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ahaclownnoises · 1 year

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I HHAD TO MAKE HCS OF MY SILLY LITTLE BOY<33 btw this felt like it took forever but

it took an hour</3

𓏲📚ꜝֶָ֢ ʾʾ𓈒᮫. 𝐍𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧𝐬. ˚ᥐ

- Norman was always an energetic child, Sure it was quite annoying to the brothers but.. I mean he was a kid, what did they expect?

- but thinking him being energetic and bubbly would make him make friends easily.. He had trouble making friends when he was younger, He kept trying and trying.. no one seemed to wanna become friends with him. So he gave up trying.

- He tried to Play with his father, a lot.. But Lucifer was always too busy for him. So he went onto his uncles! Mammon and him weren’t sure on how to bond, it seemed awkward between them. He tried to play with Levi but he would always try and get him into ruri-Chan!

- He went onto satan. Again, awkward! Asmo.. asmo only tried to dress him up in clothes he found.. Just like Levi with ruri Chan.. hanging out with beel with sort of nice for him.. whenever beel wasn’t with Belphie. Norman hated Belphie! He was always so mean to him.

- Norman thought that was it for him, he’d be lost forever! No one was with him.. This was his fault.. He’s gonna live in the forest forever, huh?.. He cried, not knowing what to do. He was alone! Atleast what he thought.. He heard a soft voice “Hello?.. Are you okay?”

- There was someone there! “No! Just.. Leave me alone!” Why was someone there?.. “..I know you want me to leave but.. im not gonna! Not until you tell me what’s wrong” why were they so persistent. Norman got sick of it and told them so they’d leave.

- “Everyone’s so mean to me and.. no one wants to be my friend! My dad barely has time for me anyways.. and my uncles.. well I don’t get along good with them.. the only reason anyone really pays attention to me is because I’m some ‘genius child prodigy!’ I’m so sick of it!” He vented to them “..Well I can’t help with all of that but.. if it makes you feel better.. I’ll be your friend?..”

- That.. those were the most comforting words to him.. He beamed.. he finally had a friend! A true friend.. Tomo was his only friend.

THATS A STORY OF NORM.. continuing down here !! {he was.. 6?? 7?? In the first part.. ig in the second one he’s.. 12?? 11?? Somewhere between that.}

!! {death and blood mentioned.} !!

- Norman and tomo were inseparable best friends! They just clicked together! They never fought ever!.. right? Wrong. They had a massive Fight on tomos birthday! It went horribly..

- Norman stared down at Tomos Dead bleeding body.. He.. this was all his fault. He should’ve saved tomo.. He promised to protect him. He fucking promised.

- He wasn’t sure on what to do, he just stared at the body. Not moving an inch. Tears rolled down his face, This was his first and only friend.. Dead. Right infront of him. He was an awful friend.. and an awful demon.

ANWAYS sorry babes /hj

ASIDES FROM TRAUMATIZING THE KID 🖤🖤 I have actual hcs down here ^_^ enough of the story !!!

- Norman was usually quite, He wasn’t really ever shy. He just didn’t have much to say. Not that what he wanted to say was important to other people

- He was always the genius child prodigy, And he took pride in that! It sorta made him feel special in someway..

- Norman always looked up to his father. He would never admit that to anyone

- after tomos death, Norman kept their bunny hairclip.. as a memory.

- Buttt speaking of bunnies! Norman absolutely adored them. nowadays he barely smiled.. He did show some emotion but in his own way. But.. If you brought him a bunny he would be all smiles.

- He dislikes Belphie, Mc {formerly} and Lilith. Belphie was always mean to him. He disliked Mc because they took all Lucifer’s Attention, which made him jealous. And Lilith.. He didn’t dislike Lilith. He HATED her. He’d always get compared to her, For how he acted and the way he looked.. he looked almost identical to Lilith! The only difference, was his hair {style and color} eye color and the glasses!

- If you ever angered Norman, you’d regret it! He’s hard to snap out of it and he’s terrifying. He can even scare Lucifer.

- Mc introduced him to shows on earth, He’s obsessed with watching them now

- He Thought Luke was actually an dog up until he met him, was surprised to find out he wasn’t

- Has a giant collection of stuffed animals.. like to a point where luci is about to be broke because of it 💀

- please. PLEASE TALK TO HIM ABOUT BOOKS HES INTERESTED IN {he’s such a book nerd I love it 💕}

- Be warned, you will hear him practicing with his violin at 3 am {I mean he barely sleeps anyways}

- He has sorta a Parent-son relationship with Mc

holy shit this is long… to me… I mean I’m literally hyper fixating on him.. ANYWAYS IF U READ ALL OF THIS

I’m concerned 💔💔

#obey me #obey me oc #obey me belphie #obey me mammon #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me lucifer #obey me leviathan #angst and fluff #🐇;; norman #hes my little guy #I LOVE NORMAN #RAAAA #sobs #obey me mc

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neinofthem · 1 year

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I posted 290 times in 2022

That's 263 more posts than 2021!

208 posts created (72%)

82 posts reblogged (28%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@neinofthem

@viciousmollymaukery

@quinn-of-aebradore

@essektheylyss

@andgently

I tagged 166 of my posts in 2022

Only 43% of my posts had no tags

#essek thelyss - 99 posts

#critical role - 98 posts

#the mighty nein - 89 posts

#cr - 88 posts

#mighty nein - 83 posts

#tm9 - 81 posts

#cr2 - 74 posts

#shadowgast - 68 posts

#cr shitpost - 53 posts

#critical role essek - 50 posts

Longest Tag: 137 characters

#imagine waking up one day and remembering that the disgraced former shadowhand is a. 4’10 on a good day and b. definitely without a doubt

My Top Posts in 2022:

literally the best thing about essek is that it’s so hard to have a bad take about him because he is so many things. yes he is a virgin librarian yes he is a suave sexy politician yes he is a brilliant wizard prodigy yes he has the warcaster feat no he has never seen conflict. it’s literally yes he’s world weary and has lived for over a hundred years yes he’s said the word ‘fuck’ once and once only. yes he carries around a frilly pink parasol yes he was the head of arcane intelligence for the fucking queen of the kryn dynasty and no one has asked his favorite food before. what is WITH this guy I LOVE him.

2,493 notes - Posted February 28, 2022

as much as essek is a genius wizard and schemer and intimidating and aloof he is also Just Some Guy. he stole the most important items in his country’s culture not because of a desire to start war but because he’s a huge nerd. he’s being chased by assassins and the people who exposed his crimes led the worst man of all existence to his doorstep and he wants to get drunk off of boozy hot chocolate. he tried to fistfight a giant with his twink wizard noodle arms. he gardens. he can crush a man with one hand. he has little teefies. his dad got so angry at him he died. he’s dating the worlds most traumatized man. he’s my best friend. he’s gay. easily the most character of all time.

2,535 notes - Posted February 21, 2022

essek: caleb did you fight a demigod. caleb answer me did you fight the fucking ocean.

caleb, tenderly cradling his face: you’re so hot.

2,577 notes - Posted December 2, 2022

bells hells merrily traipsing their way into aeor sometime in the near future: who are you guys lmao. anyways we think we’re swinging by that little bitch moon next to take care of the Moon Haunting that has been Plaguing us with Visions.

caleb and essek on their fifth aeorian honeymoon: what are the words that you are saying. why does that stalactite have a beacon in his head. what do you mean you ran into ludinus da’leth. why do you have a fucking robot. what was that about the fucking moon.

2,899 notes - Posted September 2, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

imagine you are the director of the magic cia and you betrayed your home country because they denied your grad thesis and you thought everything was chill but then a group of people in bdsm gear burst into the room holding the god that you stole and you now have to babysit them and watch while they ruin the house your family gave them and you are also in a honeypot4honeypot situationship with their resident ginger and you teach him forbidden magics because he has nice eyes and you keep having to ferry them to fight dragons or some shit and they keep fucking inviting you to dinner so you go to dinner and they trap you, the traitor they’re looking for, in a truth spell and instead of asking any damning question they want to know which of them you find the hottest and what your moms name is and then they disappear for like two months and then you’re in disguise at the negotiation which undermines your past decades work and they fucking show up and they find out about your crimes so they paralyze you and drag you to their ship and instead of killing you the ginger kisses you on the forehead and they tell you that you’re family now and then they disappear for a long fucking time so you leave and go chill in the north and then they show up chased by a purple man with horns and a dead member of the fucking cerberus assembly and then they fucking dip and when you come back they take you to a flesh city to fight the purple man but they get really sad when they murder him so they revive him? and also you find evidence that the god that you stole is not a god and is some kind of hyper advanced magic computer maybe and then you just sort of fucking go home? and chill in a garden? every day essek thelyss wakes up.

4,733 notes - Posted March 24, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

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tinyboxxtink · 3 years

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Build Me Up Buttercup *Part 5*

WARNING: This chapter contains mention of sexual assault, please read at your own discretion. Also, I’m sorry these last two chapters have been kind of dark but next chapter will be super fluff I promise!

If you need to catch up:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 6

Tag List: @wanniiieeee

....And you just ran out?”

Your roommate’s judgement came through loud and clear, even through the phone.

“Yes! What the hell was I supposed to do?!” You tried defending your actions. You called them to feel better, not worse.

“Well, first of all you shouldn’t have LIED,” They kept their snarky tone.

“I didn’t LIE….per say,” You paced back and forth, twirling your hair in your fingers nervously. The silence after your statement was like you could SEE their faces just giving you “that” look.

“Oh okay what was I supposed to say? ‘Oh hey yeah you’re right Fin, I was an absolute party wreck until I couldn’t be anymore’?”

“I mean I don’t--” You heard footsteps coming up behind you, so you swung your phone to your side, cutting off their sentence.

You turned to see Rafael standing there, that permanent concerned look for you pasted on his face.

“Hey...are you ok?”

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine. I just needed some air,” You tried your best to stay calm and nonchalant.

“Are you sure? Because you--” He started to say something but you quickly interjected.

“Actually you know what Barba I’m kind of on the phone right now, can I meet you back inside?” You motioned with your phone, kicking yourself for being cold to him right now but you couldn’t deal with anything else at the moment.

“I...uh...yeah, sure,” He shook his head with an awkward smile, and walked back inside. Relieved, you put the phone back up to your ear.

“Aww, how cute. Barba cares!” your BFF’s voice cooed through the speaker.

“Yeah, in like a ‘dad caring’ kind of way,” you rolled your eyes.

“Oooof, I wouldn’t start throwing that term around, we might have to start talking about ‘daddy issues’, Y/N,” they giggled.

“SERIOUSLY?” You practically screeched into the phone, thanking every god you could think of that Rafael had gone inside before that comment.

“I’m just sayin! I’m ALSO saying that you need to go back in there and tell your squad the truth,” they returned to a very serious tone.

“Yeah I guess…” You sighed, knowing they were right.

“And I’m sorry I can’t be there with you holding your hand while you do it babe. But…”

“But what?”

“But maybe Rafael can?”

“Jesus, can you please be serious right now?”

“I am being serious! You just told me he helped you calm down earlier, and that wasn’t even half traumatic as this is gonna be,” They insisted.

“I don’t….how…?” Your face scrunched up trying to think of NON creepy ways you'd ask for someone's hand.

“Whatever, do what you want; But I do suggest telling them. Clearly you're not going to be able to keep this under wraps, and I doubt you want to keep freaking out on your co-workers. Trust them, trust RAFAEL,”

You sighed again, you knew they were right. Olivia said it herself, it was important to have a squad you trusted.

“Alright I’ll call you later,”

“You better!”

You took a deep breath and walked back into the bar, your hands shaking as you reached your booth. The group all started to speak, but you put your hand up.

“No just-- Let me talk. Fin, I am so sorry,” You addressed Fin, who shook his head in a “don't worry about it” manner.

“No, I really am. I’m sorry I freaked out on you and I’m sorry...I lied. Kind of,” the squad again looked at you in total confusion.

“God….okay, how do I….? Um….”

You started trying to form sentences in your head, words jumbled around in your brain. You started to panic again, when you felt a hand grip yours under the table. You snapped your eyes open and looked next to you where Rafael had taken your hand. He gave a small, supportive smile making you suddenly feel at ease.

“Okay. So, like I said I was pretty much a ‘caged’ child. I was homeschooled, I didn’t have any friends, just academics. Being born a ‘prodigy’ sounds good on paper, but I just always felt like a show pony. Or an alien experiment. People were always coming by to check out the ‘genius 5 year old’ play Mozart, or ‘the brilliant 10 year old finish calculus problems in under 30 seconds’.”

You took a deep breath, watching their listening faces. Too much detail hon, get there faster.

“Um, anyway. I graduated ‘high school’ at fifteen years old. I had barely made it through puberty, and I was already done with my academic childhood. Obviously, I wanted to immediately enroll in college, if for no other reason than to get away from my insanely controlling parents. But big surprise, they had a problem with it. It took me a minute to convince them that it was the right next step, full ride scholarships to literally any school in the country helped. And I mean, ANY school. All the Ivy leagues sent out their top recruiters to speak with my parents about having the ‘prodigy’ attending their establishment.

So with that, I was able to convince my parents that I knew what was best for me. I told them I was smarter than them, so clearly I could parent myself better. And God help them, they believed me,” You had to pause again, tears catching your throat. Rafael gently started rubbing the back of your hand with his thumb.

“So, I started at NYU that fall, just after my sixteenth birthday. Sixteen years old, the only child in a university full of adults,”

“I don’t like where this is going,” Sonny whispered to Amanda who nodded in agreement.

“So I got paired with this room mate Layla, who was the polar opposite of myself. She was gorgeous, totally socially gifted, but dumb as a rock. Her daddy had paid her way into the school,” you rolled your eyes just thinking about her.

