(no subject)
[PLAYER INFO]
NAME: Noodles
AGE: 20+
JOURNAL: thanoodles
RETURNING: herturn and spoilation
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[CHARACTER INFO]
CHARACTER NAME: Dexter Morgan.
FANDOM: Dexter (TV series)
CHRONOLOGY: season 1, episode 9 (Father Knows Best).
CLASS: A very ambiguous hero! He works through villainous ways to rid the world of murderers that get away with it. When a murderer escapes the justice system, he steps in to do the job. TV Tropes (kill me now) describes him as a Heroic Sociopath, bless that website.
SUPERHERO NAME: He uses an alias to refer to a separate self: 'The Dark Passenger'.
ALTER EGO: Dexter Morgan, forensic blood spatter analyst.
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BACKGROUND:
from the beginning;
▌ Her name was Laura Moser, a police informant involved in the drug trade; his was Joseph Driscoll, a drugged criminal. Both were parents to Dexter and (presumably) Brian Moser. As a result of her involvement with drug dealers, Laura was murdered with a chainsaw in front of her children inside a cargo container, where they were locked up and remained for the following days until the police found them lying on a pool of their massacred mother's blood. Dexter was immediately taken away and taken in by Harry Morgan, a police detective who had had an affair with Laura Moser, while Brian was considered to have had his psyche irreversibly damaged. Dexter would not grow up to keep any of these memories and his foster father would do everything within his power to make sure they would not resurface, but they would have an inevitable and everlasting effect on him.
growing up;
▌ Adoptive son to the late Harry and Doris Morgan and foster brother to Debra Morgan, Dexter was brought in to their family when he was only three years old, told that his biological parents had died in a car accident.
Dexter grew up in an average household, without memories prior to being their foster child. It soon became obvious to Harry that his attempts to fully repress what Dexter had been through in his early life had a lasting effect when he noticed signs in Dexter's behavior. The disappearance of a neighbor's dog prompted a private and serious conversation with a very young Dexter, in which he confessed to having killed and buried it (along with many others) and to having urges to hurt human beings.
From that point on Harry, a well-respected and idealistic police officer, began to teach Dexter how to control and channel his impulses. Harry's frustration with how many criminals escaped the justice system brought him to tell Dexter to channel his urges towards them. He taught him how to defend himself, took him on hunting trips and gave him the most valuable piece knowledge Dexter would keep and follow religiously for the rest of his life -- the Code. Said code consisted of the following rules:
1.Killing must serve a purpose, otherwise it's just plain murder.
2. Be sure.
3. Blend in -- maintain appearances.
4. Control urges, and channel them.[copy pasted from ovah here]
Dexter learned how to act normally, how to smile for family photos, how to appear to be happy and disturbed and how to remain discreet, indistinct, forgettable, faced with Debra's jealousy and Doris' death all the while. Harry's Code was finally put into practice on a nurse that killed patients she felt deserved (or wanted) to die. When she attempted to do the same to Harry, he and Dexter, a teenager then, knew the time had come. It was a very messy kill, filled with easily fixed mistakes, but ultimately a success. Dexter had served justice for the first time.
early cuts;
▌ Harry passed away when Dexter was 20 years old. Now a college student, he began practicing his vigilantism more heavily from then on and, despite being the top of his class in medical school, dropped to become a forensics analyst. Dexter developed and perfected his modus operandi during this time, collecting "trophies" in samples of all his victims in blood slides that he kept in a wood case. His modus operandi grows into what follows:
"(...) Dexter's modus operandi serves not only to maximize the satisfaction he derives from killing his victims, but to minimize, if not eliminate, any forensic or circumstantial evidence and ensure that he does not target innocents. Dexter selects his victims according to his adoptive father's code, determines definitively if they are murderers or not, and (...) typically meets them prior to killing them to establish if they are likely to kill again. He then ritually prepares a kill site that has some symbolic relevance to the killer (e.g. killing a boxer in a boxing ring or a gambler in a casino's storage shed). He completely drapes the site in clear plastic tarpaulin to catch all spilled blood, often adorning it with evidence or photos of his victim's crimes, and in some cases the actual exhumed corpses of the victims.
