app . R29

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Player
Name: Rona
Personal Journal: N/A
E-mail: magicalseagulls@gmail.com
Plurk: ochrona
Timezone: PST (-8)
Current Characters in Route: N/A

The following is a reapplication featuring a dramatically updated canonpoint, so the app has been written fresh. (Giles was here in early 2012, as a Breeder, from early Season 2.)

Character
Name: Rupert Giles
Series: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Timeline: (Buffy) Season 10, #13
Canon Resource Links: Wiki! Horrifically long, so the following section will include major points of character history.

Personality:

Let's take a linear approach to this.

It began with the three Fairweather sisters: two women who used their magic to remain eternally youthful-- the better to con demons out of beauty products as a hobby-- and a third who joined the Watcher's Council, a group dedicated to fighting supernatural forces and saving humanity. She had a son, who grew up to be a proper, respectable, duty-bound Watcher, and he had a son, whose name was Rupert.

Young Rupert had his grandmother's skill for magic, so he was sent to the Watcher's Academy, to study horrible monsters and be steadily traumatized until the age of seventeen. Then his final exam went wrong, the entire class except Rupert was brutally killed, and his dad tried to talk him down from it. Rupert yelled a lot and went off to London to join a punk band.

In London he made some black-magic friends, they sold their souls to an ancient demon for a really good high, and it went predictably and fatally wrong. Rupert's grandma found him, helped him kill some vampires, said some inspirational things about redemption, and brought him back.

Two decades later: enter Rupert Giles, a proper, respectable, duty-bound Watcher with a mild nature and a lot of tweed. Over eight seasons of canon, Giles is most immediately defined by being English-- polite, dry-humored, exasperated with teenage Californian culture-- and bookish. He takes the role of researcher, delights in cross-referencing, becomes eagerly excited at the news of an unusual threat. He reads a ridiculous number of languages, and speaks several, from Latin to Cantonese, earnestly though at varying levels of fluency. He is the show's source of exposition and obscure-but-useful information, in everything from ancient mystic rituals to offhand comments on botany.

After that, he is loyal. Steadfast, brave, deeply supportive-- most of the time-- to Buffy and her little group of outcast teenagers. He is reluctant to speak on deeply emotional topics, but it makes his gentle pep talks and pledges of support more powerful when they come. He writes Buffy a large cheque to cover the bills, once her mother dies. He sits through "eating cookie dough and talking about boys" with young Dawn, and does so fondly. He scolds the children, complains about behavior he thinks is silly, and makes snide comments a little more bitingly than is called for, but he always joins them in a crisis. He'll charge into the heart of the battle without hesitation; he is brave and sarcastic even when captured; he does not balk at a fight he is highly unlikely to come out of. He shakes off injuries and goes stubbornly back to work.

When Giles does betray his group, it's a matter of end-justifies-the-means pragmatism: he goes behind the backs of others because it is for their own good, and he's resigned himself to being the one who makes the hard calls. This means, of course, that he will entirely bypass everyone else's feelings because he thinks he sees a flaw in their logic, and considers his approach more sensible. He tries to have Spike killed behind Buffy's back because he thinks her emotionally compromised; he abandons the group when Willow and Buffy badly need his help and intervention, because he thinks that he's providing an unhelpful crutch. On the occasions that he does something cruel or violent, he's remorseless, because he thinks that this is how things have to be. And he has a vicious, sadistic temper, rare though it is; he is so rarely the most physically powerful person in the room that it is a release when he lashes out.

But he is also, when among his little ragtag family, a complete dork. When the end of the world is likely to come tomorrow, he can be convinced to sit down and play a dwarf in D&D. He notes that an object must be magical because it's so shiny. In the earlier, more carefree seasons, he flies into impassioned speeches on the merits of rugby over American football, acts as though technology is a personal affront, and has to practice his "will you go out with me" speech on a chair. Even at the latest points in the show, he still goes stammeringly horrified that a school library would be taken over by computers.

Since Giles was resurrected-- Angel rescued him from eternal torment, and his great-aunts tried to get him a second chance at childhood-- all of these core traits remain true. But he came back as a child with the memories of a man, not a man in the body of a child. He lacks adult maturity; he's quicker to snap at someone who doesn't deserve it, unthinkingly self-centered in his mindset, and will fly into a furious tantrum without apparent shame. His attention span is a disaster and he loudly voices his jealousy. Because he's used to being respected, he is embarrassed and despairing to have the social and combat ability of a child. He feels disconnected from his group, and hasn't figured out what to do about it, except that he is startled and hurt every time he isn't allowed a drink.

