duplicity app

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Name: Kates Age: 27 Contact: allikateor @ plurk Timezone: CST Other Character(s): n/a

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Name: Dorian Gray Door: right Canon: The Confessions of Dorian Gray Canon Point: post series 3, episode 4, "Echoes" Age: over 150 years old, looks to be in his early 20s Appearance: pretty much Alexander Vlahos. Dorian's got grayish blue eyes and curly black hair. He's pale and skinny, looking like he hasn't done a day of manual labor in his life. He's got a British accent. A relatively cushy childhood plus getting immortality in his early 20s means that Dorian doesn't really have the sort of scars that one would get in their lives. History: Unsurprisingly, there isn't a wiki for this obscureass audio drama series. So, time for me to give a brief canon summary. This is the Dorian Gray from Oscar Wilde's book The Picture of Dorian Gray, but with an added 'what if he didn't die in the last chapter and instead starred in multiple half hour radio dramas.' One day, in his twenties, Dorian made an idle wish: that he would never age or grow old and a portrait of himself would take on any traces of age instead. Something (it's totally Satan) heard him and granted his wish, at the expense of Dorian's soul. However, the portrait didn't just take on traces of age: it took on wounds, burns, scars, every trace of sin. The portrait effectively rendered Dorian immortal. Any wound, ranging from a tiny scratch to Dorian literally getting his heart ripped out, got transferred to the portrait. The only way to kill or maim Dorian was to damage the portrait itself. His early life follows the plot of Picture of Dorian Gray. Dorian met a young woman (Sibyl Vane) who committed suicide when he spurned her affections. He killed one of his closest friends (Basil Hallward) and blackmailed a former lover (Alan Campbell) to dispose of the body. He sunk further and further into depravity as the years went on. But while Oscar Wilde killed off Dorian at the end of Picture, this Dorian survived. The next hundred or so years followed a simple pattern: Dorian moved around a lot, went from place to place, picking up alias to alias, inevitably running into supernatural nonsense along the way. For some reason, the supernatural is drawn to Dorian like a magnet. He's encountered banshees, demons, spirits, werewolves, and other sort of supernatural nasties (this canon doesn't have much overarching plot, okay). He's also met so many interesting people, both fictional and real world: Dorothy Parker, Sherlock Holmes, Edward Hyde, and Oscar Wilde himself. Dorian's life continues in this monster of the week sort of format until the 1980s. Then, he meets one of the most important people of Dorian's life: Tobias Matthews, a vampire who's practically Dorian's soulmate. The two hit it off right away. However, Toby sinks into a depression and effectively commits suicide via sunlight, with Dorian watching. This plunges Dorian into a decade long depression, which only gets lifted via more portrait shenanigans and Dorian getting to the closest he's died in decades. The post 2000s Dorian is a lot more subdued and contemplative than his younger self. This Dorian is almost hyper-focused on his sins, his failings, and what a garbage person he is. It gets to the point that in 2012, Dorian himself effectively commits suicide. He stabs his portrait to save the soul of his former governess. This traps Dorian's consciousness in the portrait, leaving him alone with all of his faults. ...except he doesn't really stay dead. While trapped in the portrait, he makes a deal with someone (it's heavily implied to be Satan) for an escape route out. That escape route is murder. Dorian murders three trespassers in his house to gain back his voice, body, and youth. With his new lease on life, he's not as depressed as before, though he is more hyper-aware of his flaws and that self-loathing's kicking up a notch. He's getting pulled to Duplicity about a month or so after that, as a newly revived Dorian deals with 2014, a serial killing stalker, and the fact that he's attracted the attention of the Lowell Foundation, an organization (ostensibly) designed to explore the supernatural. Personality: + ADAPTIVE: The average Confessions of Dorian Gray episode can be summed up as 'Dorian discovers a fun new aspect of the supernatural and tries to survive it attempting to murder him.' Because he's been through so much supernatural nonsense, he's quick to believe someone's claims and quick to figure out how best to survive said supernatural nonsense. He's a survivor, through and through. Dorian is quick thinking and adaptive, changing to fit different situations. While he might be beholden to a single outcome, he's never beholden to a single way of getting there. If something doesn't work, he's perfectly fine ditching that idea to try something else. Even without taking his immortality into account, he's good at rolling with the punches and making the most out of a terrible situation. + CHARMING: Dorian's amazingly good at hiding the garbage fire that is his personality. Part of this is because he's a fairly good liar. But part of this is because he's naturally charming. Dorian's a social butterfly who knows how to handle most situations. He's got experience dealing with people of all sorts of life and, while he can be a little bit superficial, he can push past that and hide his true feelings if needed to get what he wants. He's very good at flattery,sweet-talking, and compliments: Dorian appreciates a quick turn of phrase and can master his way through most conversations. And overall, Dorian's very good at projecting the air of a likable dude...until the scales drop from people's eyes because Dorian inevitably does something a bit awful. - CRUEL: Dorian can be cruel, spiteful, and downright awful. Unless he needs to be charming or