forum I have an OC and I want to use him for something, so why not for a roleplay? (o/o)

Started March 05, 2021 by Deleted user

tune

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So, for context, this man is from Hamlet but you really don't need to know anything about the play for this as it takes place in modern day. Anyways, his name is Venus and he's a total BITCH and I love him so much. I'll pull up his template below, and explain the plot as we go along.

Name: Venus of Denmark
Age: 19, permanently. Well, sort of.
Gender/Pronouns: Trans man, he/him because when are my characters ever not trans?
Orientation: Gay
Appearance: Venus is fair of hair and skin, with blonde curls and the iciest of eyes that pierce straight through you. He is shortish, but not short, and fairly well built for how unhealthy he initially comes off as. He is beautiful, but in a cruel way, a way that takes but never gives. He has broad shoulders like his father, and dimples like his mother.
Personality: If his father had ever met him, he'd be disappointed and probably call him a slut. Venus lives up to his name, jealous and flighty and a force to be reckoned with if you ever crossed paths.
Preferred Weapon: A shortsword or rapier.
Theme Songs: The Bidding by Tally Hall
Other: He has an amulet with the spirit of his murdered grandfather living inside of it, and it keeps him immortal, but at a price. You'll see what this price is soon enough though.

Submitted for OP's approval:

Name: Rudolph Fortham
Nickname: Hart (of course he wants a cooler nickname, it's the 21st century and he's from Springfield in one of the Americas somewhere…and his parents named him Rudolph…)
Age: 20something, depends on the timeline of Hart being a private investigator before returning to his hometown (23 to 26), or after (27 up). If he only just got his license to practice, then Hart is also 19 but not yet the hardboiled paranormal detective that he's more fun being played as.
Gender/Pronouns: Agender, but the cis-passing thing causes less trouble, so…he/him as a default, but there's always that touch of jamais vu whenever he has to deal with people As A Man. Like, inwardly he constantly asks Is This How To Man, Is This How Other Humans Do The Human Things and it's exhausting. He'd rather not be perceived.
Orientation: Asexual. He knows because he tried it out back in his hometown with consenting partners just to find out what the fuss was, he decided it wasn't adding anything to his life, and…some of Hart's very-sure-they-were-straight consenting dudebro partners got Hart's parents to disown him as revenge on Hart for "breaking up" with them. To Hart, their having relations didn't automatically mean that they had any relationship in the first place, so it was more like unintentional ghosting that he's not the least bit sorry for even though he can figure that they got upset.

My headcanon of Hart would like to retract the statement that "the cis-passing [man] thing causes less trouble" because it was cis men being extra about passing as macho macho men that gave Hart trouble.

Appearance: Faceclaim on Jamie Dornan as Sheriff Graham. Maybe tends to go more for 3-piece navy blue suits over boots for business or the winter (plus long coat in the latter), plain button-down shirts and jeans and runners/sneakers in summer or for casual (he's not very sporty), and sleeveless sweaters in argyle prints over button-downs and khaki trousers and loafers during the equinoxes. While he keeps his few clothes kempt, though, and himself hygienic, he can never quite manage to look anything but unkempt inside his clothes. He can't be bothered to shave regularly, and his wavy/curly hair is just going to do whatever it's going to do.
Personality: He doesn't mean to be rude, but he's cold and calculating and tends to not brood over things that he can't understand (so…no parental issues, despite the fact that his parents disowned him; He took them for granted while young, but did not truly bond with them, so neither being disowned nor becoming orphaned shortly afterwards was traumatic for Hart—and the reaction of people who know this about him is usually "what's wrong with you, you heartless monster", but it's how he truly feels, that being disowned and orphaned was inconvenient rather than traumatic). Tends to get lost in thought while somebody's talking to him, and will be honest about getting bored with small talk or mundane interests of others. He'll only seem to hold a grudge if it makes sense that somebody's pattern of behavior is detrimental to whatever Hart's goal is…but, it takes a lot to get to him emotionally. Even calling him Rudolph is more an irritation at worst, but most of the time as long as he can explain it to himself (official identification is what the other person is going by, or they forget nicknames that they're told, or even being childishly malicious…) then he can make a mental note of it—and that's it, he lives with his head in the clouds and doesn't conform to the appropriate emotions that people expect him to display. It's enough for him to mentally take apart somebody's motivations like they're made of clockwork, and to understand why the mechanism of somebody's mind runs the way it does, even if the mechanism is punching him in the face for being honest about how boring their feelings are.

