[PC Plotnotes] Victor Lark

[Victor Lark]

“You smile,” she answered his unspoken question. Her grip was tight and cold on his tiny hand. “You smile, even if you don’t mean it. Because it makes people happy.” She meant compliant. Cunning - Empty Charming - Belligerent

[Victor Lark]

Traits [Cunning] dexterous or crafty in the use of special resources (as skill or knowledge) or in attaining an end His skill is in people, his knowledge in their reactions. They are what he studies instead of books, and has become practiced in using his expertise with or against a person, if only to learn more about them. Due to the nature of his condition, Victor is not particularly observant; what he does see, he remembers and measures, applying one observation to another with learned accuracy. To many, he seems outwardly reckless and abrasive, when in fact each opinion challenged and boundary pushed is a single calculation in the ultimate discovery of a person. Some call it flattery, others call it manipulation. To Victor, every lie is a move in the game of Cunning. [Empty] containing nothing; having none of the usual or appropriate contents His most notable weakness is his inability to fathom profound emotion. Rage, fear, pride, grief: even real happiness escapes his understanding, and some might consider lacking such a mark of humanity as Emptiness. Victor recognized from a young age that others were driven by greater passions than he could (at least effortlessly) comprehend. He has spent his life in pursuit of emotion, and has yet to recognize the extent of his incapacity. He has studied the way a face changes when moved by emotion and has convinced himself that the deficiency is in his expression. He thinks that, if he can inspire emotions in others and perfectly mimic their reaction, he may be able to empathize. [Charming] using charm: a power of pleasing or attracting, as through personality or beauty It was easy to learn that a smile and a compliment were the best way to grab a person’s attention, to keep them interested and feeling and expressing. Victor has the most fun when he smiles, has convinced himself that it makes him happy. People seem to like it too, recounting their lives and thoughts to a stranger who seems interested. Victor is an easy friend to make for an evening, but his relationships rarely last much longer than that; his version of Charm is as genuine as the sentiments he emotes. His interest does not often go beyond his selfish analyses, and so he bores quickly of someone after he has sufficiently discovered them. [Belligerent] inclined to or exhibiting persistent hostility or assertiveness The second best way to keep a person interested is to beleaguer them with questions and assumptions, to wrong them at every turn and to watch their emotions mount. Though his persistence in inspiring aggression is more painful than effective, Victor’s Belligerence is not entirely malevolent. Unaware of (or at least unconcerned with) the lesser discomforts of others, he often times gets too wrapped up in his game, treating his company as subjects for testing instead of people who may become offended. He has yet to fully grasp which of his tactics open a person and which force them into closing themselves off, but he tends not to favor holding back.

Threads of Note Aim For My Heart all the reasons Alessa Lark’s Dirty Little Secret a moment in family history Untitled a summary of the philosophies that raised him Break the Sky a bondmate’s murder, for the sake of discovery Reciprocation an explanation for a lasting relationship

Family, by Blood •denotes an appearance in a thread Immediate ••Alessa Lark, mother •Victor, father (deceased) Extended Earnest Lark, grandfather Ramona Lark, grandmother (deceased) •Yvette Mordeco, aunt Quinn Lark Jr., first cousin Edgar Lark, first cousin Vernon Lark Sr., uncle •Emille Rowe, first cousin •Vernon Lark Jr., first cousin •Tristan Lark, first cousin •Darian Lark, first cousin Other •Hector Lark Jr., cousin, son of Hector Lark Sr., second cousin •Roland and Lawrence Warren, cousins, sons of Leonora Warren-Lark, second cousin •Lucresi, maid and governess

