(no subject)
User Name/Nick: Kim
User LJ: voltaireontoast
AIM/IM: voltaireontoast
E-mail: kim.best3@gmail.com
Other Characters: Sexby, Eddie, O'Brien.
Character Name: Dr Miguel Caesares.
Series: The Devil's Backbone
Age: 70
From When?: After his ghost ensures that Jaime and the other boys escape from the school after Jacinto's death.
Inmate/Warden: Warden. He protects the boys at his school against the Civil War, the fascists, and, after his death, Jacinto. He also shelters and treats Communist fighters in the Civil War, holding a supply of gold for the anti-fascist cause. His main purpose in life is to protect and guide both the boys at his orphanage/school and keep them safe from the war which has taken their families from them. He's a good guy to death and beyond.
Item: A copy of Antonio Machado's Campos de Castilla.
Abilities/Powers: Mainly, he's a doctor, although he was educated in Argentina in the 1890s, he's a very good one, and considers himself a man of science above all else. He specialises (through necessity, not choice) in battle wounds and emergency treatment; to the point of being both the point of call for nearby injured Republican fighters and being able to instruct a 9 year old in taking glass out of someone else's back whilst he was bleeding to death himself.
He's also skilled with a shotgun, and has the sort of badass determination which makes him formidable at times.
Also, he has what can only be described as ghost powers - derived from canon, if not explicitly canon. In canon, he returns after death to release the boys from the cupboard they've locked themselves in, so they can take down Jacinto. On the Barge, in conjunction with the death toll, this will translate as an ability to return in the space between death and revival but only to save someone's life. Nobody will be able to see him, and he won't be able to touch anyone. All he will be able to do is one act to save someone's life, and leave behind his handkerchief as evidence he was there.
Personality:
Above all else, Caesares is a devoted man. He is devoted to his ideals, devoted to the children he works for and the woman he loves - even to the point where his devotion overtakes his own interest and often blinds him to other problems and difficulties. He accepts the woman that he loves, and who clearly, to some extent loves him back, using a much younger man for sex, simply because he loves her so deeply, and will tolerate far more than most people normally would, just to allow him to do so. Equally, his devotion to the children in his care backfired on him, when one of those boys, Jacinto, turns on him and aims to steal all of his gold and burn the building down. Despite being aware of the possibility of this treachery and resentment, he allows Jacinto to stay there, simply because he has nowhere else to go. He is exceptionally sympathetic to the point of almost excusing faults and brushing over dangers - when those dangers become apparent, he always stands up on the side of right and prevents further damage, but many things he could have prevented earlier by taking a firmer line and not allowing things to slide.
This does not mean that Caesares is not a principled man, and does not stand by these principles. He aims to be fair and reasonable - and set himself up as approachable above all else. All of these will affect how he acts as a warden - he would want to be, first and foremost, someone his inmate could talk to, and would aim to understand before anything else. This, naturally, could lead to him being too forgiving and a little too trusting, but it does not mean he is incapable of enforcing rules either. Despite being understanding, within his orphanage, he does run a tight ship and expect all the boys to behave well, and is prepared to discipline, but would never want to act cruelly or unfairly. He nearly always favours talking the issue through than an out and out punishment.
Caesares prides himself as a man of science, and believes in the power of his medical knowledge to do good, as well as having a strong desire to see questions answered in order to help people. That scientific drive and curiosity, conversely, leads his less scientific motivations. He can be intensely superstitious, and shows a great interest in the superstitions of less scientific people. He actively engages with these superstitions, usually in order to make people feel better when he can't necessarily cure them, and will quite easily admit that he believes in them himself. Not because they're scientifically accurate, and he'd never trust them before his medical knowledge, but because he believes in belief. He has seen, first hand, the power of belief in making people feel better once medical science can no longer help, in giving people something to aim for, something to provide hope and guidance. Caesares is both a scientist and a believer - he believes in medicine and superstition, in political ideals and tradition, in God and in ghosts. He has never been one to think that belief and science are diametrically opposed, and will never look down on someone for holding beliefs and living by those beliefs, instead, he will try to accommodate them where he sees fit, and if he doesn't understand them, aim to understand them.
