Sherlock Holmes (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mustbethetruth) wrote2010-03-21 02:43 pm
mustbethetruth) wrote2010-03-21 02:43 pm
Entry tags:
Application
Player Information
Your name/pseudonym: Rachelle
What gender pronouns do you prefer?: She/her
Your email: See the contact post.
Your chat handles: See the contact post.
Do you currently have any other characters in this game? If so, please list them here: No
Character Information
Name: Sherlock Holmes
Nickname/aliases: Sigerson
Canon (e.g. Harry Potter/Firefly/Star Trek): Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s original Sherlock Holmes stories
Canon Type (e.g. book, movie, television show, play)?: Stories and novels
Character's LJ:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mustbetruth
Brief history of your character: There is little information about Holmes’s childhood, but he does have one brother, Mycroft, who is seven years older than him. Both he and Holmes share the same gift for observation—with Mycroft perhaps being a shade better than Holmes—and both lack the patience for socializing. Holmes does, however, manage a bit better than his brother; he went so far as to attend university for a short time before he dropped out to focus on setting up his practice as a consulting detective, due in part to the single friend he made while at school, Victor Trevor.
Holmes needed a roommate to take up some rather agreeable rooms at 221b Baker Street, and a mutual acquaintance introduced him to Watson. Together, they moved in and Holmes’s practice took off. He and Watson lived together for a time, before Watson got married and moved out, but even during Watson’s marriage, they solved crimes together. That is, until Holmes had to take on his arch nemesis, Moriarty. He was successful in taking the genius of crime down, but the price was that he had to fake his own death so that he could continue to bring down Moriarty’s ring of crime and evade the attacks on his life from Moriarty’s right-hand man, who unfortunately knew of the true state of his affairs.
Holmes arrives a year into what’s termed his “hiatus,” which is really a gentler way of saying his faked death. Following the incident at the Falls, Holmes went to France long enough to orient himself and contact Mycroft, the only person to know that Holmes is actually alive outside of Moran. From there he traveled through Spain, Northern Africa, and the Middle East until he landed in Tibet. He’s been in Tibet a couple months before he arrives on the island.
Stats
Age: 37 (which is a guess)
Appearance: At 6’2” at least, Holmes is very lean and angular, though he does possess a good deal of athletic ability. His features are pale and sharp, and he’s generally always neat and clean. His eyes are a clear grey, his hair is dark, and his nose is rather prominent.
Brief synopsis of your character's personality (100 word minimum): Holmes likely suffers from some sort of depression that sparks periods of intense energy—when he has a case or something else to set his skilled mind into action—followed by periods of lethargy and pessimism when there is nothing to occupy his mind. He supplements these periods with the use of cocaine, an attempt to artificially stimulate his mind and one he is reluctant to give up. Whether he’s up or down, he’s subject to snapping impatiently at people when he’s cranky or when they’re interrupting his thinking process. Rarely does he say something without a sarcastic or humorous lilt to his voice, which doesn’t soften the moments when he is sharp and insulting. However, when necessary, he can effectively be soothing and gentle, a very useful tool in his line of work.
Due to his less than friendly demeanor most of the time, it isn’t easy for Holmes to make friends, and he tends to be quite possessive of the few he does manage to make. He is quite confident about his skills and he often declines to have his successes credited to him, though he is very pleased when he is praised, particularly when the praise comes from the few people he is close to. He has a rather negative feeling about women in general, and especially so when Watson seems likely to abandon him for one, but he can be perfectly nice to them when necessary.
Game Information
What is the point of your character's canon in which you are introducing your character?: After “The Final Problem” in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, during the period in which Holmes has faked his death. By this time, he’s traveled to Tibet.
Is your character alive or dead at the point of entry to the game?: That largely depends on who you ask. He’s not dead, but everyone believes he is dead except for his brother Mycroft and one of Moriarty’s men, Col. Moran.
