[OOC] [Outsiders] Application

[eternitycoder]

Player Info
Name: Serey
OOC Journal: kouject
Over 18? Yes
Email/IM/Plurk: the2ndhunter[at]gmail[dot]com
Current characters: N/A

Character Info
Name: Artemis Fowl II

Canon: Artemis Fowl

Age: 20

Canon/AU/CR AU: CR AU

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_Fowl_%28series%29 [General Series Overview]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_Fowl_%28novel%29 [Artemis Fowl (first book) Summary]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_Fowl:_The_Arctic_Incident [The Arctic Incident (second book) Summary]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_Fowl:_The_Eternity_Code [The Eternity Code (third book) Summary]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_Fowl:_The_Opal_Deception [The Opal Deception (fourth book) Summary]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_Fowl:_The_Lost_Colony [The Lost Colony (fifth book) Summary]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_Fowl:_The_Time_Paradox [The Time Paradox (sixth book) Summary]

Canon Point: The end of the 6th book (The Time Paradox). Artemis then spent 4 years in “Pleasantville” (the age-up mechanic at DV) before arriving at Dirty Vegas as an 18-year-old. He spends 2 years in Vegas bouncing from relationship to relationship until he arrives on Omega.

World Information: The canon world of Artemis Fowl is much like the modern-day world, save for one very significant detail: fairies exist. Artemis discovers the existence of fairies and exploits them when he's 12 years old, and his dealings with fairies continue into his teenage years.

The major faction in the world is known as the LEP (Lower Elements Police), the group that Captain Holly Short belongs to. In the first book, she is the officer Artemis kidnaps and holds for ransom. In the first two books, Artemis is very much the kingpin of the criminal mastermind world. He's stepped in for his father and the criminal underworld, previously thinking it was free of the Fowl Empire, is shakes in their collective expensive loafers.
The later volumes of the series (3-6) follow Artemis as a still selfish, but less criminal, player in the underworld. He takes down those enemies that steal from or cross him, but also tends to either not claim all the spoils for himself or pull these elaborate schemes for the sake of someone else close to him. He's by no means a Robin Hood, but Artemis looks out for his family and friends with great ferocity—he's no longer in it just for himself. Artemis is always a dangerous piece in whatever game is being played throughout the series.

There are, of course, other players in the underworld that Artemis comes up against, all with a slightly worse sense of morals than even Artemis has (in ME terms, I see Artemis as halfway between Paragon and Renegade, but most of the people Artemis comes up against are just plain Renegade... and not the fun sort, the sort that punch people in the face after agreeing to an interview...). Each book has one “big bad” but few are reoccurring characters. The one exception is Opal Koboi, the pixie, head of Koboi industries. She and Artemis have a Moriarty-and-Sherlock type relationship (AKA: they both want the other dead/in prison for life). She appears in many of Artemis' conflicts after the second book, and in general if someone has Artemis concerned, it's usually Opal Koboi. The two are very similar in that they're both extremely intelligent, extremely full of themselves, and extremely dangerous when angry. However while Artemis finds the idea of hurting living creatures repulsive, Opal gleefully indulges in it. Opal also can't keep her ego under control, and hunts Artemis because he's bested her several times. If there's one dichotomy of good-and-evil in the Artemis Fowl series, it's the relationship between Artemis and Opal.

Magic is another key factor in the world. Magic is a physical entity that can only be channeled and used by fairies, and is probably housed in the mind (it causes a serious of neurological issues in Artemis in The Atlantis Complex, and gives him headaches during a full moon). Magic is much like gasoline in a car: once it's depleted it has to be replenished—a fairy has to “fill up” by planting an acorn beneath an 100+ year old oak tree near a stream. In the second book, the inventor-genius Foaly creates an acorn with earth inside a capsule that Holly could use while in the frozen tundra of Russia, so the technology to work around the original method describe in the Book (fairy equivalent of the Bible and the Encyclopedia combined) does exist.

Eoin Colfer describes the series as “Die Hard with fairies”. It's a pretty apt description between all the Ocean's Eleven-style plotting and planning, and the firefights between elves and pixies and goblins.

