[OOC] Application
Mun
Name: Loupe
Livejournal Username: the_loupe
E-mail: the_loupe@live.com
AIM/MSN: t3hloupe (aim)
Current Characters at Luceti: N/A
Character
Name: Vandesdelca Musto Fende, alias Van Grants
Fandom: Tales of the Abyss
Gender: Male
Age: 27
Time Period: After his confrontation with Asch and Tear in Ortion Cavern
Wing Color: Mottled grey (feathers white at base, dark at tips)
History: @ Aselia Wiki
Personality:
On first impression, Dorian General Grants seems a warm and charismatic man, a competent and inspiring leader, and a caring mentor. To those that know him, Vandesdelca Musto Fende is a consummate liar with a shady agenda, made dangerous and ruthless by bitterness over the fate of himself and his homeland. The question of which persona is true is one very few people could answer confidently.
Van is a skilled manipulator. This is his preferred mode of action, though that shouldn’t be taken to mean he isn’t ruthless or formidable in a fight. The two deaths he is actually shown causing personally - Cathy and Hencken’s - are unnecessary inasmuch as they would do nothing to further his immediate goals. They are, however, swiftly turned into a threat towards a reluctant conspirator. As antagonists go, Van shows a certain dislike of ‘wasteful’ deaths. He’s not a bloodthirsty man, and he gives no indication that enjoys the amount of death he’s causing, but at the same time he does exhibit a casual disregard for human life.
Van states multiple times that replicas are nothing more than tools to be used and discarded, but this statement isn’t entirely compatible with his plan to free the world by replicating it. Additionally, he usually says such things to Asch (to pander to his hatred of replicas) or to Luke (to shake the replica up before it attempts to murder him, again). It would be more accurate to say that Van views everything that exists on Auldrant as something to be used and discarded, himself included.
That he treats life so cheaply seems at first rather hypocritical, given that it was the casual manner in which his was thrown away that began his great ambition. However, what Van values isn’t life. What Van values is choice, something that he sincerely believes no original can have as long as the Score exists, with or without knowledge of it. In sharp contrast to his pupils and creations, who suffer it so unhappily, Van has a near palpable craving for existential angst. To him, there is no greater freedom than the freedom to look back on one’s life and find no meaning or purpose at all.
Because life is so cheap to him, Van feels little or no remorse not only in ending it, but also in twisting it around and redirecting it to serve his own purpose. His manipulative nature is peculiar, because while he has great skill in reading people and determining what he must be to them to turn them to his own ends, he doesn’t understand that his goals can offend the sensibilities of those closest to him as well as those he regards as simple pawns.
Van’s chief shortcoming, not as a villain but as a human being in general, is that the circumstances of his youth have largely destroyed his moral self-awareness. What makes him dangerous is not that he is willing to kill many, many people, but that he genuinely believes he is doing a good thing when he does. He is almost impossible to sway from his course of action because his opponents can’t make appeals to his morals. He commits the same terrible actions as those upholding the Score, but he is right and they arewrong, and he will not be convinced otherwise. He stands to gain nothing from his schemes, except a brief moment of satisfaction before his own death; thus it rings false if he’s accused of selfishness. He may have taken Asch away from everything he loved, but in doing so he attempted to save Asch’s life; and so neither does base cruelty sound true. And so, just like the determined hero, if you want to stop him, you will have to kill him.
He is notable as a main antagonist in that he has no particular fear of dying. His most trusted subordinate is a woman that once wanted to murder him. His most cared for subordinate is a young man that still wants to murder him. Not only does his sister want to murder him, but he was the one who first antagonized her to it and put the blade in her hand. There is a measure of arrogance to his lack of fear, but not in the sense that he is unaware of his own mortality. Van knows he will die. He counts on it. Van’s arrogance comes in the form of overestimating others’ love of him. He puts the sword in Tear’s hand and tells her that she must kill him to stop him because he doesn’t think she’ll use it. He finally tells Asch his plans because he is of the mistaken belief that Asch needs him as much as he needs Asch, and so thinks Asch will eventually accept them. This is the one major blind spot in his plans, and it comes back to bite him more than once.
