John Doe 4✦ (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
entirelymyown) wrote2025-03-15 10:54 pm
entirelymyown) wrote2025-03-15 10:54 pm
Entry tags:
Golden Peacock App
APPLICATION
NAME: Danii.
AGE: 30+.
CONTACT: yarnzipan @ disco /![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
yarnzipan.
CHARACTER(S): None yet. New Player
INVITED BY: RW. Invite Here
NAME: John Doe
AGE: 300+ million / 'untold lifetimes'
CANON: Malevolent (podcast)
CANON POINT: between episode 49 and 50, when Arthur is recovering in Castle Kerringford
CRAU: No.
OTHER: John canonically does not have a physical form or even a set physical appearance, being both an unidentified Entity *and* possessing Arthur Lester's eyes/entwined with his soul. Judging by the answers for 'incorporeal' and 'soul-bound to another creature', I'm guessing he's good to go but figured it warranted a mention. I don't play him as having a very firmly set gender since he's an eldritch horror (and a confirmed trans allegory by the creator). Gender is mostly ???? in his head, even if in practice it mostly comes out masculine because that's what he's learned from Arthur and in practice, he'll mostly be a large 'human' man with long dark hair and some gold accents and occasionally a very tall humanoid with many tentacles.
SUITABILITY: John, despite being a god/Great Old/whatever he is now, is incredibly human. He curses, he cheers, he wants to go to the movies, he gets fussy when Arthur gives their handkerchief to someone to blow their nose in because now it's all gross. He *desires* to live a limited existence, be a person, despite what he is, and he entwined his existence with Arthur's to protect him from his other half destroying him because of it. He loves music and poetry and finds beauty in the smallest and strangest things. Connections with people are everything to him, and one of his greatest struggles has been being isolated inside of Arthur (because only Arthur can hear him). He wants to learn about the world from this perspective.
Which is not to say that he is innocent or naive. John was once a part of the King in Yellow, a "god" of hedonism, excess, overindulgence, and especially of artists, musicians, and other creatives. He's also been through 'untold lifetimes' of torment during one period of hie existence, and turned the tables to subsist on the pain of others during his second time there. So while an existence like this will be new, it's something that he'll be excited and curious and very interested in exploring, alongside meeting new people. And, you know, boning them.
He's also going to be a little bit out to sea without Arthur there (as Arthur has been his guide throughout all of this) but his red-thread connection to Arthur will keep him from freaking out too hard. I'm curious to see how he does starting out on his own.
HISTORY: Once upon a time, a bunch of humans pulled a fast one on Shub-Niggurath, lured her into the body of a human being, and then killed her when she was vulnerable and contained. This destroyed her utterly, which is why when another set of cultists tried to summon her through a gate, another being decided to use the door... and when this happened, someone there at the time decided to use a book to 'trap' what came through. The fact that they thought they'd be 'trapping' Shub is why they only got half of the King in Yellow/Hastur... and that half happened to be this Entity. While trapped in the book, his consciousness was lost in the Dark World, where dead timelines and worlds end up, kind of the refuse pile of all reality. It's a place that feeds on pain and fear, a maelstrom of pure chaos. And time moves differently there.
So about ten years later, the book somehow ends up sent to a man named Arthur Lester, he opens it, the Entity pops out into him, and binds the two together so he can't get sent back. Said entity doesn't remember who or what he is at this point, but he knows he doesn't want to go back. So they set off to try and solve the mystery of what happened and how to 'free' said entity from Arthur. This is complicated by the fact that the entity took Arthur's eyes and his sense of sight, meaning that said Entity gets to guide Arthur as they go through things. And go through things they certainly do, because it seems like supernatural forces 100% have it out for them. One of them actually manages to almost kill Arthur, but the Entity uses what control he has of Arthur's body (one arm) to drag him to a road and get him to a hospital. It's during the month that Arthur is in a coma recovering that the Entity is given the name of John Doe by a helpful nurse who doesn't know he's there but feels that talking to coma patients is helpful. She shows him kindness (unknowingly) and the month gives him time to think and realize how much Arthur means to him. So when Arthur wakes up, John (as he has decided he is to be called) admits that he's been a bit of a shit and that Arthur is someone he values.
More horror/adventures ensue, leading them to a cult ritual in a Sleeping City beneath a hotel. Here, John and Arthur discover that John is the lost half of the King in Yellow, and in attempting to 'reclaim' him and destroy Arthur, John makes the choice to stand by Arthur and live an independent existence as John and *not* the King in Yellow, as well as protect Arthur from being destroyed. This gets them flung into the Dreamlands, but it does mean that John has *some* memory back. Thus proceeds Shenanigans in the Dreamlands, ending with a meeting with a being who calls himself Kayne (Nyarlathotep) and eventually, another confrontation with the King in Yellow. Now in the KiY's domain, he tortures Arthur until John begins to give in to his demand to return to him. Arthur, however, refuses to give up and attempts to end his own life to prevent the King from taking John. He misses the artery and John uses the last few moments to save Arthur's life by agreeing to go.
