Character Survey of Doom

[bestamontillado]

Body and Appearance
1. Describe the character's height and build. Is he heavyset, thin, short, rangy?

2. How old is he?

3. Describe his posture. Does he carry himself well or does he slouch?

4. How is his health? Is he fit or out of shape? Any illnesses or conditions? Any physical disabilities?

5. How does he move? Is he clumsy, graceful, tense, fluid?

6. How attractive is this character physically? How does he perceive himself in the mirror?

7. Describe his complexion. Dark, light, clear, scarred?

8. Describe his hair: color, texture, style.

9. What color are his eyes?

10. Does the character have any other noteworthy features?

11. What are his chief tension centers?

12. What is the character's wardrobe like? Casual, dressy, utilitarian? Bright colors, pastels, neutrals? Is it varied, or does he have six of the same suit?

13. Do his clothes fit well? Does he seem comfortable in them?

14. Does he dress the same on the job as he does in his free time? If not, what are the differences?

15. You knew it was coming: Boxers, briefs or commando?



Speech
1. What does this character's voice sound like? High-pitched, deep, hoarse? Middling range, relatively smooth.

2. How does he normally speak? Loud, soft, fast, evenly? Does he talk easily, or does he hesitate? He's only selectively social, but he has no problems with confidence. He can do a pretty respectable stage voice if need be, but he's usually just on the quiet side of normal volume, and has to be pretty badly upset to lose control enough to raise his voice.

3. Does the character have a distinct accent or dialect? Any individual quirks of pronunciation? Any, like, you know, verbal tics? In normal speech, his accent's slightly archaic Florentine. He's been in circulation long enough mimicking different people long enough that he can drop the accent if he wants, or mimic someone else's with a creepy degree of accuracy. A lot of nonverbal expressions are either quiet or very muted.

4. What language/s does he speak, and with how much fluency? Italian, French, German, Austrian, English, Russian, Mandarin, and Japanese. The first four are the ones he was strongest with while he was alive, although he did make some effort to learn Japanese from Ugestu before he snapped, and he managed to work on his skill with both of his weaker languages after his death.

5. Does he switch languages or dialects in certain situations? Mostly for infiltration or subterfuge; if he's feeling tetchy about how much people know about him, he'll drop his accent and pull a fairly flat academic-speech with whatever the most common language in the area that he knows is. He can also mimic people's accents and dialects well enough to fool close friends and native speakers.

6. Is he a good impromptu speaker, or does he have to think about his words? Oh, he's DAMN good at it. He has to be very agitated to NOT be damn good at it.

7. Is he eloquent or inarticulate? Under what circumstances might this change? Hit enough nerves hard enough and he'll slip up, but even at worst, it's less that he's not "good with words" and more that his ability to plan what response he WANTS fails - so he's more likely to push buttons that're just lashing out as opposed to manipulating someone.



Mental and Emotional
1. How intelligent is this character? Is he book-smart or street-smart? Very on both. He probably had a little bit of learning curve about hanging around lower-classes when he first joined the Vongola, but politics and people are a strong skill of his, and he was very well educated for his day; moreover, he's managed to keep up on at least basic-knowledge things as time's gone on.

2. Does he think on his feet, or does he need time to deliberate? Mix of both; he much prefers plotting things out in advance, and ideally has time. He can react and think on the fly decently, although if he's agitated or more emotionally upset, his ability to "think fast" goes a little haywire and turns into "reacting instead of thinking", leading to occasional moments of flubbing his own long-term plots if something hits enough nerves.

3. Describe the character's thought process. Is he more logical, or more intuitive? Idealistic or practical? Somewhere in the middle on logic versus intuition, since the whole Mist-user thing means he kind of has to play off both equally. As far as idealism goes? There's some little shred of idealism buried somewhere deep in his psyche, but for the most part, he's a Cynical Realist to the bad extreme.

4. What kind of education has the character had? Originally, mostly private tutoring; he could've been enrolled in a private school, but after his powers started kicking in his family wasn't too keen on putting him somewhere even that public. Still, he had DAMN good tutors, if it was a bit of a revolving door, and was curious and intelligent enough to self-teach the gaps.

5. What are his areas of expertise? What, if anything, is he interested in learning more about? Literature and the arts of his day; politics and history are also subjects he's pretty solid on. He's done a lot of dabbling in occult studies, and probably gotten further than any sane person is supposed to have gone.