“And truth be told I loved her at first, because she was the sweetest girl. My first ever real friend. She took me under her wing and gave me a complete makeover; socially and physically. I had NEVER had guys look at me the way they did after she helped me. It was....intoxicating.” You paused in shame, picking at your jacket.

“So, naturally, I wanted to hang out with my friend. My ONLY friend. And hanging out with her meant going to all the coolest parties, frats and sororities. I was SIXTEEN, I didn’t….I didn’t think,” You bit your lip and stared at the floor for a moment before continuing.

“I lost my virginity at those parties,” you muttered quietly, and to your surprise the team started reacting.

“Wha-- Wait wait wait, guys that��s….that’s not even the bad part yet,” you gulped. Jesus the judgement was quickly getting real.

“Anyway I...was pretty much a huge party girl slut,” you shrugged. “I’d go and party, and hook up with random guys, and never thought twice about it because I thought ‘that’s what college girls do’,” You scoffed at your younger self for even having that notion. How could you be that smart and that stupid at the same time? It was baffling.

“And one night, it bit me in the ass,” You sighed, here comes the hard part.

“I don’t...I usually got so wasted that I didn’t CARE who I was having sex with and most of the time never remembered WHO it was anyway but-- but I’m pretty sure that night I didn’t want to,” You breathed out and looked up, willing the tears on the rims of your eyes to go back in where they came from. Rafael’s hand gripped yours tighter, making you feel safe.

“But it is what it is, this guy did what he did and left me on the floor in a frat house,” You scoffed again, this time tears dripping down your face. You couldn’t believe there was a time that you had been that pathetic, to just be left laying on the floor like a blow up doll.

“I guess Layla found me and took me home, because I woke up in my own bed. But I had bruises and hickeys ALL over my body, and just….brutal stuff,” You trailed off while you picked at your food, not wanting to go into any more detail.

Suddenly, as if turning on a light switch, your entire demeanor snapped back into ‘normal mode’, you wiped the stray tears away and cleared your throat. You were

“AHEM So...anyway, after….that, I told Layla that I couldn’t hang out with her anymore if that’s all we were going to do, and she understood. She didn’t like it, but she understood. The next semester I got a new roommate who was pretty much like myself, boring and socially inept, so I went back to the thing I knew best-- academics. I changed my major from biochemical engineering to law, because I didn’t want anyone else to go through what I went through without a voice. And after that, and a WHOLE lotta therapy, I just pushed that whole semester I lost deep, DEEP down, you know like a totally healthy person,” You tried playing it off with a laugh, but they weren’t amused.

“But...just thinking about Mary Fahey,” you sighed. “That girl had everything going for her, she was probably really smart and had a whole life ahead of her. She made the bad decision ONCE, to go to a frat party and she’s DEAD. Meanwhile, I was a stupid slut for a whole semester and the worst I got was bruised up and a pregnancy scare.”

“Please don’t tell me you’re saying what I think you’re saying,” Amanda gave you a look.

“What? That I should have been killed? Well why not? Why HER?” You protested, sipping your hurricane. It was unsettling to the squad how little you seemed to care about yourself.

“....I knew there was more to it in the bathroom,” you heard Rafael’s soft voice beside you.

“I’m sorry...I didn’t know how to tell you,” You looked at him with apologetic eyes. “I didn’t want you to think I was...trashy,”

“Ok now hold up” Fin interrupted.

“First of all, you need to stop throwing words like ‘slut’ and ‘trash’ around, especially about yourself, Y/N,” he took your hand.

“You said it yourself, people make mistakes. Hell if I worried about the amount of dumb shit I did when I was a kid I wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning,”

You had to break into a small sad smile after he said that, nodding your head in an understanding manner.

“And whether or not it was a one time thing or a ‘phase’, no one ever deserves to be assaulted for overdoing it at a party, or anywhere else,” Olivia chimed in. “EVER.”

“Exactly what the Sarge said. Assault is NEVER ok, in ANY circumstance. Even when you think you were ‘slutty’ by sleeping around, those guys are accountable too.” Sonny added. “Taking advantage of an inebriated woman is not okay,”

“AND it was statutory!” Rafael finally spoke up, his fists clenched. It was as if it had taken this entire time for him to fully process your story, and now that he did he was PISSED.

“Okay, Rafa, calm down,” Olivia placed a hand over his.

“No Liv, these guys should all be in prison for having sex with an incapacitated SIXTEEN YEAR OLD”

“Will you knock it off, counselor?” You hit his arm. “I didn’t tell you that story so you would go after a bunch of random idiots for something that happened over 10 years ago!”

“Well they should pay!” Rafael yelled again, but after you softly stroked his shoulder, he seemed to calm down.

“I appreciate the sentiment, Rafa,” you warily threw out the pet name, happy when he responded with a small smile. “But I’m over it. Mostly. On days that aren’t like this,” you added with a joking laugh, trying to ease the tension.

“Well, I really appreciate you telling us the truth, N/A,” Olivia nodded at you, the others followed suit.

You gave the first genuine smile since you came back in, looking at Rafael. He took your hand once again under the table, giving it three small squeezes. Before you knew what you were doing, your head was dropping onto his shoulder and you were scooting closer into him.

“Get a squad you can trust, right?”

#rafael barba #rafael barba x you #rafael barba x reader #rafael barba imagine #law and order special victims unit #law and order svu #build me up buttercup

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venialsun · 3 years

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to begin with, take warning (2/3)

[read on ao3]

1 | 2 | 3

When Damian found his way to his first class of the day, having missed something called homeroom and the first ten minutes, the instructor shook his head playfully and made Damian introduce himself and explain what he had done over the summer. He could not say he had spent the past few months traipsing across the globe, hanging out with killers and thieves, and dying more often than not as he tried to escape the oppressive feeling that had descended upon Gotham after years of tragedies and increasing catastrophes. So he said he spent some time with his mother’s family on their private island, which was close enough, took a seat at the back of the room, and listened to his classmates reconnect with old friends and talk about their vacations and holidays with an increasing sense of annoyance.

The rest of the morning classes were no better. The teachers would guide the students through introductions and some small talk, go through their syllabus, and sometimes begin a lesson that Damian was entirely bored by. A few of his classmates tried to speak with him, asking him questions about his family, about himself, and smiling welcomingly at him, but the last thing he wanted to do was talk about that can of worms. He was not sure what he would say, how to spin his life into something half-truthful yet still benign. He’d never had to before. The rest of the students ignored him, and he was more than happy to ignore them right back.

By lunchtime, he was contemplating leaving and telling his Father he was done with this whole experiment. But Yanez’s yellow slip burned in his pocket, and Damian was not one to give up so easily. He would make it through the day, if nothing else.

The technology atrium was between the main academic building and the arts auditorium. A squat addition to the main building with walls made of glass and supported by steel beams, it stuck out like a sore thumb against the dark slate stones and high neo-Gothic arches and spires of the rest of Gotham Academy. Damian glowered as he neared and realized this was not only the technology atrium but, according to the placard over the main entrance, the Kenneth H. Wayne Technology Atrium.

Of course.

Inside, rows of computers and long tables encircled a central desk where a young woman sat typing at a laptop. She looked up as Damian approached and asked, “What’s up?”

Damian fished out the yellow slip and showed it to her. “Principal Yanez assigned me community tutoring or whatever.”

She took the slip and scanned it. “Already? Dang, kid, what’d ya do?”

“Nothing.”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s what they all say. Hold on. Let me pull her notes.” She busied herself clicking and scrolling, then paused. “Oh, wow. I see. Well, hi, Damian. Glad to have you. I’m Miss Daisy.” She handed him back the slip.

“Daisy?” he repeated, incredulous.

“Well, Miss Daskalakis, but I got tired of all you runts mispronouncing it.”

“Miss Daskalakis,” said Damian, exactly.

Daskalakis smiled. “That was pretty good, actually. Okay, in about ten minutes, we should have some of the PSAT and SAT kids show up for their first prep. Make yourself comfortable at one of the tables, eat some of your lunch, and when they show up I’ll introduce you and explain the rundown.”

“Lunch?”

“You brought something to eat, didn’t you? Or you can go pick something up at the cafeteria.” She glanced at her laptop. “There’s still time, and since it’s the first day, there’s no rush.”

Damian hesitated. “Principal Yanez said I was to report here.”

“We’re not going to make you skip lunch, Damian,” said Daskalakis. “I’m pretty sure that’s illegal. Here, what do you want?” She pulled out her phone. “I’ll message my assistant to bring you something. He should already be at the cafeteria.”

“Anything vegetarian,” he said.

Daskalakis gave him a thumbs up. “Got it.”

He went to sit at one of the long tables. Surreptitiously, he pulled out his phone to figure out what in the world the PSAT and SAT were supposed to be. He was puzzling his way through the most confusingly worded, backwards maths questions he had ever read, when the door opened. Damian glanced up and froze.

The red-headed boy at the entrance to the atrium also froze, eyes wide like he had seen a ghost.

“Colin!” called Daskalakis. “Hey, this is Damian. Thanks for grabbing lunch.”

“Colin,” Damian said.

“Damian,” said Colin Wilkes. “Oh, my god. Damian. Dude!”

“Do you two know each other?” asked Daskalakis.

“No,” said Damian, at the same time Colin said, “Yes.” Then Colin said, “No,” at the same time Damian said, “Yes.”

“Cool,” said Daskalakis, dragging out the oo. “Cool, cool, cool. Can you guys figure that out? We have, like, five minutes.”

Colin approached and deposited what looked like a rice dish with vegetables in front of him. “Um, this is for you. I didn’t know what you wanted, so I got you a taco bowl minus the taco.”

“Thanks,” said Damian, accepting the not-taco bowl.

“So.” Colin sat across from him. “Long time no see, huh.”

Damian snorted. “I’ve been busy,” he said.

“No shit. Your family has been freaking out for like the past six months, saying you’re missing and Robin went rogue or something. Then the old Robin came back. The Titans restarted. Then there’s video of another Robin sword-fighting crime all over the world. I assume that was you. Dude, I thought you were dead.”

“To be fair,” said Damian as he opened his taco bowl and mixed the ingredients, “I was. A couple of times. Doesn’t seem to stick.”

Colin laughed. “Your mom?”

Damian chuckled, startling himself. “Something like that. Though the first time was a few years back. I was—gone—for nearly a year, and my Father resurrected me with alien magic.”

“Sick. I remember that,” said Colin. “You dropped off the face of the earth. Didn’t come by the orphanage anymore or sneak out with me for patrols. People were saying Batman went crazy. I thought you just decided you didn’t want to hang out anymore.”

“I—” Damian spooned some rice into mouth. Chewed, swallowed. Colin looked at him throughout, unrelenting. “I didn’t ignore you deliberately. And then after I came back, things were so…”

Colin waved a hand and unwrapped a greasy slice of pizza. He took a bite. “It’s cool, man. You literally just told me you’ve died multiple times. Plural. I can get over my hurt feelings. Seems kind of trivial in comparison.”

Damian frowned and ate some more rice. Colin ate his pizza. Then Damian set his fork down, resolute, grip tight on the handle. As evenly as he could, he said, “I apologize for not being a better friend to you.”

“Whoa.” Colin’s eyebrows shot up. His expression pinched with worry as he searched Damian’s face. “What happened, man?”

Damian swallowed.

Then the door opened again, and an older boy—sixteen or seventeen—peaked inside and asked, “Is this SAT prep?”

“Sure is,” said Daskalakis from the central desk. She stood and indicated Damian and Colin to follow her. “Come in, come in, I’ll set you up right over here.”

Damian stood. “Later,” he said in an undertone. “I’ll explain later. I promise.”

“Okay,” Colin agreed. “But if you disappear on me again, this time I know where you go to school, so there’s no use hiding.”

“Have you known me to ever hide from anything?”

Colin smirked and said nothing.

Damian’s face felt suddenly warm. “Shut up,” he said. “We have work to do.”

•

Surprisingly, tutoring his fellow students was not the disaster he thought it would be. There was some initial skepticism from the upperclassmen about being tutored by a fourteen-year-old, but after Daskalakis declared him “a genius prodigy or something, according to Yanez,” that eventually quieted. It helped that though the PSAT and SAT problems and questions were simple enough, the wording and specificity grated on him, and soon he was insulting the intelligence of the College Board and standardized tests in general. That endeared him to the upperclassmen, and afterward the rest of the lunch hour passed without trouble.

Colin sidled up next to Damian as he gathered his materials to leave and showed him a crumpled-up piece of paper. “What’s your next class?” he asked. It was his schedule.

“Physical education,” said Damian. He had already memorized his own.

“Oh, really? Sweet. Me, too. We’ll go to PE together. I met Coach Freeman at the orientation. I think you’ll like her. What about after?”

Damian listed off his afternoon classes: physical education, then biology, then ancient rhetorics, and ending with a free study period. They shared no core classes, only homeroom, lunch, and physical education. Colin teased him for taking the honors track, and Damian started to complain that the classes were not interesting let alone challenging. But then he got sidetracked by wondering why Colin was somehow not in the honors track but still Daskalakis’s assistant for community tutoring (which, Damian insisted, was a dumb idea for punishments and an even dumber name). Colin laughed and explained he mostly helped with the younger kids. He said he was good with them, thanks to all the practice he’d had helping the nuns wrangle traumatized orphans and foster kids while growing up in the orphanage.

“After all that, spoiled rich kids are easy,” Colin said. He nudged Damian in the ribs. “It’s why we’re friends.”

“I thought that was because we both liked beating up on creeps a little too much,” said Damian, wry.

Colin grinned, and for a moment his face seemed to take on the grisly severity of Abuse—Venom-distorted and menacing. “That too.”

Physical education—“Just call it PE, dude,” Colin said—was a bore, more than Damian had anticipated. After changing into their gym uniforms and the requisite round of introductions, Coach Freeman set them on an obstacle course made up of rubber tires and colorful ropes. Damian was not impressed. But he remembered what his Father had said about damaging school property and refrained from destroying the so-called obstacles as he passed his struggling classmates and returned to Coach Freeman.

