Hey - no, no, no. It’s totally fine by me, someone has to be nice for this band to not be entirely hated. So if anything, it makes me like you even more.
Vivienne? Vivienne-Vivienne? She plays drums? I would’ve never guessed that. But I guess that would make sense, yeah. Though, I do feel like the baby treatment is an all around Hale thing.
So you're going to be the fantastic bad boy, and I'll be that angelic little thing on the right of the album cover that almost get's cut off of CD sleeves. I can dig it, I can dig it.
Yeah, red hair, freckled, only like eighteen years old? Badass chick, let me tell you. Hey! I'm not a baby. I'm a full grown man who gets to sit a lot.
I’m telling you man, you should have just melded their feet into the floor with your cyborg powers. Whatever—I’ve got it. I’m going to make a list of people who can’t ever come back in and hang it right on the door, so they can’t ever come back in. I’m think Al Qaeda, Darth Vader, George W. Bush, Those four who just ran out…who else am I missing?
Dude, totally not a cyborg. I wish our world was advanced enough for that shit. I'd have the coolest fire producing leg in the world.
Hey now, man, let's work on that after closing-- 'cause you're crashing at my place, right? Hah, I wish we could put our boss on it- not me, but you know, the... Other one.
"Oops, sorry, Tar!" She replied, covering her mouth for a second in embarrassment. "I just wanted to punch them in the face for messing up your guitar." She high-fived him back full force, grinning back at him. "Anytime, man. Oh, I haven’t been hiding from you," she said, almost a little shocked that he would even think such a thing, "I don’t know why we haven’t seen each other, I guess. I’ve been a bit busy, but I promise I’ll make sure to find you every time I’m here from now on."
"Hey, no worries! Let's just not punch people in the store. Save the albums, shed blood on the streets!" With a fist in the air, he marched behind the check out counter to set his guitar down. IT wasn't too messed up thankfully, but he probably wouldn't be able to play it in a week or so. "You're a liar, Lola! A liar. This is something built up against me, isn't it? Are you working with Theo? Is he mad I didn't punch a squirrel or something?" Tarryn pulled out a lollipop from his pocket and grnned. "Totes kidding... Totes, gross word. Point is, no worres! Just, yeah, come say hi some time!"
Nice save Tarryn, nice save. Park show, I’m totally in. We need to maybe throw in some new ideas, though. Songs about squirrels and annoying couples.
rViv? As in Vivienne? Oh god - Is that his girlfriend? No wonder he’s kind of tense around me, her and I got into a nasty argument the other day on the street…
I try my best. And I'd say songs about annoying couples would be fun, but they're just being couples, so let's stick to squirrels. My kindness meter is off the charts, can't you tell?
Oh, no! Shit, she's the drummer. If he's tense around you he's probably just being protective of her. She treats us like babies, believe me, they're not dating.
"Not a-a…" She looked around the empty part of the store, looking rather terrified as she whispered, "Vegan!" She shook the hand he offered seconds later and introduced herself as well, "Olive Foster, barista and anarchist in the sense of not believing in associating oneself with political groups. I guess we meet both requirements of the ‘goddamn liberal anarchist’ trope between the two of us, then."
"Nice to meet you, Tarryn. It’s surprising we haven’t run into eachother sooner, considering I’m in here all the time."
"VEGANS!" His yell almost echo'd in the store despite the music playing, but thankfully, not everyone seemed to mind. "They're here to burn the patriarchy, don't you know. Next thing you know, we'll have a lady for president. The horror!" It was sad to say he got all this material from an old man he had to watch back at base before he moved out-- Tarryn always personally thought they could benefit from having a woman as president. "Olive Foster and Tarryn Nelson: Liberal Anarchists at Large. We should be on a billboard, Olive-- for like, a super cheesy crime show or something."
"Right? I guess I just mess around too much in the back and stuff, but I do try to meet everyone that comes through that door at one point or another. Is this your secret hideaway, Foster? Are you using us?"
Okay, fine. But can you totally take the day off? Say your cat died or your pie was too beautiful to live. I wanna take you to go eat awesome Chinese food!