It’s peculiar that such a masterful manipulator should be so consistently blind to the hearts and minds of those he cares most about - and it is with those he cares most about that he suffers this shortcoming. In fact, it is peculiar that someone so bent on worldwide extinction would care at all. Though they are few, there are those individuals Van cares about deeply. While he was never the perfect big brother - prone to scaring her with rants about revenge and injustice - he was tender and protective with Tear. He sang her lullabies when she couldn’t sleep. He taught her to cook. He tried to protect her. Luke may be nothing to Van, but Van still acts the part of the patient and understanding teacher - more patient and understanding than with Asch, in fact.
Still, in both cases, patience and understanding were weapons that were ultimately used against them. That is Van’s M.O. - to gain trust and make his intended victim both enamored and dependent on him. In the case of both Asch and Luke, it would be remiss not to mention that the relationship he formed with them was, at times, inappropriately emotionally intimate.
On the whole, it’s important to note that while he is dangerous and circumstantially omnicidal, Van is not an unfeeling monster. He is a man who might, in a different life, have been considered admirable, doing what he believes he must. He understands, at least on some level, that his methods are terrible. It’s an issue he’s already grappled with. Separated from the looming oppression of the Score and its predicted apocalypse, he’s unlikely to be an overtly violent man, or a threat to the general populace. He will always be selfish, unwise to trust entirely, and much too prone to using others for his own ends without their knowledge. He will also always be highly capable, and compellingly charismatic.
That may be when he’s at his most dangerous.
Strengths:
Physically and mentally, Van is a strong and capable person. He’s a formidable swordsman and a powerful seventh fonist, as well as a man with political clout as the commandant of the Oracle Knights. Though he’s never shown singing Yulia’s hymns, he uses the Grand Fonic Hymn offscreen to trap Lorelei, so he must understand and be capable of using all seven of them. He also uses several high-level artes, such as Luke’s FOF-changed arts… without an FOF. And then he is, simply put, a resilient bastard. He survived an island-destroying hyperresonance and a fall into the Qliphoth, among other typically lethal things.
He’s exceptionally charismatic, and a rather brilliant tactician. The best example of this is the elegant simplicity of his replication gambit: trapping Lorelei causes the Planet Storm to make more seventh fonons, which makes the vibration in the core worse, which creates falling land and more miasma, which kills the originals, which makes room for his replicas, which use up the seventh fonons, which prevents the Score from being read. He also has a seemingly foolproof, if… occasionally somewhat inappropriate… way of inspiring loyalty in his students; Luke may want to stop him, and Asch may want to kill him, but he’ll always be their teacher.
The strength of his convictions is remarkable, and makes him difficult if not impossible to sway. He’s particularly good at faking emotions; such as his caring teacher act.
In the catch all category, he has a shocking ability to not be blamed for things; occasionally, even things that are blatantly his fault. How much of this is from his own manipulations and how much is simple dumb luck or stupidity on the part of other parties is uncertain.
Weaknesses:
At his canon point, he is suffering from the same miasma sickness that Tear was, and will require medication to control the condition. Despite being a seventh fonist and thus, by definition, having the ability to heal, Van is never seen using healing artes.
There is no way around the fact that Van is somewhat unhinged. His moral compass is spinning uselessly. He has an unfortunate tendency to underestimate those he thinks poorly of - Luke is consistently denigrated as lesser and useless, despite all evidence to the contrary.
Emotionally, Van is weak and flawed. For as skilled a manipulator as he is, he often displays a sort of emotional blindness; for example, he rants at Tear without realizing it will upset her, and continues to assume that Asch will come around despite his hatred of all things replicated. He actually manages to get too attached to people. His arrogance leads to him keeping around people who want to kill or use him, certain that he’ll get the better of them. Dist is an excellent example of this. Dist actively and flagrantly double-crosses him, but as long as Van has need of Dist’s knowledge, Dist will be kept at hand. Van’s hatred of the Score is as consuming as Asch’s hatred of replicas, and just as likely to provoke him to cruelty.
Samples (ALL samples must be set in Luceti-verse.)
First Person:
This is quite the situation to find oneself in. Pardon me for passing on explanations. I’ve read your “guide.” If the information is accurate, I believe I understand the matter at hand.
