CLASSIFICATION
Shifter
POWER
Muscle Manipulation
AGE
20
Vigilante
|
Post by Brian Harris on Jul 4, 2018 2:07:02 GMT
”Yes, I like the stars.” He said, staring outside. ”My...mother gave me a...globe. A celestial globe.” He smiled, remembering it fondly. ”I’ve memorized it all.”
He furrowed his brow, confused. ”I thought this was...metahuman psych ward. That’s what I...hm.” He frowned, it certainly seemed like it. ”You’re not a...noobie though, that’s good to know. I’ve been many times. I…” He paused for a second, trying to come up with a number, realizing he’s lost count long ago. ”Fifty?” He suggested jokingly before realizing it might not be a joke at all.
“You see things?” He looked at her, that familiar wave of comradery coming over him, a shared disease, a shared defect. ”I do too...sometimes. But mostly I…”
“Stop!”
“No!” “Shut up!”
He shook them off. ”Hear things.” He finished. ”Voices. I have voices.”
“You’ve done it now.”
”Now she knows you’re a goddamn lunatic.”
He took a deep breath, and decided to go a step further, he wanted her to feel better. ”I have anxiety, depression…” He paused.
”Oooooooh”
”Schizophrenia.” A said a bit softer.
”You said the s-wooooooord.”
He looked at her, eyes wide in understanding. ”It’s okay, to have these things.” He wanted to reach out, pat her leg, but he was aware most hospitals had a strict no-touching rule. ”It’ll get better. I promise.”
Dennis let out a harsh, guttural laugh. ”Bullshit.” He said. ”Like anything’s ever gotten better for you.”
”Shut up.” He whispered before realizing he’d said it out loud. His face went red. ”I’m sorry, not you.” He told Sky.
He turned his head to see where she’d been looking. ”What’s that?” He asked, pointing to the drawing on the wall.
|
|
CLASSIFICATION
Shifter
POWER
Muscle Manipulation
AGE
20
Vigilante
|
Post by Brian Harris on Jul 2, 2018 9:59:28 GMT
Brian slowly extended a hand, the one not attached to an arm covered blood and stitches and self-harm, and brought the water to his lips, shaking ferociously, the water sloshed back and forth in the cup.
”It’s poison.”
”Poison.” Sasha hissed.
”That water may or may not contain material detrimental to your health.”
Brian took a deep breath.
”Oh just drink it, silly goose.” Clara said. ”She’s being nice, it’s cute.”
Her brought the water up to his lips and took a small sip, which he considered a large victory. He sniffed, and wiped the snot away from his nose.
”What a fucking baby.” Dennis sneered. ”Always crying.”
Brian tried to hold back his tears in the presence of company, but was finding it difficult to do so during a panic attack. Was he okay? No, definitely not. Never is, never has been. Was there any way she could help? Well…”Make sure...I don’t...hurt...self.” He knew it was a tall order, but she offered, and it was really the only thing she could do, it’s the reason he came into her room in the first place.
Suddenly, he noticed something, past Sky. The window. Well, more accurately, what was outside the window. The stars. He stood up, shaking, and made his way over to the window. It was so clear tonight, much clearer than it was deeper in the city. He stared outside, mesmerized. He hadn’t seen a sky this clear since...well, since ever. ”Look,” he pointed outside. ”There’s Canis Major, Scutum, Lyra, Bootes…” He brought his face closer to the glass, a smile actually grew on his face. His favorite was out tonight. ”Apus.” He said. ”The bird of paradise, the bird without feet.” He felt his panic attack melting away, a great wave of calm came over him. He almost forgot about the woman in the room. He decided he should extend a social olive branch, a social grace. He decided to ask her the basic psychiatric ward questions, or at least try. “Why...here. Are you here...Why are you here?” He asked. “Is this...first time?...Your first time? In psych ward?...Not this,” he gestured to the room around them, indicating the building they were in. “...In general.”
|
|
CLASSIFICATION
Shifter
POWER
Muscle Manipulation
AGE
20
Vigilante
|
Post by Brian Harris on Jun 29, 2018 9:17:25 GMT
Brian watched the woman leave, for some reason feeling rejected and crestfallen
”Good, now you can finish the job.”
He paused for a moment, then in one swift motion, he peeled off the bandage, revealing the myriad of stitches on his wrist. They itched. He grew his hand to its maximum size and hovered over the wound.
”Go on, do it you little bitch!
”Finish it.”
”You should not live."
”You think you deserve to live? No. You’re unstable, you’re a killer, you’re a pathetic little weakling that does nothing but take up space. You don’t deserve a place on this earth. Face it. Everyone would be better off without you.”
He growled, and raked his nails down his arm, digging deep into his flesh, but intentionally missing his wrist or anything vital. The pain felt good, gratifying. Like a release. A punishment he sorely needed.
”You missed, you little bitch!”
