee usually have motive to lend a hand, Mac and Charlie exist in a world where it’s very give and take (in relation to each other). There are times canon strays from this (S2E4) and Charlie manipulates Mac to get what he wants. However Mac is also capable of this (S3E5) where they will play on each other’s insecurities/weakness’ to get what they want. This, however, is nothing compared to what other members of the gang are willing to do to get what they want.

Insecurities:

Mac’s big arc in Sunny is that he spends a long walk coming out of the closet. Charlie, for all his lack of understanding in everything, knows every part of Mac. It’s already fairly established that Charlie looks up to Mac, specifically when he mentions about not believing until Mac says something (S7E8, S8E10). Charlie can often misunderstand levels of humour in a situation (mostly due to his his PDA - a rare form of autism) and a strong example of this is in (S10E9). Mac tells the gang that there are two gay guys on board and Charlie responds with a ‘who’s the other guy’ laughing with the rest of the gang when Mac remains unimpressed. His intent isn’t to make Mac feel uncomfortable but to bring light to the situation at hand. In my own personal beliefs, I think somewhere between S10 and S12 Mac confides in Charlie regarding his sexuality. I believe this for two reasons. 1) Mac has confided in his insecurities with Charlie before (S8E1) when he informs the gang that Mac assess people with ocular pat downs because he’s insecure. Something Mac would never openly admit to to anybody else. His masculine pride won’t allow it - showing he trusts Charlie more than he trusts himself. 2) Charlie has expressed multiple times that he knows Mac is gay and Mac hasn’t been as offended as he is when Dennis or somebody else brings it up. (S8E8) Charlie states ‘whatever it is you’re into, men, women’ and Mac shrugs. (S12E4) ‘My friend has weird women issues’. Charlie never explicitly says it and for Mac that’s comforting, it’s the label that triggers him more than anything, especially since gay has such a negative connotation. Charlie was probably there as they were called faggot, gay boys because he was also part of it. These words demean and push away a place in the community, in the 80s being gay would take you out of the traditional family, you would be regarded as ‘other’. Mac has never had a real home, he comes from a broken family, he wants that anchor/security family provides. He strives for it, Charlie KNOWS this and does not push for Mac to come out.

Mac has always had Charlie to rely on for his own thoughts/feelings because in a way they share a lot of them. Charlie to Mac is someone that won’t judge him and who will protect him ( emotionally and physically as shown (S8E5) when Charlie punches Dennis ). It’s then logical to assume that this is something he talks to Charlie about, at least in passing, before it actually happens. Charlie - with respect - then doesn’t use this as a form of manipulative abuse or to force Mac out of the closet before he’s ready. Mac on the other hand, helps Charlie without even realising it. Mac protected Charlie from Uncle Jack and by association Charlie sees Mac as safety, though he doesn’t always believe it (S10E9) ‘Your head of security just choked himself out’. This is again not mentioned to his face and Charlie doing things like, spraying Mac’s cologne on himself (S3E10) almost as a comfort when he’s uncomfortable position, shows Charlie as a very dedicated best friend/follower of Macs.

Mac and Charlie might not be the best kind of people but together they bring out a kind of love that people strive to find, it’s supportive and unconditional. They regard each other as family but more than that. They’re two pieces of a disjointed puzzle from very deprived families who have experienced unbelievable horrors as children/teenagers, they’ve grown up together and continued to remain dedicated to their friendship despite absolutely everything. For them home is not a place, it’s a person. Home offers a sense of safety and family - two things that they both want more than anything.

#ʸᵒᵘ ᵃᶰᵈ ᶤ ᵘᶰᵈᵉʳˢᵗᵃᶰᵈ ᵉᵃᶜʰ ᵒᵗʰᵉʳ : mac x charlie #long post tw #meta.#{ nobody wants this and yet everybody gets it }

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itsomgitsgreenblogging · 7 years

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Break My Heart: Chapter 1 (A Solangelo Fanfiction)

Imagine you take your average “Three Days in the Infirmary” fic, and then add a twist. This would be your fic! And the twist is a prophetic dream that throws Will Solace into turmoil.

I hope you all enjoy!

Read on AO3

Preview:

“Okay, but in all seriousness. What are you going to do?” Cecil asked him, resting his chin on his hands. “Not all of us get dreams to give us forewarnings about the treacherous nature of the dating waters, so how will you use your newly acquired powers?”

