Name: Raymond Carter Gordon. Everybody does not love him. This is rumored to be the one and only joke that Mr. Gordon doesn't find funny.
Nicknames: That's Ray to you adults and Mr. Gordon to you kidfolk. Or Mr. G.
Age: 29
Birthday: June 6, D-Day. Some folks are born to wave the flag, ooh, they're red, white, and blue.
Sign: Gemini
Blood Type: O+
Fav. Food: Is it bad for you? Can you make or acquire it with no cooking skills? Is it possible to put barbecue sauce on it? The proper answer to this is "barbecue sauce," but really: pizza, burgers, hot dogs, bacon, hash browns, baked potatoes, the list goes on. A couple Dixie faves like chicken and dumplings, sausage gravy and sweet tea might make it onto that list, but don't get a lot of play around Destiny City.
Hated Food: Tofu, tempeh, veggiemeat, etc., if you eat it instead of meat Ray hates it. You may begin to realize that the vegetarian life is not for Ray Gordon.
School: Mr. Gordon teaches English and AP English at Meadowview High School. Say what you like, he ain't ever killed one of his own students. Knowingly.
Hobbies:
- Tragedia e Commedia: Ray makes his class watch three adaptations of
Romeo and Juliet -- not so he can play Scrabulous at his desk (though that's a perk), but because he thinks teaching Shakespeare as a written work is a bit like trying to play Mass Effect by looking at the source code. He's got a genuine passion for literature and the English language, but more specifically he's got a genuine passion for the arts as pertain to drama and theater. He's an ex-theater kid -- and even the ex- is debatable -- who sees life through the lens of an actor, performer and theater aficionado. Well-versed as he is in drama and stagecraft and comfortable as he is onstage, he has an immense number of nitpicky opinions on good art, bad art, and ugly art, though is diplomatic enough to keep a fair number of them to himself around students, at least. Coworkers and peers are another story. He loves Vladimir Nabokov and Joseph Heller, but classes them differently to Tom Stoppard and David Mamet. And as the spotlights fade away, and you're escorted through the foyer, you will resume your callow ways -- but he was meant for the stage.
- Party Games: Phrased as 'party games' and not simply 'video games' because Ray has no patience for long, epic strategy games, most simulators, a lot of puzzle games, and MMORPGs: Ray loves multiplayer games. Specifically, Ray loves sociable multiplayer games. This umbrella encompasses a lot of Wii games, all iterations of Super Smash Bros. and Mario Kart, Rock Band, "fun" first-person shooters ("fun" including things like Halo, TimeSplitters, Team Fortress 2, "unfun" including CounterStrike and anything based off something Tom Clancy wrote, on principle), and did we mention Rock Band and Super Smash Bros.? He plays video games solo too, albeit tends towards things that his friends play and that have pretty graphics, storylines that immediately interest him, fast gameplay or that can be downloaded cheaply on Steam. He's not THAT avid of a gamer but he's avid enough that he's invested in a pretty nice TV to play on -- which of course might also have to do with the number of movies he watches, which brings us to his next hobby:
- Movies: In front of his TV, Ray has a few video game consoles clustered on the floor, but keeps both a DVD player and a Blu-Ray player in the entertainment center. Ray likes movies. Seeing movies is one of his favorite social outings, and probably the single date he's gone on most with his girlfriend (flashier things like paintball and monster truck rallies are a little harder to repeat); anyway, having someone to see movies with often, uh, accounts for why he bothers to constantly have a girlfriend these days, aside from living alone leading to a general dislike for sleeping alone. He's amassed quite the DVD collection, as he's someone who's kept it together with loving and obsessive care through quite a number of moves -- really, this is also true of all information-holding things he owns, including his books, video games, ancient desktop, and somewhat ancient laptop (and let's not even get into the Miata), which is funny because he holds the DCU dorm record for losing the most toothbrushes in the span of a month. He likes movies, he can quote a lot of movies, and he likes and can quote a lot of bad movies.