Arthur gets teleported to upstate New York, throat somewhat fixed enough not to die, and John fights the KiY. He loses, gets torn apart as the KiY tries to fit his 'piece' back in, and then tossed back into the Dark World as being of no use. There, John remembers who he is this time, and makes a 'new kingdom' for himself, the torturer instead of the torturee, angry and hopeless without Arthur. Kayne comes back to both of them: offering Arthur John 'back' but with no memory... and offering John a chance to go back to Arthur, but with a task he has to accomplish and cannot tell Arthur about. Arthur initially gets 'Yellow' (which, as it turns out, is in fact the King in Yellow) with his memory wiped and it goes *poorly* before Arthur nearly dies and John re-assumes his place within Arthur. This doesn't prevent Arthur from going through a real dark night of the soul, which John (hope renewed) helps Arthur through.
More "Adventures" Ensue, John nearly murders a guy out of jealousy over Arthur (they work it out, he just loses an arm, that part wasn't John's fault) and then John makes his first non-Arthur friend (backstory there is Complicated, but Noel takes it really well) and they go to stop another cult. Turns out Yellow popped into someone else, they have to stop him and part of that is accomplishing John's task. Insert shenanigans, task is complete, Kayne shows up again, annnnd they get transported to Medieval England to look for what's known as the Black Stone. Insert more shenanigans, a horrible forest full of plague, a creepy castle, a murder mystery, and a literal trap door near death experience... and just after they get out of that last one does John find himself in game.
ABILITIES: John is by description of some a Great Old One or a god. While contained within Arthur, he's extremely limited, but from what has been said about his tenure in the Dark World the second time, and the fact that he did give the KiY a fight in his own domain, this is not true all the time. These powers include:
- Shapeshifting - the King in Yellow has no 'true' form, more of an idea than anything, and he can take any form he wants to. By default, John will probably figure out a 'human' form he wants to take and roll from there, maybe appearing a little different here or there since, well... they appear different to everyone. He'll probably start eldritch and quickly pick something humanish that feels close for the most part. It's never really going to be nailed down.
- Healing. Or rather 'healing' - he's not so much 'healing' you of something as he is sort of glooping you back together to close wounds and keep you going. Arthur 'gets up' from absolutely ridiculous things and somehow has never died of blood loss. It certainly leaves scars and there's nothing he can do about disease but he's fixed Arthur up from being literally run through and gotten him up and running again within ten minutes.
- Intangibility - he can move and act as a shadow instead of a physical being
- Superior durability and healing - ...he's a god. Hit point sponge. A normal stabbing will just annoy him and he can recover from just about anything.
- No Sleep - John can be influenced to sleep by powers, but he doesn't fall asleep naturally or need to sleep for energy.
- No Food - Doesn't actually need to eat but judging by others (one outer god has been observed munching on Gardettos, as a note), he absolutely can. He'll be very excited to try it, considering.
- Mental Connection - he can talk straight to your brain if he wants to. He can't mind read, but if you 'think' back at him, he could hear it.
- Mental Control - Not John's jam, but we know from his other half that he can reach into someone's mind and essentially take over the controls; this was used by Yellow to make a man smash his own skull in. Would only be done with consent and discussion.
- Sensory Abilities - as mentioned, he initially takes Arthur's eyes. So he can control another person's senses, turn them on or off, manipulate them, borrow them, enhance them, etc as an active thing. Again, consent and discussion, IC and OOC.
- Death Touch Vision - when he touches a dead body, he can know how that person died. It's painful and unpleasant and he definitely sort of feels it so hopefully won't come up.
- Dream Walking - can go into and shape people's dreams. Would only be done with consent and discussion.
- Supernatural Perception - he's seeing a WHOLE lot differently and a whole lot more than most people would. The angles of reality, the remnants of eldritch power, he's basically rocking truesight at all times. I'll ask if it comes up as a thing but otherwise he'd never really say anything or remark on it without need.
-Tentacles - He's got as many of them as he wants, they can extend as far as he wants, they can be soft and gentle or they can be knife-tipped. If he's got a form, tentacles are going to be a part of it. Sometimes they look like tatters of his clothes and other times they look like starlight and void.
- Say My Name - calling him with intention (aka, crying out FOR him) calls his attention (hence why one of his titles is 'He Who Must Not Be Named' and/or the Unspeakable One)
- Floating/Flying/Mage Hand - what's a gravity can I eat it?
- Telekinetics - considering the KiY snapped Arthur's legs like a slim jim with a thought, yeah...
Please Note: I fully intend to temp-nerf anything that would make a plot unworkable or unplayable in here (game-space powers trump all!) and honor the spirit of the game plot; it's easy because John's memory is swiss cheese so him being able to deal with something or not can be as variable as I need it to be. Powers are a plot device, not a way to screw yourself out of fun, IMHO.
VICES:
AVOIDANT. John is terrible about keeping things to himself, sometimes with explosive consequences. He's an absolute garbage liar, but that doesn't stop him from just Not Telling People Things and trying to put off confrontations and man does it blow up in the worst ways. He's also very bad at expressing his emotions instead of just stuffing it down and not dealing with it and this literally resulted in him getting so frustrated he tried to have Arthur axe murder a man. This was not an improvement from him pretending Not To See Things to delay stuff because he was frustrated either. He's bad about it.
