i'm dumb but i'm smart.

Fri, 17 Nov 2023 23:40:38 GMT

Player Name: Chase
Character Name: Roman Roy
Path to Graduation:
After a year on the barge, he has crossed hurdles that needed to be crossed and then some: he has far more humanity and empathy than he originally started with, and has been able to unlearn the many detrimental things that he's been raised with--and the ones that he hasn't quite unlearned are things he knows to apologize for. Roman has not only become far more self aware than he has been before but has learned that in order to grow and in order to continue to be a 'good person,' as it were, that it's alright to rely on--and even trust--other people.

Roman's always had a proclivity for empathy and love but had long since buried it deep given his canon experiences. This has changed significantly. Roman Roy also has friends. This may seem like something small but in between neurosis, paranoia, trust issues, blatant and flagrant bullying and mocking to the point of hate speech, this is big. Roman no longer feels like he needs to lash out or act like a big man in order to assert dominance--he realizes now that he doesn't have to 'win.' The vast majority of Romans learned behaviour comes from either emulating his dad or wanting his dad's approval. With his father gone, there's no one to impress, but with friends, he finds he doesn't want to impress them the same way he did Logan. As stated a few times, getting out from under Logan's thumb and finding his own sense of individuality has been completely paramount to his growth: but with friends like Eiffel and Norton, both from extremely different socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds urging him on, and people who aren't friends but he respects for some reason or other like Fitz, Jedao and Sweeney, he's learned that he's far more than just someone under the shadow of his father. He's not only his own person, but if he opens up and trusts people, he gains confidence in himself and who he is. Eiffel's disapproval over the Izzy incident and patient explaining on why he was upset did wonders to help him understand why it was actually wrong. Roman's fuck ups had previously been met with nothing but verbal or physical abuse with little to no explanation before this, and to have someone who actually takes time to explain without resorting to much of anything other than 'I'm disappointed' made Roman actually listen.

While Roman had a few tricky hurdles, none are as big as his intimacy issues. Said issues have bled into almost every aspect of his psyche--his aforementioned paranoia, trust issues, and general self loathing and lack of love for himself or others have led him to an extreme, intense fear of intimacy. Due to a myriad of scenarios and AU events he's been able to slowly shed the barrier that he puts up between love and sex, both things he can't separate between and still has a difficult time telling apart. Previously, the very thought of being vulnerable and trusting of someone for even a moment filled him with an insurmountable dread. Now that he understands what and why that is now thanks to a conversation with Dorian and has actually been intimate with a few people, he's able to understand himself more. Norton's extreme patience and understanding of Roman's inability to get physically sexual too often if at all despite being genuinely attracted to him was an immense help, alleviating the pressure not only to preform but to be someone he isn't.

The most prominent example other than Norton in terms of furthering his self in that way is John Seed. Starting off as complete enemies Roman wound up stripping himself of any initial judgements or knee jerk reactions due to floods. Far from a typical couple but connected via a surprising amount of shared experiences, Roman has actually found himself in love. While John has long since graduated, Roman cared about John enough--and still does--to promise him that he'd graduate and actually meant it. Roman displayed enough trust, vulnerability, caring, compassion, and enough self-actualization enough to actually follow through. His plans after being a warden for a while is to join John Seed at his law firm, not to be employed but to get back into the corporate world without any ties with his father whatsoever and to stay with a man he finds he really, truly loves.

None of this would be possible without Raylan: his warden and him had been permapaired early on, and their relationship dynamic was exactly what Roman needed to graduate. Raylan's steadfast and kind approach throughout events and floods and his method of encouraging Roman's positive reactions and thoughts instead of focusing only on what he's done wrong really shaped him into a better person, and Roman tries to emulate Raylan's patience when he can. Roman now knows how to hold space for other people--although this is still very limited to people he actually likes--and understands the power of it fully and completely.

He's more confident in himself, and knows he has the ability to even surpass his father if he tries, and loves himself enough to recognize that he loves other people, too. He'll even apologize to someone other than family. Roman is still very much a troll who likes to get a rise out of people. He just understands both his own and others' limits more and the appropriate time to do said trolling is. Roman will treating his new opportunity as a warden less like a curse like being an inmate would be: he's always been a business and opportunity guy, and wardening will absolutely tap into that. If he can use his people reading skills and negotiating acumen to help another poor bastard out while keeping an eye on his brother in the barge, why not? It's a no brainer to him. Plus, as strange as it is to him, he's found he really enjoys the fact that not only does he have friends, but they don't give a single shit about his money, power or status and he'd like to stay in that for just a little longer.

