[Application for lastvoyages]
The echo bounces off me
The shadow lost beside me
There's no more need to pretend
'Cause now I can begin again
User Name/Nick: KaOS
User LJ: nevermore_1313
AIM/IM: orderfromka0s
E-mail: promotedtocondiments@gmail.com
Other Characters: notafuckingnut, frickinbaretta
Character Name: Walter Kovacs AKA Rorschach
Series: Watchmen (movieverse, with a healthy dose from the GN)
Age: 45
From When?: post-Rorschach-ing, at the very end of the movie. *SPOILER ALERT* after Manhattan disintegrated him to avoid the whole chaos that would have resulted otherwise
Inmate/Warden: Inmate! He's disturbingly and casually violent (even if he does claim it's all in the name of Justice) and according to most people a complete sociopath. ...Really Rorschach could go either way, but I think it would be more interesting to explore a situation where he's actually forced into accepting his humanity and faults and the fact that JUSTICE: YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG, especially since he is usually so adamant about pretending his faults don't exist. So. Inmate it is! At least until he graduates.
Item: N/A
Abilities/Powers: Rorschach, while middle-aged at this point, thanks to constant training and years of crimefighting possesses the athletic ability and agility of a gymnast at his peak, and experience and a little training have caused him to be quite effective in combat (although he rarely fights cleanly). His small size and slight build afford him a great deal of speed and stealth, allowing him to hide in unlikely places and disappear into his surroundings without warning. He tends to rely on fists, feet, pressure points, and improvised weaponry rather than guns, with a tendency to use his environment against his opponents whenever possible. While often his skills seem superhuman, they aren't anything above and beyond human capabilities; he's merely honed them and fine-tuned them enough so they may seem so to other people. For all his skills, he's just as human as anyone else, however, and subject to the same laws of physics and demands of the human body as everyone else. He's surprisingly intelligent for his background, having applied himself diligently in school as a child (it allowed him to escape from a less-than-pleasant home life if nothing else), and in adulthood he's learned to apply it, basing his Rorschach persona on the hardboiled detectives of his youth; he has quite the penchant for critical thinking and investigation, a talent for taking the quickest, most efficient route in most things, even to the extent where he made himself familiar with every pressure point in the human body so that he can subdue or incapacitate a suspect quickly and leave them intact and without lasting damage for later questioning.
He ordinarily seems to have a talent for breaking the laws of physics (hiding in refrigerators for who knows how long, breaking sturdy bones with little effort, feats of gymnastics that seem all but impossible to most, taking a hit without any visible signs of pain or discomfort, walking around in freezing temperatures, torrential downpours, or sweltering heat without complaint), but mostly this all just comes down to sheer stubbornness and willpower; he doesn't seem to be burdened with that thing most people have where they actually check themselves to avoid injury. It's not super-human, just extreme self-control, and in this context he will find that he is less adept at these things than usual; he fatigues more easily, is less nimble and acrobatic, has decreased strength, and cannot withstand quite as much abuse as is his wont. Of course, he will likely attempt to ignore all this on a regular basis because he's a stubborn SOB, but even so.
Personality: Once there was a man named Walter. Walter, in an attempt to correct the injustices that plagued the city he lived in, created an alternate persona, an individual he named Rorschach. The intention of Rorschach was to provide something he could hide behind, a being separate from himself that he could use to accomplish what Walter on his own could not. Rorschach could go places Walter couldn't, do things Walter couldn't. Rorschach was stronger, braver, a Champion of Good. Somewhere along the way, sparked by a revelation that everything he thought he knew was, at heart, wrong, that there was nothing to life but what we ourselves make of it, no greater power pulling the strings and ensuring everything turned out alright in the end and justice was inevitably served because He simply no longer cared, the line between where Walter ended and Rorschach began blurred, the two becoming mixed and jumbled until Walter was lost completely, labelled weak and carved out and erased, leaving only Rorschach behind. The resulting being is more shell than man in many respects, an individual ruled more by a need for the world around him to follow his own idea of right and wrong than to find his place in it. He has appointed himself judge, jury, and executioner, and has long since made it his purpose in life to hunt criminals and make them pay for their crimes, a goal he pursues with singleminded fanaticism. He is often unpredictable and brutal in his methods with no regret for his actions, which has gained him the reputation of being a sociopath. Little he does contradicts this; social norms are something he only has a passing knowledge of, and less interest in, and while he seeks to save mankind he shows little regard for most people in general. Social cues are seen as useless at best, idiotic at worst, and he categorically ignores them because they serve no purpose to him; he doesn't care that there are some words you don't use in polite society, that you can usually get more from people by talking to them reasonably rather than breaking their fingers, that it helps in the long run to avoid alienating people if you can. He views the world through a lens of practicality, niceties are a foreign concept which he doesn't have the patience to learn.
