#( antagonist. / && jacob stack )

[derelictdumbass]

your ocs are so amazing and so detailed!!! Do you have any tips for people for making ocs? if not that’s totally fine!! *have a lovely day or night!!* ( @msprince )

AAAA Thank you so much!! ;;w;; I'm not sure if I have any tips but I can try to list a few of the main things I do when making an oc!! (putting under a read more because rambling is in my blood and I cannot contain my thoughts I'm very sorry)

For a fandom oc I usually look at the cast of characters already present and the country/time period/setting it's in to get a feel for what kind of character would fit in to it.

I think about who they're going to be interacting with and what i'd like those relationship dynamic's to be, who I'd like them to be friends with vs who I'd like them to be enemies with.

I also try to think of a few things that make them feel more human to me, which can range from being scared of the dark to only liking red m&ms or refusing to touch door handles with their hands, small tiny details like that help make a character feel alive.

As an example; my oc Michael was made for Far Cry 5 and I wanted him to specifically parallel Jacob who is one of the main antagonists and is ex army. (And my siblings oc James is also ex army and I wanted them to have that connection too seeing as they're close friends) So it was an easy decision to make him ex army and with that came two of his most stand out, features? character quirks? He's got a limp from when his leg was injured in combat and really bad hearing in one ear after a bomb went off, it's two very small details that you can't see visually but in writing it really makes him feel alive. (And due to a lot of his trauma he tends to be closed off and come off as grumpy but he's really just a big softie who just wants to whittle and cuddle his wife)

Figuring out their childhood and family dynamic also helps because depending on if they had a happy childhood or not really dictates how they act as an adult and act in relationships with other people! (Sometimes it can feel like Too Much if you give them a tragic childhood but honestly if it's what the gods are telling you then you hop on that angst train and make everyone cry)

I find writing small throw away things with them interacting with canon characters or reacting to certain scenarios helps me flesh them out too.

For oc's made for my original stuff there's a lot more freedom because I get to make ALL the rules and I really go feral with them. Usually I always start with a visual design because with any oc I make I always have an idea of what I want them to look like first. From that I think about the world they're in, if they're human or not is usually decided in the design stage and I focus really hard on the culture they're from at first because it'll obviously shape the ideals they have.

Then using the culture they're from I'll pick a name, (I'm a nerd so I will Google names with certain meanings AND also tend to use this site from time to time it's pretty decent) and usually their age is either "idk they're This Old" or "I want them to have this specific life event/life experience so they are This Old" asjsjsj

And then I go crazy with the tiny details and imagining where they'd live, like if you haven't making a small floor plan of where they live or thinking of what they'd have in their home HELPS SO MUCH in figuring out their hobbies and what kind of person they are. (Like do they have board games stacked on their shelves? books? expensive art pieces on the walls or their own paintings? There are so many possibilities there tbh it's a lot of fun)

That's all I can think of right now, I don't know if any of that was helpful at all but I hope it was even a little bit!! I hope you have a lovely day or night too!! 💜💜

[shadoedseptmbr]

For Work In Progress Wednesday:

I am fooling around with a framing device for a few ME2-pre ME3 sketch fics I’ve been piling up but it’s still rough.  Wouldn’t mind a little feedback from the peanut gallery.

Case Files

Not immediately. 

Major Alenko absolutely does not run to the SPECTRE office with his new authorizations to view files he honestly has no business seeing.

The second Human SPECTRE nods and smiles and shakes hands during the small party the Council insists upon.  He does an interview with a shockingly meek Al-Jilani. He has a cup of tea with the drell, Tannor Nuara, though he’s pretty sure that’s not his name and checks in with Dr. Michel to remind her to keep him updated on the hospital’s needs.It’s no problem, he assures her. He used up enough of the resources, himself.

Kaidan goes to his quarters and changes into his fatigues and opens a beer he probably shouldn’t. He sends another message to his mother and makes a few replies to friends.  He starts in on the endless pile of paperwork.  He considers dinner, a shower, hitting the training facility. He drinks his beer.

An hour after that, he’s in the elevator, in the hallway, avoiding an ambassador’s aide.

It’s probably a violation of privacy.  It’s absolutely taking advantage of privileged information.  But he needs a few answers, if he’s ever going to sleep at night without wondering if he did the right thing.