He sniffed, he’d starting crying again and he hadn’t even realized it. He was dangerous, not just to others, but to himself. He couldn’t be alone. Not now. But he didn’t want to go to one of the nurses. They might put him on one to one or in the Quiet Room or extend his stay on SP1, and as filthy as his clothes were, he’d really like them back. With nowhere else to go, he quickly and quietly made his way to the woman’s room. Two doors down, she’d said, yet every second he spent outside of his room felt like an oncoming panic attack.
Once he arrived, he quickly slid inside, breathing heavily. “S-sorry I...I...I alone. Can’t be alone. Not now, I…” At a loss for words, he showed her his arm, revealing the uncovered suicide attempt and his recent self harm. “Don’t tell.” He said sheepishly. “It...okay. Later, I’ll…” He wanted to tell her he’d get a nurse to bandage it up later, but couldn’t find the words, so just settled on. “Later...later.” He suddenly felt very self-conscious. “Is okay? Is this...okay? Me here? Sorry, I’m sorry I…” He felt his chest tighten, tears started slowly leaking out of his eyes. He curled up into a ball on the floor, feeling a panic attack coming on, Tect began repeating the words. ”Not okay not okay not okay not okay.” Over and over again like an alarm.
|
|
CLASSIFICATION
Shifter
POWER
Muscle Manipulation
AGE
20
Vigilante
|
Post by Brian Harris on Jun 24, 2018 8:31:54 GMT
The woman clearly seemed uncomfortable, and this made Brian feel bad.
”Of course she’s uncomfortable, she’s sharing a room with a deranged murderer speaking like a disabled four year old.” He added with a bitter laugh, ”She’d be insane not to be.”
"No nurse."He said, "I'm...normal. This normal." He certainly didn't want to bother anyone with a little speech problem.
Sky. He liked that name.
”Sounds like a stripper name” Sasha scoffed.
”Does not.” Clara insisted, aghast. ”I think it’s a super pretty name, like...like the sky.”
Sasha and Dennis groaned in unison.
Brian shook his head, trying to ignore them. ”I’m...um…” He took an embarrassing few seconds the think of his own name. ”Brian!” He finally found. ”Brian.” He repeated, pointing to himself. God he sounded stupid. He should’ve just killed himself he really should’ve. He’d made a terrible mistake.
”You are alive.” Tect helpfully reminded him.
He was distracted from his spiral of negative thoughts by her question. Was he a meta being? First time he heard it phrased like that. ”Yes.” He answered. ”Um…" He tried to think of a way to say it, before simply expanding the muscles in his upper arm and pointing at it. ”Strong.” He said, grinning/cringing sheepishly before he shrunk it back down. ”Aren’t all in here… He paused again for an uncomfortable amount of time. ”Meta? All meta?” He asked. ”You?” He asked, slightly gesturing towards her. "Are you meta?" He asked, quite proud of himself for forming a full sentence.
|
|
CLASSIFICATION
Shifter
POWER
Muscle Manipulation
AGE
20
Vigilante
|
Jun 22, 2018 21:58:01 GMT
Post by Brian Harris on Jun 22, 2018 21:58:01 GMT
His stomach hurt. His mind was buzzing with undefined anxieties. This was a mistake. He should’ve killed himself, he should’ve let himself bleed out. Why did he stop himself? God, he was an idiot, he was a goddamn idiot.
”You’re right, you are an idiot.” Dennis sneered. ”So much of an idiot that you don’t realize you could do it again. Right now.”
That stopped Brian’s line of thought in its tracks. He was right. He hadn’t really slit his wrist as much as mauled it open. He’d expanded the muscles in his hand and dug into his flesh with his jagged and uncut fingernails. What’s to stop him from doing it again?
”Who knows, you may actually be able to do it correctly this time.”
Tears still streaming down his face, he sat up in bed, back facing the door, staring at the bandage covering his wrist, then slowly started to peel it off when he was suddenly interrupted by a voice at the door. He quickly smoothed the bandage back over his wrist and wiped the tears from his face before turning around to face, to his surprise, another patient.
”Uh no, I...” He wiped the snot away from his nose and rubbed his eyes, trying to disguise the fact that he was crying to little success. ”I…” There was a long pause before he realized he had no idea what word was supposed to come next. He pressed his hand to his forehead. Oh god, not again, not now.
”You’re losing it again.”
”Brian can’t speaky.”
He cringed, both at Clara’s annoying diction and the fact that his speech was failing him again. He knew the words, they were on the tip of his brain, he just couldn’t find them. It happens from time to time. It must’ve been all the stress. ”Fine.” He finally settled on, ”I fine...I’m, I’m fine. He felt his face flush.
”You are embarrassed.”
“It’s just, words, I…” God damn it. “I can’t…” He paused for an uncomfortable few seconds, faced strained. “Speak good now...Can’t find…” He sighed in frustration. “This is...not usually.” He cringed again, knowing full well how stupid that sounded.
”You sound like a caveman.” Sasha scoffed.
He offered a meek smile towards the woman as a sort of apology.
|
|
CLASSIFICATION
Shifter
POWER
Muscle Manipulation
AGE
20
Vigilante
|
Jun 22, 2018 11:02:38 GMT
Post by Brian Harris on Jun 22, 2018 11:02:38 GMT
He walked quickly, breathing heavily, his hand held tightly over his wrist.
