#to save the reputation of the family that covered up the accident that ruined Peach's life and future to avoid compensation

[twig-tea]

In theory, if the show understood systemic inequality and accountability, they would have Home righting the wrongs that Kan is exposing, using his family's influence to put in place checks to prevent anyone including themselves from ever doing similar cover-ups, and then breaking apart the family wealth, and "righting" the family reputation that way.

But I am sorry to say that based on what we've seen, I am very skeptical that's what we're going to get.

[mutantsrisingrpg]

Congratulations, NOEL! You’ve been accepted as DEIMOS.

Noel, when writing Derek’s skeleton I envisioned someone that was constantly stuck between being alone and reaching out those around them - and you captured that perfectly. Your Derek is someone that knows who he is and knows how to keep everyone at arms length, and yet he still needs contact with others. I was hooked on your app from the very first word and had to read it twice because I couldn’t believe what life you brought to him. I’m beyond excited to see both you and him on the dash! 

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Out of Character Information: 

NAME/ALIAS: Noel

PRONOUNS: She/her they/them 

AGE: 24

TIMEZONE & ACTIVITY LEVEL: CST / GMT-6 I’m usually on 2-4 times a week depending on the time of year/school/work.

In Character Information:

DESIRED ROLE: Derek Park (Deimos)

GENDER/PRONOUNS: Cismale, he/him

DETAILS & ANALYSIS: 

OVERVIEW

To me, Derek is interesting because he embodies one of the most human fears: that we are somehow born irreparably, intrinsically wrong. Broken. Cursed with a peach-pit of wickedness from day one that will always steer us away from what is right and good and lovely. For Derek, he’s just unlucky enough that the combination of his home environment and specific power only seem to prove his worst fears true: that everything good he may touch will come away worse for having known him. That he is, at a most basic level, a creature of destruction.

POWERS

Derek is a man possessed by a force that knows no satiety. Fire is, in its simplest form, a thing made to consume. Forever hungry. He has to be careful, controlled, or risk being consumed along with everything else. In practice, this looks like stony silence. Covered skin, an aversion to touch. An arched eyebrow without comment, or a single dog’s-bark of laughter. No drinking, no drugs-- only cigarettes to take the edge off, a controlled burn. Sarcasm, a dark, dry wit, a small smirk and a glance away. A very, very tight circle of trust, and a body that is always on the edge of something, ready for fight or flight.

THE JOB

He slips into interrogation naturally. Regardless of whatever he might have once liked to believe about himself, he has a knack for knowing where to press to hurt people the most. To extract what he needs. He takes people apart efficiently and effectively, and at least he can take pride in that. There’s an elegance to someone doing the job they are most suited for. If he must do something so ugly, at least he does it well.

The other half of the job is prevention. The right rumors, the right image-- good PR. That’s why he wears what he does (dark, black, leather), why he started smoking (though it’s not the reason he kept at it.) He’s a silhouette in the darkness, a shadow at the back of the pack, at the edge of the club, little visible apart from the glinting eyes, the trail of smoke left in his wake. It’s taken him the better part of a decade, establishing himself as someone you’ll be lucky to never meet. Privately, he considers this his best work, all the work he kept from happening. The ghost over your shoulder, asking: are you sure you want to do that?

BIO: 

(TW drugs, violence)

Touch has always been tied to pain for Derek. The first thing he touched on this Earth he hurt, and the first thing that touched him immediately recoiled. Him, a fresh, swaddled baby, handed to his mother to be pressed, cheek to cheek— and then the shriek, so out of place in what should have been a beautiful moment, and that unmotherly, wrenching instinct to push the painful thing away. A nurse had to step in before his mother could drop him to the floor, likely saving his life in the process. It was mortifying, Derek’s father looking at his mother like he’d never seen her before, the crease on the doctor’s brow. 

And then there was the evidence, left on his mother’s face: a burn mark in the shape of a newborn’s cheek. Tiny eyelashes like red, welted spider legs. 

Derek was supposed to be the miracle baby, their first son, but there was so much undeniably wrong about him. They could overlook that first burn— a freak accident— but there was another wrongness that infiltrated everything he did, everything he was. He moved through the world oddly, more like a wizened street cat than a child, always scowling too much for his age. Always somewhere far away in his own head, unreachable. Enigmatic. Hard to love.

Apart from that first incident, his powers didn’t manifest in earnest until his teen years, but when they did there was no stopping it. Derek became all too familiar with the smell of melting plastic, burning hair, and hot metal. He grew an aversion to paper, nail polish remover, and anything that took batteries or gasoline, anything explosive. Worst, though, was how his powers affected those around him. Even a small bump of arm to side in passing was enough to leave a welt, the hiss of burning skin and singed hair becoming all too familiar. Derek learned to pull his body in like a sail. He moved around on cautious, light feet, as if everywhere his skin touched the world hurt him. He stopped sleeping, for fear of what his body would do in his dreams.

It was an impossible way to live, and of course it had to come to a head sometime. One Fall night, he woke up surrounded by blinding light, and a weird taste in his mouth. At first, he thought he was seeing an angel. It was just so bright. A few delirious moments later and he realised what was happening. What he was.

The glowing coal at the center of a house fire.

No one was physically harmed, but in every other way his family was ruined. Everything had to change. The family of a high-level mutant couldn’t move through life like normal people. Government representatives visited to lay out the ground rules of their new lives, all the restrictions they were to follow at threat of having him taken away. In the years following, Derek could never decide whether his parent’s submission to these new rules was driven by some last vestige of parental love they had for him, or over the fear of what having him sent away would do to their reputation. Not that they had much of that left, anyway. In their small community they were pariahs, the reckless family putting everyone around them at risk, harboring that boy of theirs.