“What now?” he asked. To his frustration, he had hardly broken a sweat.

“Excuse me,” said Freeman. “Why aren’t you on the course?”

“I’ve finished it.”

“You’ve finished it?” Freeman checked the stopwatch hanging from her neck. “In slightly under six minutes? I don’t think so. Did you take a shortcut?”

“No,” said Damian. “It was easy.”

“Right. Well, if it was so easy, then hop to it. Do it again,” she said. “And this time, I’ll be watching you.”

“Weren’t you already supposed to be doing that?” asked Damian, but he did not argue further and restarted the course. It was better than doing nothing and standing around like an invalid, anyway.

This time he forced himself to go slower, aware he had done something abnormal. But it wasn’t his fault he was above this child’s play. He jogged the 100 meters to the start of course, climbed up the wooden incline, jumped down, belly-crawled under the mesh ropes, alternated jumps between tires then between wooden slats, climbed the rope to ring a bell, balanced across the too-wide beams, swung from bar to bar, and finished off by climbing over three wooden walls of increasing height. At the last wall, he paused and pulled a girl who had been struggling for the last two minutes up and over. Then he jumped down and high-fived Colin, who had finished his first runthrough. Going slower had forced him to focus the strain on his muscles, and the burn in his body and clarity of mind was starting to feel comforting and familiar.

He jogged back to Coach Freeman. “Shall I go again?”

She clicked her stopwatch and stared at it. Then she stared at him. “Slightly under eight minutes,” she said. “What’s your name, son?”

“I’m not your son.” He crossed his arms. “And name’s Damian. Damian Wayne.”

“Wayne, huh?” Freeman grinned. “Well, Mr. Wayne, Gotham Academy’s happy to have you. What’s your poison?”

“Pardon?”

“Your sport, Mr. Wayne. Your sport. Everyone’s got one. And if you don’t, not to worry. The Academy’s got a team for everything. You’ll be attending the end-of-day assembly, correct?”

“It is mandatory,” said Damian.

“Perfect,” said Freeman. “The main teams will be doing showcases there. Scope them out, see what you think. General tryouts are in two weeks, and I expect to see you there.”

Damian grimaced. “Do you now.”

Freeman nodded. “Sure do.” Then her attention drifted; her nose scrunched, she blew her whistle and screamed across the field, “You two, under the mesh! Keep your hands to yourselves! No one needs to see all that!”

•

The rest of the day passed quickly. He ran the course twice more, for the hell of it, alternating between pausing to help a classmate over a particularly difficult hurdle or shouting at them to hurry the hell up so Damian could finish already. He got used to the rhythm of it, the formula of general teacher attention interspersed with student social-play. By Ancient Rhetorics, he was an old hat at describing his incredibly fun island adventure halfway across the world and not scowling whenever anyone bemoaned their envy at the life of a rich socialite without responsibilities or true problems. He had even managed to hold a few short conversations with two or three of his classmates, though for the life of him he could not remember their names. A day of nothing but introductions had thoroughly fried his brain and prevented him from retaining anything more complicated than Jessica—because there did seem to be an awful lot of Jessicas.

His phone buzzed as the early bell rang and he merged into the streaming crowd of students heading for the auditorium for the back-to-school assembly.

It was a message from his Father:

Dinner tonight.

He frowned and tapped out a quick reply.

“Hey, Damian, over here!”

Damian looked up. Across the auditorium, Colin was surrounded by a group of teenagers and waving him over. Damian approached, pocketing his phone as he went. Then he paused and groaned when he recognized the small girl with yellow hair ribbons hovering excitedly between Colin and another group of older-looking students.

Fuck it. Damian ducked behind some large boys in jerseys and helmets—not hiding, per se, just utilizing his extensive array of evasive maneuvers to achieve a desired outcome—but it was too late. She had already spotted him.

“Oh my crap! Damian! You’re here?!”

Damian sighed and accepted his fate. With as much dignity as he had left, he emerged from behind the football team.

“Of course you two know each other,” he muttered.

“Huh?” said Colin.

“It is you!” exclaimed Maps Mizoguchi. “Olive, look who it is!”

From the group of older students, a girl with platinum blonde hair glanced over and, seeing Damian, scowled. “Oh,” said Olive Silverlock. “I did hear a Wayne was coming to Gotham Academy. Weren’t you expelled already?”

“You’ll find I’m hard to get rid of, Silverlock,” said Damian.

“Yanez is a softie, of course she let you back in,” continued Olive, as if he hadn’t spoken. “Hammerhead would’ve rather died.”

“You guys know each other?” asked Colin, looking concerned and glancing between them.

“No,” said Damian and Olive, at the same time Maps said, “Heck yeah! We’re all friends!”

“Doth mine ears deceive me? Did I hear Wayne—as in billionaire, more-money-than-I-would-know-what-to-with, bordering-on-unethical-wealth Wayne?” An older boy with sunglasses popped up behind Damian and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “Good sir, might I interest you in—”

“Remove yourself from my person at once before I break your arm.”

The boy held up his hands and stepped away. “Got it, got it. No touchy. I can respect that,” he said. “So, Wayne, how do you feel about acquiring some fireworks for your own personal mischief?” He tilted his sunglasses down, conspiratorially. “At a discounted price, of course. Us trouble-makers have to stick together, y’know.”

“Quit it, Colton,” snapped Olive.

“Yeah,” laughed Colin. “That was Damian being nice.”

“You associate with these people?” Damian asked.

Colin shrugged. “I’m a part-time member of the Detectives Club.”

“Pizza club,” corrected Maps.

“The what.”

“Nerd club that solves school mysteries and shit,” said a girl from Colin’s group of younger students. She waved. “Hey, I’m Jess. Nice to meet you.”

Another fucking Jessica.

“Damian,” said Damian, putting up a hand in greeting.

This started another round of introductions and names he immediately deleted from his memory. Who knew Colin was so popular? It was the first day of school; he had not thought it was possible to align yourself with so many friends so quickly unless your name was Dick Grayson.

Slowly, both groups of younger and older students shuffled forward to their seats, helped along by the half-hearted encouragement of manic-looking adults. Somehow, Damian found himself squished between both groups, Colin on one side and Maps on another, as they chatted across him about summer and clubs and the teachers they already hated. Sensing an opportunity Damian told them of his run-in with Headmaster Hammer that morning, which triggered another round of commiserating laughter and louder complaints about what a hardass Hammerhead was—for they called the headmaster Hammerhead. Olive and Maps were the only ones to defend him, citing his one-man defense of the Academy when Joker had tried to take over the city two years ago.

“So?” said Damian. “Joker’s a bitch. He tries to take over the city all the time. That’s not impressive.”

By which a stuffy-looking blond boy in the row behind them became offended, scoffing, and Damian begrudgingly felt his respect grow for Colin’s friends as they immediately dog-piled on the boy for his shit opinion. Then no one could agree who of the Gotham rogues wasn’t a little bitch. And the argument devolved from there until Olive said Batman was a little bitch, too. Everyone laughed.

The lights dimmed. An off-key note rang out as the school band warmed up, and Headmaster Hammer and Principal Yanez stepped on stage.

Slowly in fits and starts, the auditorium quieted, and the assembly began.

next ->

#spades #fic #damian wayne #colin wilkes #olive silverlock #maps mizoguchi #dc

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lucy-ghoul · 2 years

Text

It's been almost 9 years and it's incredible how I am writing the same kind of romance all over again, it's like they're all reincarnated versions of themselves

1. hate at first sight: check (I mean, the first two ships also include attempted murder and/or torture, while my current otp is only the tamest shade of Belligerent Sexual Tension but still. it's fun)

2. they're like, the same person. but they're also different in some core aspects which only makes their relationship's development (and consequently each other's character arcs) more interesting/self-recognition through the other (thanks, Miss Emily Brontë!): check

3. they're both cold, traumatized and darkly sarcastic, even when in canon they're unequivocally heroes with a big heart underneath all that icy exterior and not my usual villain cup. they also melt around each other like crazy, and they hate it (it's gonna take them at least 100k words to accept it because, again, Trauma and Fear of Being Perceived as They Actually Are 😌): check

4. they both struggle with being Different from anyone else/outsiders, and demon/monster imagery and symbolism, in a world full of violence that only exacerbates their violent instincts as a kind of self-defense: check

5. kinda mentor+protégé and/or veteran/genius+rising prodigy thing with an age gap (the abovementioned current otp's is "only" ~13 years old apart but still, age gap) where they both challenge the other/see the other as Their Only True Equal: check

6. if it doesn't have at least some vague beauty and the beast vibes I don't want it: check

7. height difference (my current otp has the lady as the tallest one btw. he's the smol ball of unresolved emotional issues who more or less successfully tries to cover his grief with insane amounts of snark. in this house we like to break gender stereotypes 😔): check

If I've forgotten something I'll add it later. Anyway this is embarrassing 😌🙄

#if i locked them all up together they'd all point at each other like that spiderman meme #honestly sjfjfhfjf #writing life #fandom stuff #val speaks #txt

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chat-noir-always-here · 3 years

Text

“Hey Arnold!” and “Miraculous!” parallels

Ever have an idea for a post that you take forever to get around to because 2020 is

actively

trying

to kill you?!

Welp, that’s me. I mean, uh, this is that post.

Long post is long and I don’t like cuts cuz I’ve lost a few posts in the past using them. Please filter the tag “long post” I use it for walls of text like these.

So there’s this show from my childhood called Hey Arnold!

Having been on air before I had cable (I and my unsupervised brothers and sisters spent our childhood watching Jerry Springer and Maury because there was literally nothing else on our cheap little TV. How hilarious is that?) I didn’t really have much of an experience with Hey Arnold! aside from brief little glances at it when i visited a friends home or the rare occasion where they showed cartoons at school. By the time I got satellite, the show was no longer on the air save for some late night reruns and the Christmas special which aired in December along with other Nickelodeon Christmas episodes (THE best Christmas episode EVER btw).

Really I couldn’t remember much about it until hearing about the Jungle Movie finally getting a release date (a total flop but at least its no cliff hanger) and decided to re-watch the entire series in preparation for said movie.

By which point I had discovered another show—Miraculous.

At first glance the two shows have absolutely nothing in common. Miraculous being a French-born mahou shoujo-esque CGI superhero TV series about a couple of middle schoolers who regularly battle a walking peppermint-frappucino-looking psychopath. Hey Arnold! being a more realistic children’s sitcom about a young football-headed boy who deals out humanitarian aid in the form of advice and simple good deeds to his neighbors, classmates and friends.

In terms of setting, logic, and animation the two series are as different as night and day.

So imagine my pleasant surprise to discover a whole post’s worth of parallels shared between the two shows???

And here they are in no particular order:

1)Arnold’s Parents/Adrien’s mom

Prior to the start of Miraculous, Emilie Agreste disappeared under mysterious circumstances leaving her family behind. Later on it was revealed that she was in fact sleeping (dead?) in a glass coffin beneath the Agreste mansion--unbeknownst to Adrien, or anyone else in Paris save for Gabriel and Nathalie.

In a similar fashion, Arnold’s parents, Miles and Stella, also disappeared prior to the start of Hey Arnold! and like Emilie were always referred to as “missing” rather than “dead.”

The Jungle Movie later revealed Miles and Stella weren’t dead, but like Emilie appears to be doing in her coffin, they were sleeping. Having caught a bout of sleeping sickness (apparently they do not need to be hooked up to IVs or other medical devices while in a comatose state cuz fuck logic) they simply needed their orphaned son to come and cure them with the help of the magical golden heart Helga provided him with.

Perhaps Mari holds the key to waking Emilie? That would be nice to see.

Not the miraculous of course--but some other key.

Although personally I’m hoping for a hardcore, devastating ending like Emilie dying, Gabriel going to prison where he belongs, and Adrien leaving the country for a bit until the second Hawk Moth shows up because I just like devastating cliffhangers and angst and being in utter turmoil over fictional people. But that’s just me.

2) Their best friends are dating

Smol parallel here: Arnold’s best friend Gerald and Helga’s Best friend Phoebe wind up together in The Jungle Movie after being imprisoned together by Lasombra. Similar to how Nino and Alya ended up together after being imprisoned by Ladybug (for their protection, of course).

3) The Bag of Money Episode/ The Ladybug episode

OOh boy both of these episodes make me rage.

Some context about the Bag of Money episode: Arnold and his friends Gerald and Sid find a random bag of money containing almost $4000. Sid is ecstatic and wants to split the money evenly between the three boys, but Arnold worries it could just be lost and convinces them to let him, Arnold, take the money to the police station. On the way he accidentally switches the bag with another one that is identical and contains a bunch of useless junk, and when he tries to explain what happened to his friends they don’t believe him because their bag of money was accidentally taken by an “old lady with pink hair and a peg leg.”

Arnold’s a good boy and he’s telling the truth--but the truth sounds crazy, even to my ears. Sid accuses Arnold of stealing the money and spreads lies to their classmates, whom Arnold has spent the ENTIRE SERIES helping in some form or fashion. Despite everything he’s done for them though, the vast majority of the class come to believe Arnold is a thief. Even Gerald, Arnold’s closest friend, nearly believes Sid over Arnold but eventually comes to Arnold’s defense. The other kids (save for Helga who doesn’t really make an appearance this episode) gang up on Arnold, but thankfully the old lady with pink hair and a peg leg shows up with an officer and together they explain the bag of money is now at the lost and found where it will remain and if gone unclaimed will be returned to Arnold, Gerald and Sid.

Pretty much everything is resolved and things return to normal between the kids.

But I hate this episode. I hate this episode so, so much. Arnold has spent the entire series helping these people out in some form or fashion. Literally thats the entire show. And after everything he’s done for them they’re so. Quick. To. Turn. On. Him.

Sound familiar???

