app for fasti

[brushoff]

PLAYER INFORMATION

Player Name: Kates
Are you 18+?: yup!
Preferred Contact: plurk @ allikateor
Current Characters: none

CHARACTER INFORMATION

Character Name: Dorian Gray
Canon: The Confessions of Dorian Gray
Canonpoint: post series 3, episode 4, "Echoes"
Character 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. Interestingly enough, Dorian doesn't have many scars. 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.

also, obvs beauty is subjective, but a lot of people find Dorian really really really ridiculously good looking.

Background/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 'what if he didn't die in the last chapter and instead starred in multiple half hour radio dramas' instead. 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 probably 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.

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 of an 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 soul 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 (again, it's probably 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 Rome 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.

Strengths:
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.' Dorian is quick thinking and adaptive, changing well to fit different situations. While he's 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. 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. Alright, bodyswapping is a thing, what can I do about it. He's a survivor, through and through.

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 likeable dude...until the scales drop from people's eyes because Dorian inevitably does something a bit awful.

DETERMINED: this is a nice way of saying Dorian's stubborn as shit. When Dorian wants something, he won't stop until he gets it. Whether this means continuing to badger someone, possibly bending the law a little, doing things of dubious legality, or outright murder, Dorian is bound and determined to get what he wants and won't give up until it happens. Thankfully, sometimes what he wants is to stop a rampaging monster or figure out who a serial killer is. Dorian can be too inquisitive for his own good, but due to that determination, he won't leave something half-finished or not investigated. This is partly due to his immortality: since he can't die, Dorian doesn't feel any qualms about pushing forward and keeping going no matter what. But even when he's put in situations without his healing factor or immortality, Dorian is persistently stubborn to achieve his goals. He'll even go above and beyond the call of duty some times: adding in research to find out who a specific person is, asking around and getting gossip about a certain thing, and so on.

Weaknesses:
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's an alcoholic drug-addict who goes from casual fling to casual fling, caring nothing 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. Any attempts at moralizing or trying to get Dorian to see 'the error of his ways', he tries to ignore them, letting them roll off like water on a duck's back. 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.

Fatal Flaw: 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. He assume everyone would be interested in him in some way or another: the biggest way to get Dorian Gray to pay attention to you is dismiss him or ignore him. 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.

Driving Force: INFLUENCE & ATTENTION. A lot of his major life changes are made so that people would pay attention to him, that he'd meet the right people, that he'd get to a better position in life, and so on and so forth. Dorian's a social butterfly who adores attention of all kinds, whether positive or negative. If there's a party, he's there and he's probably trying to find a way to weasel himself into as many conversations as possible. 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.

Patron: BACCHUS. Dorian Gray is a hedonistic trainwreck. He has done an astonishing amount of drugs: opium and cocaine are the big ones, but he's probably done anything he can get his hands on. Dorian enjoys alcohol, to the point of illness. Dorian also likes sex, with people of all genders (they just have to be attractive). He's had a few attempts at monogamy but for the most part, Dorian enjoys sleeping around. He's one for casual flings, cozying up to people to have sex with them and ditching them once they get boring. Aside from that, Dorian's got enough self-confidence and ego for daaaaays. He's occasionally provocative for the sake of being provocative, relying entirely on his charm and his looks to help mitigate any offense someone might take.

Hedonism aside, Dorian also fits the secretive requirement. Not many people know the real Dorian, something which will inevitably still be in play in Fasti (you must be level 10 to unlock his tragic backstory). Because of his immortality, he constantly hides behind aliases, jobs, and cover stories. He's not Dorian Gray, soulless immortal, he's a banker, the lead singer in a band, a soldier. While most of the people Dorian's shared his adventures with end up knowing there's something odd about Dorian, very few people learn of the extent of the oddness and just what a person he truly is. This vaguely ties into the theater aspect. Dorian's always acting, pretending that he's someone different or someone else just so people don't know what a completely awful person he really is (and also so they don't know the immortality). Plus, Dorian just likes the theater in general.

GAME INFORMATION

Setting Suitability: Dorian's used to so much bullshit and supernatural nonsense that getting yoinked into ancient Rome to fight a war for the gods would be just another Tuesday. Getting thrown into a strange situation and expecting to adapt to it is business as usual. The darker themes won't bother him too much as, funnily enough, Dorian has fought in a war before: World War I. And, until circumstances forced him to desert, he was a good soldier and there wasn't any indication given that he didn't follow orders (admittedly, it helps that his commanding officer was really hot.) If anything, the biggest hurdle that Dorian will have to get over is the lack of things like 'electricity' and 'plumbing' and 'the ability to take hot showers whenever he wants.'

The power nerf excites me because it'll be interesting to play Dorian without his immortality + him learning his other god powers instead. As for how he'll help in the war, homeboy can't fight worth a shit, but his flattery and talking things up talents would put him squarely in Team Diplomacy should the situation arise. Alternatively, everybody have morale boosted as they watch Useless No Muscle get his ass handed to him over and over again.



Sample: link to his tdm thread here.

as a note, I have an opt-out post for general Dorian cr/some aspects of his backstory. Individual episodes contain various triggers like body horror, dubious consent, and suicide and I don't want to accidentally bring up something that someone finds uncomfortable (because again, holy obscure canon batman, it's not like you can easily google plot synopses of each episode)