Religion and Djed (WIP) [Rhysol] Victor was raised in Ravok, born a child of Evil. Like most of his family, he feared Rhysol as much as he had to, and did not love Him. The harmless messes he made as a child were forgiven because of his family’s name and, perhaps, the city’s fondness for chaos. Victor forsook Rhysol in much the same way that he abandoned his family: out of childish rebellion and for the promise of the distant and exotic Alvadas. Though he claims that Rhysol is not his god, he cannot help the heavy influence on his childhood that still moves him today. Even in resenting Him, Victor acts in worship of Chaos with most things his does. [Ionu] Victor chose a different god. He read about Ionu in a book in a pawn shop, one which should have been burned or hidden but had somehow fell into his hands, and then crossed a country because of what he read. A trickster at heart, Victor was drawn to Ionu’s penchant for mischief and messes. He respects the world as random and amusing, and prays to a divine who would challenge him with trouble instead of saving him from it. Illusion attracts him because it is the height of deceit. If he had a fear, it would be the wrong end of a lie, and with the power of illusion he could easily come out on top. [Morphing] Victor’s newfound talent is something of an accident. After two seasons of uncertain meditation, reaching out to an idea without a definition and an entity which might not even have existed, he unlocked the power of his djed without really understanding it. He does not yet know the mechanisms of magic and the extent of his power, and has very little control over its use. It is when he wants to understand a person, to get into their minds and feel as they do, that he morphs; the desire drives his life’s djed to remedy his frustration and a piece of him, generally his face or hands, is warped into a mirror of that person. The new condition is not immediately reversible. Victor must turn inward and focus on himself in order to regain his own image—it is a difficult task, when consumed by the discovery of another. A (Somewhat Redundant) Essay on Religion : Victor stumbled upon Ionu in a book, of all places, in Ravok, of all cities (which I admit is a creative license I may have stretched too far :P). Really, he’s perfect and primed to worship Rhysol, given his upbringing and his view on the world. His penchant for mischief and trickery manifests in (often malicious) deceit, and his skills in seduction and subterfuge might have once been useful to the Ebonstryfe. As a Chaon, he could get everything he wanted out of a person: their minds, their fear, their emotions, extrapolated by the chaos he would be about to inflict on their minds and bodies. I could make a similar argument about Sagallius, whom Victor emulates in every conversation he holds, trying to manipulate and lead everyone he meets. But he chose Ionu. Why? Because mischief requires a response. Because illusion still leaves you with a choice. To truly explore a person’s emotions, and therefore the quirks and intricacies of their mind, you cannot try to control them. You must force them to be themselves, to act for themselves, to react to a novel situation. Victor has discovered that when a person is utterly deceived is when they are most honest. They cling to truth; they search for it. To Victor, who cannot understand the truth of emotion and therefore cannot really appreciate the truth of the world, watching someone search for the reality in the illusion is the next best thing. He likes to think he worships Ionu with everything he does, and therefore has been kind of lax on the meditation and communion aspect of worship. While this is really a sort of cop out to real devotion, the philosophy itself has become self-fulfilling. He’s learned to embrace the randomness of the world and to take deception as a challenge to overcome rather than an affront that would humiliate him. He even commends Ionu as a divine who would no save him from trouble, but amuse him by putting him into it. He’s figured out that the reason for everything is that there is no reason, and at this point he’s feeling pretty optimistic. That’s what religion sort of needs to do, I think. It gives him something to belong to, something to live for, some meaning to define him. Without it, he’s just another drifter. In choosing Ionu specifically, he doesn’t have to really destroy something to understand it. (Okay, but he still does. No one’s perfect.)

[Victor Lark]

Spring Thread Goals • Help other people complete Alvadas Thread Goals, because FFF-- • Survive the Djed Storm • Contact in Patchwork Port (Wharf) • Contact in the Underground (???) • Train Morphing? • Sell Palla to slavers • Piss off Seven • Look for Seven after he goes missing (aka flip shit) • Grovel to Ionu • Visit the Crooked Playhouse • Festival of Illusion • Walk on some roofs Becoming a Gangster: Strategy Part One: Meet all the people. Part Two: ??? Part Three: PROFIT!