Post by TODD ORION RAYMOND on Jan 19, 2013 19:51:17 GMT -5
[style=font-family: courier new; font-size: 10px; letter-spacing: 5px; text-transform: uppercase; color: #abbeb8; text-align: center;]don't get too close; it's dark inside.
IT'S WHERE MY DEMONS HIDE
Hey there! It's DITTO with a new character. I'm currently TWENTY years old. This new character application is COMPLETE and my lovely new character is played by TOM BURKE.
TODD ORION RAYMOND
(MALE) (THIRTY-TWO) (STRAIGHT) (OUTSIDER)
THE RELATIONSHIPS
MOTHER: Bryony Raymond.
FATHER: Jared Ramond.
BROTHERS: N/A.
SISTERS: N/A.
SPOUSE: N/A.
CHILDREN: N/A.
PETS: N/A.
OTHER: N/A.
THE APPEARANCE
There’s nothing much that can be said about Todd’s physical appearance. He’s six feet tall and weighs in at roughly two-hundred pounds. Straight nose, high cheekbones, square jaw normally sporting stubble. His hair is short and always looks like he woke up that morning, looked at himself in a mirror and thought ‘screw it’, which is usually true. Without bold hair or eye colours to identify him in a crowd, Todd can blend in almost anywhere which works well to his advantage when he needs to remain unseen. He is a chameleon, an everyman. With enough fading or water damage, most ID badges look like him. Perhaps his only defining feature is a scar across his top lip.
THE PERSONALITY
Todd has never been never acclaimed for his academic worth. Even in his childhood, he was able to recognise that if a knife was pulled on you, knowledge of the periodic table was not gonna help in the slightest.
No, instead Todd educated himself on the things that did matter, the things they never taught in school. As a child, he tinkered with electricals until he understood them, eagerly explored an engine when vehicles broke down, was happy to stick his hand down a gunky sink pipe when it got blocked. He observed people, how they acted, how they thought. He learned to play off expectations, to earn a stranger’s trust and run with it. He learned to work people like puppets by the time he was a teenager.
He’s an excellent liar. He lies about who he is, where he comes from, his motives, his family... and in the face of his dishonesty being exposed he smothers the suspicion with more lies. It’s almost a given by now that anything that comes out of his mouth isn’t true, and it’s getting so bad that he almost can’t help it. It’s as if though he’s afraid of telling the truth. He usually gives out a false name when first meeting people, and the surnames he adopts most often are Killock, Crossgrove, Ackroyd, Wainwright, and Gale, simply because he has fake and stolen IDs with these names.
Todd made his money as a teen pulling everyday street scams on people, winning impossible card games at the bar, and using 'street magic' to con people out of wallets and small valuables. He is still well-versed in these ways now, with swift reflexes that made sleight of hand look like magic, a knowledge of locks that make escape artistry easy, and a honed knack for parkour that turns any high wall blocking his escape route seem like a flower bed.
He now uses these talents for breaking into locked storage rooms to steal supplies and running away from undead cannibals.
He is a suave, charming, honey-tongued master of deception and misdirection and technology. A confident liar with a killer smile, he bullshits his way through life, using a variety of names and identities to slip past resistance. Charismatic and confident, Todd is a joker who takes nothing seriously in life, and even when in near-death situations, or perhaps especially so, he always finds the time to crack a smart-assed one-liner.
To put it bluntly, Todd is a bit of an asshole. He doesn't care about anyone but himself, considers his own well-being to be the top priority at all times, and will lie to and cheat and steal from those considered to be his friends. Perhaps that’s why he’s managed to make it so far. However, a life of lies doesn't come without certain suspicions. Because he is so ready and willing to betray others it makes him especially fearful that everyone else is going to backstab him. He is overly cautious to the point of seeming paranoid, and mistrustful, Todd doesn't give out his real name, instead using a variety of different aliases. He avoids talking about himself except when fabricating a false history and otherwise constantly pretends to be something he’s not.
No, instead Todd educated himself on the things that did matter, the things they never taught in school. As a child, he tinkered with electricals until he understood them, eagerly explored an engine when vehicles broke down, was happy to stick his hand down a gunky sink pipe when it got blocked. He observed people, how they acted, how they thought. He learned to play off expectations, to earn a stranger’s trust and run with it. He learned to work people like puppets by the time he was a teenager.
He’s an excellent liar. He lies about who he is, where he comes from, his motives, his family... and in the face of his dishonesty being exposed he smothers the suspicion with more lies. It’s almost a given by now that anything that comes out of his mouth isn’t true, and it’s getting so bad that he almost can’t help it. It’s as if though he’s afraid of telling the truth. He usually gives out a false name when first meeting people, and the surnames he adopts most often are Killock, Crossgrove, Ackroyd, Wainwright, and Gale, simply because he has fake and stolen IDs with these names.
