reverie character chart
May. 29th, 2018 11:29 am"I like to watch. You mind? Or are you shy?" | |
24-05-1813-06-18 26-06-18 06-07-18 13-07-18 | |
"Baby, if this is a work event, then I want it on record that I think the bosses have really lost the plot this time."
"Not if the plan is getting your nose broken." | |
24-05-18 | |
"I have no responsibility to your lack of comprehension to your surroundings. Your ignorance is your own." | |
25-05-1812-06-18 05-07-1806-07-18 | |
"England's still here. Although the whole of Earth is under one banner now, it's all UN led. Your cold war stuff, it's between Earth and Mars now." | |
25-05-1812-06-18 | |
"Boy, does this suck." | |
02-06-18 | |
"I was born in Mississippi, but I lived in New York for half my life. I taught at a boarding school for mutants, until the government decided we didn't deserve the same rights as other humans. 'Home' is a place where you're wanted - that isn't the place I came from. Not anymore." "I'm sorry, mutants?" "Humans with genetic differences that give us special abilities or physical mutations. It ranges from blue skin to telepathy, manipulating the weather to being able to heal practically any injury in seconds. On my Earth, we were a huge part of the population by the early 2000s." | |
03-06-18 23-06-18 05-07-18 06-07-18 | |
"Okay. Okay, I got it. I got you." | |
03-06-18 | |
"Hey! Is everyone okay? And if you are okay, can you loan me a hair tie?" | |
05-06-18 | |
"Is that what that cryptic announcement was all about? A drinking party? I sure hope they saved enough for the rest of however long we're here -- " | |
06-06-1818-06-18 05-07-18 | |
"Oh, it's a very long and boring tale of caged baby universes and inter-dimensional travel..." | |
08-06-18 06-07-18 | |
"The Walled City? It was demolished decades ago. It's a park with a monument now. I'm sure there were people who enjoyed living there and called it home, but it wasn't necessarily a safe haven from the rest of the world." | |
08-06-18 | |
"It was miserable. People barely had enough to eat and they were drinking from the sewers. I ran into a man who'd been waiting for his name to be called to go to medical school for decades, and he was the only doctor they had. He begged me for the bone density pills I was taking so that he could trade them for anti-radiation meds to deal with the plant that was leaking nearby and chloroquine for when the heat started ramping up." | |
08-06-18 | |
Bein' up there's basically the best damn feelin' you could ever have, if I'm honest. Not like bein' here trapped in a rust bucket, but bein' able to actually fly? Nothing compares. | |
08-06-18 | |
"If I said to you 'I grew up in Sendaria, but my father was a Rivan from the Isle of the Winds and my mother was an Algar', you wouldn't have the slightest idea what I was talking about, would you?" "Well, I'd know you were high, and I'd be a step closer to finding out how to be myself." "Do you mean recreational pharmaceuticals? I'm an Alorn, not a-" | |
08-06-18 | |
In retrospect that was a really bad choice of metaphor. | |
09-06-18 | |
"Though hey, are you a novelist or something? You kind of sound like one with how you were describing everything." "No. Just used to living far from home, and penning letters." "Oh. Well you sound like you were probably really good at that." | |
10-06-18 | |
"It does feel- kind of haunted, huh?" | |
10-06-18 | |
"Sometimes I wonder what the value of reminiscing is. Not whether it has any value, obviously it does, but what we can do to turn it into productive action. How to offset feeling bad about what you don't have anymore." | |
12-06-18 | |
"I've heard of coffee, but I've never had it." | |
12-06-18 | |
"This has been bad, but I bet you anything that what comes next will be worse." "You mean worse than abduction and imprisonment? What're you betting on?" | |
12-06-18 | |
"Man, I miss candy." | |
12-06-18 | |
"screw sobriety" | |
18-06-18 | |
"An honest to goodness princess?" "Is it really that surprising?" | |
18-06-18 | |
"if you could help, but doing so would put yourself at risk, would you?" "If you were stranded on a desert island and you could only bring one book which you'd have to eat, would you want it to be hardback or soft cover?" | |
19-06-18 | |
"You've been nice to me so far?" "Probably because you're good company and I'm too hopped up on space painkillers to be mean." | |
19-06-18 02-07-18 | |
"I have some specialized experience in dealing with high pressure situations." | |
19-06-18 Code Credit |
reverie app
May. 19th, 2018 08:20 pmPLAYER
» HANDLE: Steph
» CONTACT: UndrwO on Plurk
» AGE: 28
» CHARACTER(S) IN-GAME: Jasnah Kholin (
veristitalian
CHARACTER
» NAME: Ricki Tarr
» CANON: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011 film)
» CANON POINT: Post canon.
» AGE: Late thirties
» SETTING: Ricki comes from a version of Earth with no extra magic or powers of any kind. The Smiley books are written by an actual retired British spy, so represent an only slightly sensationalized version of what espionage was actually like at the time. The Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy film is very loyal to the books. Where there are conflicts, I'll defer to the film (ie, Ricki meeting Irina in Istanbul rather than Hong Kong) but I intend to flesh out his backstory with information from the novel.
The story takes place in the 1970s, at the height of the cold war. Ricki's part in the tale begins in Istanbul, where he's caught up in an extremely bloody bit of spycraft. His story in the city gives the viewer a sense of how the British and Russian spies of the time played out little power struggles in all corners of the world, finding and fighting and seducing and turning each other.
Ricki is a spy, and was called in to Istanbul when the country office was having some trouble tailing a trade delegate. The man was a drunk, and so a rich target to be turned, blackmailed, brought over to their side. Ricki spent one night following him and realized Boris was actually a spy was well, a dangerous bit of bait trying to get a read on British activity in Istanbul. He called the surveillance off and was in the middle of packing up to go home when he noticed Boris's wife, Irina. Something about her stirred Ricki's instincts, and he approached and seduced her and was gratified when without much prompting she offered to provide valuable information to his side in exchange for safe harbour in the west. Ricki insisted she tell him what the information was, playing on her trust for him to get her to admit that there was a high level traitor at the top of the Circus (M16). Not quite willing to believe her, Ricki cabled home this message to the top leadership of the group. Irina was immediately abducted, and the staff at the country office all killed. The spy was so highly placed that he'd seen Ricki's message and arranged to frame him as a defector.
Ricki comes back to London in a hurry and gets on a payphone to call a Secretary in the Cabinet Office, passing the information allong and triggering the investigation into this mole that is the plot of the film. Very quickly, Ricki finds himself betrayed and fleeing back to London, where he offers reports on his travels to little old men with thick glasses in a series of dusty parlours and shabby hotel rooms. He goes over his time in Istanbul in detail for the investigation.
The biggest qualitative difference between this spy story and the other famous ones is that the people who do the 'wet work' in this world are the ones with the least power. On the surface, Ricki is the closest thing there is to a James Bond in the film; he seduces the girl, exudes menace, is capable of tremendous violence and drives around in a convertible. But, he ends up siting on George Smiley's couch, weeping openly while he provides his report, going over the details over and over again. He's the most junior in the hierarchy of spies we meet in the film by far. Ricki is a useful weapon, but ultimately a pawn in someone else's game.
» SHORT DESCRIPTION: Playful, dangerous, deceptive, untrusting, devoted.
» INFLUENTIAL EVENTS:
[Content warning for discussion of some of the grimmer history of Southeast Asia and British colonialism in the 1940s-70s. Not graphic, but a legitimatey horrible period.]
1. Changi: Ricki had a terrible childhood. He was the only child of British and Australian parents living in Penang. During WWII they evacuated to Singapore, which fell soon thereafter to the Japanese. The family spent the rest of the war in Changi jail. It would have been a traumatic experience at any age, but especially for someone so young. Ricki made it out of there mistrustful, with an antiauthoritarian streak a mile wide and fundamentally totally socially maladjusted. The book doesn't go into the effects in detail, beyond detailing the event having happened. Instead it goes on to portray a casual killer who was flagged as having enormous potential and thrown headlong into some of the extremely immoral aspects of espionage.
2. Parenting: After the war ended, Ricki was interested in following in his father's footsteps and going into law. Unfortunately, he had a criminal streak by then, and years of bad behaviour eventually culminated in his father getting together a group of preachers to 'beat the sin out of his soul.' That was the last straw in dealing with his father's zealotry and abuse. Ricki ran away from home when he was still a teenager and lacking other choices, became a gun runner in Borneo. He joined a small crew of Belgians and moved weaponry all around the Indonesian islands during the Malayan emergency. He was generally drunk, in trouble, and at any given moment in middle of a tremendous and nervy swindle and doublecross. It represented the real point of no return in terms of him living a normal life.
3. Purpose: The thing that saved Ricki's life was being recruited to MI6. He was picked up by an agent named Macklevore who flagged his terrible decision making and manipulative streak as a sign of tremendous potential. Just like running away from Penang set him on one potential course, this took him right off it and put him on another. He was first played out in an operation against the Belgian crew he'd been a part of, working a few more jobs for them in order to collect and systematically take out their network before killing all of them for the sin of running weaponry to Communists. Based on this promising start he was imported to Brixton, given the intensive training of a proper spy, and then sent out in the world. Ricki was brought on board at a tremendously impressionable age, and is wholeheartedly devoted to the Circus, putting himself in frequent and tremendous danger for his bosses. He's not quite the fanatic that some characters are, but he is fiercely loyal to his people, most of all the men directly above him in the chain of command.