- in Season 2, John hides the fact that they're in a temple to the King in Yellow from Arthur, which unfortunate results in a catastrophic loss of trust in that moment. The end result is them getting captured and put in a prison pit for three months and nearly dying.
- in Season 3 and 4, while he was unable to tell Arthur how he got out due to a deal with Kayne (Nyarlathotep) on pain of potentially having their head exploded, he didn't tell him about the Dark World portion of things simply because he was ashamed of the fact that he'd lost hope while he was there and he tells himself he'll tell him 'later' 'when the time is right', like the time is ever right.
- in Season 4, John is losing his memory and having issues thinking and being effected by something and he either doesn't mention it to Arthur or brushes it off when Arthur questions it.
- also in Season 4, John, after having the whole Dark World thing told to the group by Kayne, is desperate to have Arthur not know things and Kayne asks him if he wants him to erase Arthur's memory of this. He agrees out of fear and Kayne laughs at him and doesn't do it. It causes a major fight.
REACTIONARY. John has a temper and when someone sets it off, he's all blustering threats and saying HORRENDOUSLY MEAN SHIT and total scorched earth- it's bad and he's not great at tempering himself. But it's not just the temper. He's also just as reactionary when it comes to fear or when it comes to joy; there is no hiding his emotional response and he has it immediately with very little intellectual processing. Happy, sad, thoughtful, petty and spiteful: he's very very obvious and he has very little for subterfuge that isn't just 'don't talk about it'. Thus, even his silences say a lot because he'll react to almost anything immediately; no response, something's up.
- in Season 1, numerous times when John is annoyed, he won't tell Arthur when he's nearing something or about to hit his head: he invariably does.
- in Season 2, when John gets angry at Arthur, he uses a key point of Arthur's past that Arthur had just chosen to share with him to try and hurt him. This does a huge amount of damage to their relationship and is part of what lands them in the prison pit.
- in Season 2, when Arthur tries to kill himself to stop the King, John immediately acquiesces to the King's demand to save his life even though it's the last thing Arthur wanted
- in Season 4, when he's feeling hurt and frustrated by Arthur 'ignoring' him due to the fact that they have another passenger in the car, John repeatedly takes the wrong exit and loops them around on the highway. He also spends half the season 'missing' things on purpose to slow them down so they can talk and the penultimate moment of this coming up and being a problem, literally almost makes Arthur 'accidentally' axe murder a man because he was jealous and didn't know how to emotionally regulate himself about it since Arthur was unable to talk to him without looking nuts.
- in Season 5, when they are in the power of a Witch, John loses his temper on her for killing Arthur and starts swearing up and down, snarling at her, and all it does it show how impotent he is to actually do anything about their situation. It's only when he calms the fuck down that he manages to get them out of it.
The biggest problem with it is because it contrasts with some of his virtues, so he does a REALLY MEAN THING and then feels like shit because he didn't consider it before he did it and feels like shit and has to deal with the fallout.
GRUMPY. Honestly, he's a bit of a curmudgeon. A curmudgeon with wonder, but he definitely tends to be the one yelling for them to take less chances and help less people and try to be more careful with their resources. He can get surly if something he didn't know was pointed out without any sensitivity and while he can be decently patient, he can be a menace when or if he feels like that patience is being abused. Growling and huffing are pretty frequent and there's a decent amount of bark even if he's not usually very keen on getting to the bite. Cursing, snark, and sarcastic commentary are common and occasionally his attempts at practicality or realism are harsh enough that they counter his own generally 'keep going, keep trying' attitude and set Arthur off on a rant.He's a tsundere, is what I'm saying.
VIRTUES:
(SELF-)DETERMINED. This trait can very often make people think that he's an optimist when it's the farthest thing from the truth there is. John is very much (and apropos to the multiverse he lives in) a nihilist... but he's an absurdist nihilist. Think Everything Everywhere All At Once. Or the meme with the 'tubular' kid thumbs up to 'nothing matters': his hope and determination to be the being he wants to be isn't based on the fact that there's someone coming to save him or that there's some system of justice to the multiverse where if he works hard enough he'll be rewarded or that he will find a way.
He just knows that because there's no fucking point, there's also no fucking point giving up. You're just as fucked. So you keep trying. You keep striving. You keep hoping. You keep loving. You stay true to who you are no matter who or what comes. He can fall down (and god does he ever fall down a lot) but he'll keep getting back up. Even in the Dark World when he reverted to his shittier behavior, he still held onto himself, his identity as John, his memories of Arthur. When the opportunity came from Kayne to make a deal and get out, he did the dirty work he had to to secure it. When he got back out, and Arthur was at his worst, he was going to drag that man one eyeball at a time out of his own personal hell whether Arthur liked it or not. When the witch in Season 5 kills Arthur and tells John that she's going to 'free him' from this mortal shell and make him the King he once was, restore him to power, 'remove his weakness'... this little asshole bluffed with no cards and tricked her into shooting herself because, as he says 'Only I decide who I am.' Come hell, come high water, come anything, he is the captain of his own soul.