Dirty Vegas takes place after Ragnarok. The world has ended and Loki, having come out on top, realized that life was rather boring without anything to entertain him. So, he resurrected/stole a few sentient beings and made magical demands of them. Namely, have sex every two weeks or you go crazy enough to off yourself. Also part of Loki's little glee party is the fact that there aren't any women around. So basically, it's a bunch of men trapped in a run-down Las Vegas trying to make some sort of life for themselves while getting in touch with their inner gay man. Some fall right into it, others struggle and fight to resist Loki's inevitable hold. (Setting page: http://dirtymodteam.dreamwidth.org/432.html)


Personality: How does one describe Artemis Fowl?  Many psychologists have tried and failed, some sent gibbering to their own hospitals…

The key to understanding Artemis’ personality is realizing that he is a boy born out of obligation to his family and role in his family.  He is most easily described as a child genius, but while he is extremely gifted intellectually, it has stunted him in other areas.  However, instead of recognizing that Artemis himself had no childhood, he scoffed at the things that he believed to be unimportant in the long run and plunged down the path to becoming a criminal mastermind.  Which he did, with flying colors.  However the books see him meet with obstacles that are not so easily overcome by the methods and life he breathed every day.  Artemis Fowl II begins Book One as a twelve-year-old boy with no regard for any life besides his own and his family’s, and ends Book Six having saved countless lives.  Still not a big hit at parties, though.

Outwardly, Artemis is the perfect picture of confidence.  He smart, he can hatch the perfect plot, and he can get away with whatever he’s scheming.  Artemis is worse than a genius—he’s a genius who knows he’s fucking brilliant.  Of course, it follows that he would become an extremely arrogant, know-it-all boy with several Swiss bank accounts.  He’s got the brains and the means to pull off anything, and it shows.  Artemis can afford to act proud and superior to all adults because he has his own confidence backing him up.   However, on the inside Artemis is your average teenage boy.  All of the fancy vocabulary and graduate-level mathematics form a mask, behind which Artemis hides his failure to interact with people on a normal level.  He’s socially inept (due to never once conversing with children his age), awkward when it comes to relationships with other people he doesn’t know very well, protective of his family (Butler, Juliet, Angeline, and Artemis Senior), and sometimes even childish when it comes to having his way.  At the end of the second book, Artemis was just then learning to see the people he cares for as equals.  At first, Artemis only considered people who were dead (Albert Einstein and des Cartes) as equals, but at the age of 13, he starts to develop friendships and learn about relationships in general.

In his canon, Artemis is the main character and, mostly, the instigator of nearly every major conflict in the series.  He starts out kidnapping fairies, then moves on to breaking up goblin triads, and eventually is stirring up trouble just by existing as Artemis Fowl II.  Not only is he hated aboveground, but all of fairykind belowground tends to look on him unfavorably as well.  Not that he minds very much.  He’s not looking to win any popularity contests.  He’s just the resident child genius bent on screwing over every single major business he sets his sights on.  Exploitation and anything illegal is what he does in his world.

While Artemis was growing up, he was essentially trained to succeed his father in the Fowl family business: high-class crime.  Artemis had to be smart.  He had to be an adult, there was no time to play with kids his age or bond with his family members.  He had to be a smaller, younger version of Artemis Senior as soon as possible.  In order to do this, however, he needed to pull off as many feats as possible, be as fearful an adversary as possible.  The best way to get what you want in the underworld is for your reputation to precede you, and he is rather good at making it so.  He forges famous paintings, writes ‘missing’ Beethoven symphonies, writes psychology books under pseudonyms, steals famous paintings (and of course he has to do it before he turns 15, because the youngest person to steal said painting was 18), and just does all manner of impressive things that a boy his age simply couldn’t begin to undertake.  However due to this rigorous training and self-instruction in every discipline under the sun, Artemis’ social growth was, if not stunted, completely non-existent.  He could go toe-to-toe with any adult, but could only reference psychology books when faced with someone his own age.  Therefore, as soon as Artemis Senior disappeared, Artemis Junior did what he was programmed to do: he continued in his father’s footsteps. 

He was ‘the man of the family’ and he had to take care of the family’s assets—which had taken quite a plunge after his father had been pronounced dead.  He filled his father’s shoes as quickly as possible, without rhyme or reason.  It was the only thing Artemis thought to do.  He was treated as an adult at the age of 11, so in his mind, he was one.  Once his father disappeared, Artemis wasn’t going to revert back to being a normal boy and go outside and play.  He would have been offended at the idea, especially given how he had been raised to not waste his time on things that ultimately didn’t benefit the family business.  However once he has his mind set on a goal, that’s that.  He’s going to accomplish it no matter what and step on whoever he has to, to get there.