6. Is he an introvert or an extrovert? He's an introvert that's damn good at acting like he likes people - but it's very much an act; even before he snapped, he was cautious and had enough bad experiences that dealing with most people was taxing and stressful.

7. Describe the character's temperament. Is he even-tempered or does he have mood swings? Cheerful or melancholy? Laid-back or driven? Externally, as far as what he'll let anyone see, he's very calm, even tempered, usually in a decent mood, and generally as relaxed as the situation will allow. Internally, he's sort of sitting on a hurricane; he has some incredibly strong emotions and mood swings that're filtered through control and facades. He's also a bit of a psychological mess, with a list of issues where, to be perfectly honest, he's pretty miserable, spiteful, bitter, and possibly a bit on the depressed side, as well as being VERY driven, to the "exist for a purpose and not much else" extent.

8. How does he respond to new people or situations? Is he suspicious, relaxed, timid, enthusiastic? . There's another "outward persona vs actual feelings" split here. Outwardly, he's not horribly outgoing, but he's basically pleasant and mostly relaxed. In reality, he's a cynical, paranoid git, suspicious, and expects people to be either selfish bastards, self-righteous hypocrites, or well-meaning idiots.

9. Is he more likely to act, or to react? If he has any chance, he prefers to act, and have at least enough of an idea what he's getting into to be pushing buttons and pulling strings, if not manipulating the situation enough to keep control over it. He doesn't like being forced into a position where he's mostly reacting.

10. Which is his default: fight or flight? Depends on circumstances; if he feels he has the upper hand, he'll happily fight, but unless it's something where he's at least been able to arrange enough to make sure he DOES have that upper hand, he's more likely to go for distractions and fleeing or booby-traps and ambushes than a direct fight.

11. Describe the character's sense of humor. Does he appreciate jokes? Puns? Gallows humor? Bathroom humor? Pranks? Warped, black humor, gallows humor, head games, word games; he can gutter out but is more likely to aim for double entendres and screwing with people's heads than straightforward crudity. Really his sense of humor is another booby trap since it's warped and black to the point of cruelty sometimes.

12. Does the character have any diagnosable mental disorders? If yes, how does he deal with them? SOBS. I'm so not qualified to answer this. I'm not sure where to start, but god knows he's got them. The problem is that most of the "personality disorders" that'd be closest to his behavior are things that're lifelong-pervasive, where a lot of his complexes developed late in life; he had a severe mental breakdown that warped a lot of his personality and worldview that's only gotten worse as time has gone on, but it's not a "natural state" for him, so it's not a standard definition Personality Disorder, and he's still perfectly lucid and in touch with reality, which precludes a psychotic disorder; if anything part of his internal conflict is that on some level he KNOWS what he's doing is wrong but can't get out of the proverbial hole/find any "better option". It might be some variety of anxiety-based disorder or a functional personality disorder of some sort, but one that's REALLY freaking warped.
As for "how does he deal with them", he kind of doesn't and that's the problem. The more he's forced to consciously focus on them or be reminded of the roots of them, the more it basically upsets his stability because he's stuck in a very nasty psychological vicious cycle, so he actually gets WORSE for a while and more likely to be irrational; while the events with the Vendice and the bits of memories upset some of it, he's still basically teetering around falling back into it, and still short on ability to reason out a "better option" that doesn't end up hitting OTHER nerves.

13. What moments in this character's life have defined him as a person? There's a few headcanon things when he was younger that kind of established his thing with religion and how cynical he could get; meeting Elena would be one big defining moment since it seems to be where he went from cynicism and lurking to actually getting involved, nevermind her acting as more of a conscience, As much as she was probably not that innocent herself. Meeting Giotto was another one, which shifted him acting from quiet politics to outright vigilantism and revolutionary tactics, as well as close positive human contact besides Elena. The next one was Elena's death, which was a major mental breakdown and where he lost faith in a lot of his ideals, shifting hard into "ends justify the means" as well as a nasty rationalized vendetta.
More recently, he's been beaten down by Tsuna and had one of his more vendetta and emotionally driven plans blow up in his face, as well as getting to trip over a major case where Giotto had outsmarted him where he'd thought he'd won for almost a century; he's hiding it, but he's taken some MAJOR blows to his pride and worldview, although he's still in that vicious cycle where he doesn't really see a BETTER option, just ….he's pondering being a little less aggressive about it and watching a bit more. For a while.

