Current
I'm bringing Dragon Cave back and no one can stop me.
6 yrs ago
MEEP
1
like
9 yrs ago
I am back into this shit, I guess. Say hello if you'd like.
9 yrs ago
I am one with the force and the force is with me.
1
like
10 yrs ago
I have suddenly become deeply troubled.
Bio
"That's why we must eat the old people first. They can't have that kind of power."
I've been roleplaying for six years, and if I do say so myself I've gotten pretty good. I've been to many roleplay sites around the internet, and for right now I'm happy calling this one home. I write fantasy, high science fiction, and poetry. I'm involved in the Nerdfighteria community as well, making the world suck a little bit less one day at a time. Though sometimes it's rough and incredibly time-consuming, roleplaying has brought me some of my closest friends, some of the most genuinely awesome people I've ever met. This train is still going, and there's no stop in sight! DFTBA.
The Disappointment Club:
"What the fuck did I just read"
We're special-ed special forces, the most exclusive internet club that no one wants to join, and the most thoroughly disappointing group of individuals the world has ever seen (we even disappoint when it comes to disappointing). Together, we're quite possibly the best six friends the internet has know.
- @Junkmail : Living Proof That God is Dead. - @He Who Walks Behind : I still won't forgive him for what he did to that starfish. - @Dragonbud : Her Gregory Cosplay is fire. - @Surtr : I think he's still trying to pimp me... Help. - @Spoopy Scary : He's Greg.
The loathing came in bursts sometimes. Grey stood there in the empty warehouse, leaning against the railing of the second-floor catwalk and looking down at the gathered assembly of morons they called comrades, and it struck. It hit like a swarm of hornets, needled the base of their neck and the tops of their shoulders. They wanted to run away, go home and say it was too hard, it was too much to handle. They wanted to run home to Baltimore and climb in bed with their Joey and sleep until the morning reached through the blinds.
But Grey didn’t do that. That wasn’t an option. There was too much money on the line to mess this up. Instead, Grey looked down at the blue plastic Gameboy in their hands and drowned themselves in distraction— Tetris, as usual. The scowl on their face felt like a permanent fixture these days. Down below, three men sat in a circle around a glass bong. The acrid smell of marijuana floated through the air like smog and mixed with the ever-present reek of urine, alcohol, and body odor. Off in the corner, a trashy rap song played from a boombox in front of a crowd of young men all tripping on Happiness. They all laid in circles on the ground, laughing and moaning and smiling Joker-esque grins. Grey hated that drug more than anything else in this god-forsaken place. The labs smelled of harsh chemicals and the addicts lumbered around like limp zombies, their constant laughter echoing through the cavernous warehouse.
“You want a hit Grey?” a man called from the circle below. It was Enrique, one of Grey’s subordinates in the Boyz. He was a short, fat Latino man with a mop of curly black hair on his head. He spoke with a cuban accent. Grey made no reply, only scowled deeper and tried to look like they weren’t paying attention. Some grumbling came from below.
“You gotta lighten up, my brother,” Enrique called. “Put that fucking artifact down and take a load off! The boss ain’t paying you to sit around and be a grump all day!”
“Don’t call me ‘brother’,” Grey replied in a monotone, not looking away from the screen. “We’re not friends.” He rotated a straight piece and dropped it onto the left side of the screen— Tetris.
“Ah fine, fuck you then,” Enrique replied. “You think you’re so much better than us because you got some dumb fuckin’ mask and dress like a travesti.” Grey lowered the Gameboy. One of the other men in the circle around the bong picked it up and took a deep hit.
“The fuck did you just call me?” Grey’s voice echoed down, tinged with anger.
“Oooooh,” one of the men in the circle said in the ton of a 3rd grader when someone is called to the office. He was a skinny and weak-looking guy with a mess of brown hair, a long beard, and eyes that flitted around constantly. His clothing hung from his gangly frame like bloated flesh on a corpse. They all called him Bible Bill. He called himself “The Second Christ”.
Grey turned the Gameboy off and put it in their pocket. They walked to the end of the catwalk and down the stairs to the concrete floor of the warehouse. The stench of piss and marijuana was stronger here than before. Off in the distance, someone laughed raucously. They approached the circle. Enrique fell back and crawled on his hands and feet.