A turbulent childhood, one spent with no concrete role models other than the ones found in comics and no-one to teach him how to operate in the world, has left Rorschach emotionally stunted, a man trapped in a child's view of the world; black and white, good and evil, with little room for overlap. Villains are always evil, heroes are always good, the innocent are always wholly innocent.. As a result he is not a compromiser, it's just not in him. Morally inflexible because he has been taught no alternative, he approaches the world on his own terms, and woe to anyone who stands in the way. He is, in fact, incapable of accepting any kind of alternative, often forcing this template on the world, sorting everything accordingly and clinging to it with his whole being even when confronted with contradictory evidence.
Trust is something that doesn't come easily to him. Years of living in the seedy underbelly of the city, of seeing it up close and trying to make his way through it, as well as the lessons of his childhood, have colored his perspective, led him to believe that man is inherently flawed, highly susceptible to its more evil impulses, and that little can be done to change this. As a result he tends to second-guess the motives of everyone he comes across, believing them to be selfish and steeped in baser impulses until proven otherwise. Truly good people exist, he knows this (Daniel is one, even if he is irritatingly naive about things), however they are in the minority.
Despite his view on humanity as a whole, however, he does believe them redeemable, that one day, if the vigilantes work hard enough, the future may be brighter. This is why he fights, the hope that this day may eventually come, even if he sometimes questions this belief and knows that, if that day should come, there will no longer be a place for him in the world. To put it in his own words, "we do not do this thing because it is permitted. We do it because we are compelled"; the work is necessary, and no-one else is strong enough to bear the consequences, the toll it takes on a person. Rorschach can and does because he feels it is his Calling, that it is something he is meant to do. Without it he's nothing, nobody, but with it he's Somebody. Important.
That being said, Rorschach is reckless. He pursues his cases as a detective would, but once he has enough evidence to be convinced of an individual's guilt he seldom appears to care about how the desired outcome arrives so long as it does. He is utterly uncompromising, incapable of accepting that the world isn't as black and white as he believes it to be, and consequently doesn't take well to any disruption of his worldview. Villains are evil and must be punished, heroes are inherently good, and any proof otherwise is inclined to send him into a tailspin of distraught defeatist behavior until he's forcibly pulled out of it or finds something else to focus his attention on. He's stubborn to the point of pig-headed, utterly determined to make his own way in the world and operate independently of everyone else, even if it's in his own best interests to accept help; he has his pride, in fact some days it's really the only thing he has, and so he clings to it as tightly as he can even when he shouldn't. Even when doing so is very likely to get him killed. He has no social skills to speak of, no concept of what behavior is and isn't appropriate to a particular situation, often leading to more conflicts and altercations with the world around him than there need to be because he is incapable of recognizing that certain actions are only acceptable in certain situations.
He strives to keep Rorschach and Walter separate, to the point where he generally denies Walter's existence if he can, but in light of where he's coming from this affords a few wrenches in the gears.
*Spoiler Alert*
After Ozymandias' Grand Reveal, Rorschach has completely lost all sense of self. Rorschach ultimately failed, couldn't see the Plan before he could stop it, was unable to stop it, and everything he thought he knew came crashing down; Ozymandias, the Smartest Man in the World, the White Knight, orchestrated the death of millions, and Daniel, his only friend in the world, agreed to help cover it up. In light of this, Rorschach is useless, no better than the weak and, to his eyes, depraved man whose face he hides behind when not fighting crime. He was nothing without Rorschach, but when the one he sees as his True Face fails, where does that leave him? He's not sure, and it's going to be a struggle for him to come to terms with WHO he is; a difficult endeavor for a man who dove into a false identity to escape how much he loathes himself. The Rorschach that arrives on the Barge, while still fundamentally the same being, will be significantly more lost, more apathetic, more given to the kind of reckless behavior that could easily be mistaken for suicidal. He won't be happy to be alive, or in Limbo or whatever state the Barge can be classified as; he doesn't handle change well, tends to avoid dealing with it at all costs, so in general he's going to be very resistant to the whole situation.
Path to Redemption: Given the point he's being drawn from, Rorschach will be in a uniquely fortuitous position to actually BE redeemed. At pretty much ANY point prior to his death (aside from maybe that 2 minute period before when he was just DEPRESSED by everything) he would be far too wrapped up in his Doomed Hero Quest to actually bother examining himself and his choices. His natural state is Certainty and Determination of Purpose even in the face of all logic and reason, and so when everything he knows about right and wrong and the people he's fought alongside gets torn to pieces...he'll essentially be working with a blank slate. The possibilities are endless, simply because EVERYTHING he thought he knew was a lie. There's no longer a need for Rorschach because Rorschach, quite simply, failed. And so he will be free to explore Walter and the world of Alternative Opinions with minimal resistance because there's nothing else left for him to do.