In the more recent books, these scars left by his devotion to being the Fowl heir have been slowly healing.  Artemis can’t go back to being a child, it’s impossible.  But, he manages to befriend Holly Short and begins to form a team comprised of both humans and fairies.  He begins to trust people more and consider the outcomes of his actions.  He’s interacting with people, and not driving as many psychologists crazy.  And most importantly, he’s helping the fairy People instead of trying to extort them. This was probably the biggest step for Artemis, and the telltale sign of Artemis becoming a more compassionate human being, instead of a rigid Artemis-Senior-Mark-2 robot.  He begins to take action on things that ultimately won’t benefit him, but will save his friends.  At the end of the fifth book, Artemis’ manservant and closest friend Butler points out that Artemis is sounding like a ‘good guy’—jumping off a building to get a bomb to someplace where it can be disarmed.  Artemis really doesn’t have any response to this.  He neither confirms nor denies it, he just promises Butler that he’ll come back no matter what.  This is nearly a complete 180 from his philosophy in the first book, though his ‘nothing is impossible’ attitude and listing sense of morality towards people he doesn’t care about is still the same.  Internally, he changes quite a bit, but his impact on his world is more or less consistent concerning his illegal exploits. He’s brilliant, but also has his own rulebook.  He gets what he wants, and everyone else can just stand back.


Abilities, Weaknesses, and Power Limitations: Artemis is, essentially, a genius.  He is a master problem solver, a walking encyclopedia, can speak a variety of languages, and still has time to play Minesweeper I bet!  Granted, Artemis doesn't know EVERYTHING, he's just right most of the time on subjects he's familiar with.  But while Artemis is very intelligent, he's not strong at all.  Without his bodyguard Butler, Artemis is much more wary of what he says and does simply because he has no one to back him up with brute force. On top of not being very physically fit (he states at one point that he hates ‘running and jumping’), Artemis isn’t exactly socialized for normal-human interaction. When he’s trying to talk to a girl (Minerva) in The Lost Colony, he devolves into math puns and awkward conversation. Butler also states in The Eternity Code that he can’t see Artemis being a very big hit at school dances.

His second biggest weakness is his inability to think very clearly under pressure. In The Eternity Code, when Butler is shot Artemis has under two minutes to think of a plan before Butler dies—and he has trouble coming up with one. He plans brilliantly, but he needs time to think about it, plan for problems, et cetera.

Power-wise, at the end of The Lost Colony, Artemis has stolen some fairy magic. In the most recent book, The Atlantis Complex, it states that he still has some left, so at the canon point I took Artemis from, he should have some of his magic left.

Magic, in Colferverse, isn’t an offensive thing, but a defensive one. Magic allows fairies to be invisible (‘shielding’), heal, and mesmerize (very similar to hypnosis). It is also a commodity—meaning fairies can (and sometimes do) run out of magic. When this happens, they perform a ritual in order to restore their magic (burying an acorn under an ancient oak tree by a bend in a river under the full moon. Complex? Oh yes). Given that Artemis is a human and not a fairy, it’s very hard for him to control his magic, making healing the only ability he can control with some ease (magic automatically seeks wounds and reconstructs them—much like supped up human healing). Mesmer and shielding are beyond his current scope of practice.

However, Artemis’ magic isn’t all benefits. Fairy magic doesn’t belong in humans, as The Time Paradox and The Atlantis Complex shows. In The Time Paradox, Artemis has to play loud music during full moons, as the ‘commune of nature’ resonates with his magic and is so loud he’s unable to think straight. His magic also prevents him from going places he isn’t invited into without having to chew motion sickness tablets (fairies aren’t allowed in human dwellings/places they aren’t specifically invited into without becoming violently ill). Even when he attempts to use magic to heal his mother or modify memories, he gets a blinding headache. The effects of fairy magic in a human Artemis come to a head in The Atlantis Complex when Artemis contracts Atlantis Complex (a mental illness fairies contract when under extreme guilt). So while Artemis has the ability to use some magic, it comes at a heavy price.  


Inventory: Armani suit (jacket, slacks, shirt, undershirt, vest, tie, cufflinks, red silk boxers, socks, loafers), cell phone with some pictures (but not able to be used)


Appearance: Artemis has often been compared to a vampire.  He's thin, has pale skin (he never spends much time playing outside, obviously), and jet black hair. For a boy of 19, he isn't terribly tall or imposing either—he's 5'7”.  Moreover, due to two brushes with time vortexes, the index and middle finger of Artemis' right hand have been switched, plus his left eye is hazel and the right one is dark blue.  On top of that, Artemis wears Armani suits on a regular basis.  He is one weird-looking kid.