“Hey brother, I’m sorry,” Enrique said. “I didn’t mean nothin’ by it. Honest.” Grey stepped through the circle, kicking the bong over as they did so. The water spilled in the direction of the third man, a red-haired miscreant with bad teeth and gigantic tinted goggles taking up most of his face. He wore a Miami Heat jersey with a horrible yellow stain going down one side. Grey approached Enrique, who had turned onto his knees and struggled to his feet. Before he could get away, Grey grabbed him by the back of his shirt collar and pulled back hair. Enrique slipped and fell onto his back. Before he could react, the four-inch heel of a black leather boot rested on his throat.
“Let me make one thing very clear,” Grey said monotonously. “If you ever say that word again as long as you live you’ll end up in a mental institution chewing on your own tongue. Is that understood?”
“I-,” Enrique stuttered, short of breath. “I-yeah, yeah I fuckin’ get it. Won’t happen again b-boss. Sorry...” Grey’s boot hovered over the man’s throat. Suddenly, their phone pinged loudly. Boot still over the man’s throat, they pulled their phone out, a sleek iPhone 8. On the screen was a single notification. The app was a simple black box with “.io” in the left corner in white text. Grey scrunched their face up and signed into the phone, a seventeen-letter password, and scrolled to the third page of apps. The black square was on the third page of a folder titled “Misc.” It had no name under it and would not show up if searched. Grey clicked on the app and put their thumb on the home button. The phone buzzed and a white screen appeared with two words of black text in that same monospaced font:
Drake_Blackmore
The two words blinked three times. Then the app crashed and the phone turned off.
Grey thought for a long time. Then they moved their foot from Enrique’s throat and turned back towards the other two, who were cleaning up the spilled bong and salvaging as much of the weed as they could. Enrique laid on his back and stared up at the ceiling, breathing heavy.
“Albert,” Grey said to the man with the goggles. “Clean your shirt.”
“Oh yeah sorry boss,” Albert replied, pulling out a plastic bag. Inside were several dime-sized nuggets of weed. “I’ll do it later tonight.”
“What even is that stain?” Grey asked. “It looks like...vomit?”
“Sauce from an everything dog from Brunhilde’s,” Albert replied. “It’s got mustard, relish, ketchup, chili, onion powder-”
“That sounds carcinogenic,” Grey replied. “Don’t tell me about it anymore.” Albert shrugged and began to grind a nugget of weed with a small metal spice grinder.
“To each their own, I guess,” Al mumbled. “We still got a few hours ‘fore we’re on duty, right?”
“Yeah, Joyboy doesn’t want us on the streets until it’s safe,” Grey replied. “Cops have been getting wise, especially in our part of town.”
“Alright,” Albert said, still grinding the weed up. “I’m gonna pack a new bowl. You want some boss?” Grey sighed hard and looked around.
“Fuck, I guess,” Grey said. They found a spot on the floor around the bong that was...cleaner than the rest and sat cross-legged. Enrique lumbered up, limping a little, and sat down across from them. Across the room, Grey heard a commotion of obnoxious laughter.
“RANDY JOHNSON!” someone screamed. The sound of a shattering bottle then broke the laughter.
“FUCK,” a different guy screamed. “MY FUCKING ASS!” Grey groaned.
“Alright, who did that?” Grey shouted across the room, turning their head.
“Robbie fucked Gonzo’s ass up again!” a chorus of voices shouted back.
“Oh fuck you guys!” Robbie shouted.
“Robbie! What did we talk about?” Grey shouted back.
“I know...I have to control my anger... sorry boss!”
“Don’t apologize to me! Go take Gonzo to the med bay! And make sure there’s not any blood left behind!” Grey turned their head back towards the bong, which Albert was now lighting. They took their glasses off (round and clear with gold frames) and put their head in one palm.
“And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee” Bible Bill said, staring off into the distance. “for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.”
“I’m a fucking babysitter,” Grey groaned.
