The Last Voyages App
Aug. 2nd, 2020 07:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
all_is_hushedUser Name/Nick: QV
User DW:cavercanary
E-mail: applestoatoms@gmail.com
Other Characters: None!
Character Name: Orpheus
Series: Ulysses Dies at Dawn
Age: 27
From When?: Point of death
Inmate/Warden: Inmate: Orpheus is a hot-headed and self-centered individual who has a difficult time coping with his own emotions or thinking through the consequences of his actions. He's a hedonist with escapism and impulse control problems and proves himself willing to commit crimes and hurt others in order to preserve his lifestyle or take care of his own.
Item: N/A
Arrival: Moment of death, against his will
Abilities/Powers: For the most part Orpheus is a bog-standard human, but he does have vague visions of the future or possible futures when he takes a psychedelic drug called Lotus. It's not clear in canon whether this is something caused by the Lotus or something unique to him specifically.
Personality:
(cw: suicide attempts, substance abuse, references to sex work)
Orpheus is introduced to us as a fairly arrogant figure - seen more in the short stories than on the album itself, he considers himself "above the workaday drudges" for his general intelligence, his beauty, and especially his talent in music. He views himself as inherently special, and deserving of special treatment because of it. While it's true that he does work hard at his craft, and that he is genuinely an intelligent person, he gets easily swept up in praise and attention - of which he's gotten plenty as Dionysus's press officer and the City's most famous musician - and it tends to go to his head. It's implied that some of this stems from a minor inferiority complex he has regarding his older brother, Linus, who he seems to resent for being the better musician (at least from a technical standpoint) of the two of them as well as the responsible son. His haughty facade also shows minor cracks in that prior to being picked up by Dionysus he kept his music largely to himself, for fear of putting himself out there only to be unsuccessful at pursuing a career in it - proving that he wasn't really as good as he thought he was. Naturally this concern is quenched with his rise to fame, but it does hint at an underlying fear of rejection and inadequacy.
As one might expect from a character whose self worth is so wrapped up in praise, Orpheus is also a fairly emotionally volatile individual. He has a tendency to wear his heart on his sleeve in a big and often bombastic way, the best example perhaps being his reaction to seeing the sun for the first time. For context, the City in which Orpheus resides is a multilayered and largely subterranean complex, and only the very highest penthouses of the most expensive residences ever see natural sunlight. Upon being brought up to his employer's home above the smog and the dense development of the city, Orpheus became overwhelmed and spontaneously began to sing - which, to be clear, is not something people just do in this canon. His love for Eurydice similarly inspired him, those five years of his life being portrayed as a sort of golden age where nothing could bring him down and music flowed freely from his heart and mind. It's not all sunshine and song, however. His temper is also a force to be reckoned with, lashing out (albeit mostly verbally) at those around him when he grows frustrated or is cornered, as is his tendency towards melancholy. After the murder of Eurydice, the latter overwhelms him entirely, and he spends months utterly inconsolable, attempting suicide once, planning a more elaborate attempt after the first failed, and spending the time in between lying in bed and wasting away or crying at the drop of a hat.
However, beyond that specific trauma and timeframe, depression and anxiety are implied to have been an issue that has plagued him all his life. The narration in one of the short stories states that his fascination with Lotus (a psychedelic drug that causes visions of the future, at least for Orpheus) and hedonistic streak as a whole started as a way of escaping the dullness and terror of life in the City. Orpheus is in many ways keenly aware of how terrible conditions are for basically every resident of the planetwide complex that makes up his home, and his desperate pleasure-seeking largely serves as a means to stave off the existential dread. See, Orpheus is, again, a very intelligent person and in the City that means he's spent his days being constantly hounded by recruiters for the Acheron - the network of the brains of every resident of the City to ever pass away, responsible for handling the computing needs of the whole planet. Always in need of fresh brains, promising youths of the City are bombarded with pamphlets telling them to "donate early" - and these morbid reminders of his eventual fate have developed into an unholy terror of death for Orpheus. Rather than seek to artificially prolong his life as some inhabitants of the City do, Orpheus instead chose to seek chemical distraction and oblivion, the dreams that Lotus brings him becoming essentially the only reason he can sleep or relax to begin with.