4. "Accident Prone": Despite the consummate loyalty, Ricki is also kind of a disaster as a spy. He has a reputation as trouble; he pushes a bit of blackmail too hard and the person chooses to kill themself rather than caving in, and leaves a note exposing all. He falls in love with a Polish girl who turns out to be a spy who's playing him. He has a bad habit of calling his boss (a prim and stuffy Benedict Cumberbatch) 'baby' now and again. He's totally banned from going back to South America at all, ever, for any reason. When the mole in the Circus frames Ricki, it's credible, because he's kind of a black sheep because of these procedural lapses.
5. Irina: I talked a bit in the setting section about meeting Irina, but the added dimension to the story there is that Ricki was in kind-of-love with her. "She wasn't even my type," he complains, while tears streak down his face. He's married with a young daughter, to make matters worse. But after his slip results in Irina being taken, Ricki makes a couple of interesting choices. Instead of vanishing back into the wilderness in Borneo he returns to warn Britain that MI6 is terribly compromised. Then, when he seeks out the people running the investigation (despite the fact that both British and Russian spies all have orders that he's to be shot on sight) he insists that he'll do anything he can to help, but he wants Irina rescued, he wants them to trade for her to get her back out of Russia. Most tragically of all, he doesn't know she's already been killed. Smiley and the rest of the investigation string Ricki along, promising to do their best to get her out if he agrees to be used as bait to flush out the mole, and Ricki agrees. He can probably make a pretty educated guess that he's being played, but Ricki Tarr is an emotional soul, and kind of fundamentally heartbreakingly loyal. He goes along with the plan, for the chance of saving her, and the chance of saving the Circus. He's lived his entire adult life as a cog in this machine. The last shot of him is his standing in a rainstorm in Paris, expression completely still. This event doesn't so much change him as changes his life irreperably. He'll be arriving on the station just in time to have to figure out how to pick up the pieces.
» FIT: Ricki is a good fit for an action setting, because he's going to want to get right in the thick of it. He's an excellent fighter. He'll be incredibly invested in station politics and will undoubtledly end up involved in many intrigues. He's amoral and totally ruthless, but also an incredibly charismatic character who makes friends easily and wants to know everything. He's extremely adaptible and will blend into the setting easily.
» POWERS: None. Purely human.
» NOTES: None.
» SAMPLES: Log starters.
Some time in the early 1600s in Japan, a young woman had a rather illicit relationship with a Chinese pirate lord. The unlikely pair had a son who they christened Zhèng Chénggōng, who grew to by a fine young man with a very determined streak to him. It was whispered to me that the man had been raised by freed Muslim slaves, and may have practiced that faith in secret, though the official histories all refer to Confucianism.
Our story finds him in the waters between Xiamen and Taiwan. At that time, Xiamen was a young port city, whose traded goods included silver, imported from Spain into China. This trade route was a ripe target for local pirates, in particular the Dutch. Don’t ask me about that historical context, I have no fucking idea. They snuck their boats in among the myriad of little islands at the mouth of the Nine Dragons, or Cửu Long, we called it, where I was growing up. Zhèng Chénggōng, also known as Koxinga, succeeded in fighting a short and brutish war that resulted in the Dutch fleeing Taiwan entirely. This was all accomplished while the young man was also embroiled in some of the ugliest dynastic struggles in history. He had narrowly survived his own father's terrible betrayal to the Qing family- thus followed a convoluted mess that ended with his father's imprisonment and the then-Emperor being thrown into a well.
My favourite part of the story was always the rumour that Koxinga's death was the result of a sudden fit of madness. His son had apparently had an affair with some very inappropriate lady, and the father ordered that he should be executed. The guards hesitated, and when he was disobeyed, Koxinga flew into the sort of rage that could stop a man's heart, though he was only thirty seven. The books in London lack imagination, and credit malaria.
There was a statue of Koxinga in Xiamen when I was there last, though it may very well be torn down by now. I remember seeing the stonework, but I only read the proper story when I made it back to London.
So. Why, from all the vast and fascinating scope of human history are we all clustered in here from the last forty years or so?
What kind of piracy do we have to fear up here, Dutch or otherwise?
» HANDLE: Steph
» CONTACT: UndrwO on Plurk
» AGE: 28
» CHARACTER(S) IN-GAME: Jasnah Kholin (
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
CHARACTER
» NAME: Ricki Tarr
» CANON: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011 film)
» CANON POINT: Post canon.
» AGE: Late thirties
» SETTING: Ricki comes from a version of Earth with no extra magic or powers of any kind. The Smiley books are written by an actual retired British spy, so represent an only slightly sensationalized version of what espionage was actually like at the time. The Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy film is very loyal to the books. Where there are conflicts, I'll defer to the film (ie, Ricki meeting Irina in Istanbul rather than Hong Kong) but I intend to flesh out his backstory with information from the novel.
The story takes place in the 1970s, at the height of the cold war. Ricki's part in the tale begins in Istanbul, where he's caught up in an extremely bloody bit of spycraft. His story in the city gives the viewer a sense of how the British and Russian spies of the time played out little power struggles in all corners of the world, finding and fighting and seducing and turning each other.
Ricki is a spy, and was called in to Istanbul when the country office was having some trouble tailing a trade delegate. The man was a drunk, and so a rich target to be turned, blackmailed, brought over to their side. Ricki spent one night following him and realized Boris was actually a spy was well, a dangerous bit of bait trying to get a read on British activity in Istanbul. He called the surveillance off and was in the middle of packing up to go home when he noticed Boris's wife, Irina. Something about her stirred Ricki's instincts, and he approached and seduced her and was gratified when without much prompting she offered to provide valuable information to his side in exchange for safe harbour in the west. Ricki insisted she tell him what the information was, playing on her trust for him to get her to admit that there was a high level traitor at the top of the Circus (M16). Not quite willing to believe her, Ricki cabled home this message to the top leadership of the group. Irina was immediately abducted, and the staff at the country office all killed. The spy was so highly placed that he'd seen Ricki's message and arranged to frame him as a defector.
Ricki comes back to London in a hurry and gets on a payphone to call a Secretary in the Cabinet Office, passing the information allong and triggering the investigation into this mole that is the plot of the film. Very quickly, Ricki finds himself betrayed and fleeing back to London, where he offers reports on his travels to little old men with thick glasses in a series of dusty parlours and shabby hotel rooms. He goes over his time in Istanbul in detail for the investigation.
The biggest qualitative difference between this spy story and the other famous ones is that the people who do the 'wet work' in this world are the ones with the least power. On the surface, Ricki is the closest thing there is to a James Bond in the film; he seduces the girl, exudes menace, is capable of tremendous violence and drives around in a convertible. But, he ends up siting on George Smiley's couch, weeping openly while he provides his report, going over the details over and over again. He's the most junior in the hierarchy of spies we meet in the film by far. Ricki is a useful weapon, but ultimately a pawn in someone else's game.
» SHORT DESCRIPTION: Playful, dangerous, deceptive, untrusting, devoted.
» INFLUENTIAL EVENTS:
[Content warning for discussion of some of the grimmer history of Southeast Asia and British colonialism in the 1940s-70s. Not graphic, but a legitimatey horrible period.]
1. Changi: Ricki had a terrible childhood. He was the only child of British and Australian parents living in Penang. During WWII they evacuated to Singapore, which fell soon thereafter to the Japanese. The family spent the rest of the war in Changi jail. It would have been a traumatic experience at any age, but especially for someone so young. Ricki made it out of there mistrustful, with an antiauthoritarian streak a mile wide and fundamentally totally socially maladjusted. The book doesn't go into the effects in detail, beyond detailing the event having happened. Instead it goes on to portray a casual killer who was flagged as having enormous potential and thrown headlong into some of the extremely immoral aspects of espionage.
2. Parenting: After the war ended, Ricki was interested in following in his father's footsteps and going into law. Unfortunately, he had a criminal streak by then, and years of bad behaviour eventually culminated in his father getting together a group of preachers to 'beat the sin out of his soul.' That was the last straw in dealing with his father's zealotry and abuse. Ricki ran away from home when he was still a teenager and lacking other choices, became a gun runner in Borneo. He joined a small crew of Belgians and moved weaponry all around the Indonesian islands during the Malayan emergency. He was generally drunk, in trouble, and at any given moment in middle of a tremendous and nervy swindle and doublecross. It represented the real point of no return in terms of him living a normal life.
3. Purpose: The thing that saved Ricki's life was being recruited to MI6. He was picked up by an agent named Macklevore who flagged his terrible decision making and manipulative streak as a sign of tremendous potential. Just like running away from Penang set him on one potential course, this took him right off it and put him on another. He was first played out in an operation against the Belgian crew he'd been a part of, working a few more jobs for them in order to collect and systematically take out their network before killing all of them for the sin of running weaponry to Communists. Based on this promising start he was imported to Brixton, given the intensive training of a proper spy, and then sent out in the world. Ricki was brought on board at a tremendously impressionable age, and is wholeheartedly devoted to the Circus, putting himself in frequent and tremendous danger for his bosses. He's not quite the fanatic that some characters are, but he is fiercely loyal to his people, most of all the men directly above him in the chain of command.
