sirenspull: Application.

[wasnotthecat]

Player Information

Name: Anodyne
Age: 19
AIM SN: OhAnodyne
email: AnodyneGeno@Gmail.com
Have you played in an LJ based game before? Yes. ms_elegante, a_facility, route_29, and singularity_rpg.
Currrently Played Characters: N/A
Conditional: Activity Check Link: N/A

Character Information

General
Canon Source: Scott Pilgrim
Canon Format: Comics
Character's Name: Gideon Gordon Graves
Character's Age: 31
Conditional: If your character is 13 years of age or under, please clarify how they will be played. N/A

What form will your character's NV take? Something reminiscent of a Blackberry smartphone.

Abilities
Character's Canon Abilities:
THE GLOW
Gideon’s most noteworthy ability is his creation and control over the Glow-a weaponized form of emotional warfare. As he describes it, once it infects you the Glow uses subspace to trap you inside your head and forces you to confront your issues. The Glow is overwhelming-for example, once Scott is infected with it during a swordfight with Gideon, he actually stops his attack and starts arguing with Ramona-and keeps arguing even as Gideon is slashing him with his own sword. In other words, once someone is hit by the Glow they become so caught up in their negative emotions that it's virtually all they can think about, and it can cause them to act in ways that are very destructive to themselves and their relationships with others. Gideon can spread the Glow via touch or by firing it from his hands.
Also, as Gideon describes it, the Glow is chronic--no individual can personally overcome it. I'm assuming the only way to remove the Glow is to kill Gideon. This is because in Volume 6, Gideon infects not only Scott and Ramona with it, but a whole crowd of bystanders as well. After he is defeated, everyone struck by the Glow seems to be free of it. So, killing him doesn't "cure" the Glow so much as break its hold on people, and there is nothing preventing him from reinfecting people.
More on the Glow.

SUBSPACE
Essentially, subspace is a highway through the subconscious that can be used to travel great distances in short periods of time, or as a pocket of alternate reality that can be used to see inside one's head. And since Gideon is the supposed inventor of subspace, he can exercise great dominion over it. Gideon is known to use subspace highways to not only stalk those of interest to him-- he can even use it to alter people's memories. For example, it is revealed in Volume 6 that Gideon not only spied on Scott and Ramona but also, in his words, "spiced up" some of Scott's memories in order to make him misremember a great deal of his past. In addition, Gideon has the ability to construct a pocket of subspace inside something small like a bag, allowing the bag to take on a basically limitless capacity. An example of this is Ramona's subspace suitcase.
More on Subspace.

COMBAT
Gideon is an expert fighter-he was able to easily hold his own against Scott (who is described in the comics as one of the best fighters in the province), and even managed to kill him off once without much effort at all. He is seen to be adept at both hand-to-hand fighting and swordfighting (he favors the latter). He's ruthless and efficient-- he managed to keep Scott almost entirely on the defensive prior to killing him-- and won't hesitate to fight with anyone who gets in his way.

INTELLIGENCE
Not so much an "ability" as a trait, but another of Gideon's strengths is that he is ridiculously intelligent. As mentioned previously, he created both the Glow and subspace, and excels at creating in-depth and meticulous plots. For example, he orchestrated many of the events leading up to Volume 6, including screwing with Scott's memories ahead of time. He even went out of his way to build a sword into the dress of his League singer as a fallback weapon--y'know, just in case he was disarmed. Upon procuring the weapon, he remarks that "That's just the kind of guy he is"-- one who considers every possible outcome of a situation and prepares in any way he sees possible. This allows us to conclude that he very good at planning ahead and could even be considered a mastermind of sorts. He's also got both book and streetsmarts to back him up, not to mention a knack for manipulating with the best of them.

Conditional: If your character has no superhuman canon abilities, what dormant ability will you give them? N/A
Weapons: One regular katana, and one pixel katana. The pixel katana is tied directly to Gideon's control of subspace and thus, is never carried directly on his person. He can summon it from subspace at any time through the use of seven hand symbols. It is shown to be incredibly difficult--if impossible--to break due to the makeup of its blade being closer to energy than steel, and causes bright flashes of light every time it strikes an opposing weapon. In addition, it cannot be stolen--if out of Gideon's grasp for too long it simply disappears back into the pocket of subspace he stores it in.

