i have to go to work but before i do beck absolutely goes to central park and makes up stories in her head about the people who have benches dedicated to them based on the little dedication plates. she says she’s gonna use them as writing inspiration but never does.
Columbina acts as though she is above and better than all ‘normal’ people living in Teyvat. She treats them and acts towards them as if they are silly little things who don’t really understand the world around them or what true power is.
In reality, Columbina is jealous of them. So jealous it feels like the envy consumes her at times. To be able to originate from and grow in a world of light, surrounded by others exactly like them who can feel and love and reciprocate these feelings that she’s never been able to experience before. Her whole reason for climbing out of the abyss was to have what they have , but even after doing so it’s still not the same.
Truthfully , she loves the way humans operate. The way they are. The way they feel things. She loves that , she wants to be like that. But she can’t. Or she feels like she can’t. Or like doing so would make her lesser. So she hates them , spends every day amongst them , observes them , and on occasion consumes them in hopes that she can become more like them while remaining the same.
Meet JULIAN TRITON-BAERE, a FIFTEEN year old who resembles NOLAN GOULD. He hails from HUNDRED ACRE WOODS, where he lives with his fathers, ADONIS TRITON & OLIVER BAERE.
Name: Julian Robin Triton-Baere
Gender: Male
General Appearance: Julian has unruly brown hair with curls that confound even the bravest of combs. His skin is pale with an absence of facial freckles and large brown eyes, a youthful appearance which makes him look younger than he is, at times. He stands at 5′6″ with a slim build.
Personality:
+ adventurous – A trait that both of his dad’s possess and culturally shared through their love of traveling. Julian has seen places that kids his age have only dreamed of, and it has spoiled him in his thirst for adventure. Staying in one place too long makes him antsy, and he often takes mini trips around the woods to get a breath of fresh air, connect with nature and the animals, and get a fresh perspective. He loves photography to capture all of the places that they have been to as a family, as well.
+ curious – This goes hand-in-hand with his need for adventure. If there is a rock not overturned, a sight not seen, or a mystery not cracked, Julian is the kind of person to pursue the issue to the ends of the earth. It is his goal to visit every realm in Disney before he dies, and he wants to learn about as many peoples and their cultures as possible.
+ astute – Like Donnie, Julian has a love for learning which stems from all the questions that he asks about the world. Unlike Donnie, his curiosities and academic studies focus more on cultures, languages, behavior, and the social sciences rather than the physical sciences.
- timid – He gets this trait from Oliver. Although he might be a curious soul, he can get shy when it comes to actual social interactions. He’s the kind of guy to observe and record, and finds it difficult to participate. His speaking skills are rather rusty, and he has a stutter that embarrasses him every time he tries speaking to people.
- unapproachable – Don’t misunderstand this trait. Julian looks like an absolute puppy, and is just as friendly as one. However, it is his complete social incapability that create this trait. He will go out of his way to avoid talking to people, pretend he didn’t hear you if you talk to him, and often wears earbuds or headphones so that he appears physically unavailable to have a conversation.
- uptight – He gets this temperament from Oliver, as well. He has an acute sense of time-management, and can’t stand being late. He doesn’t like breaking rules, laws, or making anyone angry. Although this might seem to conflict with his adventurous trait, it doesn’t as much as one might think. He can still have a sense of adventure and doing something new and exciting, while also being keenly aware that systems in place shouldn’t be broken.
Special Talents: Julian has the power to learn languages at an accelerated rate, and store the information permanently. This decreases the time it takes for him to pick up a new language, and increases the number of languages in which he is fluent.
Who they like better: Julian loves both of his fathers with all of his heart, but he probably enjoys being around Donnie more, merely because he found himself avoiding Oliver at times due to Oliver’s visions. Over time, Oliver’s visions became more frequent and it was almost like being around someone with bipolar disorder. At one moment, Oliver could be just fine, then have a vision and become cranky and irritable the next moment. Julian found this exhausting. He still cared for Oliver and spent a lot of time looking after his father, but liked being around Donnie more.
Who they take after more: Again, likely Donnie, just because of the amount of time he spends with him.
Personal Head canon:
Oliver’s visions make it hard for him to live a normal life. Therefore, Julian puts in extra effort to make Oliver’s life easier, opening every door, cooking extra meals, keeping a water bottle on him at all times, and learning some breathing techniques to help his father get through his flashes.
Julian calls Adonis “Pops” and Oliver “Dad”
Julian’s favorite drink is lemonade, especially lemonade mixed with tea, strawberries, or other fruits.
Julian was adopted when he was five years old. Oliver and Adonis had been together for four years and decided that they needed one more person to share their adventures with. When they adopted Julian, they settled down in Hundred Acre Woods because Oliver would not be able to live in Atlantica. They raised him until he was old enough to enjoy traveling, and began to take trips about three times a year, sometimes very close to an art gallery, and sometimes very far away to places like Machu Picchu.
Kureno has been an active participant, and not merely a guest, in four new year’s banquets. The first year of the rooster rolled around when he was seven, and both his incoming year and departing year performances went off without a hitch.
His first was performed with Ritsu, as the year of the Monkey ended. It was, as one would expect, clumsy but sweet, given their young ages. During this time, Ritsu was Kureno’s closest companion within the house and it was their closeness that allowed Kureno to shake the anxiety of being in the spotlight for the first time.