The actual capture (...) usually entails approaching the victims from behind and injecting them with an anesthetic (specified to be an animal tranquilizer called etorphine hydrochloride, or M99), which renders his victims temporarily unconscious. The injection is a tradition established with his first victim, the hospital nurse. He uses the alias Patrick Bateman (the serial killer protagonist of Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho) to procure these tranquilizers. Other times, Dexter incapacitates his target by using either his hands or a garrote to cut off blood flow to the brain. (...)
Once they arrive, he will either strangle them into unconsciousness or use the noose to drag them to the kill site proper. In such cases he anesthetizes them once he has informed them of his judgment. When victims awaken, they are naked and secured to a table with plastic wrap and, for stronger victims, duct tape. (...) Dexter's favored method usually involves an immediately fatal wound to the heart, neck, or gut, with a variety of weapons. He occasionally varies his methods to fit particular victims (...)" quoted from wikipedia
He was involved in some of his most memorable murders (a sniper, an arsonist and a "black widow") and even came across another sociopath who discovered his work and asked to be mentored during this time. Dexter referred to this person as his "dark echo" and, despite a level of pleasure to knowing there was someone like him out there, he was forced to dispose of the echo when he lashed out and killed an innocent upon Dexter's refusal to teach him the Code.
As his career progressed along with his sister Debra's (who became a police officer herself), so did the construction of his "normal" life. A friendly and perfectly harmless lab rat who contributed to the department with his blood spatter analysis and boxes of donuts, Dexter used every resource he could to his advantage, be it to find criminals, to gather evidence of their guilt, to arrange supplies for his murders and/or to clean up after his mess. Dexter seemed to be perfectly inconspicuous and well liked by all of his co-workers, save for officer Doakes.
Dexter was in several relationships during this time, none of them serious. Most of the women he was involved with ended up leaving him when they realized he wasn't emotionally available, until he was introduced to a woman Debra had helped with a case of domestic abuse: Rita Bennett. A mother of a young boy and girl and wife to a now convicted, physically abusive drug addict, Rita's vulnerability and aversion to sex made her perfect for him. In his words, she was, in her own way, as damaged as him.
the plot thickens;
▌ Meet Dexter Morgan: a forensics blood spatter analyst working for the Miami Police Department and part-time serial killer. Dexter is called to a crime scene by his sister Debra after returning home from one of his ritualistic murders, where she asks him for some advice to help her get transferred from vice to the homicide department.
He then finally takes a look at the corpse of a prostitute, cut and arranged to look like the pieces of a doll. Dexter is fascinated by the uniqueness of this crime but, upon finding that it was completely drained of blood, sees no reason to remain on the crime scene. As the episode progresses and we are given an insight of Dexter's life and psyche, his intrigue continues to grow as another corpse shows up, headless. He concludes that the killer is carrying his victims around in a mobile refrigerator unit and one night, after another of his own murders, Dexter is sidetracked on his way to Rita's house when he finds an ice truck. Following it in his car, he is silently confronted when the driver drops the missing head on his car. Later on he finds a broken up Barbie doll inside his apartment's freezer, considering it an invitation to "play" by the mysterious murderer, who obviously knows about Dexter's true self.
When Debra later finds an abandoned ice truck with the mutilated fingertips of a woman with each nail painted in a different color inside a block of ice, he is donned with the "Ice Truck Killer" moniker.
Another Ice Truck Killer murder takes place. This time the corpse is displayed in a hockey ice rink, where there is video evidence of a security placing and arranging the body parts on the scene, making him the prime suspect. Dexter doesn't believe he is the killer. Things seem to escalate when the killer starts to leave body parts of the security guard on locations that pose some relevance to Dexter's own childhood (he is the only one aware of this). As he helps the investigation, Dexter also confronts his own past in a search for clues. This particular puzzle reaches an end when he follows them into an abandoned site, where the security guard, still alive, is set up and prepared to be murdered by the Ice Truck Killer, just for Dexter. He flees the scene, however, leaving his sister an anonymous tip about the guard's location.