4) Hidden Personality vs. Surface Personality

I do not refer to the cruddy “true selves” thing half the Miraculous fandom believes in. Depending on one’s individual circumstances, environment and how comfortable they are, said person’s behavior can fluctuate or even do a complete 180. This can be kinda frustrating when dealing on one’s own--”Who am I anyway? Is that me or is this me???”

It’s all you, fam.

Arnold and Helga are themselves too, no matter what metaphorical/actual mask they put on. There’s the side that everyone sees and then there’s the side almost no one sees. The hidden personality isn’t hidden due to a lack of trust, necessarily, but rather it is the result of retreating to their respective “shells”--ones which both Arnold and Helga were kinda punched, kicked, and shoved into.

Helga’s surface personality: Class bully, puts up a tough front, constantly torments Arnold because she can’t stand him and his niceness

Helga’s hidden personality: Poetic, abused and isolated, is in love with Arnold to the point of being obsessed with him and bullies him via surface personality in order to hide that fact

Of course Adrien is no bully--his reasons for not being the “cunning, funny, ultra-charming Chat Noir” 24/7 DOES have a lot to do with his toxic household, his dad, and the overwhelming expectations which are constantly smothering him as Adrien.

Adrien is a bug under a magnifying glass (or so he feels)

Chat Noir is a chance for a freedom.

Adrien’s surface personality was molded by his dad.

Helga’s is the result of her entire family. Her father is brash and loud, her mother is a confirmed alcoholic, her sister is a gifted prodigy, well-rounded and spends most of the series at university or elsewhere. Although her sister, Olga, has been shown to genuinely care for Helga, Olga is kinda the reason their parents neglect Helga. With their first daughter being the genius and prodigy she is, Helga’s parents poured all of their pride and affection and parental devotion onto her. Meanwhile Helga had to walk to pre-school alone. At four years old. In the rain. Not for the last time.

Which leads me to the next parallel.

5) Umbrella in the Rain

squeals in delight over this parallel<3<3<3

If you’ve never seen Hey Arnold! do yourselves a favor and watch this short little clip over how Helga and Arnold first met. If you have seen it, watch it anyway because it is the most adorable clip in the entire show.

youtube

Dr. Bliss: “So nobody’s ever noticed you?”

Helga: “...There was someone.”

The soft way Helga confesses that--you can actually hear how grateful she is to have such a tender memory from such a painful time.

In a similar manner, Adrien offered his umbrella to Marinette. Of course Adrien did it because Mari had to walk home in the rain and Arnold did it as a simple gesture of kindness (seeing as they were already at the school)--one of the many kind acts he displays throughout the series.

But just like Adrien needed unconditional love coming from somewhere, so did Helga. They were both denied this one common necessity which everyone else around them had. It’s not a lot to ask for, and they should’ve already had it coming from their families--but they didn’t.

And then, one rainy day, there it was--the unconditional love they needed.

6) Clinginess

What happens when you take someone, specifically a love-starved abused child from an unstable home environment--deprived of the one thing most crucial to their mental well-being--and miraculously provide them with that very necessity?

Clinginess.

I can’t really think of the correct word to describe this. “Clinginess” is pretty close to what I’m trying to describe, if not on point, so let’s go with that.

What I mean is Helga and Adrien both need Arnold and Ladybug respectively. That’s not a bad thing--it’s okay to need somebody else. What’s bad is hinging your entire being on this one connection. For if either kiddo were to be left behind they wouldn’t handle it very well.

It can’t really be helped with either Helga or Adrien. They didn’t really have the option to learn certain things and went deprived of unconditional love for such a long time. They’re kids--nine and fourteen/fifteen respectively. They’re not perfect and they’re traumatized for life. Being denied love from your family--the very people designed to love you--would do that to a person. Naturally they would cling to the first people to show up and provide them with the love they needed.

The Hey Arnold! wiki says this about Helga and Arnold’s relationship

Due to her unstable family upbringing where both her mother and father constantly neglect [Helga] and shower all of their attention onto Olga, leaving her deprived of the love and attention she needed growing up. On her way to preschool, Arnold helped her by keeping the rain off her with an umbrella and even complimented her on her hairbow. He even later gave her crackers during their snack time. Arnold's kindness and being the first person to notice her quickly caused Helga to transfer all of her love and attention to Arnold.

Of course Adrien’s tunnel vision isn’t quite as bad as Helga’s.

He treats his friends better.

He does love his father--

Even though his father is THE.

WORST.

PARENT.

EVER!!!

--because he’s Adrien and he’s just too precious a cinnamon roll and that’s still his dad even if the man does belong behind bars.

7) Unhealthy Obsession

I--

I...

Ugh. I am not going to delve too far into this. You’re just going to have to take my word for it. Helga’s creepy stalker behavior is a thousand times worse than Marinette’s. That pic up there of Helga hiding out in Arnold’s room watching him is pretty decent evidence to back up my argument, but it’s hardly the only example or even the worst incident.

Honestly I’m amazed at what Nicktoons were able to get away with in the late nineties/early 2000s.

But yes, Helga’s obsession with Arnold is rather unhealthy in the most extreme moments leading her to display behavior which is more often than not disturbing and concerning.

The Hey Arnold! wiki has this to say about Helga’s obsession with Arnold

Helga is possessive of her love for Arnold and thinks non-stop about him to the point of obsession. This is evidenced throughout the series by the many shrines and poems she makes of Arnold and of her frequent dramatic soliloquies about her love for Arnold.

Again--Mari isn’t as bad as all that. She’s a sweet girl with many healthy relationships in her life. She has ambition, creativity, and drive. But yeah she can be rather possessive of Adrien too, and that needs to stop. Like right now. Adrien doesn’t need another girl being possessive of him and thinking he’s perfect--he needs someone who acknowledges him as a flawed person and loves him despite that.

As for Helga and Arnold--show creator Craig Bartlett confirmed they are “made for each other” and wind up married with three kids, so I’m guessing Helga grew out of some of these bad habits? Or at least I hope so...

8) Helper/Humanitarian tendencies

As mentioned before, the plot of Hey Arnold! is more or less about Arnold helping people. As stated by Gerald in The Jungle Movie, “He’s a humanitarian! Like his parents!” Of course not every episode is about Arnold helping people. There are episodes devoted to supporting characters and they’re just as enjoyable and satisfying.

But as he is the titular character he spends a lot of time in the spotlight.

Remember that “best christmas special EVER” episode I mentioned before?

The reason it’s the best special, in my less than humble opinion, is due to a few things.

The special is not about Santa Claws. In fact, I don’t think he’s even mentioned, let alone shown and treated like an actual living character.

The focus on the entire episode is again on Arnold helping someone, but he doesn’t succeed. Not really.

The one who succeeded in helping someone was Helga, who accomplished the goal Arnold had set out to do.

The episode deals with some rather dark subject matter and is actually quite heartwarming as the “perfect present” Arnold was trying to provide someone with wasn’t something you can buy in the store

It’s also one of the episodes where Helga’s love for Arnold leaves her to do good and as her love for him is a secret, she expects nothing in return. She’s just happy to help him.

Kinda similar to Mari who is, as Adrien puts it in Mayura, “Our every day Ladybug.” Her kindness and devotion to helping others is what drives her as Ladybug and Marinette. It’s what brought Ivan and Mylene together. Is the reason Nathaniel and Mark now have a comic book together. And at the end of the day, that’s the reason for her strange behavior around Adrien--she wants to help him. Even if it’s just as a “good friend.”

9) There are two main characters

Although Hey Arnold! is technically a show about Arnold, one could argue it is just as much Helga’s story.

Similarly, Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir is named thusly in order to convey the fact that Adrien is just as much a main character as Marinette is.

Although I must say Hey Arnold! did a much better job of giving it’s co-character their dues. GIVE. ME. MORE. CHAT NOIR. FOCUSED. EPISODES. DAMMIT.

But, yes, in terms of screen time, Helga gets about as much as Arnold does. Her story and struggles were given just as much importance as Arnold’s and many people have even come to believe that the show is really about Helga. I’d say its about both of them.

10) Constantly bumping into each other

Granted this happens between Arnold and Helga more often than it does to the love square dorks.

But yes the two people meant to be together keep knocking into each other in their respective universes.

I forget who, but I remember reading that someone a while back theorized that this was the universe’s way of trying to push Arnold and Helga together. Kinda like the “Now kiss!” meme

Perhaps it’s the same for Adrien and Marinette?

;)

#long post #adriennette #shortaki #hey arnold #miraculous ladybug #love square #nicktoons #zag toons

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hotchscotchh · 3 years

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Reimagined; Chapter 2 - Owen Savage

This is so sappy and I’m not sorry. Also, I couldn’t find any gifs from this episode so I made some. I might post the set tomorrow :)

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x Spencer Reid

Warnings: Mentions of past drug use, mentions of bullying

Word count: 1.8k

Summary: Spencer works through his issues with the Owen Savage case.

Read on AO3

Chapter 1 —— Chapter 3

Based on 3x16 Elephant’s Memory

Hotch wasn’t sure what was going on with Reid during this case, but he was angry, and he was going to get to the bottom of it. He felt bad for the way he had to reprimand Reid, no matter how necessary it was, because the younger man was obviously hurting. He wouldn’t have acted in such a way otherwise. But, Hotch wasn’t about to let him continue to make decisions that were going to put his life at risk.

He knew what Reid had been going through the past year. How could he not? He wasn’t exactly being subtle about it. Hotch had a lot of guilt over not stepping up to help him. Gideon told Hotch that he was handling it, and Hotch fell into the trap of believing it. He didn’t know that Gideon hadn’t said a word to the young genius. Hadn’t helped him in the slightest. He wouldn’t forgive Gideon or himself for that.

“Reid,” Hotch called after they had both stepped off the jet. “Are you going to catch that movie?” Reid put his hands in his pocket, looked down at his feet and nodded. “I think I’ll come with you.”

Reid looked up at that, surprised. “Hotch, I really don’t think that’s a good idea. This is personal, it’s not something you should technically know about. If it comes out that you were aware of the situation, you’ll get in trouble. I’m not going to let you carry that burden.”

Hotch sighed. “Let me at least give you a ride. I don’t need to come with you, I just want to know that you’ve made it there safely. The metro isn’t running anymore anyway. I’m allowed to give my subordinate a ride home, right?”

“I suppose,” Reid answered, a hint of a smile playing across his features.

The ride to Reid’s “movie” was spent in silence. Neither man was ready to broach the day’s incident on a personal level. Reprimanding Reid as his superior was much easier than talking through feelings and past trauma.

Reid silently got out of the car when they arrived, but when the door was about to close, he opened it again and, with a shaky voice, asked, “should I expect you to be here when I come out?”

“Of course, Reid. I am giving my subordinate a ride home, after all,” Hotch replied with a sad smile. He didn’t like that the man thought so little of him that he would leave him here to find his own way home.

When he was gone, though, Aaron couldn’t help but let his mind wander. First to the past few weeks. This wasn’t the first time he’d given Spencer a late-night ride home after the Metro had closed. It almost always landed them going out to dinner, though. It was something that he was coming to anticipate. It was becoming his favorite part of the week. He’d known there was a lot to Reid, but he’d only known him on a professional level. Getting to know him personally was something he could only describe as… titillating. He was also kind of choosing to ignore the extremely inappropriate attraction he was realizing had grown in him.

His thoughts were also wandering to what Spencer could have possibly gone through to make him so closely identify with Owen Savage. He knew about the bullying in high school, that comments about being a “12-year-old child prodigy in a Las Vegas public high school” had not gone unnoticed. So, he knew, in theory, that Reid was traumatized by the experience, and he honestly wasn’t sure if he really wanted the details.

Aaron knew, from experience, how cruel children could be. He was sure his experience wasn’t nearly as extreme as Spencer’s, but he had been bullied. He’d been bullied because his parents never showed up to school events. Because he played baseball instead of football. Because he was never going to live up to the standards of his father. Not in the community’s eyes, at least. Little did they know what was going on behind those closed doors. But that’s a story for another time.

----

An hour after he left, spencer returned to Aaron’s car feeling fifty pounds lighter. Aaron hadn’t started the car after Spencer had gotten in and put his seat belt on, so he looked over to find the older man staring at him with an expression he couldn’t quite read.

“Feel better?” Aaron asked. Spencer nodded in reply. Aaron waited a moment, giving Spencer the chance to say something (even though he knew he wouldn’t) before speaking up again. “Dinner? There’s an all-night diner a few blocks from here.”

“Okay. I don’t-” Spencer abruptly stopped his train of thought, looking down to where his hands were tracing nervous patterns on his knees. He took a moment to decide if this was really something he wanted to disclose to his boss before remembering that this wasn’t his boss. Not right now. This isn’t Hotch. This is Aaron. The man who takes him out for dinner once a week just to listen to him talk. The man who knows about his addiction. Who wouldn’t judge him, no matter what he said. “I don’t think I should be alone just yet,” he finally finished, voice low as if he thought he might be chastised for his words.

Aaron understood that the admission wasn’t something that Spencer wanted to discuss and started the car without another word.

----

They were seated in the diner, full mugs of coffee sitting in front of them, looking over their menus when Aaron decided to start the conversation they both knew was coming. “Spencer, you know you can call me anytime you don’t feel like you should be alone, right? If you need a ride to a meeting, or even just someone to sit with you, I am more than happy to be that person for you.”

Spencer let out a sigh, the self-incriminating thoughts that had been plaguing his mind before coming back into play. “No, Hotch, I can’t come to you. You’re my boss. And if Strauss finds out that you knew about my addiction and didn’t report it, she’ll finally have grounds to fire you. I can’t let you carry that burden; don’t you understand that?”

Hotch hated that word. Burden. This was the second time Reid had used it in the same argument. “Stop. You’re not a burden, Reid. To anyone. You never have been, and you never will be. And screw what Strauss has to say. I’m not your boss in a time like this. I’m not Hotch. I’m your friend. I’m Aaron.”

