TLV Application

[epistemological]

User Name/Nick: Danii
User DW: yarnzipan
E-mail: gamenotifications@gmail.com
Other Characters: Ardyn Izunia, Teddy Flood, Sanderson Hawkins

Character Name: Jonathan Sims
Series: The Magnus Archives
Age: early 30s
From When?: Just before episode 118 Masquerade

Inmate/Warden: Warden
Item: A handheld tape recorder that speaks with Gertrude Robinson's voice.

Abilities/Powers:
Jon is, in fact, an avatar of an extraplanar Entity of fear known as the Beholding or the Watcher that is based around the fear of being watched and/or people finding out one's secrets. He 'belongs' to it, and it has made him both more and less than human in a very real sense. This gives him what appears to be a certain amount of physical resilience (he's 'lived' through a building exploding and seems to be the only one who did even though he was pretty much at the center of it) but no other physical abilities. He can be stabbed (he has), burned (he has), beat up (again, yup), and I mean, he could be kidnapped, it keeps happening to him, though where you'd take him on the barge, who knows. His main abilities have to do with the acquisition of knowledge. Specifically:

• He can compel people to answer truthfully and to the best of their ability to any question he asks. This works pretty much on everyone except for other, more powerful emissaries of the same force (he has used it on more powerful emissaries of the other Entities successfully, much to their irritation) and while more powerful beings might be aware of it, canonically they still do end up answering him. It doesn't tend to go off on hypotheticals and he can't make you tell him something you don't actually know; he is cognizant of it, and tries to be reasonable about its use, but as mentioned later, he does have a very real need to know secrets. The Compel, as it's largely called, does have something of a pleasant tingly sensation for those who are aware of it.
  
• The other one, in a very similar vein, is that he will on occasion just know things, small details that he had no way of knowing but somehow the answer popped into his brain. This is not an ability that he can prompt or invoke; it happens entirely randomly at the moment, though it may develop in time as other more advanced avatars are shown to have limited omniscience. These pieces of information are SMALL, however, and not terribly exact: in one case, he knew that two people had worked together on something. In another, he knew when someone would show up at a particular location.

Obviously, I have a permission post up for this re: gameplay and I'm more than happy to let him face the consequences of asking the wrong people the wrong things whether he gets the answers or not.

Part of this, however, is a need: Jon needs to read 'Statements', encounters detailing the supernatural and great fear, things people do not really want to talk about, every few days or he will become ill (he will be bringing a supply of them and resupply as needed). He can also use them to heal if need be; reading a statement has brought him back to proper health after literally six months in a coma where all the rest of his organs stopped and only his brain activity was registering. Statements can be in any language; during the course of the reading, he will understand them perfectly without difficulty but afterwards and on any other document, he will have only his own lived/earned knowledge of languages.

Another, more subtle power that makes it easier to feed that need: people recall past experiences with clarity and intensity when he's around and can report them with extreme exactness; any statement recorded by or around him that has genuine non-natural events will produce a piece of text or tape that is unusually intense. Reading or listening to those statements produces an empathic response from anyone but for him, he experiences it as if living through the events himself.

Additionally, magnetic-tape tape players have a tendency to just turn themselves on around him. This is more important when you realize that he's almost always going to have one on his person at all times.

Knowledge-wise, he does have somewhat limited knowledge of the books that previously were kept in the library of Jurgen Leitner, which are 'pure' manifestation of the Entities from his world, which he will no doubt be scouring the on-board Library to look for.

Personality:

"Yes, I understand: you could easily kill me, I'm at your mercy, bla bla bla, I've heard it before and from things much scarier than you..."

Jonathan Sims is in his early thirties and you could not tell that by looking at him. He comes off as extremely phlegmatic, with a deep, soothing sort of voice, and you'd think from the way he tends to speak in casual conversation that he's a little bit boring, the kind of person who reads whatever non-fiction is at the front of the shop and collects something just to the left of 'stamps' or 'bottle caps' because the former would be just too pat.

Most of this is wrong, however. Like a Vulcan, that stolid exterior covers up an extremely passionate and intensely feeling person who's lived his life trying to do something about the very real evil he encountered at an early age, who doesn't just wants to but NEEDS to do something to save the people around him at any cost to himself. He's definitely the sort to push, to ask uncomfortable questions, to keep searching 'to the point where I'm surprised you've never been punched' as it was described. Once you actually get to know him, you'll find that he's intense and driven, particular and impatient and snappish, deeply caring and utterly unequipped to know how to do anything about it other than bodily throw himself in the way of any harm that might be coming towards a person. Also, SARCASM.

