malkavialogist | + permissions +

1.
Then, for as long as you walk this earth,
you and your children will cling to Darkness.
You will drink only blood,
You will eat only ashes,
All you touch will crumble into nothing.

character
ALISTAIR GROUT | Vampire: the Masquerade: Bloodlines

player
caz | 21+ | GMT timezone | plurk:

taakotime | aim: rianofski

ooc permissions
backtagging: yes forever | threadhopping: yes for sure | canon puncturing: soft no
opt-outs: I can't think of anything that wouldn't have to be plotted ahead of time anyway, so no worries

ic permissionshugging & kissing: You can attempt it, but if he sees you coming he will deftly evade.

flirting: Yes! Please make his day more confusing.

fighting: Yes! But he's a vampire, so he's pretty strong. If it's a real gloves-off fight there's a potential for frenzy, in which he basically forgets how to not kill people, so planning that or chatting ooc as we go or something could be a good idea.

injury: Ha ha yes go for it, but if it's more than a slap/punch or cut I'd like to talk about it ooc first (because again, potential for frenzy).

killing: I'd like to discuss it first but tbh I will probably love it

telepathy & mind reading: Yes! He suffers from some form of psychosis and also prophecy, so depending on how your mind reading works, and on whether they're around at that moment, you might hear a jumble of voices as well as just his thoughts. There's a slim chance that one of them will be telling him he's having his mind read. Hit me up wherever if you'd like more details.

telling he's a vampire: I'm adding this because in Wonderland he's pretending to be human for as long as possible (my money's on this being successful for ten whole minutes). To normal human senses he does a good impression of a mortal. To characters with stronger or different senses, that may not be the case! Smell and temperature are the biggest physical tells I can think of. There's a list here if you want to know what your character might pick up on (and things like mind-reading would also be sort of a dead giveaway).

warnings: His tags will sometimes discuss/depict things like hallucinations, depression, paranoia, and sometimes violence.

Permissions meme is from here!

2.
I gave a cry of anguish at this terrible curse
and tore at my flesh.
I wept blood.
I caught the tears in a cup
and drank them.

Got a couple queries for you all. Sorry this is so long.

Alistair Grout has some level of clairvoyance. In brief, disembodied voices tell him things about the people around him. Canon is vague on exactly how often they're right; I'm playing them as sometimes cryptic, sometimes liars, and sometimes just correct. One canon fact is that they're inconsistent, so he won't necessarily understand or believe them.

With that in mind:

1. Can Grout hear accurate things about your character's:
→ thoughts, feelings, opinion on him, intentions towards him, or anything else of that nature?
→ past, whether in canon or in Wonderland?
→ (possible) future(s) in canon, or lack therof?

2. (Optional) Is there anything you'd like him to hear because it could be dramatic /fun/awful?
→ Or anything you really don't want him to hear?

He also has a couple of vampire superpowers, so:

3. Can he successfully view your character's aura? Might it ping as anything other than human?

This is the standard aura deal: colours represent emotions, and can also identify certain creatures eg vampires and werewolves.

4. Can he use vampire mind control on your character?

These are simple one-word or one-sentence commands, requiring eye contact. He can't make someone directly harm themselves, and it's less effective or ineffective on other vampires. He also can't use this to affect memories or plant delusions (so he could make someone cluck, but couldn't make them think they're a chicken). It can also be resisted with very strong willpower (the whole reason it's less good on vampires is that they get to resist with both willpower and their undead bloodly strengthiness). For the person being dominated, they don't feel like they're acting against their will, but nothing's stopping them from noticing the weird coincidence where this person said 'jump' and they jumped. If you answer yes here I'll still hit you up for permission before he attempts any doozies or anything long-lasting.

5. Can he make himself invisible or disguised to your character?

Grout can vanish and walk around unseen, and this involves blotting himself out of people's perception like he's a walking Somebody Else's Problem field. He can also use the same technique to make his face appear different (whether that means a random face or another specific person's). Being a perception filter has advantages and disadvantages: it covers all senses, but instinct-driven animals can sometimes detect that something's wrong. As with all things, it can be pierced. Noticing Grout when he's invisible takes either superhuman willpower/perception, or some form of Multifandom Power Clash™, but it can be done. If your character has a way to see him then the invisibility/disguise might work only sometimes, dependant on a ~battle of wills~, or not work at all.

