Think of it as True Blood/Supernatural crossover. Male character for any gender.

[TheKnifeWon]

Admittedly, I've had a poor time acclimating myself to forums. While my RPs can eventually develop deep and satisfying plots, I have never been of the mind to have these plots in mind before I start. Rather, I make a character that I like beforehand, and I throw him into as many RPs as I can logically squeeze into a given timeline (and I do need to be able to do that, so that's a little restricting, I suppose, but realistically so). As he meets people in various situations and becomes involved with them in various ways, a plot forms between all involved.

Full details and all that can be found in my Ons/Offs link, but I have to try and sell him here, yeah? So I'll try and be as brief and informative as I can. I expect not to be terribly successful, so take this as a warning--yes, I'm this long-winded in posts, too, so if that's not up your alley, we just weren't meant to be! (No, really, please write long posts as well, internal monologue and all that. It's weird otherwise.)

First, about his universe: It's a mixture of True Blood, Supernatural and other assorted things.

The True Blood content mostly centers on vampires being 'out'; that's what appeals to me as borrowing from the show's canon, because I like the social tension of a vampire struggling to integrate himself into mainstream society. Any canon content I use stops the universe at the end of season three (though I'll use knowledge gained in subsequent seasons when relevant, eg the nature of the Authority you learn about in season 5, though obviously Roman would still be leading it).

The Supernatural content is really just there because I found an amazing Dean RPer to play with. In conjunction with his story, it stops at the end of season 5. We've changed vampires to differ from both series to better suit our tastes, but the toothy ones from that series exist in some form. Supernatural's take on demons, angels and all that is what I go by for my RP.

Beyond those, I just borrow from other sources as suits my fancy, and use some original ideas, blah blah. Nothing too strict, but once I decide on an interpretation of something, it's pretty much The Truth, because things get all confused otherwise. If a request for differentiation is made and it's reasonable, sometimes we can figure a way to swing it, though. That's how I was able to allow for the shark-toothed vampires Dean would've been familiar with, without making Maxwell one of them. Having to maneuver this way actually added interesting depth to the universe, so sometimes it's a good thing.

We can discuss these in more detail if we're setting up RP, I'm not gonna clog this post with it!

The character: His name is Maxwell, and he was made in 1768 at the age of 27. In effect, he's not your stereotypical vampire--he's very easygoing and playful, full of smiles. He does have his bits of angst, all that, but I don't believe they're his defining characteristics. Aside from his affable nature, though, he is also a predator, because that's just the way of vampires; they've got the bloodthirsty beast inside of them, that's kind of the point! Meeting him, you'll find someone who's--some might say, given what he is--dangerously charming, open-minded and intellectual, who keeps up with the times surprisingly well for a vampire, though he seems to have nostalgia for the time he was in a band in the 1980s-90s.

The setting: Unless something interesting calls for it, the default setting is a town I made up called Crystal Springs. It's in the mountains in northern California, near the Oregon border. Lots of lovely natural places surrounding it. It has an art school of growing prominence in it, so its culture is largely defined by that. You know. . .lots of organic food, progressive politics, all of that. In one part of town, at least. There's another side distinctly less accepting, mostly high income people who hope to hold on to their wealth and privilege. You'll sometimes find lower-income pretenders at this kind of culture, but if you know the places to be, you'll find a warm, accepting community. . .most times.

Who's Maxwell To Me?: As Crystal Springs is not an especially anonymous town--people like to talk, for various reasons--there aren't an enormous amount of vampires who make public faces for themselves. They may live in certain parts of town, but they're likely to go to the nearest city to 'hunt', to do business, etc.. As such, Maxwell is likely to be the most prominent vampire in town, at least where humans are concerned.

This is mostly because he was able to convince the aforementioned art school to take him on as an adjunct professor some time before, where he taught creative writing with unanticipated success. His placement there was a matter of some controversy, considering he'd be among all kinds of young, healthy mortals and all, but he was able to cope. . .

. . .until, of course, Russel Edgington killed that newscaster on TV about two or three months ago. He was quite unceremoniously asked to leave, for many of the wealthy donors who kept the school current and relevant threatened to rescind their funds if he was not stripped of his position.

He has some students and other supporters in the school who sometimes try to drum up support for his return, which he'd love to do, but it's yet to amount to anything. Maxwell hopes to do what he can to reclaim the public's trust, and his teaching position.

But What If I'm Not A Civilian? While Maxwell presents himself to mainstream society as the same sort of vampire with whom they're familiar, the truth is, he's quite different. The power afforded him by the sacrifice of consuming mortal blood is significant, and can be used in a variety of magical ways. This means that he cannot subsist on synthetic blood, for it doesn't feed that lust for power, which is present even in a vampire like him, who isn't likely to hatch many nefarious plots, if any at all.