There is one question I care to ask - the small matter of some… associates of mine. A stern blonde; she’s an exceptional markswoman. A young man in a gold mask; you’d know him by his smart mouth. If they sound familiar, I’d appreciate if you’d let me know.
Ah - and there is one more. A redheaded young gentleman. He has a foul temper and… delicate sensibilities, we’ll say. A dear student of mine. If you know him, I would be most grateful. There is much I’d care to discuss with him.
Third Person:
Van’s first order of business was, naturally, learning his surroundings. Scouting would accomplish such a thing, but he found himself more interested in the book on top of his neatly folded clothes. One cursory examination of the area later - he was curious, not foolish - he settled himself down to read… and read… and though the day-to-day life of simple villagers was as uninteresting as ever, there were occasionally fascinating tidbits. Could this actually be a world untainted by the Score? It was a fascinating prospect. It was certainly not a world in which no one controlled another; but there was no such world. People used each other. If anyone could appreciate this simple fact of life, it ought to be him. People using each other was natural, though, benign in comparison to the poison of the planet’s memory. He found himself eager to watch these people, observe what life might be like outside the shadow of the Score.
He couldn’t simply stroll into that village. He didn’t know what - or who - he might find there. Asch would be eager, as well. Eager to put a blade in his back for making such a foolish mistake, and might even be there to do it. It wasn’t that Van thought he couldn’t manage Asch. He’d bested him well enough at their last meeting. Still, he’d rather not give the boy any more wounds than strictly necessary. He was firm in his conviction that Asch would come around eventually. Tear, too, might be there to spot him. Or Gailardia. There were any number of enemies that might be waiting for him. Van was no fool. He knew he’d made many.
He removed his tabard and crumpled it into a ball, to better disguise it. Then his hair, which he’d just pulled out of his face, was let down again, and the tie stashed in his pocket. Better to not be easily identifiable, at least not until he had a sword again. And then, with a little insurance at hand, he’d see about charming the locals. Before he escaped, he’d almost certainly require a puppet or two. It would be best to start stringing them now.
Name: Loupe
Livejournal Username: the_loupe
E-mail: the_loupe@live.com
AIM/MSN: t3hloupe (aim)
Current Characters at Luceti: N/A
Character
Name: Vandesdelca Musto Fende, alias Van Grants
Fandom: Tales of the Abyss
Gender: Male
Age: 27
Time Period: After his confrontation with Asch and Tear in Ortion Cavern
Wing Color: Mottled grey (feathers white at base, dark at tips)
History: @ Aselia Wiki
Personality:
On first impression, Dorian General Grants seems a warm and charismatic man, a competent and inspiring leader, and a caring mentor. To those that know him, Vandesdelca Musto Fende is a consummate liar with a shady agenda, made dangerous and ruthless by bitterness over the fate of himself and his homeland. The question of which persona is true is one very few people could answer confidently.
Van is a skilled manipulator. This is his preferred mode of action, though that shouldn’t be taken to mean he isn’t ruthless or formidable in a fight. The two deaths he is actually shown causing personally - Cathy and Hencken’s - are unnecessary inasmuch as they would do nothing to further his immediate goals. They are, however, swiftly turned into a threat towards a reluctant conspirator. As antagonists go, Van shows a certain dislike of ‘wasteful’ deaths. He’s not a bloodthirsty man, and he gives no indication that enjoys the amount of death he’s causing, but at the same time he does exhibit a casual disregard for human life.
Van states multiple times that replicas are nothing more than tools to be used and discarded, but this statement isn’t entirely compatible with his plan to free the world by replicating it. Additionally, he usually says such things to Asch (to pander to his hatred of replicas) or to Luke (to shake the replica up before it attempts to murder him, again). It would be more accurate to say that Van views everything that exists on Auldrant as something to be used and discarded, himself included.
That he treats life so cheaply seems at first rather hypocritical, given that it was the casual manner in which his was thrown away that began his great ambition. However, what Van values isn’t life. What Van values is choice, something that he sincerely believes no original can have as long as the Score exists, with or without knowledge of it. In sharp contrast to his pupils and creations, who suffer it so unhappily, Van has a near palpable craving for existential angst. To him, there is no greater freedom than the freedom to look back on one’s life and find no meaning or purpose at all.