That's not to say it will be that simple, however. Rorschach has spent the better part of the last three decades behind his face and pursuing justice as he sees fit. That's 25 years of the same beliefs, the same prejudices, the same methods and perspectives and routines and delusional hypocrisy (you don't trust Jews on principle but your BEST FRIEND is one, come on now big guy, and don't get me started on believing everything out of the New Frontiersmen just because it's not liberal), and after all that time he won't let go of the things he Knows easily because he knows no other way. Evil is Evil and Good is Good, and just try telling him that he's actually kind of a Bad Guy. He won't believe you because he acts for Justice and Truth when others won't, so how can he POSSIBLY be in the wrong?
The key here lies in gaining his confidence, in sneaking under the layers of armor he's shored up against the world and getting him to open up, and forcing him to accept that he is human, and flawed, but that it's okay. And that no, the rest of the world isn't evil just because it's different, and everything's on a gradient, the universe really isn't as simple as black and white no matter how much he wants it to be. And that's okay too. It shouldn't be too hard, there's already plenty of chinks in there thanks to Manhattan and *cough* Daniel. *hint hint*
...In case that wasn't clear:
USE DANIEL AGAINST HIM. It'll help.
History: Walter Kovacs was born to a prostitute by the name of Sylvia in the slums of New York. Growing up, he was often subjected to her work, or at least the side effects of it; men parading in and out of the apartment followed by a half hour or so of muffled struggling heard through the door and the man's subsequent departure. Until he was about ten he didn't quite understand this, doing his level best to keep quiet and out of the way per his mother's shouted insistence. At this point, however, a poorly-timed intrusion into the bedroom resulted in a rather graphic reveal, as well as his mother's ire when it resulted in the John's refusal to pay the full fee. In the way of children, this ended in only displaced anger, the disfigurement of two schoolmates when a regular scuffle escalated, and a removal from his home to one for Problem Children when it was determined that his mother was not suitable to be raising a child.
He fared much better there.
Absent of his mother's influences, Walter flourished, displaying a high level of intelligence and a marked interest in English and Religious Education. Boxing and gymnastics curbed the more violent impulses, and while he was never a social butterfly by any means he at least seemed normal. Quiet, withdrawn, disturbed in some ways from his earlier upbringing, but nonetheless not outside the realm of what could be expected.
At sixteen he left the Home to strike out on his own, taking up a job at a dress shop as a garment worker. He didn't much care for it, since he often had to handle women's underthings (a prospect that made him more than a little uncomfortable), however it prompted his later entrance into the life of a vigilante.
A woman, whom he would later insist vehemently was Kitty Genovese, the young woman brutally murdered in the street as her neighbors looked on in horror and did nothing, entered the shop one day with a request for a very special dress, one which required a fabric recently created by Dr Manhattan, consisting of two layers of latex with temperature-sensitive liquid trapped between them. Walter was incredibly proud of the end result, however the young woman was not, declaring it to be ugly and refusing to pay for it. Walter took the fabric, cut it into pieces and secreted it away, thinking it too beautiful to be thrown out. When he later heard of Genovese's murder, becoming disgusted with the callousness of humanity, he fashioned the fabric into a mask and took to the streets to fight crime in an attempt to correct the injustice. A few years later he teamed up with the second Nite Owl, and the two worked to make a dent in the crime that had begun to overtake the city, later joining the "Crimebusters", a group of young, like-minded costumed heroes. As he would later reflect, he was "soft" in these days, leaving the men they caught merely immobilized for the police to find later with a symbol scrawled onto a piece of paper to signify who was responsible for the capture.
The investigation of a young girl's disappearance ten years later would change this. After promising the parents that he would bring the girl home safe and sound, the conclusion of his investigation proved this was no longer possible; the man responsible for the kidnapping had killed her, fed her to his dogs and burned the rest of the evidence. Overcome by disgust at the nature of a being who could be capable of such monstrosity, and a universe that would allow such a thing, he did the one thing he had avoided up until now.
He handcuffed the man to his stove and burned the house down around him. Neither dogs nor man made it out alive. It was at this point that Walter disappeared entirely, lost to the singleminded brutality of Rorschach. Walter could not handle this revelation; Rorschach could.
Job and any semblance of a social life were abandoned in light of his newfound need to Fix the world, eliminate the criminals who preyed on the weak regardless of the cost. Whereas before the results of his efforts had been left for police to apprehend and incarcerate, now they were merely left for them to find, each one left with his symbol but beyond the reach of the courts and justice system that he no longer trusted, often horribly mangled. Rapists and those guilty of crimes against children received the brunt of his new brand of justice, but drug dealers or members of the various crime syndicates that plagued the city were almost as likely to crop up bearing his mark although these at least, thanks in part to Nite Owl's refusal to accept his methods as either necessary or appropriate punishment, made it to the police still breathing.