4. "Accident Prone": Despite the consummate loyalty, Ricki is also kind of a disaster as a spy. He has a reputation as trouble; he pushes a bit of blackmail too hard and the person chooses to kill themself rather than caving in, and leaves a note exposing all. He falls in love with a Polish girl who turns out to be a spy who's playing him. He has a bad habit of calling his boss (a prim and stuffy Benedict Cumberbatch) 'baby' now and again. He's totally banned from going back to South America at all, ever, for any reason. When the mole in the Circus frames Ricki, it's credible, because he's kind of a black sheep because of these procedural lapses.
5. Irina: I talked a bit in the setting section about meeting Irina, but the added dimension to the story there is that Ricki was in kind-of-love with her. "She wasn't even my type," he complains, while tears streak down his face. He's married with a young daughter, to make matters worse. But after his slip results in Irina being taken, Ricki makes a couple of interesting choices. Instead of vanishing back into the wilderness in Borneo he returns to warn Britain that MI6 is terribly compromised. Then, when he seeks out the people running the investigation (despite the fact that both British and Russian spies all have orders that he's to be shot on sight) he insists that he'll do anything he can to help, but he wants Irina rescued, he wants them to trade for her to get her back out of Russia. Most tragically of all, he doesn't know she's already been killed. Smiley and the rest of the investigation string Ricki along, promising to do their best to get her out if he agrees to be used as bait to flush out the mole, and Ricki agrees. He can probably make a pretty educated guess that he's being played, but Ricki Tarr is an emotional soul, and kind of fundamentally heartbreakingly loyal. He goes along with the plan, for the chance of saving her, and the chance of saving the Circus. He's lived his entire adult life as a cog in this machine. The last shot of him is his standing in a rainstorm in Paris, expression completely still. This event doesn't so much change him as changes his life irreperably. He'll be arriving on the station just in time to have to figure out how to pick up the pieces.
» FIT: Ricki is a good fit for an action setting, because he's going to want to get right in the thick of it. He's an excellent fighter. He'll be incredibly invested in station politics and will undoubtledly end up involved in many intrigues. He's amoral and totally ruthless, but also an incredibly charismatic character who makes friends easily and wants to know everything. He's extremely adaptible and will blend into the setting easily.
» POWERS: None. Purely human.
» NOTES: None.
» SAMPLES: Log starters.
Some time in the early 1600s in Japan, a young woman had a rather illicit relationship with a Chinese pirate lord. The unlikely pair had a son who they christened Zhèng Chénggōng, who grew to by a fine young man with a very determined streak to him. It was whispered to me that the man had been raised by freed Muslim slaves, and may have practiced that faith in secret, though the official histories all refer to Confucianism.
Our story finds him in the waters between Xiamen and Taiwan. At that time, Xiamen was a young port city, whose traded goods included silver, imported from Spain into China. This trade route was a ripe target for local pirates, in particular the Dutch. Don’t ask me about that historical context, I have no fucking idea. They snuck their boats in among the myriad of little islands at the mouth of the Nine Dragons, or Cửu Long, we called it, where I was growing up. Zhèng Chénggōng, also known as Koxinga, succeeded in fighting a short and brutish war that resulted in the Dutch fleeing Taiwan entirely. This was all accomplished while the young man was also embroiled in some of the ugliest dynastic struggles in history. He had narrowly survived his own father's terrible betrayal to the Qing family- thus followed a convoluted mess that ended with his father's imprisonment and the then-Emperor being thrown into a well.
My favourite part of the story was always the rumour that Koxinga's death was the result of a sudden fit of madness. His son had apparently had an affair with some very inappropriate lady, and the father ordered that he should be executed. The guards hesitated, and when he was disobeyed, Koxinga flew into the sort of rage that could stop a man's heart, though he was only thirty seven. The books in London lack imagination, and credit malaria.
There was a statue of Koxinga in Xiamen when I was there last, though it may very well be torn down by now. I remember seeing the stonework, but I only read the proper story when I made it back to London.
So. Why, from all the vast and fascinating scope of human history are we all clustered in here from the last forty years or so?
What kind of piracy do we have to fear up here, Dutch or otherwise?
[With a certain amount of disease, Ricki decides to do it.]
I need to talk to some of the inmates.
I'm sure many of you listened in yesterday, but here it is again, in case you got lost in it;
What we want to address is a system where some inmates regain access to their powers earlier than they might otherwise. This doesn't help any of you who had power and now have wardens- and I'm sorry about that, but we don't think the Admiral would go for it. He doesn't like to take power away from wardens who are in permanent pairings. It does impact you, though, so listen up.
For any wardens who are confused about why this might be necessary, things try to kill us here all the bloody time, and it's hideous to feel like your hands are tied behind your back. It contributes to the mistrust between the two ship bodies, when one half is systematically stripped of all weaponry, biological and otherwise, while the other half periodically gets swept up into a breach and tries to kill them. Or actually kills them. Just a few months ago, one of you went on a mad killing spree, and let's not forget, one of those victims hasn't come back. We count on death as impermanent here and it's complacent as hell. What's in place right now systematically exposes the inmates to a higher level of risk than it does the wardens.
For any of you who are confused about why I'm conceding to the system and contemplating anything other than the full and complete re-armament of all inmates, I'm from a world where concessions are a way of life. It probably comes of not having super powers. Besides, I live with you all, and I don't trust any of you as far as I could throw you.
What we're talking about a system where they get one bullet in the gun, and every time they want to reload, they've got to go back to someone who will give the situation a look-over to see if it was justified.
The issue we're all dancing around isn't whether or not they'll kill us. It's whether or not they'll play with us. If they go on a spree, fine, everyone here has been to hell and back, we'll all cope.
My nightmare scenario in this is a bunch of inmates getting their powers back and me being trapped on the same bloody boat as them while they go through their 'what's right and what's wrong' learning curve. I don't want some teenager zipping up behind me to make me start for a laugh, or tearing through the mess and switching everyone's plates around for a dumb prank. I don't want some girl deciding she likes the sound of me fetching her a cup of coffee and doing anything more than batting very human eyelashes to try to make me do it. Sorry to pick on the two kids who are instigating the conversation, but they're good examples.
I don't know them, I don't trust them, and I probably don't trust the warden who's going to make the call about trusting them, either. If they're going to get this power, then I personally want them scared to hell of using it. But if something like Zane happens again, I don't want them to be sitting ducks just because they happened to come from a world where they never had to fight any other way. Yes, the simple answer is that they should learn to do without, but the reality is that it takes a long time to learn how not to be killed.
Last thing. We want to put the 'was it worth it' decision in the hands of inmates, or two inmates and a warden- if you're seriously interested go back to Tiffany's post and read the whole conversation there. Actually, that's a fine place for this whole chat to take place, I just wanted us all on the same page for what's being proposed now.
She doesn't like things being private, but I don't care in the slightest. Get in touch with me here if there's something I'm not thinking about, or something you want to say but don't want a name to in public. Full confidentiality and amnesty will apply for the purposes of this afternoon.
I particularly want to hear from those of you who are angry. Particularly from those of you who wouldn't be likely to engage with the Admiral or wardens if something went incredibly fucking wrong.
Private to Omar.
You in particular. Am I totally off my fucking stride here, or is there something that could be worth it in this?
Private to Tiffany
Hope I'm not stepping on your toes, darling, but I'm still one of them. It might help.
Private to Anya
If I'm going to handle the fallout from this with any degree of equanimity, you're ponying up. My place, bring rolling paper if you have any.
I need to talk to some of the inmates.
I'm sure many of you listened in yesterday, but here it is again, in case you got lost in it;
What we want to address is a system where some inmates regain access to their powers earlier than they might otherwise. This doesn't help any of you who had power and now have wardens- and I'm sorry about that, but we don't think the Admiral would go for it. He doesn't like to take power away from wardens who are in permanent pairings. It does impact you, though, so listen up.
For any wardens who are confused about why this might be necessary, things try to kill us here all the bloody time, and it's hideous to feel like your hands are tied behind your back. It contributes to the mistrust between the two ship bodies, when one half is systematically stripped of all weaponry, biological and otherwise, while the other half periodically gets swept up into a breach and tries to kill them. Or actually kills them. Just a few months ago, one of you went on a mad killing spree, and let's not forget, one of those victims hasn't come back. We count on death as impermanent here and it's complacent as hell. What's in place right now systematically exposes the inmates to a higher level of risk than it does the wardens.
For any of you who are confused about why I'm conceding to the system and contemplating anything other than the full and complete re-armament of all inmates, I'm from a world where concessions are a way of life. It probably comes of not having super powers. Besides, I live with you all, and I don't trust any of you as far as I could throw you.
What we're talking about a system where they get one bullet in the gun, and every time they want to reload, they've got to go back to someone who will give the situation a look-over to see if it was justified.
The issue we're all dancing around isn't whether or not they'll kill us. It's whether or not they'll play with us. If they go on a spree, fine, everyone here has been to hell and back, we'll all cope.