Because life is so cheap to him, Van feels little or no remorse not only in ending it, but also in twisting it around and redirecting it to serve his own purpose. His manipulative nature is peculiar, because while he has great skill in reading people and determining what he must be to them to turn them to his own ends, he doesn’t understand that his goals can offend the sensibilities of those closest to him as well as those he regards as simple pawns.
Van’s chief shortcoming, not as a villain but as a human being in general, is that the circumstances of his youth have largely destroyed his moral self-awareness. What makes him dangerous is not that he is willing to kill many, many people, but that he genuinely believes he is doing a good thing when he does. He is almost impossible to sway from his course of action because his opponents can’t make appeals to his morals. He commits the same terrible actions as those upholding the Score, but he is right and they arewrong, and he will not be convinced otherwise. He stands to gain nothing from his schemes, except a brief moment of satisfaction before his own death; thus it rings false if he’s accused of selfishness. He may have taken Asch away from everything he loved, but in doing so he attempted to save Asch’s life; and so neither does base cruelty sound true. And so, just like the determined hero, if you want to stop him, you will have to kill him.
He is notable as a main antagonist in that he has no particular fear of dying. His most trusted subordinate is a woman that once wanted to murder him. His most cared for subordinate is a young man that still wants to murder him. Not only does his sister want to murder him, but he was the one who first antagonized her to it and put the blade in her hand. There is a measure of arrogance to his lack of fear, but not in the sense that he is unaware of his own mortality. Van knows he will die. He counts on it. Van’s arrogance comes in the form of overestimating others’ love of him. He puts the sword in Tear’s hand and tells her that she must kill him to stop him because he doesn’t think she’ll use it. He finally tells Asch his plans because he is of the mistaken belief that Asch needs him as much as he needs Asch, and so thinks Asch will eventually accept them. This is the one major blind spot in his plans, and it comes back to bite him more than once.
It’s peculiar that such a masterful manipulator should be so consistently blind to the hearts and minds of those he cares most about - and it is with those he cares most about that he suffers this shortcoming. In fact, it is peculiar that someone so bent on worldwide extinction would care at all. Though they are few, there are those individuals Van cares about deeply. While he was never the perfect big brother - prone to scaring her with rants about revenge and injustice - he was tender and protective with Tear. He sang her lullabies when she couldn’t sleep. He taught her to cook. He tried to protect her. Luke may be nothing to Van, but Van still acts the part of the patient and understanding teacher - more patient and understanding than with Asch, in fact.
Still, in both cases, patience and understanding were weapons that were ultimately used against them. That is Van’s M.O. - to gain trust and make his intended victim both enamored and dependent on him. In the case of both Asch and Luke, it would be remiss not to mention that the relationship he formed with them was, at times, inappropriately emotionally intimate.
On the whole, it’s important to note that while he is dangerous and circumstantially omnicidal, Van is not an unfeeling monster. He is a man who might, in a different life, have been considered admirable, doing what he believes he must. He understands, at least on some level, that his methods are terrible. It’s an issue he’s already grappled with. Separated from the looming oppression of the Score and its predicted apocalypse, he’s unlikely to be an overtly violent man, or a threat to the general populace. He will always be selfish, unwise to trust entirely, and much too prone to using others for his own ends without their knowledge. He will also always be highly capable, and compellingly charismatic.
That may be when he’s at his most dangerous.
Strengths:
Physically and mentally, Van is a strong and capable person. He’s a formidable swordsman and a powerful seventh fonist, as well as a man with political clout as the commandant of the Oracle Knights. Though he’s never shown singing Yulia’s hymns, he uses the Grand Fonic Hymn offscreen to trap Lorelei, so he must understand and be capable of using all seven of them. He also uses several high-level artes, such as Luke’s FOF-changed arts… without an FOF. And then he is, simply put, a resilient bastard. He survived an island-destroying hyperresonance and a fall into the Qliphoth, among other typically lethal things.