The Keane Act, when it was finally passed in 1977, a law that made the registration of all costumed heroes and their subsequent unmasking compulsory, was met with staunch resistance by Rorschach. He refused to give away his secret identity (not that it even felt like there was much to hide these days, since Walter was little more than a husk Rorschach sometimes hid behind), and to this day he remains the only costumed hero who has not complied. These days he's simultaneously feared by the criminal underworld (and most of the rest of the general public, honestly) and mostly avoided by the rest of the world, both facts which he hardly seems to mind. The fear works in his favor and he's solitary by nature, so he sees no reason to change either his methods or his behaviors, and so he doesn't. He's not in the work to be liked, after all, he's in it to see that justice is served.
...And then this happened.
Sample Journal Entry: [lazy samples are lazy and ALL THE TL;DR BECAUSE IT'S HOW HE ROLLS]
Rorschach's journal. October seventeenth, nineteen
[He pauses to flip through the pages, then presses a few keys and makes a disgruntled noise, displeased by the results.]
[actual date]. Impossible. One more of Manhattan's affectations, an elaborate disorientation of perception and facts to halt my investigation. Only explanation for such a significant discrepancy; displaced in time, or influenced to appear so, so as to argue me into ineffectiveness.
But why? In the wake of a God made flesh the cockroaches can do nothing but tremble in fear, immobilized by the knowledge that their final pleas, their last desperate attempts at absolution from throats putrefied from their own blasphemy and corruption, fall on ears deaf to their plight and their own impending destruction is unavoidable. If he is the one behind Blake's murder there is no chance of salvation, for how can you destroy an Indestructible Man?
Need more clues. This imprisonment reeks of Manhattan, he is the only one capable, but the reason is lacking. He stands nothing to gain from picking us off one by one but inciting panic, terrifying the shrieking rats into fleeing a burning ship, and even if he did a blasphemous god would not stoop to fighting with fists when he can unmake with a thought. He is too much an uncaring pacifist, content to work on his machines that promise an end to the selfish squabbles that are the source of most of humanity's sin. As if it could be done, as if the cancerous memory of Eve's temptation could be flushed from the blood and the slate of her children wiped clean. We were given the chance once and rejected it in favor of the same hedonistic desires and moral squalor that necessitated the offer in the first place, a false god can do no better no matter his claims or the heretics that praise them.
Sample RP:
The city billows around him, cries of protest from citizens immobilized by fear and the ignoble-minded denizens of the streets he has sworn to protect echoing off crumbling walls, a reflection of the city's twisted soul. His city is dying around him, each day just another gasping breath towards inevitability, but Rorschach is powerless to stop, just as compelled to wage a war where victory is impossible as the huddled masses are to seeking destruction in vials or flesh. Another day, another breath, another salvaged, pulled from the dark, but it is becoming increasingly apparent to him that it's a losing cause. A whole city circling around the drain, waiting for the end.
He's too lost in thought to catch the glint of steel, the flash of movement, before the edge finds purchase, slowed by protective layers but by no means turned away entirely. A sting registers in the edges of his awareness, cold and metal and jarring bone and burning hot all at once, but he pushes it away, turns to grab and twist, eliciting a cry of pain and continuing past. A cry becomes a shriek and something snaps, muscles finally going limp in his grasp, and he lets go. His attacker stumbles back, barely into adulthood and past what's commonly thought of as thin, cheeks and eyes hollowed and dark, weaknesses made falsely strong by the chemicals swimming in his veins, and the vigilante spares a moment to wonder how he didn't break sooner.
The same reason he didn't crumple as the junkie had been expecting, probably. A greater need.
Now that the sack of flesh can see him, recognizes the dress and the nightmare mask, he turns tail, retreating into darkness once again, in all likelihood in search of an easier target, or at least a den to lick his wounds. Rorschach doesn't follow. He won't get far, will probably still be on the same block tomorrow night. They never learn. He has more pressing things to attend to right now.
Special Notes: To clarify -- Rorschach will NOT be coming with his mask, despite proof to the contrary in the examples; they're from points before his Arrival and examples for other games where he was actually taken from earlier in the source, and while they are representative of his thoughts and outlook they're not necessarily reflective of how he will be immediately upon getting to the Barge. Let me know if they aren't enough and I'll be happy to provide examples that are a little more specific, I just felt these were most representative of voice and how he moves through the world even if he's going to be Mr Gloomy Gus and Doctor Defeatist right off the bat.
But yes, as I said, he won't be coming with the mask, he will just be as himself; he's discarded Rorschach and so he will be Arriving just as himself, even if he doesn't like that any better. I know you've already had a Rorschach in play, and if it's the group's wish to assume past game canon I'm game, but I'll probably be retconning and starting fresh; I don't think the last one was around long enough to build much anyway, based on my lurking, so I don't think it should be a problem. I will say other muses are welcome to recognize and assume things from their past interactions though, I'll just be wiping the character's slate clean, not the Barge at large's.
