Arlin Keysa

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Contents

[edit] The Mun

[edit] The Character

[edit] General

  • Name: Arlin Keysa, but goes by Aaron Islington
  • Age/Birthdate: Arlin’s fucking old. Exactly how old is up for debate. The most specific Arlin ever gets when asked about his age is, '900-something. I haven’t kept track.' This may be a vastly exaggerated lie to make him seem older than he is, or it may be the truth. He is one of the younger of the Species, which points to 'lie.' It is certain that he’s at least 700, however.
  • Species: The Species. Yes, The. He's going to make a big fucking deal about it.
    • Type: Wanderer. Prior to the Rift, he had two major abilities: he could hear/communicate with spirits, and he could physically change his body, basically through force of will. The Rift hasn't touched the hearing spirits thing, though there aren't any readily available, so that power's moot. It did, however, throw him into a previous body, as well as take away the ability to change at all. That ability morphed into the ability to blur his features for periods of time. Randomly, his eyes have become a bit more sensitive to light, so he can see in low light better than anything and he requires sunglasses to go out in full sunlight.
  • Canon: Original - Last Letters
  • In-game LJ: http://kineticmachine.livejournal.com

[edit] Appearance

Arlin looks about 16-17 now, and a bit perpetually rough around the edges. His hair’s dark and longish, falling about to his shoulders (though the length varies slightly as he, you know, gets haircuts and it grows out again). Eyes are a murky sort of greyblue color, but mostly they just look pale compared to the hair, really. He’s about 6’, exceptionally tall for such a young face, but he’s never been short in his life.

He leans toward business casual clothing, though realizes that often that looks ridiculous and out of place on a ‘teenager’ and therefore tries to dress slightly more appropriately when doing a job, so as not to stick out. T-shirts, baggy sweaters and jeans, leather jackets, the like. “The like” meaning “rockstar casual” at this point. Arlin’s not incredibly good at blending in. Also, he always always always wears motorcycle boots


[edit] Personality

  • Personality point one: Jackassery. It’s one of Arlin’s finest points. For someone who’s lived a ridiculously long time, the surly has never left him. Some people, despite the fact that they live thousands of years, never change, and so become stagnant, snappy little pools of bitch.
  • Personality point two: Violent. He’s not on the killing-small-animals-for-the-fun-of-it level, but when Arlin gets angry, he gets fucking angry, seemingly at the drop of a hat (people often mistake Annoyed Jackassery for Usual Jackassery, and miss the warning signs). And he has very little qualms about disposing of people. Stemming as it does from a disposition towards rather than a necessity, personal relationships, particularly romantic ones, often turn abusive.
  • Personality point three: Pride. Arlin has no time for humans, unless they’re giving him a job or are necessary to a task, and so regards each and every human he meets on a “How useful are you? How annoying are you?” scale. It takes a special kind of person to make him see them as an actual, intelligent being and not some kind of tool. This isn’t to say that he avoids everyone who’s human, just that he tends to hate them on principle. His species is really the only point of pride he has – in all other aspects of his life he’s fairly humble. He loathes being a part of history. He refuses to talk work with anyone. He also refuses to show off his art/machines to the point of reclusivity (and it’s rumored he killed a journalist that was snooping around too much recently).
  • Personality Point Four: Artist. This is a side that Arlin rarely shows to anyone on purpose. He hears spirits. Spirits that need bodies. And he builds the bodies for them in the form of intricate kinetic machines. He’ll build these out of anything he can get his hands on, and the machines will take on any form. Building is almost like a dance for him, and often it’s an all-consuming obsession to finish a machine once he has a calling for it. Afterward, he leaves them where they roam (for almost all of them move about), scattering the world with mysterious sculptures and machines.
  • Other little things, now: He’s well-read, and enjoys spending a few hours with good literature. He obsessively keeps journals documenting his changes and life. He really likes sex, though tends toward sadomasochism and doesn’t regard it as sacred. He’s usually incredibly polite, always speaks in full sentences with strictly proper grammar, all that, though will devolve into colorful mixed-language cursing when angry. He’s quiet, standoffish, and that adds to his air of disdain more often than not.

[edit] History

[edit] Pre-Rift

He was born in Germany, or at least he lets everyone assume that as his preferred, most natural language is German. He doesn’t know his mother or father anymore; hasn’t kept touch, and it’s not entirely clear whether he left them behind or vice versa.

At one point, early in his life and then a bit later, he was a nomad (moreso than his longevity demands, that is). At another, he studied under da Vinci, a quiet, sullen friend to the man, who didn’t create much of anything but did pique the scholar’s interest with sketches of things. At another, still quite young (early 200s-300s), he killed a man and was nearly hanged for it, then was nearly hanged again in a witch hunt hundreds of years later. At another, he was in an underground eighties metal band, though he quit when they started getting big. He’s been in ballets, talked with kings about murdering their sons and princes about murdering their fathers, wandered carnival circuits reading tarot cards until it bored him (her, at the time) to do so, traveled across multiple countries on a motorcycle, might have written and/or translated a few things under pseudonyms he won’t admit to, was indeed present when JFK was shot but adamantly denies shooting him, and keeps a journal with him at all times. Just to name a few random tidbits.

In the “teenage” years of his life (sometime around when he wore the body he was thrown back into by the Rift), a rather important (or at least notorious) member of the Species found him and hired him to kill a prominent member of parliament. Said man, Alniyat, went on to give him the majority of the rest of his jobs. Alniyat became a father figure, which slowly metamorphosed into a love interest, though Arlin disclosed neither feeling to Alniyat. After Alniyat died, he made a dragon. It wasn’t because a spirit asked, but a reaction.

[edit] Post-Rift

Arlin came through a relatively small Rift somewhere outside of Chicago roughly 20 years ago, very dismayed to find himself stuck in some crappy body he'd had hundreds of years ago, and even more dismayed to find that he couldn't fix it. Shortly afterward he was recruited by The Organization and has been working his way up to the top spot in his guild ever since. He's only recently come to Chicago to stay (for a time), though he's been through it a few times in the course of business, since his business tends to take him all over and his nature tends to keep him moving anyway.

The fact that the Rift stripped him of a lot of things by which he defined himself has turned him into a significantly harder person than he was -- oh, he was a snarky, angry jackass before, but now there's a vengeful streak beneath it that didn't exist. He's pretty much thrown himself into his work, because there isn't a lot else he's got going for him, since he can't hear spirits and none of his friends or fellow Species have come through the Rift since (to his knowledge). He does still have a tendency to build various kinetic machines as a reaction to whatever's troubling him at the moment. Or if he gets a good idea.

[edit] Storylines

Someday...

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