“Well, since starting anything with Nico di Angelo obviously isn’t going to go anywhere, and I had no idea why, I…I guess I’m just not going to go for it. If I tried it would be a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Will said as he waved off Cecil. “I mean, how hard could not falling for one boy be?”

It was a dream.

A caveat being that it wasn’t just a dream. Demigods, as Will Solace had learned early on, don’t just have casual viewing experiences. Especially if the demigod in question was a child of Apollo, who was indeed the god in charge of prophecy despite all of Apollo’s notoriously bad decision making. That didn’t mean that Will couldn’t have your run-of-the-mill weird trippy nonsensical dreams, or other dreams that tended to be inappropriate for young impressionable demigods. But that did mean that Will had to be able to tell the difference between the two, and the difference was always this: in regular dreams the scenery would be foggy, whereas the prophetic dreams were sharp, colorful, and loud.

And that was what this dream was; it was vivid, it was real, it was prophetic…it was about Nico di Angelo?

They were sitting together at the end of the dock, the autumn breeze crisp and clean as it flitted from the lake carrying with it the scent mist and strawberry. The sky was almost blindingly bright and blue, while the trees were just tinged with just a blush of color. Will turned to the boy next to him, noting his leather jacket and feeling a thrill that nearly set his heart on fire. The Will who was a part of this dream welcomed it, while he succumbed to his confusion.

“Will…I…” Nico was saying to him, looking up at him with eyes wide and…was that a blush staining his cheeks? And he looked healthier than any time that Will could ever remember Nico di Angelo being, his cheeks filled out, the dark bruises under his eyes only shading them, his hair pulled back in a little ponytail, and his skin had color to it versus the warmed-over-corpse white shade he had been on Half Blood Hill during the battle.

And Will was holding his hand (how had he not noticed that was beyond him, but somehow it felt natural, so natural), and Nico’s fingers were curled with his own instead judo-flipping him and killing him with a well-placed strike. On that note, why were his own nails painted?

“Am I…is this…alright?” Will’s mouth moved and asked, and Will could feel his own cheeks heat up in return. He was just wearing a flannel and jeans but he felt entirely too warm, as if he would explode from nerves. Nico didn’t move, something guarded in his expression, before he met Will’s gaze evenly. It was intense and dark, and Will could feel his stomach twist up in a hundred knots.

“Hey Will?”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t think we should do this anymore.”

Will woke up with a start, his heart racing in his chest. He felt like the rug had been pulled out from underneath him, he felt the sickening feeling in his stomach as if he had just missed a step on the stairs and his foot had fallen through the air, he felt the recoiling blow of rejection like a slap to the face. The dream was there, and he replayed it in his mind again and again as his heart rate fell, trying to parcel out some sense from it but finding nothing.

“What in the name of the Gods?” Will asked himself, before looking around his mostly empty cabin. Thankfully the younger kids were still asleep, not disturbed by his sudden outburst. Kayla and Austin were probably still in the infirmary with Roman children of Apollo who had accompanied the legion to Camp Half Blood. And it was still before dawn, probably too early for him to be getting up. But if Will was good at one thing, it was avoiding his own problems by helping to solve other people’s. And this dream was something he definitely wanted to avoid before being more awake to deal with it (or possibly never).

And so Will crossed the camp in the dark after throwing on some fresh clothes and a sweatshirt, and walked into the infirmary. Phoebe looked up from the desk at him in confusion. She was the leader of the Roman medics, and had been nice enough once they had gotten past the initial awkwardness. That awkwardness being attributed to an unfortunate relative of both of them named Octavian, and though Phoebe had definitely not been a fan of the guy, there was also the principle of the matter. Will supposed they both had inherited Apollo’s protective nature in the end, and death wasn’t easy for either of them. So they had mostly agreed to focus on their work, and leave everything else to fall as it would.

“You are here early,” Phoebe observed stately, taking another sip of her coffee.

“Anyone I can help?” Will asked, sitting himself up on the desk and looking through a chart. With his general level of sleep deprivation and dyslexia, he barely made any progress before the words began shifting on the page.

“You know that you should be sleeping, you need the rest,” Phoebe pointed out to him, running a hand through her hair.

“I had a weird dream is all, I’m not going to be falling back asleep anytime soon,” Will dismissed her, shoving the dream as far back as he could in his head for the moment.

