It's Called Brand Loyalty

[westfallcorndog]

 "So, I got a question..."

Asking today is Harrowheart, who's wandering the Nexus' Downtown district puffing away at cigarettes and stopping at holiday stalls up and down the major streets. He leans over now and then to consider the merchandise on display, pensively looking over the goods with his arms folded behind his back and his hands rubbing at his chin or scratching his sideburns. But he doesn't buy anything – not yet anyway. 

"Should you change things about yourself to get what you really want outta life? Or should you always be the 'You' that comes most natural, and get whatcha get outta that?"

Comments

[outpostcook]

"Well! Didn't expect to see you out here!"

Kinner remembers Harrowheart from the conversation about penguin meat a while back, and waves hello. He was just checking out some of the stalls, not expecting to bump into anyone he knows. He's still a little intimidated by Harrowheart's appearance, but is also trying not to show it.

"Hello, Harrow. Nice to see you - I was just lookin' for possible gifts to give my friends." The small cook was after something there for a certain Greek titan, a blobby space alien, and a mechanic he'd befriended recently. "Hope you're doing well." He considers Harrow's question, not bothered by the cigarette smoke. It was a smell he was used to. "I reckon it's best to be true to yourself, but sometimes you do have to change yourself for other people. I ain't got the nicest personality, and I've been trying to work on that. I'm a businessman now. Gotta be professional."

[westfallcorndog]

Harrow chuckles quietly and nods toward the nearest booth. "Lookin' for some presents, too. Ain't easy on a budget, I tell ya what. Doin' well, though? I figure that's relative. I'm still dead." Another laugh, this one more sincere.

"You're a business man? What're you in the business of exactly?"

[outpostcook]

"I run a food cart. Kinner's Kippers - as you can tell by the name, it's a seafood place." Kinner can't help but smile, too. "It's the same for me, to be honest. I'm still dead, mysef. Can't do nothin' about that. But there's worse things than bein' dead, I reckon."

There isn't anything he can do about being dead, so he may as well live with it.

[bilocate]

"Change." It's not even a question. He may be eleven years old, but he's pretty sure he knows how this one works. Alex's nose crinkles at the smell of cigarette smoke, a reaction he tries to blink back since it might be rude. "I mean, my dad's a totally different person at work than he is at home. My mom, too. And people like them a lot more when they're being those fake people. They get more work, more friends, more... everything. They don't have to be fake at home, but I think changing a little bit in public helps. I mean, I'm mean all the time and everyone back home thinks I'm a loser."

[westfallcorndog]

Whoa! It's, like. A kid! Like, a kid a kid! Harrowheart, big buff undead that he is, startles at the sight of him. And then he stares. He just... Stares! How incredibly rude of him!

After the boy has gone quiet Harrow is left with a deep frown, wide eyes, and twitching brows. This is a child. He's going to have to be wholly appropriate! He can't be a worse influence than he is by the mere act of existing.

Now, what would a good influence do?

He accidentally lets slip a quiet, "Uhhh," as he considers it.

Oh! Right! A good influence would share!

His disembodied hands fish in his pocket for a lighter and another cigarette, both of which he offers to the boy. "Smoke?"

While he waits for an answer he clears his throat and gets to talking. "But bein' mean's who you are, maybe, ain't that right? It makes you happy in some kinda way, don't it? Otherwise you'd be nice all the time, or at least fake it like your folks. So why don'tcha?"

[bilocate]

His first thought is 'oh come on, I'm not that short'. People usually stare at him for that, or for his hair, but they're not as open about it. A few awkward seconds are spent between them just sort of in that awkward mutual staring state, Alex worrying his bottom lip with his teeth.

"...it's illegal for me to smoke. I'm eleven," he points out, not unkindly, but a little bluntly because wow, that's weird. Maybe laws about that are different between worlds? That's probably it. Most adults don't just offer kids something unless it's okay for them back home, right? Right.

