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Mar. 25th, 2018 10:14 pmPLAYER INFORMATION
Name: Brantron
Contact:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
FullOfBees
CANON CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character Name: Stanley "Stan" Pines, AKA Grunkle Stan, AKA Stanford Pines
Canon: Gravity Falls
Backstory: Here
Personality: There are two things Stan Pines loves more than anything: money and his family. Let's start with money - it's the more straightforward explanation. Due to being cast out by his father at a young age, Stan spent most of his life fending for himself. And without his brother's book smarts, that left street smarts. Stan is surprisingly adept at coming up with all manner of moneymaking schemes and ways to separate gullible marks from their money, and with that skill set comes a keen awareness of how to smell bullshit coming a mile away. He pegs Gideon as a fraud right away, foiling his own schemes on numerous occasions, and even matches wits with an extradimensional nightmare demon to save his family.
And that's a good place to transition into Stan's other great love. Despite his self-made reputation as a con artist and his propensity to lie, cheat, and steal from nearly anyone, he is incredibly loyal to his family. Even though he and his brother Ford split up after a fight in high school and were estranged for years, he showed up right away when he contacted him asking for help. More than that, he spent nearly half his life trying to repair the portal to bring him back even though they failed to reconcile and actually came to blows.
This family loyalty extends to Mabel and Dipper as well. He calls Mabel 'pumpkin' and does his best to make sure she's happy, and even though he's hard on Dipper, it's revealed that he just wants to mold him into the kind of man who will fight back against whatever life throws at him. This is never more evident than when the twins are in mortal peril - while Stan is usually the kind of guy to play it cautious and avoid trouble, he will throw himself into danger without a second thought to protect them. If it comes to it, he'll even sacrifice himself to make sure his family is safe.
The last, possibly most important, and definitely most well-hidden thing to know about Stan is that he has a deep inferiority complex. He wasn't as smart as his brother growing up, and while he possessed talents he didn't - physical prowess and the ability to fast talk almost anyone - he was always viewed as the lesser son. This only got worse when he inadvertently wrecked Ford's science project and chances of getting into a good school, permanently ruining his image in the eyes of his father. His life was rough after that, and he had to make his own way without relying on anyone but himself, and it's evident that he resented it from the conversation he and Ford had before the portal accident. Screwing up big a second time only made his self-worth issues worse, and after Ford comes back, he immediately feels insecure at the prospect that the children might start to like him better. Even when facing down Bill Cipher in the most heroic moment of his life, he casts his sacrifice as the only good and useful thing he's ever done.
AU INFORMATION
AU Character Name: Stanley "Stan" Pines
AU Backstory: (OOC: I removed any reference of Ford's name from my AU backstory just in case anyone wants to app him in and doesn't want to adopt my version of events, but also kept the details of his life vague in case they do so that they won't be too constrained by what I've already written. Hopefully I've struck a good compromise.)
The details of Stan's early youth are mostly the same - nerdy twin brother, grew up hardscrabble on the mean streets of New Jersey, etc. Instead of the early fight that drove them apart for decades, though, the two moved to Los Angeles together after graduating high school. Stan's brother was accepted to college in the area, and Stan moved out to pursue a dream of making it big in show business. His act combined elements of stage magic and comedy, similar to Penn & Teller, and he immediately started looking for work at bars, nightclubs, and any other venue that would agree to book him. In the meantime, his brother threw himself head-on into his studies.
At first, the brothers kept in close contact, meeting often for lunch or coffee and to discuss their respective careers. Stan's brother's studies took off far more quickly and successfully than Stan's show biz career, though, and the seeds of jealousy were planted soon after their arrival in LA. This was compounded over time as the disparity between the brothers grew - the elder brother graduated ahead of schedule and at the top of his class while Stan's savings dwindled, he got busier while Stan got poorer, and the two met less and less often over the years even though they still lived in the same city.
The whole thing came to a head when Stan finally called up his brother to try to convince him to meet for dinner, on the tenth anniversary of their arrival in the city together. He also intended to swallow his pride and ask his brother for some money, as by this point he was living gig to gig and the work was beginning to dry up (not that he'd ever admit that out loud). His brother rebuffed him, claiming he had some very important work to do that night and that he was close to the biggest breakthrough of his career, and Stan hung up on him in a huff. Later that night, intending to go out drinking alone, he saw him standing outside a fancy nightclub near the edge of town and stormed over to confront him, thinking he'd blown him off to go live it up without his loser brother.
Unbeknownst to Stan, his brother was there studying the Metaverse phenomenon, and was about to enter Mementos for the first time. Just as Stan walked up, the two were drawn in and were immediately set upon by a group of shadows. In over his head, Stan's brother was subdued quickly and dragged into the darkness. In a desperate last ditch attempt to save his brother, Stan manifested a Persona, but it turned out to be a non-combat type and he was ultimately forced to beat a hasty retreat. Panicking and unsure of what to do, he went to his brother's apartment to try to find out what it was he'd been researching since college. He found some incomplete notes with lots of words he didn't understand, and his brother's computer with a glowing symbol on the screen.