He is shocked when he finds out that the Ice Truck Killer dove into the ocean to bring out one of Dexter's latest victims and displayed it in one of his previous crime scenes to be discovered by the police. Dexter believes the killer has been angered by his refusal to carry out the murder he had planned for him; now he has to make sure none of the evidence compromises him. Meanwhile, Rita's ex-husband has been released from prison and is demanding to be part of her children's lives again.
Debra and fellow officer Angel Batista follow a trail that they believe leads them to the Ice Truck Killer. The suspect is apprehended later on and confesses to the murders, but Dexter is skeptical -- the man they arrested is a complete disappointment; he doesn't fit. When Dexter confronts him and isn't recognized, he concludes with some relief that they got the wrong man.
During the investigation of a successful business woman's mysterious suicide, Dexter tracks down a therapist she shared with several other women who committed suicide under suspicious circumstances. He arranges appointments with this therapist as he gains evidence of his guilt -- even though the therapist did not directly murder them, he did carefully devise a plan to persuade them to killing themselves. These sessions result in Dexter digging up some of his darkest secrets and dealing with Rita's growing desire to become physically intimate with him -- something he wanted to avoid, afraid that she might realize he is emotionally empty. During the session after he finally consummates his relationship with her, Dexter thanks the therapist and tells him he is a serial killer before capturing and killing him.
Later on, Dexter receives a letter declaring that his biological father (who he thought to have been dead a long time ago) has just passed away and left all his belongings to him. Dexter disbelieves that Joseph Driscoll really was his father, but when Rita insists on taking him to the house he inherited to help him clean it up, he reluctantly agrees. Debra surprises them by showing up as well, bringing her boyfriend Rudy (a prosthetics doctor that has been treating the mutilated security guard) with her so that she can finally introduce the two men to each other. Rudy seems to be strangely warm and welcoming of Dexter's presence, but he doesn't make much of that.
The more he learns about Joseph Driscoll's death (claimed to have been from a heart attack), the more he suspects it was murder. A sudden flashback of his earlier childhood is triggered when he recognizes a tattoo on the dead man's elbow. He draws blood from the body and from himself and sends it to the lab back in Miami to compare DNA. Debra finds out about this when she takes a call on Dexter's phone from Masuka, a lab technician, and, distraught, confronts Dexter about the fact that he questioned Harry's explanation that his parents had died a long time ago. Dexter, helpless as to how to deal with his sister's agitation, is mostly shocked and confused with the knowledge that his foster father lied to him about his father's identity for so long.
Still convinced that Joseph was murdered, Dexter sneaks into the morgue during the night, but the body is cremated before he can collect any conclusive evidence. He has to flee the scene when a security guard finds him, stealing the box with his father's ashes to avoid leaving any trace of finger prints behind. When he's out in the streets, he is picked up by Debra's boyfriend in his car, who explains he heard Dexter leave and followed him in hopes that he would dissuade him from breaking into the morgue, promising he won't tell her or Rita about any of this. He then suggests that Dexter releases the ashes in a place with symbolic relevance to Joseph Driscoll while the two have a heart to heart conversation about how Dexter is dealing with the situation. When Dexter returns to Driscoll's house, where the four of them have been staying while they pack everything up, he finds that Joseph donated blood to him when he suffered an accident that caused severe blood loss as a child.
Once they finish packing up and leave on the next day, Dexter returns to Miami with Rita, not quite leaving his increasingly mysterious past behind him. And so we reach Dexter's canon point!
but wait, there's more;
▌ So what happens during the rest of the series? We find out that Rudy is actually the Ice Truck Killer! Dexter is confronted with a gruesome crime scene filled with blood that triggers blocked out childhood memories and brings him closer to the truth. Rita's husband accuses her of assault and threatens to take away her custody over their children. Dexter frames Rita's ex-husband into going back to prison to remove the problem from their lives.
