unpocoloco: (Default)
Héctor ([personal profile] unpocoloco) wrote2019-01-01 06:57 am

Application - Major Spoilers Within

PLAYER INFORMATION

NAME: Fritz
CONTACT: [plurk.com profile] dumbhippiekid
OTHER CHARACTER(S) IN GAME: N/A


CANON INFORMATION

CHARACTER NAME: Héctor Rivera
CANON: Coco
HISTORY: Wiki Link.

Héctor was a musician, born in Santa Cecilia, Mexico, 1900. He married a woman named Imelda and with her, they had a daughter named Coco. His family was his world, but he did have one friend named Ernesto De La Cruz who saw differently for Héctor. The man convinced his old friend to join him on a musical tour around Mexico when Coco was four. While initially reluctant, he gave in, imagining that the tour would give him more inspiration. However, he quickly grew disenchanted with the tour, finding that every hotel looked the same, his inspirations were all back home, and that Ernesto really didn't care about the music so much as the attention. Finally, homesick, Héctor declared he was returning home and that he wouldn't be changing his mind again. It was then Ernesto decided to poison Héctor, leaving the man to die in the street and thieving both Héctor's song book and his guitar (a gift from his wife).

Ernesto went on to become a famous musician while back home Imelda was left to assume her husband had abandoned their family, and so she worked to build a business for herself whilst banning all music from her life. On the other side, Héctor spent many years trying to return to his family on Dia de Muertos to no avail, specifically to see his daughter Coco. With his luck all but run out, the movie begins with his great great grandson come to the land of the dead, looking for Ernesto De La Cruz.

STRENGTHS: Héctor is incredibly kind. He dotes upon his family with great gestures of love, affectionate words and looks, and always a warm and welcoming presence-- even if that family is not technically blood. All his best works and acts are ones done of love, something he's able to give in plenty. Although he gets moody like anyone and may occasionally tunnel vision upon what he wants to a point of selfishness, as soon as he perceives another person to be upset or in any kind of bad position, he immediately seeks to accommodate them.

He is very perceptive in this way, always carefully noting body language. If a child is scared of him, he immediately softens his tone, gets to their level, and makes sure to keep a distance. He is always the first to give someone the space they need without being asked, but likewise doesn't push people away who seek comfort from him, even if unexpectedly. Even if injured and unsteady, he's mindful enough of himself to make sure he brings no one down with him. When in a position of needing to teach, especially to that of a child, he makes use of mirroring tactics, showing how something is done and allowing the other to copy and join in.

And then, of course, is his sheer determination. Although he doesn't seek to harm any other person, that is just about the only thing in which he is held back on his goals. For nearly a century he is dead set on one single goal and nothing, not the rejection of his family, the loss of his life's work, the slow but inevitable destruction of his body in the land of the dead, the repeated catastrophic failures-- none of it is enough to stop him from trying, year after year, to cross the marigold bridge. Needless to say it's something he'd have died for. While this goal was for something of very, very great importance to him like nothing else, it nevertheless stands as a testament to far he's willing to go.

FLAWS:
Héctor doesn't have much of a backbone. Although he's grown a little more stubborn in his years, he still bends easily to the wants of others, especially if those others are particularly stern in personality or people he cares about (or both). Through this, he can be manipulated in any number of ways. Tying into this, Héctor often doesn't try to defend himself against greater offenses. If he can deem himself at fault in any way, even if there were extenuating circumstances involved, he won't fight what accusations are being thrown his way. It's good to take responsibility, but more often than not he leaves the other person without much of an explanation at all, leading them to assume the worst and ultimately prolonging the problem.

On the flip side of this, with so little resource in the way of fixing his situation, a wild and wily persona is born thereof. He wields the desperation in his existence and carves out of himself this overly enthusiastic false self which lies, often and repeatedly, all in attempt to con and manipulate others into giving their assistance-- or their things, to assist him. He tries to ply with bargains, bids for sympathy, plenty of empty promises, and outright lies. While it doesn't reflect on whether or not he cares for the person, it most certainly burns up whatever trust there might have been. Not to mention the rather large criminal record his schemes eventually create. Without desire or intention, he has a habit of casting matches onto bridges.