My nightmare scenario in this is a bunch of inmates getting their powers back and me being trapped on the same bloody boat as them while they go through their 'what's right and what's wrong' learning curve. I don't want some teenager zipping up behind me to make me start for a laugh, or tearing through the mess and switching everyone's plates around for a dumb prank. I don't want some girl deciding she likes the sound of me fetching her a cup of coffee and doing anything more than batting very human eyelashes to try to make me do it. Sorry to pick on the two kids who are instigating the conversation, but they're good examples.
I don't know them, I don't trust them, and I probably don't trust the warden who's going to make the call about trusting them, either. If they're going to get this power, then I personally want them scared to hell of using it. But if something like Zane happens again, I don't want them to be sitting ducks just because they happened to come from a world where they never had to fight any other way. Yes, the simple answer is that they should learn to do without, but the reality is that it takes a long time to learn how not to be killed.
Last thing. We want to put the 'was it worth it' decision in the hands of inmates, or two inmates and a warden- if you're seriously interested go back to Tiffany's post and read the whole conversation there. Actually, that's a fine place for this whole chat to take place, I just wanted us all on the same page for what's being proposed now.
She doesn't like things being private, but I don't care in the slightest. Get in touch with me here if there's something I'm not thinking about, or something you want to say but don't want a name to in public. Full confidentiality and amnesty will apply for the purposes of this afternoon.
I particularly want to hear from those of you who are angry. Particularly from those of you who wouldn't be likely to engage with the Admiral or wardens if something went incredibly fucking wrong.
Private to Omar.
You in particular. Am I totally off my fucking stride here, or is there something that could be worth it in this?
Private to Tiffany
Hope I'm not stepping on your toes, darling, but I'm still one of them. It might help.
Private to Anya
If I'm going to handle the fallout from this with any degree of equanimity, you're ponying up. My place, bring rolling paper if you have any.
voice: midnight ramble
Jun. 10th, 2015 10:17 pm[Ricki's insomnia is not getting all that much better. There isn't anything to do around during the day, exactly, either, but it's even worse at this hour in the morning. All he can think of is the library, again, and the network.
Today, it's;]
Who knows what about fruit hybrids? Did you know they've invented something called a pluot that's halfway between an apricot and a plum? I'm not an old fashioned bloke but that strikes me as a little ghastly.
[Flipping the age of his book.]
A plumcot. A pleacotum. This can't be real, it must be nonsense- here. Limequats. That, at least, is properly illustrative.
I'm pleased to see you haven't squandered the future that past generations won for you. Additionally, I think we should request all of these for the kitchen, immediately.
Today, it's;]
Who knows what about fruit hybrids? Did you know they've invented something called a pluot that's halfway between an apricot and a plum? I'm not an old fashioned bloke but that strikes me as a little ghastly.
[Flipping the age of his book.]
A plumcot. A pleacotum. This can't be real, it must be nonsense- here. Limequats. That, at least, is properly illustrative.
I'm pleased to see you haven't squandered the future that past generations won for you. Additionally, I think we should request all of these for the kitchen, immediately.
[Ricki has been passed over in this week's event- he isn't nearly trustworthy enough for the powers this week to have to begun to reflect his way. So, in the absence of any other mayhem or hysteria, it's been sort of a dragging week for him.
His answer had been to ensconce himself firmly in one of the library back rooms, and to tear his way voraciously through another shelf of the history section. Which leads, quite late one evening, to him activating his feed to explain, in the hushed tones most appropriate for the small hours of the night;]
Some time in the early 1600s in Japan, a young woman had a rather illicit relationship with a Chinese pirate lord. The unlikely pair had a son who they christened Zhèng Chénggōng.
[His accent is so adept as to be potentially noteworthy.]
Our story finds him in the waters between Xiamen and Taiwan. At that time, Xiamen was a young port city, whose traded goods included silver, imported from Spain into China. This trade route was a ripe target for local pirates, in particular, for some reason, the Dutch. They snuck their boats in among the myriad of little islands at the mouth of the Nine Dragons, the Mekong River, or Cửu Long, we called it, where I was growing up. Zhèng Chénggōng, also known as Koxinga, succeeded in fighting about the nastiest kind of warfare you can imagine, for that era. The battles were nasty, but eventually the Dutch fled Taiwan, and the man himself had accomplished this while embroiled in some of the ugliest dynastic struggle imaginable.
A Ming loyalist, he had narrowly survived his own father's terrible betrayal to the Qing family- which I believe, though I haven't been able to ascertain this as being completely true- ended with his father's imprisonment and the then-Emperor being thrown into a well. Zhèng established a small province in the South of Taiwan, where his family held the territory for a little over twenty years, until some business with an illegitimate heir resulted in too much political instability, and the little province was reabsorbed into Taiwan proper.
Oh, here it is- it is rumoured that Koxinga's death was the result of a sudden fit of madness. He had ordered his guards to execute his son. The young man had apparently had an affair with a wet-nurse... of some relative or another, it isn't specific, and when he was disobeyed, Koxinga flew into the sort of rage that could stop a man's heart. He was only thirty seven. That's what one source says; the other just bluntly states malaria.
There was a statue of Koxinga in Xiamen when I was there last, though it may very well be torn down by now. I remember seeing the stonework, but never being aware of the proper story.
[And, now he is, and so is anyone else up late and listening on this drowsy, slow-drifting spacey night.]
It was whispered to me then, somewhat illicitly, that the man had been raised by freed Muslim slaves, and may have practiced that faith in secret, though the books all mention Confucianism.
I do wonder.
[He always feels most imaginative during the very witching hour of night.]
His answer had been to ensconce himself firmly in one of the library back rooms, and to tear his way voraciously through another shelf of the history section. Which leads, quite late one evening, to him activating his feed to explain, in the hushed tones most appropriate for the small hours of the night;]
Some time in the early 1600s in Japan, a young woman had a rather illicit relationship with a Chinese pirate lord. The unlikely pair had a son who they christened Zhèng Chénggōng.
[His accent is so adept as to be potentially noteworthy.]
Our story finds him in the waters between Xiamen and Taiwan. At that time, Xiamen was a young port city, whose traded goods included silver, imported from Spain into China. This trade route was a ripe target for local pirates, in particular, for some reason, the Dutch. They snuck their boats in among the myriad of little islands at the mouth of the Nine Dragons, the Mekong River, or Cửu Long, we called it, where I was growing up. Zhèng Chénggōng, also known as Koxinga, succeeded in fighting about the nastiest kind of warfare you can imagine, for that era. The battles were nasty, but eventually the Dutch fled Taiwan, and the man himself had accomplished this while embroiled in some of the ugliest dynastic struggle imaginable.
A Ming loyalist, he had narrowly survived his own father's terrible betrayal to the Qing family- which I believe, though I haven't been able to ascertain this as being completely true- ended with his father's imprisonment and the then-Emperor being thrown into a well. Zhèng established a small province in the South of Taiwan, where his family held the territory for a little over twenty years, until some business with an illegitimate heir resulted in too much political instability, and the little province was reabsorbed into Taiwan proper.
Oh, here it is- it is rumoured that Koxinga's death was the result of a sudden fit of madness. He had ordered his guards to execute his son. The young man had apparently had an affair with a wet-nurse... of some relative or another, it isn't specific, and when he was disobeyed, Koxinga flew into the sort of rage that could stop a man's heart. He was only thirty seven. That's what one source says; the other just bluntly states malaria.
There was a statue of Koxinga in Xiamen when I was there last, though it may very well be torn down by now. I remember seeing the stonework, but never being aware of the proper story.
[And, now he is, and so is anyone else up late and listening on this drowsy, slow-drifting spacey night.]
It was whispered to me then, somewhat illicitly, that the man had been raised by freed Muslim slaves, and may have practiced that faith in secret, though the books all mention Confucianism.
I do wonder.
[He always feels most imaginative during the very witching hour of night.]
All right, this is all good fun and games, kids, but I'm going to be the one who spoils it by asking the question.
What the hell is going on?
And, for that matter, if we're the ones apparently running the show now, is anyone steering the boat?
[Ricki does not want the barge to smash into a sun and everyone to burn up, even though he's currently in the inmate-reclaimed bar and part of him is rather enjoying the fiddling.]
What the hell is going on?
And, for that matter, if we're the ones apparently running the show now, is anyone steering the boat?
[Ricki does not want the barge to smash into a sun and everyone to burn up, even though he's currently in the inmate-reclaimed bar and part of him is rather enjoying the fiddling.]
3. could be worse could be raining
Apr. 12th, 2015 01:53 pm[Audio]
These things, they're coming through holes in the fabric of... well, space itself. Is there any way to close them?
[Is the technical explanation that Ricki stumbles for. It's only a seventies scifi explanation of a phenomenon he barely understands, but it's what he's got right now.]
It means that until they stop opening, any of the normal tactics- a perimeter, a systematic sweep- are totally useless. They can crawl right in behind us. Normally I'd suggest gathering everyone in the mess and working our way out, but if a tear opens up in the back, it has the potential to turn into a slaughter. We actually may be best keeping the vulnerable on their own, in their rooms, while everyone who can tries to clear down the halls.
[Then, silence, and finally two quick gun shots. The feed remains dead a little bit, as he gets his adrenaline down. His voice is still low, very level, when he can continue.]