- The 1996 Miata And Its Kindred: Okay, let's just get one thing straight: Ray's not the kind of guy who's into cars, all right? All right. ... Except, you know, how he's the kind of guy who's into cars. Of all the myriad and bizarre things he does for fun, half of them things people normally need the company of a flashmob and the promise of being on TV to brave, he's peculiarly self-conscious about his interest in automobiles and slightly touchy about how much time he's put into his 1996 Miata. The truth is he got it used and shitty and the state it's currently in, especially for a car made fourteen years ago, is the product of a lot of T-L-C and some mechanical fixing-up, as well as a new paint job. Ray likes cars in general, particularly sporty ones, and is the sort of guy who fantasizes about owning a Lamborghini and taking it on the German Autobahn; he can tell you a lot of things about a lot of cars. In truth, he was a mechanic between college and teaching and previously spent a lot of time fixing his dad's truck with his dad, but he associates the skillset and hobby with a kind of bluecollar past and identity he's pretty reluctant to openly acknowledge.
Gemstone: Gemini - Agate, June - Pearl.
Virtues:
- Know When To Hold 'Em: If fortune favors the bold, then Ray won't have to worry about fortune's disfavor for a good long time. Ray has, if nothing else, loads of nerve -- as in, 'why, the nerve' and 'you've got some nerve' both. He is bold, he is brave, he is, frankly, not afraid of some things other people are afraid of and, when he is afraid of them, is in the habit of acting before his afraidness can kick in so it's a moot point anyway. He is both the first to run into the face of danger if it presents a possibility of reward(/glory/fun/looking awesome) to him and the first to raise his hand, say what he's thinking, make a scene; as someone with a lot of magical power at his command, he has nerve
even for someone with that much magical power at his command. Contrary to what his codename might suggest, he picked the Triforce of Courage when he was drawing straws with Zelda and Ganondorf.
- One Swing Ahead of the Sword: One trick ahead of disaster -- they're quick, but he's much faster -- Ray depends on his quick reaction time and, even more, his quick thinking to get him out of a lot of scrapes. What he may not have in foresight he makes up for generally in on-the-spot resourcefulness, out-of-the-box thinking and the speed at which things occur to him and he can act on them. It's what gives him enough confidence to be as bold (see above) as he is: a high Initiative roll can do a lot for you in life, and when rolling for Initiative he more often than not turns out on top. Frozenness and analysis paralysis are not things that plague him very often (with, of course, some exceptional situations, especially of the emotional or interpersonal variety). He may have bad ideas, but he is not going to get stuck being the gawking onlooker, even to things that surprise him. It's not easy to get the drop on him.
- Winter, Spring, Summer or Fall: He may not be the kindest soul in the Salvation Army, but once you're with him, he's with you. Ray's got an almost surprisingly protective personality to those whom he regards as his responsibility; whatever else he may be, he IS a teacher, he IS entrusted with the safety and well-being of dozens of students under his care and he takes it seriously enough. Likewise, he is a faction leader and as long as he has their loyalty, they have his protection, and he means it. Whether he's the Responsible Adult or the Fearless Leader or just your friend, he takes it upon himself to be levelheaded and live up to his responsibilities as he sees them. It's just. As he sees them.
- Got A Little Motto: For a man who gets so much mileage out of being unpredictable, he's... really kind of predictable, or at least in the particular way that he chooses to be. He's not interested in making deals that he doesn't intend to keep. A truce made with him is a truce he'll stick to as long as you stick to it. There's no benefit to him in trading treacherously and he gets a lot more out of keeping to his word -- if he doesn't want to make a promise, then he'll just laugh in your face to begin with. It's debatable whether this is actually better. It's certainly better for him, though, as he tends to lay down the law pretty quickly: if you do X, he'll do Y, so if you do wind up doing X you're in no position to kvetch about him accordingly doing Y, are you, honey. He never told you no different now. They say that life is tit for tat, and that's the way he lives!
Flaws:
- Know When To -- ... Fold 'Em?: Remember how Ray tends to act quickly and without dwelling on dangers or consequences? Ray, uh, tends to... act quickly and without... dwelling... on dangers... or consequences. Fortune may favor the bold, but fools also rush in where angels fear to tread, and Ray is voted #1 most likely to Leeroy in any raid group. He trusts his own judgment, he acts on his own volition, and he is very likely also to wind up standing in the rubble of the consequences going, "it seemed like a good idea at the time?" It always seemed like a good idea at the time. Ray is impulsive, pure and simple, and not all of his impulses are productive: a lot of things that would've been better off unsaid wind up said, a lot of things that would've been better off undone wind up done. He should captain the Facebook group In Retrospect, That Was A Poor Choice. This is especially true of things that tweak at his sense of amusement, excitement, or, worst of all -- so very, very worst of all -- his pride.