The shadow lost beside me
There's no more need to pretend
'Cause now I can begin again
User Name/Nick: KaOS
User LJ: nevermore_1313
AIM/IM: orderfromka0s
E-mail: promotedtocondiments@gmail.com
Other Characters: notafuckingnut, frickinbaretta
Character Name: Walter Kovacs AKA Rorschach
Series: Watchmen (movieverse, with a healthy dose from the GN)
Age: 45
From When?: post-Rorschach-ing, at the very end of the movie. *SPOILER ALERT* after Manhattan disintegrated him to avoid the whole chaos that would have resulted otherwise
Inmate/Warden: Inmate! He's disturbingly and casually violent (even if he does claim it's all in the name of Justice) and according to most people a complete sociopath. ...Really Rorschach could go either way, but I think it would be more interesting to explore a situation where he's actually forced into accepting his humanity and faults and the fact that JUSTICE: YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG, especially since he is usually so adamant about pretending his faults don't exist. So. Inmate it is! At least until he graduates.
Item: N/A
Abilities/Powers: Rorschach, while middle-aged at this point, thanks to constant training and years of crimefighting possesses the athletic ability and agility of a gymnast at his peak, and experience and a little training have caused him to be quite effective in combat (although he rarely fights cleanly). His small size and slight build afford him a great deal of speed and stealth, allowing him to hide in unlikely places and disappear into his surroundings without warning. He tends to rely on fists, feet, pressure points, and improvised weaponry rather than guns, with a tendency to use his environment against his opponents whenever possible. While often his skills seem superhuman, they aren't anything above and beyond human capabilities; he's merely honed them and fine-tuned them enough so they may seem so to other people. For all his skills, he's just as human as anyone else, however, and subject to the same laws of physics and demands of the human body as everyone else. He's surprisingly intelligent for his background, having applied himself diligently in school as a child (it allowed him to escape from a less-than-pleasant home life if nothing else), and in adulthood he's learned to apply it, basing his Rorschach persona on the hardboiled detectives of his youth; he has quite the penchant for critical thinking and investigation, a talent for taking the quickest, most efficient route in most things, even to the extent where he made himself familiar with every pressure point in the human body so that he can subdue or incapacitate a suspect quickly and leave them intact and without lasting damage for later questioning.
He ordinarily seems to have a talent for breaking the laws of physics (hiding in refrigerators for who knows how long, breaking sturdy bones with little effort, feats of gymnastics that seem all but impossible to most, taking a hit without any visible signs of pain or discomfort, walking around in freezing temperatures, torrential downpours, or sweltering heat without complaint), but mostly this all just comes down to sheer stubbornness and willpower; he doesn't seem to be burdened with that thing most people have where they actually check themselves to avoid injury. It's not super-human, just extreme self-control, and in this context he will find that he is less adept at these things than usual; he fatigues more easily, is less nimble and acrobatic, has decreased strength, and cannot withstand quite as much abuse as is his wont. Of course, he will likely attempt to ignore all this on a regular basis because he's a stubborn SOB, but even so.
Personality: Once there was a man named Walter. Walter, in an attempt to correct the injustices that plagued the city he lived in, created an alternate persona, an individual he named Rorschach. The intention of Rorschach was to provide something he could hide behind, a being separate from himself that he could use to accomplish what Walter on his own could not. Rorschach could go places Walter couldn't, do things Walter couldn't. Rorschach was stronger, braver, a Champion of Good. Somewhere along the way, sparked by a revelation that everything he thought he knew was, at heart, wrong, that there was nothing to life but what we ourselves make of it, no greater power pulling the strings and ensuring everything turned out alright in the end and justice was inevitably served because He simply no longer cared, the line between where Walter ended and Rorschach began blurred, the two becoming mixed and jumbled until Walter was lost completely, labelled weak and carved out and erased, leaving only Rorschach behind. The resulting being is more shell than man in many respects, an individual ruled more by a need for the world around him to follow his own idea of right and wrong than to find his place in it. He has appointed himself judge, jury, and executioner, and has long since made it his purpose in life to hunt criminals and make them pay for their crimes, a goal he pursues with singleminded fanaticism. He is often unpredictable and brutal in his methods with no regret for his actions, which has gained him the reputation of being a sociopath. Little he does contradicts this; social norms are something he only has a passing knowledge of, and less interest in, and while he seeks to save mankind he shows little regard for most people in general. Social cues are seen as useless at best, idiotic at worst, and he categorically ignores them because they serve no purpose to him; he doesn't care that there are some words you don't use in polite society, that you can usually get more from people by talking to them reasonably rather than breaking their fingers, that it helps in the long run to avoid alienating people if you can. He views the world through a lens of practicality, niceties are a foreign concept which he doesn't have the patience to learn.