At home, Derek’s powers were a confirmation of every bad thought and reservation his parents had ever had about him. He was a death-trap burden, a dangerous changeling child with unknown motivations. He switched to homeschooling, was only allowed in certain parts of the house at certain hours, and almost never went outside. Within the house itself he was surveilled, his every movement controlled and judged against the possible harm he might cause. But nothing he did could ever be enough to win their trust, their approval. It changed how he saw himself, being treated like a liability. He’d spent his life being told what he was, and now he was starting to believe them.

So he decided: if he must be a bomb always about to go off, he might as well do something with it. Might as well become the weapon everyone treated him as. Might as well make a living out of it. He was deteriorating, trapped up in his fire-proofed room, always alone. 

A cursed life was better than no life at all.

So he left home and learned to control his powers. He found people who appreciated the worst parts of himself, and paid him well for it. He discovered a talent for interrogation, intimidation, a naturally threatening smile. By his early twenties, nothing he was doing could be called legal. A few years after that, and he’d made a real name for himself as someone who would go further than the others. Dangerous enough that even his employers were afraid of him. Eventually, only the worst would hire him. Looks normal enough, but don’t believe it. He’s fucking crazy. The tougher the employer, the tougher the work, but by that point he had stopped caring. The consequences weren’t real, the threats were just words. Enemies were just people he’d have to deal with later.

Amsterdam was his breaking point. Derek had switched to freelancing for a while, broken off from all alliances after a boss tried to two-time him. He was unaffiliated, impartial, just helping bad guys hurt bad guys. Still, this was his riskiest gig. He’d never gone international before, a Level 5 mutant with fake papers on a commercial airline-- it was enough to give any number of governmental agencies reason to take him out on sight. But he was bored, numb, bored, numb. Coming up to 30 years old and sick of the Chicago scene. So he’d tried something new.

The boss there was something else, a real talker, beautiful, had gotten under his skin in a way few ever had. He should have left when the boss had asked about taking out a hit-- it had always been a sore subject for him. That’s not my job, dead people can’t talk, I’m not fucking paid enough to kill people. (There was no amount of money could be paid to kill people.) 

But the man was just so charming. Derek relaxed an inch, and they took a mile. It was just one drink. He didn’t even taste the ketamine. When he woke up, his mouth tasted like copper, and barbeque smoke. The sweet, musky smell of burning spinal fluid. Three were dead, the boss was laughing, and his return flight was in under an hour. 

When he got back, he had a missed call from Damien Matthews, with a different kind of job for him. A job with rules, structure. Protection. He’d heard about the Jems and all the noise they’d been making about Mutant Rights and he didn’t really care about that shit, but he took the job immediately. He needed the discipline, a boss, someone to reel him back in from where he’d strayed too far from his himself, almost at the cost of his humanity. The Jems saved him, and while he may be somewhat ambivalent to their cause, his loyalty to Damien is unflinching. The Jems need him, but he needs them more.

EXPANDED CONNECTIONS:

LUCA MENDOZA: Luca is even more dangerous than Derek is and-- somehow-- that makes them the only person he feels completely safe around. Fact is, Luca’s position and power make them uniquely suited to shield his weakest spots, as: 1) When they’re together their power is a shared one, nullifying the risk of Derek hurting them by accident, and 2) no hitman is going to judge an interrogator for their occupation. The outcomes of their jobs may be different, but they’re two sides of the same coin. Their friendship is uncomplicated, enabling, and chaotic, but also somehow comfortable in a way Derek is unaccustomed to.

ISABEL ACOSTA: Oh, the angst. Derek never, ever thought he’d be in the position he is with Isabel, has fought that sort of connection his whole life. And if it were anyone other than Isabel, he’d be able to continue that way. Isabel is the best and the worst thing to happen to him. Look, is there anything better than two people learning to lower their boundaries and let someone in? Being so unable to stay away from the other that they can’t help but become knowable, to be seen as they are, terrible and ugly and complicated and beautiful? And then to know what it feels like to be loved not in spite of your flaws, but because of everything you’ve done to overcome them? Ohh my god.

EXTRA: 

Ideas for future plots/connections:

I’d love to plot something with a character who could have known him pre-Jems, when he was a real piece of work. 

In general, I’m really interested in how all the different powers within the groups interact with the powers of those around them! I.e., what the hell would happen if he met Dione? Would they just cancel each other out? Or be extra dangerous to each other?

For a decade and a half, he lived without really caring about the consequences, and he made lots of enemies along the way. I’d be interested to see some effects of this coming to fruition. Past alliances broken, a history of betrayal or always ending up on the wrong side of the table.

He has a lot of easily pushed buttons. This could go very poorly for the wrong person, someone stubbornly curious or just amused by the thought of getting under his skin.

Also I’m excited to see how the Isabel Situation puts a strain on his loyalty to the Jems, and his relationships within the gang.

General HC’s

He’s a vegetarian. Yes, most of the Jems find this hilarious, someone whose job is to hurt people being not wanting to eat cute little animals. In reality, it’s more an aversion to the idea of cooked meat. Particularly the smell. You can guess why.

Derek is still bad at keeping his phone on him. It’s a holdover from growing up avoiding electronics, anything that might easily explode. At this point in life he just finds it kind of irritating. He doesn’t like the idea of being easily reachable.

He’s bisexual.

He still has nightmares about burning houses, familiar faces flickering amongst the flames, frozen in silent screams. He has lived alone since he left home as a teen, and he plans to do so for the rest of his life.

I could go on and on but this is already way too long. Thank you guys for taking the time to read through this!

ANYTHING ELSE: Nope :)