#dick soloman

[aschlindartroom]

I decided that Dick Soloman got his eye scratched out at some point. Might change later, but it kinda suits him for now.

[cl3rks]

3rd Rock From the Sun. [S1:E12: Frozen Dick.]

[aschlindartroom]

Last Line Tag

I was tagged by @dgwriteblr. Thanks so much! Love these tag games.

I cannot find the last thing I wrote because I am a disorganized little mole person with one million word documents being worked on at any given time. (I seriously just open a blank document and start writing when the mood strikes me and it is a PROBLEM).

Here's the last thing I wrote... probably?

Dick Soloman scowled and impatiently tapped the top of his cane. “I have no desire for more territory--only to protect what’s mine and to take back what was taken from me.” He cast his cold eyes downward, capturing Ehren’s gaze with immovable force. “Sick is the covetous man, mad in his feverish avarice.”

Tagging: @valkyrie-the-bogwitch, @andromeda-rising-897, @em-dashes, @jess-p-edits

Have fun!

[aschlindartroom]

Ello, happy Blursday! <3 Give me a blorbo from North Pointe, please. Or go off about Solomon, if that's too spoilery, you're choice. <3 I'm just here shaking with excitement towards everything that's Second Serpent.

I have no blorbos from North Pointe yet! There's Delilah who is the ADC Rep there, but I would not call her a blorbo so much as one more oppositional force to the political B-plot. There will certainly be blorbos from there someday, but today is not that day.

SO, LET'S TALK ABOUT SOLOMAN.

CW: ritualistic self-harm and radical religious views.

Dick Soloman is the leader of the Lower London Liberation, the mind behind the very icky "Project Bloom" experiments, and a devout Rapturist.

Rapturists are religious radicals who believe the Spacebelt Incident and subsequent wars were an aborted "rapture." According to their doctrine, all people who are currently living are either the descendants of the corrupted "unworthy" or are the descendants of angels in human form. After the Spacebelt, the angels supposedly took pity on humankind. They chose to forget their divine heritage and become human, to join civilization in an attempt to save as many souls as possible before the next Rapture.

The "Project Bloom" human experiments (which created Rhen, Rowan, Kainnon, and Antoni) were his attempt to revive the dormant divine souls of the angels. He believes that the next Rapture is nigh and, to his benefit... there's definitely some big shit brewing.

Soloman lives by the tenet that pain is a necessary and deserved part of the human experience, and that embracing pain is the only true bridge to enlightenment. He keeps a strict diet of intermittent fasts and extremely small amounts of food, which contributes to a gaunt and sickly appearance. His skin is covered in scarifications and tattoos-- goetia and occult sigils which supposedly give him certain protections from evil. Although the Liberation makes half of its revenue from basement suite implant surgeries, Soloman refuses to have his kneecap replaced. His cane is inlaid with goetia as well, which allows the cane to work as sort of a... metaphysical taser? It zaps, but it zaps your soul. Ouchie.

His eye is the only in-body prosthetic he has. He can't see out of it, not really, but he would tell you that it allows him to recognize "dormant divine energies." Schmidt & Foster Y-clearance would have a gasp, since what it really does is spot what they refer to as "special births."

Lastly, Soloman is Rowan Faraday's father figure... of sorts. Rowan is one of his human experiments from the Project Bloom days, and that's pretty fucked up, but if you asked, they would both tell you the same thing: That they have mutual respect for, and have chosen a life in service to, one another. He considers Rowan to be an actual divine being, and he treats her with a distant sort of lima-syndrome-esque paternal affection.

To sum, he's entirely out of his gourd, but he's also intelligent and oddly charming and not QUITE evil enough at the moment to do away with... yet. Writing interactions between him and Rowan are fascinating explorations of Stockholm Syndrome/ Lima Syndrome, and how closely those things can resemble "love."

He's exactly the kind of complicated, fucked up character I love.

[aschlindartroom]

Beer cheese soup for the ask game!

Beer Cheese Soup: A scene from your WIP that made you laugh

This is a very old scene that will either be substantially changed in future drafts or chucked altogether, but writing it made me laugh. Dick Soloman's introduction and Dimitri Sokolov from Ehren's 3rd close POV.

Below the cut.

The steel door of the Clever Nightcap burst open into the Cobalt City darkness. Three gunshots exploded, deafening in the small space and ricocheting off the concrete floors and walls. Dimitri released Ehren’s shirt, tucked and rolled behind the edge of the bar. Ehren crumpled to the ground, and took a moment to catch his breath. He could afford it—even with his eyes closed, he knew that the shots had been aimed at the ceiling.

Ehren opened his eyes. Two men dressed in black hovered in the doorway, guns held at the ready and prepared for resistance. The red masks on their faces were smooth, featureless aside from lensed eye sockets and their wide, mad smiles. They stepped to either side of the door, making way. The tapping of well-maintained shoes descended the concrete steps. The man who stepped inside did not hide his face. He was maybe fifty, high cheekbones and well-groomed. He wore a simple dress shirt and slacks, and the three-line tattoo on the side of his neck was large and purposefully unmistakable. Ehren felt the energy from him before his visual impression had fully formed: business—not “as usual,” but business all the same. Ambivalence aside from the slight tang of irritation. If anyone thought to take the man’s pulse, they would find it even.