Spencer let out a laugh. That was almost the exact thought that had been running through his mind in the car earlier.

“I want to be your friend, Spencer. I want to be there for you, I want to help you through this.”

Spencer looked down at his hands that were, again, tracing nervous patterns on the tops of his knees. He made an attempt to inconspicuously wipe the tears from his eyes, but it didn’t go unnoticed. He hadn’t expected that to come out of Aaron’s mouth. Spencer never had friends, except Ethan, but he was still in New Orleans. He’s never had someone he could lean on; someone he could be vulnerable with.

Aaron placed his hand palm up on the table in an invitation for Spencer to receive some kind of grounding, some kind of comfort. He took the opportunity, lacing their fingers together and looking up to meet Aaron’s eyes. “Spencer, I know you’ve never had a consistent support system, but you do now. You have a family. You can come to any one of us, we won’t judge you. Will you tell me what bothered you so much about this case? I’d like to know, as your boss and your friend, so we can prevent another big blowout like that in the future.”

So, he told him. About the goal post. About how his mother would leave visible bruises sometimes and no one would say anything. About how alone he was. About the guilt he held for institutionalizing his mother. The biggest issue, though, was how he thought most people just used him for his brain. Once the flood gates opened, there was no going back.

“Oh, Spence,” Aaron consoled when the words finally stopped flowing from Spencer’s mouth. They were both openly crying at this point, the waitress had decided to stay out of their way. The conversation was visibly intense. Aaron stood from his seat in the booth and slid in next to Spencer, pulling the hurting man into his chest and just letting him cry.

“Spencer, there are so many amazing things about you. I don’t think I could even name half of them, but your brain isn’t at the top of the list. You’re amazing because you’re you,” he said with a breathy laugh. “You do magic tricks in the bull pen just to make the girls smile. You have all this amazing knowledge that you could’ve put to use in so many ways, but you chose the FBI. You chose to help people. To stop killers. To save lives. That’s why you’re amazing. Sure, your brain is too, but you’re so much more than that.”

Spencer wanted to be embarrassed. He was causing a scene. But the comfort he was receiving from this was ridiculous. After a few minutes he managed to sit up and place a hand on Aaron’s chest. “Thank you,” he said, softly and sincerely. “Sorry about your shirt. And for causing a scene.”

“Don’t worry about it, Spence,” Aaron answered, a small smile returning to his face. “You obviously needed that.” Aaron returned to his side of the booth and held a hand up to flag down a waitress. They ordered milkshakes and enjoyed them between idle chatter that flowed freely between them.

Aaron stood up saying, “it’s my turn to pay,” and holding a hand out to help Spencer out of the booth. Spencer let a brilliant smile take over his face and it made Aaron stop for a moment. This was what started his attraction. That damn smile. It was all consuming.

----

Spencer fell asleep in the car on the way to his apartment. It hadn’t taken long; they were both exhausted. When they arrived at Spencer’s apartment, Aaron softly shook him awake. The words that came out of Spencer’s mouth next surprised Aaron.

“Will you stay the night? I- I just don’t think I should be alone yet.”

“Of course, Spencer.”

Spencer’s couch was comfortable. That night, Aaron dreamed up Spencer. Mostly about that big giddy smile that lit up his face that made him so beautiful. He woke up smiling, but confused. When did “Reid” become “Spencer?” And when did the adjectives he associated with him change from “smart” and “amazing” to include “beautiful” and “perfect?”

#aaron hotchner/spencer reid #criminal minds #hotchreid #spencer reid #aaron hotchner #emily prentiss #david rossi #jennifer jareau #aaron hotchner x spencer reid #Derek Morgan #Penelope Garcia #Owen Savage #tw mentions of drug use

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cryptocism · 4 years

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I think your perception of canon vs fanon Tim is really interesting, and I think your right about a lot of things, but one of the things I've always loved most about Tim was his character arc, especially through his ongoing (and into RR). Like, I think your spot-on that Tim-as-Robin's strengths were his thoughtfulness and empathy and observant nature, but I think one aspect of his character was his gradual degradation into someone a lot colder and more calculating (1/2)

(2/3, oops) and I don't think that just comes from fanon characterization. Like here we have a character who is so monumentally compassionate and loving, and whose loved ones pretty much all die, so I don't think the transition in personality comes (just) from fandom, but also writers responding to this sort of trauma for the character. And Tim, in-universe, I think decides that the best way to keep the people around him safe is by sacrificing some of that kindness and becoming a little darker(3/4) in order to save his loved ones (e.g Bruce, Tam, Steph). And I do think that that change in character also pivots the catalyst for its drama. Like where before he was just a normal kid who stepped up because he felt he needed to, parents in tact, regular life, etc, later Tim is full-on traumatized vigilante. So where the drama before was found in Tim negotiating being a normal teen with being Robin, it became a negotiation between his good nature and the darkness he felt he needed to (4/4) embody. Or even the darker person he felt himself becoming. I think one of my favorite Tim moments is in RR where he's beaten Ra's for the first time doing his tortured genius hacker thing, but Ra's attacks, and Tim realizes that he can only beat him by trusting his friends and family, rather than any of the cold brilliance he's developed. And he reads that Ra's is thinking of him as just another broody Bruce, and Tim tells him "I'm not Batman, I have friends," and wins with their help.

You’re right! And I actually love that aspect of his character arc too. I think Tim’s inner conflict with the more cold/calculating part of himself is also pretty central to his character, it obviously got a lot more focus in the RR series, but even before everyone Tim knew died he struggled with his ‘inner darkness’. Like when the Titans get sent to the future and Tim finds out he grew up to be his own worst nightmare, or any of the tons of conversations he has where he clarifies that Being Like Batman is 100% what he’s trying to avoid.

I probably should’ve clarified, my issue isn’t with the “tortured” part of the tortured genius trope, (emotional conflict is great and something the entire batfam has oodles of) it’s more the “genius” bit.

tim is smart! obviously, he’s smart. but pushing that aspect of his character until he’s a child-prodigy-genius boy who can hack anything if you give him a laptop and a stick of gum gets sort of... i can’t think of the word rn, um. Like he basically stops being a believably real person? For me, anyway.

like i said my favourite tim is Regular Kid Trying His Best. that doesn’t mean he can’t go through dark shit or be a darker character, just that his goals and motivations and problem solving ideas come from creative places that I as a reader can trace the logic of.

the example you brought up is actually really good for this! tim is able to subvert ra’s (and the reader’s) expectations, because tim is an empathetic person who has a knack for reading people, and he knew ra’s (and the reader) was under the impression that tim was fully entrenched in being a solo act, not trusting anyone, being Like Batman. and then theres the banger ass line “im not batman i have friends” like WHAT??? HELL YEAH! WHAT!

and that’s the kind of shit any person could do, if they were observant and careful and just this side of thrill-seeking. it’s unexpected but it still Makes Sense.

when tim is able to solve all his problems with the push of a button or a late night and a computer, he’s just not a believable character anymore, he’s a plot device to get the mystery from point A to point B.

so yeah its more the fact that pushing his whole ‘genius’ thing ends up flattening his character for me. so when he’s valedictorian or proclaimed the ‘computer guy’ or whatever it rings a little hollow.

also i am a little bit tired of the ‘sleep deprived coffee addict’ thing, for similar reasons in that it renders him one-dimensional.

#i just dont think the coffee jokes are very funny #anonymous #asks

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shadow-of-a-whisper · 4 years

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A Brief Overview Of “The Sentinel (TV)”

Jim was raised by a strict, workaholic, divorced dad (mom wanted nothing to do with her kids) who pitted him against his younger brother for their entire childhoods, until Jim was old enough to run away to the nearest Army recruitment office. Dear old dad’s A+ parenting also involved making Jim feel like a freak (seriously, he used that exact word, to his recently traumatised 10-year-old child’s face) for using and talking about having the Sentinel abilities he was born with. Jim ended up suppressing his abilities so hard that he completely forgot he even had them. He has SO MANY trust and control issues as a result of his upbringing. Seriously, SO. FREAKING, MANY. His fear of abandonment in particular can probably be spotted from space. He fairly quickly made his way up to Captain in the Rangers, Spec Ops, until a mission went south and he got stranded in Peru for 18 months. His entire unit died in the helicopter crash. During that time he lived with the native Chopec tribe, and his dormant Sentinel abilities came back online. Basically, all five of his senses are extremely heightened. Think Daredevil on steroids, only not blind. Incacha, the local Shaman, acted as his interim Guide. The Guide helps the Sentinel focus, process overwhelming sensory information, and not go insane. He’s a buffer, a guardian, a grounding presence. When a Sentinel hyper-focuses on a single stimulus to the exclusion of all else (a zone-out), the Guide calls them back. When a sensory spike incapacitates the Sentinel, it’s the Guide who figures out what caused it, and helps the Sentinel overcome it until the agony passes. Jim was later rescued and returned to civilization; his abilities went dormant again, and he became a detective with Major Crimes in Cascade, Washington. A few years later, during a weeklong stakeout in the woods, (aka a period of traumatic isolation), his abilities came online again. They started driving him nuts and endangering his life, until he meets Blair Sandburg.

Blair is a genius anthropologist with Rainier University, a former prodigy and world traveller, who has been studying historical records of Sentinels and wanting to meet one his whole life. He becomes Jim's partner, studies and experiments with him, to control and improve Jim's senses, while writing his doctoral dissertation on him. Essentially, he’s Jim’s Guide.

Jim's Sentinel abilities are a big secret. Only Simon, his best friend and police Captain, knows about them and why Jim needs Blair. It turns Blair's dissertation into a bone of contention between them. Naomi, Blair’s flakey hippy mom, sent his unfinished diss to a publisher (read: unscrupulous ex) for proof-reading. Predictably, he proceeded to throw obscene amounts of money at Blair for the publishing rights, and then leaked excerpts to the press when Blair still said NO. Blair tried to fix everything by holding a press conference calling himself a fraud, amongst other things. Jim was all but moved to tears.

The mysticism is a really fun angle that gets terribly underutilized by the canon in the last season. In the first 3 seasons, Jim has multiple visions of a blue jungle (the spirit world), his panther animal guide, Blair's silver wolf spirit guide, and Incacha (who dies at one point). There's also a scene where Blair is recently but very much dead (due to drowning), EMTs have written him off, and Jim uses his panther to fuse with the wolf and bring Blair back. He then turns chickenshit, and refuses to talk about it for the remaining episodes.

It's hilarious, the boys take turns dating a new woman every episode. It's never the same woman for longer than that one episode though. They live together, go on vacations together, work together, voluntarily follow each other on dangerous unsanctioned rescue missions... it's actually a lot like Hawaii 5-0. I think my favourite part was where Blair jumped out of a plane (with a parachute) for Jim, and you much later find out that he's terrified of heights. But no-homo, because 'reasons'. Riiiiiiight. I guess that's the early 90s for you. I'm still bitter.

Megan is an Australian Detective in Cascade on an exchange programme who calls Blair 'Sandy', and is good friends with him. She accidentally finds out about Jim being a Sentinel in the last season. 'The bitch', as I refer to her, was an evil Sentinel, and Blair was temporarily murdered by her via drowning in a fountain on campus. After that they all chased her to Mexico, where Jim inexplicably made out with her on a beach, and the bitch later fried her brain on a home-brewed potion inside a hidden ancient Sentinel temple. It was a wild episode. Oh, and there’s a street drug called ‘Golden’ in the canon universe. It makes users hallucinate, and see pretty gold lights. Jim accidentally got trace amounts on his fingers, and it made him temporarily blind. All he could see was a lot of gold light and a few vague shadows. He had to do the Matt Murdock thing for an episode, and was hilariously awful at it. Blair was tricked into a near-lethal overdose.

#the sentinel #the sentinel tv show #jim ellison #blair sandburg

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grimelords · 5 years

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Hello I’ve finished my February playlist for you. There’s no timeline on these things anymore they just come out whenever they come out it seems. A good mix, and I’m sure there’ll be at least one thing in here you’ve never heard before that you’ll like.

Doncamatic (feat. Daley) - Gorillaz: This song is extremely traumatic for me because they released it after Plastic Beach as a standalone single and Damon Albarn said they had a whole other album worth of songs from the Plastic Beach sessions that they were thinking about releasing with Doncamatic as the lead single that just never materialised, and the idea of Plastic Beach 2 sitting on a hard drive while we get The Now Now (The Fall 2) instead is maddening.

Portait Of A Man (live) - Marlon Williams: I feel like I've used The Secret to bring this album into existence. It's exactly what I wanted from him - no studio artifice or weird genre pigeonholing and his huge voice on full display. It's incredible and long as hell and this is definitely the highlight.

Houdini Crush - Buke & Gase: I'm in love with the structure of this song. It takes SO long to get back to the chorus. It takes about three different sections in the middle and then finally gets back there and it's so satisfying because of it. You could edit this song into a tight indie pop piece but instead it has the space to go wild and jam and it's great.

AE_LIVE_KRAKOW_200914 - Autechre: Sorry but Autechre finally put all their live albums on spotify and they're very VERY good. Not the sort of thing that you want to listen to as part of a playlist exactly cause they go for an hour each but a very nice reminder nonetheless.

Sheet Metal Girl - Pig Destroyer: I think Pig Destroyer is one of the best band names I've ever heard. I found out later they meant pigs like cops which is still good but the idea of absolutely eviscerating a hog for no reason is very palpably metal. Just looked up the lyrics and this song seems to literally about having sex with a girl made out of sheet metal. Good!

Horizon - Aldous Harding: I absolutely love this song and the way she says 'babe' lights my brain up like a christmas tree. Every now and then I think about when you’ll die baaaaabe.