Stan wouldn't find out what the symbol meant until many years later, spending decades trying to decipher his brother's notes on his own. He eventually used some of the stranger elements and drawings as inspiration to open up a Ripley's Believe It Or Not style oddities museum in the city to make his living, at the same time keeping an eye open for anything legitimately strange and cultivating contacts on the sly. He keeps his brother's notes and other important things locked up in a secret room in the back of the shop. With the recent strangeness in the city, the symbol he saw so many years ago has finally resurfaced - this time on his cell phone. And after contacting the Phantom Thieves, Stan finally has some hope that he might be able to get back to the place he lost his brother. He's playing that close to his chest, though, presenting himself as a grumpy old man who's out of his depth.
AU Personality Deviation: The biggest difference in this Stan's personality is that he's markedly less inclined toward overt acts of criminality to make money or deal with his problems. He ended up with a similar skill set due to practicing stage magic, but apart from his Phantom Thief activities, his shady business practices never cross into the realm of actual illegal acts. Because he operates a small curiosities shop instead of a tourist trap like the Mystery Shack, he's also more private and generally standoffish around other people. He still does his best to draw in customers, and has no qualms about selling them a line to make a quick buck, but he's not as well-known in the community and doesn't work quite as hard to maintain a network of friends. If such a thing were even possible, this also means he's not as good at dealing with kids. He doesn't have anything against them in particular, but he has utterly no idea about the kinds of things they like, how to talk to them, or how to properly care for them.
Species: Human
Class: Operator
Arcana: Moon
Persona: Stan's Persona is the Wizard of Oz. As an Operator-class Persona, it specializes in mental status effects - both inflicting and healing. It starts out with the single target versions thereof, steadily learning the multi-target versions along the way. The Persona itself takes the form of a very fancy and high-tech hologram projector capable of displaying any form Stan wishes. Underneath, though, and concealed by a thin curtain is the Persona’s “control room” - a mishmash of junk Stan uses to operate the more impressive exterior. Levers, switches, cranks, a big tube to yell into to project his voice - the whole nine yards.
The Persona's final form is Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkle Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs, the man behind the gadgetry and illusions of the Wizard of Oz. In order to form an S-rank Social Link with someone, Stan will have to shed all the bullshit and reveal his true self, causing his Persona to change in a similar way. This form resembles the balloon the Wizard used to travel from Kansas to Oz, except the balloon itself is in the shape of a large face. Stan rides inside the basket in this form, hovering above the battlefield to provide support from the air. (Though it might look more like this when it's using Fear effects.)
Social Link Persona:
C: Nue
B: Black Ooze
A: Mothman
Assets: Minor - His brother's incomplete notes about the Metaverse
Codename: Mr. Mystery
Form of Rebellion: Stan's Metaverse outfit is a black suit with a white dress shirt underneath, a red bow tie, a maroon fez with a yellow crescent shape emblazoned on it, brown dress shoes, a cane with a magic 8-ball decoration on the handle, and a simple black thief mask covering his face and eyes. Essentially this plus this.
RP Sample:
Questions Sample Prompt:
I: The Magician asks - When you awaken in the morning, what is your first thought?
Everything hurts. Why does everything always hurt?
II: The Priestess asks - What do you consider to be an undeniable truth?
There's a sucker born every minute.
III: The Empress asks - What are your hopes for the future?
Fame and fortune. Isn't that what everybody wants? (OOC: And I guess bringing my nerd of a brother back. We've got a lot to talk about.)
V: The Hierophant asks - What rules do you feel are sacred? What rules do you feel are meant to be broken?
Ha! Rules are for suckers. All you gotta know is how to break 'em and get away with it.
IX: The Hermit asks - What do you do when given the grace of solitude?
Scratch myself. And swear as much as I want. Hey, you asked, long nose.
X: The Fortune asks - Do you believe in Destiny? Why, or why not?
Nope. Bunch of nonsense. I make my own destiny.
XI: The Strength asks - How do you respond in the face of danger?
I try to be as far away from 'danger' as possible. Why should I stick my neck out?
XIII: The Death asks - As you enter a new stage in your life, what do you wish to leave behind?
Hey, I'm pushing seventy here. I think I've left enough behind.
XIV: The Temperance asks - What do you need to feel whole and why?
I'm gonna go with money again. You sensing a theme here? (OOC: My brother. I hate to admit it, but without him, I feel like half a man.)
XXI: The World asks - What do you hope to have achieved when you reach the end of your life's journey?
Fame and fortune. Geez, how many times do I have to say it? (OOC: I'd like to say I managed to do one good thing with my life.)