Her file is...staggeringly long.  He scans a few others, for comparison.  His is almost nothing but his BaAt file, his service record, and the three debrief interviews he did after Alchera. After Horizon. After Earth and Mars. Others are thicker and thinner.  Saren’s is heavily redacted even with Kaidan’s authorizations and the affirmation of the Reapers and ends with “Status: Revoked. Terminated.”

Shepard’s starts with a few files from an orphanage that he just glances through, most of which are nothing but “Fostered: Date. Returned: not much later.” There’s one black and white holoscan of a little girl with tight braids, freckles, big eyes and a gap tooth grin.  It’s labeled: Eden Magdalene Shepard 

No other record found matching available data. Possible id not confirmed.

But it’s her.  He can see the woman in those clear, direct eyes.

There’s a stack of arrests for an Ace Shepard 

Possible alias. Matches available data. Records sealed for age 

And one mugshot.  Definitely Aedan Shepard, the scar under her eye still fresh and stark. Red hair, though unnaturally crayon bright, half shaved and shaggy on the other.  Those eyes lined in red, staring at the camera like murder from a pale, bone thin face. Black lipstick smeared across her sneer. One arm long and dangling, the other in a cast, strapped to her side.  A sketchy green tattoo on her neck in the side view of a knife, a slash of purple make up stark across a nose too big for her pixie face. No age listed but she can’t be 14 by the date.  

An Academy admissions form for Aedan Shepard with an accompanying note from one Commander Anderson that he skims to land on a final line. “I know she isn’t what you usually look for. She’s going to need some remedial work. Trust me on this one, Mira.”

Her Academy file shows grades gradually improving to higher marks. Her physical improves faster, doctor notes indicating that between regular meals and gene mods she’s going to make the height/weight requirement by the end of her first year. Her marksmanship punts her into the stratosphere.

Another picture in familiar Academy togs. There’s his...there’s the Shepard he knew. No visible tats, Dark red hair, short but neat. Seven freckles across her leonine nose not quite hidden by regulation makeup.  The scar is faded, but still raised. Eyes level and cool, mouth firm.  Baby professional.

He knows her service record almost as well as his own.

There’s the one holonet picture from Elysium, Aedan in her black bikini and flip flops, dogtags flying, pistol steady, directing someone (a teenage girl, she told him later) to fill a hole in the defense. There’s the picture from a little later, chin high and firm in her dress uniform: an admiral pinning the Star of Terra to her chest.  He can see Anderson leaning over to Hackett in the background.

There’s a cross reference to her N file.

Commendation after commendation. One flag for disrespect to a superior officer.

SPECTRE CANDIDATE

There’s the file on the Normandy SR1, the holo of her SPECTRE induction, and the Saren mission.

Her Alliance report on the mission, the letter to Ashley’s mother. A few interview files.

A debrief they’d called her to Arcturus to give.  She’d shrugged it off as routine and they’d run to the Citadel for shore leave.  

There’s the official Alchera report cross referenced with his. Joker’s. Chakwas’.

He slows down. There’s a termination flag that wasn’t removed.

Attached to that is an addendum from another SPECTRE, Tela Vasir, cross referenced with the Shadow Broker file three weeks after the Collector attack on the SR1.

Situation to be reviewed. Shepard and/or remains possibly recovered. Check all Cerberus contacts.

The next data is a bioscan from the security checkpoint on Zakera, two years and a few weeks after Shepard had been declared dead. An alert notice. Three grainy stills from the security chief’s office. Not quite clear enough to make out details beyond hair and height. And two figures in Cerberus gear behind her.  

He’d just left the Citadel posting for Horizon the week before. 

The next file is video only, fuzzy. Clearly from a planted device. Kaidan rubs his eyes before he hits play on grainy footage with biometric data rolling on the outside edge. 

A red haired, slender, short figure in black and red N7 armor strides into Anderson’s Citadel office.  She walks like Aedan, that rolling ship gait.  She draws up short in front of his desk.  He speaks, she answers, he speaks again.  And he watches her whole body jerk as if she’s been shot.

All formality lost, her hands spread.  She’s yelling and Anderson isn’t meeting her eyes as he replies.  That square posture droops and hers matches. 

