byronicbaryonic

» PLAYER INFORMATION
Player NAME: Danii
Current AGE: 28
Personal JOURNAL: fibercrack @ tumblr or stoicheion @ DW
IM & SERVICE: ashurbadaktu / blueberryashur @ AIM,
Player PLURK:
Current CHARACTERS: N/A

» CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character NAME: Richard Swift
Canon & MEDIUM: DC Comics, specifically the 90s run of Starman and any and all The Shade books
Canon PULL-POINT: post-Starman run, including #81.
Character AGE: 210 or so

Character ABILITIES: The Shade is pretty much the ultimate channeler of the power of the Shadowlands/Darklands/Dark Zone (DC isn't exact on the name, there), which is (quoting wiki just because it's the best description I can think of) "a quasi-sentient, extra-dimensional mass of malleable darkness which he can channel to various effects, both as an absence of light and a solid substance". Sometimes parts of it come alive into little imps or creatures, sometimes it's just swirling masses of shadow. He can shape it into things, travel through it, he can trap things inside of it external to the Darklands (like the great big bubble that was put around Opal City at one point by his nemesis, Culp) or trap people in it like a prison dimension. It makes him ageless and immortal and HEAVILY resistant to damage (ie, someone ripped out his heart and he was just fine to get up, dust himself off, and kick their ass).

It can be taken away by someone who drains his shadows, such as Culp did during the Grand Guignol arc, or if there is a bright enough/well placed light to entirely remove his shadow from him.

Character HISTORY: The Wiki article is here, if you'd like.

Made into what he is by an unexplained supernatural incident, he gained his first enemies in a manner of self defense; confused and hurt, young Richard was picked up by an affluent family who actually planned to use him to cover up the murder of a wealthy business partner. Having discovered their plans to kill him, he killed them; the remaining children swore revenge and Ludlows have hunted him since.

He spent time with Oscar Wilde, traveled the world, and even spent some time troubling Jay Garrick and Barry Allen. He joined the Injustice Society, and played the villain, mostly because he was bored and didn't quite know what to do with himself. Immortality gave him more time than he'd ever needed, and the terrible tendency for the Ludlows to insinuate themselves into his life (including falling in love with him once, a romance that he was forced to end in the most unfortunate manner), kept him from developing any true bonds with people. The one thing he did bond with, however, was a city.

Opal City. While he'd cause all manner of trouble elsewhere, the Opal was his sacred ground and when the time came for Jack Knight to take up the Cosmic Rod himself and step into his father's shoes, the Shade stepped up as well... to act as a mentor, of sorts. Well, a mentor and a devil's advocate and a protective hand when need be. Through the time that Jack wielded the rod, the Shade allowed himself to connect with people again, and Ted Knight "taught [him] how to be a man". He has since made the protection of Opal City his main business... even if he claims it's mostly to maintain the architecture.

Character PERSONALITY: The Shade is a complicated character. He's old, and he feels that age with a strange combination of delight at the new and interesting and wonderful and pure, unfortunate tiredness. He is extremely jaded, but that only seems to make him more staunch in defending the things that he truly loves and appreciates. He even protected Jay Garrick when another hero, a 'fake' hero who was really working with the criminals and in fact intended to kill Garrick, was trying to push him aside because while he had faced Garrick many times, he respected the man and what he was trying to do.

He has a weird relationship with the rest of humanity, observing them and having a very good idea of how they tick and how they work, but not particularly adept at dealing with them himself in any kind of 'real' way. The knowledge that anyone he loves is going to die, either by incident or plain old age, makes it hard for him to try and build anything with anyone, but he has allowed himself to care more often than he likes to admit. Most people who deal with him are going to notice, however, that he's largely smug, usually sarcastic, prone to pointing out the flaws in things no matter how little you want to hear about it, and he knows far more about what's going on than most people wishes he did.

He has a deep and abiding love of Opal City that borders on fanatical. It is his HOME; he might have been born in England and traveled all around, but he chose the Opal as his place. There's a certain territorial nature to the way in which he defends it, but it also seems to be an avatar of sorts for him, a standing monument to truth, beauty, and hope. It's something he can connect with that won't go away.

