MARCH UPDATE

6'3" height

creatures of habit, carrion flowers, growing from repeated crimes.

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POSTED ON Dec 21, 2023 10:47:38 GMT

shiv, Lulu Flint, and 1 more like this

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"What are you doing in my living room?"[break][break]

Cillian Quinn had fallen asleep on the couch. His laptop, screen full of work e-mails and recent reports, offers dim illumination to the open space. He struggles out from under a blanket he doesn't remember retrieving from the hall closet; Tempest Quinn's doing, most likely.[break][break]

But the blanket is the least of his concerns.[break][break]

He's on his feet, blade in hand, by the time 'Father Winter' speaks. A name catches in Cillian's sleep-fogged thoughts.[break][break]

"Maldecena?"[break][break]

It's enough to stop him from going for the throat.[break][break]

Winter rips open space-time in Cillian's living room, and now the portal illuminates bookshelves, couches, and sleeping dogs. They do not react to Father Winter's presence. It's as if he's not really there.[break][break]

"You tried to kill me, last time-" Cillian growls, but Winter cuts him off with a mocking hand over his heart.[break][break]

"We need you alive for this."[break][break]

"Who does? The Triad? Or you and Maldecena?"[break][break]

Were they one and the same?[break][break]

He is offered no answer. The portal looms.[break][break]

"What if I don't want to change anything?"[break][break]

His life. His mistakes. His loves and his losses. They are all his, and they have all shaped him. He looks away from Father Winter, gazing into the portal. Change the course of history...[break][break]

If he hadn't failed his family, would he ever have found Rocket?[break][break]

If he hadn't failed Emma, would he ever have found Tempest Quinn?[break][break]

He doesn't get the chance to decide for himself. His thoughts have shifted to Lulu Flint as Father Winter shoves him toward the portal, and he stumbles into a world that isn't really his own.

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played by

thorn

Gavin Merlino

he/him

october 28th

circhester, galar

demisexual

the harbinger

underboss

6'3" height

creatures of habit, carrion flowers, growing from repeated crimes.

awards

7,851 posts

DOLLARS

part of

TAG WITH @gavin

POSTED ON Dec 31, 2023 0:57:21 GMT

shiv, Lulu Flint, and 3 more like this

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Theory: After doing some digging, it was determined that EXPULSION from his post-graduate program in Galar proved the leading cause in his flight to Kanto and subsequent involvement in Team Rocket. With his rise as the Harbinger being so closely tied to the faction, could such ascension be prevented by as simple an alteration as preventing that disgrace?

[break][break]

Expecting to find himself face to face with his demons in whatever shape they took — THEO BECKETT, declan walsh, SILAS BLACKWELL, his father — it takes Cillian a moment to recognize the room he's in. He's not in Kanto, nor indeed in the house in which he'd grown up. He's in a lab, but it's not one of Rocket's labs. It's not his. It's not in Hoenn.[break][break]

As he adjusts to the shock of unwanted dimensional travel and his heart rate slows, it clicks.[break][break]

This was the university's laboratory, where he'd been studying as part of his post-grad. After-hours, clearly; everyone else has gone home. Though it had been well over a decade ago, now, Cillian remembers this day in vivid clarity. How tired he'd been, staying late in a fevered excitement, determined to secure the breakthrough that would set him above his colleagues. He'd just needed a little more data.[break][break]

He hadn't known, then, what it would cost him.[break][break]

He can't remember his password for the computer, but he remembers a trick Lulu Flint had taught him to bypass such security.[break][break]

This is only an experiment, he tells himself, as he moves the mouse over the confirmation to delete all of the data that had damned him. It doesn't matter what it changes.[break][break]

He's not convinced, but Cillian's curiosity was the true reason he'd indulged in the unethical experimentation of his past, the evidence of which had led to his disgrace and expulsion. So too does curiosity strike anew.[break][break]

276 files deleted.

Determination: Expulsion from Circhester University is indeed a FLEXIBLE point in the timeline.

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played by

thorn

Gavin Merlino

he/him

october 28th

circhester, galar

demisexual

the harbinger

underboss

6'3" height

creatures of habit, carrion flowers, growing from repeated crimes.

awards

7,851 posts

DOLLARS

part of

TAG WITH @gavin

POSTED ON Jan 1, 2024 18:14:02 GMT

shiv, jayden cross, and 1 more like this

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"You're going to transfer to Kanto to further your studies."[break][break]

Cillian sits across from his grandfather, the strong-jawed patriarch of the Quinn legacy commanding attention in spite of his age.[break][break]

Already, this timeline proves different from the one he'd lived through. He's uncertain of how much time has passed between this point and the last, but his last meeting with Padraig had not been so amicable in truth.[break][break]

"Why?"[break][break]

Padraig's eyes narrow. He is not a man used to being questioned.[break][break]