The same could not be said for next year’s. Kureno already idolized Shigure enough to make the coming year of the Dog celebration something monumental in his mind. It was enough to make his natural clumsiness far more pronounced -- and would probably have led to a fair amount of embarrassment if Shigure hadn’t been so adept at making their dance appear seamless. Kureno still counts is and remembers it as a kindness to this day.
The last two new year’s celebrations occurred after Kureno’s breaking. His first, again, was performed with Ritsu. This was likely the best possible scenario -- the entire evening was an exercise in palpably feeling the distance that he’d created between himself and the rest of the family. Between his curse’s breaking and the second year of the Rooster, Kureno had only made brief appearances at each banquet. The behavior was largely written off by the older Jyuunishi as a product of his relationship with Akito, and by the new, younger Jyuunishi as just who he was.
It was certainly painful, reconnecting with one of the few family members he’d been so close with. But Ritsu was also away from the main house often, and Kureno wondered whether Ritsu realized how different things had become -- or if it was the anxiety of attention after so long without, or if Ritsu was granted the mercy of not really remembering their friendship -- escaping from that unscathed. Whatever the reality, Kureno did not ask and this performance, too, went as smoothly as it could.
Once more, Kureno’s performance with Shigure was the polar opposite. While he had tried, the year before, to make more of an appearance at the banquet -- to normalize it, to maintain the lie -- it was a tall enough order to interact with Shigure at all. No major incidents arose, but the moment it was deemed acceptable Akito told him that it was time for him to retire. Kureno did not desire to argue with that.
A few fun facts -- Kureno never felt truly connected with the spirit within him. Both banquets after his curse’s breaking were opportunities to see just how different he felt, though. He’d known it with Akito, but his deep devotion for her helped him stay connected as much as he was physically capable. However, it was during his third banquet that he realized how much he was physically separated from everyone else -- like he was hearing them through glass.
Though he doesn’t share much with the bird, the Rooster, and though he doesn’t know how or why the curse broke, there are some interesting symbols associated with his animal. Prosperity, protection, the passage of time, and a warding off or purification of evil spirits.
The world is this: steel on ice, superficial gouges scored out, kicked up shavings that scatter in the wake of every sweep. These map the path of the destruction, and it is meandering and aimless -- but still gouged with a purpose that rings like the echoing cries of war. A jump, a deep turn, a center of gravity that falls like stone and pits into the glittering surface until it cracks and new marks are made.
But each step is tangential. Neither blade will retread the same marks, and even those passes are once and gone. Something gives ( between metal and ice, it will always be ice ) and then something else is gone. It might seem that skating is action but in the end, the only thing that remains is what’s left over -- flurries of kicked up powder, grooves clawed into the ice, whispers of blades on a carving board echoing into silence.
Once he moves, he is gone from the space he had occupied. The only proof of existence, however momentary, is the empty space scratched out of the rink’s once smooth surface.
Yuri does not look backwards once.
His arms are moving time with his legs, reaching, pulling back, moving up, counterbalancing his weight when he leaves the ice for a second, a second, a second, to come back down and sink in a spin that slices curling, twisting, mangled layers of slush from the surface. And then he moves, cutting through whatever has not been touched by the sharpened steel of his blades.
A turn, an arcing turn, a turn that has him bending backwards -- phantom limbs extend from his own, younger and shorter but also longer. They reach back, fingertips nearly reaching his knees. His own barely clear the indented curve of his waist. He pulls himself, chin shoved back until his neck aches for the angle, muscles of his arms snapping against the reins of flesh.
Something shifts and in one fell swoop alarm bells ring as he pitches back and the clean, taut, breaking, fraying line shatters. He’s down, then he’s up. His teeth clench, agony tight; his legs are steady. He is steady. His blades have always been another appendage. He controls them.
He slashes into a jump --- four rotations, one hand flung up over his head -- he reaches impossibly higher, he crashes through whatever ceiling has always pressed down on him from on high, he claws through the broken pieces until he is flying --
When he lands, the length of his leg smashing entirely against the scored and scratched glass of the ice, it is farther than he has ever come off of a jump. Fire lances up the length of his jaw, strangles him, hooks talons into his face as he lunges forward in the same breath, digging the pick of his skate’s toe into the ice and sliding his weight onto the other until he’s plunging back into the choreography, squeezing tight as possible into moves that he knows, he knows, he knows how to control --
( the afterimage of Viktor this morning burns against the backs of his eyes whenever he blinks. when did Yuri ever need to look down to meet his gaze? his hands are burned raw from the friction of holding onto time that passes too quickly, too quickly to capture -- )
The last fall is quick and clumsy, an aborted step, a roll onto his palms until he’s sitting, breathing. Heaving. Part of him wants to look at his hands. The rest of him wants to give into the tremors that wrack down the length of his body until he shakes it away. Until he finds the him that he was. The him that he knows.
@divinascriptura : 56. If they’re scared, who do they want comfort from? Does this answer change depending on the type of fear? (Nai)
She doesn’t want comfort from anyone, especially if she’s feeling something as vulnerable as fear. She’s supposed to be the unshakable rock for everyone else, letting anyone else see past that puts that status at risk.. She also does not want the pity that comes with it.
It’s not even that she dislikes being comforted or pitied, in the end it’s more of a.. Self punishment thing. If she’s hurting or frightened, she needs to overcome it herself and be stronger or deal with it silently and not impose that burden on anyone else.
She's only recently (see SHB and EW) begun allowing others to get close enough to even realize she’s upset, it’s still very much a work in progress. There are only a handful of people to date that she’s sought out comfort from herself.