Info Post: App for betenoire_rp
1. Player Information
Name (or internet handle): Ronen
Current characters in Bete Noire: Eleven and Sam Lowry (AU)
Past characters in Bete Noire: Sam Lowry, Hitomi Kashiwa
2. Character Information
Name: Peter Vincent
Livejournal Username: fucking_ebay
Fandom: Fright Night (2011)
Image: http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/114015615/41041192
Reserve: http://magistrated.livejournal.com/10038.html?thread=2111798#t2111798
3. Character Information II
Age/Appearance: 39 years old, 6'2" and very thin. His skinniness is part genetics, part not eating as much as he should. He has an angular face with large, intense eyes and a careless mop of brown hair. His hands are long and nimble, well-suited to street magic.
History: Canon plot can be found on Wikipedia, but Peter is a supporting character in the film and the script only reveals little bits of his past. All that’s known for certain is that Peter’s parents were killed by Jerry the vampire when he was a boy (a fate he avoided by hiding), that he spent a lot of time studying supernatural mythos and collecting supernatural artifacts, and that somewhere along the line he became a famous magician. I’ve added a good deal of headcanon to these facts to make him a more complete character:
- Born Peter Vincent Carlisle in 1972, in Edinburgh.
- 1980: his parents’ death. Peter has never known why Jerry targeted his parents, only that they were killed while on holiday in the country. It could merely have been a question of wrong place, wrong time: they were attacked near an old ruin at sundown.
He was sent to live with his mother’s brother at first, but the man wasn’t interested in raising him. Peter wound up being passed back and forth between his uncle and his mother’s mother, who were both distant in different ways.
He started playing with cards, and eventually learning magic, as a way to cope. He also developed an interest in the supernatural, even though he had already convinced himself his parents had died at the hands of a ‘madman.’
- 1980 to 1989: Peter’s remaining years at school. He was not a good student; neither was he ever fully accepted by any social group: he was a loner and a ‘weird kid.’ As soon as he got his driver’s license at 17, he dropped out of school and left home.
- 1989 to 1999: Peter traveled the UK and Europe living as cheaply as possible; sleeping in hostels or couchsurfing or (on very bad days) on the street, earning a pittance by taking odd jobs and performing street magic. He continued to study the supernatural, still half-convinced that it was only an academic interest. He started his collection of artifacts during this time, but since he was poor and always on the move, it grew slowly.
- 1999: While in London, Peter was ‘discovered’ by an American talent scout who believed that he could market Peter’s routine. Peter took some persuading - in the end, it came down to a question of how long he could keep living the way he was. The scout convinced him to drop his Scottish accent for a more generically ‘British’ one and move to America to develop his act.
- 1999 to 2005: Peter crept his way to B-list celebrity status as a street magician and started to build on his collection of artifacts.
- 2005: The ‘Fright Night’ act was developed, mixing magic with the macabre, although the way the act turned out had very little to do with Peter’s real knowledge of the supernatural.
- 2007: Peter Vincent’s ‘Fright Night’ came to Las Vegas. Ginger was hired as the ‘lovely assistant’ for the Vegas show. It didn’t take long for her and Peter to start sleeping together.
- 2011: The events of the film.
Personality: To most people, Peter comes off as abrasive, sardonic, insensitive and apathetic. This is partially because he spends most of his time half-drunk, which considerably lowers his ability to give a fuck. It’s also a case of good old-fashioned self-centered-ness: he thinks of himself first, of anyone else second or potentially third.
A therapist, if he ever bothered to see one, might say that his interpersonal issues stem from the loss of his parents as a child. He acts the way he does so that people won’t want to get too close to him and he won’t ever have to risk losing them. If he were ever confronted with this hypothesis, he actually wouldn’t do much to fight it. Wrapped up in all that self-centered-ness is a massive amount of self-loathing, and on top of that Peter would probably use it as a kind of justification: yes, his parents were taken from him rather brutally and right in front of him. Is it any wonder he’s an ass?
He would usually either back down or run and hide rather than face a real confrontation. Hiding saved his life when he was a kid, and he knows exactly what’s out there that’s willing to kill anyone who gets in its way. Peter calls this being realistic, since he knows he’s not strong or fast enough to face a vampire alone - even with all of his knowledge.
Speaking of knowledge, Peter is deceptively intelligent. Particularly, he knows more about the supernatural than any one person in his own world. It is implied in canon that this encompasses more than vampires, including (but perhaps not limited to) werewolves and witches. His gathering of this knowledge was mostly motivated by fear: knowing that if he were ever forced to face something more powerful than him, he could have some kind of defense. A shield against the monsters. When it comes to practical use he’s inexperienced and a little bit incompetent, but the fact remains that Peter knows his shit.
