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candybottle) wrote2024-01-02 05:36 pm
candybottle) wrote2024-01-02 05:36 pm
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escordvi application
PLAYER INFO
CHARACTER INFO
Character: Mycroft Holmes
Canon: Mycroft Holmes series by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - canon point is near the start of book 3, Mycroft and Sherlock: The Empty Birdcage.
Age: 26
Background Information:
Personality:
1) Tell us about who your character is and what someone’s first impression would be upon meeting them.
Mycroft Holmes is a man who gives off a sense of confidence towards the world and his place in it. He carries himself with a strong presence, and always takes in the world around him - observing it, analyzing it, and filtering it through the spectrum of things that he knows and does not know. His intelligence is something he wears on his shoulders, not a weapon against the world but an intertwined part of his being, readily apparent to those that speak to him for just a few minutes.
At times this makes him more cautious than the more famous antics of his brother - who has not yet stepped into the consulting world - but he still possesses an innate drive for adventure when it comes calling. He barely hesitates to make plans for Trinidad, sweeping his best friend along with him, and nor does he consider options less risky than breaking into a suspected criminal's home when the time calls. For all one might think he's the more mature and collected Holmes, there is more than enough proof that he's every bit as willing to get into shenanigans as his brother. Willing to test if a medicine is poisoned by eating it without hesitation, occasionally letting his mouth run away with him and get him into fights, immediately signing on to assist with a spontaneous autopsy - his home may be ordered, and he may value consistency more, but nothing gives him greater delight than to give all of himself to solve a problem.
2) What is a driving force your character has? What goals do they have, what motivates them, etc?
One of Mycroft's strongest drives is linked to his unwavering loyalty for what he chooses to believe in - his country, his family, his friends. It would have been easy for him to look at the oncoming economic crisis facing Europe and shield his own fortunes alone, but instead he consistently tries to reason out what he can do for England as a whole, declining a comfortable promotion for the sake of having more freedom to truly impact people and avoid the infighting and slog of official work.
His love and attempts to support his brother are no less devout. While they might be awkward and not overly affectionate, and while Mycroft may bemoan the setup that he himself created, he does not shy from giving Sherlock help whenever needed. When Sherlock seems disinterested in what Mycroft is trying to tell him, even about things like tobacco, Mycroft tries to rephrase the concept in a form that his brother will find some interest in, even if they'll never agree on certain points. His frustrations towards Sherlock are overwhelmingly rooted in a desire to see him at his best, to see him thriving - and indeed, Mycroft wishes strongly for Sherlock to have a good future, enough that he would conceal his own life threatening illness from his brother's sight so as to not worry him.
And no one could call him deficient as a friend. This shows itself most strongly in his relationship with Cyrus Douglas - a man who he will unhesitatingly rise to defend, even when he probably should simply let things go. He lashes back against those who would insult Douglas, he steadfastly believes Douglas was alive after being shot and goes to great lengths to ensure he was not left behind with no proof in his claims, and he has secretly set up his will so that his friend's charity work will not flounder even if Mycroft himself should die. Cyrus is a man who Mycroft would throw himself in front of any number of guns for, be they ones physically wielded or the weapons of class and race that society might leverage against them.
3) What are their flaws as a character? What is something they've messed up, or have done that they regret?
Despite his virtues, Mycroft does have glaring flaws that crop up repeatedly in his life. He tends to suppress and conceal information from others depending on how much he personally thinks they need to know, or what will be good for them. Concealing that he was diagnosed with his heart condition from his loved ones is perhaps the biggest example of this, trying to shield them from the worry and grief that would surround the incident while also denying them the chance to be there for him. And indeed, his condition wouldn't have occurred at all if he was not full of too much pride. He thought lesser of a doctor who warned him to take a vaccine for malaria because of the man's age, thinking himself too secure, and his pride reoccurs again and again to get him into trouble when he simply should stop talking and not get physically injured for his troubles. Though it tempers over time, Mycroft being so sure of the world from his intelligence is both his blessing and his source of nigh arrogance.
Still, he has enough awareness to regret when things go wrong, and his regrets lead him to keep concealing and keep closing information away from others. Not only does he fully regret ever thinking the doctor was incompetent for all the following trouble and grief it brought when he could have been perfectly healthy if he had listened, he regrets his own deception towards his brother. Sherlock was led to believe Mycroft was simply becoming an ill tempered recluse when instead he was trying to preserve his own health, and so resents what he sees as Mycroft refusing to save him from being drowned by Cainborn's men, when the reality is that his brother had completely collapsed. And a regret he carries years later, perhaps always will, is that he never saw through Georgiana earlier to discern the horrific work she had her hands in. If he had let himself look, instead of being in his emotions, he might have stopped it all the sooner - or at the least, know that she never loved him.
