Synodiporia Application

[what_do_you_see]

P L A Y E R;
NAME: Terry
AGE: 39
PLAYER JOURNAL: inkblotted.dreamwidth.org
TIMEZONE: PST
CONTACT: inkblotted23@gmail.com, plurk is inkblotted
OTHER CHARACTERS PLAYED: Colonel Tick-Tock

C H A R A C T E R;
NAME: Walter Kovacs, aka Rorschach
CANON: Watchmen (comic, not movieverse, though I am using the movie for icons)
POINT IN CANON: At the beginning of the events of the comic – he’s begun investigating the Comedian’s murder, but has not yet been arrested himself
AGE: 45
APPEARANCE: Rorschach is 5’6”, very well built, red-headed, freckled, and generally considered fairly unattractive in the face. I am using his movie appearance for icons, but it’s fairly close to how he looks in the comics, except for eye color. Walter is here and Rorschach is here
CANON HISTORY: History is here.
CANON PERSONALITY:
Rorschach is a man who has been strongly shaped by his traumatic childhood. The effect of having a prostitute for a mother who regularly physically abused him and told him he was unwanted, ugly, and an impediment in her life scarred him deeply. These harrowing childhood experiences seems to have meshed with some innate character traits – a bad temper and some social awkwardness – to form a man who sees the world in black and white (and mostly black), who has little to no ability to compromise, and who is willing to do whatever he deems necessary for what he sees as the cause of justice. In his early adulthood, he was more idealistic (though always something of an extremist compared to some of the other costumed vigilantes) and avoided killing the criminals he captured. He was more focused on saving people and doing good. He was also more social – though never friendly – and worked for some time with his partner, Nite Owl in fighting crime. However, constant exposure to the worst that society had to offer along with changing social climes changed Rorschach, making his views on criminals and society in general much more stark. He no longer was concerned with saving people so much as he was with exterminating criminals. At one point he compares what he’s doing to merely wiping flecks of foam off the mouth of a rabid dog.

Rorschach has always been a man of strong moral beliefs and an iron determination to do what he believes is right. This personality trait is seen even as a child, when he writes an essay about how he believes the atom bomb was necessary. However his inability to see shades of gray combined with a lack of exposure to the gentler emotions and experiences in life – love, joy, and kindness – eventually isolated him from the rest of the crime fighting community. He refused to give up what he was doing even when it became illegal, and his vigilantism took a turn for the increasingly violent after one particular child-murder case showed him one of the darker sides of humanity. Because of his black and white thinking, he at times has difficulty differentiating petty crime from more serious stuff – in his mind, it all leads to the same thing, moral corruption and decay. Therefore he feels justified in acting with extreme physical force even against those who are not murderers, rapists, or child molestors. This tendency to use violence in the name of justice is something also routed in his childhood – he acted out in an extreme fashion when he was ten when confronted with bullies, putting the eye of one out with a cigarette and biting the other in the face. In fact, Rorschach seems to enjoy violence, not in a gleeful, sadistic sort of way, but more because it reduces situations to very simple, stark equations. It is also arguable that this has something to do with his total lack of power and physical abuse as a child – because of his martial prowess, Rorschach is totally in control when he’s fighting, generally. It is one of the few ways he can exercise power, and also feed his powerful need to feel he is doing what is right.

While his violent and extremist tendencies are what most see in Rorschach, he is not without some gentler aspects. He has been merciful in the past, and this can be seen in the comic. He allows someone he considers a villain off for a minor infraction (when normally he would punish him) when he finds out the man has cancer. He also has a soft spot for children, especially, and will go out of his way to protect them or to be more lenient on adults if it would affect children if he is not.