Warmth wasn't really a part of his upbringing. His parents died when he was very young and he was raised by his grandmother who tried but... didn't really want to raise any other children especially while she was mourning her own dead son. That's part of how he learned growing up that love wasn't always what you said or how you felt about things, but what you DO. What you're willing to give, the time and effort you're willing to put in so he doesn't really know what to do with 'niceness' or little kindnesses or people being... sweet. He has an amazing ability to be a giant cranky prat at people he'd happily give his life, freedom, happiness, and sanity up for; he keeps his empathy and his mourning very much to himself to the point where it's very easy to believe from the outside that Jon doesn't 'feel' very much of anything even if that's the exact opposite. He's been accused of such by people he's... well, that he's frustrated by, yes, but also cares about a great deal.

If you looked at him, at how he acts, what he does, he could come off as something of an impassive, self-serving coward. But the thing is that he's ALWAYS trying to do the right thing, find justice, save people... always trying to figure out more, find out how things work and what he can do and how he can fight. The 'impassive' is a front and the 'self-serving' is a combination of protectiveness, an attempt at tactical manuevering, and pure, cold logic. It all serves one purpose, though. He is not even remotely cowardly; when it comes to pursuing answers and figuring things out, he is utterly and completely fearless... as you might have seen above. The only way to get him to back down is to put others in danger.

A bully interrupted him while he was reading (and almost devoured) by an evil book at the age of eight and since the day he saw that bully taken in his stead, he's wanted to DO something about all of the terrible things that happen to people... quietly. He doesn't tell people about it when he goes exploring in the tunnels below the Institute that have some manner of monster roaming them, doesn't tell them about being visited by an entity that literally stabs him in the stomach, choosing to pretend he'd done it to himself so as not to worry them. He doesn't make a big deal of the fact that he's literally covered in scars from holding off evil worm creatures from going after his assistants and dives into them to get his recorder so whoever comes after him will at least be better prepared. He seeks out dangerous monsters and literally lets one of them burn the shit out of his hand just for more information while he's not even employed in the position that he theoretically is doing all this for while all of his coworkers (all right, all of them except Martin) hate him and think he's a murderer; he has no problem with people disliking him, outright hating him, or thinking whatever they like about him, but he NEEDS to be of help. And he NEEDS to know.

"When I look at you, I feel that burning liquid pain eager to flow out and purify your rotten carcass."

"Oh! More or less than normal?"

"Hard to tell when every nerve ending's on fire. Hard to tell degrees."

"Third degree, maybe? ...sorry."

...and for the record, he does actually blame himself for that murder because he decided to go and have a cigarette after meeting the person who he's considered the source of all evil for most of his life. Another thing about him: he never lets himself REST and he certainly doesn't give himself any breaks or excuses. Very very hard on himself, and very honest with the fact that he's a difficult person, always has been, and that people have been more than kind in dealing with him. Perhaps even a little too honest.

If only he knew how to do any of this with some tact... because he DOES inspire pretty extreme loyalty (his ex Georgie, his assistant Martin) even though he really really doesn't know what to do with it since the idea of asking anything from people in That kind of sense is so anathema to how he works. He's REALLY REALLY REALLLLY bad at asking for help or accepting it even if it's offered unless it's from someone he feels 'owes' him the trouble. Or is in a position to offer any kind of help. He does learn, however, and he does take feedback and criticism; he'll bend when people need him to bend, even if he finds the whole process very difficult and he stumbles more often than not. It isn't just a pride thing or a guilt thing; he really, genuinely, does care. Even when he has to do the (sometimes harder) emotional work because of it.

He is oblivious to any sort of romantic interest in him; while he's asexual, he's had relationships and is on good enough terms with his ex-girlfriend that she was happy to put him up even when she knew that he was in trouble with his work and possibly the law and told him point blank that he could stay as long as he liked. And with people like Georgie, he can actually be... nice, enjoyable and clever and a little sarcastic. Playful, more than he'd ever admitted, and of course pretty wry. He does, if people are willing to put in the work, eventually get more communicative and open and even friendly but by GOD it takes a lot of work and, well, he's not very GOOD at it. The emotional intelligence of a radish, really, which is why he hasn't kept many (or really, any other) friends.