That said, if it's customary to offer condolences or sympathies, then he will because he knows it's the customary thing to do. In his own overwhelmingly cerebral way, he'll even mean it sincerely. But don't expect a whirlwind of passion or abysmal grief or fury or elation, unless you're chasing UFO's or something.

He also understands that we live in a society where everybody has to do things they don't want to do to earn the money to survive, so he will take the occasional non-paranormal catch-the-cheating-spouse case so that he can do paranormal investigation for free (unless a client can pay, then he goes by guild/union rates.) He'd put aside his ego in pursuit of whatever he's interested in…and unfortunately expects others to do the same.

Preferred Weapon: 0.41 Derenger. It's not a gun, it's a mechanical slingshot.
Theme Songs: "The Villain I Appear To Be" Annapantsu cover of the Diamond Jack theme, but also for some reason "Burning Out" by Tripp Fontaine
Other: Hart is a paranormal investigator, officially a licensed private investigator. He still received a sizable inheritance after the death of both his parents. By the end of the book about him that I haven't written, he hires a deputy bodyguard who is a psychic vampire (but I won't play both these characters). Meanwhile, he himself fluctuates between being a living nullifier of psychic activity—that is, a wizard's fireball will still probably burn him, a poltergeist with a good aim can concuss him, but mind control or love spells don't work—and he is also, shockingly, a very very very low-grade psychic empath. It randomly comes up, he can't control when it does, and it's experienced as this very vague sense of a thing so he doesn't get overwhelmed by other's emotions sort of empathy…he just sort of, maybe, sometimes, picks up on something.

For example, the psychic vampire was a social pariah in his hometown—he went back to his hometown, that's the long story—who tried to drown herself in a river, because despite her vampiric abilities she's still completely human; Hart sensed A Disturbance In The Force, so he followed his feelings, and managed to resescitate her because he understood that to be basic courtesy. (While the woman who would later become his deputy/bodyguard did not take it to be courteous at all at first, having committed to The Permanent Solution that Hart completely ruined…the moment of empathic connection had passed, and he was back to his obstinately logical and selfish self—able to bribe the psychic vampire with promise of a steady paycheck and adventurous jobs with plenty of travel far, far away from their hometown, which he sincerely believed to be a mutually advantageous partnership, and it probably will be.)

Ooh, I love him/do they use they pronouns to? idk! So, how should our characters meet, because you definitely have my approval to join!

Ooh, I love him/do they use they pronouns to? idk! So, how should our characters meet, because you definitely have my approval to join!

Yay! I think Hart wouldn't mind they with the understanding that "they is safe default if unsure", which is fair as Hart isn't completely sure either, but he'll default to he only out of habit.

While post-hometown adventure Hart is fun, I don't mind playing newly-licensed teen or early 20s Hart either. Please do let me know which age Hart that Venus would prefer meeting!

I'm good with either cafe or bar/club or something that gets Hart maybe eventually noticing the amulet and going "paranormal thing??? I MUST KNOW"

Hart could be doing a stint as wait staff or dishwashing, if he isn't well-known as a paranormal investigator yet.

Edit to Add: Or would Venus approach a paranormal investigator for some reason, like in his office?

Um, well…

One. Cool, I don't think Venus would particularly mind what pronouns Hart wants to use, he'd probably just stick with he but in the way you use "he" for a cute dog you've just met sort of context, not a "man" context because I personally think of Venus as having complicated gender feelings. I mean, he's been alive for a while, you probably would too if you were in his position. Sorry for the rant.

Two. Uh, I think somewhere in the middle of Hart's career would work, like early 20's could be fun? Idk. It's up to you, I don't mind what we do.

Three. Venus is working as a streetwalker at the time of this roleplay, mostly he was raised into poverty, so he didn't really get a chance to get the upper hand in society since he barely knows how to budget properly even now after hundred of years of massive changes and such. He does occasionally get jobs at shadier bars and clubs that don't mind hiring someone off the street to serve customers with a smile on their face, but Venus… rarely smiles, and often gets kicked out of such jobs pretty quickly.

I doubt he would actively approach anyone for help, unless he was in serious paranormal danger. Hope this helps!

All right! :D Hart at temporarily 21 meets Venus at forever 19 at…

A. One of those boring catch-the-philandering-spouse cases that Hart is on…the client's spouse avails of the services of streetwalkers, but Hart gets distracted from the actual job by Interesting Paranormal Person who turns out to be Venus. Maybe the amulet gets activated in an alleyway or something?

B. Hart is on an SCP type personal case of trying to find a succubus/incubus for research, but it was only a rumor and nothing paranormal, so he wanders around the red light district, completely out of place, until meeting Venus.

C. A shady bar, maybe Venus goes there because sometimes there's "free" hors d'oeuvres for the type of person that the proprietor is unofficially 'selling' (as in the presence of in the venue) to the customers that they do charge—but it happens to be on the same night that a friend of Hart's from the criminal justice night school had booked that venue to put up a play because they (the friend) are in a theater troupe so it's not a bar that night… they're playacting Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.

D. If this is a setting where streetwalking is illegal, perhaps the lawyer assigned to represent a detained Venus has also worked with Hart before, and finds something possibly supernatural going on with Venus that would be more Hart's bailiwick?

(Feel free to add, adjust, or decide on something else. I'm generally versatile—but am on EST+12 so am probably going to sleep after sending this message.)

I really enjoy A+D, so either one of them is okay depending on what you'd prefer.

A sounds more run-around-the-plot-is-happening, whereas D sounds more interrogation-room-means-plenty-exposition…I actually very slightly prefer D, but if the secret of the amulet that you plan to reveal needs a wider city access to demonstrate, or there's call for a scene change or time skip shortly after actually meeting, then I can roll with that too.

(Also following the Hundred Wounds RP with Venus in the other thread, in case that becomes more active, but I'll probably only be reading.)

'Night for reals!

"I'm a friend of Rashida Majapahit." The scruffy, pressed-suited person leaned forward into the harsh light, elbows on the table, steepling his fingertips. "Your lawyer. I'm not an oracle, I can't make you any promises, but I know she does whatever it takes to keep kids like you out of prison. It's something she takes very seriously. It'll be a bench trial—unless you don't want it to be. Bench trials are quick."

"I'm not a kid, I'm nineteen. I've been around, and I won't stand to be treated with disrespect. Anyways, you clearly don't care about my trial. You're after something else, that damned apparition that I would call my grandfather if you would believe me most likely. I can smell the inhuman stink off of you." he leaned forward on the table, as far as he could without the handcuffs keeping him from moving forward painfully. He was practically strapped to the table, and there was a harsh, buzzing light from the ceiling that's strobing was making it impossible to concentrate, much less have a miniature panic attack in. "And I can tell you for certain that you won't get him. Not unless you get me my amulet back, and believe me, if you take it from me, a curse will lay itself upon your house, you family, friends, lovers, like an avalanche."