Born Slippy (Nux) - Underworld: There's a good bit on the Genius page for this song that says "Lots of 1990s acts helped popularize techno, but in Karl Hyde, Underworld had something that was the exclusive province of rock bands: a totally full-of-it frontman who sounded cool." and it's interesting that Underworld and The Prodigy are the biggest names to survive that time and still be at least slightly relevant now. No matter how much you put into your instrumentals nothing can really compare to just having an insane guy yell a bunch of garbage over it.

A Change Is Going To Come - Baby Huey & The Baby Sitters: This is like all good all normal and then he does that huge squeal at 2 minutes in and you're rocked to your core and then it only gets bigger and bigger and better from there. Also maybe one of the best mid song monologues I've ever heard.

No Signal (feat. Roy Woods) - 24hrs: The whole thing of emo rap mirroring mid 2000s emo is still so strange because it's not just the mindset and content being repurposed it's the literal melodic conventions. Change the instrumentation of this song and it's melodically just an emo song. Very strange, but this song is great regardless.

De Aqui No Sales - Cap.4: Disputa - Rosalia: Rosalia rocks and I only just found out El Guincho co-produced this album which is very exciting to me. I love the way this song feels like it never really gets to the big build up it's promising. It has a big intro for about half the song and then when it feels like it's about to blow up when the handclaps come in it just sits in that groove for a while and ends. I also feel like I should mention the video for this song because it's like the platonic ideal of a music video. It's got everything you could ask for. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvGt2BcDl_g

Glass Jar - Gang Gang Dance: Here's how good brains are: I had a sudden urge to listen to this album the other day but couldn't remember what it was called or who it was by, only the album cover, but for some reason locked away in my brain was the fact that it was from 2011 so I just looked through Pitchfork's Best Of 2011 list until I recognised it. Incredible. Anyway I'm so glad I did because I ended up having a huge phase with this album. They walk the fine line of psychedelic jammy bands like this of taking up a lot of space with atmospherics but it never feeling like it's lost momentum. Even when this song takes fully half of its 11 minute runtime to properly get started it never feels like wasted time somehow, it's always moving somewhere.

Heavyweight - Infected Mushroom: It's unbelievable that this song's good because it absolutely shouldn't be. The unholy mix of goa trance and metal usually reserved for Command And Conquer soundtracks is so unbelievably naff that it's come all the way around again and I absolutely love it.

Black Static - Health: I'm still absolutely furious about Pitchfork giving this album a 3 and not particularly for the score but because it's some of the worst Pitchfork Writing I've seen in a quite a while. They tried to cancel them for calling the album Slaves Of Fear I think: "The “we,” it seems, refers to the slaves, the slaves of fear, and if I try any harder to connect the dual sensation of edginess and laziness with slavery, the all-American institution that killed and brutalized millions of people for hundreds of years, I am going to have to take a long walk into the sun." Not sure about that. Anyway this song's great sorry for talking about a review instead of the song!

Burn Bridges - The Grates: Twee pop is an underrated genre and The Grates are an underrated band because they brought so much attitude and power to it it's hardly twee at all. It's huge and it rocks!

Girlfriend (feat. Lil Mama) - Dr. Luke Mix - Avril Lavigne: Sorry for putting Dr Luke on your dash in 2019 but this is mostly for Lil Mama. Removing Avril's verses and replacing them with Lil Mama but keeping the chorus and big guitars makes it sound like a lost Girl Talk song and it's so, so much better than the original. There's also a good bit in this where she really puts a lot of emphasis on saying 'Jennifer Hudson' and the weird harmony vocals in the background mirror it which I like a lot.

Panic Switch - Silversun Pickups: It seems like Silversun Pickups had no lasting impact beyond being one hit wonders for Lazy Eye which is so strange to me because their first two albums were absolutely solid. This is also a good example of totally nonsense lyrics feeling like they have meaning because the melody it so good.

3 - Seekae: It's very strange now to think that Alex Cameron was in Seekae. But that's not important. What is important is how good this song is. In the extremely narrow genre of Mount Kimbie-ites +Dome really stood out to me as album from guys who really got it. It's extremely catchy music but it still sounds like nothing you've ever heard before which when you think about it sounds like it should be impossible.

Shooting Stars - Bag Raiders: Bag Raiders did a little Song Exploder thing for Triple J about this song a little while ago and pointed out something I'd never noticed before which is that this song has the extremely strange structure of 1 really long verse, breakdown, 1 really long chorus, end. Which is.... completely amazing. And also that this song blew up and charted higher than it ever had before via memes like 6 years after it came out is still bizarre. Remember when it was in the video for Swish Swish by Katy Perry? God I hope they got paid a million dollars for that.

Romantic Rights (Erol Alkan's Love From Below Re-Edit) - Death From Above 1979: Huge fan of this remix that seems to just drop the full song unedited right in the middle. The perfect way to remix an already great song - just make it longer.

Dwa Serduszka - Joanna Kulig: I saw Cold War and subsequently couldn't get this song out of my head. I loved that movie so much but I also extremely agreed when @cyborgbree said the ending was like a Simpsons parody or foreign movies.

Holes - Mercury Rev: This song gives me depression and makes me feel like I'm sorting through old records and merch from my old band that tried really hard but never got anywhere even though I've never even been in a band. That's the power of music!

It's Never Over (Hey Orpheus) - Arcade Fire: Reflektor is a great and underrated album and to this day I am still finding new things to love about it! Namely this song which I've never paid much attention to before but massively jumped out at me last time I listened. It's a 3 note riff but it's absolutely amazing.

Dance Your Life Away - Audiobooks: Huge fan of having the gall to name your band Audiobooks and a huge fan of this song! It sounds like if Life Without Buildings was a dance band, which is a theoretically perfect idea. It sounds like she's just making the words up on the spot and she probably is and it's absolutely great.

Everything (Deathless) - JW Ridley: I'm so glad that War On Drugs brought heartland rock back for the masses and finally gave us back extended guitar solos outside of a metal or prog context. It is so inspiring what you can do with two chords and a propulsive groove.

Unmarked Helicopters - Soul Coughing: Sorry for continually putting Soul Coughing in these playlists but check out how good this song they did for the X Files movie soundtrack was. 'check out this Soul Coughing song they did for the X Files movie soundtrack' is a very specific kind of 90s sentence. Anyway the 'black black black black and blacker' part with the distortion on the vocals is so good, love it lots.

Don't Sit Down Cause I've Moved Your Chair - Arctic Monkeys: I saw Arctic Monkeys a couple of weeks ago and it was amazing but also extra good because they played this song that I'd completely forgotten about and it went off. The Josh Homme produced Arctic Monkeys albums are very good because his fingerprints are all over them and they sound like Queens Of The Stone Age covers.

What Can I Do If The Fire Goes Out? - Gang Of Youths: It's fucked up how good this song is. I listened to it the other day and was like 'what the fuck how come I never listened to Gang Of Youths second album that much? But then I kept going and realised it was 70 minutes long and had about five interlude tracks on it. I love Gang Of Youths but they need a producer that will yell at them until they make a 40 minute album. Fuck this song's good though. So good I'm mad I haven't seen it live yet.

Shark Smile - Big Thief: I don't even know the words to this song or what it's about but it makes me cry anyway. I'm very glad I found out about Big Thief this month, like two years after everyone else. Their description on Bandcamp says "Listening to Big Thief is like the feeling of looking at a dog and suddenly marvelling that it is like you but very not like you; when you are accustomed to looking at a dog and thinking 'dog', watching Big Thief is like forgetting the word 'dog' and looking at that naked animal and getting much closer to it and how different it is to you" which is a certainly a way to feel.

Inhaler - Foals: I don't know how I've avoided it but I've never really gotten much into Foals even though they have multiple songs that I really really love, this one being one of them. I think it's an amazing piece of recording simply for how huge it gets. This song swells to about ten times its original size as the chorus hits before totally deflating again. Also a huge fan of anyone that can make a Battles riff work in a conventional song like this does.

Red Bull & Hennessy - Jenny Lewis: Another fantastic song in the long pantheon of great songs about getting twisted and being horny. The isolated 'ohh' after 'all we've been through' feels like a real Shania Twain piece of production and I love it. Also the drums on this song are absolutely massive for some reason which is very cool.

listen here

#playlists

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thefilmsnob · 3 years

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Glen Coco’s Top 10 Films of 2020

This has been the weirdest damn year for film--and basically everything else--we’ve ever witnessed. Theatres closed, re-opened, then closed again; dozens of films were postponed, and no one knew where to watch the ones that weren’t. I didn’t see nearly as many films as I usually do and, even so, the selection was relatively underwhelming. Nevertheless, there were still some good pictures released, so, as always, I’m sharing my top ten films of 2020 plus a bonus track...there’s always a bonus track.

#10b. (Bonus Track) Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

Director: Jason Woliner

Starring: Sacha Baron Cohen, Maria Bakalova

On the surface, Sacha Baron Cohen’s characters may seem utterly absurd and childish--and maybe they are--but, the genius behind them is their ability to reveal the ignorance of the people he encounters and make you question where the true absurdity lies. Cohen accomplishes this yet again, even if this sequel isn’t quite as fresh as its 2006 predecessor. Yet, in the United States of 2020, ravaged as much by asinine politicians, disgraceful racism and dangerous conspiracy theories as by the actual Covid pandemic, Borat is an entirely welcome presence. He makes all the right people look as wrong as they should, especially former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani who’s caught red-handed in a compromising position opposite a very young girl, thus exacerbating his epic fall from grace while reaffirming Cohen’s brilliance.

#10. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Director: George C. Wolfe

Starring: Viola Davis, Chadwick Boseman

Despite my initial ambivalence, this movie has lingered in my mind for months and that’s always a good sign. Set almost entirely in one location, a 1920s Chicago recording studio, and focusing heavily on a group of musicians shooting the breeze in its basement while their demanding singer talks business with the big wigs upstairs, seemingly nothing much happens and, yet, everything happens; dreams are envisioned, pain is recalled, ideas are shared and, of course, music is made. Those elements are enhanced by the film’s stellar technical features from the production design, to the costumes to the hair & makeup. Yet, it’s the performers who steal the show, which is expected from Viola Davis but a pleasant surprise from Chadwick Boseman who, sadly, gives his final performance. The late actor saved his best for last playing a young trumpeter whose ambitions are constantly hindered by his inability to let go of his tragic past.

#9. The Way Back

Director: Gavin O’Connor

Starring: Ben Affleck

For those of you with the misconception that Ben Affleck is a bad actor, you might want to watch The Way Back in which he plays a former high school basketball star and current alcoholic who’s dealing with the death of his child and separation from his wife when he’s asked to coach his former team. Sure, this covers familiar ground, but it does so better than similar films, finessing the more predictable aspects, adding some welcome touches and treating the subject matter with the respect and seriousness it deserves. The basketball takes a backseat to the character drama here, so the film’s quality relies heavily on the performance of Affleck which might be his best to date; he makes his character’s inebriation so convincing you can practically smell the beer on his breath. And you hope to God he gets the help he so desperately needs.

Full Review: https://thefilmsnob.tumblr.com/post/613090953214001152/the-way-back-12-out-of-5

#8. News of the World

Director: Paul Greengrass

Starring: Tom Hanks, Helena Zengel

This is a film we need right now for several reasons, not least of which being we get to spend two hours with ‘America’s Dad’ Tom Hanks, a decent, honourable man playing another decent, honourable man in 1870 who encounters a strange young girl on the road near an overturned wagon and promises to return her to her remaining family. With Hanks’s character Jefferson Kidd traveling from town to town reading the newspaper for its citizens, this is also a timely film, stressing the importance of a free and fair press as opposed to the propaganda that saturated the Trump administration and his favourite news outlet. An unusually--yet refreshingly--straightforward and old-fashioned Western for 2020, its highlights include a climactic exchange between adult and child, made so effectively tender with such minimal effort by Hanks, as well as a meticulously crafted chase and shootout sequence at the halfway point, directed with optimal tension and clarity by the great Paul Greengrass.

#7. Nomadland

Director: Chloe Zhao

Starring: Frances McDormand

It’s about time we start including Frances McDormand in lists of greatest actors. In Nomadland, in which she plays a wanderer of sorts who’s lost her husband to cancer and her company town to a poor economy, her performance transcends labels like ‘realistic’ or ‘natural’ and arrives at a place that doesn’t feel like performance at all. She blends in seamlessly with a cast of real nomads playing themselves, living out of vans in the western US, as unconstrained by societal norms as the film itself is by conventional story arcs. We want to see this minimalist lifestyle, which includes seasonal Amazon warehouse gigs and long nights in a freezing cold van, as depressing or unfulfilling, but writer/director/producer/editor (Jesus!) Chloe Zhao dares us to admire both the freedom and sense of community formed among this nomadic subculture. Cinematographer Joshua James Richards also plays with our expectations, bathing the screen in soothing blues and purples, transforming the unremarkable landscape into a thing of beauty.

#6. Da 5 Bloods

Director: Spike Lee

Starring: Delroy Lindo, Clarke Peters, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Norm Lewis

In Da 5 Bloods, writer/director Spike Lee deviates from his usual urban American setting to explore the tropical forests of Vietnam, but his focus remains fixed on the African American experience, their plight and search for justice. His subjects are a group of Vietnam War vets who reunite in present day Ho Chin Minh City to retrieve a cache of gold bars left behind some 50 years prior, originally part of a political transaction, as we see in appropriately grainy 4:3 full screen flashbacks. The reason for this mission is more righteous than a simple payday, but Lee refuses to paint these complex characters with the same brush--there’s even a MAGA in the bunch!--nor does he oversimplify the film’s profound issues. A genre-defying work, Da 5 Bloods is a character study, social commentary, war picture and action/adventure flick all rolled into one with some truly shocking developments and one of the finest casts of the year. How Delroy Lindo was denied an Oscar nomination for his volatile performance is beyond me.

