=C H A R A C T E R ☂ P R O F I L E=
CHARACTER
NAME: Andrew Compton
AGE: 33
GENDER: Male
ROLE IN CANON: Ha. If it was ever possible for there to be a sympathetic necrophiliac serial killer, Andrew is it.
FANDOM: Exquisite Corpse
FANDOM MEDIUM: Novel
EXPERIENCE RPing THIS CHARACTER: None. *shudders* I’m questioning my sanity enough as it is for attempting him now.
TIMELINE PERIOD: At the end of the book. He falls asleep on a train and wakes up here.
ABILITIES: Andrew can fake his death. Fake isn’t really the right work, he can… force his body into the conditions for clinical death, though he keeps the tiniest modicum of conscious. It’s not at all a magical or supernatural ability, just a talent, like riding a bike.
CHARACTER HISTORY: Perhaps one of the most surprising things about Andrew Compton was that his childhood had been perfectly normal. Excepting the minor incident of his nearly disastrous birth, when he emerged from the womb almost strangled by the umbilical cord, of course. However the doctors were confident there was no permanent physical or mental damage. There was no history of emotional, physical, or psychological abuse. His parents were neither deceased nor divorced. There were no signs of neglect, they didn’t disown him or even react negatively to his being gay.
And yet, for some reason, when he was seventeen years old Andrew Compton became a murderer. Presumably this happened on the same night he lost his virginity, though the order in which these events happened was, well… unclear. In those moments, Andrew discovered everything he had been missing in his life, including a deep mad love for his victim.
Well, okay. It probably started when he was around thirteen. There was still no explanation, but he started to find death fascinating. It became something of a game to him to try to make himself as dead as possible. Slow his heartbeat… stop it. Cool his body temperature. Decrease his breathing more… and more… He wanted to separate himself from his body completely and though he never managed it, the idea appealed to him immensely. It became something of an erotic ritual, a bizarre masturbation. By the time he was seventeen, it was no longer enough.
From then, for the next eleven years, Andrew moved out, went to school, though he could never manage to hold down a steady job. Inevitably he was always fired for insubordination. When Andrew was 28, he was finally caught, after having killed 23 young men in the past eleven years. The trial was much longer than it needed to be, he thought. It was clear that he was guilty, and he didn’t once protest. He should have been glad enough that the Queen’s men were doing their jobs properly.
Prison was more annoying than anything else. His cell was all wrong, the food was awful, it was dreadfully lonely being in maximum security and what he wanted more than anything was a drink. A cold lager. Yet he didn’t complain once, he wasn't violent, he never yelled. He was never even untoward to his guards or nurses or doctors. Not once. When everyone realized he wouldn’t be a problem, he was allowed to start writing things down. He filled up almost a hundred notebooks in three years with a sort of schizophrenic introspective autobiography/diary. Andrew gave a lot of thought to how he became this way, a creature everyone hated and feared. Never figuring it out, he gave up.
That’s when he started planning his escape. After five years, Andrew realized he could use his talent of making himself die almost completely to finally get out of this wretched place. As he was finalizing this plan and he went for his yearly exam, the doctors told him something curious. Apparently he was HIV positive. Andrew didn’t react as one typically might. He wasn’t sad or afraid. He was slightly confused, very accepting. Even… glad. ”Remember only that this virus in your blood makes people afraid of you. Anytime someone is afraid of you, you can use it to your advantage.” And he did.
Putting his plan into action, Andrew stopped his heart, stopped his lungs, stopped his reflexes. There was nothing that would give him away as a living person, if he really even was one anymore, and when they were about to perform his autopsy, he finally willed himself awake. Easily overcoming the doctors, he killed them and took anything he might need.
After buying himself some new clothes, Andrew made his way to a pub. He needed a drink. And he needed to find a victim. Finding the perfect person (an American tourist), Andrew took him to a public bathroom under rather false pretenses and killed him with a scalpel from the prison morgue. This was not at all like he preferred to do things, but leaving the mess there, he took with him the passport and any cash.
Though he bought several tickets to places all around the world, Andrew decided he’d be going to America. Why not? And more specifically, New Orleans. The weather looked nice, the hedonism looked nicer. He could enjoy himself there, settle down perhaps.
That was where he met Jay Byrne. Almost immediately he knew there was something about Jay that was radically different and achingly familiar at the same time. Jay was pushing him, testing him, and Andrew was too drunk and too aroused to care. They went back to his house, and though Andrew thought about it a moment, he knew this man wouldn’t be a good victim, not at all. However, it soon became apparent that Jay had meant to kill him. How amusing. After another few minutes of experimentation, Jay finally realized that Andrew, too, was a murderer. Just like him.