History/Personality/Plans/etc.
Character History: Pretty much everything we know canonically about Gideon can be found in his wiki. He’s a very mysterious character, and we only really get solid information on him in the final volume of the comic, so I’ll start with the basics. Gideon comes from a world that could be considered just like normal Earth, with recognizable geography and locations (for example, the comic is set in modern-day Toronto and mentions New York). However, not everything is normal here; the world has its own entertainment and media, such as the band "The Clash at Demonhead" and Gideon’s line of clubs, the Chaos Theater. Even more bizarre is that for whatever reason, certain video game attributes exist in this world. Some characters have mystical or psychic powers, statistics flash up when engaging in combat (and sometimes even just conversation), items can be unlocked, and status bars pop up when characters are performing certain lengthy actions. While you could argue that the nerdy protagonist (Scott Pilgrim) imagines them, this seems improbable due to the fact that many of them can affect and be seen by other characters (such as the exes bursting into coins). This is merely contextual information; since Siren's is not based in this psuedo-video game version of the world, these aspects will be absent. So, for example, if (when?) Gideon dies, he's not going to explode into a shower of pocket change; he'll just die, with blood and a corpse and all that depressing stuff.

All that said, here’s what we know about Gideon’s personal background. Personal goal-wise, he is very driven and dedicated to his work; it eventually paid off in his budding career as a music producer and he managed to secure a name for himself in the field, as well as establishing his own company, GGG Heavy Industries. One of his most noteworthy successes was signing the Clash at Demonhead onto his label and helping them become one of the most famous bands at the time; this allowed him to lead a very affluent lifestyle. The popularity and rising social status went to his head fairly quickly, causing him to develop a bit of an ego. Sometime before the first volume of the graphic novels took place, he met Ramona at a party and the two pretty much hit it off. Gideon took her under her wing because she inspired him, stating that she had seen things (and even retrospectively referred to her as his muse before his defeat). They entered a relationship, in which Ramona was absolutely crazy for Gideon; unfortunately, he was not emotionally adept enough to realize that he was, essentially, taking her love for him for granted and brushing off her affections. She also felt neglected because of how absorbed Gideon always was in his work. Most problematic, however, was Gideon's tendency to test his inventions on her--including the Glow, which plagued her even after she left him. This went on for an unspecified amount of time, but the end result was that she left Gideon without any sort of forewarning or explanation. He did not take this well at all; in fact, when he realized she wasn’t coming back, he got hopelessly wasted and posted a drunken add on Craigslist.

This got the attention of the other six of Ramona’s ex-boyfriends, and though their response was unexpected, together they formed they League of Evil Exes that would "control Ramona's future love life". Gideon became their leader and sent them after Scott, who had become romantically involved with Ramona. Gideon initially worked from a distance to keep the two apart, keeping tabs on them with his control over subspace and his lingering dominion over Ramona's mind. When the first two evil exes are defeated, Gideon finally shows up in Toronto to scope out what he's actually dealing with, stopping by Lee's Palace to watch Scott's battle with Todd. He later opened another installation of his most successful line of clubs, the Chaos Theater, in Toronto. Eventually Scott managed to defeat six of the Evil Exes, leaving only Gideon to battle Scott-- he used the grand opening of Toronto's Chaos Theater to set the stage for their fight. Gideon actually succeeded in killing Scott, but the protagonist had secured a 1-up from a fight with a previous ex and returned to life. Using his greater understanding of himself and his foe--something Gideon himself lacked-- Scott finally teamed up with Ramona and the two managed to defeat Gideon, cross-cutting him with their swords and causing him to burst into coins.
Point in Canon: Volume 6, right before his death. This means that he will be showing up extensively injured from his final fight.
Conditional: Brief summary of previous RP history: N/A. Gideon is going to be fresh out of comic canon.

Character Personality: Gideon is a very layered character with lots of issues and baggage. At his core he is incredibly manipulative and passive-aggressive. When meeting new people he’ll often be very free with the smooth-talk and the praise, but there’s almost always a little edge of insincerity to it. It’s more out of a desire to see how certain people will react than out of a true desire to make them feel good about themselves; once he knows how to deal with people, he’s quite good at getting inside their heads and has no qualms about manipulating them as he sees fit. With the exception of Ramona, people are tools, there for him to use to get whatever he wants, whenever he wants. He’s definitely a “kill ‘em with kindness” type of guy. This is especially noticeable with how he deals with Scott; despite the fact that the two of them are bitter enemies, Gideon often taunts him by referring to him with friendly terms such as “buddy” and casual mocking remarks even while fighting.

He also has a very fierce desire for control, because without his control he feels vulnerable. This is why he pushes so many people in his life away preemptively, and one of the reasons he’s so shaken when it’s Ramona that leaves him, and not vice versa. He’s also very self-interested and vain, and he carries himself with a very noticeable “holier-than-thou” attitude. He has a sadistic sense of humor and is very free with the snark, especially if he's not particularly fond of the person. Gideon is also a bit of a womanizer-- he won't hesitate to flirt with a pretty face and has had a number of one-night stands in his past. For example, he enters a rebound relationship with a singer from the most prominent band on his label just to hold him over until he gets Ramona back. He doesn't love her and leads her on in the relationship solely for the support and... other certain perks.