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Inmate ledger;

Mon, 25 Apr 2022 18:19:42 GMT

"His family's affluence fosters his complete lack of empathy."

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john and roman;

Thu, 21 Apr 2022 03:22:09 GMT

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Mon, 24 Jan 2022 17:47:17 GMT

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Wed, 19 Jan 2022 06:37:40 GMT

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Fri, 14 Jan 2022 07:49:40 GMT

User Name/Nick: Chase
User DW: N/A
E-mail/Plurk/Discord/PM to a character journal/alternate method of contact: tortilla sunrise#8828 on discord
Other Characters Currently In-Game: N/A

Character Name: Romulus 'Roman' Roy
Series: Succession (HBO)
Age: 34
From When?: Since Roman is still perfectly alive in canon, I'll be taking him from the end of season 3. Crushed as his siblings finally unite against their father only for their plan to fail and on his way back from Italy to New York, the private jet he's in will crash into the ocean.

Inmate Justification: Roman is not a good person. He's arrogant, cruel, crass, rude, obnoxious, and an extremely privileged and wealthy one-percenter who's self-centered at best and a slimebag at his worst. The runt of the litter, Roman uses inappropriate and taboo topics in everyday conversation in order to get a rise--and some attention--from other people, often goading others and pressing buttons under the guise of finding it funny and treating everything like a game. Roman is actively working for his family and for corporate America--he's part of the real world equivalent of the messy conglomeration that is Disney and Fox News--to screw over as many people as possible and to him, it can be pretty hilarious as long as his ass isn't in the fire. Roman, as high up employee of the company (and important shareholder), is, directly and indirectly, responsible for a multitude of cover ups, an incredible amount of scandals, and manipulating the press and media in general.

His attitude, however, consists mostly of defense mechanisms cemented firmly in place from a young age thanks to years of verbal and physical parental abuse, parental neglect and competing with his fellow dysfunctional siblings. Most of his issues--including the psychosexual need for humiliation--stem from the self-loathing his upbringing has given him. Working with someone who's not in his rich bubble and being removed from his environment alone will do wonders for him: he absolutely has the ability to change, and putting him on the barge with a warden away from his father and giving him a wake up call will absolutely start the (most likely slow) path into becoming a better person.

Arrival: Roman absolutely agreed to try graduate, despite not really having any real intention to do any of the actual work--he's very into saving his own skin. He's got a lot of issues, but wanting to die isn't one of them. He'll mostly be freaked out

Abilities/Powers: Roman is a normal human being. Other than being super short, he's just a perfectly average dude.

Inmate Information:
(tw verbal and physical abuse, parental neglect and mindgames, abuse in general, homophobia, eating disorders)

Roman truly seems to be the biggest example of what happens when you're white, male, entitled and filthy, filthy rich--and he's got daddy to thank for it. The Roy family patriarch Logan is the creator of Waystar Royco, an American conglomerate dealing in media, entertainment, news, theme parks and cruises. Roman's obscenely wealthy upbringing leads him to fall into the trap that many conservative rich kids fall into: it's not that Roman isn't aware poor and disenfranchised people exist, it's that Roman absolutely does not care. During a family baseball game, when one of the members of his team has to leave, Roman has no qualms with asking the help's son to hit a home run for them. He even promises the kid a million dollars, only to rip it up in front of his face when he whiffs it. It's chump change for someone like Roman and means the world to those (most likely migrant) workers. He finds it hilarious.

Roman doesn't care about a lot of things, at least that's what his outward personality tells--he's not a physical guy, and he's not a super smart guy (though he is smarter than he lets on), so he uses his words. Roman's got a mouth on him, and combined with the abuse he's suffered under the hands of his father--and some from his siblings--it's caused him to form a thick armor of snark and a sardonic attitude. It's important to note that while he's constantly vying for the head position at Waystar, his qualifications are limited and he's the least capable of his three siblings. He doesn't want it to succeed or win (though that is a nice plus), he wants it to rub it in his family's face, to be more like his father Logan, and, most important of all, to gain Logan's approval. This drive is a strong juxtaposition against Roman's usual confident, too-cool-for-this-conversation demeanor.