4) Optional: What is something unique and interesting about them, or what is a fun little tidbit that sets them apart from the crowd?
Though he might never say it aloud, Mycroft is an undeniable romantic. Love not only moves him to act, to spontaneously do things for its sake like buy a new coat or risk missing his train to see if he could speak to his new crush, it undoes him in a way that his closest companions note. It suspends his judgement - indeed, blocked him from seeing any signs that his fiancee was lying to him or involved in horrific business - and it grips him strongly when it settles in. Quite soon after meeting Ai Lin, he was already fantasizing about their potential children, needing to shake himself out of the daydreams so he would have a chance at being normal at dinner. Even as the Queen might declare she prefers him unattached (to be better open to responding to her requests), his heart will do what it will when it wants.
Abilities & Inventory:
Abilities: Mycroft is a baseline human, and has no supernatural abilities. He does however possess a few talents - he's great at horse riding, knows how to box and does so regularly (though less since his heart scare), and perhaps most importantly, he has a prodigious intelligence and memory, such that the Queen herself calls upon him to work for her. This allows him to do such things as work through an entire ship's passenger manifesto and subdivide it by age and gender in almost no time at all, reason out details about people from their appearance and general surroundings (the classic Holmes Deduction Scan), and at least twice now solve international crime incidents - though he is far from infallible, and relies on the support and fellowship of others to truly perform at his best, in addition to him falling into the pitfall of overthinking. Nonetheless, Mycroft's intelligence is a respected and fearsome thing, setting the standard for what Holmes-level smarts are by the time his brother comes of age to start making his own name for himself.
Inventory:
Standard men's attire for 1873
Pipe and enough tobacco for three smokes
Canon: Mycroft Holmes series by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - canon point is near the start of book 3, Mycroft and Sherlock: The Empty Birdcage.
Age: 26
Background Information:
- The series begins with Mycroft and his best friend, Cyrus Douglas, travelling to Trinidad to look into the reported disappearances of locals and the deaths of several children. Mycroft's fiancee, Georgiana Sutton, also practically vanishes when told about their mission, giving him a twofold reason to investigate. On the course of their journey, Mycroft and Douglas face down resistance that doesn't shy from incapacitating them, but it deters them not. With the aid of Douglas's connections and their own determination, the two discover the truth behind both mysteries - there is an international business that is trying to create a new form of slavery, and Georgiana plays a major part.
- As the two dig deeper into the conspiracy, more and more danger surrounds them, and Douglas's family home is destroyed by arson. In the heart of their stress, the two men and Douglas's ally Huan come across another murder victim, one that Mycroft is about to leave behind if not for Douglas's insistence that they give him the courtesy of a funeral. It is a key moment for him, a reconnection with his sense of ethics, which will be tested when Mycroft is later forced to kill a man in self defense.
- Georgiana makes her reappearance, surrendering herself to Huan - she's poisoned herself in guilt after learning about the death of the children, and gives what information she can about her conspirators. She also reveals to Mycroft that she had agreed to their relationship for the sake of his social position and security, breaking his heart, and dies.
- Mycroft and Douglas resolve to destroy the business, and recruit a team of locals to assist them in sailing in. Unfortunately, the place is defended, and many men are injured or killed. The minds behind the business offer the survivors their lives if they leave the situation alone, but this is an intolerable bargain. In the resultant conflict, Mycroft kills the mastermind, but Douglas is shot and considered dead. Mycroft refuses to accept this, and continues to work over his friend until he's proven right and Douglas breathes again. The man survives, but with permanent shrapnel near his heart.
- On their return to London, Mycroft uses the information he gained from the conspiracy to corner and blackmail one of the Queen's cousins who was siphoning from royal funds to fund the slaving operation. Repurposing some of the ill gotten gains for his own, Mycroft sets himself up in comfortable wealth, and hands Douglas as much as he will agree to take as well.
- Two years later, Mycroft is more established in the English government, trying to take precautions against looming economic collapse as well as keep his younger brother Sherlock out of trouble and away from investigating a shocking murder spree. He attempts to deal with the latter by bringing Sherlock to Douglas, who in the interim has established a home for impoverished boys aimed at bringing them to apprenticeships, and making him assist in tutoring. To the former, he agrees to assist the Queen with the requests she makes of him, though fails to impart the sense of emergency he feels to her.