”Bitch.” Dennis spat at him. ”Absolute little bitch.”
”Of course, of course you’d go and do something like this.” Sasha sneered.
”Poor baby Brian.” Clara pouted.
”And you couldn’t even do it right.”
”You have injured yourself.” Tect stated plainly.
”We don’t really have to go to the hospital, do we?”
“Yes, we do.” Brian muttered. It was time. It was far past time. He needed help, he just didn’t know it was available. Not until recently. There was some place that could contain him, where he wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone else. He’d known for the past month or so. He’s just been too anxious to go. What if they didn’t give him the right medication? What if there were mind readers? Then they would know what he did and then- He stopped his thoughts right there. He couldn’t think about that right now. He was bleeding out. He needed someone to patch up his wrist so he wouldn’t die, and hopefully someone to patch up his mind so he wouldn’t try to kill himself again.
”But I don’t wanna go! It’s so boring and stupid and I hate it!" Clara whined like a little girl.
As he was walking, he passed by a woman who gave him a well-warranted strange look that made him feel extremely self-conscious. ”She has blond hair.” Tect commented before adding. ”She wants to take your skin." Brian winced and quickened his pace.
”And I hate the clothes tooo, they’re so grossss"
”As if his clothing isn’t always absolutely repulsive.”
”Oh my god, shut up! You should’ve just finished the job. Oh, what am I saying, you could never finish the fucking job. You can never do anything right.”
It had maybe just occurred to him right then that he had no idea where the facility was or where the hell he was going. He was quite drunk, after all, and heavily sedated on heavy-duty non-prescription antipsychotics (although the slash on his wrist had sobered him up quite a bit). He grit his teeth, the pain from his wrist coming to him in waves. Maybe if he just went to a regular hospital and showed them his abilities they would transfer him. They must.
”If you don’t kill anyone first.”
Brian hummed in distressed and quickly switched his direction toward the nearest hospital. He didn’t know he was crossing the street until he heard the screech of tires followed by a loud honk. Brian flinched as if someone threw a knife at him. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He whimpered, tears starting to stream out of his eyes.
”Little bitch.”
”Pathetic.”
His chest was hurting, tightening, he could feel his breath quickening. He was having a panic attack, but he couldn’t curl up into a ball and cry now. He was dying, and for once, he wasn’t sure he wanted to.
”It’s okay Brian, you can make it!” Clara encouraged, ”I believe in you!” She paused for a second before adding. ”Just don’t go to the crazy hospital, okay?”
He saw the entrance to the ER in the distance. He increased the strength in his leg muscles slightly so he could run there faster. He cleared the parking lot in no time and rushed through the doors. He then slowed his pace, not wanting to bring too much attention to himself and quickly walked over to the front desk, staring downward in the receptionist’s general direction. “Hi I’m Brian I’m a metahuman and I hear voices and I wanna kill myself and I cut myself earlier and I think it’s pretty deep and I…” His voice sped up as he talked, his fast paced mumbling getting quicker and quieter until the woman at the desk couldn’t understand him any more.
“I’m sorry sir, can you repeat that?”
He looked down at his feet and held up his wrist, showing her the deep scratched he’d unintentionally intentionally made on his wrist. It was bleeding quite heavily. “I need help.” He said softly.
Her eyes widened. “Oh.” Things got a bit blurry after that. He’d been bleeding for a while now and he was starting to see black dots around the edge of his vision. He felt light headed and his skin was going pale.
”You are going to pass out.”
He kept hearing voices, real voices (he assumed) saying things like, “Are you with me? Stay with me.” To which he’d make a nondescript noise in response. He eventually found himself lying on a bed hooked up to an IV, the tube lined with red, and a bandage place firmly on his wrist.
”They are giving you blood.” Tect commented.
”Diseased blood.” Dennis hissed. ”Pumping you full of AIDs blood.”
“Will you guys just shut up.” Brian moaned, pressing his hands to his eyes.
“I’m sorry?” A voice came from inside the room. Brian lifted his head up to see a nurse sitting in the room with him, magazine in hand, looking at him concerned. His face flushed.
“Oh, nothing, I was just, uh..I...I-I was...um…” He stammered. Of course he’d be on one to one, of course he would. He’d just tried to kill himself. Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid!
”Stupid indeed.” Sasha agreed.
“Hey, it’s okay.” The nurse smiled at him warmly. “You just need to relax right now. That’s all you need to do.”
“Okay, okay…” He breathed, leaning his head back, combing his hands through his hair. Although he knew no matter what he did, there was no way he could relax. His whole body was tense. All those ugly thoughts about the infinite possibilities of what could happen came rushing into his head. He would have to talk about his illness, he always hated that. They wouldn’t give him Haldol, no way, it was outdated. And the alcohol. God, why didn’t he think about the alcohol!? He’s gonna have to actually be sober! And there would definitely be a rough patch with this change in medication. What if he hurt someone during that time? What if they couldn’t stop him? What if they didn’t even send him to the metahuman facility? Oh god, this was a mistake. He should’ve just let himself die.