Near the end of the film, he has something of a turn-around. He confronts the fact that he’s a coward and helps to bring down the same vampire that killed his parents. Without even meaning to, he’s accomplished what was basically his life’s work (he went to help Charley because he wanted to be a better man, and didn’t know Jerry was the same vampire from his childhood until they met face-to-face). He hasn’t changed on a fundamental level: his first instinct will always be to hide, to run, to bury his head in the sand. But this choice shows an aspect of Peter’s personality that can be coaxed to the surface under the right circumstances: a kind of anti-heroism, a desire to be something better than the drunken mess he’s been. Also a desire not to see half-clueless kids get themselves killed.
Sexual Preferences/Orientation: When he's sober...ish, Peter is straight. Ish. It’s not that he’s necessarily put off by the idea of another man in his bed, but the dynamic created between two men on their own does little to excite him. He’s an equal opportunity flirt, but that’s just his personality, and in the case of men it’s far less likely to be serious.
On the other hand, like he says: "You get me drunk, I'll try anything." Any 'experimentation' has happened after a sufficient amount of alcohol, at the point where it becomes less about who he's with and more about just getting off.
When it comes to women, he treats them the same way as a stereotypical frat boy: he sees them as conquests and objects, and his interest doesn't extend much farther than whether he can get them into bed and then claim that he fucked them. The closest thing he's ever had to a real relationship was Ginger, and he only treated her slightly less poorly because she refused to take his bullshit. That, and they both seemed to find a sort of comfort in mutual verbal abuse.
Powers: Peter is a scholar of the supernatural in his own world, but he has no superpowers of his own.
Reason for playing: I guess I have a thing for playing men who don’t have faith in their own strength, but have the potential to be much more than they are. Also, my current arsenal of characters in BN lacks a real party animal, a type of character that I’ve enjoyed playing in the past.
From a plotting standpoint, I’d look forward to throwing him into the human vs nonhuman conflict. Peter has a strong mistrust and fear, even hatred, of supernatural beings, in contrast to the majority of PCs who are more tolerant. He could create some interesting conflict.
5. Samples
First-Person: The thing is... it’s all bullshit. Smoke and mirrors. That’s all that magic ever is, and everybody knows it. Kids know it; they know it just as well as anyone. But people believe because they want to be fooled.
It’s the same with these creatures. They set up their smoke and mirrors, they draw you in to their illusion of a normal existence. Because you want to believe - or rather, you want to not believe anything that horrible could exist.
Never trust them. Never - ever - trust them.
Third-Person: Peter squints out the tinted window of the limousine onto a dingy street, his upper lip twisting in a confused sneer. He knows there’s more to Vegas than the Strip, but seriously? He’s never seen a part of town that looks this bad, especially not on the way to the airport.
“Why have we stopped?” he asks, before remembering to press the button that lowers the partition. He repeats: “Hey, driver. Why’ve we stopped?” No answer. Peter moves forward, leaning, peering to see the driver. “Are you listening? I’ve got a plane to catch --” Still no answer. In fact, as he finds when he finally has a view of the driver’s seat... no one at all.
“...the hell?” Peter mutters to himself, fishes out his Blackberry - too otherwise occupied to notice the subtle change to its software - and dials the number of his manager. For his efforts, he’s rewarded with a ‘This number is not in service’ message. Peter grumbles, reaching for the door handle: “Oh, come on -- fucking desert...”
It’s chilly outside. Dark. Was late afternoon when he got into the limo. His mind skates over the fact; the sun must have gone down without him noticing. But while staring at the screen of his phone, searching for bars, he finally starts to notice the difference...
Third-Person #2: They stumble together into the hotel suite. Peter can't tell if it's his or hers, but it must be one of theirs - the key worked. He grabs for her hands, guiding them to slide under his shirt, up his back.
"What would'ja say tae a tumble 'tween the sheets, m' wee Latina lass?" The Scottish comes out sometimes, when he's plastered enough. He lets it. She's so fucking cute when she's rolling her eyes.
"Baby, you are too drunk to fuck," Ginger taunts, her plump lips curled up in a smirk.
"Mm-hm. Challenge accepted." He pulls her toward the bed, laughing. Doesn’t quite make it there, falls backward into a large plush chair in the corner. She lands in his lap and kisses a line from his mouth to his chin to his throat, her hips rocking against his. Peter lets out a needy moan, clutching at her. His mind wants, but his body feels numb and disjointed; he’s only half-hard inside his jeans.
Then her front teeth clench around a small fold of skin under his jaw. The pain is sharp enough to break through the haze. Peter jumps. The rush of adrenaline is backed by an involuntary dread. Suddenly he’s aware of everything, like a cornered animal, but the fear doesn’t take over - only gives an edge to the lust spurred on by her thighs clenching around his hips, her warm flesh underneath his palms.
“You bitch,” Peter hisses, and Ginger only laughs.