Todd made his money as a teen pulling everyday street scams on people, winning impossible card games at the bar, and using 'street magic' to con people out of wallets and small valuables. He is still well-versed in these ways now, with swift reflexes that made sleight of hand look like magic, a knowledge of locks that make escape artistry easy, and a honed knack for parkour that turns any high wall blocking his escape route seem like a flower bed.
He now uses these talents for breaking into locked storage rooms to steal supplies and running away from undead cannibals.
He is a suave, charming, honey-tongued master of deception and misdirection and technology. A confident liar with a killer smile, he bullshits his way through life, using a variety of names and identities to slip past resistance. Charismatic and confident, Todd is a joker who takes nothing seriously in life, and even when in near-death situations, or perhaps especially so, he always finds the time to crack a smart-assed one-liner.
To put it bluntly, Todd is a bit of an asshole. He doesn't care about anyone but himself, considers his own well-being to be the top priority at all times, and will lie to and cheat and steal from those considered to be his friends. Perhaps that’s why he’s managed to make it so far. However, a life of lies doesn't come without certain suspicions. Because he is so ready and willing to betray others it makes him especially fearful that everyone else is going to backstab him. He is overly cautious to the point of seeming paranoid, and mistrustful, Todd doesn't give out his real name, instead using a variety of different aliases. He avoids talking about himself except when fabricating a false history and otherwise constantly pretends to be something he’s not.
THE HISTORY
BIRTHDAY: December 1st.
NATIONALITY: American.
Todd grew up on shitty streets lined with shitty people. His folks had separated when he was still taking his first steps, and throughout his teenage years he was constantly moving back and forth over the Delaware River between Philadelphia and Camden. His mother lived on the Philly side, where he went to school, decided he couldn’t stick it, and ran off to his dad's where the grass looked greener on the other side. But Camden, consistently crowned danger capital of the US, was no better at all.
Growing up, Todd was surrounded by murder and abuse on the news, and it never fazed him in the slightest. He was a loose cannon even when young, so it was a good thing that Bryony knew how to be tough with him.
As a kid, Todd was the kind of boy that one look at and you knew that he was the one stealing the glue because he liked to smell it, the one that when you said 'alright class don't do this', his dumb ass ran off to accomplish it as fast as possible. He liked school for one reason; it gave him a good list of rules that he could go break. You see, Todd never liked rules. He thought they were dumb. Telling people what they couldn't do was as good as asking them to go do it! So Todd had decided as a young lad that he would personally show people how dumb rules were by breaking all that he could. Every freaking chance he got he would take it.
Todd and school had never clicked well. They said do this, he said suck this. They told him where to go, he told them where they could go.
He was fourteen when he tracked down his dad. After a monumental row with Bryony over his expulsion from school, he’d packed his stuff and fled out of the fire escape in the rain. He turned up at his dad’s flat soaking wet, and carrying a pathetic duffel bag containing all the things he thought he would ever need. His dad reluctantly allowed him house space and gave Todd all the paternal love of a grizzly bear. That being: not much at all. Jared stayed out most nights, getting drunk, getting arrested, and relying on Todd to get him out of a night’s stay in a jail cell after urinating in the streets and assaulting police officers.
Such dependency soon turned to bail demands, and that was about the time Todd turned to low level crime, busting into cars, swiping bags from public transport, pickpocketing. When Jared’s drinking ate into their funds, Todd was left to pick up his dad’s slack with paying the rent. He began to make his money as a teenager pulling everyday street scams on people, winning impossible card games, and using 'street magic' to con people out of wallets and small valuables. But such an income, if it could be called that, was small fry, and the money he ‘earned’ did not go far.
So Todd moved on up in the world. By the age of seventeen he was pulling off complex scams, using fake IDs to move effortlessly past social resistance and trick people into giving him the trust he abused.
When Jared was arrested the following year, Todd decided that enough was enough. He was done with his deadbeat dad and moved back across the river with his mother in Philly, where he scraped a pass grade to graduate and got his own crappy flat.
You would think that his time of swindling was over, but as Todd struggled to hold down a part-time job, and determined not to rely on his parents anymore, he took up the confidence scams again. By the age of twenty, he was planning and executing long cons on victims that came to trust him, and by the age of twenty-five he’d moved home eight times to avoid being caught for credit card fraud, identity theft, computer intrusions, theft of intellectual property, and counterfeiting.
He should have stopped a long time ago, but for Todd it was already far too late. He was a master at tricking people, sussing out personality weaknesses in his targets and exploiting them for all he could get.