It's also possible to film him while he's invisible and then see him on the tape later on once his influence has ended, so enjoy that one, Marble Hornets kids.

Any of these powers comes with degrees of success or failure depending on chance and the victim's willpower + vampire pedigree. It's not an automatic full success every time, so if you want, it could work in one thread and not in another. If you want to know more the powers are here from 'Cloak of Shadows' through 'Vanish from the Mind's Eye', here under 'Aura Perception' or here under 'Command' and 'Mesmerise'.

And while I have your attention:

6. This seems as good a place as any to mention that Grout wouldn't mind having a ghoul around the mansion, though it's worth noting that being a Malkavian's ghoul doesn't do wonders for your mental health. He'd also love to have people round for dinner now and again. Are you bored of being a person with all their blood inside? Hello.

(Having your blood drunk doesn't mean you die or turn into a vampire. Not necessarily, anyway. Being bitten by a vampire is canonically erotic, but if you're uncomfortable with that or your character's a minor then lmk and we can tone it down [I'm not planning on getting graphic about bite-boners in any case]. Blood-drinking or ghoul-turning would definitely be something to discuss at the time, and as such this is an interest check rather than a 'hey can i ghoul you anytime ok thanks'.

Taking a ghoul in the mansion wouldn't be a casual thing, and he makes a selfish user of a domitor, so if it happens, I'd want to do it with ooc plotting and be up front that it wouldn't be a healthy dynamic.

Feel free to ignore this bit if you're unsure or uninterested!)

[ edit: added a field for character name/journal. Changed the wording of #6 in the textbox to make the question clearer. ]

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Character(s) and journal(s): Cami O'Connell (

therapize) and Rip Hunter (

directed)

1. Can Grout hear accurate things about your character's:
→ thoughts, feelings, opinion on him, intentions towards him, etc? Good for both!

→ past, whether in canon or in Wonderland? Good for both!

→ (possible) future(s) in canon? Better for Cami, who already knows a ton about her future anyway, including the fact that she dies. In Rip's case you're good, although this is a topic he avoids since he's a time traveler and knowing about the future is bad.

2. Is there anything you'd like him to hear because it could be real dramatic/fun/awful? Or anything you really don't want him to hear? So Cami's going to 1) be turned into a vampire herself and 2) die in her future, and I'm good with him hearing both. Rip, on the other hand, is a time traveler, which means his timeline consists of moments from all sorts of different time periods, currently known to range from Ramses-era Egypt to 2166 (and likely further into the future). Just in case you wanted those random voices to make even less sense than normal.

3. Can he successfully view your character's aura? Might it ping as nonhuman? He can, and they are both very human.

4. Can he use vampire mind control on your character? AHA HA HA HA so Cami is both 1) strong-willed and 2) a prior victim of her world’s version of vampire mind control. Grout is free to try, but if Cami catches him doing it—or if he somehow succeeds—she is prone to maybe punching him in the face or yelling at him.

Like Cami, Rip has gone through the joyful experience of finding out he was being purposely manipulated, although in his case it was by the organization he swore an oath to serve. They also killed his family, bonus. So again, Rip would be pissed to discover this happening, and would definitely attempt to do something about it. This something might involve shooting at Grout with a laser gun. Oh, and he’s also got a pretty strong stubborn streak, though he's in general more pragmatic, so different brand of stubbornness than Cami's.

5. Can he make himself invisible or disguised to your character? Sure thing! ~~Creeper~~.

6. Does your character have ambitions of being a snack or a cool vampire's servant? Snacking is a potential yes for both, although both come with potential consequences: Cami is really good at figuring out when she's being used/manipulated, and Rip has a laser gun. Pew pew. Going to say no on the servant bit though; while this would normally be very much my jam, see the notes below for Cami, and Rip has a canon-based brainwashing arc I'm going to be toying with later on. :)

7. Any other notes? So aside from the above, Cami specifically has a bonus feature by way of Klaus Mikaelson. He is her lover, and also an Original vampire-werewolf hybrid and thus one of the most powerful creatures in her world because TVD said so. He’s a little bit protective of Cami, and known for brutally taking out his wrath on his enemies for doing bad things. TL;DR: when I said consequences I really, really meant it. However, that is not a hard no on anything! Just something to be aware of, since I would need to get Klaus' player involved in anything that was potentially harmful to Cami.

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Cami O'Connell and Rip Hunter