Hart raised his eyebrows. It'd happened again, that pulse in the air—Outrage or anger, yes, but he didn't need to be gifted to pick up on that. The outlandish words about apparitions, he learned to be careful about what matched the words, and there were many cases of paranormal activity that couldn't be anything more than what a client had built up in their mind. This wasn't like those times. And there was a dimension to Venus' aura that seemed to have aged by…oh, centuries, maybe? This one had been around. Nineteen? Yeah, right. "I assure you that an avalanche would be overkill." Hart had no family or lovers—and 'friends' were more like 'professional connections'. He couldn't describe it as loneliness. He leaned back. "So. Help me to help you, Venus. What does the amulet look like, and what happened to it? I'm a private investigator. Where am I supposed to start? Why is the amulet so important?"

More important than court proceedings that could put someone like Venus in either a systematic frying pan or a systematic fire? Rashida had been right, Venus was involved with something uncanny.

"Well, I'd hate to give you a story with such vulgar details, but the cop who assaulted me and arrested me stole it. He's probably dead now, grandfather has a habit of dealing with souls like him swiftly and with a certain… emotional flare. There probably isn't much more than meat scraps of him now." he shrugged. "He won't always curse you, only if he judges you as pure of heart or whatever shit standards the sinner has now. Hypocritical, the bastard." he chuckled, cracked his neck and looked back to Hart. "But I couldn't tell you any more than his badge number. Fifty-One, of the Dakota County Precinct. Lucky him." he shrugged, and rolled his eyes. He leaned back on the chair and kicked his legs up on the table. "Well, now you know what to do. Find him, get me out of here, and get me to my amulet. I'll do anything within my power to help you after that point."

Hart shrugged, rose from his chair and was out the door in a single flowing movement. Dakota County, 51—Hart might have even known the beat, but if the forensics expert he was acquainted with had found something then that would save some effort dusting off the metal detector in the office utility room…

Hart halted, frowned, remembering something else Venus had said, and returned to the interrogation room. From the door he'd partially barged back in and prised open, he said: "The amulet…is your grandfather?"

"Technically correct. But is it not also myself, in a sense?" he said, opening up the opportunity for questions to be asked. "Well. You'll have to see. The blue moon is in three weeks, get my amulet back to me by then or face the consequences." he said. He moved his legs back off the table and quieted himself. If the curse overwhelmed him, he wouldn't come back, and then what would he do? He had to attend to his grandfather.

"Right…" Hart said, slowly. "Just checking." He backed out of the room.

That was Friday, Day 1. The half moon in the sky over their city was contemplating becoming crescent again.

By Day 2, he'd managed to confirm that no magical amulets within the area had been taken in for evidence.

By Day 3, he'd caught up on the new season of The X-Files, which was a mere shell of the show that it used to be. He ate marshmallow cereal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner in his pyjamas because he was an adult and nobody could tell him not to do that.

By Day 4, he'd overheard the rumor of a police officer's partner from that precinct who'd been detained in an asylum, rambling about it being "all the necklace's fault". The moon was completely in shadow.

By Day 7, Hart had it sorted out that the "necklace" really was a necklace, not the amulet that he was looking for, and that it was used to smuggle illicit substances in the locket-like charms that the police officer had availed of…as well as the police officer's partner, who was found dead of an overdose.

By Day 8, Hart set up a kanban board at his desk in his office. The Necklace of Illicit Substances had been a cul-de-sac, but he did still thoroughly investigate the police station presiding over that precinct. He had no personal connections or favors to call in. Whatever he would have gleaned from his investigation there, he'd already gotten it. That evening, he hired a streetwalker to tell him what she could remember of last week.

By Day 9, some brothel managers were getting irritated that Hart was paying bribes and tokens for getting to chat with their employees. Hart's "10% tip with no service" made it too easy for the workers to squirrel too much extra away.

By Day 10, some brothel managers began talking about a spot that other "business owners, if you know what I mean" would refuse to approach ever since "something really bad happened there, really bad…but, wait for the cops to sort it out, it's nothing to do with us."

