Duplicity Application

[mattersofscience]

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« « « ( Previously: AVOIDANT ) » » »

« « « OOC INFORMATION

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Name: Casey Age: 30+ Contact: PMs to teacuppa @ Discord or hamiltonia @ Plurk Timezone: EST Other Character(s): N/A

« « « IC INFORMATION

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Name: Charles Harrison Saville, MD, PhD Door: Door pass. Before becoming a vampire, Charles' preferred the warmth and quiet of daytime in the early morning. Canon: Original Canon Point: Charles is coming from the year 2023 in his story, when he had been living in London again for 51 years. Age: 136 as of 2025, physically 25 Appearance: Here History: Born February 24, 1889 to Evelyn and Viscount Benjamin Saville, Charles was raised in an aristocratic family that gained their fortune through inheritances over the span of several generations. He grew up in Mayfair and lived under his father’s unyielding expectation that he would attend university at Oxford, as his father and grandfather had, and eventually become a gentleman to secure their family’s fortune and future. While disinterested in the social rituals and superficialities of living as a gentleman, Charles relished the opportunity to educate himself, and as soon as he was old enough to attend university, traveled there with the goal of studying mathematics and natural science. Benjamin Saville did not consider medicine a worthy pursuit for a gentleman, but he tolerated his son’s choice on the condition that, when the time came, Charles would still assume his place as head of the Saville family. The expectation was that his son would marry a suitable girl from equally high social standing, have several children, and preserve the family’s wealth while securing favor London’s high society by making contributions to charity. Charles was completely disinterested in only contributing to London from afar and, to his father’s displeasure, more interested in getting his hands dirty by involving himself directly in treating disease in London’s impoverished East End. Charles was an able student and took well to the studies of mathematics and medicine. All of the natural sciences fascinated him, but medicine and the human body especially did because there was much during his time at Oxford that was still misunderstood, and that represented open questions about human health and disease. Interested in the diseases that swept through London’s streets and especially its poorer neighborhoods, Charles narrowed his focus and aimed to become a physician in whatever way he could manage. To his mother’s and father’s dismay, rather than devoting his efforts to becoming a private physician to the wealthier families of Mayfair and Grosvenor Park, upon graduating Charles began pouring his efforts into establishing his own private office for seeing a variety of patients. During this time, he also met his wife Lillian, and they married when Charles was 21. The marriage appeased Charles’ family for a time, as Lillian was from another of London’s notable families, an intelligent and charming woman, and an accomplished private musician. This time of building and marital peace did not last, however, as the Great War began soon after Charles’ practice began to take root in London. Medics with Charles’ level of education and training were in short supply, and so, feeling obligated to contribute to the war effort, Charles enlisted in the Royal Army Medical Corps of the British Armed Forces. He was assigned to a cohort as its medical officer and put in charge of 16 young men who served as stretcher-bearers during the conflict. Charles’ enlistment changed his life and his perspective on the depths of human darkness and human capacity for senseless cruelty. Relatively sheltered up until his time as a soldier, he bore witness to the stark realities of trench warfare: the stretches of waiting punctuated by short bursts of terror, the horrific injuries wrought by unprecedented war machinery, and a loss of life on a scale that the world had never seen before. Although a competent officer, the deaths of so many of the young men around him shocked him and seared away his perspective that enlistment was anything but men volunteering themselves to become waves of cannon fodder. It was during the war that Charles’ life would be permanently altered in an unnatural way that he would never recover from. After 5 months in his cohort, one night Charles stumbled upon what appeared to be a German soldier bleeding out just beyond the trench his cohort was taking shelter in. Although an enemy, the man was young and apparently deranged, as he raved about demons and dark shadows on the battlefield draining the blood of anyone they could get their hands on, regardless of uniform. Charles couldn’t accept finishing off an enemy at such a profound disadvantage. He moved closer to offer the man enough medical care to at least allow him to return to his side of the battlefield. Rather than laying still and accepting help, to Charles’ shock the man went into a frenzy and pinned him to the ground with unnatural strength and ice-cold hands. The last thing he recalled of the attack was the man sinking unnaturally sharp teeth into his neck and draining his blood. When Charles awoke, his cohort had moved on from their trenches and both he and the German soldier had been left behind as two more of the assumed dead. The soldier who stayed with him, Oskar Ahlbrecht, introduced himself and explained that he had woken in a state of profound bloodlust several nights before. He called himself a demon and apologized. In the hopes of gaining Charles’ forgiveness, he further explained that he had “made” Charles a “demon” like him while he was unconscious, as it was the only way to prevent him from dying of blood loss. He gave Charles the harrowing news that he would never again see the sun and warned him that their “demon” forms only seemed to be sated by blood, and then left