Present-Day
Grey walked down the boardwalk wearing high-cutoff jorts and a pink blouse tied off at the midriff. A straw hat rested atop their mess of platinum hair and round blue sunglasses covered their eyes. It was a nice warm overcast day, and a cool wind blew across the boards from the ocean nearby. The sounds of children laughing echoed from the carnival and mixed with the sound of EDM and trap music coming from the kitschy weed-themed shops on the boards. Grey sat down on a wooden bench by a light pole and watched the seagulls circle overhead. Off in the distance, a loud bell rung from a carnie’s booth and a little girl screamed with excitement. Albert walked across the boardwalk from a shop and sat down next to Grey. He wore the same Heat jersey as always, albeit freshly laundered, and a pink bucket hat covered in marijuana leaves. As he sat down, he munched on a large hot dog covered in a strange yellow sauce.
“How do you stomach that shit,” Grey said cattily.
“Look bro, I don’t hate on your organic vegan quinoa shit. Let me eat my hot dog in peace.” Grey grumbled and rolled their eyes. They began to look out at the people walking down the boards until they came across a man with spiked black hair. He was leaning on the fence of the boardwalk, looking out sunset and licking an ice cream cone. Grey opened their phone and looked at the picture he’d been sent. The face and hair matched exactly. Quickly, they deleted the picture, scrolled to “Misc”, and opened up the black app again. This time, a keyboard appeared on the screen. They typed three words:
The most touristy part of town, Downtown Charity is located north of the Dog River and bordering the beach. Here, you can find an assortment of nice restaurants, amusement parks, night clubs, hotels, and plenty of tacky gift shops. The famous Charity Beach boardwalk extends long the beach here. The boardwalk contains high-rise hotels, dozens of arcades, casual dining options, and the Charity Beach Aquarium, a massive cylindrical glass building extending five stories up. The police presence here is heaviest, and crime is met with extreme prejudice (nobody wants to disturb the tourists).
Jackson Row:
Located south of the downtown area, across the Dog River, Jackson Row is the bougie part of town. The houses here are all narrow row homes with brick and limestone facades. This part of town contains the Charity Beach Museum of Modern Art as well as several other museums. The main branch of the Charity Beach library can also be found here, a large, palatial building with glass domes in the ceiling and limestone walls. The area along the Dog River is known as Dog Run, and contains a string of popular trendy bars and fashion boutiques. The property value is high here, as it's become a trendy place for young well-off people to live. Crime in Jackson Row is moderate, with many of the city's newcomers looking for more high-brow drugs (cocaine, marijuana). Happiness has begun to become trendy among the druggies of Jackson Row however, and the police have begun to become concerned that Boyz presence in the area will grow over time.
Las Costas:
Located to the south-west of Jackson Row, Las Costas is a large, poor area of the city, populated mostly by people of Latin American and Cuban descent. The houses here are mostly brick-front row homes and overcrowded projects. The property value is low, with boarded up windows, busted sidewalks, empty vacant lots, and many condemned buildings. Las Costas contains many churches, including La Catedral De La Caridad, a large, beautiful church near the beach. The people of Las Costas are at odds with the police, who often act with prejudice towards them. As such, The Boyz have formed a strong foothold here and Happiness runs rampant.
College Village
Charity University lies to the east of Downtown Charity, bordering Dog Lake to the south and the Seminole River to the north. It is a mid-sized college campus, with around 25,000 students. The buildings here are mostly modern, with tall glass windows and stone exterior. All around Charity U are tons of apartment buildings and row homes mostly frequented by students. Most of the businesses around here also cater to students, with lots of pizza shops, cheap bars, and nightclubs. Crime in College Village is moderate, with Boyz influence beginning to enter the area, as students have begun to try Happiness.
“Bible Bill”, as he is called, is a skinny and weak-looking member of the Boyz. He has long brown hair that is tangled and messy and comes down to his shoulders. Bible Bill is schizophrenic, and this causes him for some reason to believe that he is the second coming of Jesus. He runs around battlefields during turf wars with a Gideon Bible that he stole from a hotel in one hand and a gun in the other, screaming about how people should follow him to paradise. Besides that, Bill spends a lot of time arguing philosophy to no one in particular. Once homeless, the Boyz gave him a place to live in exchange for his services to them.