(As a note, the actor who plays Roman has stated publically that Roman has some sort of undisclosed eating disorder, backed up by the fact that during scenes he hardly touches his plate and makes a giant show about what he's eating when he is, which is always some sort of healthy fruit. I intend to treat this as canon.)

Roman's relationship with Logan is extremely, extremely complicated. When Logan was around, which was rare, it certainly wasn't to do any parenting. Logan's been known to hit him on occasion--most recently with a slap to the face so hard it knocked his teeth out--and it's implied he's the only sibling who gets that treatment. Roman's learned at a young age that your skin has to be thick and weakness means someone else is going to take advantage of you, and it's given him one hell of a complex. The family practically runs on Logan's dog theory: get two dogs, and then when they start fighting, punish the weaker one. Roman's immaturity and repression of all of his emotions save for the ability to mock and to push as many buttons as possible stems mostly from this and his relationship with his siblings.

Roman desperately seeks his father's approval--where Siobhan's response to Logan is freeze, Connor's is flight, Kendall's is fight, Roman is fawn. All of the siblings are in a constant battle to impress Logan but Roman, fully and vocally aware that his dad is a terrible person, will continue to do just about anything he asks as long as he calls him son. At the time of his arrival on the barge, Roman has stood up to his dad for the first time in 34 years, uniting against him with his siblings. It doesn't go well--thanks to someone betraying them, the Roy siblings are left with nothing and Roman is left in shambles.

Roman's siblings play a big part in why he's here as well. Because of their extremely competitive, fractured and quite frankly unhealthy family dynamic, all three of them are insanely intertwined in a maze of both support and throwing each other to the slaughter. If Kendall's on a drug induced bender, Roman's the one to come get him if he's in a meth den and drive him home without a single moment of hesitation. Roman's also the one to antagonize a very suicidal Kendall and shove him onto the floor at his own birthday party--where Roman only went to make a business deal with someone else in the first place. To Roman, this is perfectly normal behaviour for anyone to endure or to give, sibling or not. They tear each other apart, make each other's lives a living hell, and then see each other for Christmas.

Perhaps the biggest, most pivotal event other than Logan's abuse and neglect: when Roman was around 4, he and his brothers Kendall and Connor played a game. According to Roman they used to lock him in a dog cage and leave him there for an indeterminate amount of time (anywhere between 3 minutes or the whole afternoon), complete with a leash and dog food out of a tin bowl. Roman claims it caused him to wet the bed and Logan sent him to military school as a result, but Kendall barely remembers doing it and Connor insists it was a game that Roman liked so much he asked to play it--also that the dog food was chocolate cake.

Regardless of which sibling is fully right--chances are the truth of the dog kennel is a mixture of all three of their stories--it's another big reason Roman is who he is. For all of his inappropriate sexual comments and constant overtly sexual chatter, he suffers from a complete lack of desire to want to actually sleep with any of his hot, blonde dates--one of which he purposely starts dating just to get a rise out of his sister's husband, whom she had performed oral sex on at his bachelor party. His biggest motivation, sexually or career wise, is shame, be it others or his own. His own relationship to shame is something he's just finding out and refusing to look too hard at--he happily masturbates to a female board member in a position of power above him calling him filthy, degrading things through a bathroom door. Compounded with this and Logan's constant comments to him and Kendall accusing them of being homosexual, complete with slurs, at his core Roman is a highly repressed result of toxic masculinity, white privilege, and being unaware that asking for help is even an option, let alone the fact that he desperately needs it.

The real issue is that he's never had to face any challenges that weren't directly involved with his family. Roman clouds his repressed emotions and refuses to show any weakness, instead pivoting to lashing out first. It's not even when he's stressed or facing a challenge--he preemptively lashes out, digs in for another person's weakness as soon as he sees it, and will starts to verbally harass at the drop of the hat, wrapping it all up in one big joke. As for the barge, I fully believe Roman will react in a similar manner until something or someone wears him down enough.

Path to Redemption: Roman needs a wake-up call, pure and simple. He's repressed any ability for compassion for anyone at a young age, hardly thinks of people not in his rich little bubble as people, and has to constantly wrestle his ego with his incredible sense of self-loathing. Just the act of getting out from under Logan's thumb is a big, important step, and the barge could facilitate that right away. Roman himself has the ability to care for others and he's fully aware that he's a bad person. He'll happily admit it, and while he means it, he needs to mean it on a different level than the flippant way he usually does--and he needs to drop a lot of his extremely dysfunctional way of putting emotional walls up.