She slaps a data drive on his desk, turns on her heel and marches to the door.  The bug must be by the doorframe, Kaidan can see details now.  She turns her head and there they are, the scars that shocked him, glowing along her jawline pulled open and raw by the awkward position. They look like they hurt. He almost misses the word she asks over her shoulder. “Kaidan?”

Anderson shakes his head and Kaidan can lip read well enough to get, “Classified.”

Her hand clenches on the doorframe. “Two years, Boss?”

“Yeah, kid.”

She jerks a nod, says something else as she turns to go. Her shoulders square before she walks through the sliding door. He catches a glimpse of white and black on a figure just outside. Anderson leans against his desk, head down.

A holo of a Normandy; the SR2. Flying Cerberus colors in the Citadel docking bay.

Biometrics confirmed. SPECTRE Status: Reinstated. 

Kaidan closes the file and staggers back to the elevator.

00000

It’s a week of small potato missions before he can trust himself to reopen the file.

Every two weeks, there’s a data dump to Anderson/Hackett, copied and crossreferenced to SPECTRE files. About half include encrypted data that still hasn’t been decoded The Alliance version carries a note dating from nine months ago: Speculation: Code specific to Anderson/Shepard.

The dumps usually come from Illium, shunted through a source with an address he recognizes.  Liara.  

There’s a pile of data from Omega and then a list of files for her crew: Miranda Lawson. Jacob Taylor. Kasumi Goto (notations from Spectre Jondam Bau). Garrus. Mordin Solus. Zaeed Misoni. Urdnot Grunt. Justicar Samara. Jack. Tali. Thane Krios. He recognizes Tannor Nuara and shuts the file down.

Over a cup of tea in the bustle of Huerta’s lobby, Thane blinks but then smiles.  “You were more observant than I expected, Spectre Alenko.”

“It wasn’t my business.”

“No.  But I promised her I would look out for you and I clearly revealed more than I intended.”

“You promised Shepard?”

He nods.  “You were still bedridden at the time. It seemed a reasonable precaution.”

Well, thanks, I guess.

“It was my privilege. She helped me save my son, once.  I was glad to return the favor with her...friend.”

“Can you.  Look, I don’t want to put you in a corner.  I’m just trying to reconcile the Shepard I knew with what happened last year.  Can you tell me...anything?”

“When I met her on Illium, I used her to distract a target.”

A target?  You were there to kill someone?  

You said you read my file?

You were an assassin.  

Yes. 

You used Shepard?

She was...a very good distraction.  My target assumed Shepard was the assassin, tearing through her guard and the tower like fire through dry tinder.  It allowed me to quietly get into position. Shepard got her information and I made my hit.

And Shepard hired you?  It wasn’t that far out of character.  Wrex came to mind.

We came to an agreement.  I was not expecting to be able to work much longer and the Cerberus contract allowed me to set aside money for my son.

Right.  How was it?  On the ship.

Antagonistic.  At first.  There was a line drawn between the Cerberus crew and Shepard.  It was crossed very rarely.  She was.  Not warm.  

Unfriendly?  

Angry.  She drank more than I expect was good for her.  She spoke rarely, to Garrus most of all.  She put her armor on in the morning and we rarely saw her in anything else.

What changed? 

We aided Tali, the quarian?  Kaidan managed not to snap that he knew her.

Yes.  We found her and Shepard made a visible effort to change, Kasumi asked a favor and they dealt with it. She came back...you’ve seen the scarring? 

Yeah.

They were almost closed.  They’d been healing, reopening, healing.  

Garrus needed her help and while we were on the Citadel, she aided me with my son.  He was...about to follow in my footsteps but without my training it was...she saved him.  She helped me stop him.  When she came back to the ship, she went up to speak with Joker and I heard her laughing.  I had not. Before.  

The drell went stiff before him, his dark eyes revealing stark pupils.  “Eyes like ice frozen on the shore, she stands between Kolyat and the ambassador.  She speaks with steady conviction and he listens.  Eyes like the storms on a sea, she shadow steps between the turian and the bullet waiting for him. “He’s as good as dead, can’t you see that.” Garrus drops his rifle.  Eyes like smoke, she laughs like rusty bells on a chain.  Joker tells her he’s missed her.”