He is also incredibly cultured and well-educated. He's had a relatively privileged upbringing, and learned to love poetry, art, music and literature at a young age. This means that despite his long and at times, difficult, life, especially in war, he has always found a solace and peace in things beyond politics, beyond fighting. As a result, he managed to keep up his romantic, idealist optimist in the face of danger and destruction. He was always greatly troubled by the violence and hatred he saw around him - but looked to art and poetry to remind him how beautiful humanity could be if it could be bothered. Equally, he has a strong belief in romantic love above all else - due to an inability to express his love physically, he throws himself head first into reciting poetry, caring deeply about those who he loves, and never giving in, never losing that love. His belief in romantic love and superstitions is what enables him to come back as a ghost in a protective fashion - he believes so much that love and protection will triumph over the violence and hatred that Jacinto brings that he not only fights to the death, but beyond it, in order to protect them and help them escape victorious.
He is also a relatively patient man - he will give people chances to prove themselves to him, and take the time to talk through things calmly. He hardly ever loses his temper, preferring to deal with a situation in the most tactful and reasonable way possible. The only times when his temper starts to fray are those when needless violence is inflicted against the innocent or Carmen, especially those in his protection - he loses his patience with the cause when it reaches a point where they have to leave or will die. At that point, he is prepared to go to any length, including his shotgun, in order to keep the innocent safe and protected from the violence and destruction all around them. It was the whole reason he threw all his money into protecting orphans of the Civil War, and why he continued to protect them until the very end. Even when he does resort to his gun, it is a method of last resort, and instead of shooting Jacinto at the first instance, he forces him to leave; an act which will later come back to haunt him.
In the war, he is both pragmatic as well as defiant - he is determined to defy the Nationalists, but not at the expense of his own, or his orphans' safety. He does nothing to stop members of the International Brigade being executed, not because he didn't find it disturbing and morally troublesome (he certainly did), but because he knew it would put not only his life at risk, but all the others' too. In the end, this is what leads him to decide that their lives are more important than the cause itself, and that the cause is pretty much lost (he'd always 'believed there would be an afterwards'), and that the boys' safety is his only priority now. Something which he defends with every act of defiance he possibly can against Jacinto - initially putting him off returning by making a show of standing in a window and watching him, and then continuing to thwart his plans, even after his death.
History: Miguel Caesares spent the high majority of his childhood and medical training in Buenos Aries, Argentina in the late 19th century, where he was the son of second generation Spanish immigrants, dating back to the Spanish Empire; all the men in his family had either been doctors or soldiers and he was generally expected to take a similar career. Despite this, he always considered himself a man of science above all else, and was just as interested in being a doctor as much as he was expected to.
After completing his medical training in the late 1890s, he joined the Argentinian Army as a medic, and fought in several border disputes with Chile. It was in the Army where he quickly became a committed Socialist, and after leaving the Army quickly became involved in the early movement which led to the Radical governments of the 1910s and early 1920s in Argentina. It was also during his brief time in the army which he gained considerable experience in emergency medical assistance in difficult situations, and acquired an interest in the superstitions of his fellow soldiers, and as a doctor, decided to embrace them and understand them, rather than dismiss them as unscientific.
After the collapse of the Radical governments around the time of the First World War, and the resulting right-wing backlash, he decided to emigrate to Spain, where he worked as a doctor and took an increasing interest in the political tensions in Spain between the Republican government and the Army, especially the socialist and anarchist elements of the governments of the early 1930s. He was, by this point, too old to become actively involved in left wing activism, but continually provided whatever support he could, often providing medical assistance to those injured in riots, or food to those on general strike, especially if they had children.
This was the one thing which usually troubled him about the conflicts which he was involved in; that there were nearly always children left behind and suffering as a result. During his time in Spain in the 1920s, he came to work at an orphanage, where he met Carmen, a teacher there for the children, who he fell in love with instantly - despite the fact she was already married. When, in 1936, the Army attempted a coup d'etat and sparked off civil war in Spain. With the help of a teacher and fellow Communist, Carmen, he turned this into an orphanage and school designed for the children of Republican fighters, as well as providing somewhere secret for the Republican fighters to receive medical treatment. It was his main mission to keep the boys under his protection as safe as he possibly could from the war around them, as well as acting as a guide to boys who had lost their parents in that war. He kept the gold from the cause and used it to both keep the orphanage running, and fund Republican forces' weapons, and by providing both medical services and playing to the locals' superstitions by selling a 'cure-all' rum (not entirely as a manner of exploitation. There was a part of him which truly hoped it would work too).