Alex shrugs, fiddling with his Rubiks Cube. "It doesn't make me happy. Sometimes I get distant and everything feels fake and I say mean things without meaning to." Which is very opposite his normal personality, admittedly, but it's still the state of things most of the time. "I can't fake it then because everything feels so far away and out of my control. If I could, I would. It'd be better and I'd probably be happier."

[coldsong]

Loki is also shopping today, although based on what he's carrying it's hard to tell who or what for. He has candles, lots of them, in a clear bag in one hand, and flour and salt in the other.

"I would argue," he says mildly, "that the fact that you would consider changing yourself to get what you want says something quite vital about what comes naturally to you. For some of us, change is our natural state. Accepting and acknowledging that can be empowering."

"Perhaps each of us must start be deciding what we absolutely refuse to be, and then go from there."

[westfallcorndog]

Harrowheart focuses closely on the words that Loki says to him. He's eloquent to the point that Harrow finds it difficult to follow. First he's got to be sure he understands what he's being told, and then he has to be sure he understands. What he says last, though, that makes perfect sense.

Doesn't mean it brings him to any immediate conclusions.

Instead of answering immediately he looks down while one of his disembodied hands scrubs across his cheeks, mindful of the cigarette between his lips.

Eventually he looks up and his eyebrows start to rise. "I can think of one thing I refuse to be -- or one part of me I wouldn't change, anyway. But how 'bout you?"

[coldsong]

The disembodied hands are fascinating. It's like he's strung together with magic and will. Loki hasn't seen the like, unless you count Hela's undead army, which he doesn't. They were comparatively prosaic (disappointing; for all her power, such a lack of creativity!). The look Loki's giving Harrowheart, as a consequence, is a little too curious and analytical to be kindly, but there's nothing especially condescending or aggressive in it, either.

He is not, however, a fan of cigarettes, so he's making a point to stand upwind of the smoke.

"I refuse to be a pawn," he says. "That is the first and most important thing."

There are others, of course. There are types of monstrous cruelties he refuses to commit, whether those who think the worst of him would believe that or not. "What is it you want that you fear you cannot attain without changing yourself?"

[brother_alone]

"I'll answer yours if you tell me where you got that brand of smokes. Smells different than the sort I can get in vending machines around here."

Josh greets the movie club host with a raised hand and wonders vaguely if there's going to be a lot of questions about why he stopped showing up for those things. Work and then...everything that happened because of his work...really got in the way. He's quieter than the arrogant know it all who eagerly spoke up possibly too often during their movies. Skinnier too. Time hasn't been great for him, by the look of things.

"I've been asking myself the same thing a lot lately. Kinda starting to wonder if changing is something some of us can even do. At best, isn't it just a lie you tell to make life easier for yourself or others?"

[westfallcorndog]

"Brand?" Harrowheart laughs quietly and shakes his head. "That's your problem. You don't buy that pre-rolled machine-touched shit, kid. You roll it yourself. Buy the tobacco from a grower and add your own herbs to taste, then roll it in a paper and stow it in a cig case. Look."

Harrow starts to fish out his own tin cigarette holder when he hears the rest of Josh's words. He looks up as he pops it open and for the first time notices how bad the kid looks. It's been a while since he's seen him. Maybe it's the change of the seasons that's got him looking a little worse for wear? Or maybe he always looked like that? Either way, Harrowheart's staring goes on long enough to be considered rude, and then some.

Eventually he offers a smoke to Josh, and a light to go with it.

"Shit," he mumbles. "You ain't the only one wonderin' that. Pretty sure no matter what I do I'll always be lyin'. I feel like two men in the same body sometimes. I go one way and I let the other one down. You get that?"

[brother_alone]

"That's some fancy shit, by the sound of it." No one does that kind of thing anymore where and when he's from but then again Joshua isn't exactly racing to go back to that world. Might be time to start adopting to how things are done around here. And unlike most folks HArrowheart makes uncomfortable with his undead gawking, Joshua seems quite onctent to sink into his own toughts for far too long of a pause until the cigarette offered to him by a floating hand visibly jars him from those thoughts.