CURIOUS. John might be a bajillion years old, but his memories as a 'limited being' and his experience in the physical/'normal' world is much much shorter, less than a year. And he loves all of it. He finds beauty and fascination in the smallest of things, is delighted and curious about the most mundane and ridiculous stuff; this adorable bastard threw a fit about wanting to see a movie because he never had before. He had his breath taken away by just walking out into his first city. He wants to know about all kinds of things and he comes at them with an open mind ready to learn despite his age. John is knowledgeable about the supernatural, the Dreamlands, and the Dark World, but when it comes to normal, mundane things, he's asking questions constantly. It's hard to point to one specific instance because it's half the dialogue of the show. Any song that Arthur sings, any poem that he gives a tidbit of, John wants to know all of it and he keeps it in his heart as a precious treasure. Knowledge of things like wheelchairs and trees are treated as fascinating because he's never seen them before. While looking through the photographs belonging to a woman who got tricked by a cult, he's just as interested in the story behind this woman as Arthur is, and when Arthur utilizes a bit of reverse psychology on a potential information source in New York, he's fascinated by the technique and wants to learn more. Because this includes people too! And that's where it really gets to be a virtue because with the curiosity comes empathy, a genuine willingness to see things from other sides, to speak for the idea that their opponents may also be victims, to try and allow for anyone to have a reason for why they're doing what they're doing and potentially offer a way out.
SUPPORTIVE - When you're on a team with John, he's 100% going to do everything he can to support and encourage you. Every victory is a BIG DEAL and your vulnerabilities and problems are something he'll do his best to fill in for you, offer help with, or otherwise give what you need in the moment to get things done. The series has Arthur and John going through any number of caves and tight spaces and Arthur is claustrophobic; John's the one who keeps him breathing and moving and getting through it instead of having a panic attack and freezing. Any time Arthur makes a jump, gets what he needs from an interrogation, manages to fight off a monster, or they survive one of the horrors, John celebrates him for it like he just won the lottery. During their time in Addison is one of the darkest nights of Arthur's soul he's ever had: losing John was incredibly devastating to him and meeting someone who upset him as much as Larson does brought him to a dark place. John is the one who argued with him throughout to try and remind him of who he wants to be, of the person he's always been, the good he wants to do and the kindness that was shown to him that Arthur has (temporarily) abandoned. Even at his lowest point during this, John tells Arthur with all seriousness 'I won't let you drown' in all the overwhelming situations and emotions and hopelessness. And doesn't.
And that continues onward, all the way into Season 5, at a fire, Arthur expresses a lot of doubts:
A: "So I guess a bit of... what's the point, maybe. I mean- trying to find the meaning in all of this. Trying to find the point."
J: "So... what."
A: "So what. So what?"
J: "So... so- FUCK meaning."
A: "Fuck meaning?"
J: "Or... find your own meaning. Remember what you said: 'no matter how vast the darkness'-"
A: "'We must supply our own light'."
J: "Find meaning. We find the light. We've found it a hundred times, over and over and over; we'll keep finding it."
A: "Yeah... YEAH. You're right. You're right. I'm the captain of my soul."
J: "Exactly. THAT's the fucking truth, Arthur. So what if versions of us have been here before. They weren't us."
A: "No, they weren't."
J: "So what if they failed.
A: "We won't.
J: "THAT'S RIGHT."
A: "You're right. You're so fucking right."
That's very characteristic of how things go with them. At a later point, where Arthur is actually to the point of literally giving up, willing to just let a dark young kill him. John fakes the contents of a letter that had been washed away long past to try and give him hope, give him a reason to live. He uses the words of a poem Arthur had told him ages ago and that's what helps him get going again and they do defeat that dark young.
SUIT REQUESTS: I think John would have his most interesting time with either Hearts or Diamonds.
Hearts would be interesting, both because John is new to having emotions (as he previously was rather aloof and disconnected as the King) and tends to shut down when he feels more and more cornered. He's also extremely driven by his emotions, such as when the desire to save Noel helped him to discover an ability he didn't even know he had. On top of that, he also usually has Arthur as a balance for his emotional outbursts (which are usually also just contained to Arthur) so giving him this to navigate and deal with will both create and interesting conflict and be a very good stick to hold over his head to keep him motivated.
On the flipside, Diamonds would also be neat, mostly because John's never had a body of his own before. All the strange sensory things that most people have at least some understanding or knowledge of don't really come into play here. Having hormones mess with him or the feeling of an elevated heartrate- heck, he won't even know necessarly what a 'normal' body reaction is to things all the time vs. the suit creating a reaction, which could make for some interesting situations.
RANK REQUESTS: John has been at the top (King in Yellow) and the bottom (a bodiless entity with no power to be heard, seen, or effect anything) so middle seems good.
SAMPLES:
Sample 1 - John and Charlie (Noel, from his canon) take the plunge they've been dancing around for ages and have an intense (and at times, PTSD) filled time together.
