alrighty, seeing as Julian is an OC I would love any and all criticism you have for him - there's always room for him to grow and I enjoy hearing constructive crit!

All the usual stuff - no IP, anon enabled 

Player Information:
Name: Shaz
Journal: scissorbite
Method of Contact: AIM: fizzyfeelgood
Previous characters: None!


Character Information:
Full Name: Julian Dixon-Ross
Series: Original Character
Canon point: n/a
Age: 113 years all told but 20 years in physical body age (b. 1897, d. 1917).
Species: Vampire
Appearance/PB: Gregoire Leprince-Ringuet. For someone who is essentially a mobile corpse Julian is startlingly life-life in how he moves and presents himself. Despite not needing to breathe and not having any of the involuntary reactions of a human, Julian is very careful to remember to do things like blink, breathe and cough. He doesn't do this for his own benefit but rather because he thinks it makes him subconsciously more likeable by other people. He is startlingly pale and his skin has the cold and unfortunately waxy texture of a corpse. When fed regularly he is significantly more human to the touch and seems to take on a more lifelike complexion in his face.

With no ability to gauge the temperature Julian is very careful to dress in accordance with how others dress: in winter he wears coats and scarves and in the summer he'll wear short-sleeved shirts – but only ever because he sees other people wearing them. Julian is an informal dresser but still maintains standards: he's never owned a pair of trainers and seems to live in a perpetual range of chinos, buttoned shirts and comfy jumpers. As much as he would love to be able to buy from high street stores or charity shops, Julian buys all of his clothes online and because of this sometimes they don't fit very well.
Appearance upon arrival: As above: deck shoes, chino trousers, button-up shirt and jumper with a coat and scarf (for image's sake). He's not a very adventurous dresser. At all. 
However! How long he will stay like that depends on the time of day that he arrives. Should he be yanked in to the middle of the day at Splendor he will promptly fall over stone dead and remain like that until night falls again. 


History:
Previous RP memories: --
Bringing someone along?: Uhhh does Rob count?
Character History: 
HUMAN LIFE
Like so many strapping young men during the first half of the 20th century, young Julian Dixon-Ross quickly enlisted in to the army upon gaining his school certificate at Eton College. His school years had been typical in that Victorian public school sense of involving lots of cricket, institutionalised bullying and near-constant moaning about Latin prep. Even after joining the local infantry regiment after the outbreak of World War I Julian still carried a lot of his boyhood immaturity with him; the metamorphosis from public schoolboy to soldier never really took place. It didn't really have thetime to take place, so quick was the transition from the hallowed halls of Eton to Windsor garrison.

ARRIVAL IN COMEAUX (1917)
Despite being enthused with the jingoistically naive enthusiasm for war that was the zeitgeist of 1917, Julian never made it to the trenches of the Western Front. As a freshly-made lieutenant, resplendent in shiny boots that had never been muddied and a fresh uniform from the quartermaster's store, Julian was sent to train with what would have been his rank and file soldiers in the sprawling mountain village of Comeaux in northern France. As the newest addition to the officer corps and garrisoned in the newly-requisitioned château Comeaux, Julian was invited to dine with the landowner, the cometesse Evangeline de Comeaux.

Evangeline was an enigmatic figure, appearing only after dark and remaining a mystery to the British troops garrisoned in her sprawling estate. The dinner itself had been excruciatingly awkward on Julian's part with Evangeline making a series of increasingly vulgar moves on him, culminating in a terrifying lunge at his throat.

Helplessly pinned by the surprisingly strong Evangeline, Julian was entirely at the ancient vampire's mercy. Even as she fed on him Julian was dimly aware of the sounds of battle in the château grounds: the encroaching German forces, at Evangeline's tip-off, had attacked the garrisoned British unit. Caught unaware and half-asleep, Julian's unit was destroyed while he was being slowly sucked of his life in the grand dining hall of the château Comeaux.