"You sure? Thanks, bro." He's going to accept both in short order, giving a slow sated nod when he takes a drag from it. Enjoy it before he breathes out the smoke. "That's better than anything I can get around here by miles."

Harrowheart's got the right idea for these.

"I mean, everyone lies. It's just how people are wired. Babies fuckin' lie, bro. But it's the scope and the scale of the lies that matter." He listens carefully though, nodding here and there while Harrow speaks.

"I..I think so. In my case I feel like I'm lettin' everyone else down when I'm honest. But when I'm...what's a guy supposed to do when bein' honest means bein' bad? Wrong. Fucked up." He usually calls himself a monster right about now, but Joshua has enough self awareness not to say so in front of the walking corpse with magic corpse monster powers.

[middle_son]

“Depends how bad you want’t.” This man is relatively new to the Nexus, and still a little wary of all the strange people in it. He looks, at least by his own standards, fairly ordinary. He’s of fairly average height, but built like a bear, dressed in neutral colors of old-fashioned clothing. He keeps his hands in his cardigan pockets, and eyeballs the other stranger soberly.

[westfallcorndog]

Fairly ordinary? This man looks about as normal as anyone Harrowheart has seen here. He's even wearing the sort of clothes he grew up seeing. It's comforting, in a strange way. Harrow may have been here for years, but even still a touch of the familiar has a way of making things feel right.

"Bad enough to be out here askin'."

[middle_son]

Forrest just stepped out of nineteen-thirties America but his clothing is nondescript enough to cover half a dozen decades, because men’s styles change slowly, especially in rural areas. He’s also got a calm, reassuring air. This is a man who knows his own place in the world, and even here in the Nexus he is implacable and solid.

His drawl is unhurried, just a part of the whole placid package. “You already know the answer then, don’t you.”

[coinbot]

This man is dead! He doesn't seem too bothered by it. Guess when you're dead unhealthy habits like cigarette smoking don't matter much either. Interesting.

The question is also interesting.

"It depends on what you want most," Connor says. "If what you live for is freedom, then you must commit to embodying your truest self. But if what you live for is the wellfare of the people around you, that necessitates change. When the two overlap, that seems ideal. But unlikely."

That's a surprisingly cogent answer for an android.

Connor leans forward a little conspiratorially. "I don't mean to alarm you, but have you noticed your hands aren't attached?"

[westfallcorndog]

Harrowheart's eyebrows furrow as he listens -- closely -- to what he's being told. This smooth-talking man is out here using some higher-level vocabulary (to say nothing of the contents of his words!) Connor eventually goes quiet, but Harrowheart's answer isn't immediate.

He leans back to look the other man up and down, then leans in again when Connor does the same. The man asks his question and Harrowheart tosses his head back with one loud bark of a laugh.

"I noticed, yeah, but thanks for pointin' it out. You're a real helpful fellow, huh? But, alright, I follow what you were sayin' earlier. Except... Freedom ain't somethin' I care for one way or another, and public welfare ain't exactly a death knight's business. Guess that don't really bring me closer to an answer."

He lifts his chin in an encouraging half-nod and asks, "What about you? Freedom or welfare?"

[sweetcandygirl]

Oh look Harrow -- here comes that bright and energetic young woman. And she is greeting you with that 'hey I know you' smile. Even though the two of you have only met a few times. Have you even gotten her name yet?

"Why would you want to change yourself, Harrow?" Harley grins.

[westfallcorndog]

It's that woman! The one who did that terribly embarrassing thing at Halloween.

No, no, not the part where she beat him on the head with the pipe. The other thing.

Harrow tenses and stares when he hears her voice. He clears his throat before uncertainly answering, "To be easier to like?"