The pair of them quickly fell into a sort of whirlwind romance, as much as was possible for two sociopaths. Jay revealed his darkest secret to Andrew, that he didn’t just kill boys, but that he ate their flesh as well. Instantly, Andrew was fascinated, curious and unsure. He wondered if that was something he could do, but he knew it was something he wanted to share with Jay. Jay was the first partner Andrew didn’t feel the need to kill. They murdered together, sought pleasure together, and it could have gone on forever.
They only ever had one issue. Andrew needed to be in control. He needed to have his way, all the time, and even though this was Jay’s house, Andrew would be in charge as long as he was in it. Jay needed to learn that no was not an option. Suffering his final disappointment, Andrew turned him over and (though Jay was bigger, and though they had never made love to each other) raped him until Jay was begging for him, all of him… even his disease. When it was over they were more in love and devoted to each other than ever before and it wasn’t normal, it wasn’t even healthy, but it was theirs.
Too soon, everything fell apart. Andrew had finally made the decision to take that final step with Jay. He had chosen the perfect victim and they would commune together. It was perfect, when they were interrupted. In a frantic blur, someone had intruded on their most sacred and private of rituals. He next thing Andrew knew, Jay lay bleeding in the floor, his throat slit and not with not enough life left for Andrew to even manage a goodbye. He that moment he felt the closest thing to sadness he had ever felt, and his only regret was that if Jay had to die… why couldn’t it have been Andrew to kill him.
Letting the perpetrator walk free, Andrew spent a final moment with his lover before deciding to move on. But not before taking a piece of Jay with him, so to speak. Unwrapping the sandwich he had specially prepared before leaving and as he savored it, he sunk himself into a slow coma-like sleep, comforted in that they would now always be together.
CHARACTER PERSONALITY: For all outward appearances, Andrew is a perfect English gentleman. Always preferring to act as though he was a high class than he really was, you wouldn’t find one single neighbor or coworker who would say he was anything less than charming. Astonishingly articulate, Andrew prides himself on being highly cultured in such subjects of literature, and cuisine.
That is one thing that annoys him about Americans in particular, is that trying to have a conversation with one is a bit like pulling teeth. It’s not their fault of course, but between their grating accents and substandard diction it makes him want to pull his hair out. Yet one would never know it from talking to him. He is a fantastic actor because, despite all this, American boys are somewhat irresistible to him.
It’s almost as though Andrew falls in love too easily, but can’t for the life of him figure out how to do it properly. Perhaps a romantic at heart, he definitely has an innate appreciation for aesthetic pleasures and likes to surround himself with them as often as possible. Yet these very Victorian sensibilities have warped in his mind to somehow justify his morbid worship of blood, death, corpses. Things that should be ugly.
HOW IS THIS CHARACTER APPROPRIATE FOR THIS SETTING: …are you seriously asking me this. It IS a mental institution, yes?
WHAT WILL THEIR DIAGNOSIS BE:
Necrophilia: Perhaps the most taboo and socially reviled of all paraphilias. Not… much else to say about that. “At the trial they called me Necrophiliac without considering the ancient roots of the word, or its profound resonance. I was a friend of the dead, lover of the dead…”
Dissocial Personality Disorder: Completely devoid of almost any morals, Andrew suffers from an extreme lack of empathy. He has never felt guilt or remorse for anything he’s done, he gets irritated and annoyed with people sort of easily, and he only plays by society’s rules until he doesn’t feel like it anymore. “I was never one to moralize, and how could I argue ethics now? There is no excuse for wanton, random murder. But I came to realize I didn’t need an excuse. I needed only a reason, and the terrible joy of the act was reason enough.”
Obsessive-compulsive Personality Disorder: Andrew has a subtle need for everything to be perfect, even, symmetrical, exactly right. He is not compulsed by ritualistic behaviors like one with OCD would be, but he gets exceedingly irritated and anxious when things are out of sorts. “I wondered how many of Her Majesty’s prisoners realized the extra half-metre along one wall was a subtle form of torture. …the wrong geometry began to hurt my eyes. For more than a year the imperfect square tormented me.”
Alcohol Addiction: Er… yes. “I had to clutch at the back of my chair to keep from stumbling sideways. Get ahold of yourself, I thought. You’re an alcoholic and an Englishman. You can sail through this.”
PREDICTED PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS: Anxiety, anger, irritation.
PREDICTED BEHAVIOR/PLANS: Honestly, Andrew will probably be greatly amused by this more than anything. Being able to talk to people will already be a great improvement from his last imprisonment. He won’t be acting out or really anything but polite and perhaps a bit disinterested. If anything he will attempt to charm the staff to get better cells and furniture.
However, he doesn’t like being told what to do, so if he finds too much of his control has been infringed upon, things could get ugly.
DANGER LEVEL: 2. Necrophiliac serial killer here. However, since he’s not particularly violent he’ll might be eligible to move to Level 1 soon enough.