Speaking of mortal terror, though, despite his insistence that he'd "rather run than stand," Orpheus does repeatedly put himself in dangerous (if ill-advised) situations for the sake of retrieving his lost fiancee. He descends into the depths of the Acheron, the place he fears most in the world, in order to secure an audience with Hades in order to plead for Eurydice's release. Later, he also volunteers to undergo Ulysses's Trial of Love - whereby one person has to sacrifice themselves without flinching or hesitation - under the condition that his pay for the job be used to buy Eurydice's freedom. Ultimately he doesn't manage to do it, wincing at the last second, but he comes close, and his failure is twisted up in the triple fears of the Acheron, of being without Eurydice for eternity, and of not being able to know if his employer has held up their end of the bargain after he dies. That said, it can sometimes be hard to tell with Orpheus what is genuine bravery and what is just bad impulse control, as hinted at above. His original decision to seek out Hades is a spur of the moment one, prompted by nothing more than learning that Eurydice's brain is still intact enough to be a candidate for re-bodying (essentially giving a person who's been installed in the Acheron a new body and their autonomy back) with little regard for the monetary and personal cost it will have for him. In addition, he punches Dionysus (his boss and one of the most powerful men on the planet) in the face over a miscommunication regarding his job, and taunts Heracles, who is significantly larger than him and has a known violent streak, over the death of Hylas, of whom Heracles had been very fond. Orpheus seems to be aware of this to some degree, having refused to pursue more information about the suspects in Eurydice's murder for fear that he'd feel compelled to try to kill the most likely of them for the sake of revenge.
All of that said, Orpheus is not a wholly terrible person. Again, he does have some acts of bravery under his belt, and his love for Eurydice is genuine - even if the quest itself is somewhat self-serving and misguided (as re-bodying is said to be a traumatic process that doesn't tend to end well), his intentions are good. He does seem to genuinely think he's lesser without her love and support, and puts himself at great risk to remain true to her after she passes, essentially quitting his job as Dionysus's press officer and high-class escort. In life, they'd had an understanding about his line of work, but with her murder being touched by others became too much to bear for him. He describes himself as being lost without her, and is willing to do virtually anything that will ensure they can be together again. While we don't get to see much of Eurydice or her feelings on their relationship, as she dies prior to the start of canon, we do get to see how he also cares for his friend Narcissus. Orpheus isn't nearly as willing to move Heaven and Earth for his sake, but he does clearly consider him a dear friend, trading playful insults and banter with him, going out of his way to spend his free time with him, trusting him with greater sincerity than he does virtually anyone else, and feeling a legitimate and terrible grief when he receives a Lotus-vision of Narcissus's eventual fate of being locked up in an asylum for those too unwell to be accepted into the grip of the Acheron. At that, Orpheus realizes that it would be possible to intervene - to help Narcissus through his obsessive tendencies and his addictions - but that for him to do so would require he get over his own dependence on Lotus and his preoccupation with death, and concludes that despite his best attempts to be supportive, he's too weak to be the friend Narcissus needs.
All in all, Orpheus is a deeply flawed individual - prideful, hot-headed, melancholic, impulsive, petty, and self-involved. But beyond that, he is capable of caring deeply for those select few who can get through to him. His love for those closest to him is his central redeeming characteristic, devotion to Eurydice propelling him to preform and attempt to preform heroic feats in her name and his bond with Narcissus compelling him to at least try to bring him some comfort even if it didn't give him the strength to resolve his own issues for his friend's sake (and his failure to do so does seem to bring him some genuine grief). The tragedy of it is that Orpheus seems to be on some level aware of his shortcomings, but views himself as unable to do anything about them, paralyzed as he is by fear and grief.