"Because I'm telling you to." A thrill of fear shivers through Cillian; he is not powerful, here. He cannot cow his grandfather as he'd done before, with power and station. He is once more a child beneath the boot of his elders. He sees Padraig's fist tighten and shrinks back in his chair. "Will that be a problem, Cillian?"[break][break]

Knowing what will happen if he says 'no', Cillian swallows pride and bile and shakes his head.[break][break]

"Speak up, boy!" Padraig slaps the edge of the desk, sneers when Cillian flinches. "Your grandfather's old, he can't hear ya too well."[break][break]

Cillian, of course, hadn't said a word. His lips hadn't moved. Padraig knew, just as Cillian knows what's expected of him now.[break][break]

"It won't be a problem, sir."[break][break]

He boards the plane that very night. This time, when he touches down upon Kantonian soil, it's with the wealth and influence of his family at his back. This time, he does not seek out Rocket in desperation.[break][break]

He seeks them out because Padraig Quinn tells him he should.[break][break]

Travelling to Kanto appears to be a FIXED point. Though the reasons for the trip may differ, Cillian Quinn will always board a plane to the Kanto region some time after his twentieth birthday, before he turns twenty-one.

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played by

thorn

Gavin Merlino

he/him

october 28th

circhester, galar

demisexual

the harbinger

underboss

6'3" height

creatures of habit, carrion flowers, growing from repeated crimes.

awards

7,851 posts

DOLLARS

part of

TAG WITH @gavin

POSTED ON Jan 29, 2024 11:14:35 GMT

shiv, Razz Kingsman, and 2 more like this

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He witnesses his life in snapshots, and learns what one small decision can change.[break][break]

He doesn't rebel against Rocket's command. He submits easily to their conditioning, absent of the anger that his family's betrayal had instilled in him. He is obedient, and because of it, he never forms certain bonds.[break][break]

THEO BECKETT never has an issue with him. They remain distant, losing even the friendship that has persisted through hardship.[break][break]

He doesn't step in to comfort jayden cross when he finds him wounded, because he accepts such suffering as normal. The man he thought of as a brother was a stranger to him, here, nothing more than another grunt.[break][break]

He doesn't befriend Razz Kingsman. That, he thinks, he could live with. He'd spare himself the later heartbreak.[break][break]

But if anything's heartbreaking, it's what he'll find of his life in Hoenn.[break][break]

It starts later than it should. He isn't dragged over against his will by Silas; he stays behind in Kanto, promoted to Admin. He reads an exchange between himself and declan walsh; Admin Quinn feels strange. He'd skipped that stage, in Hoenn, and he'd have been Merlino besides. They discuss Silas' fall and the vacuum of power left in his wake, the way Hoenn's Rocket threatens to crumble.[break][break]

Declan, on the wings of his promotion to Hoenn's Rocket boss, requests Cillian come along. It's not an order, but he accepts all the same. Curiosity at what might happen if he doesn't is outweighed by the desire to be home again.

Travel to Hoenn, any promotions, and many relationships formed in either Kanto or Hoenn are all FLEXIBLE points.

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played by

thorn

Gavin Merlino

he/him

october 28th

circhester, galar

demisexual

the harbinger

underboss

6'3" height

creatures of habit, carrion flowers, growing from repeated crimes.

awards

7,851 posts

DOLLARS

part of

TAG WITH @gavin

POSTED ON Jan 29, 2024 11:25:19 GMT

shiv and jayden cross like this

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His biggest fear is losing her.
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He doesn't. Walsh still bestows the Lugia's care upon now-Underboss Quinn, and she is as shadowed as she was before.
[break][break]

And yet he does lose her, all the same. He loses the bond they'd formed through near-death experience, the dedication to showing her respect, and ultimately, the trust that had led to her blessing. He never gains his powers; there is naught but void where they should be, and the Beast Ball remains a heavy prison at his hip. It's the only thing that stops her from killing them all.
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It's not the worst thing that changes.
[break][break]

He's not there to be a friend to Tempest Quinn. To be a reason for the other to live past the grief of losing a sister. When Cillian finds himself on the beach before his house in Sootopolis, he finds it absent of the man who'd made it home.
[break][break]

When he asks Tulio Rararie about his son, tears well in the older man's eyes.
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That's when he knows.
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"I don't want to do this any more," Cillian snarls at nothing, when he finds himself alone. "You've had your fun. Get me the fuck out."
[break][break]

If Father Winter, if any of those damned Triad can here him, they don't comply. He is left alone with his thoughts, and the consequences of a simple action he'd not realised might change his entire world.[break][break]

Avatarship of Shadow Lugia is FLEXIBLE.[break]
A relationship with Tempest Quinn is FIXED... unless Cillian Quinn arrives in Hoenn too late.

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close tab

played by

thorn

Gavin Merlino

he/him

october 28th

circhester, galar

demisexual

the harbinger

underboss

6'3" height

creatures of habit, carrion flowers, growing from repeated crimes.

awards

7,851 posts

DOLLARS

part of

TAG WITH @gavin