What skills does your character have?: It’s almost a better question to ask what skills he doesn’t have (namely, astronomy, and anything else not strictly useful to the art of crime solving). He can identify soil with a glance, and he’s quite adept at chemistry; he also boasts a healthy knowledge of poisons and a smattering of anatomy. His observational skills are insanely honed, and all these skills combine to make him the greatest consulting detective in the world. (Also, the only one.) He’s more than happy to remind you of that fact, as well.
He is also an extremely skilled violinist, boxer, swordsman, and singlestick player. His weapon of choice, though, is his hunting crop, and he’s fairly skilled with that as well.
When your character is shown to his/her room, he/she will find 10 personal items, which the Island has supplied. These things can only be what they would typically have in canon. Please, list those 10 items here:
• His Stradivarius violin
• The Moroccan case holding his syringe and cocaine
• The Persian slipper that holds his tobacco, complete with some tobacco, and a simple clay pipe
• A chemistry set
• A picture of Watson in his army uniform that Holmes had stolen from Watson’s things at some point
• A costume makeup kit, including a couple false noses
• A few letters from Mycroft and one from Lestrade
• His trusty hunting crop
• A pair of handcuffs and the key
• A pistol, fully loaded
Entrance post:
For the past few months, he has been a Norwegian man named Sigerson. So far, he is fairly fond of Sigerson; at least he doesn’t have to alter his height, and the accent comes to him fairly easily, even if his Norwegian is a bit rusty and he keeps throwing in a bit of Danish. Since the Falls, since Sherlock Holmes died, he’s tried on several identities and personalities, false noses and accents, and he carefully crafts each one until any trace of Sherlock Holmes completely vanishes beneath an application of makeup and spirit gum and hunched shoulders. The vanishing act is key because every time he turns his head or steps out of a room having just reinvented himself, he’s waiting for a bullet to end the life of this person he just created, this Norwegian or Frenchman or Spaniard, but not Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock Holmes has already had his last great adventure.
He keeps a copy of the first report he could find to remind him that Sherlock Holmes is dead; Sherlock Holmes died in the Falls, and the man he is now, Sigerson or Rodriguez or Stiefel or Dubois, is just an observer, just someone who crawled up a rock and sat by as he watched a stranger mourn the death of a friend.
One of the only times he ever gets close to bringing Holmes back to life is when he writes and reads telegrams from Mycroft; this is why he only sends them sparingly, beyond the fact that they compromise his safety. They remind him of everything he’s left, everything he’s running away from. They remind him of a silver cigarette case and a note, hastily written, and the way the Falls roared behind him as he struggled up the face of a cliff.
Yes, he likes Sigerson. Sigerson fits in well in Tibet, where the Norwegians are few and far between and the people don’t ask many questions. He could stay here, he thinks, for a little while. He’s been running since the Falls, running until he can’t hear the water or the screams or the sobs, and he thinks finally he’s gotten far enough. He isn’t sure if Moran has found him here yet—probably, possibly—but he’s tired of traveling. Sometimes it feels like he’s still moving, even when he’s gotten off the train or the cab or whatever conveyance is carrying him farther and farther away from everything he’s ever called home.
He’s ready to stop.
The rooms he gets in Tibet aren’t very clean or very nice or very accommodating, but they’re still, andHolmes Sigerson settles into them immediately. The landlady is brusque, curious about the foreign man with the foreign accent and few belongings, but she doesn’t bother him for answers, and he’s grateful. Silently, he’s grateful.
This is how he lives for months, as Sigerson, adjusting to Tibet and throwing himself into a new life, but always, always watching over his shoulder, waiting for this life to be extinguished as quickly as his last. He can almost find a sort of peace here in amongst the mountains and the people; he can certainly lose himself, which is, after all, the point.
Closed off in his room in his boarding house, he looks out the streaked window at the smear of the sky, the distant mountains. It’s hot and dry. He misses London, and he’s sweating in his jacket, so he peels it off. Beyond the walls of his room he can hear shouting—from the neighbors, from the streets below—and animals and voices, dozens upon hundreds of people crying and jostling and talking and shouting. There are crimes happening, mysteries laying themselves down out there, but he doesn’t care about that anymore. He can’t. The consulting detective is dead.