By Day 13, Hart had done a sweep of the abandoned club with the metal detector. Whenever he went too far into the margins of the area, and met a passer-by, they'd give him a strange look or shout that Hart was weird, or crazy. "Not enough of either," Hart decided. The almost half-moon in the sky was aspiring towards gibbousness.

On Day 14, Hart contacted a psychic scryer who had nothing to go on that could hone it more specifically ("51 on the badge? Dead. I can't sense more than that,") whose spirit guides were particularly frightened, and so she resorted to a pendulum. Hart couldn't afford what they were charging to close their magic store for the day and accompany Hart to the area, so Hart went alone. He found nothing more or nothing new to lead him anywhere more specific.

On Day 15, he called in another favor from somebody whose specialty was communicating with the dead. This one seemed game for it, given the assurance that they wouldn't be interfering with any ongoing investigations—but backed out soon because "He's not even dead! He isn't even human! He's taken a life so thoroughly that the spirit of his prey doesn't even remain as a wisp or a fade anymore!" And then left in a fright.

"That powerful a psychic broadcast, huh…" Hart pondered. He took a felt-tip pen from his shirt pocket, rolled up his sleeves, and began drawing protective glyphs on his arms and face. He'd done this before, he did not need a mirror. By no means did he speak the Minoan dialect of prehistoric Crete fluently as in the whole language, but this specific chant he knew every note and syllable.

Mid-way, he felt it—a blast of irritation, even contempt.

"Do you blame me for wanting to…stay dressed/armored?" Hart struggled to say, still speaking the old language. "By all rumors, you force destruction."

Quit primping, the responses seemed to be. Do you know what will happen this full moon?

"The moon hardly isn't even gibbous yet. We have time," Hart retorted, switching to English. He completed the protection ritual, rolled the sleeves over the markings carefully, and set off to find where the grumbling complaining energy seemed to be coming from.

Kill Claudius, I told him. I told him with words! I told him myself, with words. He saw me. He understood. How long did that take, I ask you. Bah, you're just like him… overthinking, doing-nothing, melodramatic and preening "ooh let me pretend that my cantraps can stop you from hurting me"—bah… useless, foolish, bookish hedge witch you are…

In fifteen days, Venus had managed to be released, if only by charming the room and jury into feeling the whole trial was unfair. He was just a stupid kid, after all! Nothing to see here, nothing to bother with. He was released on the sixteenth, and by then he didn't have much time. He could already feel his soul… slipping. That was the unmanageable part of the curse. When he was away from the amulet for too long, he got into a funny state. Oh, if only that bastard Horatio could see me now… he'd just love to see me slip away completely, he thought, and he also didn't realize he'd said.

He'd been waiting on the street at the time, old habits and all, right when a man had very subtly (not, Venus thought) approached him about whatever illicit services he could provide. Upon seeing the look of madness in the man's eyes, the solicitor (who he'd actually met somehow, the man had had jury duty and even if Venus was nigh unrecognizable now, at least that man wasn't-) quickly walked off, at a speed a bit to brisk to be counted as "walking" territory and instead "running". He had friends who knew Hart, if only by name and location, and he squeezed as much information as he could out of them before managing to locate Hart's place-a tiny apartment with an office underneath, probably for business-and broke in, realizing that he needed a shower and ever since getting kicked out by his landlord for apparent drug use (he'd never touched them once a day in his life, the bastard was just upset he wasn't getting the same "favors" he used to-) he'd mostly been madly rambling, shambling, and ambling down the streets while most of his clothes had been stolen from his bag, until even the bag was stolen. At least he still had his plethora of fake IDs, and the few real ones he'd made to conceal himself and make people less suspicious of him. He'd had pictures taken of him, portraits made, everyone treated him as their muse in exchange for his attentions and while he wasn't fond of the line of work, he managed it.

