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“I say Wolf, for all wolves are not of the same sort; there is one kind with an amenable disposition - neither noisy, nor hateful, nor angry, but tame, obliging and gentle, following the young maids in the streets, even into their homes. Alas! Who does not know that these gentle wolves are of all such creatures the most dangerous!”
basic
CHARACTER NAME: Noah Connell
AGE: Thirty-three.
DATE OF BIRTH: June 20th, 1974.
LOCATION: Has apartments in New York and Las Vegas.
PROFESSION: Talent scout. Artist & repertoire man for Epic Records. Instead of pacing around eyeing the flock for the ill and diseased, Noah tracks down the young and talented.
FAIRY-TALE CHARACTER: The Wolf, Aesop's Fables
ABILITY: He can smell fear. All the different tastes and flavours of it, too, including the difference between blind panic and general edginess. He's capable of sensing strong terror a couple blocks away whether he wants to or not, but easily ignores the waves of nervousness echoing throughout the entire city. If he pays attention, he can narrow his senses down to focus on just one person. It's a simple but useful skill. He uses it while watching auditions and to make sure dates are at ease.
DUTIES: In addition to his job in the mundane world, Noah is a librarian at the Pentamerone, heading the Aesop's Fables faction whether he likes it or not. This is the first time ever that the wolf has been allowed such leadership, and the responsibility chafes a little. He's not the most comforting and guiding head ever, but he does his job. He does what's required of him, and he keeps it all together. He just doesn't go the extra mile to coddle you all - because, after all, he has a certain amount of bad history with most of the other fables. He disappears to Vegas occasionally to get away from the job, but the notebook ensures that he can never entirely abandon them. He's strangely protective of the fables, in his own way, because he'll be damned if they fall apart for the first time on his shift.
Has been a librarian since he was twenty-seven, which means six years, which means he took over from his predecessor in 2001. You do the math.
STATUS: Due to his high-profile position in taledom, it's pretty common knowledge that he's the wolf - much to Noah's chagrin. He'll grudgingly admit who he is, but he doesn't openly talk about his tale or its associated memories, and rarely volunteers personal thoughts or reflections on it. Tough luck. He's a closed book.
personality
FIRST IMPRESSION: Catch him on a personal level and he will appear easy, relaxed, unconcerned, even silly - a playful puppy, albeit a very rich and very charming one. Beneath that, however, lies the wolf. In a professional situation, Noah switches on, his instincts suddenly becoming sharp, keen, and dangerous. Don't expect any charity from him, either. Your problems are your own, and he's even unwilling to bail a friend out of trouble.
PERSONALITY: Noah is the embodiment of everything playful and cocky about the wolf, all easy confidence and casual flirtation. He is extremely good at putting people at ease, and this has been his saving grace as 'librarian' - he's a people person, pure and simple, and attends to them all with a bundle of energy, constantly pacing and fidgeting. At first glance, Noah seems to have the attention span of a four-year-old and a shallow, feckless mind to match - people might think he's incapable of taking his life seriously or handling the consequences of his actions. This is, of course, entirely wrong; he just doesn't like owning up to his mistakes, and he cultivates that air of open friendliness in order to appear harmless. There's a well of ruthless cunning lurking somewhere beneath that surface, and an old and feral mind wary of betrayal. He does his job coolly and calmly, but does not go the extra mile to accomodate or comfort you unless you've given him any particular reason to. Noah might flash smiles at everyone, but he's constantly waiting for the trick, the catch - it's a cold day in hell if he ever becomes gullible. He likes feigning ignorance when called out on his bullshit. Avoidance is his best technique, and he'll try to keep a situation happy-go-lucky for as long as possible. Because the moment he has to switch on that ancient survival instinct, Noah gets vicious.
His is the personality that could easily turn on an old friend, all bared teeth and raised hackles if he felt they were a legitimate threat. But on the other hand, while his ploy at joviality might have started off fake, it ... eventually became real. Most of the time, Noah remains strangely lighthearted - this reincarnation is much more of a tongue-in-cheek pup than his original self, and he's not a lone wolf by any stretch of the imagination. Noah lives for having a pack of loyal friends around him. He needs to be liked. He likes making people laugh. His mental shield can take a hell of a battering, but at the end of the day, Noah needs to feel as if there's something there that people enjoy. He gets even more anxious when he's alone too often. Just picture that nervous dog scratching at the door waiting for its family to get home - that's him at his weakest. Noah hates seeing himself that way, and since he presumes that others also despise weakness, he would never admit to really needing someone. Because that would be rolling over and exposing his throat, and that's one thing he just doesn't do.
