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app for tlv!
User Name/Nick: Kates
User DW: kates @ dw
E-mail: allikateor@gmail.com
Other Characters: Cornelius Hickey
Character Name: Dorian Gray
Series: The Confessions of Dorian Gray
Age: 150+ (there's a few years in the middle that he's not entirely sure how to count)
From When?: early 2020, post "Isolation."
Inmate/Warden: Warden. Dorian's an ass. He's got a terrible personality and can be hard to get along with. But he's got 150ish years of experience that can help him roll with whatever bullshit is thrown his way. He also cares, a lot more than he wants to admit. Whenever there's a supernatural whatever that's in danger of hurting people, he tends to find out what it is and tries to stop it (de-activating a golem that's rampaging through NYC, burning a deck of cursed tarot cards, trapping a murderous mist). Finally, he knows the feeling of wanting to better yourself. Dorian's got his own deep self-loathing issues and has made a few stabs at redemption himself. Though he won't actually admit it, he'll want to help any inmate who's there and who wants to get better—because who knows, maybe that will help him get better too.
Item: An iPhone, circa 2020
Abilities/Powers: Fair warning: this section is dumb. 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, being shot, defenestration, mustard gas, drowning, car accidents, torture, blood loss, falls from a great height, being mauled by a werewolf, 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. If there is continuous injury applied (ex: he's set on fire), then the wounds continue until the injury is stopped.
So. Let's talk nerfs. Dorian's healing factor is very much 'depending on the writer.' Sometimes when he dies, he pops right back up but other times, it can take multiple hours. For the purposes of the game, I'm going to say the longer/more intense the 'death', the longer it takes him to heal (ex: if he gets shot in the chest, he'll pop back up again pretty quickly; if he gets caught in a house fire and dies slowly of smoke inhalation, it'll take him a bit longer). There was one episode where his appendix kept growing after it was removed from his body (that's stupid, I know) but as it's kind of vague whether that's a Dorian thing or the fact that the appendix was in a cursed hospital, I'm perfectly fine saying that any organs/limbs removed from Dorian do not carry his healing factor (ex: chop off a finger, he'll regrow that finger, but you now have a normal, non-healing, Dorian finger).
Personality: CW: SUICIDE, DEMONIC POSSESSION, MURDER
Dorian is an absolute narcissist. He believes himself to be beautiful, to be enthralling, and to be the most interesting person in the room. However, this is super easy to exploit: Dorian 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.
This also means that he makes so many damn Picture of Dorian Gray jokes. Good job buddy.
Side note, I don't think his narcissism will get in the way of the warden/inmate pairings. While Dorian does think of himself a lot, he'll also do the hard thing and inconvenience himself if it means helping out someone he loves. For example, Dorian murders his sister when she asks, suffers through a mustard gas attack for his captain in WWI, and tries to break Toby's heart to save both of their lives as part of a spell. Once he's made that connection with someone, he'll do anything to keep them alive and safe, even if it means he gets drastically fucked up in the process. He's just got to make that connection in the first place.
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.
Dorian is very self-assured. Even when he's hiding parts of his personality, using a fake name, or crafting a fake backstory for himself, he knows who he is and doesn't bother to hide it. He's very secure in his own personality, likes, and dislikes. This can occasionally come across as him being a bit over-bearing or odd to others. After all, Dorian's secure enough in what he wants that he flirts with and kisses his commanding officer in World War 1, only when he's certain said commanding officer likes him back. He's perfectly happy to buck convention if needed and occasionally comes off as an uncaring, unthinking ass. But he's equally fine backing off and apologizing should the situation call for it (and should he like the person he needs to apologize to—that's the big thing right there. Dorian can be a horrid bitch to people he doesn't like.)
His self-assuredness means that 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'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, occasionally 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.