Powers:
Well if his claims of being the Messiah are true, then total Omnipotence. His claims of being the Messiah are not true.
Should additionally mention that Grey is an indoctrinated member of the Boyz.
"I have to fill this out? Shit, if you say so I guess."
▼ | BIRTH NAME : |
Gregory Jackelwitz (dead name)
▼ | ALSO KNOWN AS: |
Grey
▼ | GENDER : |
Nonbinary. Uses they/them pronouns.
▼ | AGE : |
26
⫸ A P P E A R A N C E ⫷
“Beauty standards are so over. I look how I want to look. You should do the same. Let’s go shopping sometime when we’re not trying to kill each other.”
▼ | P H Y S I C AL S T A T S : |
▸ HEIGHT : | 5’3” ▸ WEIGHT : | 110 lbs ▸ ETHNICITY : | 3rd generation Polish/Russian. ▸ HAIR COLOR : | They change it all the time. Naturally it’s brown but usually it’s a platinum blonde. ▸ EYE COLOR : | Light Blue
▼ | PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION : |
Short and fit, Grey looks like someone who works out but doesn’t lift weights. Their body looks neither male nor female. Their skin is very pale and they don’t have any real stick-out blemishes or scars. Grey has a long neck, a slim, angular face, and a strong jawline. Their ears are average-sized and stick out a little from the sides of their head. Grey usually wears makeup, accentuating their cheekbones and jawline. They collect and wear strange colors of lipstick, some reds and pinks but also purples, greens, and blues. They’re not for eye makeup much (goes bad with the glasses). Their eyes are a cool blue and always look generally spaced out, like they’re trying to look detached. They have long, thin, brown eyebrows with a piercing in the right one, a simple silver stud. Their hair is usually dyed platinum blonde and is combed down to the right or put up in a pompadour.
▼ | ATTIRE : |
Grey loves fashion more than anything else. They’re always looking for new outfits or ways to wear old digs. They blur the lines of gender with their outfits, wearing both masculine and feminine clothing. It wouldn’t be out of place to see Grey wear a skirt or a suit, or both at the same time (somehow). Grey typically wears large round glasses with gold rims and/or round sunglasses when outside.
Grey is a makeup artist by trade. They have a degree from a beauty school and, if things had gone better, probably would have ended up working on movies as a makeup artist. As such, Grey can change their appearance drastically using makeup and prosthetic items they’ve collected over the years (wigs, body molds, clothing, etc). Out of necessity, Grey has also become a good liar. Grey knows how to use a gun (also out of necessity) but is a fairly poor marksman. Beyond practical skills, Grey is decent at sewing and good at old video games.
▼ | BACK STORY : |
Grey doesn’t know their birth parents. All they know is that they were born Gregory Alberts in Fairfax, south of DC, and at a young age was left at an orphanage. Few memories of this time exist in Grey’s head, only vague shadows: a crib in the corner of a beige room, a white teddy bear with one eye missing, falling on the asphalt and tearing a bloody gash across their knee. It fits, then, that Grey doesn’t remember contacting the crystal that gave them their powers. At the age of four, Greg was adopted by a young lesbian couple; Leanne and Tanya Jackelwitz. They took Greg back to Ellicott City, Maryland, where they grew up. Leanne and Tanya were artsy people. Leanne was an elementary school teacher who painted on the weekends, while Tanya was an english professor at a local college and a published poet. They lived a comfortable middle-class life in an old stone row house in Old Ellicott City.
Greg had a rough childhood growing up in the 90s. Greg’s parents were extremely liberal, rejecting the role of gender roles in clothing, and Greg themselves had a very peculiar sense of dress for a boy their age. Greg would go to school wearing pink clothing or girl’s skirts and they’d be bullied for it by their schoolmates. In 4th grade, another boy in class beat Greg up, leaving him with a black eye and several bruises. When they got home, Tanya taught Greg how to throw a punch. A week later, after the bully had come back from suspension, Greg, oversized sunglasses covering their bruised eyes, walked up to the bully, and stood there for a long time, staring ahead, breath raspy and hands shaking.
“What do you want, pussy?” the bully said. Greg couldn’t speak. Their eyes teared up. The bully laughed.