His breed of vampire is somewhat rare, but beyond that, they overwhelmingly distrust authority. . .or simply believe themselves above it. Maxwell, however, does not have quite so bloated an ego. The sheriff of the area, Carmelia, has recruited him, against his will, to take care of the many mistakes his kind make around town. Many of his kind of vampires try and pass themselves off as human in mainstream society, still (since magic usage makes this easier) and, as such, many humans would not suspect them of foul play. . .that is, of course, until they construct a Yeti from spare bits of organic matter, and it's found urinating all over some poor woman's deck. In situations like this, Maxwell is called in, both to slay the beast--as really, it's usually a beast--and dispose of the body. He seems to like turning it into pine needles, or garbage. Anything that won't arouse suspicion, like the corpse of a monster would.

This work of his often resembles what human hunters (in the Supernatural sense) do, so. . .that's an intriguing line of work for a monster, yeah?

So What Do You Want to RP, Exactly? Most of the reason I created a vampire character was to explore the predator/prey dynamic. Again, I find the the True Blood universe being used as a blueprint allows for a context where that's particularly interesting. People are having to navigate the meanings of that dynamic on a large, social scale; they have to examine what it means to be the prey of a whole group of people. . .and, maybe, the prey of that charming man, who just seems so nice. . .!

What I mean by the above is that I tend to prefer human characters as partners. I won't brush off others automatically, but probably keep in mind that Maxwell doesn't hang around other vampires by choice, and has a lot of trust issues with them that I'm not going to go into here, because what's the fun?

I have a few ideas, but few of them are really proper "plots". I said something about this earlier, so, y'know.

The "plottiest" one I have involves Maxwell looking for humans to live at his house. Since his work often drains a lot of energy from him and thus, gives him an unusual appetite, he would feel much at ease if he had willing donors waiting at home for him. Many vampires would either register donors for this purpose, or simply keep humans as blood dolls, but Maxwell finds this distasteful. He finds the whole idea of a blood doll degrading (to the human) and just bad times all 'round, and he considers the "card-carrying donor" a politically-correct version of that. So, he puts out ads offering affordable housing (the definition of which is left creatively vague), and hopes he can convince these people to submit to the occasional feeding in return for living in a lovely home and having many of their expenses paid (student loans, fine; partying lifestyle, not so much). One could argue, of course, that this is worse than finding a legal donor, that he is exploiting the financially vulnerable, but. . .hey, that's where flaws and conflict come in, right? Basically, we introduce this scenario in, see how the characters get along, and seeing as all sorts of things go on in Maxwell's life, the plot should flourish from there. (There are still a couple rooms open here, but I think I want to get my bearings on a couple scenes before soliciting more. Need to let the new boarder/s get settled.)

These are shorter ideas!

I'd like if someone had to stop by his house for help. . .car trouble, that kind of thing. Would they find a hungry vampire, or a friendly one? What would they expect to find? How would they react? (Done this in some form multiple times, succeeded once. Argh. Might feel appropriate to try again at a later time, but for now, it'd be inappropriate, like Maxwell has some mysterious field in front of his house that makes cars shit themselves, ha-ha.)

Maxwell wants to raise his profile in town, so, he donates a set of antique china to a charity auction, and insists on securing an invite. It turns out that, mostly, he has chosen to dip himself right into the pit of vipers who pulled him out of his teaching position in the first place. He should have known better. But he puts on a nice suit and a brave face and makes an honest go of it. You could play someone else involved with the auction (buyer, another donor, relative, etc.), or maybe the server tasked with heating up the TruBlood for him, and making sure he doesn't murder everyone in the hall. Because that's what he's going to do, clearly. He's a vampire!

Maxwell's in a topless vampire bar. Maxwell does not like vampire bars. He also doesn't tend to hang out in topless bars. Why's he there? Well, young women have gone there and not made it out. They've been found mangled in different parts of the county, all from vicious animal attacks. Except, Maxwell was informed they weren't animal attacks, but a monstrous dog belonging to the owner. Maxwell doesn't know how monstrous it is. . .the bastard's managed to domesticate a hellhound (again, in the Supernatural sense--so, giant, vicious, invisible dog). Who are you? A human hunter who caught on thanks to the hellhound angle would probably be most interesting, but more ideas are welcome, too. (Not sure what to say about this scene. . .I may want to do it still, I may simply want to insinuate that it happened and never actually play it out. I've tried it a couple of different times and it's not gone well. Discussing it with my Dean-playing partner, though, we've decided that, according to RP-land, the dying and dead, as well as the hell-bound, can see hellhounds. . .that is, vampires can see them. This means the sadistic fuck killing the girls can see exactly what the hellhound's doing, but the women are losing their minds with terror. Adds an especially ugly aspect to it, I think. . .and an interesting one for Maxwell who, upon seeing the dog, would probably think "Phew! I thought it was going to have eight heads and breathe fire or something!" and easily dispose of it. I like the idea that things are stranger than he immediately recognizes. Perhaps he notices the way the prospective human victim and/or hunter reacts to it, and it makes him awful curious.)(Had to write past this scene. I'd be cool figuring out another hunting-type scene where a human hunter could be pursuing the same, though!)