“Well, if you must, check out Alicia’s leg, you know, the child of Mercury. She was awake and groaning about it earlier, but I also have a feeling she was trying to pickpocket Kayla and she isn’t awake enough to ward off attacks,” Phoebe told him with a huff, standing up to go to the coffee pot and pour him a cup with a splash of cream and sugar. She handed it to him, and Will smiled back gratefully before going to do just that.

Alicia’s leg was in good condition and healing well, and Will managed to avoid any wandering fingers. Ellis Wakefield’s broken ribs were on the mend, and Will knew that because Ellis could hiss out insults after being poked and prodded with minimal gasping. Lacey from Aphrodite was sleeping soundly and the cut on her forehead was looking fine, while Nyssa from Hephaestus’ fingers were looking much less swollen. And Suzuka Yamato, a Mars legacy, reported her head was feeling better by communicating with both him and Ellis Wakefield in a series of expletives in Japanese, Latin, and English.

He continued to do the rounds, scooting his tired siblings who had done the nightshift out of the infirmary to get some rest, and tugged at his sweatshirt’s sleeve absently. The sensation reminded him of what he was working so hard to avoid, and eventually he had to say something to someone.

“Hey, Phoebe, has Nico di Angelo come in at all?” Will asked Phoebe, trying to be as nonchalant as possible, as he returned to the desk with the excuse of making a fresh cup of coffee.

“You mean the son of Hades?” Phoebe asked, her eyebrows drawn. “I haven’t seen him. Why? Should I have?”

“Well…I told him to report to the infirmary for three days,” Will excused quickly. “I guess this means I have to go get him.”

“Well, I would rather you not die. I will talk to Chiron about it,” Phoebe said with a sniff. “I’m sure he’ll corral him and have a conversation about the importance of healing wounds.”

“Nico wouldn’t—“

Phoebe’s look was enough to get Will to do the smart thing and shut up. And maybe she had a point. After all, Nico had apparently been the one who would break up with him, so maybe the guy secretly hated him and would try to fight him if he approached. But that still didn’t mean that he should let Nico be injured, the more rational part of Will’s brain pointed out, and if they had at least had a thing or would have a thing then maybe Nico also liked him somewhat. (And Will had to admit, after the birthing and just running into the field of battle, he had been hopped up on adrenalin and had probably been more forceful then he had needed to be, and he had been previously hoping the days in the infirmary would give him a chance to apologize.) But the whole thing didn’t make any sense to begin with, Will tried to reason back. Everyone knew that Nico had had a crush on Annabeth Chase. Maybe Nico was bi? Maybe Will would have just been the unfortunate rebound. Or maybe Will had been making the moves on him and was about to be rejected—

Will’s head hurt, and he desperately needed council. So Will went to sit next to Cecil who was nursing a pulled tendon and a sprained ankle. He poked his very good friend awake, and like a true friend Cecil blinked awake, groaned, and then immediately turned over.

“Bro…no…just no…” Cecil groaned dramatically, trying to dig himself back under the covers like a bear attempting to return to hibernation. Will wasn’t having it.

“Cecil, please, I need to talk to someone I think I’m going crazy,” Will told him as he pulled off the covers, Cecil sat up to snatch them back and Will let them go.

“Yeah you have to be pretty freaking mental to be up so early, and making me be up so early!” Cecil snapped back, before seemingly giving in and laying back down. “Alright, alright, I’m awake. What do you need?”

“I had a dream, but it wasn’t just a dream it was a prophetic dream,” Will tried to explain before realizing that had not been an explanation and groaning.

“Okay? And? You get those sometimes right?”

“Well yeah…but this one was different…it…” Will trailed off before shifting uncomfortably. Cecil did not look amused by Will’s fidgeting and rolled his eyes as he reached over to swipe Will’s coffee.

“Alright Will, seriously spit it out—“

“Nico di Angelo was breaking up with me,” Will blurted out.

Cecil immediately choked and coughed out the liquid, and after getting through the worst of his coughing fit, Cecil stared at Will with something akin to disbelief as he set Will’s coffee back on the side table.

“You’re joking, that’s supposed to be funny right,” Cecil said as he wiped his face with his arm, and when seeing the suffering look on Will’s face he broke out into a grin, “wait you aren’t joking? Seriously? Damn Solace you’ve got so much game you see it ending before it even starts.”

“Okay seriously I’m having a moment so I would appreciate some concern,” Will groaned as he let his head fall into his hands. “You can at least pretend to be my actual friend.”