#5. Promising Young Woman

Director: Emerald Fennell

Starring: Carey Mulligan, Bo Burnham, Alison Brie

In one of the most unique films of the year, Carey Mulligan delivers a brave, bold and beautiful performance as Cassie, a woman with a tragic past who spends her weekends at the club pretending to be blackout drunk, only to shame and humiliate the sleazy men who try to take advantage. Writer/director Emerald Fennell does a masterful job at peeling back the layers of this dark revenge tale ever so gradually to reveal Cassie’s true motives while rebuking, not just society’s abhorrent offenders, but those enablers and silent bystanders who try to hide behind a flimsy shroud of innocence. Benefiting from one of the sharpest screenplays of the year and a fitting score, Promising Young Woman never ceases to ramp up the tension, a strategy that culminates in a shocking final sequence which is at once disturbing and satisfying. It’ll all leave you guessing until the final, brilliant shot.

#4. The Invisible Man

Director: Leigh Whannell

Starring: Elisabeth Moss, Aldis Hodge, Storm Reid

Originally conceived as part of the ill-fated ‘Dark Universe’--Universal Pictures’ planned movie franchise featuring its classic monsters--and starring Johnny Depp, The Invisible Man was drastically retooled and produced as a stand-alone film with a modernized story. And like so many horror projects of the last decade, it’s refreshingly inspired and well-crafted with a deeper purpose than merely spooking its audience, though it succeeds at that as well. Writer/director Leigh Whannell uses this movie and the fearless performance of the great Elisabeth Moss to examine abusive partners and their persistent hold on their lovers-turned-victims long after the relationship has collapsed. Moss is stunning as usual, portraying an already traumatized woman trying desperately to convince everyone she’s not going crazy as well, even though that’s exactly how it looks. Equally impressive is the restraint by the filmmakers who use the ‘invisible’ effects sparingly yet strategically, creatively and, ultimately, very effectively, making every scare plausible and entirely earned.

#3. Sound of Metal

Director: Darius Marder

Starring: Riz Ahmed, Olivia Cooke, Paul Raci

In a world in which people are complaining about losing their freedom because they have to wear a simple mask to save lives, it’s good to see a film that shows what real loss looks like. If you can’t imagine being a heavy metal drummer who suddenly goes deaf, writer/director Darius Marder spells it out for you in big, bold, sorrow-inducing letters. He’s aided by Riz Ahmed giving possibly the best performance of the year as a man who, on the surface, tries desperately to hold on to his life and passion while, deep down, he knows that’s impossible. Sound of Metal is a tender and heartbreaking yet hopeful story, but what’s even more effective than the film’s dramatic presentation is its remarkable sound design. At times, characters sign to each other amidst ambient noise. Other times, the sound is muffled as if we’re putting our ears up to a wall and hearing a fraction of the dialogue from the other side. And, less frequently, when Ruben’s condition is at its worst, we hear nothing at all. Just complete and terrifying silence…which speaks volumes.

Full Review: https://thefilmsnob.tumblr.com/post/647329085467574272/sound-of-metal-out-of-5

#2. The Trial of the Chicago 7

Director: Aaron Sorkin

Starring: Mark Rylance, Eddie Redmayne, Sacha Baron Cohen, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Jeremy Strong, John Carroll Lynch, Frank Langella, Michael Keaton, etc, etc, etc...

Aaron Sorkin could write about two accountants conducting a routine audit and make it absolutely absorbing. So, imagine what he does with a courtroom drama about the volatile situation surrounding the 1968 Democratic National Convention and the group of anti-Vietnam War protestors accused of inciting riots at the event. Now an accomplished director too, Sorkin organizes all the moving pieces involved with style and grace while deploying his famously kinetic dialogue. With those lines coming from the mouths of his stellar cast, it’s hard not to hang on their every word and be invested completely in their struggle. I could listen to Mark Rylance’s showstopping line-reading of the simple phrase, “No, he doesn’t!”, all day and never get tired of it. Among its many achievements, The Trial of the Chicago 7 deftly navigates heavy topics like police brutality, unpopular wars and a corrupt justice system, showing just how little things have changed in the last 50 years.

#1. Palm Springs

Director: Max Barbakow

Starring: Cristin Milioti, Andy Samberg, J.K. Simmons

Anyone who knows me may be surprised by this pick, but here we are. Nothing makes sense these days. We’re all as confused and anxious about life as Sarah and Nyles are at a wedding in Palm Springs. Despite what the title suggests, the film doesn’t follow a group of horny teens getting up to shenanigans in the famous resort town, but if I describe the actual plot in depth, I may spoil the fun. I will say these characters seem to be reliving the same events over and over again. What’s so impressive about this film is that, although it repeats itself, it never feels repetitive. The twists and turns, the absurd hilarity blended with bracing poignancy, ensure our unwavering focus on this briskly paced little gem. Yet, it’s the irresistible chemistry between the two leads, played by the equally irresistible Cristin Milioti and Andy Samberg, that forms the glue that holds it all together, whether they’re pulling off childish pranks, discussing their unusual sex lives or debating the very meaning of life. I’m telling you, this movie has everything: comedy, drama, romance, science-fiction (?!), J.K. Simmons, several weddings, an inflatable pizza slice, dinosaurs, a crossbow and colourful beer cans and summer wear that seem destined to become iconic.

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mountfandom · 7 years

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The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson

I'm not sure I can quite put into words how stunning this book was. The Way of Kings follows an array of characters in aftermath of the murder of the king of Alethkar. The new king sought revenge and a whole host of other problems arise from that.

Let me start with some spoiler free thoughts. The three main perspectives in this book are Kaladin, Shallan and Dalinar sprinkled with Interludes of other characters and occasional minor chapters from other characters. The story is woven together from 3 separate locations from the three main characters all playing very different roles. Kaladin is a slave trapped in a bridge crew, Dalinar a highprince of great importance and Shallan a studious girl with shadowy motives.

I loved all three of them with all my heart. Kaladin has a magnificent arc throughout the book and it starts at such a dark place. Sanderson is quite like any author in his handling of multiple stories and he does it so perfectly. Shallan is unique because she is so far removed from the others, she is so intelligent and creative but her ulterior motives are dangerous. Dalinar I hesitate to say is my favourite. He is so wise and level-headed and just generally a great leader. He has his heart in the right place and I love him for it soooooo much.

Plot wise for a non-spoilery thing, we have a lot of plot threads ongoing that all are largely hinting at something much greater. There is so much history and world and powers that you have to kind of wrap your head around and I'm still not sure on some bits but that's mostly because they weren't heavily featured. Sanderson is an excellent worldbuilder because it never feels like exposition, it always feels relevant and keeps the story moving forward. All the storylines come to great climaxes and have a soft denouement that sets up the Words of Radiance excellently. I don't want to say any details because I knew nothing going in and I think it was so much better that way.

Spoilers ahead Now let's start with the beginning, because I think it bears some thinking about. I'll admit I was confused at the beginning because you get a couple of chapters from characters that promptly disappear. Then we finally meet Kaladin the slave. And he is so broken, we get glimpses of his glory in the beginning but now we truly get the starting point. He is damaged and enslaved for reasons we find out through handy dandy flashbacks sprinkled throughout. Unlike some books were I wasn't fond of the flashbacks I think these were excellent because they had a whole separate storyline that just wove so well with the present to reveal exactly what happened to Kaladin. Once he becomes a bridgman we get going. The bridgemen are treated like absolute shit. And Kaladin is put with the worst of them. Bridge four. Oh Bridge Four my precious gang of broken people. Bridgemen are the lowest of Sadeas's army forced to carry the bridges across the Shattered Plains so the army can march into battle across the chasms. They are expected to die. All of them are disposable. And that fucking grates Kaladin and he finally gets his ass in gear. Initially everyone really thinks he's a weirdo, because like why is he trying to help the bridgemen. Even his fellows in B4 are against him. But through his prodigious skill as an ex-soldier and surgeon he slowly begins convincing them. His surgeony stuff is very helpful because they are all so often getting injured. It made him such an interesting character as a soldier and a surgeon, a healer and a fighter. And that kinda plays at the end with his discomfort with killing. He begins slowly helping them with injuries and beginning to gather extra food. And then he begins training them, like actually training them. They become so efficient and I fucking loved it. I adored them all getting whipped into shape. Moash, Rock and Teft are like my fave bridgemen, they all brought something different to the table. Rock was so randomly funny and Teft such a good second in command to Kaladin. And as we get further into the book they begin to plot to escape the bridge crews and Kaladin starts training them after his highstorm encounter. Which by the way one of the most horrific chapters I've ever read. Like that is some endurance and he gets destroyed. But he has Syl. Which brings me onto the surgebinding discovery. He starts absorbing stormlight. Which in itself is really weird. But damn I loved it. Surgebinding I'm still a little confused on but Kaladin's discovery of using it was so cool. And it was by accident for so long but Teft sussed it out. Clever ole Teft. Bit by bit he learns to use it for the climactic fight. Oh my god I can't even the battle of the Tower was stunning from both perspectives. Kaladin and his spear though, a force to be reckoned with. In short I loved Kaladin, I loved his journey and his bouts of lows and how they were contrasted by the highs of his building friendships. Sure the tragedy in his past was awful but he learnt from it.

Shallan is the least seen perspective character but she is rather different because she isn't an action packed storyline. She is all about intelligence. She's on a mission to get a Soulcaster off Jasnah, Elhokar's sister. I'll admit I was a little disapproving of this mission at first but damn this whole storyline had me intrigued. Firstly because Jasnah is a badass. Not in a kickass kinda way but also in that way because that horrific murder of the thugs scene. Turning a man to crystal and smoke like damn. But mostly because she is one of the most intelligent characters I've ever read about. She asks all the questions to get Shallan to think not blindly learn. As she decides to take Shallan as a ward despite her educational gaps she teaches some necessary lessons. Sure Shallan isn't that interested in history she's more interested in scheming and flirting with Kabsal. Side I really liked Kabsal but disappointed in his reveal as a would-be assassin. That whole thing of the poisoned bread was traumatic. Like oh my god my fucking heart. Shallan recovers from her accidental soulcast, which people assume was a suicide attempt, only to almost die because she doesn't want jam on her bread. Like what. Also those fucking creepy spirits with glyphs as heads in her drawings genuinely had me scared. I think Sanderson really did an incredible job of making them creepy but not cheesy. Menacing but not threatening. At the end though Shallan has learnt a lot and comes to Jasnah after being caught for stealing her soulcaster with the revelation that the soulcasting isn't coming from the fabrial. It's coming from within Jasnah and more interestingly Shallan did the same. It poses an interesting point because it is akin to the Knights Radiant like Kaladin's surgebinding is like them. Hmm link I see? But best plot twist in fucking history. So we keep hearing about the voidbringers and the return of the voidbringers and they are evil and they are the parshmen. The servant figures that do just about everything menial and they are the voidbringers. Jasnah the genius has worked it out and she has some theories of their cousins the Parshendi, the group behind the murder of King Gavilar. Now they are on their way to study the Parshendi on the Shattered Plains. Short story Shallan provides an excellent resource to give large amounts of backstory and conversation about things that relate to other characters and the overarching plot. She is witty and creative but vulnerable and naive from her sheltered childhood. I thoroughly enjoyed her learning process and can't wait to read Words of Radiance as her focus book.

Last main character plot I wanna talk about is Dalinar. Oh Dalinar, the brother of Gavilar and Uncle to King Elhokar. Highprince, acclaimed warlord and pending lunatic. In the highstorms he experiences visions of the past which we only find out later but they are visions of the past. He seems wars of the Knights Radiants and the Day of Recreance when they all give up. And it all seems to slowly point towards where they must head. A united Alethkar. That is Dalinar's goal. A bit of context for the Shattered Plains wars, they are fighting over gemhearts, they treat it as a game against the Parshendi as opposed to revenge for killing Gavilar. It's about wealth. Dalinar does not care though. He grows tired of the war and I'm like me too Dalinar, me too. It doesn't help Sadeas is there. Because he is a massive twat. Seemingly a nice guy but turns out not. Everyone is against an alliance though all the highprinces are like no. And I was like listen to Dalinar he's so clever and wise and ughhhhhhhh. Then Sadeas is like yes. And then it fucking ends up with him betraying him in one of the greatest battles ever. BofT. Sadeas retreats and it's like nooooooo all is lost but Kal and his bridge crew comes back to save the day. It's a intense fight and an incredibly battle sequence from all characters. Dalinar is not only about battle though he has complex relationships especially with his son Adolin. Adolin is someone I'm not sure of. He's so hot-headed and against the visions being true him and Dalinar butt heads a lot. Only when Dalinar announces his intent to step down Adolin is quick to change his tune. In reality I think he's a scared boy he doesn't know quite what he wants, like his constant changing of courtships. They are quite the foil to one another but I loved their dynamic. Dalinar is best. End of. I loved his storyline soooooo much. I didn't know what to do with myself. A united Alethkar before the Everstorm. An ominous prophecy with a deadline my kind of thing.

Szeth is the main secondary character that is of importance as the assassin of Gavilar. He is incredibly powerful but bound to the Oath stone thing which I still don't quite get. But most intriguing is actually the ending with king of Kharbranth whose name I can't spell. He's actually behind the slaughter of lots of important people after he acquires the oath stone. I want to see more Szeth and I hope we do.

Overall an excellent book written perfectly. It balances action, magic, politics, religion and personal storylines with an expert hand as I'd expert from Brandon Sanderson. This also introduces some big concepts for the Cosmere so I need to keep going. Hoid actually had a substantial appearance in this which I liked, it actually gave more growth to him as a character which I thought was merited. This is honestly a masterpiece and I can't wait to continue.

#the way of kings #review #kaladin #shallan #dalinar #brandon sanderson #high fantasy #book review #booklr #masterpiece #fiction #fantasy

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icantw84it · 5 years

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The “Acquired” Savant Syndrome

TBI induced talents…

Could such dormant potential exist within us all?