“What, cat got your skirt?” the bully replied. He grabbed Greg by the shit and threw them to the ground. Greg got back up, stood in front of the bully once more, and once more was thrown to the ground. They remembered what Tanya had taught them: square up, push through them, don’t hold back. Greg lifted his fist. The bully put his arms to his sides and puffed out his chest, smiling a shit-eaten grin as he watched Greg fail to throw a punch.
After that, nobody messed with Greg, but they still didn’t have any friends. Quite the opposite, it made things worse. Not long after, Greg’s moms got a knock at the door from a bald man in a tan jacket. He introduced himself as an agent of NEST, a government organization who oversaw metahuman affairs and protection. He talked to Greg and his parents for a long time, about schools where metahumans could learn about their powers, safe from outside influence. Ultimately, Greg and their parents declined. Instead, a NEST agents would come to Greg’s house on weekend and teach them some basic power control abilities.
In middle school, Greg began to identify as nonbinary. This came without much resistance from their parents, but much from the school, where teachers refused to call Greg “they” instead of “he”. On his thirteenth birthday, Greg legally changed their name to “Grey”, and thus Gregory Alberts was officially gone.
In high school, Grey had a little more luck. Their high school was bigger, and thus had a larger student population. Here, Grey found their place among the theater kids, many of whom were also LGBT. While in drama club, Grey developed their love of makeup. While Tanya and Leanna had taught them the basics before, Grey began to excel. Grey had their first boyfriend in high school, a tall red-haired boy with square glasses named Michael. He was a lighting tech in the drama department and liked using big words. They had their first kiss with him in the dressing room before a performance of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. That night, Grey watched from the wings as the lights descended upon the stage from above: it was red, and green, and yellow, and brown, and blue.
Grey went to beauty school in Baltimore for a cosmetology degree after high school. While in school, they discovered Instagram and became one of the first makeup artists there, showing off their abilities. Near the end of college, Grey met Joseph. He was a violinist, long and graceful with brown hair that swept down the right side of his face and stubble across his jawline. He wore hoop earrings and v-neck shirts. They met at a recital at the Peabody institute, where Joseph went to school. After the recital, Grey struck up conversation about Joseph’s suit. They went from there to get a drink and then...well, we won’t talk about what happened then.
Grey and Joseph became inseparable. Where Grey was haughty and caught up in their own coolness, Joseph was mellow and brought them back down to Earth. Where Grey was shy and reclusive, Joseph was passionate and loud and would bring Grey safely out of their comfort zone. The two are, in fact, quite inseparable to this day. They got married in 2015. It was one of the last happy days of Grey’s life, as they’d retell it.
What happened next... you'll have to find out, won't you?
⫸ P O W E R I N F O R M A T I O N ⫷
"That’s all you people ever fucking want to know, and it’s the one thing I won’t tell you."
"There's a lot of strange people in this world, but it's not like we're ones to talk."
Things which Grey collects:
Nail polish Records Classic video game consoles/games Postcards Lipstick Decks of playing cards (but doesn’t know many card tricks; just thinks they look cool) Rubik's Cubes
Additionally, Grey is a low-level lieutenant for the Boyz, mask and all. Grey and their crew work in Jackson Row, dealing drugs to the hipsters and bar crawlers.
Character name
Opinion
Joyboy
"He's the only one of these meth-heads I can tolerate. At least he's actually interested in helping out the community."
Joygirl
"I stay away from her. She scares me..."
Big Dong
"What a creep."
Bible Bill
"I feel bad that Bill's been caught up in all this. He needs psychiatric help, not a job peddling drugs and beating people up. The least I can do is try to keep him out of trouble."
[19 | Enrique Castro-Perez | Male ]
Description: 5'6", 220 lbs. Latin-American man with a pot belly and a round, chubby face. Dark eyes, short-cut curly black hair, a double chin, and messy stubble. He wears baggy cargo shorts and a white tank top, and usually carries a canvas backpack. He operates as a drug dealer for the Boyz. Recently, he fell under the command of Grey, and the two don't get along at all. Enrique is fairly close-minded and conservative, and thinks Grey is a freak.