[lovesuwithknives]

OHSHIT, SON

Usually he's pretty easygoing, all things considered, but so many things about his fellow screams Malfested that it just hits Azwel absolutely the wrong way.

So here he is, charging full-speed at Harrow. He doesn't look as though he's going to do anything until, with a strangely musical sound, a stonking huge greataxe made of red light appears and swings at Harrow, followed by several daggers made of blue light.

The daggers sail by, missing completely. The greataxe, however, seems a lot more true....

[westfallcorndog]

It's lucky Harrow isn't aware of the daggers until they're zooming between him and the glass bulbs he's examining on the holiday stall in front of him. It's only in noticing the weapons -- certainly intended for him! -- that he reacts, and in doing so makes that silent deal with the anti-violence field.

The sword on his back unsheaths itself, and fast. Unfortunately for Harrowheart, not fast enough to block the axe that whirls directly into his chest. It embeds itself in her sternum and he wheezes out the breath in his lungs as he staggers backwards.

Gritting his teeth, he forces away the pain and instinctively retaliates. With a twist of his floating hands he conjures up a dark energy that manifests as a screaming skull. He lances the shadow magic at the man who's attacking him -- for no reason, even! -- and squares up his stance in preparation for retaliation.

[chiron_survivor]

Look who is out shopping, too! Adia is bundled up in a soft green peacoat, peering at the items on the table of a colorful holiday stall. She's admiring lapel pins, one in particular, when she hears a familiar voice.

"Hi, Harrowheart." She smiles at him warmly, although there's a bit of fidgeting with her scarf while she listens to his question. "I think it depends on what you're trying to change. If you change yourself too much, then the life you live won't be very authentic, even if it's what you thought you wanted."

[westfallcorndog]

Harrowheart watches Adia with a slight, soft smile. "Adia, now, you of all people know what I'm tryin' to change. I want to be better by everyone else's standards. I want 'normal.' But I knew my old normal for so long that when I find real normal, it don't sit right. The more I work for that, the more I realize how different I'm becomin'. I can't tell if it scares me, or if I just... Miss how easy it was to do what comes natural."

Or the power of it. But he can't say that to Adia. Not when she's already fidgeting like that. There's enough on her mind without fretting over a friend she hopes is getting better, after all.

[to_the_wolves]

Harrowheart's question is one that hits home for Marie, as she pauses to think about how she would answer, but also curious at the man's appearance. Floating hands. Ghostly pale skin. He's definitely not human, but there's an aura of mystery around him that causes her to freeze in place. Thankfully being around Bigby has helped her become tolerant to cigarette smoke (although one must wonder if it's a trend among werewolves to smoke).

"That's a question even I don't have an answer to." It's the truth, given her reputation and personal image. On one hand, it's so much easier to dress up and play a different role, but it is really worth abandoning one's true self? Nervously, one hand goes to the tie around her neck, feeling out the fabric carefully. "Figuring out who you are and what you want, that's the constant struggle of life, alas. Maybe taking some time to reflect on the pros and cons might help."

She sighs, adjusting the bag around her shoulder as a way to distract herself from the discussion at hand. This topic is too close to home, but maybe she can gleam knowledge from Harrowheart's own struggles.

[westfallcorndog]

"The pros and cons?"

Harrowheart looks down, pondering the question as his eyes search the pavement below them. His brows twitch with his thoughts, which he mulls over for a length silence before eventually looking back up to the woman who approached him.

"The person I used to be was powerful. People respected me. Folks didn't figure me for a joke, or weak, or nothin' like that. But I was lonely. There weren't much to look forward to. At the same time, didn't anyone have any expectations of me. I never did the 'wrong' thing, 'cause I wasn't expected to do the 'right' thing. Life was easier and more powerful... But it was emptier. Now I've changed to fit in with folks who care about me, but sometimes I miss the person I used to be."

He shrugs one shoulder and glances away. "I wish I could have the best of both worlds, but don't we all?"