The nurse, presumably sensing his discomfort, spoke up. “So I heard you said you’re a metahuman.”
“Yep.” Brian replied, strained.
“That’s cool, what powers do you have?” He asked.
“I can...make my muscles grow.”
“Are you part of the program?”
”Bitch, does he look like he’s part of the program?”
Brian shook his head, his lips tightened. “No.”
The nurse, again, seemed to have some kind of sixth sense when it came to Brian’s comfort level, and quickly changed the subject.
They exchanged some small talk for the next couple of hours, slowly distracting Brian from his myriad of anxieties. Every now and then someone would come in, ask him how he was doing, tell him the doctor would be in soon which would send his heart racing, and then leave. After a while, the color came back to his skin and they removed the IV.
Eventually, the doctor came in, a nice but tired looking woman. She asked him the fundamental questions. First the basics; name, date of birth, etc. Then his diagnoses, which he said swiftly and quietly, as much as he hated doing it he was used to talking about this stuff to doctors. She asked if he was on any medication, he told her about the Haldol but he didn’t tell her where he was getting it from and he couldn’t tell her the dosage, as it varied depending on how badly he felt he needed it. She asked if he was using drugs or alcohol, he said yes. She asked if he was experiencing any visual or auditory hallucinations, he tentatively said yes. Finally, she asked the big question, although she phrased it as they always do, as delicately and clinically as possible. “Have you taken any suicidal actions and do you currently have any suicidal ideation?” To which he answered.
“Yes.”
And that was it.
He stayed in the room a while longer before a rather severe looking man came in and said. “The receptionist reported you claimed you were a metahuman.”
“Yeah.” He replied.
“Can you give us a demonstration?”
He took a deep breath, and grew the muscles on his arm until they were three times their original size, then shrunk them back down.
“Alright, I think that proves it.” He said, writing something down on his clipboard. “Does this give you increased strength?”
“Yeah. And speed, when I run, yeah.”
”Big Brian boy is so strong!” Clara gushed.
”Makes you the perfect killing machine, doesn’t it.”
“Good...to...know.” He spoke as he wrote something down meticulously. “Alright, we’ll be right back with you.” And with that he promptly left.
Brian let out a deep and shaky breath. “Hey, it’s okay.” The nurse said, patting his leg. “You ever been to the MNRU?”
“Is that what it’s called?”
“Yeah. I heard it’s a pretty nice place.”
Brian gave him a strained little smile.
About two hours later, they had him stand up and move to a gurney. The nurse waved goodbye, and he waved back, feeling guilty that he never learned his name. They needlessly strapped in his legs, and although it wasn’t restraining, it always felt like it, giving him unpleasant flashbacks to the four point; the closest the modern day can get to a straight jacket. The ultimate sign that you are criminally, dangerously, utterly, insane. Regardless, he didn’t protest as they wheeled him out to an ambulance and drove off, no lights. No one talked to him, they barely even looked at him, which made Brian feel self-conscious, he felt they disliked him.
“They can’t stand to look at you.”
“They’re disgusted by you.”
“Ooh, I bet they’re scared of you.”
“They are not looking at you.”
“They don’t like crazy.”
As they drove, Brian felt his chest tightening, his breath quickening, his mind racing. Tears started to slowly leak out of his eyes, but he kept his panic attack quiet. He didn’t want to bother the paramedics.
By the time they arrive it was somewhere around three or four in the morning. They wheeled him off the ambulance and immediately took him off the gurney.
”I don’t know why they always insist on the gurney.” Sasha commented. ”It’s so superfluous.”
They walked him in, and despite the increased security, it was like any other hospital. He got checked in. Blood taken, urine sample, changed into scrubs made of paper, shown his room (thankfully without a roommate), where he layed in bed in the dark unable to fall asleep and cried.
|
|
CLASSIFICATION
Shifter
POWER
Muscle Manipulation
AGE
20
Vigilante
|
Jun 21, 2018 23:28:07 GMT
Post by Brian Harris on Jun 21, 2018 23:28:07 GMT
He wiped the drool away from his mouth. So that was still happening. He stared at his hand strangely for a few seconds, the thick line of slobber glistening in the sun.
”Disgusting.” Sasha sneered. ”Like a dog.”
He wiped his hand on his stained and tattered t-shirt, then took another swig from his bottle, shifting his back against the brick wall, his legs criss-crossed on the dirty concrete. He looked like any other homeless person. Unusually buff, perhaps, but his eyes were bloodshot, underlined with dark circles, his skin somehow both sickly and tan from lack of a roof over his head, his clothing, as previously stated, looked like they haven’t been changed in years, his hair and body were a stinking, unwashed mess, and he was sitting in a sketchy alleyway drinking cheap alcohol. In all, he looked like shit. But at least he blended in. At least no one would bother him.