Barge Reactions:
Orpheus comes from a sprawling planet-wide ultra urban complex called the City, where virtually every life form that isn't human has long since gone extinct and those that haven't are relegated to the private collections of the trillionaire elite. He has seen the sun precisely once, encountered one living animal, and has only seen trees in illustrations. The setting of the Barge alone will blow his mind with its apparent casual opulence. He's likely to cry the first time he sees stars, or flowers, or a large open space that isn't walled in on all sides. At first he'll be hugely skeptical of the idea that he's allowed to live here, and will keep himself in line largely out of fear of being booted back into the City to finish dying or, almost as bad, keep living.
Once he gets over that (which he may not ever do entirely), he'll mostly be fascinated and confused and probably at least a little bit afraid of the people he encounters aboard the ship. People from Earth and Earthlike settings will be met with a deep sort of jealousy, due to all of the above, but also curiosity once he gets past the initial resentment. Orpheus is not a scholar or historian by any means, but granted the opportunity to learn about what his world might have been like before the City's encroachment snuffed everything out, he'd gladly devour every scrap of information he could get his hands on. People from more alien worlds or who have fantastic abilities (especially wardens) may be regarded with more nervous suspicion, as Orpheus has bad experiences with authority and people more powerful than him, be it physically or in other ways.
In terms of the type of people he's likely to seek out, he most enjoys the company of fellow bohemians - musicians, poets, and artists - though he'll happily take the occasional high society layabout if they're witty enough conversationalists. That isn't to say they're the only sorts of people he'll make friends with, but that's the circle he tended to run in back home, and the familiarity will be comforting to him. Outgoing people are the most likely to break through to him, as he's sort of withdrawn and not likely to reach out in earnest on his own.
In terms of floods and breaches, he'll be incredibly disturbed at the apparently malleable nature of reality and probably try to hide in his room. Obviously this won't work out for him because there's too many interesting things to subject him to, but the point is he'll be mildly terrified at first. Ports will be easier to cope with for him, though again the existence of environments that aren't super cramped urban kudzu are extremely novel to him and he's likely to get lost. Depending on how much trust he's built up with his warden, he's also apt to go run off and bury himself in whatever vices are available to him, so, watch out for that.
Path to Redemption:
The primary obstacle to getting Orpheus to improve himself for any prospective Warden is to get him to stop using his grief over Eurydice and his menagerie of fears as an excuse - not just to sink into the chemical oblivion of Lotus, but also to dodge having to care about anyone else. Attachments to others are Orpheus's main motivation for doing anything that doesn't directly benefit himself - he'll drag himself out of the deepest depths of his depression to indulge a close friend, and can be genuinely insightful when it comes to working through other peoples' issues or examining his own emotional state through the lens of comparing himself to others. Mainly, he needs friends that he can trust.
Beyond that, the way to motivate him to make big changes is to remind him of Eurydice, and his chance of getting her back healthy and whole if he graduates to Warden and makes a deal with the Admiral. He'll balk and grow resentful if it's too obvious that she's being used as a carrot on a stick for him, but gently nudging him to think of what she'd want for him once a degree of trust has been built up will likelly prove an effective tactic.
For smaller things, Orpheus is extremely easily motivated by praise. Positive reinforcement is bound to be a useful tool in his warden's arsenal. Praising him specifically for the improvements he makes is obvious, but also important is acknowledging his intelligence and skill with music for the sake of building a rapport. He's used to being a celebrity whose time and attention is in high demand, so feeling important and wanted is going to be a big part of making him comfortable - though that's going to have to be carefully balanced with overfeeding his ego.
Particularly bold wardens might also want to allow him some use of Lotus, for a few reasons. Firstly, he legitimately can't sleep without it, and withdrawal will make him very sick if he's forced to quit cold turkey. Second, he's likely to view being forced into sobriety as a cruel imposition, and having some mercy on that front will endear him to his warden significantly (though again, this has to be carefully balanced against just being an enabler). Third, quitting will be a considerably more significant milestone if it's his decision to do so, and will make him less likely to immediately relapse at the first opportunity. Again, though, this is up to the warden's discretion, as Lotus is fairly dangerous and not something to be trifled with and feeding his addiction may ultimately set him back more than it helps. It may be a better idea to find some kind of equivalent to methadone treatment instead.