But it was inconvenient for staying out of the sight of history. And the Detective, silly little Detective, would figure this out sooner or later. Anyways, Venus had broken into his house and Hart wasn't there, so he decided to take some me-time and get some food, then quickly shower off before searching the apartment for evidence. He was still in the shower, rinsing off his hair as quickly as possible when he heard the door to the apartment open. Shit.

Hart discovered the amulet and its treacherous aura between the electrical power generators outside the club—no wonder he'd missed it with his metal detector. Out of the satchel he drew a plastic ziplock bag, into which he lifted the amulet with the felt-tip marker. Around it all he wrapped a silk kerchief patterned by an elaborate rectangular labyrinth brocade—more for aesthetics than anything mystical, but he knew the history and the myths, and liked them even if these didn't seem to do a thing against a common poltergeist—and back into the satchel everything went.

He took a bottle of hand sanitizer from his pocket, and rubbed the marks off his face as he walked. He kept the ones on his arms.

When he approached his office, he saw the door was open and was instantly suspicious—he never left his door unlocked. What now, a vengeful ex-client who thought it was Hart's fault their spouse cheated, when all Hart was doing was the job they paid him? A mob boss sent an assassin to shut down whatever Hart had accidentally found out these past two weeks or so?

He reached inside without entering, and flicked the light switch on, so that the tiny chandelier cast a bright glow over the office. He was already crouching down to catch sight of what unrecognizable footprints could have been left on the varnish of the floor.

He reached out at a fleck of something deep red on the floorboards. Blood? He touched it with a fingertip, where it stuck and held it up to the light.

It was a speck of mauve glitter.

Hart closed and locked the office door, and moved more relaxedly to the bookshelf, where rare copies of grimoires, alchemical texts, prophetic almanacs and such were strewn on the floor. The false books, five of them, half or fully pulled out in a specific order, would cause the bookshelf to vertically split, revealing the short corridor and small brass birdcage elevator (or winding starwell crammed beside it) that would lead to the apartment above.

It should have taken some scrupulosity to figure out, yet the intruder had been so careless about heading on through. What a waste of an elaborate, inconspicuous security neasure. Hart put the books back in order, extracted the iridescent bobby pins from the inside lock—So that's how the false books were bypassed—and took the stairs up.

In his living quarters, Hart glanced at the kitchenette and sighed. He hadn't planned on having to do groceries today. Well, the intruder must have been hungry. He could hear the shower running.

He prefers being clean, Hart thought. I could live with that—Unless he'd gotten into the shower after raiding the kitchen, and then promptly developed an aneurysm.

Hart slung the satchel—the amulet still wrapped inside—on the bathroom outside-doorknob, plucked his celphone from the outside pocket, and called through the bathroom door: "Aren't you a spot of mischief. I'm undecided as to whether I should phone for law enforcement officers…or pizza delivery."

Well, he had been careless, but that's how he was. When you were immortal, you never really worried about the state of your body-only the state of your soul. "Did you get my thingamajig? My whatchamacallit? My whosenameit?" he was doing all this for the sole purpose of to annoy his grandfather, who thought that holding a family relic in a position of such disrespect was truly beneath him. Your father would never have shown me such-

"Yeah yeah, do I look like I care old man? He killed pretty much everyone in close proximity to him, including himself. I wish the bastard would have just died on his own without the whole Claudius mess, maybe married my mother beforehand so she wouldn't have had to drown herself for shame. Oh right, sorry Detective, you have no idea what I could possibly be talking about, and I'm not going to explain." he called.

"Anyways, give it." he said, stepping out of the shower with a fluffy towel hanging off his hips, another wrapped around his shoulders barely covering his chest. "I left my clothes in your sink to soak, I hope you don't mind." he shrugged. He'd done a show and broken down in the middle of it, so the club kicked him out and told him to never come back, shoving glitter in his face as a reward and nearly blinding him with it.

With one hand, Hart pulled the satchel strap off the door and held it out for Venus to take. His other hand had the phone held to his ear. "None pizza with left beef it is."