THE CHARACTER
Name: Arthur Kirkland
Age: 26
Hometown: London, UK
Appearance: Arthur is a very serious person, which can be seen with his face. He often scowls, or at least, doesn’t smile. Most people think that he looks less like and actor and more like a business man. He has quite broad shoulders, but actually, is rather thin, and without his shirt on, his ribs are clearly visible. However, when he’s wearing his clothes, it isn’t obvious at all.
He has dark blond hair, that he refers to often in a self-deprecating manner as ‘dirty blond’ and a strong jaw. A slightly down-turned mouth means it’s harder for him to smile, and he naturally looks a little serious and melancholy. He has a very beautiful voice when he acts, clear and velvety, with a BBC accent. He also has very capturing light green eyes, with long eyelashes to frame them. However… they tend to be a little overshadowed (literally, in the right light) by the eyebrows. They are, honestly, massive. However, he’s rather conscious about them and plucks them, but he finds they can’t get any smaller then he’s already made them.
The tends to wear smart but comfortable clothes. However, he’s diagnosed as bipolar so what’s ‘comfortable’ tends to change with his mood. Those who know him recognise the significance of various outfits, but it’s something one learns from experience only, because it doesn’t make sense. One day he could be wearing a green pullover and slacks, the next skinny jeans and hoodie, then a suit.
He likes neatness. His clothes are all impeccable, his shoes clean, and his nails clipped. His hair looks messy, however, he’s tried to slick it back, and he found that it didn’t look very good, so he prefers to keep it in the controlled messy state he finds perfect and can’t change now.
Personality: Arthur is… mentally unstable. Not psychotic, he’s not about to crack and kill someone, honestly, he’s more likely to hurt himself that anyone else, having cut himself a little as a teenager. He’s been diagnosed as both bipolar and as having obsessive compulsive disorder. This means that he has sudden mood swings if something upsets him, and he hates it when his life gets out of order, even slightly.
He tends to be a little hostile before he knows someone, but he remains a polite gentleman, as long as the person keeps their distance. Once they get to know each other, he’s a little more open, but he also expects more, for the person to know about his habits and not disrupt his routine. However, his routine is so set, that the chances of disrupting it are very high. For example, if his food isn’t served right, he can be physically sick, not due to fussiness, but simply his OCD, often apologising afterwards, guilty.
Most of the time, he acts like the perfect gentleman. He opens doors and pulls out chairs, not just for women, but whomever his companion is, he’s always quick to hold out his umbrella if it’s raining and help someone across the street. However… he’s bipolar. Occasionally, he falls in to depression and won’t turn up for rehearsals about a weeks, sometimes more, sometimes less. However, when he gets back to work, he smiles and acts well, as if nothing has happened.
He throws things and lashes out when he gets frustrated, because he’s unsure how else to react to people properly. He tends to be a little shy and awkward, but when he’s acting, he commands an air about himself that draws the whole crowd and a commanding voice, which is why, despite his reputation for being a prima dona, he is constantly getting cast. He often gets cast as the villain, but doesn’t mind, as he claims they have more depth than the romantic lead, though he is sometimes cast as those.
He takes his acting very seriously, always learning his parts quickly and getting frustrated when people don’t remember lines or cues.
Likes:Tea: Who doesn’t love a good cuppa?
Books: Arthur loves books, reading, anything, poems, classic books or anything.
Order: Arthur’s OCD has made him a total neat freak.
Acting: It’s so important to him, he hates it if anyone doesn’t take it seriously.
History: Arthur enjoy history, and sometimes visits museums in his spare time.
Music: He plays guitar, piano and is learning the violin, but he’s not very good at it yet.
Fish and chips: Anything that reminds him of home is good, but he despairs over the way it’s made here, not properly
Rain: As much as he complains about it, it reminds him of home.
Shakespeare: Above all literature, he adores Shakespeare, particularly the plays, and whenever they put on his plays he goes very hard for the audition. He worked for a long time with the RSC.
Dislikes:Coffee: A foul drink he only forces down at four in the morning in a desperate bid to stay awake.
