app - el nysa

[fibrosis]

OOC

Handle: Jansen
Contact: midcirclenine
Over 18? 27.07 years
Characters Played: n/a

THE CHARACTER

Character Name: Alvis Akari
Series: Killjoys
Canon Point: s01e10
Character Age: He's a contemporary of the other characters who all seem to be around thirty, so I'll go with that. His age is never actually given.
Background: wiki link. spoilers, obvs.

Personality:

The first time we see Alvis the Penitent, he is in the middle of a circle of chanting monks - "Our pain is your redemption. Let us suffer for your sins." - being suspended in the air by hooks in his skin as he more or less settles in for meditation. Shortly thereafter, he's snacking on bread and dealing intel and advocating a position that is far from entirely peaceful. Johnny criticizes him once for using religion to give people false hope, for using his position to further his own political agenda. Alvis argues that someone can believe in more than one thing at once.

Against the backdrop of the quad, Westerley, and the adventures of the three main characters, Alvis Akari looks like a fairly passive character. There's definitely some dynamism to him, and there's a lot going on once you've looked a bit more, but it's not difficult to look him over at a glance. Which is the point. He's a bit complicated, being both a leader within an order of monks as well as the leader of an underground resistance simultaneously, but he exhibits traits and skills in both areas that oddly complement one another. He is a study in subtlety, in more ways than one, and he manages people and issues in front of him typically with a calm ease and a slightly unsettling amount of bland staring befitting a monk with an underlying edge to him.

It takes a lot of drive and navigating to shift ones lot in life from growing up in the tunnels beneath Old Town to benevolent public figure, but the way that Alvis approaches and handles people makes it look easy. He seems to be one of those rare individuals who is genuinely interested in listening more than speaking, and wherever he goes, he attempts to help people in whichever way he can. Whether this is in the form of giving them a blessing even though he is deeply pressed for time, running unarmed through tunnels towards gunshots to calm someone down, confessing to a crime he was being framed for when the rest of his order is threatened, or even simply offering counsel or an ear to hear a story that needs telling, his willingness to bring some measure of ease to other people in whatever manner he can is highly consistent and one of his chief character motivations. Arguably, this devotion and drive stems itself from what appears to be genuine compassion on his part for those around him. While he is generally somewhat stoic and restrained, he still shows real feeling when those around him need assistance or are in distress, quickly moving to assuage them in some form or other. He has even done so to people who had, not ninety seconds before, been actively accusing him of murder.

Similarly though, he is aware that merely plastering the minor cuts is – while worthwhile – never going to fix the problems inherent within the quad. Alvis' dream is to see a free Westerley, free from the Company's control, its people restored out of the third class poverty so many seem to experience due to being on such a tight leash. He displays a great deal of wisdom and strategy in terms of knowing how to organize a quiet but mounting resistance, but also in acknowledging when it is and isn't time to strike, willing to give one of his own over to the killjoys with a warrant when the man starts to act too erratically and threatens to reveal their plans prematurely. If approaching people individually and with an almost absurd degree of what seems to be innate understanding is what comes of his instincts, then it is the pursuit of this revolution and the transformation afterwards that comes of his chosen momentum.

Alvis seems to have many acquaintances and contacts, but honestly only perhaps one close friend. His friendship with Dutch is such that there isn't a single time she asks him to do something so far that he hasn't either eventually agreed to, or more or less immediately dropped what he was doing in favour of. She seems to be the only person to whom he can more or less simply be Alvis, rather than Alvis the Penitent or Alvis the Revolutionary, and there is a depth that comes of that friendship that shows us how grounded he actually is. His revolution isn't pure altruism, his generosity isn't ego-centric – he's an almost unsettlingly genuine person.

Beyond that, he has his quirks that make him human like everyone else. Whether he is aware of it or not, he tends to have a bit of a staring problem, and given his general sense of humour I would be more than willing to bet he's fully aware. He very politely taunts Company guards and gives cryptic non-answers when there doesn't seem to be any real reason not to be straightforward – unless he's doing it because he doesn't know the answer – and he has a very understated, deadpan sense of humour. He's also absolutely aware that his monk robes are sexy.

And when any of his core statutes are shaken, he quickly loses his sense of self. At one point he is accused of a bombing by the Company, the net result of which is to see all of those individuals he's worked so hard to save turn against him. He spirals quickly, having lost momentum with both his order and his resistance, and finds that his drive to change things and his desperation with having lost everything nearly turn him into the mass murderer he has been proclaimed to be. However, at the last minute, he changes his mind, sacrificing himself instead. It's the lowest point we ever see him at, having a crisis of faith, and that's because faith is also inherently what drives him forward. Alvis has what is almost an unshakeable faith – and even all the stronger for its reaffirmation there – in not only individual people but also larger parts of the picture as a whole. It's well tempered by pragmatism; he knows that without action, blindly praying to a tree isn't going to get shit done, but at the same time, on a case by case basis, watching him interact with people, it's clear he can see and actively looks for the best in them.

While it isn't naivety exactly, tempered with realism as it is, it is still that belief in people that seems to cause him trouble here and there. He expects people to listen to reason, and while he plans for contingencies, he seems relatively surprised to have to use them when the time comes. It isn't trust, exactly, and it isn't blind faith, but it is something somewhere along those lines. He also keeps a lot of himself in general locked down – you wouldn't know that he's actually fairly playful, in the right circumstances, and he also definitely has a decadency towards sassing powers of authority that one might not expect from a monk, but then again the whole "cutting yourself to salve the sins of others" thing is probably also not what most people expect from a monk. He does enjoy occasionally setting people off balance though. It's fun.

Powers/Abilities:
Long term strategy
Very high pain tolerance
Decent hand to hand combat and familiarity with guns from his own world
Mining knowledge
Does weirdly real compassion count as an ability idk

Power Nerfs (if applicable): n/a

Inventory: Alvis would arrive only with his monk's robes and various accoutrements – necklaces, bracelets, beads, &c. Scarbacks typically do carry a small blade, designed sort of like a scalpel attached to a thimble - it fits over the end of a finger and can't really do much.

Incentives: Alvis has always wanted to see a free Westerley. Almost regardless of his canon pull point, that is what he would ask for, at least in whatever degree they are able to give it, as it would be by far in the greater good than whatever he could come up with for the people he knows personally. He'd be happy to enter some kind of negotiation with them, but whether that meant he received an ability or – depending on who is most in the way at the time – someone from the Company/the Hullen is "handled" somehow, he would likely be okay with.

SAMPLES

I have this older thread and also my tdm top level bc I couldn't tell if you meant that would suffice for both samples or just one without the required number of comments.