![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Duplicity App
Mar. 18th, 2022 04:26 am( Cut )
« « « OOC INFORMATION
Name: Casey Age: 30+ Contact: hamiltonia @ Plurk, teacuppa @ Discord Timezone: EST Other Character(s): Charles Saville (Original character) |
« « « IC INFORMATION
Name: Dorian Christopher Gray → Previous app/Acceptance Door: Returning with his original Dominant designation Canon: The Confessions of Dorian Gray (audio drama series) Canon Point: Post The Lost Confessions: A Death in Whitby + Duplicity memories Age: Mentally 162, physically appears 19-21 Appearance: Here History: CoDG Wiki History - Duplicity Canon: Overall, Dorian's year in Duplicity was satisfying and impactful for him. He had escaped being hunted by Lucifer back on Earth, and Tobias Matthews had been returned to him in full health and without consequence to either of their lives. His experiences and growth were most marked by a few key events, and relationships he either already had, or formed over the course of many months: Tobias Matthews:
Personality: ( - ) - Callous Dorian’s callousness is his worst quality, notoriously so, and what led him to destroy thousands of lives, including his own, on many occasions. His life is a pattern of heartless behaviour leading to tragic consequences, but the most significant example is represented in The Picture of Dorian Gray (canonically written by Oscar Wilde about Dorian’s life in The Confessions of Dorian Gray series) and Dorian's once-engagement to Sybil Vane. Dorian first approached the young actress out of an appreciation for her art and beautiful face. After she fell in love with him and lost her skill as an actress due to her disillusionment with performative love, he immediately ended their relationship. Rather than ending their engagement and fading out of her life, Dorian berated Sybil cruelly, accusing her of killing his love for her. His venting culminated in him telling her that she no longer had any value because of her artistic incompetence. Dorian abandoned her shortly after, giving every impression that he planned on vanishing from her life forever. Sybil, distraught and heartbroken, killed herself that night by drinking prussic acid. Rather than grieve, Dorian processed the entire incident with a chilly detachment, refusing to accept blame and ultimately deciding that Sybil's death only had worth as a dramatic artistic expression of human suffering. It was an excuse to avoid responsibility, and highlights how little Dorian cared for Sybil’s life, and how shallow his interest in her was to begin with. There are other examples of Dorian’s callousness leading to horrible consequences in The Confessions of Dorian Gray. Most of them involve people befriending or falling for Dorian, and ending up disillusioned, cursed, or worse as a result. Dorian has a bad habit of picking people up on a whim, seducing them or winning their friendship with his charming approach or good looks, only to drop them when he loses interest or someone better comes along. He rarely minds the damage he leaves in his wake, regretting it only when confronted by literal hauntings from those he abandoned, dealt with cruelly, or murdered. During his time in Duplicity, Dorian's callousness also created difficult moments in several of the relationships he formed, or already had, with others. Post hiatus-coma, he felt he could no longer trust whether his portrait's powers could be relied on to save him, and enlisted Grayson Frost to help him test this possibility. The pair went into the woods on several occasions, and Grayson inflicted different kinds of physical injuries on Dorian to ensure that the portrait healed him from each one. His callousness came into play when he kept these meetings secret from his current boyfriend, Tobias Matthews, until the vampire figured out the secret on his own. This lead to a shouting match about whether Dorian cared about Toby's feelings, and felt he could truly trust him. Additionally, he hurt other friends in the city with thoughtless behavior. During an event where negative traits were amplified, he discarded Eloise Bridgerton, treating her cruelly and telling her, essentially, that she wasn't worth his time. He also damaged his relationship with Grayson, rejecting the vampire's attempt to telepathically meld their subconscious minds during sex, and shrugging the vampire's earnest efforts off by telling him the failed attempt "wasn't his fault". Grayson felt disregarded and like his investment in their connection was being treated lightly, and Dorian's callous comment created a rift between the pair that took months for them to repair. - Narcissistic Dorian's narcissism is a close second to his callousness. His self-interest and conviction in his own uniqueness and superiority dictate how long he’ll involve himself with anyone in his life. As long as a relationship benefits or interests him, Dorian will treat people well and allow them to stay in his life. The second that interest, which is frequently based on a whim, fades, he’ll drop people immediately, regardless of the ensuing consequences for others or even himself. He’ll sooner travel to another country than deal with the resulting relationship fallout, seen clearly in his attempt to abandon a woman pregnant with his child (CoDGepisode The Houses in Between) because she no longer inspired the infatuation he initially had for her. Dorian's self-absorption and self-love lead him to put his own survival over everything else in his life. He believes that, as long as he desires it, he deserves to keep living, and anything and everything that endangers his existence is an obstacle to be overcome by any means necessary. There are a handful of people Dorian has sacrificed himself for, but those people are vanishing rare, especially as he continues to age and grow increasingly