In between poking gentle (and sometimes genuinely barbed) teasing at anyone he sees, Noah is terribly focused on hitting on the ladies. It's handy for his profession, too: sleep with the impressionable starlets, and guess what, they're that much more trusting and willing to put their career in his hands. He has a type of rakish charm to him, and pulls it for an advantage at any chance he gets. But while he's an utter flirt and shamelessly so, it's fairly obvious that he's not too serious about it. Few of his various conquests have truly meant anything to him, and Noah trundles along in life with the general flightiness that only a wolf, that perennial slave to appetite, could have. But he's kind and flattering to most women, regardless of appearance. It's all part of his routine to make people comfortable. If all you see is the harmless sheepskin, after all, you'll never perceive him as a threat.
STATUS: Single for now. Less complicated that way.
SEXUALITY: Heterosexual
background
HISTORY: Noah Connell, middle son of Saul Connell (film director) and Maria London (actress, naturally) was raised with a convenient family foothold in the entertainment industry. He remembers growing up in a backyard in San Francisco. He remembers his mother's wedding when he was seven, and she's never looked so beautiful. His parents, being rather unconventional, hadn't gotten married until then; it was one night, when the youngest child had Maria awake half the night in frustrated tears, that Saul suddenly proposed. They'd been insistent before that they didn't need to get married to complete their little family. But emotional and caught off-guard, she said yes. Maria did, however, keep her maiden name.
Noah never had any sisters, but instead one older and one younger brother; the three were too close in age, and extremely competitive with each other. The Connell boys were always rough-and-tumble, wrestling and chasing each other around the house. If it hadn't been for their mother's classy, sociable influence, Noah probably would have grown up a lot cruder and more crass than he is now. But as it stands, Maria adored bringing her boy to her various social functions, dragging him around and introducing him to all her contacts - and he, even at a young age, started learning exactly how to charm her female friends and make them adore ickle Noah. Maria had a smooth and confident air, and he sought to replicate it as much as possible.
Saul, on the other hand, was brusque. Quiet. Distant, but not a bad father. He was never particularly warm with his sons, but would give them a cuff on the head whenever they got too out of line. He rarely interfered, however, preferring instead to give them free reign - this is part of what would eventually lead to Noah's hedonistic, pleasure-based lifestyle. Saul didn't like butting in until the very very last minute, you see. His fatherly instinct was like Noah's inner wolf: only bring it out when the situation gets really dire. It accomplished what it was intended for, at least. School suspensions didn't happen again. Exams were passed. Girls were not dumped harshly. If anything, the three boys listened to their father even more intently, since he voiced his opinion so rarely.
People who knew Connell's films well would have been surprised to find that the man himself was not as frank, open, and communicative. The truth is, the films were his only way of truly communicating. He earned much less in comparison to Maria, his movies not being a mainstream blockbuster success, though praised by even the most scathing critic. Noah didn't get it. He didn't understand the artistry until he himself picked up an instrument, but by then, it was too late. He had already inherited some of his father's emotional distance, and there seemed an irreparable divide between the two.
But here's the important question: Noah Connell is a smooth bastard with his power today, but what are the implications of a child being able to sense fear?
It isn't very pleasant. For the early years of his life, the ability didn't matter much. But picture for a moment, if you will, the first day of school. It was miserable, in ways he hates elaborating on and hasn't experienced since. Not only was six-year-old Noah afraid, but he could also sense the overwhelming fear of every other child in that place. Thick. Cloying. Oppressive. He couldn't block it out, and he felt like he couldn't breathe. There were panic attacks. It didn't make for a good impression - and the other children saw his weakness, and they exploited it. Because of course they were all scared shitless, but oh, thank god, here was someone who seemed even more afraid. And children can be the most ruthless of all sometimes. In one day, he turned himself into the underdog and laughing stock of hundreds of equals, and they harrassed him for years.
He's determined to never let that happen again.