And this is when he almost becomes Holmes again, when he reaches for paper, digging it out of his bag, and he sets pen to paper, and he nearly writes it out.
Watson, I am alive.
He never quite makes it though, never quite gets the ink onto the paper, because he knows the sentiment is just as ridiculous, just as dangerous, than if he were to write what he really wants to write, what he has wanted to write for years but never been able to say, between adventures and a marriage and, finally, a death.
Ultimately he puts the paper away again, blank.
He lays back on the bed, listening to it adjust to his weight, and he lets his eyes slide shut, lets his body go still, tells his mind to push away fog and cab rides and warm fires and warm companionship. Sleep is pointless—he’s been doing little of it lately—but stillness, that’s his new drug, and he indulges in it whenever he can.
He’s still too hot when he finally opens his eyes, not to the cracked ceiling of his room, but to a brilliantly blue sky. He sits up, squinting, and finds his jacket is back, buttoned neatly, and laying beside him in the grass of a place he has never seen before is an envelope with his name on it.
Not Sigerson.
His name, a corpse’s name, a ghost’s name. Though he is still hot, his blood runs cold, and he quickly looks around for air guns or rocks or criminals lurking in wait.
He reaches for the envelope and opens it, wondering at who could have plucked him from his room and delivered him here; he finds a key, the map to a house, and he twists around to see a house looming behind him. He is, apparently, in the yard. And he is not in Tibet.
Carefully, testing to see if he has been drugged or injured, Holmes rises to his feet, but he can find nothing physically wrong with him, though he does feel somewhat groggy, his mind a little hazy. His heart races, his pulse jumps, and he looks around him in a mixture of fear and amazement; this could mean his death, his final death, the one that he can’t recover from. Or it could mean something else entirely.
It’s clear what he needs to do. He needs to investigate. He already has an envelope with his name scrawled on it, and though it’s been a while, a year, since he crawled into Holmes’s skin, he thinks he might be ready to do it.
Your name/pseudonym: Rachelle
What gender pronouns do you prefer?: She/her
Your email: See the contact post.
Your chat handles: See the contact post.
Do you currently have any other characters in this game? If so, please list them here: No
Character Information
Name: Sherlock Holmes
Nickname/aliases: Sigerson
Canon (e.g. Harry Potter/Firefly/Star Trek): Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s original Sherlock Holmes stories
Canon Type (e.g. book, movie, television show, play)?: Stories and novels
Character's LJ:
mustbetruthBrief history of your character: There is little information about Holmes’s childhood, but he does have one brother, Mycroft, who is seven years older than him. Both he and Holmes share the same gift for observation—with Mycroft perhaps being a shade better than Holmes—and both lack the patience for socializing. Holmes does, however, manage a bit better than his brother; he went so far as to attend university for a short time before he dropped out to focus on setting up his practice as a consulting detective, due in part to the single friend he made while at school, Victor Trevor.
Holmes needed a roommate to take up some rather agreeable rooms at 221b Baker Street, and a mutual acquaintance introduced him to Watson. Together, they moved in and Holmes’s practice took off. He and Watson lived together for a time, before Watson got married and moved out, but even during Watson’s marriage, they solved crimes together. That is, until Holmes had to take on his arch nemesis, Moriarty. He was successful in taking the genius of crime down, but the price was that he had to fake his own death so that he could continue to bring down Moriarty’s ring of crime and evade the attacks on his life from Moriarty’s right-hand man, who unfortunately knew of the true state of his affairs.
Holmes arrives a year into what’s termed his “hiatus,” which is really a gentler way of saying his faked death. Following the incident at the Falls, Holmes went to France long enough to orient himself and contact Mycroft, the only person to know that Holmes is actually alive outside of Moran. From there he traveled through Spain, Northern Africa, and the Middle East until he landed in Tibet. He’s been in Tibet a couple months before he arrives on the island.