Power:
Meatloaf: Enrique has the ability to rapidly inhale and inflate his body, expanding his fat cavities to create a wall of marshmallow. In this form, Enrique is extremely immobile, but his fat becomes hyper-regenerative, making him very difficult to damage.
[ 22 | Albert McCalister | Male]
Description: 5'7", stocky build. Pale skin with freckles and curly red hair. Messy red beard and bad teeth, yellowed, thin, and crooked, with a few missing. His eyes are enormous. They look like those puffy-eyed goldfish eyes. The eyes themselves are gold-colored with shimmers of red. To cover his eyes he wears a gigantic pair of black ski-style goggles. He always wears a Miami Heat Dwayne Wade jersey, cargo shorts, red Air Jordans, and a bucket hat with weed leaves on it. His left arm has a sleeve of tattoos, some of which are references to sports, anime, weed leaves, etc. Al is a dealer for the Boyz, and is quite good at his job.
Power:
Eye of the Tiger : Albert has highly-advanced eyes which allow him to see a range of colors beyond human abilities. He can see deep red, infrared, and ultraviolet light, and can also see in very dark environments. His advanced eyes also give him an increased reaction time. However, his eyes are very light sensitive and can be easily damaged.
Name:
William “Bible Bill” Bryan
Age:
25
Description:
“Bible Bill”, as he is called, is a skinny and weak-looking member of the Boyz. He has long brown hair that is tangled and messy and comes down to his shoulders, and an enormous beard. Dark eyes that dart back and forth constantly and a constantly-clenched jaw of yellowed teeth. Bible Bill is schizophrenic, and this causes him for some reason to believe that he is the second coming of Jesus. He runs around battlefields during turf wars with a Gideon Bible that he stole from a hotel in one hand and a gun in the other, screaming about how people should follow him to paradise. Besides that, Bill spends a lot of time arguing philosophy to no one in particular. Once homeless, the Boyz gave him a place to live in exchange for his services to them. Bill works under the Boyz lieutenant Grey as an enforcer, putting the fear of God into anyone who infringes on the Boyz' turf.
Powers:
Well if his claims of being the Messiah are true, then total Omnipotence. His claims of being the Messiah are not true.
"I have to fill this out? Shit, if you say so I guess."
▼ | BIRTH NAME : |
Gregory Jackelwitz (dead name)
▼ | ALSO KNOWN AS: |
Grey
▼ | GENDER : |
Nonbinary. Uses they/them pronouns.
▼ | AGE : |
26
⫸ A P P E A R A N C E ⫷
“Beauty standards are so over. I look how I want to look. You should do the same. Let’s go shopping sometime when we’re not trying to kill each other.”
▼ | P H Y S I C AL S T A T S : |
▸ HEIGHT : | 5’3” ▸ WEIGHT : | 110 lbs ▸ ETHNICITY : | 3rd generation Polish/Russian. ▸ HAIR COLOR : | They change it all the time. Naturally it’s brown but usually it’s a platinum blonde. ▸ EYE COLOR : | Light Blue
▼ | PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION : |
Short and fit, Grey looks like someone who works out but doesn’t lift weights. Their body looks neither male nor female. Their skin is very pale and they don’t have any real stick-out blemishes or scars. Grey has a long neck, a slim, angular face, and a strong jawline. Their ears are average-sized and stick out a little from the sides of their head. Grey usually wears makeup, accentuating their cheekbones and jawline. They collect and wear strange colors of lipstick, some reds and pinks but also purples, greens, and blues. They’re not for eye makeup much (goes bad with the glasses). Their eyes are a cool blue and always look generally spaced out, like they’re trying to look detached. They have long, thin, brown eyebrows with a piercing in the right one, a simple silver stud. Their hair is usually dyed platinum blonde and is combed down to the right or put up in a pompadour.
▼ | ATTIRE : |
Grey loves fashion more than anything else. They’re always looking for new outfits or ways to wear old digs. They blur the lines of gender with their outfits, wearing both masculine and feminine clothing. It wouldn’t be out of place to see Grey wear a skirt or a suit, or both at the same time (somehow). Grey typically wears large round glasses with gold rims and/or round sunglasses when outside.