Being asked if he knows the queen/has bad teeth/likes tea/owns a monocle: He hates it when Americans ask him about stupid stereotypes
Dreaming: Arthur’s dreams are… never good.
Talking to people: He doesn’t work very well with people
Health freaks: he hates people who abhor him for smoking on occasion. He’s healthy, he jogs and he eats well, mostly, he just likes a cigarette occasionally.
Hamburgers: Gross. Greasy, poor quality meat, what’s there to like?
Job: Actor
Experience: Ten years, having done drama lessons since he was 16, then training with the Royal Shakespeare Company from eighteen to 23, before moving to America for more opportunities with a travelling company. He’s only just began working for this theatre, but it’s got a good reputation, and he hopes to be successful.
Extra details: Brief History:Arthur was born in to a very happy family, everything was perfect. His parents loved each other, they had a wonderful job, a wonderful house and wonderful children. However, when Arthur was eight, the happy little world he lived in was shattered by his mother’s suicide one day, completely out of the blue. It was Arthur who found her, lying in a bathtub full of bloody water. He didn’t stop screaming for nearly a week, then became quiet and hardly spoke for a good year. The trauma was too much for him, and his obsessive mannerisms became a way of coping with the trauma. These slowly became more and more integral to his mental state until it was a fully blown obsessive compulsive disorder.
His father was unable to cope. First, with the death of his wife and then his son’s development of OCD. He began to blame Arthur for his mother’s death, needing some kind of scapegoat, believing that if he got there sooner, perhaps they could have saved her. He began to neglect Arthur a little – something he really didn’t need with his trauma, and drank more. Eventually, Arthur was taken in to care and bounced around from family to family, not wiling to settle down. Not that many parents wanted an OCD child. Because of this, he became a bad child, mixing around with gangs, drinking, smoking.
From his mother, he inherited the predisposition for bipolar disorder, and soon, this became a fully blown disorder too, exacerbating his OCD.
Because of this, he was hospitalised twice, once with a stab wound given by a rival gang member and the other a suicide attempt during a very dark period at sixteen.
He was a vulnerable child, and unfortunately… certain individuals took advantage of that. But, who would be believed, a respectable teacher or a teenage delinquent who was failing school. It was only the drama teacher who believed in him, and listened to him. She took him to a drama lesson she taught outside school – he loved it and never stopped going. He got out of the gang lifestyle that was becoming increasingly normal for him. He claims that he owes acting his life, it gave him a purpose. For the next two years, while still being bounced around foster homes, he would always make his way back to that drama group, no matter how many buses it took.
After that, he began to volunteer at drama groups, while being classically trained and applying for the RSC. He took music lessons and dance lessons, making him a very desirable actor, and soon he was well known amongst certain circles.
RP Sample: ((*Shamlessly stole this from story is writing* ))
Arthur Kirkland, spoiled rich kid, son of landed gentry. Well, perhaps not spoiled as such – privileged, yes, and perhaps he didn’t exactly understand the concept of not getting what he wanted, but he was a quiet boy, who didn’t kick up too much of a fuss those few times he was denied. He was, however, terribly lonely. He didn’t know anyone his own age, and hardly left those few acres of land he called home, mother and father were rarely at home with him, and the rare times he did see them, they were always getting ready to go out. He was too young to go on the hunt with father, too young to go to the social functions with his mother.
So, he would play. Arthur had a strong imagination, and would always run down to the forest near the bottom of his land to play pretend. He wasn’t Arthur Kirkland in there, young master and the son of old money. In the forest, he could be anything he wanted, a dread pirate captain of the high seas, a wizard, a magical creature, whatever he wanted. He would come back to the house at tea time, smudged and slightly scratched by the fingers of the branches.
OUT OF CHARACTER
Name/Nickname: Lauren
Age: 17
Country and timezone: UK, GMT
Did you read the rules?: Nope. Instead I went and ate raspberries~
Any last words?: I hope it's not too depressing for what is obviously a very upbeat roleplay. ^^;;;