But that means people may be trapped without food. It might be worthwhile to get volunteers to make runs for their neighbours. It'd be better to work in pairs to accomplish that.
Anyone game? [And, belatedly.] Anyone trapped?
[He'd do a better job of organizing this if it weren't on the fly. But as it is, he can hear something approaching. Heavy footsteps that may only just be captured by the feed. Then there is the sound that some residents will recognize as a gun being reloaded, before the feed cuts off.]
[Spam]
[Ammunition is scarce, but Ricki makes the most of what he has, hoarding it closely as he makes his perilous way through the halls of the ship, sometimes hunting, occasionally being hunted. The gun helps against the felhunters, and he isn't shy of shooting the succubi either, but on more than one memorable occasion he gets into it with a golem and ends up having to run for it, god damn it.
He'll help and need help, both in reasonably equal measure.]
These things, they're coming through holes in the fabric of... well, space itself. Is there any way to close them?
[Is the technical explanation that Ricki stumbles for. It's only a seventies scifi explanation of a phenomenon he barely understands, but it's what he's got right now.]
It means that until they stop opening, any of the normal tactics- a perimeter, a systematic sweep- are totally useless. They can crawl right in behind us. Normally I'd suggest gathering everyone in the mess and working our way out, but if a tear opens up in the back, it has the potential to turn into a slaughter. We actually may be best keeping the vulnerable on their own, in their rooms, while everyone who can tries to clear down the halls.
[Then, silence, and finally two quick gun shots. The feed remains dead a little bit, as he gets his adrenaline down. His voice is still low, very level, when he can continue.]
But that means people may be trapped without food. It might be worthwhile to get volunteers to make runs for their neighbours. It'd be better to work in pairs to accomplish that.
Anyone game? [And, belatedly.] Anyone trapped?
[He'd do a better job of organizing this if it weren't on the fly. But as it is, he can hear something approaching. Heavy footsteps that may only just be captured by the feed. Then there is the sound that some residents will recognize as a gun being reloaded, before the feed cuts off.]
[Spam]
[Ammunition is scarce, but Ricki makes the most of what he has, hoarding it closely as he makes his perilous way through the halls of the ship, sometimes hunting, occasionally being hunted. The gun helps against the felhunters, and he isn't shy of shooting the succubi either, but on more than one memorable occasion he gets into it with a golem and ends up having to run for it, god damn it.
He'll help and need help, both in reasonably equal measure.]
2. and the breaking point
Mar. 22nd, 2015 10:38 am[Video]
[He'd woken up this morning to a terrible new alteration to his body, and to Zane's (rather terrifying) network announcement. So, subdued, short;]
I don't know what the hell is wrong with you people, but this place is fucking dreadful. Someone let us know when the rampage killing lunatic has-
[Fuck. He stops himself, because he hadn't intended to let his temper get away with him. This isn't helping anyone. He, quite visibly, draws a breath in through his nose, lets it out through his mouth.]
I'm sorry. I hope there can be an announcement when the halls are safe again.
[Spam]
[The flood really hasn't been good to him. He gives up on staying holed into his cabin, and makes the trek to go get breakfast. He looks rather unusual, in a low slung pair of jeans and a sheet wrapped around his head and shoulders, held together over his chest with one hand, like a grandmother with a massive shawl.
It's better than going shirtless, which is his only other option. By the way his bedsheet tents up the centre of his back, something is clearly wrong with his spine. When he gets his tray, one handed, and the hood of sheet over his head spills back to reveal a dip at the top of his shoulders, a keen observer will catch sight of a ridge of uncomfortable protruding plates. They're interspersed enough that the movements of his spine are only a little restricted, though twisting side to side more than a bare inch is impossible.
So, he learns quickly, is sitting back comfortably against anything. He perches up gingerly on the edge of his chair, flings one end of the sheet over his shoulder like a scarf to free up his hands a little better, and starts to stab at his meal. He is in a mildly better mood than he was earlier.
Very mildly.]
[He'd woken up this morning to a terrible new alteration to his body, and to Zane's (rather terrifying) network announcement. So, subdued, short;]
I don't know what the hell is wrong with you people, but this place is fucking dreadful. Someone let us know when the rampage killing lunatic has-
[Fuck. He stops himself, because he hadn't intended to let his temper get away with him. This isn't helping anyone. He, quite visibly, draws a breath in through his nose, lets it out through his mouth.]
I'm sorry. I hope there can be an announcement when the halls are safe again.
[Spam]
[The flood really hasn't been good to him. He gives up on staying holed into his cabin, and makes the trek to go get breakfast. He looks rather unusual, in a low slung pair of jeans and a sheet wrapped around his head and shoulders, held together over his chest with one hand, like a grandmother with a massive shawl.
It's better than going shirtless, which is his only other option. By the way his bedsheet tents up the centre of his back, something is clearly wrong with his spine. When he gets his tray, one handed, and the hood of sheet over his head spills back to reveal a dip at the top of his shoulders, a keen observer will catch sight of a ridge of uncomfortable protruding plates. They're interspersed enough that the movements of his spine are only a little restricted, though twisting side to side more than a bare inch is impossible.
So, he learns quickly, is sitting back comfortably against anything. He perches up gingerly on the edge of his chair, flings one end of the sheet over his shoulder like a scarf to free up his hands a little better, and starts to stab at his meal. He is in a mildly better mood than he was earlier.
Very mildly.]
[Ricki Tarr, latest inmate arrival, is still getting his feet under him. He's been on board for a little while now, but let's face it, he's a field agent from the 1970s, getting used to graphical user interfaces of his messenger has put up a bit of a roadblock in terms of his making contact.
By the time he's confident enough with the flimsy, cheeping little device to make a video post, his stomach is growling, so the very first message is a simple video shot.
It's poorly framed, he has no real idea of how to centre himself in the lens, and the light in his room is dark and low and terrible for any sort of filming. But from the dark, what's visible of his half-in-the-frame expression is still and steady;]
( cut for the cruel and sorrowful story of Laika, the first dog in space )
By the time he's confident enough with the flimsy, cheeping little device to make a video post, his stomach is growling, so the very first message is a simple video shot.
It's poorly framed, he has no real idea of how to centre himself in the lens, and the light in his room is dark and low and terrible for any sort of filming. But from the dark, what's visible of his half-in-the-frame expression is still and steady;]
( cut for the cruel and sorrowful story of Laika, the first dog in space )
tlv application
Feb. 28th, 2015 06:08 pmUser Name/Nick: Steph
User DW: knights_say_nih
AIM/IM: UndrwO
E-mail: underwater.owl@gmail.com
Other Characters: None
Character Name: Ricki Tarr
Series: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (film primarily, backstory from the novel)
Age: Early thirties
From When?: The moment of his theoretical post-canonical death, on his knees in a back alley in then-Borneo, a gun to the back of his head.
Inmate/Warden: Inmate—Ricki is a violent man, a spy, an absent father and a cad. He worked for the most violent, bottom tier of British Intelligence as raw muscle, then as a recruiter, and is as dangerous a man in that world as it as possible to be.
Abilities/Powers: A Sarrat-trained operative for the Circus, and a rough and tumble child besides, Ricki is physically human but trained and dangerous.
Personality: Ricki Tarr is one of those characters that has a series of different faces, each projected in turn as a dancing series of feints to keep strangers from getting anywhere close to him. An operative for British Intelligence, the ‘surface projection’ identity he works with is fluid, but tends to be lighthearted, a frequenter of bars, a seducer of women.
He’s observant, but quick with a smile, a quip, likes to drive convertibles around the shoreline on sunny days. Even when he isn’t working, you get a sense that the sly tongue and ready laugh aren’t entirely his persona, that he tends to be good humoured by nature. It's hard to tell where the good ends and the bad begins, because it's sort of his style to slip jabs in with a smile, but on the whole the majority of people who deal with him will have the sense that he's a nice, gregarious, man. A 'cool cat' if you forgive the seventies parlance, which is when his canon is set.
It makes his deeply violent streak all the more terrifying. Ricki works for the messiest part of the Circus, as a foreign operative doing ‘wetwork’ and recruiting sources, and kills ruthlessly, if it seems infrequently, in service of his work. His penchant for violence preceded the work, but was certainly honed by his recruitment and training. It slips occasionally into his personal life. He runs into a room and finds a disemboweled man in a bathtub unexpectedly, but beyond one blink keeps right on functioning, unruffled.
Ricki has an oh-so-slightly insubordinate way about him, but with a intelligence and charm to him that make it hard to call him on the behaviour. His boss refers to him as ‘accident prone,’ tending to get himself into situations that simply require him to go off script and abandon his handler’s directives in such a way that it seems completely necessary in the post-mortem breakdown. It makes him difficult to discipline without seeming despotic, and is part of what makes him so frustrating to deal with. He has a complex relationship with authority, thanks to an abusive father and his unorthodox career. He seems simultaneously inclined to try to nettle anyone with any sort of power over him, and yet to have to trust them suicidally and completely, despite knowing that they may very well see him as completely disposable. As closed off as he is in other respects, as immune to violence, his part in the film opens with him sitting, nervous and sometimes weeping, on his superior’s couch, telling him everything.