14. What does he fear? I honestly don't think there is much that he really FEARS; he's certainly got a lot of nerves and complexes, but he's pretty well hit the bottom in a lot of respects so badly that there's not much left TO fear. It's the sad irony; at this point, part of what makes Spade such a scourge is that he's the proverbial person with nothing left to lose.

15. What are his hopes or aspirations? And the even sadder irony? There really isn't much. Yeah, he's very invested in trying to make the Vongola stronger and preserve them as his reason for existing, but that's basically all there is left, and I don't know if "aspiration" is the right word for it; he has his vendettas, and he has his warped attempt at taking care of what was important to Elena, but it's not really something he's doing "For himself" - the vendettas are personal gratification of a sort, but in a very self-destructive way, and the rest of it is some attempt at honoring her memory, and one that he knows is counter to the way she'd have gone about it.

16. What is something he doesn't want anyone to find out about him? As many secrets as he has, I can't think of much that'd be the sort of thing you could actually use as leverage on him. I mean, depending on who it is, there's a lot he'd not want them to know, and he's very fussy about trying to control information and limit how much people know about him so he can keep the upper hand, but even if someone manages to start preying on nerves, he's more likely to lash out at them and then try to avoid them to recover than anything, and a lot of it's things that you COULD potentially find out if you asked the right person.
There ARE a lot of things about his internal complexes that he'd be extremely volatile about, including that on some level, he does still have an emotional attachment to his former companions, enough to've hung onto the pocktwatch despite his complexes, grudges, and past actions.



Relationships
1. Describe this character's relationship with his parents. Well, headcanon is that they were dead by the time he met Elena. He'd gotten along well with his mother for a good while, but not so much his father, and he had a good time period where his powers were flaring up when he didn't know how to control them and was panicking, thereby making the situation worse.
A lot worse.
Like "his parents died in freak accidents a few years apart" bad.

2. Does the character have any siblings? What is/was their relationship like? He has an older brother; their relationship isn't that great either - brother used to pick on him/lord it over him a lot, got worse about it when weird things started happening around Spade, was one of the perpetuators of the "possessed/demon" thing, and about all that got his brother to back off on outright physical abuse was an early incident of an uncontrolled power-flare where there was some permanent injuries. His brother was basically growing into one of the embodiments of everything Spade hates about the aristocracy.

3. Are there other blood relatives to whom he is close? Are there ones he can't stand? Well, there's an aunt that moved in to take care of them after his mother died; they're not exactly close, though - more like she made sure the boys were taken care of, made a few token efforts at finding some way to "fix" Spade, and then gave up and had a "we avoid each other and you stay out of trouble" understanding. Yes, the saddest part is that he was actually a pretty well-behaved and generally squishy kid besides the creepy shit that happened when he was upset.

4. Are there other, unrelated people whom he considers part of his family? What are his relationships with them? AH HA HA HA HA HA GOD IS THIS LOADED.
Okay, he was obviously pretty close with the rest of the Vongola before things went south; the fact that he still refers to it as "things were perfect then" and kept the watch shows that. The problem is that with his massive breakdown and loss of faith, turning on the higher ideals and blaming Giotto and Giotto's way of doing things for Elena's death very quickly ended up breaking his relationships with the others he'd gotten along with as well - as long as they were standing by Giotto, whether he had a direct personal quarrel with them or not, they pretty much ended up lumped in with Giotto when he went for revenge.
I imagine that BEFORE he snapped, he'd probably ended up spending the most time around Lampo - they both worked in the same circles and may've even known of each other before joining the Vongola, and would've probably ended up being the ones doing a lot of the politics-related jobs and some of the espionage work. He also likely got along well with Ugetsu, but then, it's hard NOT to, as much as Ugetsu didn't always make sense to him. Obviously before Elena's death he had to've been on very close terms with Giotto as well, and may've even ended up functioning as a confidant in some cases with things that'd be less the sort of thing it'd be good to talk over with G. There'd probably been some kind of ….not FRIENDLY but functional-working understanding with Alaude, again due to the "both working the intelligence angle", as much as it'd be much less direct. Knuckle was probably intensely awkward and only really helped by how …fluffy Knuckle was, although Spade probably took every opportunity to antagonize him. For some reason I get the feeling G was the one he probably had the most personality clashes with, although as much as it would've been squabbling, it'd likely been the kind of relationship where they WOULD cover and look out for each other, just …not get along well off the field.