Grey is a makeup artist by trade. They have a degree from a beauty school and, if things had gone better, probably would have ended up working on movies as a makeup artist. As such, Grey can change their appearance drastically using makeup and prosthetic items they’ve collected over the years (wigs, body molds, clothing, etc). Out of necessity, Grey has also become a good liar. Grey knows how to use a gun (also out of necessity) but is a fairly poor marksman. Beyond practical skills, Grey is decent at sewing and good at old video games.
▼ | BACK STORY : |
Grey doesn’t know their birth parents. All they know is that they were born Gregory Alberts in Fairfax, south of DC, and at a young age was left at an orphanage. Few memories of this time exist in Grey’s head, only vague shadows: a crib in the corner of a beige room, a white teddy bear with one eye missing, falling on the asphalt and tearing a bloody gash across their knee. It fits, then, that Grey doesn’t remember contacting the crystal that gave them their powers. At the age of four, Greg was adopted by a young lesbian couple; Leanne and Tanya Jackelwitz. They took Greg back to Ellicott City, Maryland, where they grew up. Leanne and Tanya were artsy people. Leanne was an elementary school teacher who painted on the weekends, while Tanya was an english professor at a local college and a published poet. They lived a comfortable middle-class life in an old stone row house in Old Ellicott City.
Greg had a rough childhood growing up in the 90s. Greg’s parents were extremely liberal, rejecting the role of gender roles in clothing, and Greg themselves had a very peculiar sense of dress for a boy their age. Greg would go to school wearing pink clothing or girl’s skirts and they’d be bullied for it by their schoolmates. In 4th grade, another boy in class beat Greg up, leaving him with a black eye and several bruises. When they got home, Tanya taught Greg how to throw a punch. A week later, after the bully had come back from suspension, Greg, oversized sunglasses covering their bruised eyes, walked up to the bully, and stood there for a long time, staring ahead, breath raspy and hands shaking.
“What do you want, pussy?” the bully said. Greg couldn’t speak. Their eyes teared up. The bully laughed.
“What, cat got your skirt?” the bully replied. He grabbed Greg by the shit and threw them to the ground. Greg got back up, stood in front of the bully once more, and once more was thrown to the ground. They remembered what Tanya had taught them: square up, push through them, don’t hold back. Greg lifted his fist. The bully put his arms to his sides and puffed out his chest, smiling a shit-eaten grin as he watched Greg fail to throw a punch.
After that, nobody messed with Greg, but they still didn’t have any friends. Quite the opposite, it made things worse. Not long after, Greg’s moms got a knock at the door from a bald man in a tan jacket. He introduced himself as an agent of NEST, a government organization who oversaw metahuman affairs and protection. He talked to Greg and his parents for a long time, about schools where metahumans could learn about their powers, safe from outside influence. Ultimately, Greg and their parents declined. Instead, a NEST agents would come to Greg’s house on weekend and teach them some basic power control abilities.
In middle school, Greg began to identify as nonbinary. This came without much resistance from their parents, but much from the school, where teachers refused to call Greg “they” instead of “he”. On his thirteenth birthday, Greg legally changed their name to “Grey”, and thus Gregory Alberts was officially gone.
In high school, Grey had a little more luck. Their high school was bigger, and thus had a larger student population. Here, Grey found their place among the theater kids, many of whom were also LGBT. While in drama club, Grey developed their love of makeup. While Tanya and Leanna had taught them the basics before, Grey began to excel. Grey had their first boyfriend in high school, a tall red-haired boy with square glasses named Michael. He was a lighting tech in the drama department and liked using big words. They had their first kiss with him in the dressing room before a performance of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. That night, Grey watched from the wings as the lights descended upon the stage from above: it was red, and green, and yellow, and brown, and blue.
Grey went to beauty school in Baltimore for a cosmetology degree after high school. While in school, they discovered Instagram and became one of the first makeup artists there, showing off their abilities. Near the end of college, Grey met Joseph. He was a violinist, long and graceful with brown hair that swept down the right side of his face and stubble across his jawline. He wore hoop earrings and v-neck shirts. They met at a recital at the Peabody institute, where Joseph went to school. After the recital, Grey struck up conversation about Joseph’s suit. They went from there to get a drink and then...well, we won’t talk about what happened then.