Stats
Age: 37 (which is a guess)
Appearance: At 6’2” at least, Holmes is very lean and angular, though he does possess a good deal of athletic ability. His features are pale and sharp, and he’s generally always neat and clean. His eyes are a clear grey, his hair is dark, and his nose is rather prominent.
Brief synopsis of your character's personality (100 word minimum): Holmes likely suffers from some sort of depression that sparks periods of intense energy—when he has a case or something else to set his skilled mind into action—followed by periods of lethargy and pessimism when there is nothing to occupy his mind. He supplements these periods with the use of cocaine, an attempt to artificially stimulate his mind and one he is reluctant to give up. Whether he’s up or down, he’s subject to snapping impatiently at people when he’s cranky or when they’re interrupting his thinking process. Rarely does he say something without a sarcastic or humorous lilt to his voice, which doesn’t soften the moments when he is sharp and insulting. However, when necessary, he can effectively be soothing and gentle, a very useful tool in his line of work.
Due to his less than friendly demeanor most of the time, it isn’t easy for Holmes to make friends, and he tends to be quite possessive of the few he does manage to make. He is quite confident about his skills and he often declines to have his successes credited to him, though he is very pleased when he is praised, particularly when the praise comes from the few people he is close to. He has a rather negative feeling about women in general, and especially so when Watson seems likely to abandon him for one, but he can be perfectly nice to them when necessary.
Game Information
What is the point of your character's canon in which you are introducing your character?: After “The Final Problem” in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, during the period in which Holmes has faked his death. By this time, he’s traveled to Tibet.
Is your character alive or dead at the point of entry to the game?: That largely depends on who you ask. He’s not dead, but everyone believes he is dead except for his brother Mycroft and one of Moriarty’s men, Col. Moran.
What skills does your character have?: It’s almost a better question to ask what skills he doesn’t have (namely, astronomy, and anything else not strictly useful to the art of crime solving). He can identify soil with a glance, and he’s quite adept at chemistry; he also boasts a healthy knowledge of poisons and a smattering of anatomy. His observational skills are insanely honed, and all these skills combine to make him the greatest consulting detective in the world. (Also, the only one.) He’s more than happy to remind you of that fact, as well.
He is also an extremely skilled violinist, boxer, swordsman, and singlestick player. His weapon of choice, though, is his hunting crop, and he’s fairly skilled with that as well.
When your character is shown to his/her room, he/she will find 10 personal items, which the Island has supplied. These things can only be what they would typically have in canon. Please, list those 10 items here:
• His Stradivarius violin
• The Moroccan case holding his syringe and cocaine
• The Persian slipper that holds his tobacco, complete with some tobacco, and a simple clay pipe
• A chemistry set
• A picture of Watson in his army uniform that Holmes had stolen from Watson’s things at some point
• A costume makeup kit, including a couple false noses
• A few letters from Mycroft and one from Lestrade
• His trusty hunting crop
• A pair of handcuffs and the key
• A pistol, fully loaded
Entrance post:
For the past few months, he has been a Norwegian man named Sigerson. So far, he is fairly fond of Sigerson; at least he doesn’t have to alter his height, and the accent comes to him fairly easily, even if his Norwegian is a bit rusty and he keeps throwing in a bit of Danish. Since the Falls, since Sherlock Holmes died, he’s tried on several identities and personalities, false noses and accents, and he carefully crafts each one until any trace of Sherlock Holmes completely vanishes beneath an application of makeup and spirit gum and hunched shoulders. The vanishing act is key because every time he turns his head or steps out of a room having just reinvented himself, he’s waiting for a bullet to end the life of this person he just created, this Norwegian or Frenchman or Spaniard, but not Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock Holmes has already had his last great adventure.