- While en route, he runs into a woman - Ai Lin, who instantly strikes him. Her younger brother is Sherlock's classmate, and she invites him to dine with her family. He accepts, as he has found a connection between her father and Sherlock's chemistry professor Cainborn - as well as being smitten by her. Meanwhile, Douglas and Sherlock have been handling the drug induced death of one of Douglas's boys, Charles, and tracking the true cause of his overdose. Through their investigations, they find links to the opium trade and a sponsor of Douglas's boys' home, as well as a mysterious code that Sherlock's ego gets in the way of translating and requires the adults to take over and handle.
- Dinner reveals more about Ai Lin's father, Deshi Hai Lin, who was formerly a revolutionary who liberated coolie workers. Ai Lin herself is informed that an acquaintance, Matalin, has died, and her and the men depart to discover it is a murder framed as an overdose. With the final pieces in play, the truth begins to come together.
- Deshi Hai Lin was blackmailed with his past to smuggle experimental drugs into England, the code from before marking where the shipments are. Matalin was a rich customer who had the drugs tested on street children to ensure their safety - Charles being a victim of this scheme. The drugs were derived from research that Sherlock and Cainborn had been conducting - Sherlock had been trying to create a better medicine for his chronically ill and addicted mother, while Cainborn had seen the financial potential and abuse and ran away with the research. Sherlock, unable to cope with the betrayal, flees to find his teacher.
- Discovering Sherlock under attack from Cainborn and his men, the group rushes to save him. Mycroft collapses in the process, due to a heart condition he has been hiding throughout the book. In the end, it is Douglas who saves his brother from drowning, and the dealers are arrested for their crimes. Sherlock recovers, but bears resentment towards his brother for his lack of assistance.
- By the next year, things have evened off, and Mycroft secretly undergoes surgery to mend his heart condition from something fatal into something he can live with. He then goes with Douglas to spend a week in Germany, looking into German banking while Douglas does the same for tobaccos, and they are poised to attend the Fifth International World Exhibition. Mycroft has his own schemes at hand, involving a reunion with Deshi Hai Lin, but they're going to be interrupted by arriving in Escordvi.
Personality:
1) Tell us about who your character is and what someone’s first impression would be upon meeting them.
Mycroft Holmes is a man who gives off a sense of confidence towards the world and his place in it. He carries himself with a strong presence, and always takes in the world around him - observing it, analyzing it, and filtering it through the spectrum of things that he knows and does not know. His intelligence is something he wears on his shoulders, not a weapon against the world but an intertwined part of his being, readily apparent to those that speak to him for just a few minutes.
At times this makes him more cautious than the more famous antics of his brother - who has not yet stepped into the consulting world - but he still possesses an innate drive for adventure when it comes calling. He barely hesitates to make plans for Trinidad, sweeping his best friend along with him, and nor does he consider options less risky than breaking into a suspected criminal's home when the time calls. For all one might think he's the more mature and collected Holmes, there is more than enough proof that he's every bit as willing to get into shenanigans as his brother. Willing to test if a medicine is poisoned by eating it without hesitation, occasionally letting his mouth run away with him and get him into fights, immediately signing on to assist with a spontaneous autopsy - his home may be ordered, and he may value consistency more, but nothing gives him greater delight than to give all of himself to solve a problem.
2) What is a driving force your character has? What goals do they have, what motivates them, etc?
One of Mycroft's strongest drives is linked to his unwavering loyalty for what he chooses to believe in - his country, his family, his friends. It would have been easy for him to look at the oncoming economic crisis facing Europe and shield his own fortunes alone, but instead he consistently tries to reason out what he can do for England as a whole, declining a comfortable promotion for the sake of having more freedom to truly impact people and avoid the infighting and slog of official work.
His love and attempts to support his brother are no less devout. While they might be awkward and not overly affectionate, and while Mycroft may bemoan the setup that he himself created, he does not shy from giving Sherlock help whenever needed. When Sherlock seems disinterested in what Mycroft is trying to tell him, even about things like tobacco, Mycroft tries to rephrase the concept in a form that his brother will find some interest in, even if they'll never agree on certain points. His frustrations towards Sherlock are overwhelmingly rooted in a desire to see him at his best, to see him thriving - and indeed, Mycroft wishes strongly for Sherlock to have a good future, enough that he would conceal his own life threatening illness from his brother's sight so as to not worry him.
