|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Wed Dec 29, 2010 7:35 pm
i. index
ii. guardian
iii. wish
iv. extra information
v. reserved
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Dec 29, 2010 8:42 pm
guardian
name Oliver Blacklock
age 24
gender Male
occupation Private investigator
personality
worried- Oliver is slightly neurotic- he overthinks things, and so things that seem good at first gradually seem to be worse and worse to him, and things that already seem bad become terrible. He spends all his time going over things again and again in his head until a plug he forgot to unplug before he left for a trip becomes a surefire way to burn his house down, and a man sitting on a bench in the park becomes a definite child molester. When Oliver was a kid, he could never go trick-or-treating because the longer it took, the more he'd think about his candy, the more he'd be sure it was all poisoned. He's like this mostly because of his parents, who had a failing marriage and argued over the tiniest things, such as leaving the hairdryer too close to the rim of the sink, or undercooking the meat and making them all at risk of dying of e.coli. This bickering, each blaming the other for putting their child, family, or marriage in danger, him start to see everything as a potential problem that could be incredibly destructive.
overprotective- Oliver's worrying extends to the people that he cares about, and he does everything in his power to make sure they stay safe. He coddles and stifles people he loves, which has led him to be completely unable to hold down a relationship or keep very many friends. Part of the reason he became a detective was so he could be, as his ex-girlfriend kindly put it, 'paid to freak out over other people.' He doesn't deal with losing people very well, and no matter how far someone goes from him, Oliver will doggedly pursue them to make sure they're okay. He really cares about everyone he meets, and even people he doesn't meet- he primarily deals in missing persons cases and each one of them is more than just a mental challenge for him to overcome.
observant- Years of worrying have led Oliver to have an incredibly sharp eye for detail. He notices things about people and places that others might not, and he has a great memory for potential dangers that could be related to what he notices. His sharp eye makes it easy for him to pick up changes in peoples' moods through their gestures and movements, but it also makes it easy for him to find out unpleasant truths that he'd rather not know. (He figured out Santa Claus when he was seven and had a particularly painful experience when he noticed his mother was cheating on his father when he was ten.)
self-depreciating- Oliver grew up in a pretty detached family. His parents both failed to pay him much attention and expected a lot of him, so his self esteem has always been fairly low. The fact that he can't hold down a relationship and isn't good at making friends hasn't helped this, and thus he never speaks very well of himself, and often pokes fun at his abilities or makes derogatory comments regarding himself that he sincerely believes. On the one hand, this gives him a much higher estimation of other peoples' talents, and he's far more likely to talk about them than himself, but on the other, his self-esteem is a genuinely crippling problem that made him need a wish to lean on when he finally started his own detective agency, as he was too afraid to believe he could succeed at it.
eager to please- Though Oliver has low self-esteem, he genuinely wants people to like him and wants to make them pleased to be around him. He likes the people he cares about to be close to him, so he'd do almost anything to try to ensure they won't leave, be it buying them fancy gifts or showering them in praises. He's very careful about doing a thorough job in everything he does for other people, and whenever someone asks him for something, he hardly ever says no. However, the flip side of this is that to ensure people are happy he can put himself in danger or trouble, or even choke them with attention to keep them from getting away from him.