Nationality-wise, Artemis is Irish—he speaks with an Irish accent, but doesn't use any Irish slang.  In the books, his accent isn't written in, leading me to believe that Artemis speaks business-style English with a light Irish accent.

The PB I'm using is Alex McKee (http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/img-thing?.out=jpg&size=l&tid=17864434)


Alternate Universe Info
If AU, how is your version different from canon, and how will that come across? Artemis is a CR AU from Dirty Vegas. Which, yeah, I know—sex game into sci-fi game? Bizarre. But, I really strove to keep Artemis' character solid at the game and (in my opinion) didn't fall into the “porn without plot” hole.

In the beginning, Artemis approached Dirty Vegas as he would with any other situation where he was being forced to do something: he resisted it in every way he could. His very first reaction to the setting wasn't disgust, but the sort of 'uncomfortable laughter' one might experience during theater of the absurd (along with a healthy dose of 'Alright, where's the camera?'). It was so far removed from his past experience that he couldn't believe that such rules could exist or even be enforced. So he ignored them.

But in addition to his doubt that anyone could make him have sex, there was a small part of him that panicked. If it was enforceable, if it was true that he was in this situation, his past track record... well there wasn't much of a record to speak of in terms of relationships or even physical attraction. Artemis was always so wrapped up in his work, in his world of science, that the only thing he really knew about sex was that it happened on occasion between people and their genitals. Artemis didn't even consider himself to be an attractive person (he didn't think he was ugly per se, but he'd never actually thought about it—there'd never been a need to).

As a result, when the rules came down on him, he was unprepared and took a more romanticized view towards sex and relationships. After a near-miss at a suicide attempt, the one person he had been awkwardly flirting with, Lelouch vi Britannia, forced himself on Artemis to save him. Over the course of that one interaction, Artemis' more idealized idea of relationships and sex was crushed. The one thing Artemis couldn't stand was being kept as someone's pet or pseudo-concubine, which was the message Lelouch was giving him during his first experience. Artemis retreated, and fast.

He had to find a way to have sex without succumbing to Lelouch and the Geass Lelouch forced on him. However, Artemis was still in the mindset that he wasn't particularly attractive and his social skills were so lacking that he'd attracted a lunatic instead of a potential partner. In his view, the only safe move was to contract himself as an “Achievement Liaison” (fancy name for a prostitute) at one of the player-run businesses. His second sexual encounter was with the owner of the establishment, William/Holland, and even that reinforced the idea that sex wasn't terribly romantic or pleasant at all and was only a means to and end. Artemis reframed his situation, and realized that the only thing he could do to save himself until he found an escape was to manipulate the hell out of everyone who walked through the door. That, at least, he felt confident he could do (a Ph.D. in psychology didn't hurt that goal at all).

Artemis' life continued much in this vein until Yuri Lowell, a bouncer at the drug den Artemis worked in (shock and surprise) told Artemis that sex wasn't always a power struggle or a matter of one man over another. Artemis reasoned that if that was true, it wouldn't happen to him. He was blunt and awkward as himself, prone to lording his intelligence over other people. Who would be willing to start a relationship with him that meant more than just sex?

Yuri and Artemis became friends, and then they slept together and Artemis' entire world cracked open. Suddenly friends and lovers shared a sort of “all squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares” nature. He started looking for friends, and made quite a few, and kept his own personal rule that he disconnected from his work-sex and outside of work he only gave himself to people he truly liked. This was a major turning point for Artemis' entire character, someone who previously didn't make friends very easily and was afraid of relationships. He felt comfortable in his life for the first time since arriving in Pleasantville, and surrounded himself with people he trusted to keep him sane and fed without additional trauma.

This comfort was completely turned on its head when Loki 'pruned' the population when the game moved to Dreamwidth. Artemis lost a good 80% of his support network in one fell swoop, and he hit rock bottom. He was scared, he was frustrated, his heart was broken, and he resented being left to piece his life back together when everyone else had gone home and was most likely happy.