Deal: N/A
History:
( refreshing those content warnings for sex work, substance abuse, and suicide attempts )
The wiki entry is a little sparse, so to sum up, Orpheus is the son of a popular lounge singer by the name of Kalliope. A particularly troublesome child, his brother Linus taught him to play the lyre in the hopes of getting him to settle down, which worked up until he was old enough to run away in order to pursue a lifestyle of bohemian indulgence. At the age of eighteen he was arrested on charges of prostitution and drug possession, only to be bailed out by Dionysus - an obscenely wealthy liquor mogul who hired him to act as a waiter, bartender, and high-class escort at his most exclusive club, though Orpheus's real duty was to collect his clients' secrets and report back to his employer for the sake of fueling a thriving business in gossip and blackmail.
Orpheus took well to this line of work, eventually rising to the rank of Dionysus's personal press officer - promoting his many business endeavors and giving him the free time to pursue his music as a career rather than just a hobby. It was then that he met Eurydice, the love of his life, and for five years the two of them were blissfully happy together. It wasn't to last, though, and Eurydice was murdered before their wedding day, sending Orpheus spiraling into a deep, inconsolable depression. He became repulsed by his work, refusing to be touched as no lover could compare to his lost fiancee, and as a result he rapidly fell out of Dionysus's favor, being fired from his job and quickly replaced. Orpheus then attempted to drown himself in a canal, though he only succeeded in breaking his foot and publicly disgracing himself.
After that, he'd plan a more elaborate suicide attempt, gathering bottles of muriatic acid with the intent of completely destroying his brain so as to render it unusable by the Acheron - the city-spanning network that used the brains of the dead for processing power - only to decide at the last minute to visit the oracle Teiresias to ask him to locate Eurydice's brain in that self-same system. Upon being informed of her location and that she was healthy and whole (at least as far as disembodied brains go), Orpheus realized that there was still a chance for them to be together. If he could only convince Hades, the administrator of the Acheron, to release her, he could have her mind installed in a new body, effectively bringing her back to life. He set out to seek an audience with Hades immediately and was ultimately successful in winning them over, though unfortunately for Orpheus, re-bodying a mind from the Acheron didn't come cheap. Hades was gracious enough to set him up with a job that would pay the fee and more, however, and that's how Orpheus landed the so-called Ulysses Job.
Essentially a very straightforward heist, the Ulysses Job involved attempting to break into a vault owned by the war hero Ulysses, who'd constructed it with a four-part lock that required those seeking to undo it undergo four trials. Orpheus's was the Trial of Song, which he passed with flying colors. However the last lock, the Trial of Love, required that someone sacrifice themselves without flinching or hesitation, and when Ariadne, who'd been chosen for the task refused, Orpheus stepped in and volunteered under the condition that his pay be used to free Eurydice from the Acheron after he was gone. Ultimately he couldn't do it, though, looking back at the last second, and the vault remained closed. His employer then emerged from the shadows and, realizing that the Trial of Love operated on a simple motion sensor, declared that the surviving thieves would receive a pay raise if one of them was bound and used to open the door.
Chaos broke out after that, Orpheus and his fellows arguing among themselves and giving Ulysses time to ambush and kill all of them, Orpheus's throat being slit by a stray laser beam. And that's where his story ends.
Sample Journal Entry:
It's all just... so beautiful. [ Orpheus gestures out towards the glittering dome of stars overhead, eyes wide and teary as he stands on the deck of the ship.] I've never seen stars before. Well, no. I've seen one star, once, and while that's more than most people get to see in their lives, well. [ He trails off, drinking in the view hungrily, like he's trying to etch it into his mind, afraid that if he looks away it'll all disappear.] Even I don't have the words for it. There are so many of them. And there are whole worlds out there where everyone sees them, every night?
[ He shakes his head. ]
I don't care what I have to do - I'm going to get Eurydice out of that hell and we're going to see everything together. We're going to explore this whole galaxy together, and we're never going back to the City. Whatever it takes.
Sample RP: Voice Test Meme
Special Notes: As discussed, I'll be setting up an opt in/out post and a detailed permissions post for Orpheus should he get into the game!