history Oliver was a child born to save a marriage that was falling apart at the seams. Renata and Chester Blacklock, a stay at home wife, and a successful lawyer, were no longer the loving couple they had been at when they were first married. The idea the Blacklock parents had was that a baby would unite them in love of the new little boy or girl, and as the little boy or girl grew, they would have common ground in that child. Unfortunately, Oliver did grow, but he grew to be Oliver, a neurotic, precocious little boy who didn't believe in Santa, hated going trick-or-treating, always had to have his meat nearly burnt before he could eat it, and slept under his bed to make it harder for murderers to find him when they burst through the windows. At first it was sort of charming, and then it was incredibly grating, especially as Oliver got more and more observant and began to point out things his parents wouldn't have noticed otherwise that they could fight about. He was the one who revealed his mother's one night stand with his uncle on his father's side, he was the one who pointed out how his father had bought a more expensive gift for his secretary than his wife, he was the one who had noticed his mother was taking money from his college fund to buy expensive clothes and putting it back in if she could later. As all these little secrets his parents had kept from each other piled up out in the open, they bickered more and more, until eventually they went through a messy divorce just as Oliver went into high school. Oliver, who was already emotionally delicate, was crushed by the their divorce, and became more possessive just as he became old enough to date, leading to a string of failed relationships in his own life. Academically, he was a talented and bright student, but mentally, he was a bit of a wreck, and he was still a wreck when he went into college. He was directionless until late in his second year, when his former girlfriend noticed he was able to guess all the endings to the mysteries she wrote for the literary magazine. She suggested he become a detective, and to please her he narrowed his studies into that field. By the time he graduated they had long since broken up, but he was beginning to like the idea of his career. He opened up his own office with money his father offered him, but he still wasn't confident enough to handle the cases that came his way, and he was constantly second-guessing himself. Progress on cases that came his way was slow, until one day one of the missing people he was casing turned up dead. The news crushed Oliver, who thought that maybe he could have saved her if he had been able to deduce her location quickly enough. That point, one of the lowest in his life, was what caused him to make his wish and receive Ariadne.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Dec 29, 2010 9:03 pm
wish
name Ariadne Blacklock
gender Female
goddess Persephone
wish "I wish to find what was once lost."
personality
sheltered- Oliver has desperately tried to shelter Ariadne from all his perceived dangers of the real world, so Ariadne is hopelessly out of touch with reality. She practically lives in a bubble, and besides the private school she attends, she doesn't have much contact with the outside world unless Oliver is right there next to her. When she's not at school, she's at home in the apartment. She's thoughtful and clever, but utterly naive, having grown up in an environment as safe as Oliver can possibly make it, with the least contact with other, potentially dangerous people as humanly possible in modern-day Gaia.
inquisitive- Ariadne's taken after Oliver in noticing things that other people usually don't. Oliver's in the habit of pointing out what he can see that she can't to her, and so as she grew up, Ariadne developed an urge to see what her father could see and she couldn't. Ariadne is incredibly curious about the world around her, and as she grows up, she's going to be more and more frustrated by her father's efforts to keep her out of harm's way, especially as Oliver gallivants off on dangerous cases and leaves her at home. Oliver has never really explained why he boxes her in, as he doesn't want to scare her into submission like his parents unwittingly did with him, so as Ariadne gets older, she'll be looking both for explanations and a way out into the real world to see it for herself.
thoughtful- Stuck at home most of the time, Ariadne has nothing to do but think while Oliver is at work. Sometimes she thinks about cases he's brought home for her to look at, other times she thinks about whatever her mind wanders to, but Ariadne's mind is always working away at something. She has a complex understanding of the world inside her bubble, and though it's not always accurate, she's created her own understanding of the world from what knowledge she has available to her. When she discovers something that upsets this world view, her first reaction is generally strongly negative, almost violent, but if the fact continues to persist, she can't resist trying to understand that as well, no matter how grotesque or unpleasant the details are. Without something to think about, Ariadne gets bored easily, and she's easily lured by the promise of something new.
cautious- Though Oliver's never given her the scare lecture about the big bad world he works so hard to save her from, Ariadne has always suspected the outside world is essentially big and bad. The way her father acts makes it clear enough, not to mention her biggest contact with the outside world is through her father's cases, which are kidnappings, murders, and theft. Though those cases seem distant to her, she's vaguely aware that they happen to real people, and so Ariadne approaches new things with a kind of cautious sidle. Though she's driven to find out what's really out there, she never plunges in headfirst, and it takes a while to gain her trust.
opinionated- Ariadne's spent so much time thinking that even though she's incredibly naive, she also has strong opinions that she doesn't hesitate in telling people. Oliver taught her to always say what she thinks, and she does. No matter how much danger she's in, one thing Ariadne will never be afraid of is telling someone just what she thinks- holding back her observations is as counterintuitive to her as trying not to breathe. She doesn't associate her observations with trouble the same way Oliver didn't as he kept making comments that eventually broke his parents' marriage. To her, thinking is practically the only thing she does, so why wouldn't anyone want to hear it?