In general, I want to play with a hunter or two! Note that I want to play with hunters for the DRAMATIC element. This means I want a hunter who does NOT easily trust a vampire, who WILL suspect him, who will find his hunting job strange, etc.. I don't want to play with hunters so Max, Dean and the hunter can all be buddy-buddy with each other! Maybe they could come around eventually, but I want tension there.

Somewhat similar to that, but not necessarily related, I will eventually want someone to abduct and torture Maxwell in the spirit of getting Dean's head screwed on straight. Meaning, the intention would be to draw Dean in by keeping him for days, doing who knows what. They would need to keep him injected with silver to taint his blood. That's a torture method used in the True Blood series, but thinking of it, I thought that it would probably render a magic-using vampire incapable of using his blood magic, so the main point of using it would be in subduing him, not necessarily for the pain (though to this person, that would be a bonus). While this would, theoretically, be a scene that involves Dean at some point, I know that realistically it tends to take me forever to get anywhere in a scene, so we don't necessarily need to worry about how or when Dean comes into the picture for quite some time. This won't be a sexual RP--I don't want sexual torture to be a part of it, that would be kind of strange.

I think I'd be interested in RP where Max took a fledgling vampire whose maker was either killed, or really shitty, under his wing. Not sure about the capacity for sexual stuff, we'd have to see where that went. At this point, he's not sexually attracted to vampires, but it's possible that would change if a relationship was formed first. EDIT: Making a more interesting clarification/suggestion related to this: perhaps this fledgling vampire in question is of the magic-using variety, and her (I'm leaning toward a female character since most of my partners lately have been male) maker was killed in relation to one of the jobs Max had to do. . .the magic-using vampires will often end up summoning monsters or other forces they can't control. Alternatively, they could just be a deadbeat maker, like Bill in True Blood, ha-ha. The point is, Carmelia (the sheriff of the area) would shove this vampire in Maxwell's direction to be his apprentice. He'd be caught between his passion for teaching and his distaste for being responsible for a bloodthirsty monster. Could be good times.

I do want to move toward getting Max his teaching job back. I imagine the only way to RP this out would be to involve one of the wealthy donors who demanded that the school let him go if it wanted their continued financial support. I don't think "Anyone wanna play an old bigot??" is an especially enticing proposition, though. Maybe he winds up becoming involved with one of their (adult) children? Either he could just happen to pick them up while 'hunting', or he could actively seek them out in a nonsexual context and hope to sway their opinion, or at least convince them to try and exert some influence over their parents on his behalf.

I think that's it for now. Thanks for any consideration.

[TheKnifeWon]

I'm looking for RP again! I need to keep trying, right? I've added some elements from the Supernatural series to my universe, so I hope that's a good thing. We can talk about what's been added and what that might mean, if you'd like.

What to expect from me: An indecently charming, likable vampire. Sexual content with depth. Lots and lots of internal monologue. Getting a hell of a lot better with plotting ideas once I know how our characters get along. Conflicts that focus on social matters, ahead of blatant rivalries and things like that. Wrestling with moral conflicts and shit.

What not to expect from me: Rape as a starting point for an RP. I've used the potential for it as a plot point in the past, and it's possible my character might 'lose control' in a fit of bloodlust or something, but if you're one of those people who needs a large element of nonconsent to have fun with an RP, we're not compatible partners, sorry. I lost interest in that a couple years back. Not my scene anymore.


Sorry if I come off as unfriendly or something. I promise I'm not!

[TheKnifeWon]

I added a couple more "ideas", explained more about some others. I would also very much welcome ideas from other people, relevant to Maxwell!

[TheKnifeWon]

I changed the topic name to hopefully pull in more interested parties, updated RPs that have either been done or demoted to insinuated scenes because I had to move past them to further the general plot, and added one more scene possibility. I feel bad, I'm not too good at plotting. . .I swear I can pull more plot suggestions out of my ass to suggest at my Dean-playing friend than I can come up with for myself. =/ I guess that's what having a whole team of professional, paid writers to flesh out a character's backstory does for ya, huh?

I did suggest, once, that Maxwell's maker had some dealings with demons. . .mm. . .basically, a demon convinced her to hide special armor Michael was planning to use in her basement (which is now Maxwell's basement). . .y'know, put all sorts of crazy enchantments on it, so he wouldn't have it when it came time for the apocalyptic battle. Being considerably more power hungry than Maxwell, Eva figured the earth being overrun by demons would suit her just fine, as drinking demon blood would make her stronger than human blood ever did. Max doesn't know about this. He's seen the armor, he wound up showing it to Dean, who told him that the glyphs on it were Enochian, but he doesn't know what that means. He doesn't know the role Dean was meant to fulfill (the armor would fit him perfectly if he tried it on, naturally).

I don't know if that leaves any room for an RP, but I just. . .I don't know? Stuff happens in his life! Stuff that's interesting! I swear I'm not utter rubbish at plotting, I just need a character/player combination to help me along. . .

[TheKnifeWon]

OK, I clarified one idea on the main post, and added a second.