the now-undead medical officer alone on the empty battlefield. After being turned into what he would later learn was referred to in supernatural circles as a “vampire”, Charles immediately fled his cohort to return home to England. He was determined to study his new condition in the hope of finding a cure, but shortly after his return, tension evolved within his family because of the young physician’s desertion from the war effort and new refusal to work or attend to any of his familial responsibilities during the day. During this time Charles kept his secrets, hoping to protect his parents and friends from contracting the same “illness”, and devoted his time to researching his vampirism. He explained himself to Lillian who, while horrified at first, soon committed herself to helping Charles with his research and in learning how to live together in the new way her husband’s vampirism forced them to. This period of dedicated researching and familial tension would not last long, as in 1918 the soldiers returning from the trenches of France brought a devastating strain of Spanish influenza back with them. The disease swept through England and Wales, and not even wealth was enough to protect the men and women of Mayfair and Grosvenor Park. Lillian was among those claimed by the illness. As a human, Charles had dedicated himself and his studies primarily to diseases likely to spread the way the influenza had, but his knowledge and experience were not enough to slow the illness’ progress. Lillian died in bed in their family home, and the moment she did Charles lost someone he would never push himself to properly grieve and let go of. In the 107 years that followed, it became clear to Charles that his vampirism, the state he believed to be an intricate medical condition that could eventually be cured through scientific means, was not going to yield easily. He learned to live with the waxing and waning periods of bloodlust, how to feed himself without drawing attention or killing, and he also began to seek out others in Europe who either were vampires themselves, or who had insight into the supernatural world that his transformation had thrust him into. What he learned was that there was an entire underbelly of a world that his previous life as the educated son of a wealthy gentleman had kept him entirely blind to. Magic existed. Demons existed. Many more vampires existed, and not solely as individuals slinking through the foggy London streets after sunset. Most of England’s vampires existed in territorial clans, although all different in character, would frequently war over turf solely for bragging rights and the opportunity to hold onto areas they found most advantageous for hunting. Very few of London’s vampires, especially, seemed to Charles as if they cared much for the human wreckage they left in their wake after taking human lives. Many felt themselves superior to humanity as a whole, and those vampires who felt differently were rarely tolerated amongst the clans of London unless they were uniquely valuable to the clan in a way that made them difficult to replace. In this world of bloodlust and rampant hyper-indulgence, Charles discovered an unexpected niche for his medical skills. While continuing to study his own vampirism and look for a way to reverse it, in 1924 he purchased a small, ramshackle little property in London’s East End and converted it into a private night clinic that served both humans and supernatural beings alike. Word of mouth about his clinic spread slowly, but in time Charles’ practice and office became known as a place where vampires caught in turf wars between clans could escape to as a neutral location. Supernatural beings and humans familiar with the secret world that thrived beneath the surface of the human one were also welcome, and Charles gave himself over to treating injuries, illnesses, and conditions that could not be brought to human hospital for fear of discovery or worse. The clinic was a distraction that allowed Charles to keep himself as busy as he felt he needed to be, and it became a way to continue to learn and provide the medical services he had hoped to as a younger human man. During this time, Charles made himself available to those who needed his physician’s hands and gained a few friends and key alliances that allowed him to maintain his neutral stance as a vampire separate and disdainful of the clan warring he considered wasteful and pointless. He did not, however, become truly close to anyone during this time. His workaholic tendencies and buried grief kept him firmly separate from the handful who did attempt to know him beyond the bonds of friendship. After 20 years spent operating his underground clinic in London, Charles’ research into both vampirism and infectious disease opened his eyes to the rapid pace at which medicine was continuing to advance in the world. He decided then that if he was going to become a more accomplished physician and scientist, he would need to travel and learn as much as he could about both human medicine, and medicine as it applied to supernatural individuals. He spent the next 15 years traveling the world by night, sometimes dipping into areas rife with war to lend his experience as a combat medic, and other times joining what epidemiological and infectious disease laboratories and university departments would tolerate his requirement for a night-based schedule. He deepened his knowledge and expertise during this time, and in 1964, achieved an MD, PhD designation from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. When Charles finally returned to London in 1972, he was disappointed to discover that the vampiric turf wars were raging as callously as ever, and England’s supernatural world remained as underground as it ever had. At this time he reopened his clinic, worked to reestablish himself, and rebuilt old alliances and friendships that had fallen apart while he had been away traveling the world and broadening his horizons as a medical practitioner and researcher. In