"Hey, at least I insulted both of us at the same time! And y'know, a tambourine would be rad." At the mention of punching, Tarryn snorted. "No thanks, man, I don't want to punch anyone at work. Maybe we'll have an impromptu jam in the park and someone will insult us there! Then the old time punches will be a go."
"Right, man? I need to call Patrick and tell him to prepare tissues- but I might not, since I think Viv might hit me."
"What’s a celebration without a smoke?" Jane asked, raising her eyebrows as she took another drag, considering his question. "Italian." She held up her first finger. "Chinese." Her second finger. "Indian." Her third. Then she tapped the air with each one, as if playing the piano, as she crooned a familiar nursery rhyme. "Eenie, meenie, miney, mo —" Italian. She wrinkled her nose. “Italian? No, screw that. It’s a Chinese day.”
"A not-celebration, apparently. Better than sticking an unlit cigarette betwen your lips, am I right?" At least the young adult novel he was referencing was something nice to cry over-- considering the fact that he did cry reading it.
He stopped moving on the sidewalk while she played her game, scrunching his nose at Italian. Pasta was good, but he made it better than the place down here. "Chinese always prevails, doesn't it?" He pocked her nose with a little grin. "Though, I did get Indian for dinner the other day. Mostly naan, but that's still food." Tarryn rolled out back into the flow of the sidewalk. "I think the waitress from last time is still convinced I'm a cyborg."
The word "Adorkable" is a portmanteau of "Adorable" and "Dork." That neatly encapsulates this trope. Adorkable characters are "dorky" in some fashion. Maybe they're socially inept or shy. Maybe they're really clumsy. Maybe they have some really, really conspicuous character tic that tends to earn them weird looks. Maybe they're just so darn sweet, that it borders on embarrassing. Heck, maybe they're just an out-and-out Nerd. However, rather than making them an outcast, these quirks give the character an endearing vulnerability.
Tarryn is Adorkable in a very basic sense; the dorkiness might be in his attitude, not just because of how nice he is, but because he's generally a dorky dude in the way he likes to talk. (His over excitement, his enthusiasm, so forth, can be perceived as dorky on occasion.) That in addition to how truly adorable he can be, relates him to this basic (but cute!) trope.
Fighting Down Memory Lane
A mental battle fought through emotionally charged memories, leading to a flashback montage. Can be done with positive or negative memories.
Tarryn has a hard past of emotional and creative suppression, as well as a lot of growing to have been done. He visits a psychologist every once and a while but his family memories and his war-past are hard memories he tries to deal with on his own, simply because he doesn't want them to over shadow his life. There are moments when they get the best of him, but very rarely do they harm anything other than his mental health.
The Idealist
A character who genuinely believes that their world is A World Half Full; that Humans Are Good, or at least that Rousseau Was Right and a person who will tell you that if you think it's wrong to hope that you're wrong every time. They will take ideals that others have for the future and will do everything they can to take them to fruition, sometimes going too far.
If you begin to deconstruct their idea, they will immediately begin to reconstruct it. This character will take their (perceived) Crapsack World, and keep moving forward.
The way that an idealist can do this even in the face of adversity and certain death is by focusing primarily on non-material things. Of particular note are the famous/infamous trio of faith, hope and love.
Part of the reason Tarryn works so hard to keep his past quiet and focus on his future is because he sees a genuinel bright light at the end of the tunnel; while he may not know what he's searching for yet, he wants to do all the good he can until he reaches such moments. It might be overkill to some and people like to point out that the world isn't all rainbows to him, which will deter him-- but only for a moment.
Military Brat
A Military Brat is exactly what the name implies: someone who grew up with at least one parent in the military. Sometimes both parents. Tends to crop up a lot in American series and works of fiction.
In fiction, if a character has this as a backstory, you can expect at least one of the following to have affected him or her in some way:
Having a very tough, conservative or strict upbringing;
Frequent moves and parental absences;
Sometimes a parent (often the father) will have died in some war.
Lived on a base in a foreign country during their formative years, giving them an excuse for knowing an obscure foreign language or local custom.
Self explanatory in relation to his past, and also the reason he enlisted in the military in the first place. (As in his family, a military upbringing was and still is the harshest contributor to their raising.)