His eyes darken to see Kaidan before him, scanning him with an omnitool about to wave over a doctor.  “Forgive me.  Drell have...our memories are revealing.  It seemed the best way to answer your question.”

“What just happened? No...nevermind.  It got better then?”

“Yes.  Until then...She was always a sniper, I assume? “ 

“Yeah, before I met her”.  

“There is a...one has to put oneself in a certain state and a healthy being can slip in and out.  She did not.  Before that.  She was just in the cold, stark place one must be in to pull the trigger.  And then, the wind changed.  It was Garrus and Tali, who made the most difference.  Kasumi mentioned once that Shepard barely spoke before he came aboard, other than mission briefs.  After.  She would visit.  It was…”  Thane broke off in a coughing fit. “Forgive me, I need to…”

“No, I kept you too long. I”m sorry.” 

Thane stood, his hand not quite clutching the chair for support. “I will...try to write down some things for you.  If you’d like.”

“Only if you’re up to it.  I got...I got the gist.  Thank you.”

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Psycho Analysis: Roman Sionis

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

Birds of Prey is a fun, silly movie. So you’d expect a fun, silly villain for such a film, right? Well, we sort of get that… but this is an R-rated fun, silly movie, so the villain is going to cuss a lot and peel people’s faces off and be a raging psychopathic manchild. Roman Sionis, everybody!

Good old Roman Sionis, known to comic fans as Black Mask (he isn’t ever called that by anyone except Harley during his introduction, and he doesn’t even wear his mask until the end), is just an absolute raging lunatic. He gets mad at the drop of a hat, is creepily posessive of Dinah Lance, has a very close relationship with his murderous second-in-command Zsasz, and is just generally unpleasant to every single person who crosses his path.

But that’s par for the course for Roman Sionis, who is never really EVER portrayed as a charming, likable guy. The real question here is, is he an entertaining villain? Well he’s played by Ewan McGregor, what do YOU think?

Motivation/Goals: Roman is a relatively simple villain, but I think this works in his favor. You see, a big issue with Harley’s previous outing, Suicide Squad, is that the mission was way too high stakes despite the cast featuring a group of people who didn’t really have any powers beyond “fighting really good.” or “has weapon skills.” You’re telling me you’re gonna put Harley Quinn, Deadshot, and Captain Boomerang up against Enchantress and her army of ancient Aztec super-zombies? WHAT? Here, we have a street-level threat much more suited to Harley’s capabilities: Roman is just a very powerful gangster, and his goal in this movie is the simple “get this diamond that was stolen back to me so I can make fat stacks of cash.” That’s really all their needs to be here, a simple MacGuffin to drive along the plot to its various setpieces.

Performance: I love Ewan McGregor, so, really, he didn’t have to do much with the role of Roman Sionis to make him great. Still, this man went above and beyond despite having comparatively little screentime to Harley. Roman seems incapable of going a single sentence without cursing up a storm and is the epitome of a psychopathic manchild, tormenting people for the slightest of reasons. He forces a woman to strip and dance on one of his tables because she was laughing too loud when he was upset, and decides not to spare a girl’s life because she had a gross snot bubble on her face from sobbing while he had his crony Zsasz peel off her parents’ faces. As funny and hammy as he gets, the dude is a stone-cold ruthless bastard who has no line he won’t cross to get what he wants.

Final Fate: Cass hides a grenade on him and steals the ring, and then Harley kicks him off the pier while he panics. Before he even hits the water, BOOM! Never would I have expected to laugh out loud at the sight of Ewan McGregor being blown into bits, but this movie was just full of surprises.

Best Scene: I think that the honor has to go to his establishing character moment with Zsasz, as they cut off the faces of a family who crossed Roman, and then when Roman decides to spare the daughter, he notices snot on her face, says “Ew” like a petulant child, and has Zsasz cut her face off anyway. It’s a great way to establish that Roman is an awful human being no matter how you slice it, and firmly establishes that while, yes, he is a misogynist villain in a female-led blockbuster, his misogyny is just a tiny facet of how unabashedly terrible Roman is.

Final Thoughts & Score: So, this is gonna sound weird, but… Roman kinda reminded me of Justin Hammer. Hammer is a villain who I have greatly warmed to over time (mostly thanks to Nando V Movies on YouTube), to the point where I think he’s actually pretty funny but is held back from true greatness by the sloppy nature of Iron Man 2. The film was big, bloated, and didn’t know what to do with itself. And this film is KIND OF like that… but it knows what to do with Roman.