After having spent so much time in this persona without finding peace, Héctor can, as said, tunnel vision onto his own desires, forgetting how he might sound to others before it's too late. It's an attempt to charm others with cheer and optimism but it is likewise an attempt to compartmentalize his own struggles and pain. He keeps those cards close to his chest and by becoming this wilder version of himself, it's easier to keep those cards hidden away. Sometimes he does this simply to avoid having to face the pain of it all himself, shaking off a traumatic event with sudden cheer and hurrying along. Sometimes, he does it out of respect for another, hiding the misdeeds someone's preformed so they can take responsibility themselves, or simply to hide his association with him-- something typically unwanted. He does a lot of burying which usually results in him being the one to get buried. Especially when he only shoves back the reasons but allows his unhappiness with a given thing to show, leaving those others without the much needed context to, once again, assume the worst.

Canon Abilities: In Canon, Héctor has no abilities beyond being a skeleton in the land of the dead, something that happens to everyone within the Coco universe upon death. At most, he is clever, taking advantaged of a negative side effect of being "forgotten" to be able to pull himself apart and put himself back together at will far easier than the average skeleton.


AU INFORMATION

AU CHARACTER NAME: Héctor Rivera (though he may be keeping the last name on the DL. It would be preferential that his last name be unlisted for spoiler reasons, as well as ICly trying to keep everyone off Imelda's case.)
AGE: 23 as of death, 33 as of chronological time.
GRADE: Graduate Student
AU BACKSTORY: For the most part, Héctor lives a normal, uneventful life with the greatest difference being the modern age. He's a pretty young father for this time but not an unprepared or unwilling one. He still lives within his hometown of Santa Cecelia, with his wife, daughter, and best friend. (He is aware, vaguely, that Imelda comes from a mage family but doesn't know the details involved or the full extend of the less-normal world that's out there. Only that it's out there.) All in all, he's happy.

Youtube exists now but it's still in those early stages and there's not many getting musically Youtube famous just yet and so a tour it is. Ernesto convinces him into about the same as before, only instead of travelling just Mexico (something far easier to do now than it was in the 1920's), Ernesto proposes they travel the world. Assuming he can always get a plane ticket back, and of course, he can call his family from payphone any time, Héctor agrees; a short trip, for inspiration, and back for each holiday and birthday... It doesn't always work out that way, but he'd never suspect his friend of deliberately sabotaging his trips back.

All the same, while the sights are beautiful, he gets homesick and tired of missing his family. It's much the same as before, with Ernesto unwilling to let go of his best friend's songs-- enough so that he's willing to let go of the friend writing them. But getting away with murder is a far trickier thing in this day and age. He might get away with it, if he gets on a flight fast enough, but it will be far easier if no one ever finds Héctor's body. Ever again.

It so happens, Ernesto is a little more aware of the details involved in the darker side of the world than his old friend. Like the mists and the outlands that appear, things they told ghost stories about as children but thought little more of. Rather than holding Héctor back, delaying him to his final moments, he hurries his friend along this time, suggesting a shortcut to the airport and a flight he saw in just a few minutes. Héctor, touched by his friend's understanding and generosity, suspects nothing of it. Not even as the mist clouds over the windows of their rental car or the excruciating pain of arsenic poisoning starts ripping through his insides.

When he can take no more, the car comes to a halt and Héctor stumbles out, hoping to get their bearings so that they might turn back to a hospital. It's then he realizes that this place isn't even close to the city they were in. Somehow, they've wound up in the wilderness and even beyond the poison in his stomach he can feel there is something very wrong here. But his revelation is cut short as the poison him brings him to his knees. Ernesto attempts to "help", gathering outland water in his hands for Héctor to drink and telling him that it is most likely food poisoning.

Lucky or otherwise, Héctor is soon dead and Ernesto quickly gets to work with disposing the body in the ever shifting outlands. With it's connection to the world changing all the time, it's unlikely anyone will every stumble upon Héctor's body as they might in the normal parts of the world. He deals with that and leaves with Héctor's things.

It isn't until far, far later that Héctor's magic wakes and rouses him, bringing him to dig himself out of the earth in a place countries and dimensions removed from home. (Whether the water or earth of the outlands, some tie to Imelda, sheer coincidence and unknown inborn magic, or perhaps Ernesto knowing a little more about magic than he lets on, Héctor finds himself with this new magic.***) Much later, he finds a tiny handful of undead like himself as well, people he comes to call his family. But whatever's keeping them "alive" isn't enough to do so for all them and besides that, Héctor can't stop seeking a way home. He eventually manages to escape the outlands and all it's threats, back to the problems of the real world. Although mundane in comparison, sneaking a corpse (that is himself) across borders, onto a plane or boat across the ocean, without a dime to his name, is, well, difficult. Not to mention his increasingly extensive criminal record and the growing number horror stories he leaves behind of "zombie sightings". With the police and a hunter or two on his tail, Héctor's luck is only getting thinner and the time spent away from Coco continues to grow longer and longer.

