PRSIMATICA APP

[graftage]

▶ PLAYER
HANDLE: Crystal
CONTACT: plurk @ vampirize!
OVER 18? yes!
CHARACTERS IN-GAME: none

▶ CHARACTER
NAME: John Steinbeck
CANON: Bungou Stray Dogs
CANON POINT: Chapter 44, after seeing that his boss, Fitzgerald, is still alive after the failed Yokohama plan
AGE: 21
BACKGROUND: here you go!

PERSONALITY:
If you looked up the idiom of "don't judge a book by its cover" in the dictionary, you'd probably find a picture of Steinbeck smiling cheerfully right smack dab underneath the definition.

First impressions would tell you that Steinbeck doesn't look like a threat. He looks young for his age and constantly smiles, treating mostly everything with a certain nonchalant glib that makes him seem like he barely has a worry in the world. During a job, he snacks on potatoes, pauses to happily comment on how much he likes being in the countryside, and takes whatever chance he can get to talk about how much he loves his many siblings. He's friendly, easygoing, and just seems like a nice farmer boy who couldn't hurt a fly.

Unfortunately, Steinbeck can and has hurt far, far more than a fly. John Steinbeck is a mercenary, after all.

His cheerful attitude isn't a lie, but it's only just the tip of the iceberg. Steinbeck is, in reality, an absolutely ruthless individual who can threaten innocents and kill others without a single regret. The reason he can do such terrible things without crippling guilt? As he states himself in response to another wondering why he does the things he does, "it's work". Steinbeck's character, as his name suggests, is based on the real life author and his stories, and seems to be the very incarnation of the famous Steinbeck quote "There ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue. There's just stuff people do.". He does know that what he's doing is wrong, and doesn't really think his soul is squeaky clean (at one point, he refers to himself with the telling phrase "God exists, but he just doesn't love you"), but nevertheless he feels like it's just work that he needs to do, and he feels justified in everything that he does. After all, the crux of his motivations is his family - he does the terrible work he does to receive the money he needs to support his starving family back home. Nothing else matters to him - he can sacrifice himself as long as his family is happy.

Other people who aren't part of his family? Well, he might be sympathetic to them, but if orders come through that order them to be harmed, he'll never hesitate. In canon, he tortures a young boy for the sake of helping his boss succeed with his plan - a plan which resulted in the death of at least a hundred innocent people. One might think with his nice attitude about it all means that he's perfectly loyal to the cause of the organization he works for...but this isn't true. He's only in it for the money. He has a deep loathing for his boss that he manages to hide under his cheerful smile - as he states in canon, he hates people who manipulate others with money, and hates himself for the fact that by using wealth to save his family, he can be considered the same as them. This internal conflict upsets him, but Steinbeck goes around it by displacing all of his self-hatred onto others he feels are far worse. Of course, he's not doing the right thing, but it's not like he'll be bad as that guy, right? At one point, he even blames his boss for his tendencies to torture children, even though it was he tortured a young boy by his own hand and volition.

Steinbeck can be a very cunning individual. He states that he hates chores and often tries to figure out the quickest solution to a problem, never shying away from underhanded tactics or ambushes if he feels he can win out on them. However, at times his own confidence backfires on him - in canon, he wastes precious time talking to an enemy he's captured about how he's won the fight, allowing the other to take advantage of that. Sometimes, Steinbeck assumes he has a better grasp on a scenario than he does, and that only leads to his own failure. At one point, he even gloats to another about how powerful his partner is, which only leads to his partner's downfall as he unintentionally reveals his weakness when he does so. Steinbeck seems the type to run into a situation assuming he'll win easily without really stopping to think about the consequences.

Overall, Steinbeck is a weed. He seems harmless at first, nothing but a nice sprout among the rich, extravagant flowers that seems to just be there to enjoy life. Turn your back on that weed, though, and he'll strangle and destroy as many things as he can, an invader who wants nothing more than to see your pretty garden ruined so lowly weeds like him can get what they think they deserve.

Don't judge Steinbeck by his cover, because he's a man who will use that cover to paint a picture of a nice, morally clean person he never will be.


POWERS/ABILITIES:

In Bungou Stray Dogs, people are born with supernatural abilities that are named after the works or sayings of the authors that wield them. There is no explanation for how these abilities came to be, or how they work, or why some get abilities and others don't. A select few can be transferred through families, but regardless of that, little to nothing is known about their nature.

Steinbeck's supernatural ability is called The Grapes of Wrath, which allows him to control and accelerate the growth of grape seeds, and manipulate the movement of grapevines. While he has been shown to grow them outside of himself, Steinbeck often takes a very gruesome approach to his ability by inserting grape seeds into his open wounds, allowing his own body to become the "soil" that the grapes can grow from. Through this, he is connected to the sensations of the plant, allowing him to detect sound and movement through the plants as extensions of his own body. He can even move the vines like limbs, often using them defensively to hit away bullets or using them offensively to try to knock a opponent down. Growing grapevines from his own body doesn't seem to permanently hurt him - while he feels terrible pain and bleeds if a vine is pulled out of him, it doesn't last, and any damage to his insides isn't life-threatening.

However, this ability hardly seems impressive until you factor in the fact that grapes are often used for grafting onto other plants, and Steinbeck's ability becomes quite the deadly thing - using the grapevines he grows, he can attach them to other plants, therefore expanding his control and range far more effectively. He can literally control an entire forest if he allows his vines to connect to it, allowing him to move and grow roots and trees with the power of his will. However, if his connection is lost through a severing of his vines, he loses the control over all the plants he has grafted to.

INVENTORY:
- A navaja (a type of knife)
- A small cloth bag filled with grapeseeds

MOONBLESSING: Cordis

▶ SAMPLES

link #1
link #2