He was taking another sip from his near-empty bottle when he suddenly heard some shouts from across the streets. “Give me your purse!” A desperate man yelled. Brian turned to look, his head moving perhaps a bit more slowly than he would’ve liked it to. “C’mon, give it to me!” He saw the man pointing a gun at a frightened looking older woman who quickly handed her purse over. He then started to take off in the other direction.
Clara gasped excitedly. ”Now’s your chance!”
”Try not to kill anyone.” Dennis taunted.
Brian stood up, then almost fell flat on his face. He quickly braced himself against the wall, his head spinning.
”That is if you can actually get up.”
”You are intoxicated and highly medicated and thus have difficulty with balance and motion.”
”Yes, thank you Tect.” He grumbled facetiously, his words slurring. He took a deep breath, centering himself, then expanded the muscles in his legs and started taking off after the robber. He stumbled slightly as he crossed the road, and slapped himself in the face. ”C’mon, sober up.” He muttered to himself.
He quickly bridged the gap between himself in the robber. Once he got close enough, he shrunk the muscles in his legs and expanded the ones his in arms and hands, pinning him against the wall and his arms to his side. ”Hey it’s okay.” Brian reassured the robber, his words still slurring. ”I don’t-I don’t wanna hurt you.”
”Oh, stumbled a bit on that one.”
Brian cringed, painfully aware of his verbal failure, but thankfully, he was too numb to be too embarrassed by his mistake. He easily plucked the purse out of the robber’s hand and tossed it back in the lady’s direction, but didn’t turn to see if she got it. He wasn’t really thinking about that right now, didn’t quite have the capacity. ”I don’t...I’m not gonna send you to the police, okay? I don’t wanna do that, I just-” He was suddenly interrupted by a loud bang. The gun. He’d completely forgotten about the gun. The robber hand tried to twist his hand up to point it at Brian, but with his arm pinned to his side, he couldn’t quite reach him, and ended up just shooting the ground.
”Idiot.” Sasha spat at Brian. ”Absolute imbecile.”
Brian quickly grabbed the gun and, expanding the muscles in his hand to the max, squeezed until it was not quite a mash of metal, but certainly not usable anymore, and tossed it to the ground. Looking down at the robbers arm, he noticed a series of track marks in the crook of his forearm. He felt a sudden surge of empathy towards him. ”Look, I can help you.” He said as another line of drool started slowly leaking from his mouth.
The robber spat in his face. “Fuck you.” Brian pressed his lips together. Why did interacting with people always have to be so hard?
|
|
CLASSIFICATION
Shifter
POWER
Muscle Manipulation
AGE
20
Vigilante
|
Jun 20, 2018 22:48:34 GMT
Post by Brian Harris on Jun 20, 2018 22:48:34 GMT
[break][break] [nospaces] [attr="class","hopelove"] [break][break] [nospaces] [attr="class","hopelove"]
| |
[attr="class","hopelovename"] [attr="class","hopelovename2"]
Brian Harris
[attr="class","hopelovelyric"]
[attr="class","hopeloveleft"]
ALIAS // none
[attr="class","hopeloveleft"]AGE // twenty
[attr="class","hopeloveleft"]GENDER // male
[attr="class","hopeloveleft"]GROUP // vigilante
|
[attr="class","hopelovetitle"]APPEARANCE [attr="class","hopelovetop"][attr="class","hopelovesub"]
HAIR // dark blond[break]
EYES // blue[break]
SKIN // white[break][break]
ATTIRE[break][break]
Brian has one pair of clothing that he’s worn for several years. A white baggy t-shirt, gray sweatpants, and cheap white sneakers, all heavily stained (mostly with alcohol) and worn with rips and holes and loose threads. Of course, they stink to high heaven. He sometimes feels self-conscious about his appearance, but never has the energy or self-esteem to do anything about it
[break][break]
GENERAL[break][break]
Brian always looks tired. That is, of course, because he rarely gets enough sleep, but it’s as if the dark circles have sunken beneath his eyes and stayed there as a permanent fixture, forever attached to his face. Despite his demure demeanor, Brian is quite large, standing at a hefty six foot four and hugely muscular (although this is entirely due to his powers), making for quite the contrast. His hair is always a mess; greasy and unwashed, although that could easily describe the entirety of him, as he hasn’t showered in years. He appears sick and his face is almost always so incredibly downcast that one could get depressed just looking at him, that is when he hasn’t downed so much Haldol and alcohol that he comes off as more of a zombie than a person. His wrists and thighs are covered in scars from vicious self harm when he was young as well as several suicide attempts, and every now and then some new cuts appear when he falls back into bad habits (which is fairly often).
[attr="class","hopelovetitle"]PERSONALITY [attr="class","hopelovetop"]
As previously stated, Brian is demure, but even that is a bit of an understatement. Brian is incredibly timid. He’s terrified of any kind of confrontation or hurting or offending anyone else. He’s possibly the most passive person you’ll ever meet, specifically in social situations. He’ll do anything anyone says with little to no protest. He’s been trying to amend this, especially with his new goal in life, but to little success.
