maskormenace Application

[culpabilite]

tw: child abuse, mental illness, sex work, child death; very light on spoilers due to recent backstory episode air date (9/25/2020)

PLAYER INFORMATION

PLAYER NAME: China (she/her)
PLAYER CONTACT: shramp
CURRENT CHARACTERS: Joseph Kavinsky (The Raven Cycle)
RETURNING CHARACTER?: N

CHARACTER INFORMATION

CHARACTER NAME: Serge [last name unknown]
JOURNAL: culpabilite
CANON: The Boys (Prime TV)
CANON POINT: End of season 1; however, the application will refer to season 2 events in as 'unspoilery' a way as possible
AGE: 35
ALIAS: Frenchie

SYNOPSIS:

In his youth, Frenchie was raised in Marseilles. His father was abusive and had bipolar disorder, and kidnapped him from his mother for several years. Eventually, he immigrated to the United States alone and in poverty. He took on odd jobs and some informal sex work in order to survive, and eventually found friends who were likewise queer or otherwise ostracized from mainstream society, and engaged in crime as a practical necessity. He's Jewish (based on his PB), but not practicing.

His world is dominated by a celebrity culture of 'Supes,' individuals who gained 'supernatural' powers from taking a pharmaceutical called Compound V. He and his friends engaged in anti-Supe vigilantism using improvised weapons, as well as crimes to support themselves, including theft and mercenary killing.

After a bank heist went wrong with his friends, Frenchie was apprehended and recruited into a government paramilitary black operations team called 'The Boys.' An off-book affiliate of the CIA, the Boys' objective was to investigate and stop Supes who were harming unpowered civilians, often using brutal, questionable, or totally unethical tactics. The group disbanded after a disastrous operation that ended with a Supe massacring the grandchildren of their leader, CIA Deputy Director Grace Mallory. For this, Frenchie shoulders the most blame, because he went against orders that could have prevented the murders. However, the Boys came back together when one of them took on the Seven in a series of accidents and mistakes. In the process, Frenchie developed a soft spot for a Supe himself.

Both with the Boys and before, Frenchie utilizes his voracious intellect and extensive skills in mechanics, biology and chemistry to contribute creative solutions to overcome the power difference between his companions and the Supes.

ADAPTATION:

Frenchie will be both inclined to fly under the radar and act as an anti-hero. His skepticism toward Supes will chafe against him effectively becoming an ImPort. While he's intellectually able to recognize the differences, emotionally and viscerally, he will have a harder time accepting the changes to himself.

Frenchie's main motivation is to survive in a reasonable comfort; his second is to uphold justice, which may cause him to intervene in superheroic or anti-superheroic capacity if he believes other ImPorts are 'acting out.'

Somewhere in between those two motivations, Frenchie also does like to have a hedonistic good time and create good relationships with people. Ironically, this rarely means he leans toward a mundane civilian life; instead, he's drawn to fringe groups, sometimes even crime.

PRESENTATION:

Shady and charming, Frenchie's external presentation tends to match his internal reality pretty well-- a connection that's engineered with deliberate intent. He instinctively avoids subscribing to most mainstream culture, preferring intimate parties, personal freedom, and the Golden Girls.

Inevitably, those who do care for propriety and public lives will tend to pre-judge or not get along with him-- and he'll judge them and be a shithead right back.

People who are of minority or other divergent subcultures will usually get a good vibe off him (including queer or racial minorities, sex workers and former criminals)-- unless, of course, they find his persona offputting. After all, he does seem to be a bit of a champion of the underdog, and that in and of itself is suspicious.

PSYCHOLOGY:

Frenchie carries significant guilt for his role in the deaths of Mallory's family. He's tried to use it as a motivation to act better, but he still engages in stupid behaviors all the time. As a result, perhaps moreso than the other Boys, he has the capacity to recognize nuances of grey-- even that not all Supes are bad.

As with most of the Boys, he has a tenuous and faulty balance between loyalty, principle (stopping homicidal Supes), and survival. There are easy shortcuts to getting him to like you, which are often problematic, including: being a criminal with a 'heart of gold,' some other rebellious or renegade attitudes, hating Supes or having experienced Supe injustice, and having a pretty face.