“Why would I do that when this is so much more fun,” Cecil noted before humming as he laid back against the pillows, “that’s crazy though, seriously.”

“I know, you’re telling me!” Will said as spun on his chair absently.

“And you are sure it was a prophecy, and not just some weird lucid dream?” Cecil asked seriously, a brow quirking in his favor. Will dismissed it with a glum shake of his head.

“Yeah, I can tell the difference. It was prophetic, very prophetic, with the sense of impending doom and everything,” Will explained nervously as he continued to spin, until he got dizzy and settled with nervously tapping his foot to the frantic rhythm of his panic instead.

“Well tell me what happened,” Cecil said as he crossed his arms over his chest.

And so he did, recounting the plot of dream, every little detail he remembered, and the state that he woke up in. Cecil hummed and nodded along, only interjecting once or twice for clarification. At the end, they both sat quietly for a moment, the infirmary coming to life as Roman demigods did their rounds. Cecil finally broke the silence,

“We’re pretty sure that Nico was breaking up with you. Or at least rejecting you. And the way you describe the dream…well…it sounds like it took place a few months from now. It had to at least be September or October-ish.”

“So what should I do?”

“Well, I don’t know. Do you like Nico di Angelo?” Cecil asked curiously without judgment.

“I…he’s cool, and heroic, and he’s pretty attractive. You saw him in the battle, and I do want to help him. But I don’t know, it’s hard to like like a person I don’t know. And I don’t really know him,” Will said in return with a noncommittal shrug.

“Apparently, you are going to get to know him pretty well,” Cecil pointed out and he flipped to laying on his stomach. “Well enough that you are going to start dating, or at least making moves on him.”

“Don’t be a douche,” Will told him with a sigh.

“Infamous last words,” Cecil noted as he lay back down completely. “Don’t worry there are way more fish in the sea.”

“What am I? Percy Jackson? I—at least get your leg elevated,” Will muttered as he pulled pillows from the side and helped Cecil get readjusted with a small piece of ambrosia, not bothering to address the implications of Cecil’s previous comment.

Will left Cecil’s bedside soon after that and Phoebe immediately looked towards him.

“Chiron’s going to bring Nico di Angelo in later,” Phoebe reported without any preface. “He said he was going to have words with him, so, let’s hope for the best.

“Alright,” Will said before putting on his best smile, which felt oddly placed. “Better get to work then.”

#Solangelo #Solangelo fanfiction #Will Solace #Nico di Angelo

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indiexp · 7 years

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The Last Door

Everyone who knows me knows I’m obsessed with 19th century occult societies, lovecraftian horror, classical music and a good dramatic story. So here it is, a game I’ve been playing for about a year and a half now, on a very biased review of The Last Door.

Made in Spain by The Game Kitchen, this is a game that combines pixel art and classic lovecraftian horror with a compelling and genuinely unsettling story.

I’ve played through all 2 seasons, both on mobile and on my mac. For review purposes and because I don’t want to spoil this amazing game for anyone, I will be using only examples from the first episode, The Letter.

This chapter begins with one of the most striking moments of the whole series for me, a prelude with the man our character will be investigating committing suicide.

They could have just told us what happened, or showed it in animation, but the fact that the player has to be the one staging and executing the suicide for poor Anthony Beechworth is quite unsettling. By giving the player no other options than to click these specific objects in succession, the game pretty much drags you kicking and screaming to do it.

I also really enjoy the spacing of Beechworth’s last words, appearing every time the player gets him closer to his suicide.

One of the first things that are noticeable while playing this game is that the pixel art really works when we’re talking about mystery/horror. The fact that everything is not crystal clear and explicit works in favor of The Last Door, and it doesn’t hurt either that it has some beautiful environments.

The game also works well on both mobile and pc, since the controls are so easy.

Reviewing this game without mentioning the music would be making it a huge disservice. Carlos Viola composed an original orchestral soundtrack such as you very rarely see in these games, especially mobile ones. It’s so mindblowingly intense and complex that I find myself going back to it again and again, and I regularly listen to it.

The game also leads you very easily through the tasks, without offering them up to you too easily. It’s a really well crafted point and click, and even in pixel art all the objects are inteligible and the objectives clear.

Apart from the main font used, you also have a dyslexia friendly font you can enable on the menu, as well as a variety of other languages.

