#grimcycle

" been trying to for a while now, " if he's panting, leon doesn't acknowledge it. would rather focus on staying upright, his hatchet at the ready and pulse slowing to a learned calm. necessary for a fight and.. and if he's honest with himself, he knows this isn't one. this is him biding time and digging for information. knelt at the feet of a blowhard's hubris isn't new. it's just the first time he's had to do it with that pop in his knee and a back that's made it harder and harder to sleep through the years. " i'm starting to think you don't actually mean it. "

convicts do this in the yard. they circle each other. pretend there's a multitude of outcomes and both stand a chance. he might not be a prisoner in the typical sense, but pinned under eyes he can feel but can't see ? isn't it close enough ?

a gun would serve him better and aid in false security, but his had been lost to the far side of the platform three minutes ago and leon hadn't found the opportunity to circle 'round and retrieve it just yet. further evidence that he's being toyed with. the mouse bat between the cat's paws.

main course for the dead for decades, he shouldn't have been so irritated by the thought of himself being the food that's played with.

@grimcycle​ 

  “oooohohoho-- you’re gonna wish you were dead the moment i get my hands free---” it’s pointless at this rate. the only thing left running is troy’s big mouth, throwing insults and taunting like there’s no tomorrow, considering his arms aren’t going to budge no matter what he does. yanking as hard as he could had gotten him nowhere, save for lacking the energy to keep anything else, BUT his mouth going, so .. there’s that. 

“SEE? NOW YOU’RE EATING YOUR WORDS AND YOUR KIDNEY! I mean, you're dead, so ya don't really get to appreciate the, uh, the irony here. But hey! I'm sure laughing!” He shouts it in the boom of said laugh while dislodging his forearm from a dead man's throat, shaking blood and spit aside as he rises to his feet. The doctor in question is a slashed-up mess slumped against the white wall of a hallway; one made dark by whatever blown fuse or busted generator has the place blacked out and locked down. All because a teenager doesn't want her dad to leave. All because that teenager sprouted wings of light and ascended, furious, with a voice that had called back too close to a time when that scream had tilted the turn of a turret and sprayed bullets. The bullets that helped bring them here.

The broken doors don't stop Jack, who grunts through prying them apart. They still have very basic back-up power and the secondary generators will come online shortly while the scientists who hadn't insisted they initiate the project's “emergency shut-down” are practically climbing over one another to get it all back in order. No one else wants to end up like Gerald, whose body will be dragged off and his family never notified. 4N631 isn't something anyone here will get to walk away from anyway. 

Jack's head is still thudding with the goddamn nerve of the guy. Along with so much noise, so much scratching and hissing crammed under the press of his own thoughts running too rampant to catch. He’s still holding the scalpel he’d stolen and implemented just moments before, finally tossing it across the room to skid over broken tubes as he fixes a hard (tired) glare up at the heart of the problem.

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT QUESTIONS // still accepting!

8. Where and when do they seem most and least at ease? Why? How can you tell?

Rhys likes to have a plan and be in charge, and feels most at ease when he is being listened to and supported by those around him. He generally enjoys problem solving when it comes to work, though he can get anxious when a carefully laid plan suddenly requires changes (this can sometimes be his fault–if he’s too comfortable, then he’ll sometimes get overconfident and forget to add contingencies in his planning). If he’s in a good mood, it’s normally pretty obvious as his speech becomes a lot more casual and he has a tendency to ramble excitedly. If he’s alone (or thinks he is) he will also 100% do his own victory jingle and/or dance.

It’s equally easy to tell if he’s not at ease, since he’ll almost definitely be moaning about it. He greatly dislikes anarchy, and gets stressed out by sudden, drastic change, especially if it is beyond his control. With that said, he has been known to make some surprisingly bold and innovative decisions under pressure–though not without a lot of complaints.

14. What do they care deeply about? What kind of loyalties, commitments, moral codes, life philosophies, passions, callings, or spirituality and faith do they have? How do these tend to be expressed?