[break][break]
Brian’s passion is astronomy. He has a perfect map of the stars in his head. This is due to a little celestial globe his mother gave him when he was very young; perhaps the only gift she ever gave him. He would stare at it for hours on end before he went to bed or when anything got to be too much (which was very often). Some of the hospitals he went to would even let him keep it in his room if he had good behaviour. He quickly took to stargazing. At night, he would climb onto the roof of their little apartment building and watch the stars for hours and hours, identifying every single one. He’s done it nearly every night to this day (although it hasn’t been on a roof since he left his mother’s apartment). It’s the only time he feels at peace.
[break][break]
Despite his passivity, Brian has a very strong sense of justice and morality. He wants to protect people and he believes those that do others harm should, not be punished, but at least be stopped. He doesn’t particularly believe in punishment. He believes that every person has a motive behind their actions, and that their motive should be understood and, if needed, amended. He’s a strong advocate for reform over penance.
[break][break]
Brian has severe anxiety, depression, and schizophrenia. They developed at an early age. The anxiety has been present for as long as Brian can remember. The depression set in when he was about seven, and the schizophrenia came a year later. He’s very self-conscious about his mental illness. He doesn’t like talking about it, he doesn’t want people to view him as pitiful or dangerous or crazy (which he very much thinks he is). His voices constantly berate him on this subject. Speaking of those voices...
[break][break]
Brian has four voices that have haunted him since he was eight:
[break][break]
Dennis: The first and also the meanest. He is outwardly vicious towards Brian and is always the first to put him down. He cracks insults at everyone and everything, especially at things Brian likes and especially at Brian himself; although his remarks are never clever or nuanced, he typically just hurls bad words and pokes at Brian’s self-esteem. He often fuels Brian’s delusions and paranoia, telling him people are watching him, judging him, that they can read his thoughts, etc. (while they all do this, Dennis does it the most and he’s usually the one who starts it). His voice is direct, piercing, harsh and venomous. He’s your typical bully, but that doesn’t undo the damage he does on Brian’s psyche.
[break][break]
Clara: She came around next, when Brian was around twelve. Clara is the most positive of the voices, although that’s really not saying much. While she offers praise to Brian and, opposite to Dennis, liberally gives out compliments (however rarely to Brian) on things she finds cute or pleasant, she can be incredibly annoying. Her cuteness factor is overwhelming. She squeals and gushes over everything, constantly gets over enthusiastic, and gratingly ends many words in an “ie” or a “y”. She gets scared or insulted very easily and throws a fit when she doesn’t get her way. She has a high-pitched, bubbly, and excessively girly voice. While she can be kind to Brian, more often than not she just gets on his nerves.
[break][break]
Sasha: She appeared around the same time Clara did. If Sasha was a person, she’d have her nose constantly stuck up in the air. If there’s one word to describe Sasha it’s snobby. She’s judgemental about everything, and if something doesn’t meet her incredibly high standards she insults it endlessly. Her standards often involve class, physical appearance, and taste. She despises things that are rugged or low-class, basically anything that’s not a ballroom galla with the higher echelons of society. She tends to use bigs words to sound fancy and always has a strong tone of judgement in her overly formalized voice. With Brian’s general lack hygiene and any “class” at all, he gets no end of berating from her.
[break][break]
Tect: The last of the voices to appear. Tect is a being of pure logic, or as logical as you can get inside Brian’s head. It (as Tect is neither male nor female), likes to make observations about Brian’s life and surrounds, often outrageously obvious observations. This gets on everyone’s nerves, everyone being Brian and all his other voices, and the voices will frequently get into shouting matches with it, telling it to shut up, although Tect never raises its voice. It stays at a constant level, never quiet, never loud, just there. It sounds like a robot, no inflection, never any emotion in tone or words, it doesn’t even sound human, it sounds more like a computer. While it does make logical observations, it also makes plenty of illogical observations, leading Brian to be even more confused about his reality than he already is. While it appears neutral, these unintentional false observations can be incredibly harmful.
[break][break]
While Brian has been downing Haldol for the past year, he still gets flashes of psychosis; strange ideas and extreme paranoia and difficulty speaking coherently (in fact he gets this one quite often). If ever he were to go off his medication, psychosis would be his near constant state of being, the world would be loud with constant, screaming voices and people reading his mind and the government coming after him and aliens watching his every move. He’s always very diligent about taking his meds, to the point of nearly overdosing. He is terrified of losing control again, especially after the incident.
[attr="class","hopelovetitle"]HISTORY [attr="class","hopelovetop"]
When Brian’s mother was four months pregnant with her son, his father committed suicide. She stayed sober for the duration of her pregnancy, but once he was born, she picked up a bottle of alcohol and never put it down. Her husband’s death combined with what was no doubt severe postpartum depression made for a nasty mixture, and instead of ever going to a specialist, she drowned her depression in alcohol.
[break][break]
This made for a rough start to Brian’s childhood. Their finances downhill quickly, and they were forced to move into a tiny apartment in California where they lived off of welfare and the odd jobs Brian’s mother would pick up and quickly lose. Brian was incredibly anxious growing up (still is). He would have panic attacks every time he had to leave the apartment, but his mother would force him to go to school anyway so no one would get suspicious and send the social workers around.