When you peel all that back, he’s deeply intelligent and keenly observant, thanks in part to his training but also to innate ability. He’d initially read for the bar but been too intent on breaking the law to ever work in it. The whole series is something of a push-back against the glitzy glam James Bond spy, half the characters are middle aged men leafing through notebooks and decoding more code, and Ricki is the closest thing there is to an exception to this rule. Instead of cultured, though, he’s played crass, strong and solemn and a little tatty, and not at all flash. He's actually from Asia originally, but an expat family, and you are given the deliberate sense that it's not a particularly good family, by society standards. Ricki feels rough in more ways than he does smooth.
When he tells stories, he’s described as having a total and perfect stillness to him, recalling events in tremendous detail as though hearing his own voice describe them back to him. He is patient when he wants to be.
He’s also a sort of incoherent romantic. The tears he sheds in front of his handler, earlier, were for the life of Irina, young woman whom he’d unintentionally gotten captured while in the process of turning her to their side. He talks about needing to save her, owing her, adoring her, despite the briefness of their fling and the fact that he’d been seducing her with hopes to bring her over.
He also talks about his young daughter, holing up with her and her mother during the book in their native Kuala Lampur. When he's in trouble that's where he goes. He is referenced to have ‘wives around the globe’ and the woman in Kuala Lampur as 'currently leading the pack,' but this doesn’t seem to disqualify his desire to rescue Irina. Whether he intends to add her to their numbers, or to hole up with her and his daughter and daughter’s mother one day and just get away from it all isn't clear. It's even possible that, given the brevity of their actual relationship and its' being founded so heavily on lies, she represents an idea more than a person, a deep romanticism for loving and saving women. Though it's not handled explicitly in the book, and left out entirely in the film, there's clearly some sort of dissonance going on there. I would speculate that it's related to compartmentalization, to living one life with his wife and child (actually barely living it, he's absent most of the time and in the 1970s Kuala Lampur is hardly in close and easy contact with the outside world) so rather to leaving them as a sacrosanct island, representing home and safety, that he lives largely outside of with another identity entirely, himself as spy.
As The infidelity is slightly morally repugnant, but in the context of the book and film it’s just so refreshing to see someone invested in the wellbeing of another person that it actually really touching and romantic somehow? Maybe that just provides a more stark sense of the incredibly low standards for human decency in the twisted and shady world of espionage. Him expressing genuine grief, even over such an unorthodox situation, is really striking.
With regards to the romance in particular, Ricki has a slight ability not to see his own wrongdoing at every given moment. Early in his career he had what he refers to as 'a brush with a honeytrap' meaning being seduced by the enemy. Regarding Irina, he talks about her being pushed to tears or pushed to confess things as though it had happened quite spontaneously, as though he hadn't had a role in drawing these details and things out of her. This isn't to say he doesn't feel guilty, he clearly does, but when he talks about it there's a sort of ringing disconnect between the feeling and his out-loud interpretation of the past. Remorse without explicit acknowledgement.
Summed up, his personality is best described as profoundly dysfunctional, anesthetized to the suffering of others and out of touch with his own moral compass, meaning well(ish) but ultimately a terrifying muddle.
Barge Reactions: Ricki will have his ‘spy face’ on for the Barge, and will react with bright, glossy laughing marvel, wrinkling his nose at the gross things and shaking his head at the strange things and generally putting on a shiny, candy coloured front of a nice, reasonable person. Underneath that he will be deeply, violently, brutally suspicious and will try to find a way to start sleeping with a proverbial knife under his pillow.
This is partially due to his being an inmate, which will be a profoundly triggering experience for him, thanks again to teenaged years spent as a son of a persecuted Christian minister in the Japanese Changi Prison. More than that, though, for someone so wary and used to people trying to kill him, having his world view tilt on its’ head will be traumatic. He relies on seeing, understanding and controlling his environment to survive. He’ll try to cope with some of the difference by at least keeping a good mask up, but will be in pretty constant fight-or-flight for a good long while.
If he has the opportunity he is likely to be in trouble over his adjustment period for some pretty deeply violent overreactions, purely motivated by fear and a profound lack of control. This may not happen within the first few weeks, or even the first few months necessarily. He’ll be too intelligent to slip up unless something really rattles him, but especially insightful wardens may notice he has a vague sense of the ticking time bomb about him.
Regarding his Lothario status, I don't foresee Ricki trying to pick up too many women on the Barge. He would need to be in just the right sweet spot of settled down enough and not redeemed enough, and it would need to be just the right kind of woman... chances seem small. He may very well flirt, but without much bite.
Path to Redemption: I think that a lot of Ricki’s buttons are going to have to do with trust and intelligence and boundary pushing. I can see him really testing his Warden, being good, gaming his way through the system, getting in trouble and crashing back down through it. The key to an ineffective relationship with him is getting locked into a battle of stubbornness over something petty, and the key to a disastrous relationship with him is letting him outmanipulate his warden.
Positive approaches, however, would be steadfastness and trustworthiness. I think a big part of his problems in canon, as I see it, come from being a directionless kid, age 18, recovering from his horrible parenting (seriously, his father sounds like an asshole- the guy was put in prison and continued to preach so loudly that his wife and son were both targets for religious persecution alongside him, and then when Ricki got older tried to ‘beat the sin out of him’) but instead of being taken in by someone reasonable and grown up, he fell in with the Circus who put him to work murdering people and running guns, but not before interrogating him somewhat messily and ‘training’ him for several sinister years. His devotion to his superiors is pockmarked and strange, sometimes seemingly absent and sometimes really more than they deserve. He goes on to put himself in pretty severe danger for them to save the day in the story, and throws himself at their mercy at several key plot moments.
There’s a scene in the film version where his immediate superior, Peter Guillam, walks in on him unexpectedly when he believes that Ricki has betrayed him. He grabs him by the shirt front, standing over him, and punches him several times in the face, before his colleagues succeed in pulling him off and explaining that Ricki has been framed. Throughout the attack, Ricki doesn’t protest or move to defend himself, and doesn’t seem to resent it after the fact, passively licking the blood off his lip and casting him a glance that’s only barely reproachful, continuing as though the incident hasn’t occurred. Another approach could certainly be working with someone who a) never gets him to murder people and b) doesn’t punch him in the face. Consistently morally upright instruction, ie “no Ricki, I see how it could be convenient if you did kill that person but please don’t” particularly from someone who does understand high stakes, casualties, collateral, compromise, would do him a world of good in realigning his own moral compass. He would work best with a Warden who had grappled with some of those difficult questions and come out with a good moral ballast.
He will hate being condescended to, and push back hard against any pop psychology, but definitely stands a very good chance of making it through.
History: Ricki Tarr grew up in Penang, son of an Australian solicitor and British actress. The war saw them evacuated to Singapore, which unfortunately fell a few months later, and young Ricki and his parents were imprisoned in Changi jail under the Japanese. There, his father found a renewed faith in God, and preached loud and long to fellow inmates, resulting in difficulties for the family, traumatizing for Ricki in particular because of his inability to escape or control the situation in the slightest. After they were freed, the family returned to Penang and Ricki’s run-ins with the local law began. Mild crimes escalated gradually until Ricki’s father turned to the church, and had a few rough preachers try to ‘beat the sin out of his soul,’ which was apparently how things were done in the fifties.
Ricki gave up on his family then and there and bolted to Borneo, where he got heavy into gunrunning and got into considerable trouble running scams and causing various parties on the Indonesian isles to chase alternately him and their own tails. A local intelligence man named Mackelvore found him, a little bit heartbroken, a little bit of an alcoholic, but insisted that the young man had potential and sent him off to Singapore for some higher ups to have a look at that.
From there he was sent to Sarratt, to the infamous Nursery, where he was first stripped down to base components in the ungentle way of the agency, to be absolutely sure there was no chance that he was already working for the other side. Once assured that he was theirs, he was educated in various elements of espionage and violence, and graduated a few years later. They sent him back to gunrunning, explaining his few years of absence away, not that many people asked. His old contacts were running guns to the Communists, so he worked with them for a few weeks, picking off and identifying each and every one of them in systematic order, before killing his old friends (an ex-girlfriend among them) and setting fire to their boat.
From there, more training, and off to Kenya and a somewhat ignominious career marked by several scandals. Ricki was a ‘scalphunter,’ a rough term for someone who recruits willing and unwilling sources of information, who cuts and runs and burns when he needs to. Through his twenties (and the sixties) he accidentally handled a Brazilian minister too roughly and got into a bit of a mess with the press, and then had one of his marks, a Polish diplomat he’d been working in Spain, crumple under some heavy handed blackmail and jump from a high window. These were mostly overshone by a reputation for patience, ingenuity, diligence, but despite his very best work the rest of the time a reputation like that generally isn’t wiped away.
Thus, when he disappeared off the map in Istanbul, his immediate superior, Peter Guillam, wasn’t too concerned. Tarr had a habit of going not-quite-by-the-book, so nothing more was thought of it. In fact, something serious was going on. Ricki had been following a man named Boris, whom he was convinced was a nothing, a waste of time, when he met the man’s wife. Irina seemed to have something to her, so Ricki had turned her, offered her protection in exchange for information. She had informed him that there was a mole at the top of Circus, and he had informed Circus of such. Unfortunately, his missive had clearly reached the mole, because very quickly she was moved on by Russian agents, the information that she’d trusted him with, that he’d in turn trusted his superiors with, being fed right back to the people who she’d been betraying to him.
