App for R29

[scientificflair]

Player
Name: Dal
Livejournal Username: slaygirl
E-mail: daletchica[at]yahoo[dot]com
AIM/MSN: AIM: AsylumBred
Timezone: EST (GMT -5:00)
Current Characters in Route:
Solf J. Kimblee | (explosivecombat) | Fullmetal Alchemist
Selim Bradley (blackholedson) | Fullmetal Alchemist

Character
Name: Jean Descole
Series: Professor Layton
Timeline: Post-Last Specter/Eternal Diva; pre-Mask of Miracles.
Canon Resource Links: Jean Descole at the Layton wiki

Personality: Jean Descole is, first and foremost, a presence that refuses to go unnoticed. Everything about him - from the long, flowing cape, the ruffled boa at his throat, the mask obscuring his face and that...quite frankly bizarre hat of his - is designed to command attention without sacrificing a sense of mystery, or at the very least a good, solid sense of "what the hell is this"; from the moment he walks into the room, he makes it very clear that you are looking at a master showman, and you, dear audience, are about to witness a very, very special performance.

...and then he actually gets going, and...well. "Special" is definitely one word for it.

That isn't to say that Descole is all talk - in fact, that's far from the truth. He's a scientific genius, specializing in massive mechanical creations that are equal parts impressive and dementedly horrifying; he's also smart enough to have multiple failsafes in place, in the event of anyone (professors in top hats, meddling kids and their dog, the goddamn Batman, whatever) actually finding the cajones to get up close and personal with said massive mecha and try to disable it. He's good with coming up with logic puzzles, and a fair hand at solving them himself - he came to some very solid conclusions about a seal left by an ancient civilization with no help or context whatsoever, and said conclusions happened to be correct (if incomplete).

So he definitely has the intelligence to back up the eccentricity - and really, if you're on his good side, he's really quite the charmer. He has a definite taste for the finer things in life, preferring to fill his surroundings with things that are beautiful, old-fashioned and elaborate; poised and articulate, he gives off a definite air of class and charm, even if the dramatics might not be to everyone's taste. Further conversation, however, will reveal that he's more than a bit full of himself; while he has high expectations and demands a lot from himself, he doesn't allow himself to become intimidated - rather, these expectations and demands feed into a sense of superiority and grandeur. He's not delusional, per se - he doesn't believe that he can do the impossible - but he does believe that he has the intelligence and skill to be better than anyone else if he puts his mind to it. It's a point of view that's both weirdly positive for him, and annoyingly negative for everyone around him, really - he often talks down and offers snide remarks to others, and he doesn't accept failure from anyone.

Also, he carries a sword. Not one of those sissy fencing foils, but a frickin' broadsword. So failing around him is probably not a good idea.

Aside from all that, however, he's actually a good conversationalist, if a bit bizarre...and then, in the middle of whatever conversation he's having with you, the pipe organ in the corner is suddenly doing something pipe organs Should Not Do (not as in "playing off key" or even "playing by itself", more like "suddenly performing brain surgery"), or he's terrorizing a quaint English village with a giant mechanical spider that assembles itself like a Zord out of a Super Sentai show, or he's screaming at teenaged opera singers about how they need to "SING FOR [HIM]!!!!", or he's deciding that it's a beautiful day for a swordfight atop his giant mecha while he destroys the countryside. All of this is pretty much chalked up to a combination of "really overzealous ambition" and "because he can"; you see, these aren't acts carried out through anger, but rather they're all part of his plans - and his plans, while effective, are often incredibly convoluted. Basically, Descole is the sort that goes from Point A to Point B by way of Point Q, maybe stopping off at Point L somewhere along the way, going through Point X to pick up some milk and then finally making a grand entrance at Point B by coming in the wrong way around through Point C. All for the elements of dramatics and surprise. And possibly trolling.

...okay, probably trolling.