Evangeline ultimately decided to turn Julian rather than kill him. Not that he was ever given a choice: looking back, he isn't entirely sure that he wouldn't have gladly accepted death rather than submit to the ghastly comtesse.

EARLY VAMPIRE LIFE (1917 - 1930s)
Julian's introduction to vampirism had been terrifyingly sudden. Over the next few nights he learned of Evangeline's past: that she had been the sole survivor of her aristocratic land-owning family's slaughter at the hands of the farm workers during the French revolution. Upon being turned to vampirism she had wrecked her revenge on humanity, slaughtering indiscriminately in return for the barbarism that she had suffered in the hands of the revolution.

He pitied her for her history, but he discovered very quickly that there was nothing redeeming about his maker. The years he spent in the château Comeaux following his turning were truly miserable; he had absolutely nothing in common with her and Evangeline's disappointment in her newest creation was palpable. Despite his misery it wasn't until his elderly mother emigrated to America to remarry in the late 1930s that Julian felt he was able to return to England.


RETURNING TO ENGLAND (1930s - 2010)
Up until the first few years of the twenty-first century Julian spent his time living a fairly nomadic life. He moved from city to city up and down the country getting to know various people and generally keeping himself amused. Nothing remarkable ever happened to him - and that was exactly how he liked it. He craved the normality of an everyday human life and often tried to pass himself off as just that: a normal human.

In the summer of 2010 Julian made the decision to move to Oxford, a city he only vaguely remembered from his human childhood in nearby Windsor. Lost amongst the pale stone buildings he wandered away from the city centre and quickly found himself in the labyrinthine streets of the suburbs. As the sun started to creep above the city skyline Julian panicked. Already suffering the pains and the shortness of breath that meant his body was slowly shutting down for the day Julian bundled himself in to the nearest house, reasoning to himself as he went that it was easier explaining about his corpse to one or two residents than having to risk being found in the streets and possibly get sent to a hospital.

Julian picked the house at random (although later he did realise that the yellow of the front door was his favourite colour) and forced his way in to it, accidentally destroying the door handle in the process. With the barest explanation to the man who lived there Julian promptly keeled over and died on his hallway floor.

Twelve hours later Julian awoke to find himself still in the same spot – albeit with a blanket tucked carefully around his body. The house was empty save for him but a post-it note helpfully placed by his head told him where to find tea. Leaving immediately felt wrong – especially given that Julian had destroyed this man's front door. Resolving that he should at least pay for the damage, Julian decided to await the man's return and set himself to helpfully wash the dirty dishes in the kitchen while he did so.

(The following is a short account of Rob and Julian's history – Maria's app for Rob has a much more detailed and thoroughly more enjoyable account here!)

When he finally returned to the house Julian had the awkward experience of having to explain his condition, something he didn't often have to do. Throughout the course of the conversation Julian discovered that Rob – the poor man who's door he had destroyed – also suffered a rather problematic physical condition. The two were brought together by their respective issues and quickly bonded over awkward conversation and being an outsider.

Rather pleased that he had found someone who was not only a little bit like him but was also a n incredibly kind person to boot, Julian set himself to befriending Rob in spite of Rob's initial reluctance to let himself get close to others. Julian enlisted Rob's help in finding somewhere for him to live in the city and later, after Rob's house was completely cleaned out by opportunistic thieves who had noticed Rob's broken front door, begged Rob to move in with him as well.

Personality:
On first meeting Julian one would be hard-pressed to find anything particularly vampiric about his personality. He doesn't fit the usual stereotypes one associates with vampires: for starters, he is boyish to the point of immaturity, painfully cheerful and a relentless people-pleaser.