A turbulent childhood, one spent with no concrete role models other than the ones found in comics and no-one to teach him how to operate in the world, has left Rorschach emotionally stunted, a man trapped in a child's view of the world; black and white, good and evil, with little room for overlap. Villains are always evil, heroes are always good, the innocent are always wholly innocent.. As a result he is not a compromiser, it's just not in him. Morally inflexible because he has been taught no alternative, he approaches the world on his own terms, and woe to anyone who stands in the way. He is, in fact, incapable of accepting any kind of alternative, often forcing this template on the world, sorting everything accordingly and clinging to it with his whole being even when confronted with contradictory evidence.
Trust is something that doesn't come easily to him. Years of living in the seedy underbelly of the city, of seeing it up close and trying to make his way through it, as well as the lessons of his childhood, have colored his perspective, led him to believe that man is inherently flawed, highly susceptible to its more evil impulses, and that little can be done to change this. As a result he tends to second-guess the motives of everyone he comes across, believing them to be selfish and steeped in baser impulses until proven otherwise. Truly good people exist, he knows this (Daniel is one, even if he is irritatingly naive about things), however they are in the minority.
Despite his view on humanity as a whole, however, he does believe them redeemable, that one day, if the vigilantes work hard enough, the future may be brighter. This is why he fights, the hope that this day may eventually come, even if he sometimes questions this belief and knows that, if that day should come, there will no longer be a place for him in the world. To put it in his own words, "we do not do this thing because it is permitted. We do it because we are compelled"; the work is necessary, and no-one else is strong enough to bear the consequences, the toll it takes on a person. Rorschach can and does because he feels it is his Calling, that it is something he is meant to do. Without it he's nothing, nobody, but with it he's Somebody. Important.
That being said, Rorschach is reckless. He pursues his cases as a detective would, but once he has enough evidence to be convinced of an individual's guilt he seldom appears to care about how the desired outcome arrives so long as it does. He is utterly uncompromising, incapable of accepting that the world isn't as black and white as he believes it to be, and consequently doesn't take well to any disruption of his worldview. Villains are evil and must be punished, heroes are inherently good, and any proof otherwise is inclined to send him into a tailspin of distraught defeatist behavior until he's forcibly pulled out of it or finds something else to focus his attention on. He's stubborn to the point of pig-headed, utterly determined to make his own way in the world and operate independently of everyone else, even if it's in his own best interests to accept help; he has his pride, in fact some days it's really the only thing he has, and so he clings to it as tightly as he can even when he shouldn't. Even when doing so is very likely to get him killed. He has no social skills to speak of, no concept of what behavior is and isn't appropriate to a particular situation, often leading to more conflicts and altercations with the world around him than there need to be because he is incapable of recognizing that certain actions are only acceptable in certain situations.
He strives to keep Rorschach and Walter separate, to the point where he generally denies Walter's existence if he can, but in light of where he's coming from this affords a few wrenches in the gears.
*Spoiler Alert*
After Ozymandias' Grand Reveal, Rorschach has completely lost all sense of self. Rorschach ultimately failed, couldn't see the Plan before he could stop it, was unable to stop it, and everything he thought he knew came crashing down; Ozymandias, the Smartest Man in the World, the White Knight, orchestrated the death of millions, and Daniel, his only friend in the world, agreed to help cover it up. In light of this, Rorschach is useless, no better than the weak and, to his eyes, depraved man whose face he hides behind when not fighting crime. He was nothing without Rorschach, but when the one he sees as his True Face fails, where does that leave him? He's not sure, and it's going to be a struggle for him to come to terms with WHO he is; a difficult endeavor for a man who dove into a false identity to escape how much he loathes himself. The Rorschach that arrives on the Barge, while still fundamentally the same being, will be significantly more lost, more apathetic, more given to the kind of reckless behavior that could easily be mistaken for suicidal. He won't be happy to be alive, or in Limbo or whatever state the Barge can be classified as; he doesn't handle change well, tends to avoid dealing with it at all costs, so in general he's going to be very resistant to the whole situation.
Path to Redemption: Given the point he's being drawn from, Rorschach will be in a uniquely fortuitous position to actually BE redeemed. At pretty much ANY point prior to his death (aside from maybe that 2 minute period before when he was just DEPRESSED by everything) he would be far too wrapped up in his Doomed Hero Quest to actually bother examining himself and his choices. His natural state is Certainty and Determination of Purpose even in the face of all logic and reason, and so when everything he knows about right and wrong and the people he's fought alongside gets torn to pieces...he'll essentially be working with a blank slate. The possibilities are endless, simply because EVERYTHING he thought he knew was a lie. There's no longer a need for Rorschach because Rorschach, quite simply, failed. And so he will be free to explore Walter and the world of Alternative Opinions with minimal resistance because there's nothing else left for him to do.