NAME: Andrew Compton
AGE: 33
GENDER: Male
ROLE IN CANON: Ha. If it was ever possible for there to be a sympathetic necrophiliac serial killer, Andrew is it.
FANDOM: Exquisite Corpse
FANDOM MEDIUM: Novel
EXPERIENCE RPing THIS CHARACTER: None. *shudders* I’m questioning my sanity enough as it is for attempting him now.
TIMELINE PERIOD: At the end of the book. He falls asleep on a train and wakes up here.
ABILITIES: Andrew can fake his death. Fake isn’t really the right work, he can… force his body into the conditions for clinical death, though he keeps the tiniest modicum of conscious. It’s not at all a magical or supernatural ability, just a talent, like riding a bike.
CHARACTER HISTORY: Perhaps one of the most surprising things about Andrew Compton was that his childhood had been perfectly normal. Excepting the minor incident of his nearly disastrous birth, when he emerged from the womb almost strangled by the umbilical cord, of course. However the doctors were confident there was no permanent physical or mental damage. There was no history of emotional, physical, or psychological abuse. His parents were neither deceased nor divorced. There were no signs of neglect, they didn’t disown him or even react negatively to his being gay.
And yet, for some reason, when he was seventeen years old Andrew Compton became a murderer. Presumably this happened on the same night he lost his virginity, though the order in which these events happened was, well… unclear. In those moments, Andrew discovered everything he had been missing in his life, including a deep mad love for his victim.
Well, okay. It probably started when he was around thirteen. There was still no explanation, but he started to find death fascinating. It became something of a game to him to try to make himself as dead as possible. Slow his heartbeat… stop it. Cool his body temperature. Decrease his breathing more… and more… He wanted to separate himself from his body completely and though he never managed it, the idea appealed to him immensely. It became something of an erotic ritual, a bizarre masturbation. By the time he was seventeen, it was no longer enough.
From then, for the next eleven years, Andrew moved out, went to school, though he could never manage to hold down a steady job. Inevitably he was always fired for insubordination. When Andrew was 28, he was finally caught, after having killed 23 young men in the past eleven years. The trial was much longer than it needed to be, he thought. It was clear that he was guilty, and he didn’t once protest. He should have been glad enough that the Queen’s men were doing their jobs properly.
Prison was more annoying than anything else. His cell was all wrong, the food was awful, it was dreadfully lonely being in maximum security and what he wanted more than anything was a drink. A cold lager. Yet he didn’t complain once, he wasn't violent, he never yelled. He was never even untoward to his guards or nurses or doctors. Not once. When everyone realized he wouldn’t be a problem, he was allowed to start writing things down. He filled up almost a hundred notebooks in three years with a sort of schizophrenic introspective autobiography/diary. Andrew gave a lot of thought to how he became this way, a creature everyone hated and feared. Never figuring it out, he gave up.
That’s when he started planning his escape. After five years, Andrew realized he could use his talent of making himself die almost completely to finally get out of this wretched place. As he was finalizing this plan and he went for his yearly exam, the doctors told him something curious. Apparently he was HIV positive. Andrew didn’t react as one typically might. He wasn’t sad or afraid. He was slightly confused, very accepting. Even… glad. ”Remember only that this virus in your blood makes people afraid of you. Anytime someone is afraid of you, you can use it to your advantage.” And he did.
Putting his plan into action, Andrew stopped his heart, stopped his lungs, stopped his reflexes. There was nothing that would give him away as a living person, if he really even was one anymore, and when they were about to perform his autopsy, he finally willed himself awake. Easily overcoming the doctors, he killed them and took anything he might need.
After buying himself some new clothes, Andrew made his way to a pub. He needed a drink. And he needed to find a victim. Finding the perfect person (an American tourist), Andrew took him to a public bathroom under rather false pretenses and killed him with a scalpel from the prison morgue. This was not at all like he preferred to do things, but leaving the mess there, he took with him the passport and any cash.
Though he bought several tickets to places all around the world, Andrew decided he’d be going to America. Why not? And more specifically, New Orleans. The weather looked nice, the hedonism looked nicer. He could enjoy himself there, settle down perhaps.
That was where he met Jay Byrne. Almost immediately he knew there was something about Jay that was radically different and achingly familiar at the same time. Jay was pushing him, testing him, and Andrew was too drunk and too aroused to care. They went back to his house, and though Andrew thought about it a moment, he knew this man wouldn’t be a good victim, not at all. However, it soon became apparent that Jay had meant to kill him. How amusing. After another few minutes of experimentation, Jay finally realized that Andrew, too, was a murderer. Just like him.