User DW:
cavercanaryE-mail: applestoatoms@gmail.com
Other Characters: None!
Character Name: Orpheus
Series: Ulysses Dies at Dawn
Age: 27
From When?: Point of death
Inmate/Warden: Inmate: Orpheus is a hot-headed and self-centered individual who has a difficult time coping with his own emotions or thinking through the consequences of his actions. He's a hedonist with escapism and impulse control problems and proves himself willing to commit crimes and hurt others in order to preserve his lifestyle or take care of his own.
Item: N/A
Arrival: Moment of death, against his will
Abilities/Powers: For the most part Orpheus is a bog-standard human, but he does have vague visions of the future or possible futures when he takes a psychedelic drug called Lotus. It's not clear in canon whether this is something caused by the Lotus or something unique to him specifically.
Personality:
(cw: suicide attempts, substance abuse, references to sex work)
Orpheus is introduced to us as a fairly arrogant figure - seen more in the short stories than on the album itself, he considers himself "above the workaday drudges" for his general intelligence, his beauty, and especially his talent in music. He views himself as inherently special, and deserving of special treatment because of it. While it's true that he does work hard at his craft, and that he is genuinely an intelligent person, he gets easily swept up in praise and attention - of which he's gotten plenty as Dionysus's press officer and the City's most famous musician - and it tends to go to his head. It's implied that some of this stems from a minor inferiority complex he has regarding his older brother, Linus, who he seems to resent for being the better musician (at least from a technical standpoint) of the two of them as well as the responsible son. His haughty facade also shows minor cracks in that prior to being picked up by Dionysus he kept his music largely to himself, for fear of putting himself out there only to be unsuccessful at pursuing a career in it - proving that he wasn't really as good as he thought he was. Naturally this concern is quenched with his rise to fame, but it does hint at an underlying fear of rejection and inadequacy.
As one might expect from a character whose self worth is so wrapped up in praise, Orpheus is also a fairly emotionally volatile individual. He has a tendency to wear his heart on his sleeve in a big and often bombastic way, the best example perhaps being his reaction to seeing the sun for the first time. For context, the City in which Orpheus resides is a multilayered and largely subterranean complex, and only the very highest penthouses of the most expensive residences ever see natural sunlight. Upon being brought up to his employer's home above the smog and the dense development of the city, Orpheus became overwhelmed and spontaneously began to sing - which, to be clear, is not something people just do in this canon. His love for Eurydice similarly inspired him, those five years of his life being portrayed as a sort of golden age where nothing could bring him down and music flowed freely from his heart and mind. It's not all sunshine and song, however. His temper is also a force to be reckoned with, lashing out (albeit mostly verbally) at those around him when he grows frustrated or is cornered, as is his tendency towards melancholy. After the murder of Eurydice, the latter overwhelms him entirely, and he spends months utterly inconsolable, attempting suicide once, planning a more elaborate attempt after the first failed, and spending the time in between lying in bed and wasting away or crying at the drop of a hat.
However, beyond that specific trauma and timeframe, depression and anxiety are implied to have been an issue that has plagued him all his life. The narration in one of the short stories states that his fascination with Lotus (a psychedelic drug that causes visions of the future, at least for Orpheus) and hedonistic streak as a whole started as a way of escaping the dullness and terror of life in the City. Orpheus is in many ways keenly aware of how terrible conditions are for basically every resident of the planetwide complex that makes up his home, and his desperate pleasure-seeking largely serves as a means to stave off the existential dread. See, Orpheus is, again, a very intelligent person and in the City that means he's spent his days being constantly hounded by recruiters for the Acheron - the network of the brains of every resident of the City to ever pass away, responsible for handling the computing needs of the whole planet. Always in need of fresh brains, promising youths of the City are bombarded with pamphlets telling them to "donate early" - and these morbid reminders of his eventual fate have developed into an unholy terror of death for Orpheus. Rather than seek to artificially prolong his life as some inhabitants of the City do, Orpheus instead chose to seek chemical distraction and oblivion, the dreams that Lotus brings him becoming essentially the only reason he can sleep or relax to begin with.
