Rhodes, Rocky [QUINCY]
Nov 29, 2016 21:09:09 GMT -5
Aidan O'Mongan, Calendrea Hughes, and 1 more like this
Post by Richard Rhodes on Nov 29, 2016 21:09:09 GMT -5
"Cruelty creates contrast, you can't rise above a temptation that doesn't exist."
RHODES, RICHARD
SQUIRE OF THE ORDER OF THE QUINCY
[ AT A GLANCE ]
Age: 32
Alias: 'The Phenomenal', 'Conductor of the Bullet Opera'.
Gender: Male
Height & Weight: 6'5" & 248 lbs
Hair & Eye Color: Short, spiky brown hair with a dyed grey stripe down the left side. His eyes are dark brown with wide irises.
Theme: 'Bullet Opera'
Positive Traits: Confident, analytical, directed, motivated, charming.
Negative Traits: Arrogant, cruel, unfeeling, cowardly, manipulative.
Loyalties: His loyalties, as much as you can call a Rhodes family member 'loyal', is to blood and blood alone. Professionally he is the founder and leader of 'Bullet Opera', his wrestling group composed of a dozen fellow wrestlers.
Snapshots: Left home (2000); Began wrestling training (2002); Joined national promotion (2004); Won world championship (2007); Triggered powers (2007); Left the company (2011);
[ ON THE SURFACE ]
Physical Description: The first thing that stands out about Richard is the sheer size of his body, not only his height but the broadness of his shoulders and the barrel-like quality that his chest possesses. While his natural build stands out enough, the layers of marvelously toned muscle that strain the fabric of his expensive shirts and trousers make for a striking contrast; equal parts refined gentleman and log-toting lumberjack. This clash of styles doesn't end at his clothing however, as his hairy body and thick, masculine beard are clipped with meticulous care and even dyed with a grey streak to give him an aged look. His width and height are both impressive, but the way that he carries himself is what makes him an attention grabber, with his proud gait, almost painfully straight posture and triumphantly puffed chest making his large frame even more imposing.
While near him, a thick waft of expensive cologne and hints of cigar smoke are difficult to miss, with the former often overcompensating for any sweat that might still cling to his body. Because of his sweaty and unglamourous choice of profession and egotistical need to bring conversations back to himself, he often hides small high-class items with strong, recognizable scents among his pockets; items such as freshly popped wine corks, chocolate cigar stubs and even caps from jars of caviar.
Spiritual Description: Richard's reiatsu lingers around his body like heavy smoke and conveys a similar feeling, notably the feeling of intense weight and heat in one's lungs. For those that are of a weak disposition, it can impart feelings of uneasiness or paranoia, not the sense that he is especially dangerous but that something, somewhere might strike them from behind. Of course, only the weakest of the weak could be truly affected by his reiatsu, given his actual strength, but the pungent smell and feeling of density is discomforting all the same.
[ BEHIND THE EYES ]
Personality: As close to a living, breathing cartoon villain that one can get, 'Rocky' is a nefarious, two-faced bastard inside and outside of the ring. A renowned 'heel', the wrestling term for a bad guy, Rocky Rhodes has made a career out of agitating and betraying those around him as one of the most hated wrestling characters to ever come out of America. Known to backstab allies, berate lower class crowds and cheat at every opportunity, he has earned a reputation as a certified asshole. While he plays up his antics in order to thrive in the industry, this 'character' isn't dissimilar to the real thing. With classical training in opera singing and a background of successful athletic endeavors, Richard has always had a chip on his shoulder and looked down upon those who hadn't accrued as many accolades as he had. This disdain for 'losers' soon turned to utter disgust at the mere mention of poverty or unemployment, intense hatred when seeing people with no motivation that has even culminated in him coming to blows with people.
Beneath this childish need to berate those of lesser class hides a far more chilling personality, one that delights in upsetting and beating people to the point of tears. This cruel streak has even bled into his in-ring work, with vicious and legitimate attacks betraying the scripted industry of wrestling. Despite this, he has yet to face repercussions due to his notoriety and ability to draw money. Working a style focused on grappling and submissions, Richard has fetishized the act of making somebody submit or suffer through injured limbs and will always take the opportunity to prolong an opponent's suffering if it means drawing more of his target's (or crowd's) ire. But as is often the case with bullies, Richard doesn't have the social acuity or emotional maturity to know what to do when people are unaffected by his berating. This need to be in-control, to be the infallible villain that is agitating people means that he is often incapable of concentrating or projecting an air of swagger when people resist his harassment. When the tables are turned and his need to control other people isn't satisfied, Rocky often turns to begging or appealing to an attacker's empathetic nature, sometimes even feigning an injury or unconsciousness in order to buy himself time to escape/backstab somebody.
Naturally, he wouldn't have gotten anywhere without some modicum of charm. In the rare situation that he has to talk up to somebody, Richard is more than capable of denigrating himself and highlighting people's moral superiority to him as he has no shame in the way that he behaves. Similarly, whenever somebody has something to offer him, he can lie and will do whatever it takes to weasel his way into an opportunity. However his ego is frail and if he is forced to lower his position in an interaction too far, he is prone to outbursts that often completely disqualify the progress he has made.