In short, even if The Last Door doesn’t offer much in the way of innovative UI, I think it manages quite well to craft a seamless experience combining narrative, visuals and sound, to create a horror game that will live forever in our dark little horror-loving hearts.

#gameui #ui #ux

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aalt-ctrl-del · 7 years

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Occasionally, I post about this high suspect theory that trump cannot read - he might have dyslexia - again and again he says he has people “who read for him”, and that sits well with the trumpets.

I cannot EMPHASIZE ENOUGH HOW DANGEROUS A SITUATION THIS IS. Undoubtedly, congress and the house are aware of these issues and concerns people have had - this has been a controversy since before the election. But the more people see of trump and his behavior, the more situations trump gets himself into, the more people are beginning to question the validity of this issue, and what it means to the People.

I have brought forth this concern tirelessly, that even if he is capable of reading, trump does not like to. As such, he always has someone available to read for him. This is the protective cocoon others have spoken about; the ‘diverse’ group of close friends and family that are on call - his own daughter Ivanka helping him with political decisions.

YOU CANNOT BE A LEADER AND NOT WANT TO READ. I understand trump supporters are all on-board with equal opportunities, but there are certain qualities and capacities that a leader must be competent in. One is reading and the devotion to reading (lots of documents, studies, reports, etc), another is critical and academic thought process, and a third we can say is the capacity to listen and learn - these are basic requirements we the People should want our leader to take full advantage of. However, trump is the poster child of gross privileged - endowed with the resources but shuns his responsibilities, and refuses. People have made attribute that one does not become intelligent, it requires extensive study, reading, and the pursuit of knowledge - an open mind, and healthy skepticism will not hurt either.

What we have currently is an overgrown man-child who, when asked what he’s reading, how he is preparing, he provides an excuse, reworks the direction of the conversation, or claims he’s watching “so many shows”.

trump is Fauxx news biggest supporter.

How in danger are the people? We cannot trust this under-read bully to make the careful and complex decisions that a wise and balanced leader would make - I will argue that trump is not a leader, for fact he doesn’t match with the description of a leader - he’s a vague figure head that the trump supporters and house desperately cling to. A probable scandal is in the works. When a natural disaster strikes, or one of economic, possible environmental scale were to take place, trump will not make a thoroughly thought out or educated decision. trumps decisions are based on those around him - they are not the mental derivative of his own mind and experience, they will be ideas that other people have fed him, and they will not be intelligent.

trump can’t even cease stuffing his face to make a decision regarding missiles, and take on the potential gravity of murdering innocent citizens. How disturbing is that?

To reiterate, trumps mental fortitude is ill-construed - he doesn’t read, he doesn’t take information - he simply Is there. Yes, he will sign his practiced signature on Executive Orders, but he will not read them, and what he will take from the reports will be an abridged version supplied by one of his manipulators. When information is transferred from it’s original form, orally, some content will be lost.

I can only guarantee you people will die, and large numbers of people will die due to inaction. Inaction by congress, representatives aware of our concerns, the house, and all members involved. People will die due to trumps improperly skimmed text, and others will die when he fails to make the rational decisions essential to deciding what actions must be taken.

trumps administration is already a prolonged mess due to their inability to get their act together. Imagine how this will go when a disaster hits domestic soil. Republicans (trump supports) criticized Obama for his delay in decisions. You haven’t seen the full force of trumps circus yet.

#trump #donald trump #incompetent manchild #ivanka trump #politics #make no mistake this isnt drilling home he cant read its simply going off what trumps words were he doesnt read and doesnt like to #trumpets #honestly i get rather strained trying to keep track or what is what regarding politics but I am trying to learn

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wngriddenangel · 4 years

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Fiction Piece

𝔇𝔢𝔞𝔱𝔥 𝔖𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔢𝔫𝔠𝔢

Most people I know fear rational or reasonable subjects–the dark, spiders, heights–to name a few. My fear, however, is not quite as predictable. I have grammaphobia, otherwise known as a fear of letters. Before your mind develops judgements, allow me to explain. When I was younger, around the age of a kindergartener, I couldn’t quite grasp the idea of an alphabet. Teachers and tutors alike could not explain it in a way for me to make sense of the fact that words are composed of combinations of singular letters. My frustration with learning the alphabet led me to spend an excessive amount of hours throughout my childhood waiting in numerous child psychologist offices for my parents to be told over and over again that no, I was not dyslexic. However, although the psychologists were able to identify that I didn’t have dyslexia, they were still unsure of why I had such issues with the alphabet. My struggle with letters grew to the point where I would just avoid them, along with learning the alphabet, entirely. Eventually, as the years passed, I grew past my grammaphobia and managed to make sense of the alphabet. Unfortunately, though, my fear still hasn’t left me, it’s just that it presents itself differently, now. Today, I am still scared of letters, but I fear them appearing in the corners of my tests, school assignments, and report cards. I’m scared of grades, more specifically, bad grades.