He keeps a copy of the first report he could find to remind him that Sherlock Holmes is dead; Sherlock Holmes died in the Falls, and the man he is now, Sigerson or Rodriguez or Stiefel or Dubois, is just an observer, just someone who crawled up a rock and sat by as he watched a stranger mourn the death of a friend.
One of the only times he ever gets close to bringing Holmes back to life is when he writes and reads telegrams from Mycroft; this is why he only sends them sparingly, beyond the fact that they compromise his safety. They remind him of everything he’s left, everything he’s running away from. They remind him of a silver cigarette case and a note, hastily written, and the way the Falls roared behind him as he struggled up the face of a cliff.
Yes, he likes Sigerson. Sigerson fits in well in Tibet, where the Norwegians are few and far between and the people don’t ask many questions. He could stay here, he thinks, for a little while. He’s been running since the Falls, running until he can’t hear the water or the screams or the sobs, and he thinks finally he’s gotten far enough. He isn’t sure if Moran has found him here yet—probably, possibly—but he’s tired of traveling. Sometimes it feels like he’s still moving, even when he’s gotten off the train or the cab or whatever conveyance is carrying him farther and farther away from everything he’s ever called home.
He’s ready to stop.
The rooms he gets in Tibet aren’t very clean or very nice or very accommodating, but they’re still, and
This is how he lives for months, as Sigerson, adjusting to Tibet and throwing himself into a new life, but always, always watching over his shoulder, waiting for this life to be extinguished as quickly as his last. He can almost find a sort of peace here in amongst the mountains and the people; he can certainly lose himself, which is, after all, the point.
Closed off in his room in his boarding house, he looks out the streaked window at the smear of the sky, the distant mountains. It’s hot and dry. He misses London, and he’s sweating in his jacket, so he peels it off. Beyond the walls of his room he can hear shouting—from the neighbors, from the streets below—and animals and voices, dozens upon hundreds of people crying and jostling and talking and shouting. There are crimes happening, mysteries laying themselves down out there, but he doesn’t care about that anymore. He can’t. The consulting detective is dead.
And this is when he almost becomes Holmes again, when he reaches for paper, digging it out of his bag, and he sets pen to paper, and he nearly writes it out.
Watson, I am alive.
He never quite makes it though, never quite gets the ink onto the paper, because he knows the sentiment is just as ridiculous, just as dangerous, than if he were to write what he really wants to write, what he has wanted to write for years but never been able to say, between adventures and a marriage and, finally, a death.
Ultimately he puts the paper away again, blank.
He lays back on the bed, listening to it adjust to his weight, and he lets his eyes slide shut, lets his body go still, tells his mind to push away fog and cab rides and warm fires and warm companionship. Sleep is pointless—he’s been doing little of it lately—but stillness, that’s his new drug, and he indulges in it whenever he can.
He’s still too hot when he finally opens his eyes, not to the cracked ceiling of his room, but to a brilliantly blue sky. He sits up, squinting, and finds his jacket is back, buttoned neatly, and laying beside him in the grass of a place he has never seen before is an envelope with his name on it.
Not Sigerson.
His name, a corpse’s name, a ghost’s name. Though he is still hot, his blood runs cold, and he quickly looks around for air guns or rocks or criminals lurking in wait.
He reaches for the envelope and opens it, wondering at who could have plucked him from his room and delivered him here; he finds a key, the map to a house, and he twists around to see a house looming behind him. He is, apparently, in the yard. And he is not in Tibet.
Carefully, testing to see if he has been drugged or injured, Holmes rises to his feet, but he can find nothing physically wrong with him, though he does feel somewhat groggy, his mind a little hazy. His heart races, his pulse jumps, and he looks around him in a mixture of fear and amazement; this could mean his death, his final death, the one that he can’t recover from. Or it could mean something else entirely.
It’s clear what he needs to do. He needs to investigate. He already has an envelope with his name scrawled on it, and though it’s been a while, a year, since he crawled into Holmes’s skin, he thinks he might be ready to do it.