Open and Closed prompts

[hythlodaeus]

Who: Hythlodaeus and YOU
When: July, on a Wednesday
Where: Around Goldenrod
Summary: Hythlodaeus is making friends and learning sign language :)
Rating: Mature. I don't trust Hythlodaeus' friends.



Painting Portraits

[His dear friend and house mate has tried to impart the value of a dollar on Hythlodaeus, and that they need way more of them. To his credit, he is trying now. Armed with several sheets of nice paper and a set of water colors, he's seated on the ground with a little sign advertising that he will paint a portrait of you and your pokemon.]

[There is no price listed, and while he's not painting a portrait, he will be doing little paintings of muscular, anthropomorphic horse men. They are very, very good]


Menacing the Radio Tower

[After his little lunch date, Hythlodaeus finds himself a little bit at a loss. He still has his art supplies, and he's still mad... So maybe he just needs to work off a little energy. If you're coming or going from the Radio tower, he will affix you with an intense stare for several seconds before looking down at his paper and drawing... a terrifyingly photo realistic portrait of you.]

Steven

[On the very worst Wednesday after a particularly terrible weekend, Hythlodaeus is at the right place at the right time, though not quite looking like himself. He seems to have left his mask and robe at home, instead wearing a simple short sleeve button down and a pair of khaki chinos.]

[He still stands out, a lot, since he's still eight feet tall with long white hair, but hey! At least everyone doesn't think he's a ghost now. He's just a werid guy standing there with a couple of cutieflies buzzing around him. He seems to be spacing the fuck out, staring at some far off point as he stands and waits.]

Comments

[hythlodaeus]

No, no, just searching for applicable talents to put to use or make explaining simpler! It seems you do have a nice creative streak. That will certainly come into use here. Moving clearly, logically, and with purpose is certainly useful while baking. You should be compatible with the craft.

[His placid smile breaks into a wider one.]

But I'll hardly stifle you if you would like to boast about your other talents. I have a few of my own.

[fingersandteeth]

Oh? What are yours?

[He's well aware that Hythlodaeus is gathering information on him for his own purposes, but you have to give a little to get a little.]

[hythlodaeus]

Here, my talents are none! That which makes me special in my eyes amounts to nil. I see not the souls of others, nor feel the flow of the Underworld like blood in my veins.

[He brightens considerably.]

My interests, however, I have been allowed to devote a thousand of your lifetimes to each... Presuming you are fifty years old, give or take. You will find, of course, that a talent often is merely an interest.

[This was a stupid semantics trap all along...]

My interests lay in the very mechanisms of life. That which pertains to plants and animals, magic and minerals... Yet if you consider this too broad... I love the theater.

[And his answer is useless.]

[fingersandteeth]

[Interesting talents he doesn't have.]

So you're a scientist... or a biologist, anyway. Which is how you think you'll be able to refine our drugs.

[Then he smiles.] I do too, actually. I mean, I guess it's the stereotype, gay men and the theatre, and normally I hate falling into stereotypes, even if they're useful for manipulating people's assumptions, but I really do like the theater. I might have considered being an actor for a living if it wasn't, well, a very unforgiving career when all things are said and done.

But I did theater in high school and college both. I even got to play some pretty decent roles. I was Marius when we did Les Mis and Lysander when we did the Dream, Willum when we did The Nerd and Orestes when we did Electra--Sophocles' Electra, not Euripides.

But my favorite role I ever had was Ariel in the Tempest, because he was just so different than all those earnest young men they always would cast me as. And god, he had such great speeches.

[His voice takes on a recitative tone:]

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them — Ding-dong, bell.

[hythlodaeus]

Kounithikedori is widely read; he would be glad about that, I think. Even if the translation you recited is a bit odd...

[He gives him a bright little smile anyway.]

See, you and dear Hades do have quite a bit in common. When we lean into what makes us the same rather than what makes us different...

[He says with a leading tone.]

It excites you to the core, does it not? This strange figure, revered in the low timbre of your voice.

[fingersandteeth]

Kounithikedori? [He repeats the pronunciation with only the slightest of stumbles.] That was Shakespeare. Then again, this world has a lot of alternate version of literature and art and music from my world, only with more pokemon, so I suppose it could be in your world as well.

But honestly, Hythlo, I doubt Hades will invite me to the theater any time soon.

[He's smiling a little, though.]

It does. I don't know if I could be in the Tempest again--I know I'd never be able to do the Dream--but at the time... I read for him and Caliban both in my audition, but I was so sure I'd get stuck with Ferdinand anyway, because they always liked me in those roles, but what I really wanted to be was either one of Prospero's servants. I just-- loved how strange they were. How other.

I've one of Caliban's speeches still memorized too, even now.

[And he just launches into it.]

Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices,
That if I then had waked after long sleep
Will make me sleep again; and then in dreaming
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked
I cried to dream again.

[hythlodaeus]

It means “Shaken spear”. How thin the walls of reality seem to be at times.

Oh very good! [ He grins, clapping with delight.]

Well, he hasn’t invited me to the theater either. Not that it has diminished my love of it any. I worry that I would block another’s view so fully... I suppose unless I sat in the back or up high.

How long ago was this, these aspirations or... no, perhaps just this little moment in time for you.

[fingersandteeth]

Oh hell, something like fifteen years ago or so for me. I was still in college. We did The Tempest my senior year.