I grew up in a town where a desire for success plagues the population. Palo Alto, California, located in one of the richest areas of the United States is surrounded by Stanford, the second most prestigious university, not just in the U.S., but in the world, as well as countless globally successful start ups and enterprises. The average income here is multiple times that of the national average, and the pressure to match the success of the environment around those my age is agreed to be quite unbearable. I have most definitely given into the toxic societal pressure and seeing that I have fallen among the top of the class for the past few years of high school, I have especially felt the necessity to keep my grades constant in comparison to my previous school records.

However, my Junior year, I couldn’t deal with the nerves and anxiety that overcame me every time an assessment was placed on my desk. Especially in AP Chemistry, my mind simply could not conceptualize the information taught in class. Every test was an inner conflict with myself to ignore the possible failing grade I could receive if I did not manage to do well. I ended the class with a C and I’ll admit that this was not my finest high school moment. Never in my life had I received less than an A in a class, despite the intensity or rigor of the course. But, at the time, I hadn’t bothered to think much of my C because I knew that I had tried my best in chemistry and did not think it would do much to my GPA, seeing as all my other grades were As, and also acknowledging that AP chemistry was a weighted class.

Now, however, I find myself seated across from a college counselor who is telling me the opposite, and I am starting to grow anxious. I study the paths drawn across the counselor’s face, developing from the arch in her brow as she tells me, sternly, that she will be unable to accept me as a client. I feel tension strike the room as my mother leans forward so that she will be more capable of looking this woman in the eye when she mutters, “Excuse me?”

“I’m sorry, but I just won’t be able to accept Tara as a client.”

“It’s her senior year, she won’t take up too much of your time. You must have some sort of availability…” My father’s hand lands on my shoulder, firmly, in a way which I can understand is meant to ground him during this unexpected turn of conversation.

“I’m afraid not,” the counselor sighs, seeming much more annoyed than upset, “I would’ve been more than willing to take her last year, but it seems as if her grades have fallen and I don’t have the time to take on another… difficult… client.”

My father’s hand strengthens its grip as my shoulders fall, “Difficult?” he asks.

“Well, you see, Tara has a C on her transcript, which is basically a death sentence when aiming for any top college… And I believe that both she and I are not interested in lower tier universities.” The counselor now begins to shuffle the papers that lay scattered across her desk together, hinting that this conversation is over. My parents and I sit still, unsure of how to react.

A death sentence? Her words ring through my head and I lose myself in thought to the point where I regain consciousness of the present moment only as my parents pull into our driveway and I drag myself into my room.

The next couple hours are spent on my laptop, researching, and realizing that the counselor, although more rude than kindly straightforward, was right. Statistics appear on my screen, displaying that a C ruins chances at admission to a list of colleges longer than I had expected. The more time I spend researching, the further my shoulders fall.

Motivation is drained from my system and all I feel is lost. My future, all that I’ve been working so intensely for seems to have been snatched from my grasp, and there seems to be nothing I can do about it at this point.

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againstalloddshq · 6 years

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BASICS

NAME: Samuel Dwight Evans AGE & BIRTHDAY: 23 | May 5 OCCUPATION: Guitar Teacher / Aspiring Comic Artist SEXUALITY: Bisexual / Biromantic FROM: Lima, OH

He is currently SINGLE, but his endgame is BLAM.

BIOGRAPHY

Family over everything. If there was one lesson Dwight and Mary Evans wanted their children to take with them as they went about their lives, that would be it. From the moment Sam could understand, his parents worked hard to remind him that even if he felt like he had nothing else, he would always have his family. Even though people liked to assume otherwise, Sam was a smart kid so he knew how lucky he was, and he made sure his siblings also knew it when they joined the Evans clan. There was a 9 year gap separating Sam and his brother Stevie, and 12 years between he and little Stacey, and so Sam liked to think he was like their mentor. Like Yoda. Stevie and Stacey were his Jedi younglings, ready to learn all about the big bad world from wise old middle schooler Sam. He had a whole twelve-plus years of life experience under his belt that he could pass on to his siblings. Like knowing about fractions and having read Tuck Everlasting. Stuff like that.