Speaking of mortal terror, though, despite his insistence that he'd "rather run than stand," Orpheus does repeatedly put himself in dangerous (if ill-advised) situations for the sake of retrieving his lost fiancee. He descends into the depths of the Acheron, the place he fears most in the world, in order to secure an audience with Hades in order to plead for Eurydice's release. Later, he also volunteers to undergo Ulysses's Trial of Love - whereby one person has to sacrifice themselves without flinching or hesitation - under the condition that his pay for the job be used to buy Eurydice's freedom. Ultimately he doesn't manage to do it, wincing at the last second, but he comes close, and his failure is twisted up in the triple fears of the Acheron, of being without Eurydice for eternity, and of not being able to know if his employer has held up their end of the bargain after he dies. That said, it can sometimes be hard to tell with Orpheus what is genuine bravery and what is just bad impulse control, as hinted at above. His original decision to seek out Hades is a spur of the moment one, prompted by nothing more than learning that Eurydice's brain is still intact enough to be a candidate for re-bodying (essentially giving a person who's been installed in the Acheron a new body and their autonomy back) with little regard for the monetary and personal cost it will have for him. In addition, he punches Dionysus (his boss and one of the most powerful men on the planet) in the face over a miscommunication regarding his job, and taunts Heracles, who is significantly larger than him and has a known violent streak, over the death of Hylas, of whom Heracles had been very fond. Orpheus seems to be aware of this to some degree, having refused to pursue more information about the suspects in Eurydice's murder for fear that he'd feel compelled to try to kill the most likely of them for the sake of revenge.
All of that said, Orpheus is not a wholly terrible person. Again, he does have some acts of bravery under his belt, and his love for Eurydice is genuine - even if the quest itself is somewhat self-serving and misguided (as re-bodying is said to be a traumatic process that doesn't tend to end well), his intentions are good. He does seem to genuinely think he's lesser without her love and support, and puts himself at great risk to remain true to her after she passes, essentially quitting his job as Dionysus's press officer and high-class escort. In life, they'd had an understanding about his line of work, but with her murder being touched by others became too much to bear for him. He describes himself as being lost without her, and is willing to do virtually anything that will ensure they can be together again. While we don't get to see much of Eurydice or her feelings on their relationship, as she dies prior to the start of canon, we do get to see how he also cares for his friend Narcissus. Orpheus isn't nearly as willing to move Heaven and Earth for his sake, but he does clearly consider him a dear friend, trading playful insults and banter with him, going out of his way to spend his free time with him, trusting him with greater sincerity than he does virtually anyone else, and feeling a legitimate and terrible grief when he receives a Lotus-vision of Narcissus's eventual fate of being locked up in an asylum for those too unwell to be accepted into the grip of the Acheron. At that, Orpheus realizes that it would be possible to intervene - to help Narcissus through his obsessive tendencies and his addictions - but that for him to do so would require he get over his own dependence on Lotus and his preoccupation with death, and concludes that despite his best attempts to be supportive, he's too weak to be the friend Narcissus needs.
All in all, Orpheus is a deeply flawed individual - prideful, hot-headed, melancholic, impulsive, petty, and self-involved. But beyond that, he is capable of caring deeply for those select few who can get through to him. His love for those closest to him is his central redeeming characteristic, devotion to Eurydice propelling him to preform and attempt to preform heroic feats in her name and his bond with Narcissus compelling him to at least try to bring him some comfort even if it didn't give him the strength to resolve his own issues for his friend's sake (and his failure to do so does seem to bring him some genuine grief). The tragedy of it is that Orpheus seems to be on some level aware of his shortcomings, but views himself as unable to do anything about them, paralyzed as he is by fear and grief.