Sample 2 - John wakes up a friend during a tense situation, gets stabbed, and they get to know one another a little better.
Sample 3 - Golden Peacock TDM.
OOC
NAME: Danii.
AGE: 30+.
CONTACT: yarnzipan @ disco /
CHARACTER(S): None yet. New Player
INVITED BY: RW. Invite Here
IC
NAME: John Doe
AGE: 300+ million / 'untold lifetimes'
CANON: Malevolent (podcast)
CANON POINT: between episode 49 and 50, when Arthur is recovering in Castle Kerringford
CRAU: No.
OTHER: John canonically does not have a physical form or even a set physical appearance, being both an unidentified Entity *and* possessing Arthur Lester's eyes/entwined with his soul. Judging by the answers for 'incorporeal' and 'soul-bound to another creature', I'm guessing he's good to go but figured it warranted a mention. I don't play him as having a very firmly set gender since he's an eldritch horror (and a confirmed trans allegory by the creator). Gender is mostly ???? in his head, even if in practice it mostly comes out masculine because that's what he's learned from Arthur and in practice, he'll mostly be a large 'human' man with long dark hair and some gold accents and occasionally a very tall humanoid with many tentacles.
SUITABILITY: John, despite being a god/Great Old/whatever he is now, is incredibly human. He curses, he cheers, he wants to go to the movies, he gets fussy when Arthur gives their handkerchief to someone to blow their nose in because now it's all gross. He *desires* to live a limited existence, be a person, despite what he is, and he entwined his existence with Arthur's to protect him from his other half destroying him because of it. He loves music and poetry and finds beauty in the smallest and strangest things. Connections with people are everything to him, and one of his greatest struggles has been being isolated inside of Arthur (because only Arthur can hear him). He wants to learn about the world from this perspective.
Which is not to say that he is innocent or naive. John was once a part of the King in Yellow, a "god" of hedonism, excess, overindulgence, and especially of artists, musicians, and other creatives. He's also been through 'untold lifetimes' of torment during one period of hie existence, and turned the tables to subsist on the pain of others during his second time there. So while an existence like this will be new, it's something that he'll be excited and curious and very interested in exploring, alongside meeting new people. And, you know, boning them.
He's also going to be a little bit out to sea without Arthur there (as Arthur has been his guide throughout all of this) but his red-thread connection to Arthur will keep him from freaking out too hard. I'm curious to see how he does starting out on his own.
HISTORY: Once upon a time, a bunch of humans pulled a fast one on Shub-Niggurath, lured her into the body of a human being, and then killed her when she was vulnerable and contained. This destroyed her utterly, which is why when another set of cultists tried to summon her through a gate, another being decided to use the door... and when this happened, someone there at the time decided to use a book to 'trap' what came through. The fact that they thought they'd be 'trapping' Shub is why they only got half of the King in Yellow/Hastur... and that half happened to be this Entity. While trapped in the book, his consciousness was lost in the Dark World, where dead timelines and worlds end up, kind of the refuse pile of all reality. It's a place that feeds on pain and fear, a maelstrom of pure chaos. And time moves differently there.
So about ten years later, the book somehow ends up sent to a man named Arthur Lester, he opens it, the Entity pops out into him, and binds the two together so he can't get sent back. Said entity doesn't remember who or what he is at this point, but he knows he doesn't want to go back. So they set off to try and solve the mystery of what happened and how to 'free' said entity from Arthur. This is complicated by the fact that the entity took Arthur's eyes and his sense of sight, meaning that said Entity gets to guide Arthur as they go through things. And go through things they certainly do, because it seems like supernatural forces 100% have it out for them. One of them actually manages to almost kill Arthur, but the Entity uses what control he has of Arthur's body (one arm) to drag him to a road and get him to a hospital. It's during the month that Arthur is in a coma recovering that the Entity is given the name of John Doe by a helpful nurse who doesn't know he's there but feels that talking to coma patients is helpful. She shows him kindness (unknowingly) and the month gives him time to think and realize how much Arthur means to him. So when Arthur wakes up, John (as he has decided he is to be called) admits that he's been a bit of a shit and that Arthur is someone he values.
More horror/adventures ensue, leading them to a cult ritual in a Sleeping City beneath a hotel. Here, John and Arthur discover that John is the lost half of the King in Yellow, and in attempting to 'reclaim' him and destroy Arthur, John makes the choice to stand by Arthur and live an independent existence as John and *not* the King in Yellow, as well as protect Arthur from being destroyed. This gets them flung into the Dreamlands, but it does mean that John has *some* memory back. Thus proceeds Shenanigans in the Dreamlands, ending with a meeting with a being who calls himself Kayne (Nyarlathotep) and eventually, another confrontation with the King in Yellow. Now in the KiY's domain, he tortures Arthur until John begins to give in to his demand to return to him. Arthur, however, refuses to give up and attempts to end his own life to prevent the King from taking John. He misses the artery and John uses the last few moments to save Arthur's life by agreeing to go.