5. Who is/was the character's best friend? How did they meet? See above - if we're basically counting Elena as a Relationship and not this category, then the next closest would've been Giotto, Ugetsu, and Lampo.

6. Does he have other close friends? You know, while he had minions, he really didn't seem like he had a lot of positive contact with people outside the Vongola.
Not like he played up the whole Evil Eye/dark magic/etc. in a country and time period where he was 70-some years too late to be hanged/burned at the stake/drowned, but it was still a Big Deal, or anything.

7. Does he make friends easily, or does he have trouble getting along with people? He's grown quite used to the understanding that most of humanity hates him and he returns the sentiment.

8. Which does he consider more important: family or friends? He doesn't get along with his blood family, the Vongola would've been more important, but uh.

9. Is the character single, married, divorced, widowed? Has he been married more than once? Aaahahahah. considering the situation, I've actually headcanoned that there's good odds him and Elena had eloped - I doubt her family was exactly happy with her in general and less so with her relationship with Spade, and they'd been living outside of the aristocratic circles with the Vongola at some base somewhere. We all know how that went.

10. Is he currently in a romantic relationship with someone other than a spouse? …….
Well let's see, he's been body-hopping for a century. He probably hasn't been celibate during that time ,but any "relationship" would've been either boredom, perversity, or trying to maintain appearances because the host he'd taken over was someone that was in a relationship. (And this is how we squick out any Adelheid players we find! :D )

11. Who was his first crush? Who is his latest? Elena and Elena. She was probably the first person to actually treat him well that wasn't out to get something, and while he may've gotten attached to other people, his devotion to her never really changed, even when he lost faith in a lot of the ideals that'd been important to her.

12. What does he look for in a romantic partner? As far as an actual RELATIONSHIP goes, he's not actually really looking. Someone that reminded him of Elena in some way might have a chance, but might also manage to trip either a more volatile mood swing or something less healthy and more possessive (see also Chrome).

13. Does the character have children? Grandchildren? If yes, how does he relate to them? If no, does he want any? I'm gonna say no - if he'd had any kids with Elena, it would've added a few extra layers to things when he snapped that didn't seem to be there, and I can't see him having done much after her death and before his own.

14. Does he have any rivals or enemies? Pffffffff. Well, I imagine the Vendice are Less Than Thrilled with him right now, G and some of the others are probably still VERY unhappy, he still hates Giotto with a passion although that's obviously not reciprocated.
Oh, and Mukuro would also probably happily kick his ass if they met again.

15. What is the character's sexual orientation? Where does he fall on the Kinsey scale? Somewhere around a 2. Anybody who says he's gay kind of missed HUGE parts of his character, but I also dont' see him being very attached to societal norms and standards at ALL - if anything, he's more likely to flaunt them just for the sake of doing so, and he does definitely have the possessive/potentially hedonistic Scorpio thing down. If he decides someone's interesting enough, or that it'd be entertaining, or that he has something to gain by doing so, I don't think it'd matter what they had down there.

16. How does he feel about sex? How important is it to him? I can so easily see him lapsing into "hedonistic Scorpio" it's not even funny; at the same time, it'd also be a tool, and he's far too controlled to let that interfere with his other plans and decisions - so as much as he's probably someone you'd need brainbleach to get details from, he'd be impossible to pick up if he didn't want to or didn't feel like he had something to gain from it.

17. What are his turn-ons? Turn-offs? Weird bedroom habits?
…….
MUN is almost afraid to delve on this one.
But seriously: As much as there were other reasons for a lot of what he did in canon yadda yadda yadda, the way he was handling Chrome AFTER he stopped mimicking Juli was a little beyond creepy, and I would be surprised if I found someone who read that and DIDN'T call some varieties of bondage/mind control kink, and with his level of issues, trying to go dominant on him would probably get you injured.
As for the rest of it? I think it'd take a while for me to sort it out, and I'm not sure I want to know if I don't have to.