[break][break]
Brian faced no end of ridicule from the children at school. He was tall, but incredibly skinny (he never ate much), quiet, awkward, unathletic, all in all a very easy target. He went to a very poor school district, both in quality and monetary value, so he never got any help. This may have been what let to the early onset of depression in his life. It was around this time he started cutting himself.
[break][break]
When Brian was eight, he started to get strange ideas in his head. Well, he already had strange ideas: everybody hated him, he was disgusting and ugly, he deserved what he got, etc. But these ideas started to warp. People didn’t just hate him. They were talking about him. Constantly. Every time he saw someone talking to someone else, it was always about him, and what a horrible person he was. He started to believe the kids at the school were plotting against him. That there was some big conspiracy to track his every move and report it back to the government. His speech also became highly incoherent, sometimes he would talk nonsensically moving from one subject to the next in the same sentence, sometimes he wouldn’t talk at all, he just couldn’t find the words. It was around this time that he started hearing Dennis. Dennis affirmed everything he was believing, that everyone hated him, that he was disgusting, that people were tracking him. He told him there was only one way out of this. An idea Brian had been having in his head for quite a while by this time. He needed to kill himself.
[break][break]
He slit his wrists when he got home from school. Sloppy, but deep, ignorant of human anatomy he missed any vital arteries. He started crying quite loudly. His mother came into the bathroom to see what all the fuss was about. She promptly called 911. He was shipped off the the hospital where they patched up his wrists, and then sent him to the child psychiatric ward, which was mostly filled with children with autism or intellectual disabilities. He spent two weeks there where he was put on some medication before the insurance ran out and they had to let him go.
[break][break]
He remained a bit more stable after that, he wasn’t quite as psychotic as he was before he got on his meds, but he still had trouble speaking, strange ideas, anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, and of course Dennis. Then his mother would fail to pick up his meds and he’d hurt himself or become psychotic and do something stupid and insane and get sent back to the hospital where the insurance would run out and they cycle would repeat for years and years and years.
[break][break]
Clara and Sasha joined the mix when he was twelve, and eventually so did Tect. He was put in the alternative district at the school, not that it mattered, he was never at school for long, he spent most of the time in the psych ward. He discovered alcohol when he was fourteen when he stole one of his mother’s bottles and routinely used that to numb the pain.
[break][break]
Now Brian’s mother wasn’t often physically abusive, key word there being often. There were times where she’d yell and scream at him and throw bottles and hit him. There was one such time when Brian was seventeen and his mother was particularly drunk. She screamed at him, accusing him of being the cause of his father’s death, and hit him across the face, hard. He ran out of the apartment and never came back.
[break][break]
Brian started living on the streets, but just barely living. He was already used to not eating much, so he didn’t have to worry about that. When he did need food he would go dumpster diving, much to Sasha’s particular disgust. Some people would take pity on him and give him money, which he would promptly spend on alcohol. He, of course, regressed into his usual cycle of mental illness. He would do something crazy or he would try to kill himself and someone would find him and call 911 and he would spend some time in the hospital, get on some medication, before they couldn’t afford to keep him anymore and he’s be back out on the streets. Then the meds would run out and it would happen all over again.
[break][break]
When he was nineteen, he was staying in a psychiatric ward, residential, after having spent several days screaming at passersby to stop following him, and something odd happened. His muscles grew. Just a little at first, not quite enough to notice, but rapidly he started gaining mass, up to five pounds a day. This continued, until the stick of a man he was became huge, bulky, like a professional wrestler. Immediately, the doctors knew something was up, that it must have something to do with all the metahumans popping up everywhere. But they didn’t know what to do with him. So soon after the Event, there was no facility for metahuman psychiatric patients. There was nothing they could do. Which was unfortunate, as Brian’s abilities soon turned out to be more than a little extra muscle mass.
[break][break]
One day, he was having a particularly bad night. The voices were loud and the anxiety and delusions were terrible. He was certain the doctors were planning to perform horrible experiments on him. In a fit of panic, his arm grew nearly three times in size and he punched through the wall of his room. He ran far away from the hospital into the streets, his legs growing in size giving him increased speed, where he came across two people walking down the sidewalk and he was certain they were following him. He punched the woman, and she went flying into the side of the nearby building, her head smashing like a watermelon against the bricks. The man he punched him the stomach. His organs were surely destroyed before flew back into the corner of a building and his spine cracked in two. Brian ran away, not quite grasping what he’d done until a little while later.
[break][break]
A little while later, well, the mind works in mysterious ways, and even in the fits of psychosis it can somehow still know where to go. He broke into a pharmacy and stole all the Haldol he could get his hands on. Haldol is a typical antipsychotic, and despite the name, typical antipsychotics are rarely used as they’re considered outdated because their side effects are so potent. They may take care of the issue to some degree, but they sedate the user more than anything. However, as anyone with severe mental illness knows, it’s much preferable to be a shell of a human being than a psychotic mess of one.