Arthur gets teleported to upstate New York, throat somewhat fixed enough not to die, and John fights the KiY. He loses, gets torn apart as the KiY tries to fit his 'piece' back in, and then tossed back into the Dark World as being of no use. There, John remembers who he is this time, and makes a 'new kingdom' for himself, the torturer instead of the torturee, angry and hopeless without Arthur. Kayne comes back to both of them: offering Arthur John 'back' but with no memory... and offering John a chance to go back to Arthur, but with a task he has to accomplish and cannot tell Arthur about. Arthur initially gets 'Yellow' (which, as it turns out, is in fact the King in Yellow) with his memory wiped and it goes *poorly* before Arthur nearly dies and John re-assumes his place within Arthur. This doesn't prevent Arthur from going through a real dark night of the soul, which John (hope renewed) helps Arthur through.
More "Adventures" Ensue, John nearly murders a guy out of jealousy over Arthur (they work it out, he just loses an arm, that part wasn't John's fault) and then John makes his first non-Arthur friend (backstory there is Complicated, but Noel takes it really well) and they go to stop another cult. Turns out Yellow popped into someone else, they have to stop him and part of that is accomplishing John's task. Insert shenanigans, task is complete, Kayne shows up again, annnnd they get transported to Medieval England to look for what's known as the Black Stone. Insert more shenanigans, a horrible forest full of plague, a creepy castle, a murder mystery, and a literal trap door near death experience... and just after they get out of that last one does John find himself in game.
ABILITIES: John is by description of some a Great Old One or a god. While contained within Arthur, he's extremely limited, but from what has been said about his tenure in the Dark World the second time, and the fact that he did give the KiY a fight in his own domain, this is not true all the time. These powers include:
- Shapeshifting - the King in Yellow has no 'true' form, more of an idea than anything, and he can take any form he wants to. By default, John will probably figure out a 'human' form he wants to take and roll from there, maybe appearing a little different here or there since, well... they appear different to everyone. He'll probably start eldritch and quickly pick something humanish that feels close for the most part. It's never really going to be nailed down.
- Healing. Or rather 'healing' - he's not so much 'healing' you of something as he is sort of glooping you back together to close wounds and keep you going. Arthur 'gets up' from absolutely ridiculous things and somehow has never died of blood loss. It certainly leaves scars and there's nothing he can do about disease but he's fixed Arthur up from being literally run through and gotten him up and running again within ten minutes.
- Intangibility - he can move and act as a shadow instead of a physical being
- Superior durability and healing - ...he's a god. Hit point sponge. A normal stabbing will just annoy him and he can recover from just about anything.
- No Sleep - John can be influenced to sleep by powers, but he doesn't fall asleep naturally or need to sleep for energy.
- No Food - Doesn't actually need to eat but judging by others (one outer god has been observed munching on Gardettos, as a note), he absolutely can. He'll be very excited to try it, considering.
- Mental Connection - he can talk straight to your brain if he wants to. He can't mind read, but if you 'think' back at him, he could hear it.
- Mental Control - Not John's jam, but we know from his other half that he can reach into someone's mind and essentially take over the controls; this was used by Yellow to make a man smash his own skull in. Would only be done with consent and discussion.
- Sensory Abilities - as mentioned, he initially takes Arthur's eyes. So he can control another person's senses, turn them on or off, manipulate them, borrow them, enhance them, etc as an active thing. Again, consent and discussion, IC and OOC.
- Death Touch Vision - when he touches a dead body, he can know how that person died. It's painful and unpleasant and he definitely sort of feels it so hopefully won't come up.
- Dream Walking - can go into and shape people's dreams. Would only be done with consent and discussion.
- Supernatural Perception - he's seeing a WHOLE lot differently and a whole lot more than most people would. The angles of reality, the remnants of eldritch power, he's basically rocking truesight at all times. I'll ask if it comes up as a thing but otherwise he'd never really say anything or remark on it without need.
-Tentacles - He's got as many of them as he wants, they can extend as far as he wants, they can be soft and gentle or they can be knife-tipped. If he's got a form, tentacles are going to be a part of it. Sometimes they look like tatters of his clothes and other times they look like starlight and void.
- Say My Name - calling him with intention (aka, crying out FOR him) calls his attention (hence why one of his titles is 'He Who Must Not Be Named' and/or the Unspeakable One)
- Floating/Flying/Mage Hand - what's a gravity can I eat it?
- Telekinetics - considering the KiY snapped Arthur's legs like a slim jim with a thought, yeah...
Please Note: I fully intend to temp-nerf anything that would make a plot unworkable or unplayable in here (game-space powers trump all!) and honor the spirit of the game plot; it's easy because John's memory is swiss cheese so him being able to deal with something or not can be as variable as I need it to be. Powers are a plot device, not a way to screw yourself out of fun, IMHO.
VICES:
AVOIDANT. John is terrible about keeping things to himself, sometimes with explosive consequences. He's an absolute garbage liar, but that doesn't stop him from just Not Telling People Things and trying to put off confrontations and man does it blow up in the worst ways. He's also very bad at expressing his emotions instead of just stuffing it down and not dealing with it and this literally resulted in him getting so frustrated he tried to have Arthur axe murder a man. This was not an improvement from him pretending Not To See Things to delay stuff because he was frustrated either. He's bad about it.