Beliefs
1. Do you know your character's astrological (zodiac of choice) sign? How well does he fit type? He has no canon sign. Headcanon, he's a Scorpio. (Actually the headcanon-based chart I have for him is quadruple Scorpio - Sun, Moon, Ascendant, and Mercury.) He's emotionally intense, outwardly controlled, is obsessive about keeping his own secrets and getting into everyone else's, possessive, and god help you if you cross him he will end you and all that you love and pull a fucking Cask of Amontillado on you.

2. Is this character religious, spiritual, both, or neither? How important are these elements in his life? As much as he's rejected any religion of his days, it's less out of atheism and more out of the idea that God is an asshole. He's probably rejected a lot of the organized occult sects as well, even back in his day, but had probably gone from some kind of Romanticist ideology - with a lot of influence from writers and thinkers like William Blake - that probably ended up in some weird sort of Luciferianism.
Given that he goes by "Daemon" as part of his alias and there's vague implications that he'd been playing in the occult, and with headcanon about his childhood and relationship with his powers before he'd met Giotto, it's kind of been where he's managed to scrape together some sense of identity, and not really something he could ignore, since for a good while it was the only frame of reference he had to make sense of the Mist Flame; and even after realizing it WASN'T demonic, the ideology and habits stuck.

3. Does this character have a personal code of morals or ethics? If so, how did that begin? What would it take to compromise it? He used to. It was always pretty flexible and very context focused, and even in his better days he was likely willing to do things the others would've balked at, although he was a lot more discriminating about who was a valid target to aim at or pull the worse crap on - protect the weak, destroy the corrupt, take care of allies and comrades. Since his mental breakdown, it's basically an incredibly bitter and cynical mess of "The ends justify the means", and he's lost faith in a lot of what used to be important to him.

4. How does he regard beliefs that differ from his? Is he tolerant, intolerant, curious, indifferent? Honestly? For the most part he doesn't really give a fuck beyond if there's some way he can use it, although Christianity, particularly Catholicism and more Fundamentalist sects, are likely to be good ways to get him hating you on principle and being hostile just for that. The more dogmatic you are, the more he'll hate you.

5. What prejudices does he hold? Are they irrational or does he have a good reason for them? Besides the aforementioned grudge against the Church, he's pretty equal-opportunity in his schadenfreude and bitter, cynical loathing of all mankind. The thing with the church at least has a reason, since a good amount of abuse he'd gotten when he was younger over his powers was religiously based, and it likely was something he ran into his entire life.



Daily Life
1. What is the character's financial situation? Is he rich, poor, comfortable, in debt? Well, he was aristocracy, and pretty damn well off when he'd been alive; it's entirely possible that he was one of the sources of funding and resources when the Vongola started gaining power, and he probably helped arrange the other sources. I imagine he cut ties with his family at some point while he was with the Vongola, but by that time they'd built up enough steam that it didn't matter and he had more than enough resources to be well-off on his own. Anymore, it's a moot point; he's had the resources of whoever he's taken over, and he hasn't had a lot of need for wealth beyond setting up resources for the Vongola.

2. What is his social status? Has this changed over time, and if so, how has the change affected him? He was born into upper aristocracy, and damn good at it as much as he loathed most of his peers. At some point he went from "aristocrat" to "revolutionary", late in his career with the Vongola; and after that, trailed more criminal after his breakdown until his death, at which point he's basically been a disembodied meddling thing possessing people for his own ends. It could be said that the changes have less affected him than the other way around - as his mental state, resources, and choices in life changed, his social status drifted to match.

3. Where does he live? House, apartment, trailer? Is his home his castle or just a place to crash? What condition is it in? Does he share it with others?

4. Besides the basic necessities, what does he spend his money on?

5. What does he do for a living? Is he good at it? Does he enjoy it, or would he rather be doing something else?

6. What are his interests or hobbies? How does he spend his free time?

7. What are his eating habits? Does he skip meals, eat out, drink alcohol, avoid certain foods?



Associations
Which of the following do you associate with the character, or which is his favorite:

1. Color?
2. Smell?
3. Time of day?
4. Season?
5. Book?
6. Music?
7. Place?
8. Substance?
9. Plant?
10. Animal?



END
{{ Get the HTML here so you can do it yourself. }}