jaded with life. In Duplicity, Dorian's narcissism interfered with several of his relationships, and even inspired him to form others because he was curious about those who knew previous versions of himself. For this reason (and others) he sought out Daphne Morales-Kocchar and Jonathan Sims, and ended up determined to prove to them through their association that not only was he the genuine version of himself, but the superior Dorian. This ended up a wasted effort, as both LIERs found him just as self-absorbed, thoughtless, and reckless as the most recent version of himself had been. - Arrogant A negative consequence of his portrait’s powers, as well as people praising Dorian’s good looks, style, and position, is that he's staggeringly arrogant. He’s used to getting his way, and charming people into doing what he wants or giving him their company when he demands it. Years of impressing others this way have led Dorian to believe he can manage it with anyone, and that other people exist for his amusement. One example of this propensity is found in the episode The Heart that Lives Alone. In the beginning of the episode, Dorian meets a vampire named Toby and approaches him with swaggering arrogance, fully expecting the man to topple to his charms and give him his attention. Instead, Toby, who is aware of Dorian’s perpetual sense of entitlement, intentionally strings the immortal along by refusing him. Dorian is shocked by the reception, even remarking in narration that the rejection is the first to hurt him in years. He is so unsettled and frustrated by the apparent impossibility of someone turning him down, that he proceeds to chase Toby for months, until the vampire finally decides he's been humiliated enough and relents to him. While it can inspire him to reckless bravery in the face of incredible odds, Dorian's arrogance leads him to make choices that only his portrait can save him from. He's insisted to the Devil's face that Lucifer is the one afraid of him, and dared gods to meet him toe-to-toe as the fate of the world hangs in the balance. He believes he's unstoppable, and only his absurdly good luck has spared him from meeting an enemy he hasn't eventually been able to overcome. In Duplicity, Dorian's arrogance led him on numerous occasions to attempt to flout city rules and challenge LIERs stronger, smarter, and more well-connected than himself. The initial stages of his relationship with Grayson Frost were built upon his endless curiosity about the vampire, and belief that he was up to the task of meeting him toe-to-toe in every respect. Grayson was 400+ years his senior, more experienced, and far more patient, and while their relationship eventually turned into one of trust and mutual respect, Dorian's belief that he was an equal, if not superior, to such a seasoned immortal was an arrogant one. ( + ) + Persuasive When not using it for ill or selfish ends, Dorian does have a gift for smooth-talking and engaging people in conversation. These skills were sharpened by the many social events he attended as a young man, and flourished in the witty and intelligent company he prefers keeping. He can talk generally about many subjects, and can be (when inspired) curious enough about other people to encourage them to open up about themselves. In the Confessions of Dorian Gray, he manages to make friends with many people others might struggle to get close to (James, a moody and withdrawn poet he met during WWI, and Adam, a computer scientist prone to putting people off with his bluntness and lack of care for social niceties) by showing interest in them, reaching them on their level, and persuading them to trust him. Unsurprisingly, in Duplicity, Dorian's ability to persuade others was typically put to the ends of getting people to try things they were wary of, or to convince them to sleep with him. He also weaponized it against his own boyfriend, Tobias Matthews, on numerous occasions, starting with their very first encounter in the city after Toby's arrival. Dorian was convinced that Toby was actually the Lucifer from their world, and rather than taking a chance on trusting the vampire saying otherwise, persuaded his boyfriend to demonstrate that he wasn't the fallen angel by touching a cross. Even being in the presence of crosses is harmful to the vampire, but Toby did it anyway, as he was both eager to prove himself and convinced by Dorian's argument that hurting himself in this way was the only way to show he was actually himself. Additional traits: + Strong-willed + Quick-witted + Charming + Open-minded + Generous + Intelligent + Curious +/- Hedonistic +/- Shameless +/- Fearless +/- Unconventional - Amoral - Secretive - Stubborn - Manipulative - Impatient - Cynical - Paranoid - Reckless - Impulsive - Shallow Powers and Abilities: Thanks to his Faustian bargain with the Devil, Dorian is immortal and incapable of being permanently injured or killed. All signs of ageing, injuries, and other physical effects inflicted on his person are taken from his body shortly after they happen, and instead appear on a portrait of himself. The portrait does not convey any further powers or benefits, and its magic can be nullified if it’s destroyed. When it is destroyed, Lucifer's bargain is broken, and Dorian takes on all the portrait's deformities and dies. Inventory: 1. Dorian's portrait: A 5'x3' eldritch painting, cursed to absorb the physical after effects of Dorian's sins and injuries. At this point in the portrait's existence, Dorian's depicted image is warped and diseased-looking to the point of being unrecognizable. 2. A vinyl record with recordings on each side: one by Dorian, and the other by his late boyfriend, Tobias Matthews 3. A bound collection of poems by James Anderson Samples: Dorian and Toby deal with a haunted ex-theatre TDM #33 post and subsequent threads |