Name: Brantron
Contact:
CANON CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character Name: Stanley "Stan" Pines, AKA Grunkle Stan, AKA Stanford Pines
Canon: Gravity Falls
Backstory: Here
Personality: There are two things Stan Pines loves more than anything: money and his family. Let's start with money - it's the more straightforward explanation. Due to being cast out by his father at a young age, Stan spent most of his life fending for himself. And without his brother's book smarts, that left street smarts. Stan is surprisingly adept at coming up with all manner of moneymaking schemes and ways to separate gullible marks from their money, and with that skill set comes a keen awareness of how to smell bullshit coming a mile away. He pegs Gideon as a fraud right away, foiling his own schemes on numerous occasions, and even matches wits with an extradimensional nightmare demon to save his family.
And that's a good place to transition into Stan's other great love. Despite his self-made reputation as a con artist and his propensity to lie, cheat, and steal from nearly anyone, he is incredibly loyal to his family. Even though he and his brother Ford split up after a fight in high school and were estranged for years, he showed up right away when he contacted him asking for help. More than that, he spent nearly half his life trying to repair the portal to bring him back even though they failed to reconcile and actually came to blows.
This family loyalty extends to Mabel and Dipper as well. He calls Mabel 'pumpkin' and does his best to make sure she's happy, and even though he's hard on Dipper, it's revealed that he just wants to mold him into the kind of man who will fight back against whatever life throws at him. This is never more evident than when the twins are in mortal peril - while Stan is usually the kind of guy to play it cautious and avoid trouble, he will throw himself into danger without a second thought to protect them. If it comes to it, he'll even sacrifice himself to make sure his family is safe.
The last, possibly most important, and definitely most well-hidden thing to know about Stan is that he has a deep inferiority complex. He wasn't as smart as his brother growing up, and while he possessed talents he didn't - physical prowess and the ability to fast talk almost anyone - he was always viewed as the lesser son. This only got worse when he inadvertently wrecked Ford's science project and chances of getting into a good school, permanently ruining his image in the eyes of his father. His life was rough after that, and he had to make his own way without relying on anyone but himself, and it's evident that he resented it from the conversation he and Ford had before the portal accident. Screwing up big a second time only made his self-worth issues worse, and after Ford comes back, he immediately feels insecure at the prospect that the children might start to like him better. Even when facing down Bill Cipher in the most heroic moment of his life, he casts his sacrifice as the only good and useful thing he's ever done.
AU INFORMATION
AU Character Name: Stanley "Stan" Pines
AU Backstory: (OOC: I removed any reference of Ford's name from my AU backstory just in case anyone wants to app him in and doesn't want to adopt my version of events, but also kept the details of his life vague in case they do so that they won't be too constrained by what I've already written. Hopefully I've struck a good compromise.)
The details of Stan's early youth are mostly the same - nerdy twin brother, grew up hardscrabble on the mean streets of New Jersey, etc. Instead of the early fight that drove them apart for decades, though, the two moved to Los Angeles together after graduating high school. Stan's brother was accepted to college in the area, and Stan moved out to pursue a dream of making it big in show business. His act combined elements of stage magic and comedy, similar to Penn & Teller, and he immediately started looking for work at bars, nightclubs, and any other venue that would agree to book him. In the meantime, his brother threw himself head-on into his studies.
At first, the brothers kept in close contact, meeting often for lunch or coffee and to discuss their respective careers. Stan's brother's studies took off far more quickly and successfully than Stan's show biz career, though, and the seeds of jealousy were planted soon after their arrival in LA. This was compounded over time as the disparity between the brothers grew - the elder brother graduated ahead of schedule and at the top of his class while Stan's savings dwindled, he got busier while Stan got poorer, and the two met less and less often over the years even though they still lived in the same city.
The whole thing came to a head when Stan finally called up his brother to try to convince him to meet for dinner, on the tenth anniversary of their arrival in the city together. He also intended to swallow his pride and ask his brother for some money, as by this point he was living gig to gig and the work was beginning to dry up (not that he'd ever admit that out loud). His brother rebuffed him, claiming he had some very important work to do that night and that he was close to the biggest breakthrough of his career, and Stan hung up on him in a huff. Later that night, intending to go out drinking alone, he saw him standing outside a fancy nightclub near the edge of town and stormed over to confront him, thinking he'd blown him off to go live it up without his loser brother.
Unbeknownst to Stan, his brother was there studying the Metaverse phenomenon, and was about to enter Mementos for the first time. Just as Stan walked up, the two were drawn in and were immediately set upon by a group of shadows. In over his head, Stan's brother was subdued quickly and dragged into the darkness. In a desperate last ditch attempt to save his brother, Stan manifested a Persona, but it turned out to be a non-combat type and he was ultimately forced to beat a hasty retreat. Panicking and unsure of what to do, he went to his brother's apartment to try to find out what it was he'd been researching since college. He found some incomplete notes with lots of words he didn't understand, and his brother's computer with a glowing symbol on the screen.