That's not to say it will be that simple, however. Rorschach has spent the better part of the last three decades behind his face and pursuing justice as he sees fit. That's 25 years of the same beliefs, the same prejudices, the same methods and perspectives and routines and delusional hypocrisy (you don't trust Jews on principle but your BEST FRIEND is one, come on now big guy, and don't get me started on believing everything out of the New Frontiersmen just because it's not liberal), and after all that time he won't let go of the things he Knows easily because he knows no other way. Evil is Evil and Good is Good, and just try telling him that he's actually kind of a Bad Guy. He won't believe you because he acts for Justice and Truth when others won't, so how can he POSSIBLY be in the wrong?
The key here lies in gaining his confidence, in sneaking under the layers of armor he's shored up against the world and getting him to open up, and forcing him to accept that he is human, and flawed, but that it's okay. And that no, the rest of the world isn't evil just because it's different, and everything's on a gradient, the universe really isn't as simple as black and white no matter how much he wants it to be. And that's okay too. It shouldn't be too hard, there's already plenty of chinks in there thanks to Manhattan and *cough* Daniel. *hint hint*
...In case that wasn't clear:
USE DANIEL AGAINST HIM. It'll help.
History: Walter Kovacs was born to a prostitute by the name of Sylvia in the slums of New York. Growing up, he was often subjected to her work, or at least the side effects of it; men parading in and out of the apartment followed by a half hour or so of muffled struggling heard through the door and the man's subsequent departure. Until he was about ten he didn't quite understand this, doing his level best to keep quiet and out of the way per his mother's shouted insistence. At this point, however, a poorly-timed intrusion into the bedroom resulted in a rather graphic reveal, as well as his mother's ire when it resulted in the John's refusal to pay the full fee. In the way of children, this ended in only displaced anger, the disfigurement of two schoolmates when a regular scuffle escalated, and a removal from his home to one for Problem Children when it was determined that his mother was not suitable to be raising a child.
He fared much better there.
Absent of his mother's influences, Walter flourished, displaying a high level of intelligence and a marked interest in English and Religious Education. Boxing and gymnastics curbed the more violent impulses, and while he was never a social butterfly by any means he at least seemed normal. Quiet, withdrawn, disturbed in some ways from his earlier upbringing, but nonetheless not outside the realm of what could be expected.
At sixteen he left the Home to strike out on his own, taking up a job at a dress shop as a garment worker. He didn't much care for it, since he often had to handle women's underthings (a prospect that made him more than a little uncomfortable), however it prompted his later entrance into the life of a vigilante.
A woman, whom he would later insist vehemently was Kitty Genovese, the young woman brutally murdered in the street as her neighbors looked on in horror and did nothing, entered the shop one day with a request for a very special dress, one which required a fabric recently created by Dr Manhattan, consisting of two layers of latex with temperature-sensitive liquid trapped between them. Walter was incredibly proud of the end result, however the young woman was not, declaring it to be ugly and refusing to pay for it. Walter took the fabric, cut it into pieces and secreted it away, thinking it too beautiful to be thrown out. When he later heard of Genovese's murder, becoming disgusted with the callousness of humanity, he fashioned the fabric into a mask and took to the streets to fight crime in an attempt to correct the injustice. A few years later he teamed up with the second Nite Owl, and the two worked to make a dent in the crime that had begun to overtake the city, later joining the "Crimebusters", a group of young, like-minded costumed heroes. As he would later reflect, he was "soft" in these days, leaving the men they caught merely immobilized for the police to find later with a symbol scrawled onto a piece of paper to signify who was responsible for the capture.
The investigation of a young girl's disappearance ten years later would change this. After promising the parents that he would bring the girl home safe and sound, the conclusion of his investigation proved this was no longer possible; the man responsible for the kidnapping had killed her, fed her to his dogs and burned the rest of the evidence. Overcome by disgust at the nature of a being who could be capable of such monstrosity, and a universe that would allow such a thing, he did the one thing he had avoided up until now.
He handcuffed the man to his stove and burned the house down around him. Neither dogs nor man made it out alive. It was at this point that Walter disappeared entirely, lost to the singleminded brutality of Rorschach. Walter could not handle this revelation; Rorschach could.
Job and any semblance of a social life were abandoned in light of his newfound need to Fix the world, eliminate the criminals who preyed on the weak regardless of the cost. Whereas before the results of his efforts had been left for police to apprehend and incarcerate, now they were merely left for them to find, each one left with his symbol but beyond the reach of the courts and justice system that he no longer trusted, often horribly mangled. Rapists and those guilty of crimes against children received the brunt of his new brand of justice, but drug dealers or members of the various crime syndicates that plagued the city were almost as likely to crop up bearing his mark although these at least, thanks in part to Nite Owl's refusal to accept his methods as either necessary or appropriate punishment, made it to the police still breathing.