Grey and Joseph became inseparable. Where Grey was haughty and caught up in their own coolness, Joseph was mellow and brought them back down to Earth. Where Grey was shy and reclusive, Joseph was passionate and loud and would bring Grey safely out of their comfort zone. The two are, in fact, quite inseparable to this day. They got married in 2015. It was one of the last happy days of Grey’s life, as they’d retell it.
Nail polish Records Classic video game consoles/games Postcards Lipstick Decks of playing cards (but doesn’t know many card tricks; just thinks they look cool) Rubik's Cubes
[quote=@Spoopy Scary]"That's why we must eat the old people first. They can't have that kind of power."[/quote]
I've been roleplaying for six years, and if I do say so myself I've gotten pretty good. I've been to many roleplay sites around the internet, and for right now I'm happy calling this one home. I write fantasy, high science fiction, and poetry. I'm involved in the Nerdfighteria community as well, making the world suck a little bit less one day at a time. Though sometimes it's rough and incredibly time-consuming, roleplaying has brought me some of my closest friends, some of the most genuinely awesome people I've ever met. This train is still going, and there's no stop in sight! DFTBA.
[h1]The Disappointment Club:[/h1]
[quote=@JunkMail] "What the fuck did I just read"[/quote]
We're special-ed special forces, the most exclusive internet club that no one wants to join, and the most thoroughly disappointing group of individuals the world has ever seen (we even disappoint when it comes to disappointing). Together, we're quite possibly the best six friends the internet has know.
- [@Junkmail] : Living Proof That God is Dead.
- [@He Who Walks Behind] : I still won't forgive him for what he did to that starfish.
- [@Dragonbud] : Her Gregory Cosplay is fire.
- [@Surtr] : I think he's still trying to pimp me... Help.
- [@Spoopy Scary] : He's Greg.
List of Super-Power Pet Peeves:
-Shadow Powers
-Blood Powers
-Pain Powers
-"Dimensional Storage" Powers
-Spider Powers
<div style="white-space:pre-wrap;"><blockquote class="bb-quote">"That's why we must eat the old people first. They can't have that kind of power."<footer><a class="bb-mention" href="/users/spoopy-scary">@Spoopy Scary</a></footer></blockquote><br><br>I've been roleplaying for six years, and if I do say so myself I've gotten pretty good. I've been to many roleplay sites around the internet, and for right now I'm happy calling this one home. I write fantasy, high science fiction, and poetry. I'm involved in the Nerdfighteria community as well, making the world suck a little bit less one day at a time. Though sometimes it's rough and incredibly time-consuming, roleplaying has brought me some of my closest friends, some of the most genuinely awesome people I've ever met. This train is still going, and there's no stop in sight! DFTBA. <br><br><div class="bb-h1">The Disappointment Club:</div><br><br><blockquote class="bb-quote">"What the fuck did I just read"<footer><a class="bb-mention" href="/users/junkmail">@JunkMail</a></footer></blockquote> <br><br>We're special-ed special forces, the most exclusive internet club that no one wants to join, and the most thoroughly disappointing group of individuals the world has ever seen (we even disappoint when it comes to disappointing). Together, we're quite possibly the best six friends the internet has know. <br><br>- <a class="bb-mention" href="/users/junkmail">@Junkmail</a> : Living Proof That God is Dead. <br>- <a class="bb-mention" href="/users/he-who-walks-behind">@He Who Walks Behind</a> : I still won't forgive him for what he did to that starfish. <br>- <a class="bb-mention" href="/users/dragonbud">@Dragonbud</a> : Her Gregory Cosplay is fire. <br>- <a class="bb-mention" href="/users/surtr">@Surtr</a> : I think he's still trying to pimp me... Help. <br>- <a class="bb-mention" href="/users/spoopy-scary">@Spoopy Scary</a> : He's Greg.<br><br>List of Super-Power Pet Peeves: <br><br>-Shadow Powers <br>-Blood Powers<br>-Pain Powers <br>-"Dimensional Storage" Powers<br>-Spider Powers</div>