Name (or internet handle): Ronen
Current characters in Bete Noire: Eleven and Sam Lowry (AU)
Past characters in Bete Noire: Sam Lowry, Hitomi Kashiwa
2. Character Information
Name: Peter Vincent
Livejournal Username: fucking_ebay
Fandom: Fright Night (2011)
Image: http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/114015615/41041192
Reserve: http://magistrated.livejournal.com/10038.html?thread=2111798#t2111798
3. Character Information II
Age/Appearance: 39 years old, 6'2" and very thin. His skinniness is part genetics, part not eating as much as he should. He has an angular face with large, intense eyes and a careless mop of brown hair. His hands are long and nimble, well-suited to street magic.
History: Canon plot can be found on Wikipedia, but Peter is a supporting character in the film and the script only reveals little bits of his past. All that’s known for certain is that Peter’s parents were killed by Jerry the vampire when he was a boy (a fate he avoided by hiding), that he spent a lot of time studying supernatural mythos and collecting supernatural artifacts, and that somewhere along the line he became a famous magician. I’ve added a good deal of headcanon to these facts to make him a more complete character:
- Born Peter Vincent Carlisle in 1972, in Edinburgh.
- 1980: his parents’ death. Peter has never known why Jerry targeted his parents, only that they were killed while on holiday in the country. It could merely have been a question of wrong place, wrong time: they were attacked near an old ruin at sundown.
He was sent to live with his mother’s brother at first, but the man wasn’t interested in raising him. Peter wound up being passed back and forth between his uncle and his mother’s mother, who were both distant in different ways.
He started playing with cards, and eventually learning magic, as a way to cope. He also developed an interest in the supernatural, even though he had already convinced himself his parents had died at the hands of a ‘madman.’
- 1980 to 1989: Peter’s remaining years at school. He was not a good student; neither was he ever fully accepted by any social group: he was a loner and a ‘weird kid.’ As soon as he got his driver’s license at 17, he dropped out of school and left home.
- 1989 to 1999: Peter traveled the UK and Europe living as cheaply as possible; sleeping in hostels or couchsurfing or (on very bad days) on the street, earning a pittance by taking odd jobs and performing street magic. He continued to study the supernatural, still half-convinced that it was only an academic interest. He started his collection of artifacts during this time, but since he was poor and always on the move, it grew slowly.
- 1999: While in London, Peter was ‘discovered’ by an American talent scout who believed that he could market Peter’s routine. Peter took some persuading - in the end, it came down to a question of how long he could keep living the way he was. The scout convinced him to drop his Scottish accent for a more generically ‘British’ one and move to America to develop his act.
- 1999 to 2005: Peter crept his way to B-list celebrity status as a street magician and started to build on his collection of artifacts.
- 2005: The ‘Fright Night’ act was developed, mixing magic with the macabre, although the way the act turned out had very little to do with Peter’s real knowledge of the supernatural.
- 2007: Peter Vincent’s ‘Fright Night’ came to Las Vegas. Ginger was hired as the ‘lovely assistant’ for the Vegas show. It didn’t take long for her and Peter to start sleeping together.
- 2011: The events of the film.
Personality: To most people, Peter comes off as abrasive, sardonic, insensitive and apathetic. This is partially because he spends most of his time half-drunk, which considerably lowers his ability to give a fuck. It’s also a case of good old-fashioned self-centered-ness: he thinks of himself first, of anyone else second or potentially third.
A therapist, if he ever bothered to see one, might say that his interpersonal issues stem from the loss of his parents as a child. He acts the way he does so that people won’t want to get too close to him and he won’t ever have to risk losing them. If he were ever confronted with this hypothesis, he actually wouldn’t do much to fight it. Wrapped up in all that self-centered-ness is a massive amount of self-loathing, and on top of that Peter would probably use it as a kind of justification: yes, his parents were taken from him rather brutally and right in front of him. Is it any wonder he’s an ass?
He would usually either back down or run and hide rather than face a real confrontation. Hiding saved his life when he was a kid, and he knows exactly what’s out there that’s willing to kill anyone who gets in its way. Peter calls this being realistic, since he knows he’s not strong or fast enough to face a vampire alone - even with all of his knowledge.
Speaking of knowledge, Peter is deceptively intelligent. Particularly, he knows more about the supernatural than any one person in his own world. It is implied in canon that this encompasses more than vampires, including (but perhaps not limited to) werewolves and witches. His gathering of this knowledge was mostly motivated by fear: knowing that if he were ever forced to face something more powerful than him, he could have some kind of defense. A shield against the monsters. When it comes to practical use he’s inexperienced and a little bit incompetent, but the fact remains that Peter knows his shit.