The Keane Act, when it was finally passed in 1977, a law that made the registration of all costumed heroes and their subsequent unmasking compulsory, was met with staunch resistance by Rorschach. He refused to give away his secret identity (not that it even felt like there was much to hide these days, since Walter was little more than a husk Rorschach sometimes hid behind), and to this day he remains the only costumed hero who has not complied. These days he's simultaneously feared by the criminal underworld (and most of the rest of the general public, honestly) and mostly avoided by the rest of the world, both facts which he hardly seems to mind. The fear works in his favor and he's solitary by nature, so he sees no reason to change either his methods or his behaviors, and so he doesn't. He's not in the work to be liked, after all, he's in it to see that justice is served.
...And then this happened.
Sample Journal Entry: [lazy samples are lazy and ALL THE TL;DR BECAUSE IT'S HOW HE ROLLS]
Rorschach's journal. October seventeenth, nineteen
[He pauses to flip through the pages, then presses a few keys and makes a disgruntled noise, displeased by the results.]
[actual date]. Impossible. One more of Manhattan's affectations, an elaborate disorientation of perception and facts to halt my investigation. Only explanation for such a significant discrepancy; displaced in time, or influenced to appear so, so as to argue me into ineffectiveness.
But why? In the wake of a God made flesh the cockroaches can do nothing but tremble in fear, immobilized by the knowledge that their final pleas, their last desperate attempts at absolution from throats putrefied from their own blasphemy and corruption, fall on ears deaf to their plight and their own impending destruction is unavoidable. If he is the one behind Blake's murder there is no chance of salvation, for how can you destroy an Indestructible Man?
Need more clues. This imprisonment reeks of Manhattan, he is the only one capable, but the reason is lacking. He stands nothing to gain from picking us off one by one but inciting panic, terrifying the shrieking rats into fleeing a burning ship, and even if he did a blasphemous god would not stoop to fighting with fists when he can unmake with a thought. He is too much an uncaring pacifist, content to work on his machines that promise an end to the selfish squabbles that are the source of most of humanity's sin. As if it could be done, as if the cancerous memory of Eve's temptation could be flushed from the blood and the slate of her children wiped clean. We were given the chance once and rejected it in favor of the same hedonistic desires and moral squalor that necessitated the offer in the first place, a false god can do no better no matter his claims or the heretics that praise them.
Sample RP:
The city billows around him, cries of protest from citizens immobilized by fear and the ignoble-minded denizens of the streets he has sworn to protect echoing off crumbling walls, a reflection of the city's twisted soul. His city is dying around him, each day just another gasping breath towards inevitability, but Rorschach is powerless to stop, just as compelled to wage a war where victory is impossible as the huddled masses are to seeking destruction in vials or flesh. Another day, another breath, another salvaged, pulled from the dark, but it is becoming increasingly apparent to him that it's a losing cause. A whole city circling around the drain, waiting for the end.
He's too lost in thought to catch the glint of steel, the flash of movement, before the edge finds purchase, slowed by protective layers but by no means turned away entirely. A sting registers in the edges of his awareness, cold and metal and jarring bone and burning hot all at once, but he pushes it away, turns to grab and twist, eliciting a cry of pain and continuing past. A cry becomes a shriek and something snaps, muscles finally going limp in his grasp, and he lets go. His attacker stumbles back, barely into adulthood and past what's commonly thought of as thin, cheeks and eyes hollowed and dark, weaknesses made falsely strong by the chemicals swimming in his veins, and the vigilante spares a moment to wonder how he didn't break sooner.
The same reason he didn't crumple as the junkie had been expecting, probably. A greater need.
Now that the sack of flesh can see him, recognizes the dress and the nightmare mask, he turns tail, retreating into darkness once again, in all likelihood in search of an easier target, or at least a den to lick his wounds. Rorschach doesn't follow. He won't get far, will probably still be on the same block tomorrow night. They never learn. He has more pressing things to attend to right now.
Special Notes: To clarify -- Rorschach will NOT be coming with his mask, despite proof to the contrary in the examples; they're from points before his Arrival and examples for other games where he was actually taken from earlier in the source, and while they are representative of his thoughts and outlook they're not necessarily reflective of how he will be immediately upon getting to the Barge. Let me know if they aren't enough and I'll be happy to provide examples that are a little more specific, I just felt these were most representative of voice and how he moves through the world even if he's going to be Mr Gloomy Gus and Doctor Defeatist right off the bat.
But yes, as I said, he won't be coming with the mask, he will just be as himself; he's discarded Rorschach and so he will be Arriving just as himself, even if he doesn't like that any better. I know you've already had a Rorschach in play, and if it's the group's wish to assume past game canon I'm game, but I'll probably be retconning and starting fresh; I don't think the last one was around long enough to build much anyway, based on my lurking, so I don't think it should be a problem. I will say other muses are welcome to recognize and assume things from their past interactions though, I'll just be wiping the character's slate clean, not the Barge at large's.