He’s exceptionally charismatic, and a rather brilliant tactician. The best example of this is the elegant simplicity of his replication gambit: trapping Lorelei causes the Planet Storm to make more seventh fonons, which makes the vibration in the core worse, which creates falling land and more miasma, which kills the originals, which makes room for his replicas, which use up the seventh fonons, which prevents the Score from being read. He also has a seemingly foolproof, if… occasionally somewhat inappropriate… way of inspiring loyalty in his students; Luke may want to stop him, and Asch may want to kill him, but he’ll always be their teacher.
The strength of his convictions is remarkable, and makes him difficult if not impossible to sway. He’s particularly good at faking emotions; such as his caring teacher act.
In the catch all category, he has a shocking ability to not be blamed for things; occasionally, even things that are blatantly his fault. How much of this is from his own manipulations and how much is simple dumb luck or stupidity on the part of other parties is uncertain.
Weaknesses:
At his canon point, he is suffering from the same miasma sickness that Tear was, and will require medication to control the condition. Despite being a seventh fonist and thus, by definition, having the ability to heal, Van is never seen using healing artes.
There is no way around the fact that Van is somewhat unhinged. His moral compass is spinning uselessly. He has an unfortunate tendency to underestimate those he thinks poorly of - Luke is consistently denigrated as lesser and useless, despite all evidence to the contrary.
Emotionally, Van is weak and flawed. For as skilled a manipulator as he is, he often displays a sort of emotional blindness; for example, he rants at Tear without realizing it will upset her, and continues to assume that Asch will come around despite his hatred of all things replicated. He actually manages to get too attached to people. His arrogance leads to him keeping around people who want to kill or use him, certain that he’ll get the better of them. Dist is an excellent example of this. Dist actively and flagrantly double-crosses him, but as long as Van has need of Dist’s knowledge, Dist will be kept at hand. Van’s hatred of the Score is as consuming as Asch’s hatred of replicas, and just as likely to provoke him to cruelty.
Samples (ALL samples must be set in Luceti-verse.)
First Person:
This is quite the situation to find oneself in. Pardon me for passing on explanations. I’ve read your “guide.” If the information is accurate, I believe I understand the matter at hand.
There is one question I care to ask - the small matter of some… associates of mine. A stern blonde; she’s an exceptional markswoman. A young man in a gold mask; you’d know him by his smart mouth. If they sound familiar, I’d appreciate if you’d let me know.
Ah - and there is one more. A redheaded young gentleman. He has a foul temper and… delicate sensibilities, we’ll say. A dear student of mine. If you know him, I would be most grateful. There is much I’d care to discuss with him.
Third Person:
Van’s first order of business was, naturally, learning his surroundings. Scouting would accomplish such a thing, but he found himself more interested in the book on top of his neatly folded clothes. One cursory examination of the area later - he was curious, not foolish - he settled himself down to read… and read… and though the day-to-day life of simple villagers was as uninteresting as ever, there were occasionally fascinating tidbits. Could this actually be a world untainted by the Score? It was a fascinating prospect. It was certainly not a world in which no one controlled another; but there was no such world. People used each other. If anyone could appreciate this simple fact of life, it ought to be him. People using each other was natural, though, benign in comparison to the poison of the planet’s memory. He found himself eager to watch these people, observe what life might be like outside the shadow of the Score.
He couldn’t simply stroll into that village. He didn’t know what - or who - he might find there. Asch would be eager, as well. Eager to put a blade in his back for making such a foolish mistake, and might even be there to do it. It wasn’t that Van thought he couldn’t manage Asch. He’d bested him well enough at their last meeting. Still, he’d rather not give the boy any more wounds than strictly necessary. He was firm in his conviction that Asch would come around eventually. Tear, too, might be there to spot him. Or Gailardia. There were any number of enemies that might be waiting for him. Van was no fool. He knew he’d made many.
He removed his tabard and crumpled it into a ball, to better disguise it. Then his hair, which he’d just pulled out of his face, was let down again, and the tie stashed in his pocket. Better to not be easily identifiable, at least not until he had a sword again. And then, with a little insurance at hand, he’d see about charming the locals. Before he escaped, he’d almost certainly require a puppet or two. It would be best to start stringing them now.