Nice Guy
The Nice Guy (or Girl) is nice. Maybe not a saint, but definitely not unpleasant, obnoxious or anedgy rebel. They're friendly, psychologically well-balanced, morally average (if not better) and in short, someone anyone would like to be around and have as a friend, which is often what they are to the hero and/or his extended cast. He won't engage in jerk-like behavior, but probably responds in kind to Vitriolic Best Buds.
Want to know what writers think of that? "Boring!". This is because they can be conflict null zones romantically and dramatically because of a perceived (or real) lack of depth. Along with the Happily Married couple, the Nice Guy is among fiction's "favorite" Friendly Targets. They'll die senselessly to motivate their hero buddy, lose the girl to the more dynamic but unstable Dogged Nice Guy or just in general go through constant torment from the world around them.
On the other hand, if done right, it can demonstrate why a guy has beautiful women attached to him: he really is a remarkably wonderful and compassionate person. The Nice Guy can be engaging, likable or The Protagonist; all it takes is giving them a personality outside of "nice" such as: a scholarly refinement, a chivalric attitude, some engaging relationships, and a pinch of Hidden Depths.
Let's face it: Tarryn's a genuinely nice guy these days. It's taken a lot of time for him to get to this point as he was previously considered a "robot" to everyone around him, but now that he's reached this point it's one he's never going to let go of. While some statements in this contradict him ('psychologically well balanced') a majority of them match up well with how he would react to situations.
And really, a majority of his friends are girls, thus the reason for the bolding the beautiful women bit. He'll joke that it's his 'dashingly good looks,' but he knows he's just a genuinely good guy to latch onto.
Wheel Chair Antics
Just because one is a wheelchair user doesn't mean it's a total bummer. There are still impressive stunts to be done on it, and it even compels non-disabled people to try it out.
Because, let's face it: he loves it when he gets to fuck around on his wheelchair.
Olive chuckled at the man beside her’s antics and hid her face with her hand, “Yeah! Off with the beasts!” She crowed, “Stupid hippies!” The girl mimicked the classic older-person line, even though the teens in question were more hipster than hippie.
The hippie line caught Tarryn off guard considering he both hardly knew the girl joining in his yells and it was reminiscent of something some old woman said to him in a restaurant once, so laughter erupted from him. He set his guitar down on the counter and leaned down, dulling his voice. "All these goddamn liberal anarchists, y'know? They're going to ruin America one day. Next thing you know, we'll have a vegan for president! Madness, I tell you." He then held out a hand. "Tarryn Manis, Vinyl Souls manager and total liberal."
But, he totally did. And then he was like, 'Wow, that Booker girl, she's gotta go.' So he sent me in my little wheelchair to tell you you're fired. Because I need you for the day.
"Yeah, back off!" Lola called, although she was unable to suppress a giggle in response to Taryn’s antics. "And don’t come back, unless you’re looking for the same beating you gave that guitar," she added, cracking her heavily ring-adorned fingers with a raised eyebrow.
"Pfft, they can totally come back, just gotta be respectful." He commented, slinging his guitar over his shoulder. He then held a hand up for Lola to high five, not bothering to suppress his grin. "Thanks for defeating pure evil with me, Lola. I haven't seen you around here in a bit- do you hide from me when you visit?" If she was seriously hiding from him during her visits, part of his heart would be a little upset-- butthurt, if anything.
Tarryn let out a little snort when Theo joined in, finishing his horrible guitar solo with a dramatic outstretching of his arms and a drop of his guitar pick. "Thank you, thank you, ladies and gentleman. That was T&T, the newest band in Hale and a big rival to Porcelain Silhouette, so keep an eye on us." He announced to the shoppers, many of which laughed. "Theo, you make my horrible solo's amazing, but,
"We should try harder next time. Plan a song to sing in the face of terrifying teens."
"I’ve officially decided that I’m in love with American opening hours. I needed asprin at four in the morning and I went out and bought some. Do you know how often you can do that in England? Never.”
"Seriously? Are shop owners demons there? I lived there for a bit but the shops on base were different, I guess. Aspirin at four in the morning is practically an American legacy- I'm constantly going down to the drug store for things like that at random hous. And snacks, 'cause they've got great snacks."