The pair of them quickly fell into a sort of whirlwind romance, as much as was possible for two sociopaths. Jay revealed his darkest secret to Andrew, that he didn’t just kill boys, but that he ate their flesh as well. Instantly, Andrew was fascinated, curious and unsure. He wondered if that was something he could do, but he knew it was something he wanted to share with Jay. Jay was the first partner Andrew didn’t feel the need to kill. They murdered together, sought pleasure together, and it could have gone on forever.
They only ever had one issue. Andrew needed to be in control. He needed to have his way, all the time, and even though this was Jay’s house, Andrew would be in charge as long as he was in it. Jay needed to learn that no was not an option. Suffering his final disappointment, Andrew turned him over and (though Jay was bigger, and though they had never made love to each other) raped him until Jay was begging for him, all of him… even his disease. When it was over they were more in love and devoted to each other than ever before and it wasn’t normal, it wasn’t even healthy, but it was theirs.
Too soon, everything fell apart. Andrew had finally made the decision to take that final step with Jay. He had chosen the perfect victim and they would commune together. It was perfect, when they were interrupted. In a frantic blur, someone had intruded on their most sacred and private of rituals. He next thing Andrew knew, Jay lay bleeding in the floor, his throat slit and not with not enough life left for Andrew to even manage a goodbye. He that moment he felt the closest thing to sadness he had ever felt, and his only regret was that if Jay had to die… why couldn’t it have been Andrew to kill him.
Letting the perpetrator walk free, Andrew spent a final moment with his lover before deciding to move on. But not before taking a piece of Jay with him, so to speak. Unwrapping the sandwich he had specially prepared before leaving and as he savored it, he sunk himself into a slow coma-like sleep, comforted in that they would now always be together.
CHARACTER PERSONALITY: For all outward appearances, Andrew is a perfect English gentleman. Always preferring to act as though he was a high class than he really was, you wouldn’t find one single neighbor or coworker who would say he was anything less than charming. Astonishingly articulate, Andrew prides himself on being highly cultured in such subjects of literature, and cuisine.
That is one thing that annoys him about Americans in particular, is that trying to have a conversation with one is a bit like pulling teeth. It’s not their fault of course, but between their grating accents and substandard diction it makes him want to pull his hair out. Yet one would never know it from talking to him. He is a fantastic actor because, despite all this, American boys are somewhat irresistible to him.
It’s almost as though Andrew falls in love too easily, but can’t for the life of him figure out how to do it properly. Perhaps a romantic at heart, he definitely has an innate appreciation for aesthetic pleasures and likes to surround himself with them as often as possible. Yet these very Victorian sensibilities have warped in his mind to somehow justify his morbid worship of blood, death, corpses. Things that should be ugly.
HOW IS THIS CHARACTER APPROPRIATE FOR THIS SETTING: …are you seriously asking me this. It IS a mental institution, yes?
WHAT WILL THEIR DIAGNOSIS BE:
Necrophilia: Perhaps the most taboo and socially reviled of all paraphilias. Not… much else to say about that. “At the trial they called me Necrophiliac without considering the ancient roots of the word, or its profound resonance. I was a friend of the dead, lover of the dead…”
Dissocial Personality Disorder: Completely devoid of almost any morals, Andrew suffers from an extreme lack of empathy. He has never felt guilt or remorse for anything he’s done, he gets irritated and annoyed with people sort of easily, and he only plays by society’s rules until he doesn’t feel like it anymore. “I was never one to moralize, and how could I argue ethics now? There is no excuse for wanton, random murder. But I came to realize I didn’t need an excuse. I needed only a reason, and the terrible joy of the act was reason enough.”
Obsessive-compulsive Personality Disorder: Andrew has a subtle need for everything to be perfect, even, symmetrical, exactly right. He is not compulsed by ritualistic behaviors like one with OCD would be, but he gets exceedingly irritated and anxious when things are out of sorts. “I wondered how many of Her Majesty’s prisoners realized the extra half-metre along one wall was a subtle form of torture. …the wrong geometry began to hurt my eyes. For more than a year the imperfect square tormented me.”
Alcohol Addiction: Er… yes. “I had to clutch at the back of my chair to keep from stumbling sideways. Get ahold of yourself, I thought. You’re an alcoholic and an Englishman. You can sail through this.”
PREDICTED PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS: Anxiety, anger, irritation.
PREDICTED BEHAVIOR/PLANS: Honestly, Andrew will probably be greatly amused by this more than anything. Being able to talk to people will already be a great improvement from his last imprisonment. He won’t be acting out or really anything but polite and perhaps a bit disinterested. If anything he will attempt to charm the staff to get better cells and furniture.
However, he doesn’t like being told what to do, so if he finds too much of his control has been infringed upon, things could get ugly.
DANGER LEVEL: 2. Necrophiliac serial killer here. However, since he’s not particularly violent he’ll might be eligible to move to Level 1 soon enough.