Jacinto was a boy who had been at the orphanage since he was a young boy - he spent 15 years there, and resented every single second of it, but because he needed money, ended up, by 1939, working at the orphanage once again. Carmen described him as 'a prince without a kingdom' and one of the saddest children at the orphanage. He has, actually, returned to steal all the gold he knows is hidden in the orphanage, and 'tear the place down'. He is also, at that point, is continuing his illicit relationship with Carmen, which he has had since he was 17 - to make up for both her husband's, and then Caesares' inability to have sex with her (in his words 'those old fools did the poetry, and I did the fucking'). He is also engaged to the cook, Conchita, and promises her a farm and numerous other things, which he can only afford with the stolen gold - not that he really cares about her that much.
At one point, he runs across two boys collecting slugs in the basement, and realise they've seen him trying to get into the gold safe. Jaime, the older of the boys, tries to get Santi to hide with him, but Jacinto catches him, and shoves him into a wall, demanding to know what he's seen. After being slammed into a wall, Santi falls over, bleeding from the head, and to cover it up, Jacinto drops him, whilst he's still breathing, into a pool of water in the basement. Jaime is the only child who actually saw, and knows what happened, but is too frightened to say anything - something which then develops into anger and resentment. The others are told, and believe, that Santi ran away when the bombing started that night, and search for him in the desert, but can't find him. Santi, then, begins to haunt the orphanage with his presence - a sodden, slightly rotten ghost which appears as if it is still floating under water.
Meanwhile, the civil war rages on, and as more republican and communist soldiers come to see Caesares with their wounds, Carmen and Caesares give more of the gold to the soldiers to buy weapons with, but have growing and constant fears, as the war starts to turn against the non-fascist forces, that the Nationalists will arrive, and find 'Reds looking after the children of Reds', but he keeps hope and refuses to return to Argentina, believing that another country - France, Britain perhaps - will come in on the Communist side.
After a new boy, Carlos, arrives at the orphanage, and reports seeing the ghost several times, despite Caesares' attempts to assuage his fears, Caesares takes a trip to town which then makes him change his mind about determinedly staying where he was, and funding the cause, as he is then certain his boys and orphanage will be under direct threat. He takes a trip to town, only to sell his rum, but runs into a summary execution by the fascists of some soldiers from the International Brigades, but they also include a man he knew and treated only days before, Ayala. After an officer of the nationalist army asks him if the men were anyone he knows, only in passing, Caesares gets increasingly scared for their safety, and starts to suspect they were on to him.
The next morning, showing his nerves and fear for the first time in a long time, he decides to make plans to leave, with the gold, and flee to Marseille with the boys to get them out before the fascists arrive. As they are planning to leave, Jacinto, afraid to let the gold and his chance for revenge slip away from him that easily, confronts Carmen over the gold. Caesares bursts in just as it looks like he might get violent - at which point he finds out about Jacinto and Carmen's relationship, something he'd suspected, but not known all along (for this, Jacinto earns a good slap from Carmen, too). Caesares is armed with his shotgun, but instead of shooting, just demands he leave and chases him out with the gun.
Thinking that Jacinto has gone, they start off to leave, but Jacinto has one last trick up his sleeve - he's doused the place in petrol, and plans to burn the place to the ground, kids and all. Conchita catches him doing it, having picked up the gun herself. Carmen, meanwhile, has smuggled the gold into her leg, so Jacinto can't find it. Conchita, panicking, fires the gun at Jacinto, attracting everyone else's attention. At which, Jacinto lights the fire. A cook runs in to try and put the fire out, who Carmen chases in to rescue her from the ensuing explosion, and Caesares chases her in. At which point, the petrol cans in the building, and the car, blows up, instantly killing the cook, mortally wounding Carmen, and injuring Caesares and several boys. Conchita manages to get away relatively unhurt.
Caesares, deafened by the explosion, and severely bleeding from a wound in his side, goes off in search of the boys and Carmen, trying to find and help as many of them as possible. In the rubble of the kitchen, he finds Carmen, burnt and bleeding severely - Conchita has left to get help from town, so Caesares desperately tries to save Carmen's life on his own, trying to fix as many of her injuries as he can, but quickly realises she is going to die anyway, so recites new poetry he'd learnt to her as she died, to keep her calm, and as a final act of love.
After she has died, despite all his efforts, he picks up his gun, and realises that Jacinto will be back - but this time, he's determined to be waiting there, with his gun. As he believes he shouldn't have given him that chance. Whilst Caesares is standing guard with his gun, and quietly bleeding to death, he instructs the boys on removing bits of glass from another boy's back, and Jaime tells Carlos the whole story of how Santi actually died, vowing to kill Jacinto if he gets the chance.