Near the end of the film, he has something of a turn-around. He confronts the fact that he’s a coward and helps to bring down the same vampire that killed his parents. Without even meaning to, he’s accomplished what was basically his life’s work (he went to help Charley because he wanted to be a better man, and didn’t know Jerry was the same vampire from his childhood until they met face-to-face). He hasn’t changed on a fundamental level: his first instinct will always be to hide, to run, to bury his head in the sand. But this choice shows an aspect of Peter’s personality that can be coaxed to the surface under the right circumstances: a kind of anti-heroism, a desire to be something better than the drunken mess he’s been. Also a desire not to see half-clueless kids get themselves killed.
Sexual Preferences/Orientation: When he's sober...ish, Peter is straight. Ish. It’s not that he’s necessarily put off by the idea of another man in his bed, but the dynamic created between two men on their own does little to excite him. He’s an equal opportunity flirt, but that’s just his personality, and in the case of men it’s far less likely to be serious.
On the other hand, like he says: "You get me drunk, I'll try anything." Any 'experimentation' has happened after a sufficient amount of alcohol, at the point where it becomes less about who he's with and more about just getting off.
When it comes to women, he treats them the same way as a stereotypical frat boy: he sees them as conquests and objects, and his interest doesn't extend much farther than whether he can get them into bed and then claim that he fucked them. The closest thing he's ever had to a real relationship was Ginger, and he only treated her slightly less poorly because she refused to take his bullshit. That, and they both seemed to find a sort of comfort in mutual verbal abuse.
Powers: Peter is a scholar of the supernatural in his own world, but he has no superpowers of his own.
Reason for playing: I guess I have a thing for playing men who don’t have faith in their own strength, but have the potential to be much more than they are. Also, my current arsenal of characters in BN lacks a real party animal, a type of character that I’ve enjoyed playing in the past.
From a plotting standpoint, I’d look forward to throwing him into the human vs nonhuman conflict. Peter has a strong mistrust and fear, even hatred, of supernatural beings, in contrast to the majority of PCs who are more tolerant. He could create some interesting conflict.
5. Samples
First-Person: The thing is... it’s all bullshit. Smoke and mirrors. That’s all that magic ever is, and everybody knows it. Kids know it; they know it just as well as anyone. But people believe because they want to be fooled.
It’s the same with these creatures. They set up their smoke and mirrors, they draw you in to their illusion of a normal existence. Because you want to believe - or rather, you want to not believe anything that horrible could exist.
Never trust them. Never - ever - trust them.
Third-Person: Peter squints out the tinted window of the limousine onto a dingy street, his upper lip twisting in a confused sneer. He knows there’s more to Vegas than the Strip, but seriously? He’s never seen a part of town that looks this bad, especially not on the way to the airport.
“Why have we stopped?” he asks, before remembering to press the button that lowers the partition. He repeats: “Hey, driver. Why’ve we stopped?” No answer. Peter moves forward, leaning, peering to see the driver. “Are you listening? I’ve got a plane to catch --” Still no answer. In fact, as he finds when he finally has a view of the driver’s seat... no one at all.
“...the hell?” Peter mutters to himself, fishes out his Blackberry - too otherwise occupied to notice the subtle change to its software - and dials the number of his manager. For his efforts, he’s rewarded with a ‘This number is not in service’ message. Peter grumbles, reaching for the door handle: “Oh, come on -- fucking desert...”
It’s chilly outside. Dark. Was late afternoon when he got into the limo. His mind skates over the fact; the sun must have gone down without him noticing. But while staring at the screen of his phone, searching for bars, he finally starts to notice the difference...
Third-Person #2: They stumble together into the hotel suite. Peter can't tell if it's his or hers, but it must be one of theirs - the key worked. He grabs for her hands, guiding them to slide under his shirt, up his back.
"What would'ja say tae a tumble 'tween the sheets, m' wee Latina lass?" The Scottish comes out sometimes, when he's plastered enough. He lets it. She's so fucking cute when she's rolling her eyes.
"Baby, you are too drunk to fuck," Ginger taunts, her plump lips curled up in a smirk.
"Mm-hm. Challenge accepted." He pulls her toward the bed, laughing. Doesn’t quite make it there, falls backward into a large plush chair in the corner. She lands in his lap and kisses a line from his mouth to his chin to his throat, her hips rocking against his. Peter lets out a needy moan, clutching at her. His mind wants, but his body feels numb and disjointed; he’s only half-hard inside his jeans.
Then her front teeth clench around a small fold of skin under his jaw. The pain is sharp enough to break through the haze. Peter jumps. The rush of adrenaline is backed by an involuntary dread. Suddenly he’s aware of everything, like a cornered animal, but the fear doesn’t take over - only gives an edge to the lust spurred on by her thighs clenching around his hips, her warm flesh underneath his palms.
“You bitch,” Peter hisses, and Ginger only laughs.