Really, he never fully recovered from losing so many people so quickly, but he did eventually entrust himself again to a few of “his nations”, Roma and Arthur, and (for a change) someone his own age: Rikku. Rikku and Roma formed his more tight-knit support system, though Artemis didn't go back to his job as a liaison and rarely left his hotel suite. He preferred to work out his feelings though writing and painting, keeping mostly to the people he already knew instead of branching out as he did before. If asked, he would have said he was happy for the most part, though he privately thought that there was something incredibly depressing about settling for a life in such a small world where someone else dictated everything right down to what he could wear some months.

Between his canon point and the end of his time at Vegas, Artemis has become more able to socialize and has fleshed out his understanding of a social concept he previously knew nothing about. He's grown into more of an adult through navigating his way through his emotional jungle and acknowledging he is sometimes just as human as the next person. He can love and feel loved, and be unsure and afraid of being unable to control his future. Artemis, in his canon, is very naïve in certain aspects, but Vegas filled a few of those gaps Artemis was unwilling to fill in his own universe and on his own.

This newfound focus on his emotions and his sensual side is going to make Omega a real shock for Artemis. He'll have to refocus on the other half of him that has laid more or less dormant for the past year: science, reason, logic, manipulation. He'll be crushed again to lose his support network, however Omega is a world Artemis knows he can survive in on his own—he survived the criminal underworld without his father holding his hand, he can survive in a less-emotional setting without Roma and Rikku holding his hand. However, I suspect that given the influx of thought on the nature of emotion and relationships, Artemis isn't likely to be as cold or calculating as he was before he arrived in Vegas. He might be more human, more touchy-feely, but no less driven or willing to do what he needs to do to get what he wants. The nature of Omega might even start to reverse what happened to him in Vegas, though that entirely depends on the nature of the interaction and CR he builds in the game.

In short, I believe that Vegas informed Artemis on the sort of “Right Brain” creative-sexual-emotional issues he had previously thought unimportant, and that ultimately fleshed out his understanding of a part of himself he had left unexplored (but really, what do you want? It's a book series written for teenage boys... FEELINGS? EW!).


Samples
Log Sample: The elevator doors opened... and stayed open.

Artemis Fowl II stared out into what was almost certainly not the lobby of the Bellagio. Too much technology, too narrow, too many people... too many people that didn't look human, too. This was something Loki hadn't broadcasted over every available screen in Vegas, but Artemis wasn't exactly surprised by this. Things happened unexpectedly, and he made a point of avoiding them.

He hit the button for his floor, then the door close button.

Nothing happened.

A full minute went by with Artemis insistently depressing the door close button over and over again, but he finally realized that it wasn't any use. Whatever this was, it was mandatory.

Artemis sighed an extremely put-upon sigh and exited the elevator, turning back to look sharply when the doors did close behind him. Something about that unnerved him. That, this whole situation, seemed very un-Loki-like. This place wasn't kitschy, there weren't any aliens in thongs, everyone seemed to be focused on getting from point-A to point-B, and ignoring everything in between. There was something dark about it that made the hair on Artemis' arms and neck threaten to stand on end.

Calmly, he slid out of the foot traffic and rested his back against a wall, blindly slipping his phone out of his breast pocket and flipping it open: No Service.

The elevator doors opened next to him and another group of what appeared to be non-Las Vegans exited. Artemis looked back into the elevator as they all left, coming to a dead staring stop when he saw the interior of the elevator was completely different. It was some sort of bunk room with other people inside of it who seemed to have just woken up.

He slipped his phone back into his pocket, unsure of what to think aside from: It's very cold here.

Network Sample: [The video starts up, and Artemis makes the briefest check to ensure the thing is actually recording. Though apparently someone did a few tests beforehand, because there isn't any sort of fumbling or frowning as he begins his message.]

I have been making a few observations between my shifts, and I am beginning to realize that the strange influx of human and semi-human and human-shaped entities is an anomaly on this station. In short, humankind is a minority in this place--unsurprisingly. Ease of travel does tend to bring in all sorts.

Would anyone happen to know anything about some of the non-human species? Names, unique traits, place of origin, dietary habits, and so forth? Most of them haven't given so much as the time of day to a human janitor-equivalent... Though I have received some bits and pieces on the Asari. [And that he only picked up by staring at one pole-dancing. Happy people tended to not care who they were talking to, and some Asari had definitely made that particular informant very happy and very eager to chat with a “fellow admirer”...]


((OOC Note: Artemis really isn't the sort of character to bare-all to an entire network, and will probably remain very shuttered and neutral when making posts that are public. Again, he's not entirely touchy-feely-emotional after Vegas, and the arrival at a new setting will have him draw back into his shell again and be very cautious.))