Despite the change of scenery, high school wasn't much better. This is when he picked up his nervous habits, his excess of energy, his pacing and fidgeting - and music. Noah dove into his musical instrument and buried himself away with long hours practicing the viola. But eventually, he learnt the only way to deal was to take control of the situation. Marshall it together, dredge up some confidence, present a bold face and laugh it off. Because as long as he pretended it didn't matter, then the other kids stopped hassling him about it. It didn't mean anything. (Because nothing does, of course.)
By university, Noah finally had it together. He'd mastered it. He knew how to block out the scent of fear, and that was by not caring. He learnt how to cast people aside and stop giving such a damn about them. He took off the sheepskin and was finally living with the wolf; and when he lets that cold and sharp side out, life turns very black and white. Friend. Foe. Threat. Prey. He can be astoundingly callous at times, but it was, after all, the only way to cope. Either way, he became charming and well-liked. He earned cool points at university for being the son of Connell, "that amazing indie director." Noah would smile and take whatever social advantages that relation could afford him. But he's secretly ashamed and horrified that total strangers seem to know his father's thoughts and opinions better than he does. This is part of the reason he keeps a boxset of his father's work on the shelf, but does not speak to Saul about it. Ever.
Despite his roots in the film industry, however, Noah stayed loyal to music. He also needed to stand on his own feet, and shy away from his parents' shadow. And he's finally comfortable now, having carved out his own niche in the 'biz as an artist & repertoire man. He's not a musical artist himself, but that suits him just fine. The music is good for him. She's a fickle mistress, a flighty and judgemental industry. Big, long film projects would have alternatively tired or bored him - a movie is inanimate. Noah needs to mold people. And he finally understands artistic integrity, too. He doesn't aim to create Britney clones and floozies. He's looking for something special and unique. Voice, personality, drive. And he finds them, too, which is why he's so excellent at his job.
He's good at singling people out from the flock. Real good.
It was in university that he was approached by the then-head of the fables and invited to the Pentamerone on the east coast; this was an invitation that he did not accept. In fact, he stayed out west, working out of Las Vegas with sporadic contact back to the Pentamerone - until the Aesop group needed a new leader, and the wise souls at the Atheneum felt it was the wolf's turn. He's been trying his hand at this responsibility thing for a few years now, and he's not too pleased about the development.
PAST INCARNATIONS: In past lives, he's been everything from a murderer to a hunter, a royal courier to a soldier, a drunken gambler to arrogant nobility. Even a Nazi officer once. That incarnation wasn't very nice. The wolf took to it too well, and found something it really liked doing. It went out of control. This time around, the wolf is in an active, stimulating, but most of all, nonviolent profession. The one constant is that he's always been a skirt-chaser, and always had a very messy death. It often involves knives, swords, or hell, even axes. He's also always grown up in the countryside during his various lives, but thanks to today's expansion and globalisation, the current reincarnation has spent most of his life in the city. It's made for a somewhat tetchy and fretful wolf, but hey, what can you do?
physical
PORTRAYED-BY: Hugh Jackman
APPEARANCE: In some people, longish brown hair and brown eyes might make for a drab and ordinary look. Not so for Noah. He has a type of scruffy charm to him, and rugged good looks that are - dare we say it? wolfish. Upon first seeing him, Noah will seem both completely at ease, but also wound up like a spring. He carries himself with an easy confidence, and seems perfectly at home anywhere he goes - but on the other hand, he's constantly moving, pacing, fidgeting, and burning off extra energy. It's not actually due to inherent nervousness, but rather an instinct for movement and activity. He's well built beneath those dress shirts - so despite the high quality of his clothing, you wouldn't mistake him for an office drone. He does, however, dress surprisingly casually for his position, most likely to lure potential artists into a sense of security. And just ever so occasionally, Noah has an unsettling way of looking at people, his smile bright and sharp - as if he's seeing something incredibly delicious.
ooc
PLAYER: Julie (chthonian@insanejournal)
DISCLAIMER: Not Hugh Jackman. Not actually a reincarnated embodiment of moral lessons. Man, that would be trippy, huh? The character of Noah Connell belongs to me, however; no stealing, or else I will get cranky.
SOUNDTRACK:
DURAN DURAN hungry like the wolf
MARCY PLAYGROUND sex and candy
FRANK SINATRA this town
THOMAS DYBDAHL stray dogs
STARS one more night
storylines here!
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