It seems hope may run out, until, one day, after a particularly bad slip up that has him waking in a morgue and wondering how to escape, a member of Daybreak acadamy approaches him. Perhaps, in exchange for letting them study him for a while, he can study some of this magic stuff just enough to figure a way to fix all of this...


***(Please Note: I am deliberately keeping this part vague in case of any future apps or the like. When things progress to a point where I can/must detail this properly, I will try and discuss these plans with the mods to ensure they work within the world and the plot plans the mods have in mind. Thank you for understanding.

At this time, the most likely scenario is that Héctor's scenario is largely to do with Ernesto and most likely a means to seek fame, say by having contracted and killing Héctor in exchange for this fame or by some other magic. (I'm half picturing some curse involved that as long as Héctor is "around" and "not home" where he would have ended his own bid for fame, Ernesto can gain from that, thus explaining some of Héctor's bad luck, but all the same, going for flexibility) Same motive, same outcome, vague-to-be-flexible scenario just in case.)

AU PERSONALITY DEVIATION: Héctor won't be too unlike his canon counterpart in personality but he may be a little less progressed toward harboring bitterness or suspecting anyone in his life of less than favorable things. He hasn't gotten to a point of self-loathing that he's shunning parts of himself, like his love for music yet. He is, on the other hand, going to be far more secretive and reclusive, deliberately so, as he tries to keep the world from finding out that he's not among the living and dealing with him accordingly. This may put him in a tight spot as more people discover his secret and he has to make tougher choices than he's already had to. He's got a lot of growing to do and a lot of ways things could go wrong.

RACE: If mod permitted, I would like Héctor to be a rather rare, undefined, and unstudied manner of undead. Closest in being to that of a zombie, but with several differentiating factors such as lacking the craving to eat people, being unable to maintain a permanent "living"/functioning state (particularly during the day unless he is to borrow time from nights ahead), and (in relation to a manner of magic) being able to adjust his appearance from a skeletal to seemingly living person-- at least on the outside.

He won't technically have been born in the outlands but he'll have emerged from there and he'll suffer the consequences of blight as any other.

SECRET SOCIETY: N/A for the most part but I'm working off the idea that the unique manifestation of Héctor's blight and related abilities would garner enough interest in Daybreak faculty that one of them might bust him out of a morgue before it's too late and offer a place at the school.

POWERS: In the context of this AU, Héctor's primary and almost singular power is one of keeping himself "alive". As general standard, this power keeps him moving and animated as a mostly skeletal man, for the allotted evening times and any further time he's willing to pay for later. It takes greater effort, focus, and energy for him to reform as "human" but this is something he practices more out of necessity. While he risks collapse and staying "dead" for extended periods if he overexerts himself in any form, this is particularly true in the case of his "living" form, as remaining in that form too long can lead to an unfortunate and horrific rotting appearance over time. He could take on this manner of in between form of his own will but this has little to no use as most cases would demand one or the other.

As well as the struggles of hiding a corpse in what initially seemed a normal world, and Héctor having to deal with the price of lost time for whatever more time than normal he takes, he'll also be living with knowledge and fear that in the cases of others he knew with his "condition", they didn't all always last forever. The more time that goes on, the more difficult his powers become, and the less his body wants to work with him.

Furthermore, while dead and exempt from a number of living activities, he will not be exempt from the sensation of pain, whether by the Radiance of a Flame or by physically breaking his bones. Whatever his appearance, it's no illusion and there will be unpleasant things he absolutely feels. On the plus side, normal zombies can't do too much more to him than that.

I picture his magic manifesting through the markings upon the bones of his face and a golden sort of light that glows through them and his bones, allowing him to shift and change and strengthen himself, while also being the same that makes him weak when he overextends himself. He may be able to reveal these markings if he chooses to (but typically does not).

HOUSING: No Preference.

RP SAMPLE
A Sample may be any of the following:

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