That being said: though Dorian knows who he is and doesn't bother to hide it, that also means he knows all the negative aspects of himself. 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 knows he's his own worst enemy. 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. This has only gotten worse now that he has his soul back. Taking his soul back also gave Dorian a new light on how he behaved, essentially forcing him to look at all of his past actions again, through a new lens. Now that he's able to see his past actions through a different lens, he hates himself more than ever.
Despite his self-loathing, he has made attempts to pull himself out of it. Dorian isn't suicidal: he only killed himself because it would save the soul of someone he knew as a child. And he did attempt to seek out mental health help when he regained his soul (and probably would have gotten it if Lucifer didn't decide that was the perfect time to fuck with him). And if he has someone to help temper his bad impulses, that will help pull him out of his pit. Dorian's had various people over the years to help rein those intrusive thoughts in, most notably his former boyfriend Tobias Matthews. It's when he's alone for too long that the pity party really kicks into high gear.
Barge Reactions: Yeah, he wouldn't be worried. Dorian has over 100 years of experience with the strange and unusual. If anything, he'll be more interested. Dorian adores people, places, etc. he finds interesting, and the concept of a multiversal prison barge is certainly interesting enough, before you take into account it's interesting inhabitants.
Deal: To destroy the body of Tobias Matthews. Dorian's not sure if the Admiral can actually murder Lucifer himself—and he doesn't know if he wants that to even happen in the first place, as it's a deal with the devil that gives him his immortality. But if the body of Tobias Matthews is destroyed, then 1. at least the devil won't have a body to walk around Earth with and 2. at least that body won't be Dorian's dead boyfriend.
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 until season 3, 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 (Toby) 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. Newly revived, Dorian gets the attention of the Lowell Foundation, an organization designed to explore the supernatural. It's in one of these explorations that Dorian deals with some magic tarot cards that promise to grant him his heart's desire: Tobias Matthews, alive and well. It works, and the vampire shows up on Dorian's doorstep. Drama naturally ensues. Dorian ends up not working for the Lowell Foundation when it's revealed that surprise, Victoria tries to kill him. She tries to do it by bringing Dorian's portrait to life due to a mystical object (a stolen bloodstone) and a strong emotion (Dorian and Toby's love for each other). Dorian's now-sentient portrait kills Victoria and Dorian manages to dispatch it by temporarily disrupting the bond between him and Toby, claiming that he never loved him.
Obviously that doesn't entirely stick because fast-forward a year or so and Dorian and Toby are living together. Dorian's even given Toby a key to his attic, where his portrait lives! They decide to go out for Christmas and book a stay at the Hotel Brigadoon. Which surprise, it's haunted. The Hotel Brigadoon only appears on Earth for one day out of the year. The rest of the time, it (and it's inhabitants) are trapped somewhere else. In trying to discover the secrets of the Brigadoon, Dorian and Toby learn that the hotel is a prison designed to hold Lucifer, the devil himself. Lucifer can free Dorian and Toby from the prison, but the only way to do that is for Dorian to take his soul back. Dorian agrees. He and Toby leave the hotel, return to Dorian's house...and then Dorian very quickly learns that he absolutely accidentally fucked everything up.
You see, in CODG world, vampires don't have souls. When Toby died, he was supposed to stay dead. It was only Dorian's soul that brought him back to life and what was keeping Toby up and walking at the time. When Dorian agreed to take his soul back, that left Toby's body an empty husk. Lucifer slipped into Toby's body in order to escape the confines of the Hotel Brigadoon and walk free on Earth.
So congrats, Dorian! You accidentally freed the devil from his eternal prison! Dorian's reward for this is that he gets a huge rush of emotion and a whole new recontextualized set of memories thanks to his soul returning followed immediately by Lucifer gloating, choking out Dorian, stealing his portrait, and then leaving Dorian for dead. The devil then proceeds to dick with Dorian for a while, most notably by trying to gaslight Dorian by trapping him in a mental hospital and playing on Dorian's loneliness by trapping him in a train full of corpses. It's been a bit of a rough time for Dorian. Thank God for this fun new distraction.