Barge Reactions:
Orpheus comes from a sprawling planet-wide ultra urban complex called the City, where virtually every life form that isn't human has long since gone extinct and those that haven't are relegated to the private collections of the trillionaire elite. He has seen the sun precisely once, encountered one living animal, and has only seen trees in illustrations. The setting of the Barge alone will blow his mind with its apparent casual opulence. He's likely to cry the first time he sees stars, or flowers, or a large open space that isn't walled in on all sides. At first he'll be hugely skeptical of the idea that he's allowed to live here, and will keep himself in line largely out of fear of being booted back into the City to finish dying or, almost as bad, keep living.
Once he gets over that (which he may not ever do entirely), he'll mostly be fascinated and confused and probably at least a little bit afraid of the people he encounters aboard the ship. People from Earth and Earthlike settings will be met with a deep sort of jealousy, due to all of the above, but also curiosity once he gets past the initial resentment. Orpheus is not a scholar or historian by any means, but granted the opportunity to learn about what his world might have been like before the City's encroachment snuffed everything out, he'd gladly devour every scrap of information he could get his hands on. People from more alien worlds or who have fantastic abilities (especially wardens) may be regarded with more nervous suspicion, as Orpheus has bad experiences with authority and people more powerful than him, be it physically or in other ways.
In terms of the type of people he's likely to seek out, he most enjoys the company of fellow bohemians - musicians, poets, and artists - though he'll happily take the occasional high society layabout if they're witty enough conversationalists. That isn't to say they're the only sorts of people he'll make friends with, but that's the circle he tended to run in back home, and the familiarity will be comforting to him. Outgoing people are the most likely to break through to him, as he's sort of withdrawn and not likely to reach out in earnest on his own.
In terms of floods and breaches, he'll be incredibly disturbed at the apparently malleable nature of reality and probably try to hide in his room. Obviously this won't work out for him because there's too many interesting things to subject him to, but the point is he'll be mildly terrified at first. Ports will be easier to cope with for him, though again the existence of environments that aren't super cramped urban kudzu are extremely novel to him and he's likely to get lost. Depending on how much trust he's built up with his warden, he's also apt to go run off and bury himself in whatever vices are available to him, so, watch out for that.
Path to Redemption:
The primary obstacle to getting Orpheus to improve himself for any prospective Warden is to get him to stop using his grief over Eurydice and his menagerie of fears as an excuse - not just to sink into the chemical oblivion of Lotus, but also to dodge having to care about anyone else. Attachments to others are Orpheus's main motivation for doing anything that doesn't directly benefit himself - he'll drag himself out of the deepest depths of his depression to indulge a close friend, and can be genuinely insightful when it comes to working through other peoples' issues or examining his own emotional state through the lens of comparing himself to others. Mainly, he needs friends that he can trust.
Beyond that, the way to motivate him to make big changes is to remind him of Eurydice, and his chance of getting her back healthy and whole if he graduates to Warden and makes a deal with the Admiral. He'll balk and grow resentful if it's too obvious that she's being used as a carrot on a stick for him, but gently nudging him to think of what she'd want for him once a degree of trust has been built up will likelly prove an effective tactic.
For smaller things, Orpheus is extremely easily motivated by praise. Positive reinforcement is bound to be a useful tool in his warden's arsenal. Praising him specifically for the improvements he makes is obvious, but also important is acknowledging his intelligence and skill with music for the sake of building a rapport. He's used to being a celebrity whose time and attention is in high demand, so feeling important and wanted is going to be a big part of making him comfortable - though that's going to have to be carefully balanced with overfeeding his ego.
Particularly bold wardens might also want to allow him some use of Lotus, for a few reasons. Firstly, he legitimately can't sleep without it, and withdrawal will make him very sick if he's forced to quit cold turkey. Second, he's likely to view being forced into sobriety as a cruel imposition, and having some mercy on that front will endear him to his warden significantly (though again, this has to be carefully balanced against just being an enabler). Third, quitting will be a considerably more significant milestone if it's his decision to do so, and will make him less likely to immediately relapse at the first opportunity. Again, though, this is up to the warden's discretion, as Lotus is fairly dangerous and not something to be trifled with and feeding his addiction may ultimately set him back more than it helps. It may be a better idea to find some kind of equivalent to methadone treatment instead.