Rorschach is also a very socially awkward person, which to some extent may be a product of his social isolation. In his youth, he was generally just considered quiet and introspective, though as a young adult, the other costumed vigilantes he worked with thought him somewhat odd. Still, he was articulate and well spoken, and worked fairly well with Nite Owl. However, he has had nothing in terms of a social life as an adult, and tended to keep to himself. He is a big follower of conspiracy theories and this often informs his view of the world. As he got older, his eccentricities grew and grew, and when he quit his job as a garment worker, this cut him off even more from human contact. Living in a tenement slum, he only observed his neighbors. His speech has become stilted and strange over the years, and he seems to see human connection often as a form of weakness, including sexual contact which he is especially disgusted with in general, both hetero and homosexual. However, he still does occasionally crave the contact of his peers, as is seen when he tries to reach out to his former partner, Nite Owl, thanking him for his help and telling him he has been a good friend. Even this bit of humanity is rendered awkward when he shakes Nite Owl’s hand and doesn’t seem to know when to let go – either a poor reading of social cues or a simple desire to have that non-violent physical contact that has been so absent in his life.

POINT OF DEPARTURE: N/A
ABILITIES: Rorschach is very physically skilled. He is not only an excellent hand-to-hand fighter, but he is also able to use found objects for make-shift weapons on a moment’s notice. He has top-notch reflexes and is also very skilled with parkour/urban climbing and the like. He is in peak physical condition for his age and frame. Despite his odd diction, he is actually quite intelligent – in school he got top marks and he has spent much of his adult life independently investigating crimes. He is also a good tailor, as his day job was in the garment industry for years.
INVENTORY; His costume (mask, hat, suit, overcoat), journal, grappling gun, lockpicks, utility knife, lighter
ANYTHING ELSE WE SHOULD KNOW?

S A M P L E S;
ACTIONSPAM SAMPLE:
(Both samples are taken from the TDM prompt #33, with Rorschach investigating.)
“I can do it.” Rorschach’s low, gravelly monotone cut across the voices of the academics, trying to decide who would handle the snipers. None of them were well trained in combat or espionage, but they knew it was a problem that had to be handled.

“But you don’t know where to go,” one woman protested, frowning.

“Not difficult to figure out,” the redhead said, glancing toward the windows.

“It certainly is! Why, there are hundreds of vantage points-“

“Quit your babbling,” Rorschach cut her off. “Job to do - does someone need to be on the floor, drowning in their own blood before you’ll act?”

“Oh, now, that’s hardly fair,” another man retorted. “We’re in a defensible position right now, we have some time.”

“None of you understand.” The small man stepped forward, his lips set in a hard line, brown eyes dark with derision. “This is not a game. This is not an intellectual exercise. Not a matter of strategizing, making a move, waiting for the opponent to do the same until the king is in check! This is real life, and no amount of studying, no high IQ score is going to make death any less painful or ignominious when it comes. High-minded intellectuals die with filth in their pants same as the most imbecilic of foot soldiers.”

There was silence for a few moments as the group of librarians, academics, and teachers all took in those words. And then a sudden flurry of voices as they all started talking at once. Rorschach just closed his eyes briefly and stepped back. Looked like he would be doing things his way.


PROSE SAMPLE:
The whole situation was outside Rorschach’s experience – traveling, Jaunts, Liminal Space, all of it. In some way it relieved him to have so straight-forward a task – eliminate the snipers who threatened the academics in the library. But he was not a man who worked well with other’s agendas, and it rankled him that he knew so little about what was happening here. He had a keen disdain for academics and intellectuals – lazy, liberal scum who justified their inaction in the face of corruption with pretty words, or worse, provided those words to the bloated politicians who sought to legalize the most degraded behaviors and vices humanity had to offer.

These particular academics seemed different, though. He was wary of his first impression, but the fact that they were doing their best to protect knowledge and history instead of twisting it to their own uses, and that they were not afraid to act in defense of the books cautiously impressed him. Despite this, he was still not about to fall in line like some good soldier. He worked alone, and he refused to be saddled with anyone. Breaking off from the group, still embroiled in furious discussion of tactics (useless), he pulled his hat down low to shield his face and slipped out of the library through a window, shimmying up the side of the building to get to the roof by clinging to a gutter pipe. From there he got a much better view – yes. He could see where he needed to go. In the darkness, his lips curled up just slightly, a barely-there smile of satisfaction. He would take care of this problem, leave the intellectuals to their pointless debate, and be back before the sounds of their drivel had dissipated into the cool air.