The movie has an undercurrent of female empowerment, so why not make the villain emblematic of things women have to overcome? Roman is creepy, misogynistic, and even a bit racist especially with his condescending actions towards Dinah. And he even throws a fit when she “betrays” him and decides to murder her. But the movie is smart so as to not make this hamfisted; the movie makes it entirely clear that even if you take away his misogynistic elements, Roman Sionis is just an utterly disgusting human being. Everything about him is just so hilariously vulgar and repulsive, but the way he’s performed helps lighten it and help keep him within the tone of the movie. He’s just dark enough and just hammy enough to work.

My big issues with Roman are mostly due to his utilization and the wasted potential, which is a problem that really hits a lot of stuff in Birds of Prey. He is great every time he’s onscreen, but his screentime is fairly limited, and then he dies at the end which robs him of any chance of coming back in the future as an antagonist. He actually functions great as a more grounded threat rather than some larger-than-life end of the world threat, but the fact he dies horribly – before even having his mask burned onto his face, even! - just kind of feels like a waste of a character. To be fair, Black Mask is not the best or most interesting Batman villain crime lord; we have the Penguin for that. But when you cast  someone like Ewan McGregor and he’s clearly having a blast, it’s hard not to feel at least slightly bitter when he gets hilariously gibbed at the end.

Still, I can’t let Justin Hammer’s sacrifice go in vain; he walked so Roman could run, and Roman ran so that perhaps someday Hammer could sprint. Roman gets a nice, fat 8/10, which he definitely earns with the heaping helpings of ham he brings to the table, though he is held back at least a little by the wasted potential of his character.

But hey, if you want to talk about wasted potential…

Psycho Analysis: Victor Zsasz

I really like Victor Zsasz in this film. I really do. The angle they went with, the implied homosexuality, the actor… it’s all good stuff that helps make a disturbing character like Zsasz easier to swallow. But he gets hit with wasted potential harder than even Roman does.

Motivation/Goals: He’s Roman’s right-hand man, so basically his motivation is to do whatever Roman wants him to do. However, there is a bit of an implied thing between his boss and him; Zsasz seems undeniably irritated with the attention he lavishes on Dinah, and is very hands-on and affectionate with his boss. A lot of his later actions in the film and his cruelty towards Dinah does seem to stem from some place of anger towards her for taking Roman’s attention away from him.

Performance: I have to say, Chris Messina does a stellar job at portraying Zsasz as creepy and obsessive, and certainly showcases the fanatical loyalty he has towards Roman, making him something of a dark mirror to Harley’s former relationship with the Joker. I also appreciate that, despite not going with Zsasz’s original psychotic serial killer angle, they still made him a bloodthirsty psycho with a sort of nihilistic edge to him. Frankly, this might be the best possible take on a live-action Zsasz without things getting intensely uncomfortable.

Final Fate: This is probably the worst element of Zsasz: his death. Right before the climax he gets shot out of the blue by Huntress and then Harley just repeatedly stabs him with the arrow. And I have to make it clear here – Zsasz barely got to do anything. He never really poses any sort of physical threats to the heroines, never gets into a fight, and is never mentioned again after his death despite being very close to Roman (to the point where the two may have been lovers).

Final Thoughts & Score: As far as henchmen go, Zsasz is pretty solid conceptually. He’s established early on as a psychopathic enforcer of Roman’s gang, he has an eerie air to him, and he has a lot of elements from the comics you rarely see on Zsasz in other media, such as being blonde. Messina does a fantastic job at making the character seem like a competent killer in the employ of Roman.

But the key word is “seem,” because Zsasz frankly never lives up to his hype. Despite being introduced peeling the faces off of a family, he is just never utilized to his fullest extent. He’s kind of just there in a lot of scenes, and while he isn’t unmemorable or anything he never really does anything that makes him into a worthwhile addition to the franchise. He’s honestly just a glorified mook with a few interesting gimmicks to help set him apart.

I’ve gotta give him a 6/10. While he’s definitely a step above average, he’s really not anything amazing, mostly because the movie refuses to allow him to reach his full potential. He doesn’t have any great quotes, his most memorable scene really serves more to establish Roman than anything, and he is dumped and quickly forgotten right before the climax. He would easily be a 7 or 8 if the story treated him with a little more weight or respect, but he just ends up underwhelming despite having so much going for him, and it’s frankly a bit depressing. It’s just a very sad state of affairs for the character, especially when he managed to be more intimidating in the Arkham games despite the fact that he posed even less of a physical threat than he does here.

Well, while we’re here, let’s go over THAT Zsasz briefly.

Portrayed in the games by Danny Jacobs (who you may know as Sacha Baron Cohen's stand in on The Penguins of Madagascar. Yes, Zsasz and King Julien had the same voice actor.), Zsasz is never really a major antagonist and is, in all honesty, a pretty weak fighter; you can always take him down in one punch. The thing with Zsasz in the games, though, is that it’s always tricky to get to him, because he usually has hostages of some kind. In Arkham Asylum, he appears twice, and you need to use stealth to take him out before he kills his hostages. In City, he gets a much longer sidequest where he requires you to pick up ringing telephones and then glide to another one across the city within a time limit. Once you’ve listened to all of his messages, Batman finds out where his lair is, sneaks through it, and whoops his ass.

I certainly can’t say he’s the best villain in either game he appears in, but he’s definitely scary. His messages and game over screens are really freaky and unnerving, and the Riddler even requires you to find some of Zsasz’s work as parts of riddles… and by “work” I am of course referring to corpses posed in life-like positions. There’s also the horrifying little tidbit that in City, Zsasz actually does kill one of his hostages and there’s nothing that can be done about it; if you switch to detective mode in his lair, you can see a corpse at the bottom of the water in the room.

I think how creepy and intense he is really helps make him stand out among the more colorful characters in those games like Joker, Clayface, and Riddler, so I think giving him a nice 8/10 for his appearances is well-earned. I feel like Birds of Prey could have learned a few lessons from this portrayal; if they wanted to make him more creepy than physically intimidating, that could have worked well and it would have made his anti-climactic defeat a bit more plausible. Instead, they kind of tried this middle ground where he’s creepy enough and intimidating enough physically that it just feels like a letdown when he’s offed.

Oh yeah, did you know he appeared in Batman Begins? He had a brief cameo and didn’t do anything significant and looked like this:

Pretty sure he’d get a low score if he wasn’t just a quick little reference.

[shesboundtolose]

Lou Wolfe’s Pertinent People Cheat Sheet

It’s sort of dawned on me that this might be a good way to go as far as quickly explaining connections here and across my other blogs ( NOTE: these are just my muses/NPCs. Lou has many connections to other people’s muses, who will not be included here. )

BLOOD RELATIONS:

STANLEY WOLFE - Father ( largely an awful force in her life )

IDA (SNYDER) WOLFE - Mother ( deceased in almost every verse )

DANIEL WOLFE - Uncle ( Lou has never met him in almost every verse )

LEIF SNYDER - Uncle ( worked at the juvenile detention center Lou was sent to; helped make life rough for her as a way to get back at her father )

OLIVIA “OLLIE” IDA WOLFE / SULLIVAN - Daughter ( verse dependent; very similar to her mother, though she doesn’t like to admit it. Would fight God for her family. )

THEODORE “TEDDY” MAXWELL JOHNSON ( CONLON ) - Son ( verse dependent; reminds Lou so much of her mother at times that it’s difficult to be in his presence. )

FAMILY (NOT BY BLOOD):

GERTRUDE “GERTIE” JOHNSON - Close family friend ( worked with Ida’s mother, was like a second grandmother to her. Took Lou in when she left Greenville and helped her establish herself in Brooklyn. The closest thing to family Lou has. )

LEONA (BRENNAN) CONLON - Family friend / Shaun’s mother ( tried desperately to be there for Lou as much as possible. Loves her like a daughter. )

LOVERS:

SHAUN PATRICK CONLON - Best friend / that first love / first serious boyfriend ( assumed deceased in most verses; father of Teddy in others )

EDWARD “EDDIE” JAMES ARMSTRONG - Best friend / Guy she should be with / patron saint of patience & broken hearts ( Lou left him back in Greenville to spare him; she spared no one. Moves back to Queens with her brother and eventually, accidentally, reunites with Lou. )

FRANCIS “FRANKIE” JOSEPH SULLIVAN - Douche bag / Big mistake / Punishment ( most verses – in a few, he is the father of her daughter Ollie )

CHARLEMAGNE CLAUDIUS CHRISTOPHER “CHRIS” MACKINNON - Trust fund brat / ‘friend’ of Jacob Stack ( strictly business )

FRIENDS:

Lou has, in general, some sort of friendly acquaintance with pretty much all of my other muses in a smattering of verses.

ANTAGONISTS:

JACOB MICHAEL STACK - Employer / Man who enjoys her misery ( verse dependent )

CHARLES “CHARLIES” PHILIP ARMSTRONG - Asshole / cop who’s loyal to Stanley / Protective older brother ( can’t stand Lou for many reasons; also has the wrong idea about her. )

PEARL LEE “BULLET” SULLIVAN - Cousin to Frankie ( verse dependent; her jealousy blinds her and she winds up hating Lou fairly irrationally. Lou is somewhat apathetic in return. Distrusts her anytime they’re around one another. )

DOMINIC “DOM” BRENNAN CONLON - Protective older brother / suspicious bastard ( never trusted the kid of a cop, and thought Lou was too much trouble for her worth. )

BRADLEY “BRAD” LINCOLN - Friend of Frankie’s / just likes to poke the tiger ( verse dependent;  he really just tries to ruffle Lou’s feathers upon Frankie’s request. )

[lostsullivans]

Bullet Sullivan’s Pertinent People Cheat Sheet

It’s sort of dawned on me that this might be a good way to go as far as quickly explaining connections here and across my other blogs ( NOTE: these are just my muses/NPCs. Bullet has many connections to other people’s muses, who will not be included here. )

BLOOD RELATIONS:

Kelly Sullivan - Father ( generally imprisoned in New York with his brother John; bestower of her nickname. )

Florence (Darcy) Sullivan - Mother ( generally incarcerated back in New Mexico; main perpetrator of how and why Bullet uses her looks to get what she wants. )

Robert “Pops” Sullivan - Grandfather ( city councilman in NYC; connections with mob members while he touts that he’s ‘tough on crime’; adopted her in her later teens; didn’t approve of Kelly’s marriage to Florence, so he doesn’t approve of Bullet. Just used her for sympathy. )

John Sullivan - Uncle ( Stuck with Kelly in prison. )

Riva Darcy - Aunt ( Looks out for Bullet when she’s in town; personal hero; detests the Sullivan clan. Tried to adopt Bullet herself until Robert got in the way. )

Francis “Frankie” Sullivan - Cousin ( son of John; kept Bullet alive during their teen years; he is much more like an asshole brother to Bullet than cousin and it shows. )

Ruby Lee Solo - Daughter ( in specified verses )

Penelope “Penny” Faith Solo - Daughter ( in specified verses )

LOVERS:

Donny Wilson - Grown ass married man with kids / Ranch hand ( had no business messing around with Bullet Sullivan at the age she was when they did. Ran out of town when people began to suspect things )

Bradley “Brad” Lincoln - Friend / associate of Frankie’s ( Friend too, more than lover, but                                             they have a complex relationship. )

Shaun Patrick Conlon - Son of a Sullivan associate ( Assumed deceased; Frankie set Bullet up with the idea of seducing and distracting Shaun. It didn’t work the way he hoped. )

Edward “Eddie” James Armstrong - Best friend to Shaun ( For fun while she was in town. She liked how sweet he could be to her. )

Charlemagne Claudius Christopher “Chris” MacKinnon - Trust fund brat / ‘friend’ of Jacob Stack ( verse dependent. business and fun. Bad things. )

Lilah Beckwith - First ‘girlfriend’ ( actually Frankie’s girlfriend at the time. Oops. )

FRIENDS:

Raymond “Ray” Walker - Friend ( tries to keep neutral, and keep her out of trouble )

Kotone “KT” Mori  - Long-suffering employee at The Blue Lounge ( mama hen type. Looks after Bullet as best she can. )

Murphy “Murph” Taggart - Bar owner/Perpetual fuck-up/Sullivan associate ( These two have a weird relationship, but it’s friendly overall )