Despite being over one hundred years old Julian still acts as though he were twenty: he lives for the moment and he doesn't particularly seem to think things through. In addition to this he also seems to maintain a slightly Victorian mentality when it comes to chivalry, decorum and 'good form' – you'd be hard-pressed to ever hear him swear. He has spent his long lifetime involving himself in other peoples' lives rather than working to fulfil his own; indeed, this is what seems to please him most. Julian craves the domesticity of every day human life – had he survived the war there is no doubt that he would have gone on to lead a very happy family-orientated life. As such, he places a lot of emphasis on home comforts and how important it is to live a quiet, happy life surrounded by people you love and care for. As a vampire this is undoubtedly a difficult thing to achieve: in previous years he has always made sure to furnish his house with things that, although useless to him, maintained the aura of a family home like a fully-kitted out kitchen and central heating. Julian has a peculiar love of television and finds great personal enjoyment in recording daytime shows to watch later in the night: the fulfilment he finds in watching domestic dramas or the daily news has kept him going during the darker years before he met and moved in with Rob.

Patient, forgiving and entirely without prejudice Julian is always ready with a kind word to say about anyone and everyone he meets regardless of how they treat him in return. This is partly fuelled by his own desires for love and acceptance – Julian is determined to 'do as you would be done by' and prides himself on his ability to empathise with other peoples' situations.

Julian isn't particularly clever. Despite having over a century to his name he hasn't invested his time in arts, philosophies or sciences on account of these things not actually being very important to him. What Julian seeks most in life is the more sociable rewards of humanity: to be loved and made to feel valued is what he wants. As such, he makes himself invaluable to others. He is the first to offer to help . He isn't particularly brave or dashing – just a bloody nice bloke (despite the vampiristic elements, which he often reasons to himself that he can't help).

For someone who spends exactly half of his life a corpse, Julian appears to most people to have a remarkably sunny outlook on life. He claims to see the best in every person and situation and to discount more unpleasant bits in everything – including himself - almost to the point of denial.

Unfortunately, Julian is faced with the challenge of how to reconcile his innermost desire to love and be loved by humanity with the fact that he is deemed by fate to live the life of a cold-blooded killer. This issue is incredibly contentious for him: the more unkind of his critics might point out that his desire to help and his love for humanity is an innately guilty reaction to his condition. Julian himself is in complete self-denial about this: after years of practice he believes he has mastered the fine art of feeding without having to kill his victims - but the truth of the matter is that his control of his thirst is largely dependent on how much his body needs to repair itself in its corpse state. Julian tries not to think about the darker aspects of his condition unless completely necessary: rather than keep his inner demons on a tight rein he prefers to just ignore them completely in the desperate hope that they will just disappear when he's not looking.


Extra:
Character Abilities: Uhh... does fluent French count? He has the Victorian equivalent of GCSEs? No?

Rather boringly, Julian lacks all the fancy superspeed/supersenses/bat transformation powers that his fictional predecessors seem to have. He is completely oblivious to any kind of temperature, be it hot or cold - the only time he believes he feels warmth is in the bodies and blood of humans. This is actually a rather elaborate side effect of his vampire instincts: he doesn't feel the physical warmth but his confused, dead brain thinks he can feel it.

It's not true to say that Julian cannot die - in fact, Julian dies frequently. At every sunrise his organs are essentially shutting themselves down for the day and the process takes exactly as long as it takes for the sun to crest over the horizon. It's not particularly painful and Julian is rather used to it by now but it can be something of a shock for anyone who hasn't witnessed it before.

Julian is effectively a corpse for as long as the sun is visible in the sky. In this state his body slowly repairs any damage taken on during his waking hours, effectively restoring his body to however it looked on the day he died. No matter the damage it will always be repaired regardless of how extreme it is: ranging from the most basic hair cut to a severed limb, his body will repair itself during the day. This is what largely contributes to how thirsty Julian is when he wakes: a larger or more complex healing process will leave him needing to replenish his energy a lot more than a smaller one.

When it comes to feeding, Julian's got a few vampiric tricks up his metaphorical sleeve. Julian is experienced and careful enough to be able to feed from an individual without causing any lasting damage or pain. Much like other hemotaphagic species, his saliva has both anticoagulant and anaesthetic qualities - making his bites considerably less painful and physically traumatic than they could be. The resulting wound of Julian's bite is rather like a set of large, bruised mosquito bites - and often itches just as much as a mosquito bite would.