the 51 years that followed, Charles failed to make headway on his goal of discovering the cure to his vampirism. London’s supernatural community was aware of his research, but his failure to achieve much beyond learning the unique inner workings of the vampire body gave him a reputation in the vampire community as an ineffectual mad scientist. Even though the clans would check in on him from time to time over the years, they did not perceive him as a threat. This suited Charles, as it allowed him to do his research undisturbed and with increasingly advanced medical equipment. In 2023, Charles continues to work in his underground clinic, research both supernatural and human medicine, and keep himself firmly separate and behind a ice wall of unacknowledged grief. Personality: Positive Trait: Idealistic Charles is a principled man who wants to be of service to people. Maintaining his clinic and using his skills as a physician and researcher to heal or benefit others is fulfilling to him, and something he believes improves the world around him. He's an optimist at heart, and isn't willing to accept that the more vulgar or violent realities of the world are what they are and should be allowed to happen without some kind of answer. He has stark limits to the lengths he will go to help or intervene on circumstances he judges to be immoral, but when he can offer assistance, he prefers to. Charles' idealism shows itself most clearly first in his rejection of the life of a gentleman to become a physician to any patients that sought him out, and then again in his maintenance of his underground night clinic after he becomes a vampire. Funding his clinics has been a struggle at many times in his life, and each time represented him swimming against the current of the expectations of the social environment he lived in. Neither his family nor many of the vampires of London understood or accepted his choice to service patients others wouldn't, but Charles continued to offer his services because he believed his continued work was the only way to bring changes that wouldn't happen without someone pushing for them. Negative Trait: Avoidant Although unafraid to be confrontational and direct in many ways, Charles is emotionally avoidant. His wife died over a century ago, but he has yet to wholly face the reality of her death and his intense grief over the way she passed. Rather than confronting his feelings, he buries them under workaholic tendencies and his obsessive research into the vampiric body and the cure for vampirism. Rather than facing his perception that he "failed" his wife and framing his attempts to save her in a different way, he pushes aside thinking about the subject and instead does more research and hones his skills as a physician more ardently in an attempt to never "fail" again. Negative Trait: Stiff A trait related to both his emotionally avoidant and perfectionistic tendencies, Charles can be inflexible in his morals, judgments and level of emotional openness. Although rebellious when it comes to his perceptions about the "proper" way to be a gentleman and then a doctor and researcher, he grew up in an aristocratic post-Victorian era family, and learned manners and his concepts of sexual propriety that fit the time period he originates from. He holds himself in a guarded and distant way, and leans on his educated background as a way of communicating with people. People who tend to be sillier, more open, or "messy" (as he sees it) can be received by him as people who don't respect themselves, and he can at times not take those people seriously or talk to them with a dry and detached demeanor. Charles stiffness, on top of his emotionally avoidant nature, was one of the defense mechanisms he frequently used to keep people who wanted to be closer to him at arm's length. Some found it endearing and teased him for it, but many others found it off-putting, and took it as a sign that he wanted little to do with them on a personal level. Negative Trait: Workaholic Charles is a workaholic, which has been beneficial to his research, but also deeply detrimental to healing his grief and connecting with the people in his life. He can and does lean on working and doing research as a crutch, and when stressed or upset, will pour his energy into his work as a way to avoid dealing with his feelings. As a human man he would frequently work long hours to the point of exhaustion, and as a vampire he will push himself even farther than that because he can. His vampirism has worsened his workoholism tenfold, because the only thing that slows his body significantly is the eventual need for blood. Other Traits: + Helpful + Conscientious + Loving + Generous + Proactive + Merciful +/- Fair-minded +/- Principled +/- Introspective +/- Logical +/- Direct +/- Pragmatic +/- Open-minded (Re: certain subjects) - Feaful - Self-unaware - Low self worth - Arrogant - Emotionally repressed - Dry - Judgmental (Re: certain subjects) - Stubborn - Reckless Powers and Abilities: Charles is a vampire, which in his universe means that his physical strength, speed and natural healing abilities far outstrip any human's. He is also capable of putting humans into a state called a 'thrall', which is a form of mind control achieved by biting a human, looking into their eyes, and hypnotizing them with vampiric charisma. Charles is loathe to put people under his thrall and will only resort to doing it in emergencies, but it's an ability that I will always clear with other players on the off chance that it does come up during play. Inventory: - A research paper detailing years of Charles' observations and discoveries about the condition of vampirism - An antique gold locket with portraits of himself and his wife on the opposing inner panels - The locket's chain also has Lillian's wedding ring strung on it Samples: Both here. (Charles' network post and replies to threads show how he communicates, and his Haven sample shows his thought processes as he adapts to being thrown into a wild new city.)