- So What, I Am A Rock Star: He's got his rock moves, and he don't need you. Is Ray cocky? Is water wet. Does the sun rise in the east. As someone who spends at least a fair portion (though not all!) of his time believing he's the s**t, and having an occupation (supervillain) and ambition (world domination) that kind of has Thinking You're The s**t in some way as a prerequisite, he can suffer from the destructive conviction that he can handle anything and that he needn't take the pains of cautiousness and wariness just in case. Once he thinks he's won something, he tends to be sure he's won something -- but it's not in his own carelessness this most hurts him, but in when he goes out of his way to kick that fallen enemy one more time, or do that one more thing that is the thing that gets him caught. Sure, he could have stayed in the past. He could have even been king. But in his own way, he
is king. Hail to the king, baby.
- For the Love of God, Montresor: It's a brand new day, yeah, the sun is high, all the angels sing 'cause you're gonna die. Go ahead and laugh, yeah, he's a funny guy. Ray is, in a word, vindictive. The thousand injuries of Fortunato he had borne as he best could; but when he ventured upon insult, Ray vowed revenge. He is a creature of a large but fragile ego and when humiliated he can be truly petty, and extremely cruel, in retaliating -- whether it be putting you in your place emotionally or killing you in a particularly humiliating and satisfactory sort of way, depending on the circumstances. He's proud and revengeful, as Prince Hamlet describes it, and though he shows anger a bit coldly it doesn't mean it burns any less hotly inside of him. This would be infinitely less troublesome if it only applied to enemies, but it doesn't. More often than not the people who see this particular wounded animal's teeth and claws turned on them are friends and loved ones; when he was good, he was very, very good, but when he was bad, well.
- Hello, Darkness, My Old Friend: And the previous trait stems from the true inner emotional condition he lives with most of the time, which is to say, crushing depression. Ray is an incredibly unhappy man. He has a level of unhappiness with himself and his life rather convincingly covered up with the glitz and glamour of his stage-magician persona and the adrenaline highs and power trips of being a Chaos Seed, but the fact is he dislikes himself more than he dislikes anything else and he dislikes the world just as badly: his outlook is bleak and pessimistic. Normally this kind of misery might harm the character themselves more badly than it harms anyone else -- and while that may have been true for Ray Gordon prior to his awakening, now his bitterness and self-hatred leaches into his relations with others and, perhaps most damningly, his actions. The same black worldview makes him lash out at and mistreat the people he cares about as causes him to murder innocent people and dismiss it; it's not that he's sad, it's that he's miserable, and the more he feels he has nothing to lose, the more he acts like it.
--
Physical Description Hair: Dusty brown and cut short in the wholesome, all-American, 1950s kind of cut you'd see on a newscaster or a politician.
Eyes: Strikingly blue, like the flame of a Bunsen burner. He's about as blind as a bat and has bifocals to fix this, which he most always has on. He has contacts too, but he dislikes those mostly on account of his tendency to forget to take them out when he sleeps.
Face: All-American and not hard on the eyes. Ray looks like he stepped out of a black-and-white film or maybe one in Technicolor: more handsome than he is cute, more handsome than he is pop-idol hot, just, a little square-jawed and newscastery and magnetic-in-another-decade. He has striking eyes.
Body: Exactly halfway between 5'11" and 6' and of medium build -- he has the body type of a person who used to be in better shape than he is now, neither naturally thin nor naturally stocky, and eats like a bachelor. Most of the exercise he gets nowadays is dancing-related.
Fashion: At work, Ray dresses as preppy and conventionally as a person could dress, for the most part: button-downs, sweater-vests, slacks, argyle, solid colors, teacherwear. The exception is his array of funny ties: Barrel o' Monkeys, smiley- and frowny-face, brick, binary, Smurf, noose, you name it, he'll wear it to work. Off work he wears jeans, T-shirts, and more button-downs and slacks. The ugly truth about Ray Gordon is he has no ability to shop for his own clothing or coordinate outfits. But he can fake it a little.
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Name: Wiseman, the Death Phantom