Ricki, panicked, had gone underground before returning back to London. He’d gotten in contact with Undersecretary Oliver Lacon, letting him know that Circus had been compromised, and kicking off the entire plot of Tinker Tailor. The mole had succeeded in framing Ricki’s flight as him defecting, and so, knowing that both the Russians and Circus were out to kill him, Ricki risked life and limb to go to George Smiley, the man in charge of the operation to catch the mole, and told his story. He’d agreed to help any way he could, provided that Smiley and Guillam would try to rescue Irina, to trade for her in some way. Both agents had been already aware that Irina was dead, murdered for her treason, but Smiley promised to do his best in order to ensure Ricki’s continued cooperation.
Whether or not he’d been aware of this last doublecross is somewhat unclear. He seems so dejected that you get the sense that he simply must, but serves as bait nonetheless to capture the mole and help save the integrity of the agency. We never see his reaction to the news of her death, what he finds out or doesn’t about Smiley’s using him. He slips quietly from the picture after his usefulness has been served.
Sample Journal Entry: I must admit.
[He says, between deep, heaving breaths. He’s in his cabin, doing situps, because situps are what one does in a prison cell. The rhythm helps focus him. The words come out choppy, between each push.]
When I heard the phrase ‘space ship’ this is actually not too far removed from what came to mind.
[Ever so slightly breathless.]
However, the saucer-shapes of the twenty five cent pulp covers seem more intuitive. Less idiosyncratic. Less ridiculous.
[Letting himself, for a split second, given in to his ever so slightly foul temper, mouth curving in a deep frown. He smoothes away as soon as he catches it, and gives up on this activity, sitting up and reaching for a towel, wiping the sweat off his face as he searches for words. He should finish this with something to soften it, but just musters a grin- a good one mind you, a friendly, deprecating, earnest smile, and disconnects.]
Sample RP:
It takes several weeks for Ricki to be able to make himself stand still and look out at the stars going by. At first he chalks his reluctance up to a feeling of profound vertigo, and while that’s fair, it goes a little beyond that. When he keeps his eyes averted from the outside he can let himself pretend he’s on solid ground, or sometimes on a large and very luxe ship, or even at worst in a normal, human prison. A prison staffed by the most sanctimonious and unorthodox guards imaginable, certainly, but something from earth nonetheless. When his self-delusion persists and persists, he finally finds he can’t stand himself any longer, and moves to press his nose up against the glass- god, is it even glass? He grips the windowsill with both hands for the first few seconds, watching the nighttime swirl of lights float by, and hangs on like that, staring, until he can gradually force himself to relax each muscle individually. Until he can stand watching the vortex, posture perfectly at ease, eyes half hooded and features schooled into relaxation, casually as he might watch the sea lapping at the sides of the boats in the port back in Istanbul. At last, when even his breathing is slow and steady, in and out through his nose and to just the right depth in his chest, he turns away as though nothing has happened and ambles his way back downstairs.
Pressed to talk about the strange behaviour, he won’t.
Special Notes: None!
User DW: knights_say_nih
AIM/IM: UndrwO
E-mail: underwater.owl@gmail.com
Other Characters: None
Character Name: Ricki Tarr
Series: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (film primarily, backstory from the novel)
Age: Early thirties
From When?: The moment of his theoretical post-canonical death, on his knees in a back alley in then-Borneo, a gun to the back of his head.
Inmate/Warden: Inmate—Ricki is a violent man, a spy, an absent father and a cad. He worked for the most violent, bottom tier of British Intelligence as raw muscle, then as a recruiter, and is as dangerous a man in that world as it as possible to be.
Abilities/Powers: A Sarrat-trained operative for the Circus, and a rough and tumble child besides, Ricki is physically human but trained and dangerous.
Personality: Ricki Tarr is one of those characters that has a series of different faces, each projected in turn as a dancing series of feints to keep strangers from getting anywhere close to him. An operative for British Intelligence, the ‘surface projection’ identity he works with is fluid, but tends to be lighthearted, a frequenter of bars, a seducer of women.
He’s observant, but quick with a smile, a quip, likes to drive convertibles around the shoreline on sunny days. Even when he isn’t working, you get a sense that the sly tongue and ready laugh aren’t entirely his persona, that he tends to be good humoured by nature. It's hard to tell where the good ends and the bad begins, because it's sort of his style to slip jabs in with a smile, but on the whole the majority of people who deal with him will have the sense that he's a nice, gregarious, man. A 'cool cat' if you forgive the seventies parlance, which is when his canon is set.
It makes his deeply violent streak all the more terrifying. Ricki works for the messiest part of the Circus, as a foreign operative doing ‘wetwork’ and recruiting sources, and kills ruthlessly, if it seems infrequently, in service of his work. His penchant for violence preceded the work, but was certainly honed by his recruitment and training. It slips occasionally into his personal life. He runs into a room and finds a disemboweled man in a bathtub unexpectedly, but beyond one blink keeps right on functioning, unruffled.
Ricki has an oh-so-slightly insubordinate way about him, but with a intelligence and charm to him that make it hard to call him on the behaviour. His boss refers to him as ‘accident prone,’ tending to get himself into situations that simply require him to go off script and abandon his handler’s directives in such a way that it seems completely necessary in the post-mortem breakdown. It makes him difficult to discipline without seeming despotic, and is part of what makes him so frustrating to deal with. He has a complex relationship with authority, thanks to an abusive father and his unorthodox career. He seems simultaneously inclined to try to nettle anyone with any sort of power over him, and yet to have to trust them suicidally and completely, despite knowing that they may very well see him as completely disposable. As closed off as he is in other respects, as immune to violence, his part in the film opens with him sitting, nervous and sometimes weeping, on his superior’s couch, telling him everything.
When you peel all that back, he’s deeply intelligent and keenly observant, thanks in part to his training but also to innate ability. He’d initially read for the bar but been too intent on breaking the law to ever work in it. The whole series is something of a push-back against the glitzy glam James Bond spy, half the characters are middle aged men leafing through notebooks and decoding more code, and Ricki is the closest thing there is to an exception to this rule. Instead of cultured, though, he’s played crass, strong and solemn and a little tatty, and not at all flash. He's actually from Asia originally, but an expat family, and you are given the deliberate sense that it's not a particularly good family, by society standards. Ricki feels rough in more ways than he does smooth.
When he tells stories, he’s described as having a total and perfect stillness to him, recalling events in tremendous detail as though hearing his own voice describe them back to him. He is patient when he wants to be.
He’s also a sort of incoherent romantic. The tears he sheds in front of his handler, earlier, were for the life of Irina, young woman whom he’d unintentionally gotten captured while in the process of turning her to their side. He talks about needing to save her, owing her, adoring her, despite the briefness of their fling and the fact that he’d been seducing her with hopes to bring her over.
He also talks about his young daughter, holing up with her and her mother during the book in their native Kuala Lampur. When he's in trouble that's where he goes. He is referenced to have ‘wives around the globe’ and the woman in Kuala Lampur as 'currently leading the pack,' but this doesn’t seem to disqualify his desire to rescue Irina. Whether he intends to add her to their numbers, or to hole up with her and his daughter and daughter’s mother one day and just get away from it all isn't clear. It's even possible that, given the brevity of their actual relationship and its' being founded so heavily on lies, she represents an idea more than a person, a deep romanticism for loving and saving women. Though it's not handled explicitly in the book, and left out entirely in the film, there's clearly some sort of dissonance going on there. I would speculate that it's related to compartmentalization, to living one life with his wife and child (actually barely living it, he's absent most of the time and in the 1970s Kuala Lampur is hardly in close and easy contact with the outside world) so rather to leaving them as a sacrosanct island, representing home and safety, that he lives largely outside of with another identity entirely, himself as spy.
As The infidelity is slightly morally repugnant, but in the context of the book and film it’s just so refreshing to see someone invested in the wellbeing of another person that it actually really touching and romantic somehow? Maybe that just provides a more stark sense of the incredibly low standards for human decency in the twisted and shady world of espionage. Him expressing genuine grief, even over such an unorthodox situation, is really striking.
With regards to the romance in particular, Ricki has a slight ability not to see his own wrongdoing at every given moment. Early in his career he had what he refers to as 'a brush with a honeytrap' meaning being seduced by the enemy. Regarding Irina, he talks about her being pushed to tears or pushed to confess things as though it had happened quite spontaneously, as though he hadn't had a role in drawing these details and things out of her. This isn't to say he doesn't feel guilty, he clearly does, but when he talks about it there's a sort of ringing disconnect between the feeling and his out-loud interpretation of the past. Remorse without explicit acknowledgement.
Summed up, his personality is best described as profoundly dysfunctional, anesthetized to the suffering of others and out of touch with his own moral compass, meaning well(ish) but ultimately a terrifying muddle.
