Character Sheet
This is not the Teller you may be familiar with from Bullshit! on Showtime, or even any of the dozens of specials where you may have seen Penn & Teller perform*. They’ve never even appeared on Saturday Night Live. This is, instead, a very strange AU version of him. However, most of the important details are the same. He’s still an aggravating little man (who isn’t even little, but we’ll get to that in a bit) who refuses to talk under nearly every circumstance, and he still performs disgusting and startling magic.
"What's this one do?"For starters, it’s 1987 on Teller’s timeline. On this timeline, Penn & Teller are an act, but they do mostly parties. Their main income, however, comes from owning and running a magic shop in Times Square, called Mofo Magic (out of which they also give lessons and act as booking agents for other acts). Technically, Teller owns the shop, but he just lets Penn do most of the actual counter work, which seems to give the impression to patrons that Penn owns the shop, and just keeps Teller around. Teller takes care of most of the paperwork, and will help Penn demo the tricks, while Penn does all of the booking, all of the talking, and all of the transactions. In short, there’s no one in the multiverse Teller trusts more than Penn.
Oh, yeah. And there are aliens and other monsters in his universe.
While he is primarily rooted in the Invisible Thread time line and continuity, some details may find themselves crossing over. I've not been doing a whole lot of planning for the future, but I do know for certain that they will NOT be doing anything in New Jersey in 1989. At least, nothing that will get them killed. They may wind up selling the shop eventually, and taking their act on the road, and they may wind up meeting more monsters on their travels. I'm sort of just playing this one by ear right now.
Character Details
Teller isn’t short, by any means. In fact, he stands just a smidge over 5’9”. He only looks short because his business partner is Sasquatch (true story: Penn stands at just a smidge under 6’7”).
Teller does talk, as well. In fact, he takes it one step further, and speaks a total of ten languages (including Latin, Hebrew, and Sanskrit), seven of which are considered “dead” languages (the other two “living” languages he speaks being French and Greek)**. Getting him to speak to you can be a bit tricky. Since it’s in character for him to not talk, he’ll be doing an awful lot of that. There are a few circumstances during which you can get him to actually say something, though, and some are more difficult than others. A guaranteed way to hear him say something is to be around when he gets injured. Granted, you’ll only hear him swear, but it works every time (just please don’t hurt him for the sake of getting him to talk). It’s also sometimes possible to get him to laugh (which isn’t technically speaking, but it’s still a sound), and if you’re really lucky, you’ll get a wild, uncontrollable cackle.
It’s also possible to get him to go on at you in a language he probably thinks you may not understand. He does this just to frustrate you, really.
"Don't worry, Teller. They're not gonna throw all these people in jail."If you want to have an actual conversation with him, with back and forth dialogue, that’s a bit trickier. He only talks to people he knows and trusts, and it sometimes takes him a little bit to get to that point. He does try not to make snap judgements, so your chances of actually getting to this point with him are good if you’re patient (and even then, he can still be fairly quiet). When he does talk, it’s with a rather heavy Philadelphia accent.
Unless noted, Teller will always appear in the bar wearing his typical grey suit and red tie. In instances when the bar tends to find him when he’s away from the shop, he does dress more casually, typically favouring dark t-shirts (usually with band logos) and blue jeans.
His magic tricks
Magic has always been a hobby of Teller’s, but he never actively pursued it as a career until around 1982. Up until that point, he taught Classics and Language at University of Oxford. For reasons unknown (I will go back later and figure them out should plot require it), he disappeared without warning. Two years later, he resurfaced in Manhattan, having changed his name (technically, he had his first and middle name changed. His last name, which is now his only name, remained the same) and stopped speaking. He holds two PhDs (which I will figure out later), and as well as being into language and literature, has an interest in science.
The tricks he does in the bar will be basic sleights***, which he may even teach to you if he decides that he likes you. In the bar, he’ll do mostly card, coin, and other small tricks (sometimes involving a tarantula), but his apartment is lousy with props for all sorts of tricks, as well as a very odd collection of animals.
* Since Invisible Thread was a short story written by Penn, and then adapted into script format by the both of them, many of the details in this bio will read strikingly similar to the real thing, only crazy exaggerated.
** The mun speaks English, understands a very, very small amount of French, and has a basic understanding of Latin. Teller’s insane fascination with languages is canon, however, so most of this stuff will either be implied, or have absolutely rotten grammar.
*** Teller won’t do any tricks that the mun can’t do. This is for a few reasons. I don’t want him to just be doing stuff that can’t actually be done, but I also don’t want to describe anything incorrectly. It can generally be assumed that if you pick a card from him, it will be the Three of Clubs.