But if you do manage to make him angry (and it's incredibly easy to do that, by the way; all it really requires is throwing a sufficiently-sized wrench in those hideously convoluted plans), you might want to be careful - that's when the pipe organ in the corner gives up on its dreams of being a surgeon and turns into a giant, psychotic earthmover/logging machine amalgamation, he stops threatening that quaint English village and starts actively trying to hunt you down and kill you with his giant mechanical spider, he's suddenly throwing that teenaged opera singer to what's surely going to be a very messy death, or he's...well, chucking his sword at you and having a fit of shrieking histrionics (which, while not exactly more threatening than the swordfighting, is definitely inconvenient and rather counterproductive). He has no sense of self-control when he's angry, nor does he care who he harms in his attempts to rectify the situation; he's both completely irrational and completely callous, forming a sort of tunnel-vision in which he sees only himself, his goals, and you standing directly in the path to those goals, and that's about when you know that things are about to Get Worse in a big way.

Overall, however, Descole does remain a master showman - he's a self-described scientist with a flair for the arts, and he's rendered both parts of that description completely inextricable from one another: whatever he happens to be doing, when he shows up it's essentially a guarantee that it's going to be flashy, it's probably going to be at least a bit terrifying, and it's going to be unlike anyone's ever seen before.

Strengths/Weaknesses:
Strengths
Descole introduces himself as a scientist, first and foremost; as to be expected from such a description, his intelligence is perhaps his strongest asset. His primary skills lie in the design and construction of mechanical things; while he does enlist some outside help in the actual construction of said things once in a while, he takes great pride in his ability to design and operate his instruments of terror. His mecha are invariably large and incredibly elaborate; given that he's one whose career is centered around the discovery of ancient civilizations and the unearthing of their secrets, most of his mecha have a general excavation theme to them - there are usually drills, cranes, logging equipment and wheel-excavators all over the things, and he's gotten very good at using said heavy equipment as offensive weapons or means of defending the mecha if he has to.

He's also very creative; he's a good actor, able to mimic someone else's mannerisms and personality well enough to take their place and carrying on the act for a while before anyone else suspected. He's also a skilled musician and adept at music theory, having designed a pipe organ called the Detragan that can mimic the sound of an entire orchestra at once. This creativity also lends itself well to thinking outside the box - his plans may be crazy and ridiculously convoluted...but the thing is, for the most part they actually work. If he's calm and can find a place to sit and plot for a moment, he's very good at remaining two steps ahead of everyone else due to seeing possibilities that most people might not; his ability to do this seems to be rivaled only by Layton himself.

Unfortunately for Layton and his companions, Descole isn't entirely brains with no brawn to back it up; as was mentioned above, he carries a broadsword, and it's not just for show. While he looks like the sort to sit back and let his henchmen or his mechanical creations do all the work for him, he's skilled in swordfighting, parkour/freerunning and some of the craziest backflips one ever did see. He has a good amount of strength to him, and he's got a lot of speed to match; he's definitely a formidable opponent both physically and intellectually.

Weaknesses
...unfortunately, all the smarts and strength in the world aren't going to save you if you're too irrational to know how to use them. Descole is incredibly selfish and tends to comes off as rather spoiled - failure from others results in shrieking histrionics at everyone, while failure from himself results in...more shrieking histrionics at everyone, since he's prone to blaming literally everyone but himself for things that go wrong. He has a hell of a temper and is very quick to lose his patience once things stop going his way; once that happens, he often becomes uncontrollably violent. He's throwing girls half his size around, he's throwing his sword at people's heads, he's slamming people into the control panels of his own mecha and destroying them in the process, and if this ancient civilization won't rise properly for him then damn it, he'll just rip it up!

He's also incredibly arrogant, and this serves to both make him not terribly well-liked and also punch holes in plans he may have laid out - while he'll lay failsafes in place, he doesn't ever consider the possibility of the failsafes...uh, failing. He tends to underestimate just how determined people can get to stop him when he's trying to tear up ancient civilizations and/or quaint English villages, and so he often won't notice if things are going horribly awry until they're...well. Already going horribly awry.

Descole also has a large tendency to be callous towards others, which can make it difficult to get along with him in any sort of social situation; he's decent enough at playing affable, but when things come down to the wire he makes it very clear that he doesn't care what happens to anyone else or who he harms in order to complete his goals. While this isn't as big an issue in-game, in a setting like Johto this can (and likely will) cause serious repercussions with any relationships he happens to build - most don't take very kindly to being thrown under a bus, after all.


Pokémon Information
Affiliation: Team Rocket
Starter: Beldum
Password: --

Samples
First Person Sample: [The 'Gear had been an interesting thing to figure out - an amusing little toy, really; while calling it a puzzle would have been giving it entirely too much credit, Descole had enjoyed himself with it for a while. The afternoon had been spent watching the others post to the network; apparently he wasn't the only one that had randomly found himself stuck here. Really, there had been a few others that day posting to say that they had found themselves in the same predicament.

How odd.

Tonight, his own feed comes alive, focusing in on a dimly-lit room and just enough of a figure to indicate that there's a person sitting in that chair over there, though he's leaning back and the camera is situated at an angle in relation to the person, keeping his face out of view of the camera. There doesn't appear to be too many distinguishing points about the individual, as he appears to be draped in a long black cape of some sort, though toward the upper corner of the frame, there's an obvious fluffy shock of white among all the dark folds of fabric, and the edges of his sleeves are ruffled and white, pale against what's visible of his hands where they're folded against what appears to be a desk or table of some sort.

All part of the act, of course; keep the audience guessing.

When he speaks, his voice is cordial, but almost stiffly formal - not quite rehearsed, but he's clearly been thinking about what to say for some time.]

Assuming this message manages to reach anyone, if someone would do me the favor of actually obliging me and letting me know where I am, that would be appreciated - there was a red-haired woman in here earlier claiming that she was doing exactly that, but unfortunately, she didn't say anything terribly useful.

[He leans forward a bit, the slightest hint of a smirk edging into the frame above that white boa.]

And if anyone knows where my swords have gone, if you know what's in your best interests you'll return them as immediately as possible. I can't say there won't be any hard feelings, but I'm sure we can work something out.

Third Person Sample: Bluntly put, Descole had no idea what to do with this thing.

It was clearly some sort of...ball-bearing, right? Most signs pointed to yes; the area where it was supposed to join up with whatever it went to was incredibly clear, if a bit creepy in appearance. It had some sort of...sensor, perhaps, on it? Surely that wasn't an actual eye looking at him. Was it? No, no, it had to be a sensor - perhaps to ensure that the...whatever this was a part of recognized the part, or perhaps to guarantee that it locked in place.

Of course, the fact that there was no visible wiring on the thing was a bit disconcerting...as was, you know, the part where he had checked the machine he had been given in that bag upon his arrival, pointing it at the sensor in question, and the feedback he had received seemed to indicate that the piece itself was alive.

"Well, either way," he said, musing to himself aloud - because all great thoughts are clearly mused aloud, often with some sort of chin-stroke accompanying them; it was a great way to occupy his hands - clearly, he'd been sitting with them braced a bit too firmly against the bed for far too long, as his left hand had gone all prickly on him. "I suppose sitting here staring at you isn't going to do me much good, is it?"

The piece just kind of rolled that sensor back toward him; it had taken to rolling idly in its socket, seeming to check its surroundings.

Surely this thing wasn't really alive...

Descole sighed, and pushed himself off of the bed, crossing the room toward the thing where it was just sitting on the floor. He bent to pick it up; it was surprisingly light for something its size - lifting it was literally no effort at all. It was unexpected, but a welcome realization.

For now, he would satisfy himself with carrying it around this...Rocket base; he would not know what to think later when he found out this thing was both over two hundred pounds and...levitating itself.

There were some puzzles better left untouched until one was equipped to properly handle them, anyway.