Which, Sam liked to point out, was a whole bunch of bullshit, but maybe that was because math equations and reading chapter books were a lot harder for him than they seemed to be for other kids. While he felt like a big shot at home when his toddler siblings laughed at his funny faces, school was another story. Sam felt...small. He wasn’t someone who retreated into his shell easily; he had a huge personality (and a smile to match), but his difficulties in school made him want to disappear sometimes. His teachers and parents knew it was a problem and they wanted to help him.

The testing was pretty bad, but everyone promised Sam that finding out if something was going on would be worth it. As it turned out, there was something, and that something was dyslexia. He started having these weekly sessions to monitor his progress and find some ways to make math and reading and writing easier. The weekly sessions became biweekly, then monthly, then they were just every once in a while, and eventually Sam’s dyslexia wasn’t something that made him feel so small anymore. It was just something he had, just one of his Things, and he felt like he could breathe again.

Most importantly, he could make his siblings laugh again, and wasn’t that just the most important thing in Sam’s short life thus far?

After all, family was everything. And that turned out to be super important when Sam was sixteen and things spiraled downhill. Mary had been a stay-at-home mom since Sam’s birth and it worked out perfectly with Dwight’s job, but that obviously wasn’t the case when he lost it. Desperation set in when they suddenly no longer owned their house. Sam was a sophomore in high school needing to come to terms with the fact that he and his family were homeless. Just like that.

Enter Carole Hudson and her son, Finn. The Hudsons had been friends of theirs since Mary used to babysit Finn when he and Sam were little. Sam had great memories with him from when they were tiny, and now they were on the football team together and suddenly Sam was the one being dumped on Finn’s doorstep rather than the other way around. Except he was sixteen and not two, so it was a lot more humiliating. But Finn wasn’t judgmental. He didn’t bat an eye at the fact that Sam and Stevie shared an air mattress on his bedroom floor for the better part of a year, nor the fact that Stacey slept sandwiched between their parents on the Hudsons’ pullout couch downstairs. The Evans-Hudson clan was one big, dysfunctional, not-quite-family in that time, and Sam never forgot it. Sam and Finn both worked after-school jobs and the money they made went to their families. When Dwight landed a job that would get them back on their feet, Carole insisted they stick around until they were sure they would be okay. Needless to say, birthdays and holidays always included the Hudsons.

So it was really no surprise when, after high school, Sam and Finn decided to go somewhere together. Both families had gone through hell and back in their own ways and all parties involved were excited to see what the boys would accomplish. They took what money they had been able to save from their after school jobs, found a super cheap apartment, and jetted off to New York City. It was terrifying. Everything was loud and fast-paced but Sam had ideas for what he maybe wanted to do with his life. He was creative and, let’s be honest, easy on the eyes, and NYC seemed to be all about the aesthetic. Sam didn’t want to go to college (at least, not right away; it just didn’t seem like it was for him) but figured that after some adjusting, he’d fit right in.

But there didn’t seem to be a place for him at first. Sam had continuously struggled to find his true passion. To be honest, most of his focus all throughout his teens had been on his body. He worked hard to look good; more than that, he felt like he had to. School obviously never came easy to him, and while he loved music, he knew he wasn’t the best the world had ever seen. He was a mediocre artist at best (though, realistically, he knew that sort of thing took time). All in all, there didn’t seem to be anything incredibly unique about him --- not until people started noticing the way he looked. And if Sam could find a career through that, well...if you’ve got it, flaunt it, right?

So modeling seemed like a safe bet. There were a whole bunch of places he could start. It wasn’t easy, though. In fact, it was anything but. While Finn worked at a grocery store, Sam was waiting tables so they could pay their bills. Neither had a super solid plan. Sam was going out on casting calls and auditions for male models but getting consistent rejections along the way. He got discouraged a lot, thinking that maybe he should be in college and pursuing something practical after all, but then it happened. Almost a year into their New York City adventure, he booked a gig. It was just for a little winter clothes catalogue, but it was something. Sam was finally going to make money off of his body! ...And like, yeah, there were better ways to phrase that, but it was true.