[break][break]
Once he regained his senses, he almost killed himself on the spot. He’d just snuffed out the lives of two innocent people. He was absolutely destroyed, mortified. If it weren’t for the words of Clara, he would’ve ended his life right there and then (or at least tried). Instead, he broke into a bank using his newfound powers (he figured a bank would be the most victimless place to steal from) and bought a shit ton of alcohol and nearly drank himself to death.
[break][break]
This is a pattern he’s kept up to this day, stealing Haldol from pharmacies and money from banks to buy alcohol (and only very occasionally food). He’s managed to keep himself sane enough to avoid going to the hospital. Plus, he’s terrified of going to one anyway, he doesn’t think they could contain him. He doesn’t know what he would do if they took him off the Haldol, he doesn’t think anyone could stop him if he got out of control. He is wracked with grief about what he did and he will do anything in his power to avoid repeating it.
[break][break]
When he heard about the Hero Program, he became inspired. He’d always wanted to help people, and now he had the abilities to do it. But there’s no way they’d accept him. Not with his history, no way he’d pass the psych test (he assumed they had one), and there would no doubt be a telepath, one that could sense what he’d done. So he’s been making meager efforts to help people on his own, trying to stop “bad guys” if he sees them, although after he defeats them he usually tries to help them, talk to him in his own terrified, anxiety ridden way. He’s done a few good things for a few people. And yes, he is painfully aware of the hypocrisy of him stealing things while trying to stop crime himself, but he can’t find any way around it, nothing that wouldn’t risk him hurting someone again. So he balances his life with the definition of self medicating and trying to fulfill a purpose: to help people.
[attr="class","hopelovetitle"]POWER [attr="class","hopelovetop"][attr="class","hopelovesub"]
ABILITY[break][break]
Muscle manipulation. Brian can grow or shrink his muscles at will, far beyond peak human capacity. This gives him highly increased strength, stamina, speed, etc. in whatever body part he chooses to expand. This not only makes them larger, but denser, increasing his weight and the impact of a kick or a punch.
[break][break]
LIMITS[break][break]
He can only grow or shrink his muscles a certain amount. He can’t get shrink anymore than his natural state (that being the state of his body after his powers manifested) and he can’t grow in strength anymore than three times the peak human capacity. At max, he can smash through brick walls, but he can only make a dent in steel. He can only manipulate his own muscles. It also takes concerted effort to expand several muscles at a time, the more muscles he tries to expand the harder it is.
[break][break]
WEAKNESSES[break][break]
The larger he grows the bigger target he becomes. He also doesn’t become invulnerable, so if he punches a wall, he’s still gonna get scratched up and it’s still gonna hurt. That, and of course the previously stated; his powers scare the everloving shit out of him. If he gets out of control, which he is very liable to do, he could seriously hurt someone or worse.
[break][break]
[attr="class","hopelovebot1"]
PLAYED BY RAINBOSAUR
[attr="class","hopelovebot2"] WILL HIGGINSON as BRIAN HARRIS PHARAOH LEAP. [newclass=.hopelove]padding:25px;width:500px;color:#707e8c[/newclass] [newclass=.hopelovename]background-color:#ffffff;border:solid 9px #4a5b66;padding:1px;[/newclass] [newclass=.hopelovename2]background-color:#4a5b66;color:#ffffff;font:bold 10px Calibri;text-transform:uppercase;line-height:50px;text-align:center;letter-spacing:2px;[/newclass] [newclass=.hopelovelyric]font:bold 8px Calibri;letter-spacing:1px;color:#707e8c;height:50px;text-transform:uppercase;text-align:center;line-height:8px;[/newclass] [newclass=.hopeloveleft]border:solid 1px #e5e5e5;border-top:none;padding:10px;font:10px Calibri;text-transform:lowercase;letter-spacing:1px;white-space:nowrap;background-color:#f9f9f9;overflow:hidden;[/newclass] [newclass=.hopeloveleft b]text-transform:uppercase;color:#4a5b66;[/newclass] [newclass=.hopelovetitle]background-color:#4a5b66;font:bold 10px Calibri;text-align:left;padding:15px;color:#ffffff;text-transform:uppercase;letter-spacing:2px;margin:10px 0px;[/newclass] [newclass=.hopelovetop]border:solid 1px #e5e5e5;background-color:#f9f9f9;padding:24px;font:10px verdana;text-align:justify;[/newclass] [newclass=.hopelovebot1]background-color:#4a5b66;height:10px;width:30%;padding:10px;font:10px Calibri;line-height:10px;color:#ffffff;float:left;margin-right:10px;margin-top:10px;[/newclass] [newclass=.hopelovebot2]background-color:#f9f9f9;border:solid 1px #e5e5e5;padding:9px;height:10px;font:10px Calibri;color:#4a5b66;line-height:10px;text-align:left;margin-top:10px;letter-spacing:1px;white-space:nowrap;overflow:hidden;[/newclass] [newclass=.hopelovesub b]font:bold 10px Calibri;text-transform:uppercase;color:#4a5b66;letter-spacing:1px[/newclass]
|
|