kiss ass, he tends to be absolutely horrible to 'uninteresting' or 'dull' people. Dorian's a complete ass to a security guard attempting to befriend him and is routinely condescending to police officers. The only time he's relatively decent to the 'uninteresting' is when they have something he wants, like information or status. And even then, that's fleeting. He doesn't really care about dumping people like yesterday's news if they don't interest him. He goes from casual fling to casual fling, caring little about those he left behind. He doesn't shy away from manipulation, lying, or (on rare occasions) outright murder in order to get what he wants. - SELF-LOATHING: When you've got all your flaws and sins writ large on a canvas picture of yourself, you become pretty aware of how terrible a person you are. Dorian is way more harsh on himself than other people are on him. He's far more likely to focus on his own flaws and how much of an awful person he is in comparison to others. Despite the fact that Dorian plays up his attractiveness and confidence outside, inwardly he knows that he's an absolutely terrible human being and hyper-fixates on his flaws and all the wrong things he's done. He makes a few attempts to be a decent person every now and then, usually if it reflects someone he cares about. But for the most part, Dorian's content to just wallow in his flaws and accept the fact that he's a monster. It gets to the point that later in canon, his portrait is made sentient (long story) and Dorian knows it's coming after him first: his portrait wants to kill him because he hates himself that much. - HEDONISM: Dorian does what he wants, damn the consequences and damn what people think. This manifests in sooo many ways, such as Dorian wanting to look his best and taking whatever sort of drugs, sex, and alcohol he can get. He doesn't mind sinking himself into sin and debauchery as 1: he likes it and 2: for most of his life, his portrait took on his sins. He's spent most of his life reliant on his immortality, so he's perfectly fine doing dangerous things just for the thrill of it. He puts a lot of focus on the pleasures of life, taking physical pleasure whenever he can, at the expense of other people and deeper emotional relationships. This hedonism also manifests in an appreciation of beauty. Dorian focuses on the beauty in things and wants to surround himself with it: beautiful clothes, beautiful art, beautiful people, etc. - SELF-ABSORBED. Dorian is an absolute narcissist. He believes himself to be beautiful, to be enthralling, and to be the most interesting person in the room. In relationships, Dorian always comes first. Often he'll do something that's good for himself but not take into account at ALL the feelings of others in the room. This ties into his cruelty and callous aspects of his personality: he'll abandon someone just because they don't interest him anymore. Dorian believes he's inevitably the most interesting person in the room and is routinely annoyed whenever people treat him as nothing special or forget his existence. It gets to the point where Dorian actively seeks out people who deem him boring or not interesting (his eventual boyfriend Toby) to try and prove them wrong. Sometimes, Dorian's self-absorbed and focused on himself and his own wants to the point of stupidity. Why yes, it's a perfectly smart idea to go show up at the metaphorical doorstep of your ex who watched you die and thinks you're dead just to talk to him and tell him you miss him, what can possibly go wrong. Even after making a mistake, Dorian still focuses on himself and tries to change things so that he gets what he wants. On a lighter self-absorbed note, this asshole makes so many Picture of Dorian Gray jokes about himself. He's got a copy of the book The Picture of Dorian Gray (which in this universe, Oscar Wilde published as fiction), when he's in a band it's called Dorian Gray and the Hedonists, he regularly quotes Oscar Wilde at people, he convinces one of his flings to read him a passage from Picture of Dorian Gray, if there is some way that Dorian can reference Picture, Oscar Wilde, or his legacy in some way/shape/form, he's straight up going to. Powers and Abilities: ABSOLUTELY BONKERS IMMORTALITY: Dorian has some absolute bonkers immortality. The big condition is that said bonkers immortality is tied to a portrait of himself. Every wound that Dorian takes heals up from himself and is transferred onto his portrait. Likewise, any trace of age or 'sin' is transferred to the portrait as well. Dorian's life and physical appearance is tied directly to his portrait. If the portrait were to be branded, then a brand would show up on Dorian's skin. If the portrait were to be destroyed, then it would kill Dorian. When the portrait is destroyed, it reverts back to it's pre-cursed self and all traces of age, sin, wounds, etc. are transferred onto Dorian (which basically means that if someone stabs the portrait, they'll be left with a remarkably pretty picture of Dorian and the world's worst corpse.) Said bonkers immortality also comes with a pretty sweet healing factor. Dorian has a stupidly over-powered healing factor because CODG is an audio drama and they can take advantage of things like that. In canon, he's healed from stab wounds, defenestration, mustard gas, drowning, car accidents, torture, blood loss, electrocution, being set on fire a LOT, and that one time his literal heart got ripped out of his chest. When he's hurt or when he dies, Dorian heals up seconds later. He still feels pain from injuries, they just cannot kill him. SOULLESS: Dorian Gray has no soul. He sold it in exchange for eternal youth. This doesn't really have any effect on his day to day life, but someone who can sense souls or anything like that would easily be able to see it's absence. Inventory: The clothes on his back, his portrait, a hilariously 2014 cellphone. Samples: sample 1 & sample 2