- in Season 2, John hides the fact that they're in a temple to the King in Yellow from Arthur, which unfortunate results in a catastrophic loss of trust in that moment. The end result is them getting captured and put in a prison pit for three months and nearly dying.
- in Season 3 and 4, while he was unable to tell Arthur how he got out due to a deal with Kayne (Nyarlathotep) on pain of potentially having their head exploded, he didn't tell him about the Dark World portion of things simply because he was ashamed of the fact that he'd lost hope while he was there and he tells himself he'll tell him 'later' 'when the time is right', like the time is ever right.
- in Season 4, John is losing his memory and having issues thinking and being effected by something and he either doesn't mention it to Arthur or brushes it off when Arthur questions it.
- also in Season 4, John, after having the whole Dark World thing told to the group by Kayne, is desperate to have Arthur not know things and Kayne asks him if he wants him to erase Arthur's memory of this. He agrees out of fear and Kayne laughs at him and doesn't do it. It causes a major fight.
REACTIONARY. John has a temper and when someone sets it off, he's all blustering threats and saying HORRENDOUSLY MEAN SHIT and total scorched earth- it's bad and he's not great at tempering himself. But it's not just the temper. He's also just as reactionary when it comes to fear or when it comes to joy; there is no hiding his emotional response and he has it immediately with very little intellectual processing. Happy, sad, thoughtful, petty and spiteful: he's very very obvious and he has very little for subterfuge that isn't just 'don't talk about it'. Thus, even his silences say a lot because he'll react to almost anything immediately; no response, something's up.
- in Season 1, numerous times when John is annoyed, he won't tell Arthur when he's nearing something or about to hit his head: he invariably does.
- in Season 2, when John gets angry at Arthur, he uses a key point of Arthur's past that Arthur had just chosen to share with him to try and hurt him. This does a huge amount of damage to their relationship and is part of what lands them in the prison pit.
- in Season 2, when Arthur tries to kill himself to stop the King, John immediately acquiesces to the King's demand to save his life even though it's the last thing Arthur wanted
- in Season 4, when he's feeling hurt and frustrated by Arthur 'ignoring' him due to the fact that they have another passenger in the car, John repeatedly takes the wrong exit and loops them around on the highway. He also spends half the season 'missing' things on purpose to slow them down so they can talk and the penultimate moment of this coming up and being a problem, literally almost makes Arthur 'accidentally' axe murder a man because he was jealous and didn't know how to emotionally regulate himself about it since Arthur was unable to talk to him without looking nuts.
- in Season 5, when they are in the power of a Witch, John loses his temper on her for killing Arthur and starts swearing up and down, snarling at her, and all it does it show how impotent he is to actually do anything about their situation. It's only when he calms the fuck down that he manages to get them out of it.
The biggest problem with it is because it contrasts with some of his virtues, so he does a REALLY MEAN THING and then feels like shit because he didn't consider it before he did it and feels like shit and has to deal with the fallout.
GRUMPY. Honestly, he's a bit of a curmudgeon. A curmudgeon with wonder, but he definitely tends to be the one yelling for them to take less chances and help less people and try to be more careful with their resources. He can get surly if something he didn't know was pointed out without any sensitivity and while he can be decently patient, he can be a menace when or if he feels like that patience is being abused. Growling and huffing are pretty frequent and there's a decent amount of bark even if he's not usually very keen on getting to the bite. Cursing, snark, and sarcastic commentary are common and occasionally his attempts at practicality or realism are harsh enough that they counter his own generally 'keep going, keep trying' attitude and set Arthur off on a rant.
VIRTUES:
(SELF-)DETERMINED. This trait can very often make people think that he's an optimist when it's the farthest thing from the truth there is. John is very much (and apropos to the multiverse he lives in) a nihilist... but he's an absurdist nihilist. Think Everything Everywhere All At Once. Or the meme with the 'tubular' kid thumbs up to 'nothing matters': his hope and determination to be the being he wants to be isn't based on the fact that there's someone coming to save him or that there's some system of justice to the multiverse where if he works hard enough he'll be rewarded or that he will find a way.
He just knows that because there's no fucking point, there's also no fucking point giving up. You're just as fucked. So you keep trying. You keep striving. You keep hoping. You keep loving. You stay true to who you are no matter who or what comes. He can fall down (and god does he ever fall down a lot) but he'll keep getting back up. Even in the Dark World when he reverted to his shittier behavior, he still held onto himself, his identity as John, his memories of Arthur. When the opportunity came from Kayne to make a deal and get out, he did the dirty work he had to to secure it. When he got back out, and Arthur was at his worst, he was going to drag that man one eyeball at a time out of his own personal hell whether Arthur liked it or not. When the witch in Season 5 kills Arthur and tells John that she's going to 'free him' from this mortal shell and make him the King he once was, restore him to power, 'remove his weakness'... this little asshole bluffed with no cards and tricked her into shooting herself because, as he says 'Only I decide who I am.' Come hell, come high water, come anything, he is the captain of his own soul.