He's very conflicted with his current state of being, the fact that he's no longer human, and while he very much enjoys the fact that he's got the ability to ask and get answers for things he wants, he hates any indication that he's becoming less human (such as the little factoids that like to pop into his head) with a passion. He TRIES to be rational and logical and follow solid reasoning whenever he can, and sometimes that can make him come off as dismissive, but he's anything but. He just feels like he owes it to people who've had real experiences to be skeptical, and that's really a good example of how he tends to come at situations from a right angle to everyone else and end up giving the exactly wrong impression about things 90% of the time.

Barge Reactions: Jon comes from a low level crapsack world where all supernatural events are driven by fear-based entities, so he's going to be a little wide-eyed at some of the big shiny heroes and more extreme genre types. Being on the ship itself is going to evoke some issues for him (memories of the Vast) so he might avoid the outer portions for a while until he gets used to it. He's used to working for someone who won't tell him everything, has bullshit rules and sucks about putting his employees in danger supposedly 'for their good' (...did the Admiral and Elias Bouchard go to the same training school?) so his attitude about the Admiral's behavior is going to kind of be 'same old same old' but he certainly doesn't like it. He just won't make much of a fuss unless or until he can see a decent alternative. As for all the things that are going to fuck with him? Pretty much he's going to relate it (at least initially) to some of the powers from his own world and try to act as 'normally' as possible in handling it. AKA, stuff it all down and try not to go nuts while appearing cool and firm.

Deal: Jon has asked the Admiral to restore Sasha (one of his assistants who was killed) and free all of his assistants from the Archive.

History: Jonathan Sims @ the Magnus Archives Wiki

Sample Journal Entry:
[audio]
Statement of Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist at the Magnus Institute, London, regarding my recent employment under what I believe to be an avatar of the End calling itself 'the Admiral'. Statement recorded... I'm honestly not sure when. Time... doesn't appear to have much meaning around here. I've been told that may be intentional or it may be simply a part of this... place, for lack of a better word. Current information is unclear.

Regardless... statement begins.

I have verified the veracity of the Admiral's claims with four standing Wardens, which has put to rest my concerns that my time here would fail to accomplish what I took the position for in the first place. One of them was kind enough to take me on her 'bus', and suffice to say that the verbal quotation marks are appropriate given its capabilities, to visit former Wardens to assure me that my request will be honored upon completion of my task.

Which is... slow going, I'm afraid. The idea of helping 'redeem' someone is clearly a task that can be accomplished, but I admit that I have only the barest idea of how to begin. The individual assigned to me this month by what is clearly a lottery of sorts wants nothing to do with me, and I can't say that I'm particularly impressed by them in return.

I suppose, if I'm honest, the idea is... appealing to me. Infinitely appealing in this strange quasi-real world between worlds where death has very little meaning, to think that there is a way back. To think that even after people are dead that somehow, they might get themselves straightened out, regain some piece of their own humanity (or... 'goodness', in deference to the 'mutants' here who do not consider themselves human nor find that particular name for the quality to be fair) even after death. It makes me wonder if there is a way back myself. If I will ever be what I was, release myself from the same hold I aim to free the rest of them from.

If I even should.

If... by the time I would, I'll want it.

I wonder if that's... that's what they feel like, the inmates. If they're so far in the dark that the very idea of light seems... fanciful. Harmful, even, a delusion they cannot afford, a brightness that burns their eyes from how rarely they have seen it. It's easy, I suppose, to look at this whole process as something that I will be 'doing' but I wonder if, instead, it will be yet another thing that I am merely here to watch. To observe and record, to acknowledge and try to understand.

Nothing I'll know until I've been assigned a proper inmate, I guess. And who knows when that will be.

I'm not really sure what else I was going to say on here. The idea of the whole thing has sort of run away with me and I'm not sure it's very helpful for all that. I should probably just... close up, finish off, and see if my inmate will at least agree to get tea with me.

The tea here's...

I've had better.

[ A few heartbeats of pause. ]

Statement ends.

Sample RP: TDM thread | Additional [this is a PSL with a canon mate but it gives you a little more flavor with him than he managed to get in the TDM]

Special Notes: