Liir Thropp

PLAYER: Hedge
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CHARACTERS PLAYED:

NAME: Liir Thropp
CANON: The Wicked Years
CANON REFERENCE:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_a_Witch
AGE: 19
GENDER: M
CHARACTER TYPE: meta-human
APPEARANCE: [1] [2]

Liir is a tall young man, with straight black hair. Though his facial features are handsome, he's still kindof bony and gangly. When he blushes or flushes, it's green, like his mother. Despite being the dark skinned Fiyero Tigelaar's son, he's rather pale.

PERSONALITY: The first impression one usually gets of Liir is that he's rather quiet and awkward. This is natural, given his upbringing. Growing up in isolated Kiamo Ko, his only subsequent socialization was in the army. He speaks less than most people and when he does it sounds formal, or perhaps a bit stilted, depending on who you ask. It's not just natural introversion; he often feels as if he doesn't know what to say to people even when he does want to be around them. Thus you shouldn't expect much in the way of small talk from him. The habits of army life have also made him neat, detail oriented and used to a spartan existence. That isn't to say he wouldn't enjoy luxury if he had it. But he doesn't usually believe such things are open to him. He won't be given to excess regardles.

Liir's mother was his primary influence and it shows. From her he got a dry, cynical sense of humor. He also inherited a keen sense of justice, though he kept this sense suppressed throughout his teen years and it has only recently reasserted itself. Liir is keen on doing the right thing now and often spends long periods meditating on the future consequences of his choices. This can make him seem indecisive and slow. However once he figures out what he believes to be the best (or least worst) option in any situation, he goes after it tenaciously. He has her fellow-feeling for the downtrodden and underdog, even as he knows that oppression isn't necessarily ennobling. Finally, he received from her a thirst for knowledge and understanding of the world. He had previously thought himself rather stupid, having no reading material but Elphaba's references. This has changed recently. But where Elphaba thirsted for knowledge in order to change the world, Liir does from natural curiosity and a desire to not be blindsided by change. Despite not being verbose or at all good at making speeches, he loves debate, where he will usually cut into his opponent's arguments with a single insightful sentence.

Liir has ambivalent feelings about his legacy as Elphaba's son. He often feels that he isn't good enough to live up to it (his assesment of her as a pretty terrible mother is not contradicted by his admiration for her as a political figure) and thus tries not to emphasize it, afraid of dissappointing those who admired her. Though he saw Elphaba as someone who acted on history and changed it, he feels himself more as someone who history acts upon. Events have a way of sweeping him up, and though he's often the center of them, he does not feel as if he has control over them. Being in the NSO may change that for him and he may begin to think of himself as someone who's capable of changing the world in his own right, and not just as a channel for the Elphaba personality cult.
As I mentioned, this does not contradict his assessment of her as a terrible mother. She was cold and standoffish to him (and everyone else) throughout his childhood, and he's entirely aware that his upbringing was substandard. He harbors resentment for that. Yet he still loved her, still grieved for her death. More than anyone else save Fiyero and Glinda Upland, he saw the semi-broken, self loathing person behind the image of the Witch of the West. It's a strange feeling having to pity your own parent when you're still a child, one he still has trouble with as a young adult.

Liir is the classic glass-half-empty type. He's generally the first to assume a situation will go south and, if allowed to speak, will offer unhelpful but sometimes funny commentary on the futility of the action. He doesn't spare himself from this pessimism either, as he says in canon: 'I learned failure early, and mastered it.' Don't let that make you think he's deppressed or unwilling to act on his goals though. Despite his morose outlook, he still works tenaciously towards the goals he sets for himself. It's not that he believes he'll reach them. He simply doesn't think of not trying as an option. When he gets knocked down, he picks himself back up again, muttering all the while about how he knew that would happen and what a stupid thing he was doing. Also, his conviction that things will go wrong means he always has at least one backup plan.

For someone so seemingly taciturn, Liir has quite a bit of feeling for the few people he does let get close. He's not effusive in his affections but will instead stick close to them, like a loyal hound. His caring is gruff but true and the bonds he forms are lifelong. On that note, I'll be playing his sexuality as it is in canon: bisexual and open to polyamory, though he's definitely not prone to casual flings. Emphasis on the 'amor' in 'polyamory', you might say. At the point I'm taking him from he's clearly still in love with Trism and their seperation hurts him but he doesn't believe it possible for them to be together.

In summary, Liir is a callow lad, ambivalent with the legacy he's been given and the roles he's had to play, but still figuring out who he really is, and covering up that insecurity with a thick layer of cynicism. In other words, a classic teenager.
POWERS & ABILITIES: Liir's power is best summarized as knowledge of and returning things to the past.

When in direct contact with an object or person he can see that object's history, going back approximately ten years. This manifests as visions of scenes in the object's history (from the object's perspective). He does not gain any additional knowledge from this (for instance if he's seeing a vision where people are speaking a foreign language he can't suddenly speak that language). He also has very little control of this power as of now, so it often takes him by surprise. He is physically helpless while this happens. He may repeat words or sounds from the vision but is otherwise unresponsive.

This is both easier to use and more likely to take him by surprise if the object is either organic or a cybernetic/robot device connected to a sentient being. This often leads to awkward moments.

He also has the ability to, if he concentrates hard, return an object to the state it was in in the recent past (for instance he could, if touching all the pieces, repair a recently broken vase this way so no Host Club debt for him!). The object will, to the extent it can, move into the place it was last recently (meaning Liir may have to move to stay in contact with it).

This works, to an extent, with people as well, allowing him to try to psychically move them to a previous state/location. This requires constant physical contact as well. This can mean that a person he's using his power on may be healed of a recently inflicted wound or suddenly find themselves flying back to the location they were a few seconds ago.

If used on an object, this power will wear off after a few minutes from when he releases contact and the object will then return to the state (but not the location) it was in when Liir touched it.

Liir's blood is green, though it is only visible normally if you look very closely. If he flushes/blushes, that's green as well.

AU HISTORY: Oz is a unique place, culturally blending Europe and the Middle East, it's fairly cosmopolitan, though it remains heavily stratified by class and ethnicity, not to mention persistent anti-meta prejudice.

It's a place where an immigrant can make a name for oneself. Especially when you're Oscar Zoroaster Diggs, an American con-man who's spent decades accumulating favors owed to you there. Before Liir or his mother where ever born, he'd swindled his way into the legislature and set himself up as President-For-Life there in what could only be described as a coup. There are rumors that, despite his government's anti-meta policies, his own abilities helped his rise to power. Others say it's powerful cybernetics. Regardless, he's the only leader the people of Oz have known for generations, and he's credited with at the very least keeping Oz out of most of the rest of the world's troubles and industrializing much of the country's poorer provinces, via his maglev road/railway, nicknamed "the yellow brick road" for the appearance of its brightly colored trackways. His supporters call him "The Wonderful Wizard". His detractors do too, but sarcastically.

At some point, he shtupped the wife of the senator for restive Mahn'qinland Province. That's really where our story begins, for the bright green child that resulted was Elphaba Thropp.

Elphaba's life story isn't really the concern of this section, but in brief, she was revolutionary idol to some, terrorist to others, a fervent crusader for mutant rights and lover to the Sheikh named Fiyero, who would be Liir's father. Her supporters called her The Witch Of The West. Her detractors called her something that rhymed with that. Her campaign against Oz's elite was inspiring, it was righteous, it was near the end indiscriminately violent. And it was a failure. Corporations found the "Wonderful Wizard" pliable to their interests and were willing to sell him the robots he needed to "keep the peace" at a discount price.

Elphaba was wounded and spent a long time recovering in a monastery (Oz's clergy had always hated The Wizard). She spent a year unconscious there, and there gave birth to Liir. He was raised in hiding in his father's isolated ancestral estate of Kiamo Ko.

It was by all accounts a boring, cold childhood. Bitter and resentful of him, Elphaba was a terrible mother and so Liir was mostly raised by the staff. Fiyero's other children (save his cousin Ilianora) bullied him for being awkward and fat and blamed him and The Witch for their father's death at the hands of The Wizard's secret police. He had no friends.

When he was about 14, the rest of the world finally caught up with Kiamo Ko, in the form of Dorothy Gale, a stranded meta who'd accidentally killed Elphaba's sister Nessarose, who was the current senator of Mahn'qinland and had used her own powers to locate her. She'd come to apologize

Dorothy was sweet but not that bright. The army wasn't long after her and had indeed been tailing her the whole time. There was a storming and a waterfirefight. At the end, The Witch Of The West was dead and most of Kiamo Ko's residents were now prisoners.

So much for following the Yellow Brick Road.

In the chaos, Liir and Dorothy stumbled into each other and they escaped together, with most of her entourage, shielded by her powers. They journeyed together for a time, during which time Liir developed an unrequited crush on her. They parted ways in Emerald City, where she boarded a flight home.

Liir was at an impasse. With no money or papers, he joined the city's massive migrant underclass, begging and eating scraps. Desperate, a chance encounter with a handsome young officer put into his head that if he wanted to not starve or freeze to death on the streets he'd better go join the one institution he could find work in: the army, which didn't care much if you lied about your age.

And so Liir ended up in the institution that killed his mother. His basic training went uneventful. A talent for organization led him to be appointed as personal assistant for General Cherrystone, who'd overseen the operation that made him an orphan. The general either didn't recognize him or didn't care, appreciating the young man's quiet acceptance of even the most strange order.

Liir never saw combat, despite active insurgencies in two of Oz's provinces, but he did things there he'll forever regret.

A conscience began awakening in Liir at that time. The army was monstrous and he wanted out.

Fate seemed to intervene, sending him the same handsome young officer he'd met on the EC streets, now an important someone. The two hit it off, becoming friends, lovers, and eventually conspirators, confessing their hatred of the instution they both found themselves trapped in to each other on their pillows.

Trism Bon Cavelish was his name and he was one of the technicians for the army's secret weapon for keeping order in Oz forever: cyborg modified crocodiles, nature's most patient monitors, capable of remote control and instruction, fitted with weapons, parts and plans courtesy of Domon Zaibatsu.

Together they planned and together they brought their plan to fruition: the destruction of the army's "dragons" by a self destruct backdoor switch, accessible only to a technician and Cherrystone's top aid.

Naturally the two of them couldn't very well stick around after that and they were forced to split up. Liir went to New Gate City. He doesn't know where Trism went.

SAMPLES

several threads here:
https://neosapienooc.dreamwidth.org/935.html?thread=81831#cmt81831