hobbies
diaries- Ariadne keeps diaries of all her thoughts and observations, with photographs, doodles, and slanty cursive handwriting. All the diaries are the same shape, size, and colour, and they all have her name written on the inside in shiny pink gel pen. Ariadne hides all her diaries under her mattress, and over the years this has made her bed quite lumpy.
tidying- While she's stuck at home, Ariadne cleans and rearranges things to pass the time. She likes doing this because then she knows where everything is, and cleaning makes her scrutinize things she might not have normally looked at more closely, which could lead to finding something interesting. No matter where she is, Ariadne cleans things when she's trying to think, because even if she doesn't see something that triggers an inspiration, the monotonous activity helps her focus on whatever she's trying to work out.
drawing- Another focusing activity. Ariadne draws still lives and portraits to help develop her eye and see things how they really are. She doesn't really draw things from her own imagination, though she's good at eyeballing, she's bad when it comes to making up her own poses, perspectives, and colours. Even though she's a fairly imaginative child, she isn't very visually imaginative.
gardening- A fragment that's partially an influence from Persephone, partially from her need for companions, Ariadne grows potted plants in her room. She has a window box full of flowers, too, and each of her plants has a name, designated personality, and identity for her to communicate with. Her plants are her closest friends and confidantes, and under Ariadne's care, they flourish.
relevance to shop plot
Ariadne isn't very easily accessible because of her overprotective guardian, but I hope she'll gradually discover her own way out of her shell. She's naturally inquisitive, and a bit naive, but intelligent. Meta-wise, she plays a more passive role, but she's able to find things out, and she's generally able to keep her head in a crisis (although at first she might be freaking out a little, oh dearrrr).
As for why I chose Persephone and how the wish relates to her, Persephone was lost to Demeter when she was kidnapped by Hades. You could argue that this makes Demeter the finder, but Persephone was a victim like the kind that Oliver searches for, so I thought the wish would have relevance to her. As for Ariadne's relationship with a wish from Hades if one ever appears in the shop, I HOPE TO PLOT WITH THE OWNER OF THAT WISH, lolololol. I don't see Persephone's and Hades' relationship as totally negative (in fact I like to see Hades as just the most terribly awkward suitor in the history of ever /SHOT) and I think that something between them might be cute, BUT THIS IS GEEKING OUT OVER MY MYTHOLOGY OTP and I'm digressing. /sob
Anyway, yeah. * u *b
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Dec 30, 2010 1:13 am
extra information
persephone
There are two traditionally accepted versions of Persephone, that of the daughter of Demeter stolen by Hades, and an earlier version, that of the lone ruler of the Underworld, known as the Iron Queen Persephone. The version that Ariadne comes from is the former, the nature goddess taken from her sheltered home by the god of Death.
Ariadne the wish is a fragment of Persephone's earlier self. In this way, she hearkens back to 'finding what was once lost' in that she is the part of Persephone that was lost when she was torn from her home and introduced to a wider, darker world and the politics of the Olympian gods. Ariadne's guardian, Oliver, is overprotective to simulate Demeter's careful sheltering of Persephone, and Oliver's profession, that of a detective, is meant to reference the lurking shadow of Hades, as detectives are commonly associated with murder. However, as detectives are usually those who reveal the truth about murders, he also represents Demeter's partial reclamation of Persephone. A detective's victory in a murder case is never complete because at the end of the day, someone is still dead, but they partially undo the wrong initially committed by revealing the perpetrator. So, too, did Demeter partially save Persephone by bringing her back to the mortal world for part of the year. However, Oliver doesn't specialize in murder cases, but instead works on missing persons cases, representing Demeter's search for Persephone.
detectives
Ariadne and Oliver are named after a single Agatha Christie character, the famous mystery writer, Ariadne Oliver.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Dec 30, 2010 1:14 am
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Dec 30, 2010 1:15 am
Finished setting up- crit is loved!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