Rudy tries to become closer to Dexter under the explanation that he wants to know Debra's family better. Dexter doesn't suspect of anything and focuses on his unexplainable childhood memories instead!, finding out who his mother was and how she was murdered. When Angel Batista develops the theory that the Ice Truck Killer has a fetish for women with prosthetics and asks for Rudy's help, he ends up getting stabbed in a parking lot and Rudy finds himself forced to speed up his plans. After a blood analysis, Dexter finally concludes that Rudy is the Ice Truck Killer. Shortly after this discovery, he learns that he has kidnapped Debra. A trail of clues lead him to the house he spent his first years in and he finally recalls having a biological brother. You guessed it -- it's Rudy! Who is actually Brian Moser.
Brian explains how he has grown up since their mother's murder, how he finally found Dexter and planned their family reunion. He then leads Dexter to Debra, placed in a setting exactly like how Dexter would prepare his own victims, in order to persuade Dexter to give up Harry's Code and become a full-blown killer, without remorse or rules. Our favorite sociopath can't do it, though, discovering that he is actually fond of and loyal to Debra. Angered, Brian takes the blade from Dexter's hand and decides to kill her himself, but Dexter wrestles with him shortly before the police arrive to the scene. Brian flees. Debra is sent to the hospital and Dexter decides to leave her there for the night in secret, returning to his apartment and arranging some of Brian's prosthetics on his bed to lure him into believing Debra is sleeping on his bed. When Brian breaks into his house and tries to murder what he thinks is Debra, Dexter drugs and captures him. He then kills Brian, much to his grief, seeing as he was the only person who ever saw him for who he was and accepted him.
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PERSONALITY:
the normal man;
▌ How Dexter is viewed by others: friendly, easy going, but emotionally distant. Whenever he is placed in what would be emotionally triggering situations to other people, Dexter shuts down emotionally and doesn't (know how to) talk about it. Sometimes he doesn't even seem to react, which results in confusion and worry from those who know him. Dexter is absentminded, distracted, clueless, awkward and his curiosity is matched with a very logical and matter-of-fact approach to things. His literal use of words sometimes causes unintentional amusement in others, much to his quickly brushed off confusion. He seems restrained about most things, perhaps because he's constantly seeking control. He doesn't have the same moral conflict most of his colleagues have when dealing with most cases, either; he's just doing his job.
Part of his apparatus includes even the way he dresses, using colorful, larger shirts and bright t-shirts with logo designs that help him look as non-intimidating as possible. In opposition to this, Dexter dresses with tighter shirts, long sleeves, in earth and darker tones and wears gloves when he's acting as the vigilante. This makes him looks more intimidating and visibly muscled! Otherwise you'd never guess he knows jujitsu.
He's often seen snacking because he's always on the run. All his expressions are carefully planned and used in the appropriate moments. He brings donuts and coffee to show that he cares and thinks of others (it's the easier way to get that effect). He cracks dry jokes when he's being threatened and, despite Doakes' suspicions about him, his co-workers consider him a friend, much to his bemusement and (more often than not) inconvenience, but it's easier for him to blend in that way. He shares a close relationship with Debra, despite the vastness of secrets he keeps from her. Rita considers him a truly decent man, incapable of hurting anyone, in need of her help as much as she requires and welcomes his support.
the neat monster;
▌ How Dexter views himself and how he really is also contains its own contradictions. He is aware of how he is "damaged". The way he describes himself and others is derogatory at times, but never remorseful. Sometimes it's even analytical. He often fantasizes about being completely left alone in the world and/or no longer having to hide his true self. There is a clear separation from his self and the rest of the world; they are humans, normal people, while he's a "neat monster".
Dexter believes he is truly incapable of any real emotion, which is part of why he kills people. He feels hungry, empty. He desires to feel something; a connection. It may be part of why he uses blades and similar weapons to kill his victims instead of resorting to guns (aside from the noise and traces a gun leaves behind). He does seem to foster some genuine affection for children, however, because they are simpler, not hiding anything like the rest of the normal people. There is a moment when he notes that Debra has to hide how vulnerable she is while he has to hide how vulnerable he's not. Despite considering all of them part of his apparatus, it later becomes obvious he does foster some feelings, namely for Rita and her children, Debra and Brian, along with other small but significant cracks in this notion. He claims that if he could have feelings, he'd have them for his sister. His loyalty to her and the late Harry is, apparently, unshakable.