By the age of twenty-eight, he had moved to New York to try his conning hand at the rich and bustling city that gave Todd scam opportunities too easy to ignore.
But with the massive population came the virus that spread like wildfire. When shit started to hit the fan, Todd decided that now was the time to get the fuck outta Dodge. He went home again, to Philadelphia, to try find his mother. He now wishes that he hadn’t. Given the circumstances he didn’t have the time to emotionally process things properly, but Todd knew that the good people should have lived. The teachers, the children, the doctors and emergency services workers. But it was their very innocence and heroism which took them out first. But Todd, a liar, a cheat, a con man, who knew the scourge of humanity and its capabilities even when alive, was almost unsurprised when they turned into monsters when dead.
It took him a week to get into the city unnoticed. And when he finally climbed the fire escape and slipped through the window into his old bedroom, he found Bryony a pallid-skinned cannibal who attacked him indiscriminately. Todd took a baseball bat to his own mother’s skull, briefly considered finding his father, thought, “hell no, screw that”, and left.
Growing up, Todd was surrounded by murder and abuse on the news, and it never fazed him in the slightest. He was a loose cannon even when young, so it was a good thing that Bryony knew how to be tough with him.
As a kid, Todd was the kind of boy that one look at and you knew that he was the one stealing the glue because he liked to smell it, the one that when you said 'alright class don't do this', his dumb ass ran off to accomplish it as fast as possible. He liked school for one reason; it gave him a good list of rules that he could go break. You see, Todd never liked rules. He thought they were dumb. Telling people what they couldn't do was as good as asking them to go do it! So Todd had decided as a young lad that he would personally show people how dumb rules were by breaking all that he could. Every freaking chance he got he would take it.
Todd and school had never clicked well. They said do this, he said suck this. They told him where to go, he told them where they could go.
He was fourteen when he tracked down his dad. After a monumental row with Bryony over his expulsion from school, he’d packed his stuff and fled out of the fire escape in the rain. He turned up at his dad’s flat soaking wet, and carrying a pathetic duffel bag containing all the things he thought he would ever need. His dad reluctantly allowed him house space and gave Todd all the paternal love of a grizzly bear. That being: not much at all. Jared stayed out most nights, getting drunk, getting arrested, and relying on Todd to get him out of a night’s stay in a jail cell after urinating in the streets and assaulting police officers.
Such dependency soon turned to bail demands, and that was about the time Todd turned to low level crime, busting into cars, swiping bags from public transport, pickpocketing. When Jared’s drinking ate into their funds, Todd was left to pick up his dad’s slack with paying the rent. He began to make his money as a teenager pulling everyday street scams on people, winning impossible card games, and using 'street magic' to con people out of wallets and small valuables. But such an income, if it could be called that, was small fry, and the money he ‘earned’ did not go far.
So Todd moved on up in the world. By the age of seventeen he was pulling off complex scams, using fake IDs to move effortlessly past social resistance and trick people into giving him the trust he abused.
When Jared was arrested the following year, Todd decided that enough was enough. He was done with his deadbeat dad and moved back across the river with his mother in Philly, where he scraped a pass grade to graduate and got his own crappy flat.
You would think that his time of swindling was over, but as Todd struggled to hold down a part-time job, and determined not to rely on his parents anymore, he took up the confidence scams again. By the age of twenty, he was planning and executing long cons on victims that came to trust him, and by the age of twenty-five he’d moved home eight times to avoid being caught for credit card fraud, identity theft, computer intrusions, theft of intellectual property, and counterfeiting.
He should have stopped a long time ago, but for Todd it was already far too late. He was a master at tricking people, sussing out personality weaknesses in his targets and exploiting them for all he could get.
By the age of twenty-eight, he had moved to New York to try his conning hand at the rich and bustling city that gave Todd scam opportunities too easy to ignore.
But with the massive population came the virus that spread like wildfire. When shit started to hit the fan, Todd decided that now was the time to get the fuck outta Dodge. He went home again, to Philadelphia, to try find his mother. He now wishes that he hadn’t. Given the circumstances he didn’t have the time to emotionally process things properly, but Todd knew that the good people should have lived. The teachers, the children, the doctors and emergency services workers. But it was their very innocence and heroism which took them out first. But Todd, a liar, a cheat, a con man, who knew the scourge of humanity and its capabilities even when alive, was almost unsurprised when they turned into monsters when dead.
It took him a week to get into the city unnoticed. And when he finally climbed the fire escape and slipped through the window into his old bedroom, he found Bryony a pallid-skinned cannibal who attacked him indiscriminately. Todd took a baseball bat to his own mother’s skull, briefly considered finding his father, thought, “hell no, screw that”, and left.
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