TLDR SUMMARY
- can't feel temperatures apart from what his brain tells him he should be feeling
- corpse during the day, with all corpse-y qualities entailed therein
- body repairs itself whilst dead but the toll is an increased thirst in the evening
- mosquito saliva!

Possessions: Nothing remarkable - in his pocket is his wallet (with thirty pounds in cash and a fake ID card), his house keys and pocket fluff. 
Anything else: Nope!


Samples:
Action/Communication thread/post sample: HERE

Log/Prose sample:

The street was blue and black, the receding night shadows pierced fitfully in dashes of morning light as the sun began to ease upwards over the horizon. Seven fourty-four a.m., and the cold city was beginning to warm: purple and black shadows eased into lighter blues, silver and gold highlights in the window as the sun’s rays lanced through the city skyline.

The common misconception was that sunlight would kill a vampire. But how could it, when all vampires were dead during the day? When the sun rose a vampire died again and his body was rendered as stiff and lifeless as the day he first died. Whether that body was in the sun was of no consequence, the rays couldn’t possibly harm him; but discovery of his body would be a different matter entirely. In his one-hundred-and-three year existence Julian had never left his body to be discovered by the light of day - but he had heard terrible tales of what had happened to others of his kind. The idea of reawakening on a cold metal autopsy table with his chest cracked open and a forensic scientist grabbing at his lungs made him feel physically ill.

Julian was terrified. The hour-long shift from night to day was the most dangerous. The birdsong was chilling, the brightness of the sky horrifying. If he had a beating heart it would have been racing.

He could feel his chest tighten as the death set in. His senses were quickly dulling; no longer could he hear the smell of blood as he passed mortals in the street. This was it; the daily death was starting to set in. He clutched his chest and willed himself to keep moving, desperate to find an abandoned building to die undisturbed in. A bloodless night had left him feeling sluggish and slow but still he staggered on down the street looking just like any other drunken reveller trying to find his way home.

He turned a corner and stumbled blindly onwards. This street was different; tightly-cultivated trees lined the way to chic little apartments over trendy shops. Delicatessens, wine merchants, handbag shops… Julian leaned heavily on the window of an antique bookstore, staring unconsciously at the dusty books on the other side of the glass. He panted, his chest heaving in an entirely unnecessarily human way. It was often like that when he died; he felt himself going through useless human motions: feeling for a pulse, panting without really breathing and checking for blood when he was racked by coughing fits.

His strength failed and Julian’s legs nearly gave way beneath him, a sure sign that somewhere behind him the day was creeping ever closer. Gritting his teeth and clutching the glass window with cold hands he dragged himself to a little yellow door beside the shop.

Desperation drove him to it: he needed somewhere to die. In the streets he would be discovered but if he could just convince whoever lived behind this yellow door not to call the police – or even worse, an ambulance – then perhaps he could come up with some explanation when he awoke again. Even as the strength fled his arms he managed to wrench the handle off the door, the wood splintering easily under his thin fingers, and he hauled himself through the broken door as it swung awkwardly inwards.

His knees buckled and Julian collapsed, a heavy bundle of damp trenchcoat and woollen scarf sprawled in the hallway. Julian groaned as he buried his face in the musty patchwork rug beneath him, hoping against all hopes that the occupier was on holiday.

 POSTS
[ searching city streets at night ] ...Socks?

COMMENTS
Vampire Etiquette
Naming of ferrets
Cold Nights
Pepsi
Presents!

...However, Twos’ inner development may be limited by their “shadow side”—pride, self-deception, the tendency to become over-involved in the lives of others, and the tendency to manipulate others to get their own emotional needs met. Transformational work entails going into dark places in ourselves, and this very much goes against the grain of the Two’s personality structure, which prefers to see itself in only the most positive, glowing terms.