Arthur Lester (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
theotherright) wrote2022-09-04 07:31 pm
theotherright) wrote2022-09-04 07:31 pm
app for come sail away
Warning for discussion of infant death.
PLAYER
Name: Caz
Age: 33
Contact: Caz#1241 on Discord
Permission Post: here
Reserve: None, we freeballing
CHARACTER
Name: Arthur Lester
True Name: Arthur Lester
Canon: Malevolent (part 12)
Age: It sounds like he married early, and he's described as "a young man". Let's call him 28.
History: Wiki page.
Powers/Abilities: Technically speaking, if he touches a dead body, he gets a vision of how the person died. Practically speaking, this is completely irrelevant without someone there who can use his eyes to see the vision. If a tree falls in the forest and Arthur can't hear it, does it make a sound? Sure, probably, but it doesn't make a damn bit of difference to him!
Inventory:
- Hooded yellow cult robes, tattered and dirtied
- A set of normal, if torn-up and bloodied and muddy, 1930s clothes: trousers, shirt, suspenders, etc.
- A shoulder bag containing the following (all kinda wet):
- A pallid mask; looking through its eyes while wearing it can reveal hidden things (eg otherwise invisible people/writing)
- A .45 automatic pistol, plus bullets
- A flashlight
- A box of matches
- Lockpicking tools
- A lighter inscribed with the words "This Too Shall Pass"
- A human tooth that's seen better days. This is a physical tether for an information-gathering entity called a Vanguard; the Vanguard in question is neither alive nor sentient, but it is quite a distance away from Arthur when he gets pulled onto the ship, and I'd assume it will be unable to return to its tooth so long as he's there.
- Around eighty dollars in 1930s US currency (worth about $1770 today)
- Two ancient books, each inscribed with a different symbol: one an angular line that crosses over itself, the other suggesting three tentacles or arms reaching from a central circle.
Job History:
Private Investigator (1930-present)
- Solved missing persons cases.
- Tracked suspects and liased with witnesses.
- Was hardboiled and noir.
- Kept up with the rent (mostly).
- Partnered with Peter "Parker" Yang (30 years too early for that to be a Spider-Man reference), recently deceased.
Dad (1925-1929)
- don't.
Pianist and composer (1924-1929)
- Wrote a few pieces for piano, sold one or two
- Played a bunch in various venues
- Knew a lot about pianos
- Didn't know shit about violins
Suppressions:
First and foremost, he keeps the story behind his daughter's death buried deep deep down. Not because he's trying to avoid responsibility, but because he knows he's responsible for it, and would do nothing but obsess over it if he let himself. He loved his daughter incredibly fiercely, and her death broke him so hard that he abandoned his passion/career and left the country. He lashes out if asked about it one too many times.
Secondly, he only lets it out when pushed, but there's an angry and violent and highly vindictive sonofabitch lurking under this amiable suit-and-tie surface. He wants to be someone who shows compassion and humanity and understanding. He has been known to fail at all of these things impressively and spectacularly.
Thirdly, Arthur has been, uhhh, let's be nice and broad and say responsible in some way for a number of deaths in the last month and a half (with a break in the middle to be in a coma). He believed for a while that he killed his best friend and business partner in a fugue state, and like, it still sounds like Arthur's hands were used to do the murder, so you'd better believe that's pushed down fucking deep. What else? He's killed two people in self-defence. He ended someone's whole career with his car while trying to escape an attacker. And he's killed an old woman in a cave in cold blood. Oh, and that's not even counting the people he didn't kill but who died as a result of encountering him, or as a result of his looking for them. Oh! And the past loss of his parents, then wife, then daughter turn all of this into a fun pattern of death dogging his heels, picking everybody off but him. He's coping hard with his guilt over all of this by avoiding the subject, convincing himself it was justified, or a tasty combination of both.
Fourthly, he's been suppressing his fears and frustrations about suddenly going blind, in favour of trying to solve the problem (i.e. yeet the thing that's stolen his eyes back out of him). But they still come out in some moments and threaten to overwhelm him. When he's not moving constantly forward, he's going to have to work much harder not to chew on those feelings. (Being away from John and finding his eyes still don’t work is going to result in some uhhh mental gymnastics.)
Fifthly, he has more than enough information -- John's book being sought by the cult, his strange response to the name, the circumstances of the King entering our world, and more -- to at least theorise that John might be the King in Yellow. But his analytical mind won't even consider putting the pieces together, and the reasons are clear from a distance. Arthur is bound to this guy, and relies on him for sight; but more than that, with Parker's death he's alone in the world again. He wants John to be someone he can trust. Unconsciously, he's taken the clues that suggest he absolutely can not and should not trust John, and put them far away from each other so that their picture doesn't come together.
Greatest Fear: His immediate greatest fear is getting his body taken over entirely by John, and either getting caged in a corner of his own mind, or whiffing out of existence -- or, God forbid, getting popped out into the Dark World. But that's a pretty recent situation: on a longer scale, his greatest fear is losing people, having nobody in whom to trust.
Greatest Desire: He would've said it was freedom or independence or survival or something, but as it turns out, it's having a chance to change the past and do better as a father.
Greatest Regret: Letting his infant daughter die. He focused on working instead of on watching her, got wrapped up in it, and she very preventably drowned. He still has nightmares about it.
Sample: Here in the TDM
PLAYER
Name: Caz
Age: 33
Contact: Caz#1241 on Discord
Permission Post: here
Reserve: None, we freeballing
CHARACTER
Name: Arthur Lester
True Name: Arthur Lester
Canon: Malevolent (part 12)
Age: It sounds like he married early, and he's described as "a young man". Let's call him 28.