Lochlan “Loch” Taggart - Brother of perpetual fuck-up/reluctant Sullivan associate ( Treats Bullet like a human being, so of course she’s a little sweet on him. )

ANTAGONISTS:

Jacob Michael Stack - Employer / Man who enjoys her misery ( verse dependent )

Louise Danielle “Lou” Wolfe - Completely unaware of reason to feud ( verse dependent; Bullet irrationally (and maybe sometimes rationally) despises Lou; Lou is generally apathetic in return. )

Dominic “Dom” Brennan Conlon - Protective older brother / son of an idiot ( refused to be swayed by Bullet’s charms )

[trylkstopocket]

Fixing your rhythms makes everything better. Here's how.

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What's more anti-cancer than 'shrooms and isothiocyanates?

CIRCADIAN RHYTHMS

Caffeine, large meals, and bright light in the evening induce circadian misalignment. That’s why these are better suited earlier in the day.

Caffeine reduces sleep pressure (which is supposed to start low in the morning and peak shortly after sunset) and delays melatonin onset (Burke et al., 2015). After dinner, make it a decaf or just pass.

Caffeine is an adenosine antagonist, and the accumulation of adenosine in the brain throughout the day is thought to be a chemical mediator of sleep pressure. Caffeine also delays and reduces melatonin, which increases your sleep needs, or at least time in bed/darkness.

It’s a circadian phase delay, and in today’s modern #context, most of us should be stacking the deck in the opposite direction. Fight against the niceties of technology and convenience. Assist sunset with blue blockers. Help co-entrain peripheral circadian rhythms with the master clock & light in the morning with breakfast. Get all these things right and you may even stop craving coffee in the morning *GASP*

KNOW THY ENEMY

Coffee is cool and all, and has been associated with a ton of health benefits, but in the grand scheme of things I’d say the most valuable benefit of coffee would be in helping to set the clock to a new time zone, like in jet lag (social or otherwise). In this #context, caffeine may be thought of as assisting sunlight in dopamine signaling (eg, Zheng et al., 2014 and Volkow et al., 2015)… but after a few days with your other circadian behaviors in order, I think you’ll find you need it less and less (it’s said to take one day to adapt for every hour of time zone shift, but I think we can do better).

By no means am I discouraging coffee. I love the stuff, and as mentioned above, it's associated with loads of health benefits.

However, caffeine alone is not sufficient to entrain circadian clocks. Skipping breakfast and only having a coffee in the morning won't cut it. That was at least partially demonstrated by showing 150 mg of caffeine in the morning wasn’t able to correct circadian arrhythmia in totally blind people (St Hilaire and Lockley, 2015). Caffeine may start the liver clock, but there are way more clocks out there which are  governed by the food-entrainable oscillator. Gotta eat.

Humans are a pretty tough species; we can survive some fairly crappy conditions. But why am I even writing about this stuff?

Because the goal should be “optimal.”

Thriving >>> not dying … (the former relies heavily on circadian biology) (there's a big difference in quality of life between thriving and not dying)

If your goal is body recomposition, darkness & blue blockers at night and skewing your eating window earlier will help, regardless if you are a calorie-counter or not (eg, see studies by Jacobs & Hirsh, The Hunger-Free Diet(s), and the effects of artificial light at night on fat mass).

Reducing sedentary time and maybe even some actual heavy lifting will also help. If you opt for the latter, do it early in the day because exercise in the evening increases body temperature and stimulates the sympathetic nervous system at bedtime (Yamanaka et al., 2015). Neither bode well for sleep. Plus, if you're doing it in a gym, all that bright light and loud music ain't helpin'.

Morning exercise can also help re-adjust your sleep-wake cycle to a new time zone (Yamanaka et al., 2010). Plus, coffee can be an exercise-motivator, and coffee should be restricted to morning for the reasons mentioned above. And I still believe exercise should be performed around a big meal, which should also be morning.

see how all these things work together? IT'S NOT A COINCIDENCE

If your goals are circadian re-alignment or mood &/or behavioral, may need to add to the above some effort to get more outside sun time or at least more bright light in the morning.

(all of this is assuming you’re not eating like a child and playing on your smart phone in bed)

[tckenbythesky]

tag drop, part 6

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TAG DROP #4 ( VIPs, part 1 )