Meanwhile, Conchita runs into Jacinto on her way into town to get help. Despite his attempts to intimidate her, she continually stands up to him, and insists she's not afraid of him. Unfortunately for her, this means that Jacinto then stabs her to death, to protect his image, more than anything, in front of the men helping him. Him and the other men return to the orphanage for the gold, and are angry to see Caesares still alive - Caesares saw them coming, and stands defiantly at a window, blaring music from his gramaphone, gun in hand, making a show of defiance. Temporarily, Jacinto and the others turn back to re-plan. Then Caesares swears to the boys that he won't leave this unfinished, nor leave the boys or the orphanage whilst Jacinto still threatened them. He then returns to his seat, still steadily bleeding. Jaime and Carlos continue to help Caesares, but at one point, they return and find that he has, in fact, died.
Then, as they try to deal with Caesares' corpse, Jacinto appears, with Caesares' gun, which he literally had to break his fingers to get. He then proceeds to make the boys search through the rubble for the gold at gunpoint, and he deliberately returns Jaime's gift to Conchita (he liked her, in a boy crush kind of way) to Jaime, just to rub the whole thing in his face. After losing patience with the boys, he locks them in a cupboard whilst he and the other men search for the gold themselves. Jaime is absolutely convinced he is going to kill them all, so makes an escape plan, and persuades the others to arm themselves with sticks. Galves, one of the boys, manages to get out of the cupboard, but falls and twists his ankle. This looks like possibly the end.
But, out of nowhere, Caesares' ghost appears in the corridor, and unlocks the door to the cupboard. Only Galves saw him, and reports to the boys that Caesares told them to be brave, and everything would be alright. The only remaining evidence that Caesares was there was his handkerchief left in the corridor. The boys pick it up, and set off to get out, or find Jacinto. Jacinto is still searching for the gold, and the other men have given up, presuming it not to be there, leaving Jacinto on his own. He eventually finds the gold, and decides to destroy everything, kids and all, behind him.
Jaime and Carlos confront him, and get him to chase them to the basement, armed with their sharpened sticks. Jacinto then goes to shoot one of the boys, but another stabs him under the arm with the stick. After another few stabs with the sticks, the boys manage to push him in the same water Santi died in. The gold tied to his belt weighs him down, and Santi's ghost pulls at his ankles. He drowns.
The boys then return Caesares' gun and handkerchief to him, and the boys leave, ever watched by Caesares, now a ghost.
Sample Journal Entry:
And when I see the final day, the day of the last voyage,
The ship that never comes again will lift the anchor free
You'll find me boarded with the crew, with barely any luggage
My body bare beneath the sun, like children of the sea.
You will have to forgive me my, quite probably poor, translation. I always admired these words; always admired all Machado's words, I admit. Perhaps, I had a sense somewhere in my soul that they would become truer and more literal than I ever imagined.
I think you'll be thankful to know my body is not bare.
I am Dr Caesares of Tarancon, Spain, and I do believe in ghosts.
Sample RP:
Well dressed, and impeccably calm, Caesares was sat in the library, carefully flicking through a large medical textbook with a notebook sat next to it on the table. The pages were covered in incongrously terrible handwriting, all in Spanish, and the occasional scratchy diagram. He knew he was playing catch up with about sixty years of history, and it was a strangely frustrating position to find himself in.
But if the doctor was anything, he was patient and ready to learn anything he had to. It required as much time dedicated to sitting in the library than anything else, and part of it was a race to get caught up before he got an inmate. Not that you could tell by watching him, as he was not a man to rush a single thing, preferring to be thorough and careful. The only slight sign of his frustration was the drumming of his pen against the thicker side of the open book and the occasional flipping of several pages at once.
He was paying very little attention to anyone around him, and it was quite easy to get the impression that someone could set off a gun at the other end of the room and he wouldn't move. Truth was, he quite probably would, and when there were strange noises or elevated voices at the other end of the room, he didn't jump up from his work, but cooly and calmly raised his head, peered over his shoulder to check what it was, then turned back to his book. Nothing looked like it was particularly difficult. It was all rather effortless.
Eventually, when someone he knew caught his eye, coming up between the tables, the patient tattoo of his pen against the pages, the drum-drum-drum with a slight skipped beat in the middle, came to a stop, he politely put the book to one side and gave them a nod, a smile, and a welcoming, "Good evening."
Special Notes:
The limitations/nature of his powers are worked out from the ghost scene in the film, so any adaptations/removals of the powers are fine. I think they're compatible with how they're used in canon.