Sample Journal Entry: [ Dorian's using video: of course he is. Why would he use something that doesn't let people see his face? The video clicks on to him, in his room, sitting in an armchair—though he's sitting in a way where his legs are draped over the chair's arms aka a way that people probably shouldn't be sitting in an armchair. ]
Unsurprisingly, I'm a connoisseur of literature. But one of my favorite things to do is listen to other people talk about books. Not because I care about their opinions—well, there are a few people who's opinions I truly value, I'll give you all that much. But because it's delightful when people don't see the whole picture.
Take Lord of the Flies, for example. [ Dorian puts on a lofty sort of accent, indulging in a little bit of pretentiousness as he quotes, ] 'A seminal study on the inherent barbarity of the human condition' [ the lofty accent drops as he returns to his normal voice ] or a treatise about how English schoolboys are all horrible little shits—guilty as charged, by the way. And then there's Moby Dick. Classic tale of revenge and the dangers of obsession, I'll give it that. But I'd also say that it's a case study on how if you keep men cooped up on a ship for too long, they're all danger of going a little off. Swap the whaling ship out for a submarine or a prison barge and you'll have the exact same result in more or less the same time.
[ Dorian gives the camera a smile that is purely 'I am being a shit for the sake of being a shit and stirring the pot because it's real fun to do.' ]
By the way, does anyone know when our next port is? I'm simply curious.
Sample RP: TDM thread with a bonus if the first isn't long enough.
Special Notes: There are a few audio dramas featuring Dorian that are dubiously canon—crossovers, free episode downloads, etc. I have decided that fuck it, everything's canon, as none of the dates between Confessions and Picture match up to begin with, we're already playing far too fast and loose with the timeline. Also, I am well aware that his healing factor is aggressively stupid and am happy to nerf it more if needed. Also also, even though Lucifer is currently in possession of it back home, in-game Dorian will be arriving with his portrait.
User DW: kates @ dw
E-mail: allikateor@gmail.com
Other Characters: Cornelius Hickey
Character Name: Dorian Gray
Series: The Confessions of Dorian Gray
Age: 150+ (there's a few years in the middle that he's not entirely sure how to count)
From When?: early 2020, post "Isolation."
Inmate/Warden: Warden. Dorian's an ass. He's got a terrible personality and can be hard to get along with. But he's got 150ish years of experience that can help him roll with whatever bullshit is thrown his way. He also cares, a lot more than he wants to admit. Whenever there's a supernatural whatever that's in danger of hurting people, he tends to find out what it is and tries to stop it (de-activating a golem that's rampaging through NYC, burning a deck of cursed tarot cards, trapping a murderous mist). Finally, he knows the feeling of wanting to better yourself. Dorian's got his own deep self-loathing issues and has made a few stabs at redemption himself. Though he won't actually admit it, he'll want to help any inmate who's there and who wants to get better—because who knows, maybe that will help him get better too.
Item: An iPhone, circa 2020
Abilities/Powers: Fair warning: this section is dumb. 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, being shot, defenestration, mustard gas, drowning, car accidents, torture, blood loss, falls from a great height, being mauled by a werewolf, 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. If there is continuous injury applied (ex: he's set on fire), then the wounds continue until the injury is stopped.
So. Let's talk nerfs. Dorian's healing factor is very much 'depending on the writer.' Sometimes when he dies, he pops right back up but other times, it can take multiple hours. For the purposes of the game, I'm going to say the longer/more intense the 'death', the longer it takes him to heal (ex: if he gets shot in the chest, he'll pop back up again pretty quickly; if he gets caught in a house fire and dies slowly of smoke inhalation, it'll take him a bit longer). There was one episode where his appendix kept growing after it was removed from his body (that's stupid, I know) but as it's kind of vague whether that's a Dorian thing or the fact that the appendix was in a cursed hospital, I'm perfectly fine saying that any organs/limbs removed from Dorian do not carry his healing factor (ex: chop off a finger, he'll regrow that finger, but you now have a normal, non-healing, Dorian finger).