While he is still stubbornly loyal and most comfortable as the team researcher (and, now, more eager to play video games and keep Batman figurines on his desk), he is lonelier than ever. Giles is back to disregarding everyone else's needs and keeping himself apart. He is glad to be alive; he resents the way he's come back, and hasn't yet come to terms with his new self.

Strengths/Weaknesses:

For strengths: he can read and speak a really silly number of languages, and delights in a challenge or mystery, particularly if it can be tackled with help of a library. He is used to high-pressure, high-stakes situations; the looming end of the world is pretty much a normal Tuesday. Violence does not phase him, and he doesn't hesitate to employ it. He is creative with any given resources, and frequently finds his way out of bad situations through clever use of magic or surroundings. He has, given his new inability to be much good in a physical fight, accepted magic as his primary weapon and tool, and won't shy away from Pokemon battles. Showing up in another world won't throw him; he already knows very well that those exist, and that very odd creatures live in them.

For weaknesses? At this canonpoint, he is an absolute trainwreck of frustrations, insecurities, and juvenile impulses. Giles' interpersonal skills always hinged a bit on being bookish, and sarcastic, and very loyal to a very exclusive group; he has many allies, but rarely many adult friends. Now that he's some in-between of adult and child, this will be cranked up to eleven. He will be off-put when speaking to young people, because he expects a certain dynamic that isn't there; he will try to befriend adults and become quickly impatient with his lack of credibility. His attention span is shot, his emotions are all over the place, he is easily distracted by a villain's cleavage, and he hasn't reconciled the concept of a second chance with liking who he was before. He's also useless in a fight, without magic.

On the upside, his new youth means a new take on the Pokemon world. The adult Giles-- from early canon, as I played him here before-- was curious about the world, but mostly functioned as a mentor figure, not a proper participant. This Giles, who reluctantly delights in video games and pyjamas with dinosaurs on them, will bring a new element of excitement and stubborn enjoyment to the concept of a Pokemon journey.

Pokémon Information
Affiliation: Trainer
Starter: Ponyta
Password: Cherries Strudel

Note: Giles will not retain his memories of being (rather briefly) in Route several years ago, but it would be charming if the Ponyta recognized him and, so to speak, began with higher-than-average happiness and a marginally higher level (lv.7).

Samples
First Person Sample:

[ Good morning, Route. Here you have a boy of about twelve, who's evidently accepted his schoolkid clothes. He addresses the camera with a sort of hesitant nod of hello, as though he's not quite sure he's done it right. ]

I'm speaking as, um, a new arrival. My name is Giles. [ He can remember being fifty and respectable, he'll not tolerate an entire crowd of teenage strangers calling him Rupert. So. ]

I'd like to learn more about this world. The mythology, especially. [ And here he brightens a little, leans forward a little to look into the camera. ] I've heard of, um, legendary Pokemon-- god-like beings, by all account. Is there any reliable source of information on these?

[ This is the poshest-sounding kid to skip right through the "confused and incredulous" stage on the network. So long as someone can point him to a library, he'll be happy. ]

Third Person Sample:

He panics much more easily, now that he's twelve.

Giles-the-man would have been on his feet carefully, and examining his surroundings with due caution; Giles the not-quite-boy scrambles, and stumbles, and gets caught in the bedsheets, and is immediately angry at the music.

It's mechanic in a canned sort of way, and he isn't sure where it's coming from. The bedroom is irritatingly bland, if not immediately threatening. He occupies himself with the probably more important topic of where he is.

Not San Francisco; the size of the place could tell him that. The amount of green out the window suggests it isn't California at all, and when he goes to the glass to look, the trees are-- what are the trees? This wouldn't be his first time waking in an altered world, but typically he stays in the same country.

Very soon, the trees are of lesser interest; he is more occupied with the fact that flaming horses exist.

The creature blinks at him with large dark eyes. He rode, as a proper child, and in the summers between boarding school, and whenever he returned from California to the London house. He's not had the opportunity to see a horse since he returned from the dead. Certainly not a-- foal? Does the name Ponyta imply that it's reached adult size, when the proportions are off? Does its coat withstand all intense heat, or is the fire itself magical? Is it entirely illusionary?

He reaches out a careful hand, palm up, and startles when the creature steps forward and noses softly into his palm.

"Hello," he says, and stammers on it, a little. The horse doesn't seem to mind, and nuzzles up against his hand and in toward his chest, fire-mane flickering. Giles makes an undignified little startled noise, and tries to shy safely away-- but the heat doesn't even reach him. Oh.

"Is, is it only for show? Or do you control the heat?" The Ponyta only looks at him, patiently. With a little more confidence, Giles rubs a hand down its nose.

"Well," he decides, because the music keeps plinking away and the grass is irritatingly green but he has a horse that's on fire, and it likes him, and he wants to know everything-- "it's good to meet you."