User LJ: voltaireontoast
AIM/IM: voltaireontoast
E-mail: kim.best3@gmail.com
Other Characters: Sexby, Eddie, O'Brien.
Character Name: Dr Miguel Caesares.
Series: The Devil's Backbone
Age: 70
From When?: After his ghost ensures that Jaime and the other boys escape from the school after Jacinto's death.
Inmate/Warden: Warden. He protects the boys at his school against the Civil War, the fascists, and, after his death, Jacinto. He also shelters and treats Communist fighters in the Civil War, holding a supply of gold for the anti-fascist cause. His main purpose in life is to protect and guide both the boys at his orphanage/school and keep them safe from the war which has taken their families from them. He's a good guy to death and beyond.
Item: A copy of Antonio Machado's Campos de Castilla.
Abilities/Powers: Mainly, he's a doctor, although he was educated in Argentina in the 1890s, he's a very good one, and considers himself a man of science above all else. He specialises (through necessity, not choice) in battle wounds and emergency treatment; to the point of being both the point of call for nearby injured Republican fighters and being able to instruct a 9 year old in taking glass out of someone else's back whilst he was bleeding to death himself.
He's also skilled with a shotgun, and has the sort of badass determination which makes him formidable at times.
Also, he has what can only be described as ghost powers - derived from canon, if not explicitly canon. In canon, he returns after death to release the boys from the cupboard they've locked themselves in, so they can take down Jacinto. On the Barge, in conjunction with the death toll, this will translate as an ability to return in the space between death and revival but only to save someone's life. Nobody will be able to see him, and he won't be able to touch anyone. All he will be able to do is one act to save someone's life, and leave behind his handkerchief as evidence he was there.
Personality:
Above all else, Caesares is a devoted man. He is devoted to his ideals, devoted to the children he works for and the woman he loves - even to the point where his devotion overtakes his own interest and often blinds him to other problems and difficulties. He accepts the woman that he loves, and who clearly, to some extent loves him back, using a much younger man for sex, simply because he loves her so deeply, and will tolerate far more than most people normally would, just to allow him to do so. Equally, his devotion to the children in his care backfired on him, when one of those boys, Jacinto, turns on him and aims to steal all of his gold and burn the building down. Despite being aware of the possibility of this treachery and resentment, he allows Jacinto to stay there, simply because he has nowhere else to go. He is exceptionally sympathetic to the point of almost excusing faults and brushing over dangers - when those dangers become apparent, he always stands up on the side of right and prevents further damage, but many things he could have prevented earlier by taking a firmer line and not allowing things to slide.
This does not mean that Caesares is not a principled man, and does not stand by these principles. He aims to be fair and reasonable - and set himself up as approachable above all else. All of these will affect how he acts as a warden - he would want to be, first and foremost, someone his inmate could talk to, and would aim to understand before anything else. This, naturally, could lead to him being too forgiving and a little too trusting, but it does not mean he is incapable of enforcing rules either. Despite being understanding, within his orphanage, he does run a tight ship and expect all the boys to behave well, and is prepared to discipline, but would never want to act cruelly or unfairly. He nearly always favours talking the issue through than an out and out punishment.
Caesares prides himself as a man of science, and believes in the power of his medical knowledge to do good, as well as having a strong desire to see questions answered in order to help people. That scientific drive and curiosity, conversely, leads his less scientific motivations. He can be intensely superstitious, and shows a great interest in the superstitions of less scientific people. He actively engages with these superstitions, usually in order to make people feel better when he can't necessarily cure them, and will quite easily admit that he believes in them himself. Not because they're scientifically accurate, and he'd never trust them before his medical knowledge, but because he believes in belief. He has seen, first hand, the power of belief in making people feel better once medical science can no longer help, in giving people something to aim for, something to provide hope and guidance. Caesares is both a scientist and a believer - he believes in medicine and superstition, in political ideals and tradition, in God and in ghosts. He has never been one to think that belief and science are diametrically opposed, and will never look down on someone for holding beliefs and living by those beliefs, instead, he will try to accommodate them where he sees fit, and if he doesn't understand them, aim to understand them.