History: Wiki page.
Powers/Abilities: Technically speaking, if he touches a dead body, he gets a vision of how the person died. Practically speaking, this is completely irrelevant without someone there who can use his eyes to see the vision. If a tree falls in the forest and Arthur can't hear it, does it make a sound? Sure, probably, but it doesn't make a damn bit of difference to him!
Inventory:
- Hooded yellow cult robes, tattered and dirtied
- A set of normal, if torn-up and bloodied and muddy, 1930s clothes: trousers, shirt, suspenders, etc.
- A shoulder bag containing the following (all kinda wet):
- A pallid mask; looking through its eyes while wearing it can reveal hidden things (eg otherwise invisible people/writing)
- A .45 automatic pistol, plus bullets
- A flashlight
- A box of matches
- Lockpicking tools
- A lighter inscribed with the words "This Too Shall Pass"
- A human tooth that's seen better days. This is a physical tether for an information-gathering entity called a Vanguard; the Vanguard in question is neither alive nor sentient, but it is quite a distance away from Arthur when he gets pulled onto the ship, and I'd assume it will be unable to return to its tooth so long as he's there.
- Around eighty dollars in 1930s US currency (worth about $1770 today)
- Two ancient books, each inscribed with a different symbol: one an angular line that crosses over itself, the other suggesting three tentacles or arms reaching from a central circle.
Job History:
Private Investigator (1930-present)
- Solved missing persons cases.
- Tracked suspects and liased with witnesses.
- Was hardboiled and noir.
- Kept up with the rent (mostly).
- Partnered with Peter "Parker" Yang (30 years too early for that to be a Spider-Man reference), recently deceased.
Dad (1925-1929)
- don't.
Pianist and composer (1924-1929)
- Wrote a few pieces for piano, sold one or two
- Played a bunch in various venues
- Knew a lot about pianos
- Didn't know shit about violins
Suppressions:
First and foremost, he keeps the story behind his daughter's death buried deep deep down. Not because he's trying to avoid responsibility, but because he knows he's responsible for it, and would do nothing but obsess over it if he let himself. He loved his daughter incredibly fiercely, and her death broke him so hard that he abandoned his passion/career and left the country. He lashes out if asked about it one too many times.
Secondly, he only lets it out when pushed, but there's an angry and violent and highly vindictive sonofabitch lurking under this amiable suit-and-tie surface. He wants to be someone who shows compassion and humanity and understanding. He has been known to fail at all of these things impressively and spectacularly.
Thirdly, Arthur has been, uhhh, let's be nice and broad and say responsible in some way for a number of deaths in the last month and a half (with a break in the middle to be in a coma). He believed for a while that he killed his best friend and business partner in a fugue state, and like, it still sounds like Arthur's hands were used to do the murder, so you'd better believe that's pushed down fucking deep. What else? He's killed two people in self-defence. He ended someone's whole career with his car while trying to escape an attacker. And he's killed an old woman in a cave in cold blood. Oh, and that's not even counting the people he didn't kill but who died as a result of encountering him, or as a result of his looking for them. Oh! And the past loss of his parents, then wife, then daughter turn all of this into a fun pattern of death dogging his heels, picking everybody off but him. He's coping hard with his guilt over all of this by avoiding the subject, convincing himself it was justified, or a tasty combination of both.
Fourthly, he's been suppressing his fears and frustrations about suddenly going blind, in favour of trying to solve the problem (i.e. yeet the thing that's stolen his eyes back out of him). But they still come out in some moments and threaten to overwhelm him. When he's not moving constantly forward, he's going to have to work much harder not to chew on those feelings. (Being away from John and finding his eyes still don’t work is going to result in some uhhh mental gymnastics.)
Fifthly, he has more than enough information -- John's book being sought by the cult, his strange response to the name, the circumstances of the King entering our world, and more -- to at least theorise that John might be the King in Yellow. But his analytical mind won't even consider putting the pieces together, and the reasons are clear from a distance. Arthur is bound to this guy, and relies on him for sight; but more than that, with Parker's death he's alone in the world again. He wants John to be someone he can trust. Unconsciously, he's taken the clues that suggest he absolutely can not and should not trust John, and put them far away from each other so that their picture doesn't come together.
Greatest Fear: His immediate greatest fear is getting his body taken over entirely by John, and either getting caged in a corner of his own mind, or whiffing out of existence -- or, God forbid, getting popped out into the Dark World. But that's a pretty recent situation: on a longer scale, his greatest fear is losing people, having nobody in whom to trust.
Greatest Desire: He would've said it was freedom or independence or survival or something, but as it turns out, it's having a chance to change the past and do better as a father.
Greatest Regret: Letting his infant daughter die. He focused on working instead of on watching her, got wrapped up in it, and she very preventably drowned. He still has nightmares about it.
Sample: Here in the TDM
Canon Update
Character Name: Arthur Lester
Canon: Malevolent
New Canon Point: The final seconds of Coda (between parts 20 and 21)
Have their suppressions, fears, desires, or regrets changed? How so?: He's no longer suppressing the idea that John might be the King: that's been 100% out in the open and confirmed for a while now. He's now quietly convinced that he's been corrupted as a person, that the King 'won' in destroying him in some important way, and he goes back and forth between (usually) trying to repress this corruption and (in his worst moments) leaning into it.