Despite all of this, Gideon seems to have a certain level of self-awareness as to how fucked up he is; he remarks in Volume 6 that he’s been “trapped inside his own head since the day he was born”. It’s for this reason that he’s not afraid of or affected by the emotional turmoil caused by the Glow; he’s aware that he has issues and baggage and he’s been struggling to deal with them for a long time.

On that note, Gideon isn't irredeemably evil. A better description would be that he's incredibly passive-aggressive-- but he's still human and is still capable of those warm, fuzzy feelings, rare as they might be. During the final fight, Ramona implies that Gideon was not that bad of a guy and only started to become a jerk after she dumped him. It's also important to note that Gideon did not initially form the League out of malicious intent, as he states that he "never expected a bunch of her actual evil-ex boyfriends to reply". He still has the propensity to care about people, but after said dumping he's incredibly reluctant to, since Ramona leaving him showed him that trusting people opens up plenty of opportunities for them to hurt you. As such, it takes a whole hell of a lot to crack through his outer shell of manipulative asshole-ishness and get him to care enough to be sincerely nice to someone.
Conditional: Personality development in previous game: N/A
Character Plans: Outside of applying his gray matter to the AGI vs. SERO dilmena, I'm really just interested to get some CR going and seeing how this setting changes him as a person. He'll also probably make at least a few forays out into the Darkness, initially out of his headstrong nature and subsequently out of a desire to learn more about the Pull and such.

Appearance/PB:
- Icons
- Hi-Res comic scans: [1] [2] [3] [4]

Writing Samples

First Person Sample
[VIDEO]

[The feed clicks on as the NV hits the ground, apparently dropped, bouncing once before clattering to a halt on the barren dirt. The only thing currently in view is someone's feet--expensive-looking black and white shoes-- and suddenly a few startlingly large liquid beads of crimson drop onto the otherwise monochromatic attire.]

Shit. Shit shit shit shit--

[Suddenly this new arrival is pitching forward and hitting the ground right in front of the feed. His hands are slick with his own blood and he's cradling his chest and stomach, but is otherwise completely still. From the awkward angle of the NV to the dark black shirt covering his torso, it's hard to see his exact injuries--but its safe to assume he's in real damn bad shape.

The feed times out as his blood pools on the dry ground around him.]

Third Person Sample
The sun was falling.

Gideon watched the massive, distant star sink lower and lower into the horizon from his spot on the roof, one hand firmly gripping the hilt of his pixel katana. And he waited. He'd heard whispers and warnings of the Darkness, an otherworldy sort of force that crept into the world to taint the city at night--he'd heard of the dangers, how every encounter was a life or death struggle. And just a few nights ago, he'd witnessed this for himself.

So why was he just sitting out in the open waiting for it to happen again?

Because he had a score to settle.

It wasn't a long wait. As soon as night had fallen, the telltale sirens went off--eerie, prolonged mechanical wails signaling the approach of the Darkness. Rot began to fester into the deep night shadows before spilling out to degrade everything; the streets, the outsides of the buildings, even the very roof of the building where Gideon himself sat.

And then came the creatures.

Odd shapes flitting about in the darkness, barely distinguishable--vaguely human and yet so distinctly wrong--unsettling in their own right. Ghosts of the dead given tangible, mutated forms. Even Gideon had to admit to himself that he was slightly on edge--even more so after seeing what they were capable of. The bandaged gash decorating his flank under his shirt was a nice testament to that. But--that's why he was here.

It happened quickly--a long humanoid body suddenly hauled itself up on the roof across from Gideon, and he caught glimpse of stretched translucent skin. This was it--the one that jumped him last time. Rising to his feet, Gideon swung his blade on instinct, severing an impossibly long tongue that had shot out from the gnarled mouth of the creature. Before the twisted muscle had even hit the ground he had lept at his assailant, clubbing it brutally in the side of the head with the hilt of his katana. It staggered with a gurgling hiss--the second time he struck it, it dropped unconscious to the ground in a heap. The third time? That was for good measure--and his own grim satisfaction.

Gideon wasted no time-- he grabbed the thing by its ankles and unceremoniously dragged it back inside the door that granted access to the roof. Already, he could hear the growls and plodding footsteps of other Darkness swarming towards his location. Working quickly, he replaced the Darkness-proofing on the door, securing thick chains and locks across it. Then he turned back to the unconscious Darkness, grim expression on his face.

"Okay, ugly. Just you and me. Let's see what makes you guys really tick."