Barge Reactions: Ricki will have his ‘spy face’ on for the Barge, and will react with bright, glossy laughing marvel, wrinkling his nose at the gross things and shaking his head at the strange things and generally putting on a shiny, candy coloured front of a nice, reasonable person. Underneath that he will be deeply, violently, brutally suspicious and will try to find a way to start sleeping with a proverbial knife under his pillow.
This is partially due to his being an inmate, which will be a profoundly triggering experience for him, thanks again to teenaged years spent as a son of a persecuted Christian minister in the Japanese Changi Prison. More than that, though, for someone so wary and used to people trying to kill him, having his world view tilt on its’ head will be traumatic. He relies on seeing, understanding and controlling his environment to survive. He’ll try to cope with some of the difference by at least keeping a good mask up, but will be in pretty constant fight-or-flight for a good long while.
If he has the opportunity he is likely to be in trouble over his adjustment period for some pretty deeply violent overreactions, purely motivated by fear and a profound lack of control. This may not happen within the first few weeks, or even the first few months necessarily. He’ll be too intelligent to slip up unless something really rattles him, but especially insightful wardens may notice he has a vague sense of the ticking time bomb about him.
Regarding his Lothario status, I don't foresee Ricki trying to pick up too many women on the Barge. He would need to be in just the right sweet spot of settled down enough and not redeemed enough, and it would need to be just the right kind of woman... chances seem small. He may very well flirt, but without much bite.
Path to Redemption: I think that a lot of Ricki’s buttons are going to have to do with trust and intelligence and boundary pushing. I can see him really testing his Warden, being good, gaming his way through the system, getting in trouble and crashing back down through it. The key to an ineffective relationship with him is getting locked into a battle of stubbornness over something petty, and the key to a disastrous relationship with him is letting him outmanipulate his warden.
Positive approaches, however, would be steadfastness and trustworthiness. I think a big part of his problems in canon, as I see it, come from being a directionless kid, age 18, recovering from his horrible parenting (seriously, his father sounds like an asshole- the guy was put in prison and continued to preach so loudly that his wife and son were both targets for religious persecution alongside him, and then when Ricki got older tried to ‘beat the sin out of him’) but instead of being taken in by someone reasonable and grown up, he fell in with the Circus who put him to work murdering people and running guns, but not before interrogating him somewhat messily and ‘training’ him for several sinister years. His devotion to his superiors is pockmarked and strange, sometimes seemingly absent and sometimes really more than they deserve. He goes on to put himself in pretty severe danger for them to save the day in the story, and throws himself at their mercy at several key plot moments.
There’s a scene in the film version where his immediate superior, Peter Guillam, walks in on him unexpectedly when he believes that Ricki has betrayed him. He grabs him by the shirt front, standing over him, and punches him several times in the face, before his colleagues succeed in pulling him off and explaining that Ricki has been framed. Throughout the attack, Ricki doesn’t protest or move to defend himself, and doesn’t seem to resent it after the fact, passively licking the blood off his lip and casting him a glance that’s only barely reproachful, continuing as though the incident hasn’t occurred. Another approach could certainly be working with someone who a) never gets him to murder people and b) doesn’t punch him in the face. Consistently morally upright instruction, ie “no Ricki, I see how it could be convenient if you did kill that person but please don’t” particularly from someone who does understand high stakes, casualties, collateral, compromise, would do him a world of good in realigning his own moral compass. He would work best with a Warden who had grappled with some of those difficult questions and come out with a good moral ballast.
He will hate being condescended to, and push back hard against any pop psychology, but definitely stands a very good chance of making it through.
History: Ricki Tarr grew up in Penang, son of an Australian solicitor and British actress. The war saw them evacuated to Singapore, which unfortunately fell a few months later, and young Ricki and his parents were imprisoned in Changi jail under the Japanese. There, his father found a renewed faith in God, and preached loud and long to fellow inmates, resulting in difficulties for the family, traumatizing for Ricki in particular because of his inability to escape or control the situation in the slightest. After they were freed, the family returned to Penang and Ricki’s run-ins with the local law began. Mild crimes escalated gradually until Ricki’s father turned to the church, and had a few rough preachers try to ‘beat the sin out of his soul,’ which was apparently how things were done in the fifties.
Ricki gave up on his family then and there and bolted to Borneo, where he got heavy into gunrunning and got into considerable trouble running scams and causing various parties on the Indonesian isles to chase alternately him and their own tails. A local intelligence man named Mackelvore found him, a little bit heartbroken, a little bit of an alcoholic, but insisted that the young man had potential and sent him off to Singapore for some higher ups to have a look at that.
From there he was sent to Sarratt, to the infamous Nursery, where he was first stripped down to base components in the ungentle way of the agency, to be absolutely sure there was no chance that he was already working for the other side. Once assured that he was theirs, he was educated in various elements of espionage and violence, and graduated a few years later. They sent him back to gunrunning, explaining his few years of absence away, not that many people asked. His old contacts were running guns to the Communists, so he worked with them for a few weeks, picking off and identifying each and every one of them in systematic order, before killing his old friends (an ex-girlfriend among them) and setting fire to their boat.
From there, more training, and off to Kenya and a somewhat ignominious career marked by several scandals. Ricki was a ‘scalphunter,’ a rough term for someone who recruits willing and unwilling sources of information, who cuts and runs and burns when he needs to. Through his twenties (and the sixties) he accidentally handled a Brazilian minister too roughly and got into a bit of a mess with the press, and then had one of his marks, a Polish diplomat he’d been working in Spain, crumple under some heavy handed blackmail and jump from a high window. These were mostly overshone by a reputation for patience, ingenuity, diligence, but despite his very best work the rest of the time a reputation like that generally isn’t wiped away.
Thus, when he disappeared off the map in Istanbul, his immediate superior, Peter Guillam, wasn’t too concerned. Tarr had a habit of going not-quite-by-the-book, so nothing more was thought of it. In fact, something serious was going on. Ricki had been following a man named Boris, whom he was convinced was a nothing, a waste of time, when he met the man’s wife. Irina seemed to have something to her, so Ricki had turned her, offered her protection in exchange for information. She had informed him that there was a mole at the top of Circus, and he had informed Circus of such. Unfortunately, his missive had clearly reached the mole, because very quickly she was moved on by Russian agents, the information that she’d trusted him with, that he’d in turn trusted his superiors with, being fed right back to the people who she’d been betraying to him.
Ricki, panicked, had gone underground before returning back to London. He’d gotten in contact with Undersecretary Oliver Lacon, letting him know that Circus had been compromised, and kicking off the entire plot of Tinker Tailor. The mole had succeeded in framing Ricki’s flight as him defecting, and so, knowing that both the Russians and Circus were out to kill him, Ricki risked life and limb to go to George Smiley, the man in charge of the operation to catch the mole, and told his story. He’d agreed to help any way he could, provided that Smiley and Guillam would try to rescue Irina, to trade for her in some way. Both agents had been already aware that Irina was dead, murdered for her treason, but Smiley promised to do his best in order to ensure Ricki’s continued cooperation.
Whether or not he’d been aware of this last doublecross is somewhat unclear. He seems so dejected that you get the sense that he simply must, but serves as bait nonetheless to capture the mole and help save the integrity of the agency. We never see his reaction to the news of her death, what he finds out or doesn’t about Smiley’s using him. He slips quietly from the picture after his usefulness has been served.
Sample Journal Entry: I must admit.
[He says, between deep, heaving breaths. He’s in his cabin, doing situps, because situps are what one does in a prison cell. The rhythm helps focus him. The words come out choppy, between each push.]
When I heard the phrase ‘space ship’ this is actually not too far removed from what came to mind.
[Ever so slightly breathless.]
However, the saucer-shapes of the twenty five cent pulp covers seem more intuitive. Less idiosyncratic. Less ridiculous.
[Letting himself, for a split second, given in to his ever so slightly foul temper, mouth curving in a deep frown. He smoothes away as soon as he catches it, and gives up on this activity, sitting up and reaching for a towel, wiping the sweat off his face as he searches for words. He should finish this with something to soften it, but just musters a grin- a good one mind you, a friendly, deprecating, earnest smile, and disconnects.]
Sample RP:
It takes several weeks for Ricki to be able to make himself stand still and look out at the stars going by. At first he chalks his reluctance up to a feeling of profound vertigo, and while that’s fair, it goes a little beyond that. When he keeps his eyes averted from the outside he can let himself pretend he’s on solid ground, or sometimes on a large and very luxe ship, or even at worst in a normal, human prison. A prison staffed by the most sanctimonious and unorthodox guards imaginable, certainly, but something from earth nonetheless. When his self-delusion persists and persists, he finally finds he can’t stand himself any longer, and moves to press his nose up against the glass- god, is it even glass? He grips the windowsill with both hands for the first few seconds, watching the nighttime swirl of lights float by, and hangs on like that, staring, until he can gradually force himself to relax each muscle individually. Until he can stand watching the vortex, posture perfectly at ease, eyes half hooded and features schooled into relaxation, casually as he might watch the sea lapping at the sides of the boats in the port back in Istanbul. At last, when even his breathing is slow and steady, in and out through his nose and to just the right depth in his chest, he turns away as though nothing has happened and ambles his way back downstairs.
Pressed to talk about the strange behaviour, he won’t.
Special Notes: None!