Personality: CW: SUICIDE, DEMONIC POSSESSION, MURDER
Dorian is an absolute narcissist. He believes himself to be beautiful, to be enthralling, and to be the most interesting person in the room. However, this is super easy to exploit: Dorian 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.
This also means that he makes so many damn Picture of Dorian Gray jokes. Good job buddy.
Side note, I don't think his narcissism will get in the way of the warden/inmate pairings. While Dorian does think of himself a lot, he'll also do the hard thing and inconvenience himself if it means helping out someone he loves. For example, Dorian murders his sister when she asks, suffers through a mustard gas attack for his captain in WWI, and tries to break Toby's heart to save both of their lives as part of a spell. Once he's made that connection with someone, he'll do anything to keep them alive and safe, even if it means he gets drastically fucked up in the process. He's just got to make that connection in the first place.
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.
Dorian is very self-assured. Even when he's hiding parts of his personality, using a fake name, or crafting a fake backstory for himself, he knows who he is and doesn't bother to hide it. He's very secure in his own personality, likes, and dislikes. This can occasionally come across as him being a bit over-bearing or odd to others. After all, Dorian's secure enough in what he wants that he flirts with and kisses his commanding officer in World War 1, only when he's certain said commanding officer likes him back. He's perfectly happy to buck convention if needed and occasionally comes off as an uncaring, unthinking ass. But he's equally fine backing off and apologizing should the situation call for it (and should he like the person he needs to apologize to—that's the big thing right there. Dorian can be a horrid bitch to people he doesn't like.)
His self-assuredness means that 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'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, occasionally 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.
That being said: though Dorian knows who he is and doesn't bother to hide it, that also means he knows all the negative aspects of himself. 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 knows he's his own worst enemy. 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. This has only gotten worse now that he has his soul back. Taking his soul back also gave Dorian a new light on how he behaved, essentially forcing him to look at all of his past actions again, through a new lens. Now that he's able to see his past actions through a different lens, he hates himself more than ever.
Despite his self-loathing, he has made attempts to pull himself out of it. Dorian isn't suicidal: he only killed himself because it would save the soul of someone he knew as a child. And he did attempt to seek out mental health help when he regained his soul (and probably would have gotten it if Lucifer didn't decide that was the perfect time to fuck with him). And if he has someone to help temper his bad impulses, that will help pull him out of his pit. Dorian's had various people over the years to help rein those intrusive thoughts in, most notably his former boyfriend Tobias Matthews. It's when he's alone for too long that the pity party really kicks into high gear.
Barge Reactions: Yeah, he wouldn't be worried. Dorian has over 100 years of experience with the strange and unusual. If anything, he'll be more interested. Dorian adores people, places, etc. he finds interesting, and the concept of a multiversal prison barge is certainly interesting enough, before you take into account it's interesting inhabitants.
Deal: To destroy the body of Tobias Matthews. Dorian's not sure if the Admiral can actually murder Lucifer himself—and he doesn't know if he wants that to even happen in the first place, as it's a deal with the devil that gives him his immortality. But if the body of Tobias Matthews is destroyed, then 1. at least the devil won't have a body to walk around Earth with and 2. at least that body won't be Dorian's dead boyfriend.
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 until season 3, 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 (Toby) 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. Newly revived, Dorian gets the attention of the Lowell Foundation, an organization designed to explore the supernatural. It's in one of these explorations that Dorian deals with some magic tarot cards that promise to grant him his heart's desire: Tobias Matthews, alive and well. It works, and the vampire shows up on Dorian's doorstep. Drama naturally ensues. Dorian ends up not working for the Lowell Foundation when it's revealed that surprise, Victoria tries to kill him. She tries to do it by bringing Dorian's portrait to life due to a mystical object (a stolen bloodstone) and a strong emotion (Dorian and Toby's love for each other). Dorian's now-sentient portrait kills Victoria and Dorian manages to dispatch it by temporarily disrupting the bond between him and Toby, claiming that he never loved him.