And no one could call him deficient as a friend. This shows itself most strongly in his relationship with Cyrus Douglas - a man who he will unhesitatingly rise to defend, even when he probably should simply let things go. He lashes back against those who would insult Douglas, he steadfastly believes Douglas was alive after being shot and goes to great lengths to ensure he was not left behind with no proof in his claims, and he has secretly set up his will so that his friend's charity work will not flounder even if Mycroft himself should die. Cyrus is a man who Mycroft would throw himself in front of any number of guns for, be they ones physically wielded or the weapons of class and race that society might leverage against them.
3) What are their flaws as a character? What is something they've messed up, or have done that they regret?
Despite his virtues, Mycroft does have glaring flaws that crop up repeatedly in his life. He tends to suppress and conceal information from others depending on how much he personally thinks they need to know, or what will be good for them. Concealing that he was diagnosed with his heart condition from his loved ones is perhaps the biggest example of this, trying to shield them from the worry and grief that would surround the incident while also denying them the chance to be there for him. And indeed, his condition wouldn't have occurred at all if he was not full of too much pride. He thought lesser of a doctor who warned him to take a vaccine for malaria because of the man's age, thinking himself too secure, and his pride reoccurs again and again to get him into trouble when he simply should stop talking and not get physically injured for his troubles. Though it tempers over time, Mycroft being so sure of the world from his intelligence is both his blessing and his source of nigh arrogance.
Still, he has enough awareness to regret when things go wrong, and his regrets lead him to keep concealing and keep closing information away from others. Not only does he fully regret ever thinking the doctor was incompetent for all the following trouble and grief it brought when he could have been perfectly healthy if he had listened, he regrets his own deception towards his brother. Sherlock was led to believe Mycroft was simply becoming an ill tempered recluse when instead he was trying to preserve his own health, and so resents what he sees as Mycroft refusing to save him from being drowned by Cainborn's men, when the reality is that his brother had completely collapsed. And a regret he carries years later, perhaps always will, is that he never saw through Georgiana earlier to discern the horrific work she had her hands in. If he had let himself look, instead of being in his emotions, he might have stopped it all the sooner - or at the least, know that she never loved him.
4) Optional: What is something unique and interesting about them, or what is a fun little tidbit that sets them apart from the crowd?
Though he might never say it aloud, Mycroft is an undeniable romantic. Love not only moves him to act, to spontaneously do things for its sake like buy a new coat or risk missing his train to see if he could speak to his new crush, it undoes him in a way that his closest companions note. It suspends his judgement - indeed, blocked him from seeing any signs that his fiancee was lying to him or involved in horrific business - and it grips him strongly when it settles in. Quite soon after meeting Ai Lin, he was already fantasizing about their potential children, needing to shake himself out of the daydreams so he would have a chance at being normal at dinner. Even as the Queen might declare she prefers him unattached (to be better open to responding to her requests), his heart will do what it will when it wants.
Abilities & Inventory:
Abilities: Mycroft is a baseline human, and has no supernatural abilities. He does however possess a few talents - he's great at horse riding, knows how to box and does so regularly (though less since his heart scare), and perhaps most importantly, he has a prodigious intelligence and memory, such that the Queen herself calls upon him to work for her. This allows him to do such things as work through an entire ship's passenger manifesto and subdivide it by age and gender in almost no time at all, reason out details about people from their appearance and general surroundings (the classic Holmes Deduction Scan), and at least twice now solve international crime incidents - though he is far from infallible, and relies on the support and fellowship of others to truly perform at his best, in addition to him falling into the pitfall of overthinking. Nonetheless, Mycroft's intelligence is a respected and fearsome thing, setting the standard for what Holmes-level smarts are by the time his brother comes of age to start making his own name for himself.
Inventory:
Standard men's attire for 1873
Pipe and enough tobacco for three smokes
ARMADA SELECTION
Paladin. The idea of pushing back against injustice is something that's firmly entrenched in Mycroft, even if at times he has to work in more subtle ways than he'd prefer. In that, he wants to better the world, even if he can only influence a portion of it at a time. The concept of order as well would sit well with him, inclined more towards a so-called "lawful" path than not for the sake of those that rely on him. And of course, investigations draw him in like catnip, provided they're not just about gruesome murders - he'd prefer more to discover than heartless killers.
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