Deal: N/A
History:
( refreshing those content warnings for sex work, substance abuse, and suicide attempts )
The wiki entry is a little sparse, so to sum up, Orpheus is the son of a popular lounge singer by the name of Kalliope. A particularly troublesome child, his brother Linus taught him to play the lyre in the hopes of getting him to settle down, which worked up until he was old enough to run away in order to pursue a lifestyle of bohemian indulgence. At the age of eighteen he was arrested on charges of prostitution and drug possession, only to be bailed out by Dionysus - an obscenely wealthy liquor mogul who hired him to act as a waiter, bartender, and high-class escort at his most exclusive club, though Orpheus's real duty was to collect his clients' secrets and report back to his employer for the sake of fueling a thriving business in gossip and blackmail.
Orpheus took well to this line of work, eventually rising to the rank of Dionysus's personal press officer - promoting his many business endeavors and giving him the free time to pursue his music as a career rather than just a hobby. It was then that he met Eurydice, the love of his life, and for five years the two of them were blissfully happy together. It wasn't to last, though, and Eurydice was murdered before their wedding day, sending Orpheus spiraling into a deep, inconsolable depression. He became repulsed by his work, refusing to be touched as no lover could compare to his lost fiancee, and as a result he rapidly fell out of Dionysus's favor, being fired from his job and quickly replaced. Orpheus then attempted to drown himself in a canal, though he only succeeded in breaking his foot and publicly disgracing himself.
After that, he'd plan a more elaborate suicide attempt, gathering bottles of muriatic acid with the intent of completely destroying his brain so as to render it unusable by the Acheron - the city-spanning network that used the brains of the dead for processing power - only to decide at the last minute to visit the oracle Teiresias to ask him to locate Eurydice's brain in that self-same system. Upon being informed of her location and that she was healthy and whole (at least as far as disembodied brains go), Orpheus realized that there was still a chance for them to be together. If he could only convince Hades, the administrator of the Acheron, to release her, he could have her mind installed in a new body, effectively bringing her back to life. He set out to seek an audience with Hades immediately and was ultimately successful in winning them over, though unfortunately for Orpheus, re-bodying a mind from the Acheron didn't come cheap. Hades was gracious enough to set him up with a job that would pay the fee and more, however, and that's how Orpheus landed the so-called Ulysses Job.
Essentially a very straightforward heist, the Ulysses Job involved attempting to break into a vault owned by the war hero Ulysses, who'd constructed it with a four-part lock that required those seeking to undo it undergo four trials. Orpheus's was the Trial of Song, which he passed with flying colors. However the last lock, the Trial of Love, required that someone sacrifice themselves without flinching or hesitation, and when Ariadne, who'd been chosen for the task refused, Orpheus stepped in and volunteered under the condition that his pay be used to free Eurydice from the Acheron after he was gone. Ultimately he couldn't do it, though, looking back at the last second, and the vault remained closed. His employer then emerged from the shadows and, realizing that the Trial of Love operated on a simple motion sensor, declared that the surviving thieves would receive a pay raise if one of them was bound and used to open the door.
Chaos broke out after that, Orpheus and his fellows arguing among themselves and giving Ulysses time to ambush and kill all of them, Orpheus's throat being slit by a stray laser beam. And that's where his story ends.
Sample Journal Entry:
It's all just... so beautiful. [ Orpheus gestures out towards the glittering dome of stars overhead, eyes wide and teary as he stands on the deck of the ship.] I've never seen stars before. Well, no. I've seen one star, once, and while that's more than most people get to see in their lives, well. [ He trails off, drinking in the view hungrily, like he's trying to etch it into his mind, afraid that if he looks away it'll all disappear.] Even I don't have the words for it. There are so many of them. And there are whole worlds out there where everyone sees them, every night?
[ He shakes his head. ]
I don't care what I have to do - I'm going to get Eurydice out of that hell and we're going to see everything together. We're going to explore this whole galaxy together, and we're never going back to the City. Whatever it takes.
Sample RP: Voice Test Meme
Special Notes: As discussed, I'll be setting up an opt in/out post and a detailed permissions post for Orpheus should he get into the game!