He is also incredibly cultured and well-educated. He's had a relatively privileged upbringing, and learned to love poetry, art, music and literature at a young age. This means that despite his long and at times, difficult, life, especially in war, he has always found a solace and peace in things beyond politics, beyond fighting. As a result, he managed to keep up his romantic, idealist optimist in the face of danger and destruction. He was always greatly troubled by the violence and hatred he saw around him - but looked to art and poetry to remind him how beautiful humanity could be if it could be bothered. Equally, he has a strong belief in romantic love above all else - due to an inability to express his love physically, he throws himself head first into reciting poetry, caring deeply about those who he loves, and never giving in, never losing that love. His belief in romantic love and superstitions is what enables him to come back as a ghost in a protective fashion - he believes so much that love and protection will triumph over the violence and hatred that Jacinto brings that he not only fights to the death, but beyond it, in order to protect them and help them escape victorious.
He is also a relatively patient man - he will give people chances to prove themselves to him, and take the time to talk through things calmly. He hardly ever loses his temper, preferring to deal with a situation in the most tactful and reasonable way possible. The only times when his temper starts to fray are those when needless violence is inflicted against the innocent or Carmen, especially those in his protection - he loses his patience with the cause when it reaches a point where they have to leave or will die. At that point, he is prepared to go to any length, including his shotgun, in order to keep the innocent safe and protected from the violence and destruction all around them. It was the whole reason he threw all his money into protecting orphans of the Civil War, and why he continued to protect them until the very end. Even when he does resort to his gun, it is a method of last resort, and instead of shooting Jacinto at the first instance, he forces him to leave; an act which will later come back to haunt him.
In the war, he is both pragmatic as well as defiant - he is determined to defy the Nationalists, but not at the expense of his own, or his orphans' safety. He does nothing to stop members of the International Brigade being executed, not because he didn't find it disturbing and morally troublesome (he certainly did), but because he knew it would put not only his life at risk, but all the others' too. In the end, this is what leads him to decide that their lives are more important than the cause itself, and that the cause is pretty much lost (he'd always 'believed there would be an afterwards'), and that the boys' safety is his only priority now. Something which he defends with every act of defiance he possibly can against Jacinto - initially putting him off returning by making a show of standing in a window and watching him, and then continuing to thwart his plans, even after his death.
History: Miguel Caesares spent the high majority of his childhood and medical training in Buenos Aries, Argentina in the late 19th century, where he was the son of second generation Spanish immigrants, dating back to the Spanish Empire; all the men in his family had either been doctors or soldiers and he was generally expected to take a similar career. Despite this, he always considered himself a man of science above all else, and was just as interested in being a doctor as much as he was expected to.
After completing his medical training in the late 1890s, he joined the Argentinian Army as a medic, and fought in several border disputes with Chile. It was in the Army where he quickly became a committed Socialist, and after leaving the Army quickly became involved in the early movement which led to the Radical governments of the 1910s and early 1920s in Argentina. It was also during his brief time in the army which he gained considerable experience in emergency medical assistance in difficult situations, and acquired an interest in the superstitions of his fellow soldiers, and as a doctor, decided to embrace them and understand them, rather than dismiss them as unscientific.
After the collapse of the Radical governments around the time of the First World War, and the resulting right-wing backlash, he decided to emigrate to Spain, where he worked as a doctor and took an increasing interest in the political tensions in Spain between the Republican government and the Army, especially the socialist and anarchist elements of the governments of the early 1930s. He was, by this point, too old to become actively involved in left wing activism, but continually provided whatever support he could, often providing medical assistance to those injured in riots, or food to those on general strike, especially if they had children.
This was the one thing which usually troubled him about the conflicts which he was involved in; that there were nearly always children left behind and suffering as a result. During his time in Spain in the 1920s, he came to work at an orphanage, where he met Carmen, a teacher there for the children, who he fell in love with instantly - despite the fact she was already married. When, in 1936, the Army attempted a coup d'etat and sparked off civil war in Spain. With the help of a teacher and fellow Communist, Carmen, he turned this into an orphanage and school designed for the children of Republican fighters, as well as providing somewhere secret for the Republican fighters to receive medical treatment. It was his main mission to keep the boys under his protection as safe as he possibly could from the war around them, as well as acting as a guide to boys who had lost their parents in that war. He kept the gold from the cause and used it to both keep the orphanage running, and fund Republican forces' weapons, and by providing both medical services and playing to the locals' superstitions by selling a 'cure-all' rum (not entirely as a manner of exploitation. There was a part of him which truly hoped it would work too).