He’s a workaholic and incredibly committed to his career, in which he’s had a clear goal in mind since he was very young. Though his family wasn’t exactly hard up, he wasn’t born into wealth either–so has always known things will never just be handed to him, and learned the value of hard work early on. 

When at Hyperion he bought into the fatalistic “survival of the fittest” and “every man for himself” culture that surrounded him, although he still felt strongly loyal to his friends and believed in always returning favours (at least in part so as never to end up indebted to anyone).

By BL3 his thinking has evolved, and he sees that constantly pitting employees against each other as Hyperion did is a recipe for disaster; so he firmly believes in making sure that his staff are treated fairly, and is always on the lookout for talent in unexpected places–since that was where he started out himself. 

His company is the most important thing to him–to the point that by BL3 a few of his close relationships, while not broken, have certainly faded a little as he became even more dedicated to his work.

21. What kind of relationships do they tend to intentionally seek out versus actually cultivate? What kind of social contact do they prefer, and why?

Rhys is relatively charismatic and doesn’t have much trouble making friends, though this is a practised skill rather than an innate one and his awkwardness can become apparent if he’s surprised (which, depending on his luck, some might find sort of charming, too). On a pragmatic level, he tends to be drawn to people who he feels complement his own skills–often, this means people who are physically more powerful and fearsome than him, which obviously can be a bit of a dangerous game.

He often attracts oddballs and outcasts, as having seen some pretty strange and extravagant things means he is often able to ignore less blatant strangeness if the person has other qualities or skills that interest him. In this vein, he has an unintentional knack for making the people around him feel accepted, and is good at inspiring and retaining loyalty–for instance, by BL3 most of his staff (including Zer0) are very fond of him. 

Rhys spent most of his adult life as part of a corporation where backstabbing was frequent, encouraged and expected. This means that while he’ll happily be friendly with a wide range of people, he is somewhat cautious in who he opens up to and there are only a few people he considers truly close. Once someone has entered this small circle, he is incredibly loyal to them and trusts them completely. 

Unfortunately, once Rhys is attached to someone, it also becomes immediately obvious what a complete dork he is, and often by then it’s too late to end the friendship.

27. What do they strongly like and dislike, in any category? Why?

I chose pets because although I don’t really think he’s an animal person, his aquarium in BL3 is very cute to me. u_u

Likes:+ Fish (pretty, quiet, low-maintenance if you’re rich and can afford all the accessories)+ Dogs (loyal, obedient)+ Horses (thinks they look cool and relates to being tall and skittish)+ Honorable mention to virtual and/or robotic pets for being interesting to him on a coding level and much easier to look after than regular animals

Dislikes:- Birds (pretty but loud and messy–dislikes rakks for similar reasons)- Bugs (are icky)- Cats (too aloof, don’t respect him)- Domesticated “monsters” like skags and jabbers (sorry, Fl4k–he just constantly thinks they’re going to eat him :C)

35. How and why do they internalize knowledge? What effect has that had on them?

Rhys is often quick to process professional and intellectual information, but slower to process more emotional and personal experiences. For example, he’s the sort of person who could easily learn and retain a bunch of obscure trivia about a movie before watching it and repeat it all during the opening credits… and not quite register why the person he saw it with dumped him immediately afterwards.

While he can quickly analyse a problem that is concrete, helping him to solve it next time, his tendency to keep people at arm’s length means he is less experienced in handling problems that involve emotions–including his own emotions. As a result he can sometimes appear shallow or even controlling when problems come up in a personal relationship, as his tendency is to attempt to turn the issue into something physical he can “fix” rather than trying to understand the other person’s perspective.

He cares a lot about his physical image and will fuss over it a lot, but is inept at self-reflection and takes a long time to acknowledge and address deep emotional insecurities and pain. When deeply hurt, he will often appear numb at the time and later deflect concerns with jokes and sarcasm, unless he is forced to confront the issue or reaches a breaking point.