Obviously that doesn't entirely stick because fast-forward a year or so and Dorian and Toby are living together. Dorian's even given Toby a key to his attic, where his portrait lives! They decide to go out for Christmas and book a stay at the Hotel Brigadoon. Which surprise, it's haunted. The Hotel Brigadoon only appears on Earth for one day out of the year. The rest of the time, it (and it's inhabitants) are trapped somewhere else. In trying to discover the secrets of the Brigadoon, Dorian and Toby learn that the hotel is a prison designed to hold Lucifer, the devil himself. Lucifer can free Dorian and Toby from the prison, but the only way to do that is for Dorian to take his soul back. Dorian agrees. He and Toby leave the hotel, return to Dorian's house...and then Dorian very quickly learns that he absolutely accidentally fucked everything up.
You see, in CODG world, vampires don't have souls. When Toby died, he was supposed to stay dead. It was only Dorian's soul that brought him back to life and what was keeping Toby up and walking at the time. When Dorian agreed to take his soul back, that left Toby's body an empty husk. Lucifer slipped into Toby's body in order to escape the confines of the Hotel Brigadoon and walk free on Earth.
So congrats, Dorian! You accidentally freed the devil from his eternal prison! Dorian's reward for this is that he gets a huge rush of emotion and a whole new recontextualized set of memories thanks to his soul returning followed immediately by Lucifer gloating, choking out Dorian, stealing his portrait, and then leaving Dorian for dead. The devil then proceeds to dick with Dorian for a while, most notably by trying to gaslight Dorian by trapping him in a mental hospital and playing on Dorian's loneliness by trapping him in a train full of corpses. It's been a bit of a rough time for Dorian. Thank God for this fun new distraction.
Sample Journal Entry: [ Dorian's using video: of course he is. Why would he use something that doesn't let people see his face? The video clicks on to him, in his room, sitting in an armchair—though he's sitting in a way where his legs are draped over the chair's arms aka a way that people probably shouldn't be sitting in an armchair. ]
Unsurprisingly, I'm a connoisseur of literature. But one of my favorite things to do is listen to other people talk about books. Not because I care about their opinions—well, there are a few people who's opinions I truly value, I'll give you all that much. But because it's delightful when people don't see the whole picture.
Take Lord of the Flies, for example. [ Dorian puts on a lofty sort of accent, indulging in a little bit of pretentiousness as he quotes, ] 'A seminal study on the inherent barbarity of the human condition' [ the lofty accent drops as he returns to his normal voice ] or a treatise about how English schoolboys are all horrible little shits—guilty as charged, by the way. And then there's Moby Dick. Classic tale of revenge and the dangers of obsession, I'll give it that. But I'd also say that it's a case study on how if you keep men cooped up on a ship for too long, they're all danger of going a little off. Swap the whaling ship out for a submarine or a prison barge and you'll have the exact same result in more or less the same time.
[ Dorian gives the camera a smile that is purely 'I am being a shit for the sake of being a shit and stirring the pot because it's real fun to do.' ]
By the way, does anyone know when our next port is? I'm simply curious.
Sample RP: TDM thread with a bonus if the first isn't long enough.
Special Notes: There are a few audio dramas featuring Dorian that are dubiously canon—crossovers, free episode downloads, etc. I have decided that fuck it, everything's canon, as none of the dates between Confessions and Picture match up to begin with, we're already playing far too fast and loose with the timeline. Also, I am well aware that his healing factor is aggressively stupid and am happy to nerf it more if needed. Also also, even though Lucifer is currently in possession of it back home, in-game Dorian will be arriving with his portrait.