Jacinto was a boy who had been at the orphanage since he was a young boy - he spent 15 years there, and resented every single second of it, but because he needed money, ended up, by 1939, working at the orphanage once again. Carmen described him as 'a prince without a kingdom' and one of the saddest children at the orphanage. He has, actually, returned to steal all the gold he knows is hidden in the orphanage, and 'tear the place down'. He is also, at that point, is continuing his illicit relationship with Carmen, which he has had since he was 17 - to make up for both her husband's, and then Caesares' inability to have sex with her (in his words 'those old fools did the poetry, and I did the fucking'). He is also engaged to the cook, Conchita, and promises her a farm and numerous other things, which he can only afford with the stolen gold - not that he really cares about her that much.
At one point, he runs across two boys collecting slugs in the basement, and realise they've seen him trying to get into the gold safe. Jaime, the older of the boys, tries to get Santi to hide with him, but Jacinto catches him, and shoves him into a wall, demanding to know what he's seen. After being slammed into a wall, Santi falls over, bleeding from the head, and to cover it up, Jacinto drops him, whilst he's still breathing, into a pool of water in the basement. Jaime is the only child who actually saw, and knows what happened, but is too frightened to say anything - something which then develops into anger and resentment. The others are told, and believe, that Santi ran away when the bombing started that night, and search for him in the desert, but can't find him. Santi, then, begins to haunt the orphanage with his presence - a sodden, slightly rotten ghost which appears as if it is still floating under water.
Meanwhile, the civil war rages on, and as more republican and communist soldiers come to see Caesares with their wounds, Carmen and Caesares give more of the gold to the soldiers to buy weapons with, but have growing and constant fears, as the war starts to turn against the non-fascist forces, that the Nationalists will arrive, and find 'Reds looking after the children of Reds', but he keeps hope and refuses to return to Argentina, believing that another country - France, Britain perhaps - will come in on the Communist side.
After a new boy, Carlos, arrives at the orphanage, and reports seeing the ghost several times, despite Caesares' attempts to assuage his fears, Caesares takes a trip to town which then makes him change his mind about determinedly staying where he was, and funding the cause, as he is then certain his boys and orphanage will be under direct threat. He takes a trip to town, only to sell his rum, but runs into a summary execution by the fascists of some soldiers from the International Brigades, but they also include a man he knew and treated only days before, Ayala. After an officer of the nationalist army asks him if the men were anyone he knows, only in passing, Caesares gets increasingly scared for their safety, and starts to suspect they were on to him.
The next morning, showing his nerves and fear for the first time in a long time, he decides to make plans to leave, with the gold, and flee to Marseille with the boys to get them out before the fascists arrive. As they are planning to leave, Jacinto, afraid to let the gold and his chance for revenge slip away from him that easily, confronts Carmen over the gold. Caesares bursts in just as it looks like he might get violent - at which point he finds out about Jacinto and Carmen's relationship, something he'd suspected, but not known all along (for this, Jacinto earns a good slap from Carmen, too). Caesares is armed with his shotgun, but instead of shooting, just demands he leave and chases him out with the gun.
Thinking that Jacinto has gone, they start off to leave, but Jacinto has one last trick up his sleeve - he's doused the place in petrol, and plans to burn the place to the ground, kids and all. Conchita catches him doing it, having picked up the gun herself. Carmen, meanwhile, has smuggled the gold into her leg, so Jacinto can't find it. Conchita, panicking, fires the gun at Jacinto, attracting everyone else's attention. At which, Jacinto lights the fire. A cook runs in to try and put the fire out, who Carmen chases in to rescue her from the ensuing explosion, and Caesares chases her in. At which point, the petrol cans in the building, and the car, blows up, instantly killing the cook, mortally wounding Carmen, and injuring Caesares and several boys. Conchita manages to get away relatively unhurt.
Caesares, deafened by the explosion, and severely bleeding from a wound in his side, goes off in search of the boys and Carmen, trying to find and help as many of them as possible. In the rubble of the kitchen, he finds Carmen, burnt and bleeding severely - Conchita has left to get help from town, so Caesares desperately tries to save Carmen's life on his own, trying to fix as many of her injuries as he can, but quickly realises she is going to die anyway, so recites new poetry he'd learnt to her as she died, to keep her calm, and as a final act of love.
After she has died, despite all his efforts, he picks up his gun, and realises that Jacinto will be back - but this time, he's determined to be waiting there, with his gun. As he believes he shouldn't have given him that chance. Whilst Caesares is standing guard with his gun, and quietly bleeding to death, he instructs the boys on removing bits of glass from another boy's back, and Jaime tells Carlos the whole story of how Santi actually died, vowing to kill Jacinto if he gets the chance.