The modeling scene was still tough, even as Sam continued to slowly book jobs. He had just turned 20, having been at it for about a year already when he came across the one face that made it much easier: that of a girl named Quinn, the photographer at one of his shoots. Sam was absolutely mesmerized by her. They hooked up and never spoke again, and while she turned his world upside down for a night, it was sort of a wake up call for him. Though there was clearly something between them that brought them together, it wasn’t just about his body. Modeling in general, however, was only about his body. Quinn wasn’t superficial, but everyone else was.

He kept rolling along in his modeling career, getting increasingly busier with meetings and auditions, and along the way he would meet people who would hit on him, promising him more jobs or networking opportunities and he realized how shallow it all was. Nothing was authentic. None of the feelings were authentic, especially not since his experience with Quinn. It didn’t make him feel proud like he had hoped whatever he did would. He was just making money off of his body. And that had been the point, really, in the beginning; it was all he thought he was good for. But now he was feeling like there had to be something else out there for him. There had to be something that made him feel whole. So he dropped it like it was hot.

He didn’t let himself get discouraged, though. Finn had let go of the acting thing early on and still managed to find his passion. Sam put his creativity to use by picking up his guitar and teaching lessons at a local music shop. He was by no means an expert, but he knew his way around a guitar, so he was qualified enough to teach little kids. He felt so much more fulfilled than he did when he was modeling. He was actually doing something for others rather than getting (almost) naked in front of a camera.

And then there's drawing. He does it for fun, but he’d totally be lying if he said it wasn’t a dream of his to publish his own full length comic book someday. Or an actual book with characters he creates himself. He doesn’t know. He figures he’ll know when the inspiration strikes him. But it feels good to be bettering the lives of others in his own small ways. He’s got his best bros here in the city that never sleeps, a job that he loves, some pretty awesome modeling experience, and of course, his regular Skype dates with his family back home. It’s a big world out there, as Sam is beginning to understand, but he also knows that if he needs it, he’ll always have a place back in Ohio with his family.

He’s sure that nothing can screw up what he’s got going now, though. Obviously.

CONNECTIONS

BLAINE ANDERSON → CO-WORKER → Blaine taught voice/piano lessons at the same music shop where Sam teaches guitar. Sam became quite used to seeing the guy with gelled hair and bowties pass by him. They didn’t often have time to talk, but from the few times they had, Sam learned that he and Blaine have a lot of shared interests, like superheroes, music, and movies. They mostly just bonded over their shared love for what they were doing. But there was always a warm smile and wave whenever they crossed paths.

QUINN FABRAY → HOOKUP/MOTHER OF HIS CHILD → Sam met Quinn when she photographed him for a local catalogue. The modeling scene was still tough, even as Sam continued to slowly book jobs. He had just turned 20, having been at it for about a year already when he came across the one face that made it much easier: that of Quinn Fabray, the photographer at one of his shoots. Sam was absolutely mesmerized by her. He was surprised when she actually agreed to go out with him after their session, and after they hooked up that night, Sam couldn’t stop thinking about her. But they didn’t talk at all afterward. Sam had to imagine that that had something to do with the fact that they didn’t exchange numbers, and he was pretty sure she didn’t even get his last name. Regardless, she turned his world upside down for a night. What Sam doesn’t know is that eventually led to the birth of their son, since he hasn’t had any contact with Quinn since.

FINN HUDSON → BEST FRIEND → Sam’s mom would babysit Finn when the two of them were babies, all the way up until they went to kindergarten. They didn’t stay all that close, unfortunately, since they naturally got busier, but they were football teammates. When Sam’s family lost their home, they went to live with the Hudsons for a year. This naturally brought the two boys together again. Since then, Sam and Finn have been incredibly close and consider each other family. They moved to New York together right out of high school.

ARTIE ABRAMS → ROOMMATE → Artie responded to a posting for a new roommate by Sam and Finn once they realized they totally couldn’t afford living there all on their own. Artie fit right in with them as another broke kid with bright New York dreams. He and Sam found that they had a lot of shared interests, and Artie also tends to be a voice of reason for Sam a lot of the time.

TINA COHEN-CHANG → FRIEND → It’s simple. Sam and Tina met through Artie.

SEBASTIAN SMYTHE → FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS → Sam and Sebastian met

✗ Sam is currently TAKEN and played by KIM (21, EST).

#t #tm #m #aao!se

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