CURIOUS. John might be a bajillion years old, but his memories as a 'limited being' and his experience in the physical/'normal' world is much much shorter, less than a year. And he loves all of it. He finds beauty and fascination in the smallest of things, is delighted and curious about the most mundane and ridiculous stuff; this adorable bastard threw a fit about wanting to see a movie because he never had before. He had his breath taken away by just walking out into his first city. He wants to know about all kinds of things and he comes at them with an open mind ready to learn despite his age. John is knowledgeable about the supernatural, the Dreamlands, and the Dark World, but when it comes to normal, mundane things, he's asking questions constantly. It's hard to point to one specific instance because it's half the dialogue of the show. Any song that Arthur sings, any poem that he gives a tidbit of, John wants to know all of it and he keeps it in his heart as a precious treasure. Knowledge of things like wheelchairs and trees are treated as fascinating because he's never seen them before. While looking through the photographs belonging to a woman who got tricked by a cult, he's just as interested in the story behind this woman as Arthur is, and when Arthur utilizes a bit of reverse psychology on a potential information source in New York, he's fascinated by the technique and wants to learn more. Because this includes people too! And that's where it really gets to be a virtue because with the curiosity comes empathy, a genuine willingness to see things from other sides, to speak for the idea that their opponents may also be victims, to try and allow for anyone to have a reason for why they're doing what they're doing and potentially offer a way out.
SUPPORTIVE - When you're on a team with John, he's 100% going to do everything he can to support and encourage you. Every victory is a BIG DEAL and your vulnerabilities and problems are something he'll do his best to fill in for you, offer help with, or otherwise give what you need in the moment to get things done. The series has Arthur and John going through any number of caves and tight spaces and Arthur is claustrophobic; John's the one who keeps him breathing and moving and getting through it instead of having a panic attack and freezing. Any time Arthur makes a jump, gets what he needs from an interrogation, manages to fight off a monster, or they survive one of the horrors, John celebrates him for it like he just won the lottery. During their time in Addison is one of the darkest nights of Arthur's soul he's ever had: losing John was incredibly devastating to him and meeting someone who upset him as much as Larson does brought him to a dark place. John is the one who argued with him throughout to try and remind him of who he wants to be, of the person he's always been, the good he wants to do and the kindness that was shown to him that Arthur has (temporarily) abandoned. Even at his lowest point during this, John tells Arthur with all seriousness 'I won't let you drown' in all the overwhelming situations and emotions and hopelessness. And doesn't.
And that continues onward, all the way into Season 5, at a fire, Arthur expresses a lot of doubts:
A: "So I guess a bit of... what's the point, maybe. I mean- trying to find the meaning in all of this. Trying to find the point."
J: "So... what."
A: "So what. So what?"
J: "So... so- FUCK meaning."
A: "Fuck meaning?"
J: "Or... find your own meaning. Remember what you said: 'no matter how vast the darkness'-"
A: "'We must supply our own light'."
J: "Find meaning. We find the light. We've found it a hundred times, over and over and over; we'll keep finding it."
A: "Yeah... YEAH. You're right. You're right. I'm the captain of my soul."
J: "Exactly. THAT's the fucking truth, Arthur. So what if versions of us have been here before. They weren't us."
A: "No, they weren't."
J: "So what if they failed.
A: "We won't.
J: "THAT'S RIGHT."
A: "You're right. You're so fucking right."
That's very characteristic of how things go with them. At a later point, where Arthur is actually to the point of literally giving up, willing to just let a dark young kill him. John fakes the contents of a letter that had been washed away long past to try and give him hope, give him a reason to live. He uses the words of a poem Arthur had told him ages ago and that's what helps him get going again and they do defeat that dark young.
SUIT REQUESTS: I think John would have his most interesting time with either Hearts or Diamonds.
Hearts would be interesting, both because John is new to having emotions (as he previously was rather aloof and disconnected as the King) and tends to shut down when he feels more and more cornered. He's also extremely driven by his emotions, such as when the desire to save Noel helped him to discover an ability he didn't even know he had. On top of that, he also usually has Arthur as a balance for his emotional outbursts (which are usually also just contained to Arthur) so giving him this to navigate and deal with will both create and interesting conflict and be a very good stick to hold over his head to keep him motivated.
On the flipside, Diamonds would also be neat, mostly because John's never had a body of his own before. All the strange sensory things that most people have at least some understanding or knowledge of don't really come into play here. Having hormones mess with him or the feeling of an elevated heartrate- heck, he won't even know necessarly what a 'normal' body reaction is to things all the time vs. the suit creating a reaction, which could make for some interesting situations.
RANK REQUESTS: John has been at the top (King in Yellow) and the bottom (a bodiless entity with no power to be heard, seen, or effect anything) so middle seems good.
SAMPLES:
Sample 1 - John and Charlie (Noel, from his canon) take the plunge they've been dancing around for ages and have an intense (and at times, PTSD) filled time together.
Sample 2 - John wakes up a friend during a tense situation, gets stabbed, and they get to know one another a little better.
Sample 3 - Golden Peacock TDM.
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