He's not much of a fighter in the sense that he doesn't try and fight anyone if he can avoid it. Part of that is just world-weariness at the pointlessness of it, in a lot of cases. Part is that he's well aware most fights just aren't even close to fair with him. He also doesn't particularly like violence and he likes to try and solve things without it if at all possible. After all, he well knows that there are lots of reasons for someone to do something unfortunate and he doesn't really have room to be throwing stones. That said, while he HAS a moral system, to attempt to map it to the usual planes is something of a miss. He doesn't like to kill people, but he will kill people if he has to and once he has, he will feel very little guilt in most cases; while rather placid and hard to put on the defensive, he is well aware that dead men can cause little trouble.

» EXSILIUM INFORMATION
Chosen WEAPON: A cane
Chosen SKILLSET: He could certainly be a fighter, but he played the part of mentor and information gatherer for most of Starman, so I'm fine with either.

» SAMPLES

First PERSON: [Text]
[the type is somewhat archaic and precise]
It has come to my attention during a survey of my current residence that a number of parties aware of certain indiscretions committed some decades in the past are, in fact, present in this place as well. First, I would offer my condolences to you for our shared inconvenience; while this place does contain several features of interest, not the least of which is the population of interesting characters contained herein, I have no doubt that each of you has business to attend to at home, much like myself, and would prefer to be there even giving to the difficulties you are more than likely handling in our shared home.

Second, I would like to take this time to assure you that despite the fact that I am not residing in Opal City at the present, I have no intentions to facilitate or take part in villainy during my stay in this strange new land of ours. To claim I have turned over a new leaf would be somewhat fallacious; instead, I see the world around me, whichever it happens to be at the time, with new eyes due to the unintentional tutelage of one I consider to be of the best of your particular band of brothers, and can see little to no advantage to such behaviors.

Lastly, I would invite you to the space which I have made my own in this place, a lovely little cafe which can be found at the address enclosed. Of course, as this is a public business and I appreciate all civil visitors who would come to patronize the shop, anyone interested in an excellent cup of tea or coffee (as well as a lovely selection of baked goods) should feel free to pay me a visit regardless of existing knowledge or history.

Good day, which I wish to all of you.

Third PERSON: To some, where they lived meant very little. Certain souls could exist quite happily without roots, without a permanent place to call their own. They had no need to settle, their restlessness serving well enough. Of course, this changed for most people; age had a way of settling even farest wandering soul. On that point, perhaps it made sense that the Shade had found a place for himself and was quite content to never leave it again for anything but a negligible amount of time. There were few older than him, and he liked to think there were none that still retained a sense of humor.

But now that he was here, now that he was in this strange new city unknown even to his previous travels, he could feel it. He could feel the hole left by every building, every facade full or empty. Where normal people might miss a familiar smile or the twinkle of a loved one's eyes, the Shade felt the loss in a familiar gargoyle missing, a cafe in the wrong slot on the street. The sky might as well be green because it was missing the elegant sloping lines of his Opal reaching for the sun.

If he was honest with himself, which he was becoming more and more since his 'education' of sorts under Theodore Knight, there was one woman that he missed. One breathing, thinking, living being that made the dark mass he called a heart twist and clench at her absence. But his relationship with Miss O'Dare was a complicated one and what he liked to think was the wiser part of him hoped that time apart would only make her heart grow fonder. It was his only defense against the fear, yes, fear, that crept in as he considered what she might be thinking at his absence, the stories she might concoct, the sheer mileage on the road into her deeper affections that he was traveling in the opposite direction every moment he was here.

The jaded portions of his mind pointed out that this was only to be expected, that the whole thing had been doomed from the start. But he knew he owed Hope more than that. He knew he owed himself more than that. He only hoped that their tentative relationship, awkward and carefully constructive as it was, would survive this strange place. That was, if he was ever allowed to leave. He had no guarantee of that, after all, and his own talents were quite exhausted on the matter. And if so, what could he do? How could he judge the line when loyalty would turn to obstinacy? When holding a candle alight for one love for a love lost to him might douse the flame of another? How long, if one was truly honest, did love last for someone like him? It was troubles like this that had kept him from women and attracted him to architecture all those years ago. Architecture was easier.

But he had eschewed the easier path the moment he had taken his first steps on his current journey. Which meant, quite concretely, that these were decisions he'd need to make at some point in the future. Possibly near, possibly far; he couldn't say.

For now, however, he would think of elegantly stylized skyscrapers, the texture of the night above his Opal, and a police officer with hair the color of a summer sunset who he would much rather be pestering into opening her front door with a bouquet of roses and an offer for dinner than anything else in this or any world.

» ADDITIONAL NOTES
Nothing I can think of