        ❛ so we meet again.     how are you always getting          into such trouble? ❜ 

it's ironic, sort of, hearing that from someone else for a change. that his weren't the only mistakes keeping them company. whatever it was, though.. couldn't have been bad enough for her to make that face. like the air'd gone acrid on them. " you're doing fine. " would've sounded more reassuring from someone else, he knows. anyone with more to offer besides a passing glance and lackluster enthusiasm. less the hollow, bottomless tone he'd long adopted, failing to be coated with a much needed optimism. combat that look in eyes so unsteady.

but he doesn't find those words for her. leon sits in the shadow of their meaning, hands busied with a whetstone while the room around them is surveyed. again. never could be too sure it was empty. eyes had their way of popping up when least wanted. prying. appraising. always with wants and ugly motivation.

" hey, " the slide of stone on steel is louder then his voice, prompt and punctual, " don't do that. " @riphalos has earned his attention, her survival enough of a testament to her untapped grit to be sure of that. " don't start blaming yourself. "

fingers curl their grip around a handle that fits snug despite his tingling palm and a numbness that's been spreading by the day. up into his elbow, now.. it'll reach his shoulder by tomorrow, he figures, but opts to focus, rather, on the curve of grace's frown. so deep, it tries but fails to age her.

On any normal Wednesday the secret underground laboratory was creepy. Now it was downright terrifying, there was mass-hysteria and zero coordination among the people who had the privilege of coming and going. Then there were the poor suckers who were left behind in containment to fend for themselves.

The alarm continues to sound but the screams have long since faded. It's unsettling, not knowing what is happening outside her metal bubble.

When the door releases, Aerith doesn't ask questions or hesitate. She's in the dark, someone's probably going to try to catch her like an escaped animal, but she's not going to be an obedient runt. Crouching inside a bloodied office — why is there so much blood? who lost all that blood? — she tiptoes with a fire extinguisher clutched tight. The door she's aiming for rattles before it busts inward. She curses a pronounced "Shit!" and discharges her 'weapon', firing on the stranger head to toe. There's something like a nervous laugh skipping from her as she dodges around them and out that same door with a SLAM! Seeya.

it's hard to tell where one sterile secret stops and another begins. umbrella's logo gave way to another and while leon had paused, squinted, and registered the new one, he'd not lingered in this choked up hall for long. more bodies on the ground.. more hands reaching for his boots, kicked aside once he'd noticed the teeth that followed with them.

the siren does it. stirs new life into more corridors where a raised pistol takes not-so-steady aim and fires into the next trio that lumbered his way. one clad in a lab coat, the other two.. security, maybe ? not racoon city assigned by the looks of them, helmets crooked and fatigues black. special ops ? now wasn't the time to scrounge for answers he's grown to realize he'll not want, had he gotten them. the door they'd been gathered at is dented, imprints of dragged nails and drying blood spattered near the corner of a window too tinted to see in through.

lacked labels often meant off-limits often meant the place to look when you had all questions and nowhere to put them. convenient then, that there was a key card clipped to the pocket of a newly dead dead man. what's snagged quick, ushered through the reader and— !!!

leon looks up just in time to know he shouldn't have. looks up just in time to catch a face full of co2 foam he's glad his mouth had been shut for. more glad, even, he'd gotten an arm up, close to his eyes, before it made contact and oozed a lazy, sticky wash from the arch of his cheekbone down somewhere past his holster.

the subject isn't sore, but hands sure are. clumsy. left in a position he isn't entirely foreign to, though the details stay intentionally murky. children always have, and always will, complicate things. turn second guessing into fourths and fifths and he's crouched in front of blind, searching eyes for too long now to keep to his silence despite how he savors it. " hey kiddo, " quiet for her sake, his hand moves to sit close, but not touching, near the coupling of hers. a twitch and he'll make contact, leon does so with the tip of one gloved finger, then a second. i'm right here. " what'a'ya say we get you outta here ? " a room so staggeringly bright he's kept to a squint since entering. too much debris on the floor to think it anything other than one more death trap in a maze of them. " it's awful noisy, isn't it ? "