Goals & Achievements: A famous figure among the global wrestling community, as well as a minor celebrity in America, Richard has accomplished a great many things in the professional wrestling industry. Currently, he works for the most prolific company operating out of America, the World Wrestling Kingdom (commonly referred to as the WWK), and has been consistently booked as a top talent and even champion while working there. Short term, his goal is mainly the preservation of his popularity whereas his long term goal is more vague, namely the acquisition of power and influence over a realm he has yet to conquer: the spiritual world.
[ GUARDIAN ANGEL ]
Quincy Cross: His Quincy Cross, like all Rhode family members, takes the shape of a Christian Cross. Richard's cross in particular is a solid silver with intricate etchings, designed to look like a snake entangling the central pillar. At the top of the cross sits a small ruby, nestled between the fangs of the aforementioned serpent. His cross is usually contained in a special slot on his brass knuckles, a tool he makes use of professionally and personally. Given the rare situation that he is unable to carry or gain access to his signature weapon, he can instead slot it into his custom made gloves or simply hold it in his clenched fist.
Power: Richard's power allows him to squeeze and 'kink' spiritual energy, allowing him to disable and effectively remove the nerve connection and ability to buff a limb so long as it is in a submission.
Spirit Weapon: Richard's spiritual weapon manifests itself as a pair of silver knuckles, headed by four letters that spell out the word 'K I N G' in rubies on his left hand and four dollar signs ($$$$) with emeralds on the right. By generating energy in either set of symbols, he can fire off grey projectiles from his fists, with their shape matching that of whatever set they are fired from. These arrows are strictly linear and are fired off in the direction that he punches, travelling at a brisk pace and causing concussive damage to whatever they strike.
Schrift: A — "The Antagonist"
Richard's Schrift describes not his outward personality, but what drives him as a being.
The Antagonist represents his obsession with being a moral opposite and his need to be the necessary evil. Although this manifests itself in many ways, it also speaks to his perception of people; 'good' is expected and applauded, but a high bar cannot be set on a metric with only one notch. Richard sees this metric and where people fall within it as the worth of their character, respecting only those who act with unwavering practicality and immorality as true contributors to the moral system.
[ LEGACY CREATED ]
Origin: Richard Rhodes, as he tells it, was born into luxury, baptized in wine and wrapped with silk. He was a chosen child -- one who was destined, from day one, to live a life of hedonism and victory. Truthfully, he was born on his father's farm estate in Charlotte, North Carolina at the healthy weight of ten pounds. The son of famed bodybuilder Bruce Rhodes and a farmer's daughter, Richard enjoyed the benefits of a hardy gene pool, his father's lineage known for producing men of incredible size while his maternal ancestors were strong, hardworking people from the same area of Germany as his father. Growing up on his father's farm, surrounded by brothers both older and younger than him, Richard developed a sense of competition early on in his life, which when combined with his animal rearing chores necessitated a strong work ethic. Naturally, he butted heads with his brothers (and his sister) but they all typically reset to a neutral mindset by the end of the day. But while his brothers and sister carried a great deal of love for one another, Rocky never quite felt comfortable with his living situation. Lacking the emotional maturity of his parents, he always felt smothered and carried with him the sense that his feelings were being torn in too many different directions, as if he had a limited amount of affection he could show.
Now emotionally distant and approaching puberty, Richard sought out new ways to limit the time he spent with family and friends. From insular hobbies, to non-team sports and even vocal training, he no longer endeavored to be ahead of the pack: he just didn't want to be in it. While his siblings laughed about stealing kisses from girls, Rocky was often by himself practicing his singing or watching television, most notably professional wrestling. What started as passing interest in a spectacle soon turned to genuine obsession, he began consuming as much media about wrestling as he could; comic books, magazines, old tapes, rumors, international wrestling. If there was a new wrestler on his screen he would be 'on the case', digging through his box-bursting collection of magazines or tapes to see if he could learn about them. For the first time in his life, he had found something that didn't induce apathy, something that he could talk to his father about without wanting to drive his head through a wall. At first, his father was elated that his son had taken such a vested interest in something as he was always trying to find new ways to drag his least social son out of his shell, but when Bruce found Richard's extensive collection of "The Duke" memorabilia, which ranged from action figures to personal drawings, he suspected that his interest in the man wasn't purely platonic. Confronting his son over his infatuation with the wrestler, their argument grew heated and led to Rocky gathering his stuff in the middle of the night and leaving.