Stan wouldn't find out what the symbol meant until many years later, spending decades trying to decipher his brother's notes on his own. He eventually used some of the stranger elements and drawings as inspiration to open up a Ripley's Believe It Or Not style oddities museum in the city to make his living, at the same time keeping an eye open for anything legitimately strange and cultivating contacts on the sly. He keeps his brother's notes and other important things locked up in a secret room in the back of the shop. With the recent strangeness in the city, the symbol he saw so many years ago has finally resurfaced - this time on his cell phone. And after contacting the Phantom Thieves, Stan finally has some hope that he might be able to get back to the place he lost his brother. He's playing that close to his chest, though, presenting himself as a grumpy old man who's out of his depth.
AU Personality Deviation: The biggest difference in this Stan's personality is that he's markedly less inclined toward overt acts of criminality to make money or deal with his problems. He ended up with a similar skill set due to practicing stage magic, but apart from his Phantom Thief activities, his shady business practices never cross into the realm of actual illegal acts. Because he operates a small curiosities shop instead of a tourist trap like the Mystery Shack, he's also more private and generally standoffish around other people. He still does his best to draw in customers, and has no qualms about selling them a line to make a quick buck, but he's not as well-known in the community and doesn't work quite as hard to maintain a network of friends. If such a thing were even possible, this also means he's not as good at dealing with kids. He doesn't have anything against them in particular, but he has utterly no idea about the kinds of things they like, how to talk to them, or how to properly care for them.
Species: Human
Class: Operator
Arcana: Moon
Persona: Stan's Persona is the Wizard of Oz. As an Operator-class Persona, it specializes in mental status effects - both inflicting and healing. It starts out with the single target versions thereof, steadily learning the multi-target versions along the way. The Persona itself takes the form of a very fancy and high-tech hologram projector capable of displaying any form Stan wishes. Underneath, though, and concealed by a thin curtain is the Persona’s “control room” - a mishmash of junk Stan uses to operate the more impressive exterior. Levers, switches, cranks, a big tube to yell into to project his voice - the whole nine yards.
The Persona's final form is Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkle Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs, the man behind the gadgetry and illusions of the Wizard of Oz. In order to form an S-rank Social Link with someone, Stan will have to shed all the bullshit and reveal his true self, causing his Persona to change in a similar way. This form resembles the balloon the Wizard used to travel from Kansas to Oz, except the balloon itself is in the shape of a large face. Stan rides inside the basket in this form, hovering above the battlefield to provide support from the air. (Though it might look more like this when it's using Fear effects.)
Social Link Persona:
C: Nue
B: Black Ooze
A: Mothman
Assets: Minor - His brother's incomplete notes about the Metaverse
Codename: Mr. Mystery
Form of Rebellion: Stan's Metaverse outfit is a black suit with a white dress shirt underneath, a red bow tie, a maroon fez with a yellow crescent shape emblazoned on it, brown dress shoes, a cane with a magic 8-ball decoration on the handle, and a simple black thief mask covering his face and eyes. Essentially this plus this.
RP Sample:
Questions Sample Prompt:
I: The Magician asks - When you awaken in the morning, what is your first thought?
Everything hurts. Why does everything always hurt?
II: The Priestess asks - What do you consider to be an undeniable truth?
There's a sucker born every minute.
III: The Empress asks - What are your hopes for the future?
Fame and fortune. Isn't that what everybody wants? (OOC: And I guess bringing my nerd of a brother back. We've got a lot to talk about.)
V: The Hierophant asks - What rules do you feel are sacred? What rules do you feel are meant to be broken?
Ha! Rules are for suckers. All you gotta know is how to break 'em and get away with it.
IX: The Hermit asks - What do you do when given the grace of solitude?
Scratch myself. And swear as much as I want. Hey, you asked, long nose.
X: The Fortune asks - Do you believe in Destiny? Why, or why not?
Nope. Bunch of nonsense. I make my own destiny.
XI: The Strength asks - How do you respond in the face of danger?
I try to be as far away from 'danger' as possible. Why should I stick my neck out?
XIII: The Death asks - As you enter a new stage in your life, what do you wish to leave behind?
Hey, I'm pushing seventy here. I think I've left enough behind.
XIV: The Temperance asks - What do you need to feel whole and why?
I'm gonna go with money again. You sensing a theme here? (OOC: My brother. I hate to admit it, but without him, I feel like half a man.)
XXI: The World asks - What do you hope to have achieved when you reach the end of your life's journey?
Fame and fortune. Geez, how many times do I have to say it? (OOC: I'd like to say I managed to do one good thing with my life.)