“Mr. Sokolov,” the man greeted. He stepped into the bar and slipped his hands into his pockets, looking around, leaning to look under tables. “We need to talk.”

“Dick, you son of a bitch!” Dimitri cried. Ehren turned his head. Dimitri was sitting crouched behind the entrance to the bar back. His right eye was closed against a slow stream of blood, blood which flowed freely. A bullet has grazed the side of his head. The hand that wasn’t pressing against the wound slammed against the bar. “You almost fucking killed me!”

“Not intentional, I assure you,” the man, Dick, insisted. “Why don’t you come out from behind there?”

“Rather not,” Dimitri said. He reached into the back of his pants and pulled out a gun of his own, readying it quietly. “What the fuck do you want?”

“Haven’t you heard?” Dick asked, conversational. He sat down at the table closest to the door, crossing one leg over the other. “Your popular patrons are finally playing their hand upstairs, against my direct orders. I did warn them, and you, that it would come to blows.” He gestured to a bottle behind the bar. One of his masked men nodded and walked to the end of the counter. He reached across the bar top for a bottle of expensive-looking liquor.

Dimitri twisted his body toward the inside of the bar and fired, bullet expertly piercing the man’s palm. The man screamed and reeled backward. Blood splattered across his face and the wall. He held his hand and cursed profanities, red spilling from the wound. His masked friend only watched, not moving from his post at Dick’s right.

Dick sighed. “Rude, Dimitri.”

“So is stealing my shit and wrecking my fucking bar,” Dimitri snapped.

“My bar,” Dick replied. There was venom there, sucking the air from the room. “Really, Dimitri, you usually at least feign gratitude.”

Dimitri squeezed his eyes shut and sneered from his hiding spot. Ehren had recovered now and watched him carefully, keeping himself still and small. Now, Dick looked at Ehren with a smile. Ehren caught the gaze from his periphery and met his eyes. “Does your bucking ego have anything to do with your impromptu guest?” Dick asked. “I’ve never known you to serve in the morning.”

[aschlindartroom]

Trick or Treat! 🦇🎃🕷️

Hello @dogmomwrites!

You're a new name to me, so I'm not sure what you might consider a "treat." 😊 Regardless, here's part of a scene I wrote a while ago that I still love.

“Our team spent two years cleaning up the last mess you left in the Barrens.” Across the room, Soloman cut into the cadaver. He twisted his wrist, carving a tidy circle with practiced efficiency, and worked the skin up from the muscle. “Cleaning up messes is your end of the bargain—” Soloman looked up from his work. His calm, cold gaze peered out from behind strands of salt and pepper hair, loosed from his slicked back head— “or have I misread the fine print?” Franklin resisted the urge to sneer. “The gag money alone factored into the annual budget. Time and resources wasted. Our deal protects you from searches and seizures, from the occasional rogue investigator turned unifier.” Belks clenched his fists in his pockets. “Your insurance covers standard risk, not negligence.” Soloman blinked, feline. His scalpel hovered over the bloodless wound, braced to incise. “Our insurance covers whatever we’d like it to, Mr. Belks.” Belks stalked forward into the room. He slapped Soloman’s hand away from the body. Toe to toe, eyes ablaze, Belks pushed his finger into Soloman’s face. His next words were punctuated. “Clean it up,” he hissed, “or you and the rest of the Liberation will find yourselves at the bottom of my boot.” Soloman’s large hands moved quick. They gripped the sides of Franklin’s head. Fingers wrapped around the back of his skull, thumbs pressed securely along the tops of his cheekbones, Soloman forced Franklin Belks back against the wall. The edge of the scalpel poised in his periphery, blade resting against his eye socket, Franklin kept himself perfectly still. Soloman reeked of decay. “Your boot?” he asked—quiet, calm and collected. Belks didn’t have time to answer. “A boot won’t kill us, Mr. Belks. Us Darksiders are like cockroaches, see. You stomp your feet, we scatter. You might get one of us, maybe two. Maybe even me.” He breathed softly, considering. “Might I offer some advice?” Franklin gaped. Solomon leaned close enough to bite. His grip tightened, the blade’s edge digging into Belks’ skin. “Say yes,” he said. Franklin sneered with disgust. He nodded. “If you’d truly like to be rid of us, cut off our clean air. Better yet, pump gas into the ventilation system. Watch us Lower London trash gasp and scramble and die from your high tower. Oh, but you’d best be thorough about it… We are nasty, resilient little things. And we do bite.” Soloman blinked. “We do know, don’t we? Who’s truly afraid of who? Let’s not forget anytime soon.”

[aschlindartroom]

Heyy happy sts!!!

Who's your most morally questionable OCs (not including villains)?

Happy STS to you, too!

Dick Soloman is definitely my most morally questionable OC. He would absolutely be a villain, but at the time of the first book at least, he just happens to be on the side of the heroes. So, you know, he gets an ass-whoop pass... for now, at least.

More on that bag of cats here.

Martin Hightower is the second most questionable. His love for Eckehart makes him fluffy, but hoo boy, anyone else better watch out. He learned his trade from Franklin Belks, after all. He'll ruin your life for a Snickers.

[aschlindartroom]