His inner monologue is the only insight anyone (namely us) truly gets about his vision of himself. Monotone, soft and dramatic, he resorts to metaphors and expressions in paused and contemplative moments. It's both a narration and the expression of his direct point of view in the moment. These moments of deep thought either accompany him in the occasion or take him away from it, which is why he is often caught off guard and distracted.
He has no interest in romance or sex and is both curious and condescending about actual emotions, making sure he distances himself from situations that may place his own inability to express them into question. During the series' progression, when he is confronted with whoa whoa whoa feelings, they turn out to be very intense struggles that he tries to repress in order to regain control of himself. He resorts to investigations, either to prove them wrong and/or to dissipate their significance, and sometimes he seeks indirect advice from his own victims when he relates them to whatever situation he is going through. Dexter can't stand not knowing everything about something relevant to him (control issues oh no).
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POWER:
endless shrink wrap;
▌ Self explanatory. If he gets his hands on a roll of shrink wrap, it will never ever ever run out.
kill count;
▌ Based on the information given to me in a permissions post for that effect, Dexter will have the ability to know if a person he looks at (in person) has been responsible for any deaths and how many, but not their reasons. Direct physical contact will trigger very quick and inconsistent flashes of the deaths they are responsible for, however.
dark passages;
▌ Standing under a shadow will render him invisible. The shadow needs to be projected by a light source, however, so this power will not work in an environment completely devoid of light.
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[CHARACTER SAMPLES]
COMMUNITY POST (FIRST PERSON) SAMPLE:
[Being called a hero was... interesting. But this can't be a hallucination. It certainly isn't a dream; my dreams can't scratch the surface on the palpability of this jumble of science fiction... where they still can't see me.
I'm part of a cosmic mistake. A joke. I'm an underwhelmed alien in a surreal echo of New York looking up at super-humans in capes.
Do they know?]
[the communicator turns on to reveal the voice of a man, clearly lost. There is an amount of restraint in his tone as opposed to panic, however, something closer to a stranger asking you for directions on the street. That's what he wants to sound like.]
Hello? [is this working?, they'd say.]
I'm not sure I understand what's going on here, but this is a mistake. [he exhales, something close to nervous, sheepish and planned, negotiating with humor.] And as much as I can appreciate the benefits... I don't think I can be called a hero. I just work for the Miami Metro Police Department.
... I don't suppose any of you can tell me how to get back.
LOGS POST (THIRD PERSON) SAMPLE:
▌ His thumb slid on the tag when he sat down on his bed, analyzing it with a soft and dark gaze. Who he was was carved clearly on the metal: an ominous THE DARK PASSENGER. His breath faltered when he first saw those three words, the designation attributed to the voice that guided his hunger displayed on an item smaller than his hand, that he could wear around his neck for all the world to see. He felt exposed, alone in the cold room with the machine (and of course it was a female voice -- they wouldn't want to give anyone reasons to read hostility in her words), wondering if his playmate was somewhere in there, staring down at him.
Being called a hero was interesting, he noted, but impersonal flattery did very little to ease his thoughts. He tried to piece it together; how he had been brought here, why he had been brought here, who had come along with him. Someone knew who he was, there was no doubt about that, but the reaches of this plight went far beyond what the so called Ice Truck Killer could ever do, didn't they? Something else entirely was at work, testing him. It was one thing to see what he would do with his resources and another when he had been stripped from everything and everyone he knew. All of his groundwork was gone and he was being expected to start from scratch. To adapt.
Not all was lost, however. He might have lost his trophies, his weapons, his assets, his lab, Debra, Rita, his fellow coworkers... but there was something they could never take away from him, not as long as he still remembered who he was.
Harry's Code.
FINAL NOTES ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER:
▌ Dexter is being pulled from a very early canon point, considering the show has been running for five (going on six) seasons in which he is subject to significant character development (that has not yet taken place in the point I am pulling him from)! He doesn't even have his memories of his mother's death. I want him to be as 'clean slate' as possible to see where it would lead him in a completely different environment. I will also be incorporating his inner monologue into his tags and... I believe that's it.