Tension about the massacre of Mallory's family is still felt among the Boys today. Frenchie has never disclosed the extenuating circumstances that led him to abandon his post that night. Regret motivates Frenchie to hesitate more when engaging in criminal activities, especially when individuals (rather than corporations and faceless entities) are involved. Notably, these ethical boundaries and followthrough aren't great; he still sells illegal guns and works with organized crime.

POWERS:

• POWER #1: Illusions

  DESCRIPTION:

  Frenchie has the ability to create visual, auditory, and tactile illusions.

  These illusions are psychic constructs. Beings can perceptive them from any sensory range they would normally be capable of. However, they primarily affect organic beings; technology generally cannot perceive them. However, intelligent technology (AI, certain robots) will be able to see what he's made, yet also recognize that it is false.

  WEAKNESS:

  Frenchie can sustain a still-motion illusion measuring 5 feet in each of the 3 spatial dimensions for up to three hours, after which he will become exhausted. Attempts to push past this increase the likelihood of errors and passing out, and forcing this into a timespan beyond an hour or two is guaranteed to kill him.

  However, if the illusion is animated (e.g., breathing, kicking, flapping, NOT JUST normal physics affecting an inanimate object), must induce a sense of 'weight' in being carried by a being, or make sounds, the energy required increases. Proportionately, the duration of the illusion will then drop by about 30 minutes for each additional factor.

  The greatest weakness for the first few months will be that Frenchie has extremely poor control of his ability, to the point where his subconscious dislike of Supes will interact with his powers, and result in him actually tricking himself into thinking that his ImPort dossier shows he has no powers. Despite plenty of evidence that that can't be true, he'll be in denial for awhile!

SKILLS:

Frenchie is proficient in a range of mechanics, chemistry (including explosives), physics, and biology (including pharmacobiology) and uses them effectively in conflict scenarios against entities who would best him in hand-to-hand combat. With unpowered folks, he's a solid brawler and good marksman. Even apart from specific disciplines, he's generally very tactically-minded.

Frenchie also has a wide spectrum of practical knowledge and skills related to his life. For example, he has a fair understandig of queer culture contemporary to his times, as well as the politics of his homeworld. He's also multi-lingual, not that that matters here, and watches quite a bit of television and film (including the Hunger Games; no fourth wall breaks unless permission given).

IN-GAME DEVELOPMENT:

N/A

SAMPLES

THREAD SAMPLE:

What the fuck?

[he seizes your arm. he's not tall; 5'8", maybe. white-passing, with jewish features if you know what to look for. dressed in a ratty jacket and trousers, he doesn't seem like the sort of person who would be having a hernia over something so commonplace as a billboard showing off the latest and greatest import interventions, and yet.]

Is this real?! [he gestures wildly toward the board. he manages to get his voice down into an incredulous hiss however, with the second question:] Is this real in every fucking world that exists?

VOICE SAMPLE:

1. "Have you ever served in the military? What is your experience with armed combat?"
   Not the military, per say! But the Central Intelligence Agency kept us like hounds. And they chose us because we knew how to bite. 'Armed combat' is a complicated term when you're like me, up against Supes, but yes. We've killed more than one. We found ways.
2. "Is there anyone who holds a grudge against you? What will you do if they're here?"
   Is 'hold a grudge' the right way to say it when I deserve her hatred? If Mallory were here, I would give her her space and wish her well. It would do her no good to have me around. No one deserves what happened to her.
3. "Have you ever done something that you regret? What would you do differently?"
   I let Mallory's family die. I could have been smarter, and found another way to do it all that night, but I didn't. Failure is failure.
4. "What is your happiest memory?"
   Being in bed with my friends. Not the Boys, I mean-- they aren't like that, my older friends. But I remember laying there, the warmth, the smell of cigarettes and stale beer. Feeling at home.
5. "Do you believe in second chances? What would be the exception?"
   I believe in them. I do not believe anyone is owed one, but if you are given the chance, you should take it. For my own part, I might be too lenient. I say 'no one is owed,' but I give them easily. Maybe, on some level, I hope for the same. That someone else might show me such grace someday.