Now out of his home state, Richard spent much of his days trying to find cheap unskilled labor or couches to sleep on, but with no semblance of stability it was impossible to correct his problems. Desperate for an out, he began approaching the bevy of wrestling schools in Houston in order to find a more permanent solution, though for the first year he had little to no luck. Finally, a few days before his eighteenth birthday, he found a place that would accept him: 'The Duke's Court', a wrestling school headed by his childhood icon 'The Duke' Jerry Anderson. Professing his obsession with his style of wrestling and his living conditions, Jerry was initially skeptical and offered him a try out as a wake-up call of sorts, intending for him to fail and realize he should go back to his father. However, Richard was a natural fit and displayed a level of physical ability, ring presence and showmanship well beyond his years. Impressed by his natural athleticism and ability to work a good match, The Duke allowed him to be trained underneath him with the pseudonym 'Royal Rocky Rhodes', a failed opera star turned royalty that hated the working class.
Due to the pull Jerry had with his old company WWK (World Wrestling Kingdom), he was able to secure Richard a job there after two years on the promise that he'd be a large money draw for them, which the WWK hesitantly accepted. Slotting onto their main show, Royal Rocky Rhodes was quick to draw the hatred of the low socioeconomic crowds that the WWK typically performed in front of and because of it was handed the reins to his character in an unheard of amount of time. But this progression wasn't a fluke nor an accomplishment without cost, as Richard had taken a rather unconventional route to perfecting his character; deeply bitter because of his father and his treatment of his passion, the bile and venom he spat at crowds was not something he had to rehearse. His father, for all the earnings his farm accrued, never spoiled his children or provided the quality of life that he and his family could have enjoyed. This disgusted Richard, who saw the 'dirty faces' of the working class in the crowd as a reflection of his wasted childhood, the wasted years of trying to do the honest and hardworking path instead of doing what came natural, but most of all it reinvigorated a concept within him that had only reached its infancy: cruelty. He began seeing the hero and villain dynamic in a completely different way, no longer realizing that villains were there to demonstrate the worst parts of the human condition, he began seeing moral bankruptcy as a necessary thing that should be appreciated; every night that the crowd threw garbage at him, or called him 'Royal Asshole', his hatred for those beneath him intensified.
This apathy for heroes carried his career to lofty heights, with him forming a wrestling stable known as the 'Bullet Opera', a group of high class and elitist wrestlers that criticized the working class and mercilessly beat down up and coming wrestlers. What started as just a few members quickly spiraled out of control, leading to international wrestlers joining his company simply to be in the group. While this would typically to a 'too many cooks' situation, the collection of high caliber athletes under him only lent more credibility to Rocky's name and ability, which culminated in the acquisition of the largest prize in international wrestling: The World Wrestling Kingdom Championship. But once the initial luster of capturing the championship wore off, Richard only found a feeling of disappointment remaining. The black and gold strap he had seen hoisted up victoriously on the TV screen for so many years was in his hands, but he had realized all too late that the enjoyment that he felt wasn't getting close to a fictional reward, it was the look in a child's eyes when they saw their favorite wrestler left in a bloody heap, the twinge of pain on a miners face when he blamed them for their failing industry; cruelty was what made him happy, wrestling was just the catalyst.
Rise to Power: This feeling of nothingness was what ultimately led to him seeking out information on his powers, which although he had a limited understanding of, was largely an unexplored area for him. Though he still wrestled for the company for a few years, just enough to secure him a long term, limited appearances contract, Richard began seeking out the advice of his father under the guise of wanting to rekindle their relationship. No longer needing to travel abroad as the champion, he moved back to his home town of Charlotte and bought a property close to his father's in order to use their tenuous connection to his benefit. Training began immediately, with Richard and Bruce sparring and working on the plain fundamentals of Quincy combat, more specifically his hand to hand, ability to travel quickly and his obtuse power. Though at first he demonstrated a complete and utter lack of ability, his father Bruce noticed that the more underhanded and dishonest he was, the more and more his son was able to do. In his own form of manipulation, Bruce began toying with Rocky's emotions, berating him for being a failure of a son and for being a scumbag. Though this didn't upset Richard, it was enough to urge him to fire back his own bevy of insults, such as his father's inability to raise a son, the ailing health of their mother and other equally vitriolic jabs at his masculinity and age. Stoking a veritable fire of rage, Richard's physical ability rose in tandem with his father's emotional instability and from this his fighting style was born: hurt somebodies feelings until you can beat them physically.
Training this power for years with his father, Richard also learned to use his mat wrestling techniques and submission heavy offense in a more practical sense, favoring holds, suplexes and various joint locks over a more conventional striking style. To begin with, he was happy enough to train and discover new ways to inflict punishment, but like with all things in his life, mere training would not suffice any longer.
Call to Action: "The world,"
Richard uttered in response to a pained 'what next?' from his father, who still knelt on his knees in their training room, crotch aching from a recent kick to the balls. Sashaying outside after collecting his coat, Rocky eagerly thumbed the plane ticket and passport in his expensive trouser pocket. He had spent too many good years of his life discovering himself and where he needed to go. Finally, he knew that if he was going to go down this path, he had to go where the most spiritually aware mortals and Quincy congregated. From what little information he had, there was only place that fit the bill:
".. starting with Japan."