Darold A. Treffert, MD

A 10-year-old boy is knocked unconscious by a baseball. Following that traumatic blow, he suddenly can do calendar calculations. He can also remember the weather, along with other autobiographical details of his daily life, from that time forward. An elderly woman who had never painted before becomes a prodigious artist after a particular type of dementia process begins and progresses. Another elderly patient with dementia has a similar sudden epiphany of ability, but this time in music. A 56-year-old builder, who had no particular prior interest or skills in art, abruptly, for the first time in his life, becomes a poet, a painter and a sculptor following a stroke that he miraculously survived. An 8-year-old boy begins calendar calculating after a left hemispherectomy for intractable seizures. These are examples of what I call the “acquired” savant, or what might also be called “accidental genius.”

Is it possible such dormant potential resides in all of us but might not, except for CNS injury, otherwise surface? The acquired savant suggests just that. The challenge, of course, if that is so, is how to tap those hidden abilities without having endured some CNS catastrophe.

Before 1996, most of the savants I had met, except for Alonzo Clemens, were persons who were born with autism or some other developmental disability, and in whom some marvelous talent “exploded” on the scene during infancy or childhood, most often at about age 3-4. One could refer to these cases as congenital savant syndrome (present from birth).

Acquired savant syndrome, in contrast, are instances in which dormant savant skills emerge, sometimes at a prodigious level, after a brain injury or disease in previously non-disabled (neurotypical) persons where few such skills were evident before such CNS injury or disease. This circumstance, of course, raises the question of whether such dormant capacity exists in everyone, only to surface, perhaps as a backup system, when there is such CNS injury or illness.

Alonzo Clemens is such a case of acquired savant syndrome, since, according to his mother, Alonzo’s remarkable sculpting skills appeared after a head injury sustained in a childhood fall. Alonzo’s incredible abilities can be seen in the profiles section of this Web site. After I met Alonzo in 1984, I began to review the savant syndrome literature to see if other such cases of acquired savant syndrome had been reported in the past. Indeed, there were several such reports. Minogue (1923) presented a case in which musical genius appeared in a 3-year-old child following meningitis. And Brink (1967) described the case of Mr. Z. who demonstrated savant skills, behavioral traits and abilities that emerged at age 9 after a bullet wound to the left brain left the patient with a motor paralysis on the right side, along with becoming mute and deaf. Following that traumatic brain injury, some new special mechanical abilities and other savant skills emerged. In 1991, Dorman reported a case in Brain and Cognition in which an 8-year-old boy began to show exceptional calendar calculating ability after a left hemispherectomy.

Then, in December 1996, I read a case report in Lancet written by Dr. Bruce Miller and colleagues in which they described three patients “who became accomplished painters after the appearance of frontotemporal dementia.” They described one such case in detail, a 68-year-old gentleman with no particular art interest or ability in whom rather spectacular artistic skills emerged as the dementia proceeded.

In the October 1998 issue of Neurology, Dr. Miller and co-workers described two additional patients (now a total of five) with this same type of frontotemporal dementia (FTD) who likewise displayed new artistic skills in the setting of progressive brain disease. Consistent with the findings in other “congenital” savants reported to that date, in these five older patients whose artistic skills and abilities emerged after the onset of FTD, the creativity was visual, not verbal; the images were meticulous copies that lacked abstract or symbolic qualities; episodic memory was preserved but semantic memory was devastated; and they exhibit intense obsessive preoccupation with your art skills. SPECT (single photon emission computed tomography) imaging studies showed a predominance of left brain injury.

These researchers hypothesized that selective degeneration of the anterior temporal orbitofrontal cortex decreased inhibition of visual systems involved with perception, thereby enhancing artistic interest and abilities. Such artistic interest and ability was relatively dormant until the FTD disease “released” those hidden abilities. Some would characterize that phenomenon as a release “from the tyranny of the left hemisphere”.

Frontotemporal dementia accounts for about 25 percent of the pre-senile dementias and differs from Alzheimer’s dementia in that, in FTD, the pathological processes are regional, rather than generalized, and are asymmetric, often affecting the left anterior temporal region, as in these five patients. This 1998 article discussed the five patients individually in detail, and also illustrates some of the artistic works that were produced during the progression of the dementia process.

These researchers hypothesized that “selective degeneration of the anterior temporal and orbitofrontal cortex decreased inhibition of the more posteriorly located visual systems involved with perception, thereby enhancing these patients’ artistic interest and abilities.” They also quote Kapur (1996), who used the term “paradoxical functional facilitation” to describe such a “release” phenomenon where loss of some skills permits emergence of others. Miller concludes this article by saying “FTD is an unexpected window into the artistic process,” and indeed it is.

By 2000, Miller had increased the number of his FTD/emergent artistic ability cases to 12. But now this expanded group included some persons with previously dormant musical abilities, instead of art abilities, that surfaced with progression of the dementia process. Even more interesting, however, was the expansion of this research to compare the functional imaging findings (SPECT) on six of those older persons, previously non-disabled, with the imaging findings of a 9-year-old autistic savant artist (DB). That comparison showed “remarkable parallels” between the older FTD patients and this young autistic artist. Both involved loss of function in the left temporal lobe of the brain and enhanced function in the posterior neocortex. The similarities of neuropathology as seen on SPECT imaging in a 9-year-old autistic savant, and these older FTD patients, who share artistic skills in common with very different disabilities, is striking and intriguing.

In 2005, Lythgoe and co-workers in London documented a case in Neurology of a 51-year-old artist whose skills surfaced, for the first time, after a sudden-onset sub-arachnoid hemorrhage involving bilateral cerebral artery aneurysms. The aneurysms were repaired with coils. Following that, the patient, fortunately, showed little associated dementia or impaired verbal abilities. CT scans 16 days after admission confirmed there was no focal injury. Neuropsychological testing revealed a normal IQ level, some verbal disinhibition, and some mild executive function impairment. The final impression was “mild frontal dysfunction.” The authors concluded that “it is possible whatever frontal damage our patient sustained led to a relative disinhibition or paradoxical functional facilitation of these areas.”

Prior to the stroke, the patient had no particular interest or ability in the creative arts. But several weeks after the corrective surgery, the patient began to “fill several notebooks with poems and verse; he had never written poetry prior to that time. Following that he began to paint expansively and expressively, spending almost all of his time painting and sculpting.” Several television documentaries have included segments on this acquired savant story. The London program My Brilliant Brainincludes an excellent segment on this individual whose paintings and sculptures are better seen than described.

In a different, but related vein, Mel, Howard and Miller (2002) raised the question of what would happen to an already accomplished artist, in contrast to the patients above in whom new talent surfaced, with a progressive frontotemporal dementia process? They presented the case of a trained and talented art teacher who, at age 49, at the beginning of a progressive FTD process, changed her style slowly from Western watercolor and traditional Chinese brush painting to highly patterned paintings using Chinese horoscope icons. The “impressive artistic growth,” which the authors describe in much greater detail, coincided with a decline in her ability to organize class lessons or grade papers. Paintings became “wilder and freer” in which “intricate designs and patterns of the horoscope figures were replaced by large, intensely colored figures; complex patterning was pushed into the background.” Choice of colors changed and “release from the constraints of formal training became clear.” Compared to Miller’s 12 cases of “new” talent emergence patients who generally had asymmetric left anterior temporal lobe degeneration, this patient with prior artistic talent, whose style changed drastically, showed predominantly left frontal disease. Yet as with the other FTD patients, in these individuals the brain damage was predominantly left sided. These researchers conclude: “Asymmetric left hemisphere degeneration may release previously untapped cognitive abilities. Our brain wiring appears to be a major factor in the determination of the nature of our creativity.”

Drago (2006) and co-workers carried these studies on “release” vs. “new” skills unearthed in persons with FTD a bit further. They assigned art judges to assess the artwork of a trained artist with frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD), during three periods of her life: pre-symptomatic period (18 paintings), perisymptomatic period when symptoms were just beginning (6 paintings), and fully symptomatic period (16 paintings). These three time intervals ranged from before symptom onset to eight years after the diagnosis. The judges rated the paintings systematically on six different artistic qualities without knowledge of the patient’s clinical diagnosis or when the paintings were produced.

Consistent with the FTD patients described above, this patient showed an increase of some visual artistic skills over time, reflected in technique, “that might be related to sparing and disinhibition of the right posterior neocortex.” However, there was a reduction of other aspects of the paintings including closure (completeness of the painting) and evocative (emotional) impact.

In 2005, J. M. Annoni and colleagues from the Lausanne University Hospital in Lausanne, Switzerland, noted significant qualitative changes in artistic style in two professional painters as a consequence of minor strokes located in the left occipital lobe or thalamus. One of these individuals switched to a more stylized and symbolic art, and the other switched from an impressionist style to a more simplistic, abstract art. In discussing these changes, the authors state: “The artistic changes may have been associated with a direct effect of the infarct. Since the posterior brain regions seem to play a specific role in creative thinking, it is not surprising that a minor lesion in these regions might alter an artist’s creative thought, and thus his style of painting. Besides, the fact that patients 1 and 2 had left hemispheric dysfunction may provide some support for the theory of ‘right hemisphere functional release.’ Different possible cognitive mechanisms may be considered.”

Oliver Sacks, in his 1995 book An Anthropologist on Mars, describes yet another case of “acquired” artistic skills in a person “who had scarcely painted or drawn before” following an illness that included “high fever, weight loss, delirium, perhaps seizures” or some other “neurological condition.” The exact nature of the illness remains unexplained. Yet following that episode, Franco Magnani began painting immaculately accurate scenes from the village of Pontito, where he had grown up, but then left at age 18. This new dawn of painting ability and digital-like memory amazed even Franco. Sacks quotes him as saying “Fantastic. How could I do it? And how could I have had the gift and not known about it before?”

What makes Franco Magnini’s case especially interesting is not just his painting epiphany in his early thirties following his illness, but also that his incredible, digital camera like recall of the tiny village where he grew up was so exact, now years later, that when compared to present day photographs of that village, each street, building and archway is reconstructed with breathtaking fidelity. So amazing was this link of exacting paintings with documented early memories of his village buildings, streets and alleys that there have been a number of exhibits of his work. The Exploritorium in San Francisco held an exhibit in 1998 titled Memory: The Art and Science of Remembering, in which Magnini’s work was featured. To demonstrate the remarkable memory involved, his paintings were placed side by side with recent photographs of the same scene. The accuracy, now years later in a person with no earlier formal art training, was incredible.

But one of the most dramatic and convincing instances of “acquired” savant syndrome is Orlando Serrell. At age 10, Orlando was hit in the head by a baseball. Following that, Orlando began to calendar calculate, an interest and ability he had never shown prior to the head injury. He also developed the ability to remember the weather for each day following the injury, a detail most of us, of course, “forget.” In recent years, there has been added other “autobiographical” memory including what he did on a particular day in the years following the injury. That ability is called by some “hyperthymestic syndrome,” and is described in more detail elsewhere on this site.

Orlando’s acquired savant abilities have been the topic in a number of documentaries on savant syndrome. Probably the most in depth look has been in Beautiful Minds by Colourfield Productions in Germany. In those clips, Orlando shows not only his calendar calculating abilities, but provides evidence of autobiographical memory as well.

One final example of acquired savant abilities is Daniel Tammet, whose skills, and their onset and development, are described by him in his very popular book Born on a Blue Day. After several childhood seizures, which were ultimately diagnosed as temporal lobe epilepsy, Daniel began to experience a very powerful and unique synesthesia in which every number has its own color, shape and texture. Coupled with the synesthesia was lightning calculating and calendar calculating ability, along with massive memory for numbers. Daniel was able to memorize Pi to 22,514 decimal places, for example. He also has the ability to learn languages in a very brief time. He mastered Icelandic, for example, in seven days as chronicled in Focus Production’s 2005 documentary, Brainman.

There are other cases of acquired savant syndrome that continue to come to my attention as well, but the above instances provide some examples of the intriguing phenomenon, with all of its broad implications, of buried potential surfacing following CNS injury or disease.

In summary, in most persons with savant syndrome, the exceptional savant skill surfaces during childhood, quite unexpectedly and often explosively. Those savant abilities are superimposed on some underlying developmental or other disability that was present at birth. This is called congenital savant syndrome. But in recent years there have been a number of cases reported in which, after some brain injury or brain disease, savant skills unexpectedly emerge, sometimes at a prodigious level, when no such skills were present before injury or illness. This is called acquired savant syndrome. In many of these cases, the special abilities emerge following left hemisphere injury, particularly left anterior temporal lobe injury. Increasingly, there is speculation that these newly emerged skills, formerly dormant, are “released,” compensatory abilities rather than newly created ones.

Another way of looking at the congenital vs. acquired savant syndrome dichotomy, however, might be that all savant syndrome is “acquired” in that even in those instances where savant syndrome emerges in childhood, that emergence, or compensatory function, occurs after some CNS injury or disease process, just as with the acquired savant. It is just that such injury or disease happens at an earlier time in the congenital savant, i.e., during the pre-natal, peri-natal or post-natal periods of development. In the acquired savant, in contrast, the CNS injury simply occurs at a later period of life. While not universal, in both the congenital and acquired savant, such CNS injury or disease most often involves the changes in the left hemisphere with compensatory changes in the right hemisphere.

The fact that savant skills, entirely dormant before CNS injury or disease, can surface by some ‘release’ (disinhibition) process raises intriguing questions about dormant capacity existing within us all. The challenge of course, if that is so, is how to access that hidden knowledge and skill without some sort of CNS catastrophe. And work to achieve just that is now underway.

There is a very interesting story posted on the mental_floss blogregarding six acquired and sudden savants some of whom are described in even greater detail in Islands of Genius. The blog provides some excellent illustrations and photos to accompany the text.

(References are available on request from [email protected].)

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