Meanwhile, Conchita runs into Jacinto on her way into town to get help. Despite his attempts to intimidate her, she continually stands up to him, and insists she's not afraid of him. Unfortunately for her, this means that Jacinto then stabs her to death, to protect his image, more than anything, in front of the men helping him. Him and the other men return to the orphanage for the gold, and are angry to see Caesares still alive - Caesares saw them coming, and stands defiantly at a window, blaring music from his gramaphone, gun in hand, making a show of defiance. Temporarily, Jacinto and the others turn back to re-plan. Then Caesares swears to the boys that he won't leave this unfinished, nor leave the boys or the orphanage whilst Jacinto still threatened them. He then returns to his seat, still steadily bleeding. Jaime and Carlos continue to help Caesares, but at one point, they return and find that he has, in fact, died.
Then, as they try to deal with Caesares' corpse, Jacinto appears, with Caesares' gun, which he literally had to break his fingers to get. He then proceeds to make the boys search through the rubble for the gold at gunpoint, and he deliberately returns Jaime's gift to Conchita (he liked her, in a boy crush kind of way) to Jaime, just to rub the whole thing in his face. After losing patience with the boys, he locks them in a cupboard whilst he and the other men search for the gold themselves. Jaime is absolutely convinced he is going to kill them all, so makes an escape plan, and persuades the others to arm themselves with sticks. Galves, one of the boys, manages to get out of the cupboard, but falls and twists his ankle. This looks like possibly the end.
But, out of nowhere, Caesares' ghost appears in the corridor, and unlocks the door to the cupboard. Only Galves saw him, and reports to the boys that Caesares told them to be brave, and everything would be alright. The only remaining evidence that Caesares was there was his handkerchief left in the corridor. The boys pick it up, and set off to get out, or find Jacinto. Jacinto is still searching for the gold, and the other men have given up, presuming it not to be there, leaving Jacinto on his own. He eventually finds the gold, and decides to destroy everything, kids and all, behind him.
Jaime and Carlos confront him, and get him to chase them to the basement, armed with their sharpened sticks. Jacinto then goes to shoot one of the boys, but another stabs him under the arm with the stick. After another few stabs with the sticks, the boys manage to push him in the same water Santi died in. The gold tied to his belt weighs him down, and Santi's ghost pulls at his ankles. He drowns.
The boys then return Caesares' gun and handkerchief to him, and the boys leave, ever watched by Caesares, now a ghost.
Sample Journal Entry:
And when I see the final day, the day of the last voyage,
The ship that never comes again will lift the anchor free
You'll find me boarded with the crew, with barely any luggage
My body bare beneath the sun, like children of the sea.
You will have to forgive me my, quite probably poor, translation. I always admired these words; always admired all Machado's words, I admit. Perhaps, I had a sense somewhere in my soul that they would become truer and more literal than I ever imagined.
I think you'll be thankful to know my body is not bare.
I am Dr Caesares of Tarancon, Spain, and I do believe in ghosts.
Sample RP:
Well dressed, and impeccably calm, Caesares was sat in the library, carefully flicking through a large medical textbook with a notebook sat next to it on the table. The pages were covered in incongrously terrible handwriting, all in Spanish, and the occasional scratchy diagram. He knew he was playing catch up with about sixty years of history, and it was a strangely frustrating position to find himself in.
But if the doctor was anything, he was patient and ready to learn anything he had to. It required as much time dedicated to sitting in the library than anything else, and part of it was a race to get caught up before he got an inmate. Not that you could tell by watching him, as he was not a man to rush a single thing, preferring to be thorough and careful. The only slight sign of his frustration was the drumming of his pen against the thicker side of the open book and the occasional flipping of several pages at once.
He was paying very little attention to anyone around him, and it was quite easy to get the impression that someone could set off a gun at the other end of the room and he wouldn't move. Truth was, he quite probably would, and when there were strange noises or elevated voices at the other end of the room, he didn't jump up from his work, but cooly and calmly raised his head, peered over his shoulder to check what it was, then turned back to his book. Nothing looked like it was particularly difficult. It was all rather effortless.
Eventually, when someone he knew caught his eye, coming up between the tables, the patient tattoo of his pen against the pages, the drum-drum-drum with a slight skipped beat in the middle, came to a stop, he politely put the book to one side and gave them a nod, a smile, and a welcoming, "Good evening."
Special Notes:
The limitations/nature of his powers are worked out from the ghost scene in the film, so any adaptations/removals of the powers are fine. I think they're compatible with how they're used in canon.