-At the moment, Roman has no real concept of consequences for his actions on other people, especially those not below him in the socioeconomic hierarchy that is America. He absolutely needs to admit that being rich is a privilege, but again: he also needs to mean it and take some responsibility.
-The realization that he's said a lot of terrible, awful things to people for literally no reason, but more importantly why that it's bad.
-Stopping the particularly nasty, socially unacceptable comments just to rile other people up--additionally, to stop egging people on for no reason other than it's "funny"
-Allowing himself to be more open with people in terms of emotions, as his entire persona and entire personality is built around the airtight persona of being an absolute bastard man, verbally.
-Learning to actually like himself, find some self-worth
-Taking the emotions of others seriously in general, gaining empathy for people other than his family
-Confidence that's not faked and his connection to shame explored in a healthy manner
-The hardest one: coming to terms with the fact that his father's approval is not the ultimate goal, nor is his father an excuse for Roman's own actions

Roman is the type of person to take a deal out of desperation, and I envision it happening similarly on the barge. He'll say he's into it for the usual reasons, but the moment he's away from the warden it's back to jokes and being ironic. Roman's way of handling fear--and he will be scared shitless--is to cover it up with a few wisecracks and to treat it all like a game. It's dealing with his bark that will be an uphill battle--he's not one to start physical fights at all, but he will absolutely provoke and antagonize for little to no reason. The best analogy I can give is that Roman will be an angry chihuahua throughout his voyage on the barge: loud, obnoxious, small, but ultimately easy to pick up and move to a separate room if he's being too disruptive.

As for warden styles, Roman's a bad fit for those too passive and also for those too aggressive. If a warden is too passive and too patient, Roman will steamroll over them and not take them seriously. Conversely, if a warden is a little too aggressive, Roman's going to shut right down. He needs a healthy mix of both.

Ultimately, what Roman needs is someone understanding but unwilling to take most of his shit--or at the very least be able to ignore it and not get riled up by it too often. Roman won't do well with someone who blames him for being rich, but instead will do better someone who acknowledges that he's rich but still has had one hell of a hard life. He's no stranger to lying or paying off therapists--he famously mentions that he 'won' at therapy in season 1--so again, patience is required. He will absolutely lie and not take this shit seriously at first. He comes from a family where showing emotion means weakness, and means you will absolutely be taken advantage of and crushed in a blink of an eye.

Exposure to people outside of his circle is a huge way for him to change, especially just seeing and meeting other people and noticing them as something other than moving wallpaper or hired help. The fact that he's here--and dead--and that he's almost truly rock bottom is already a trigger to start him off on the right foot, as long as someone can get the reality through to him. The safety net of who he is and money is gone, and while he may not be as business savvy as Kendall or politically savvy as Shiv, Roman's smart enough to know when he's got to shape up. It's just going to take time.

Event or plotting wise, definitely being put in even more unfamiliar territory would help him--doubly so if he's given a hand or has to give someone else a hand. Busywork has never been his thing, and he could learn a lot from it as well. The more he's out of his element, the more he's going to realize he needs a different attitude.

History: season 1 + 2, season 3

Sample Network Entry: [ He's half giggling as he starts the audiopost, so. Enjoy that. ]

What up, shitlickers? How's life on the good ship lollipop? [ Not that he cares, but hey, he's treating it like a pitch meeting. ] Got a question. Teeny-weenie little Q for you folks. Honestly, I haven't been able to stop thinking about this. [ There's that barely suppressed giggle again, like the whole thing is a joke. ]

Do you think--just hypothetically, hypothetically--that if you're throwing a birthday party that you invite your siblings to come that it's appropriate to have a glowing tunnel to represent your mother's birth canal be the first thing they walkthrough? Like, what are the optics on that? What's the fucking point? What kind of Freudian banana peel did you slip on?

Sample RP: TDM open post

Special Notes: My goal is to be careful with how I tag into other people's things--Roman sucks as a person, and I fully intend direct people to my opt out and check others' permissions before I go anywhere near them. I'll also be avoiding a lot of the heavier things he says unless explicitly asked--i think roman would be a good fit but I definitely want everyone to be comfortable!

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open;

Fri, 14 Jan 2022 04:00:22 GMT

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permissions + opt out

Thu, 13 Jan 2022 01:29:06 GMT

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OOC

• backtagging Yes
• threadhopping Yes if you're close CR
• fourthwalling No but feel free to have your character make the comparison of the Roys being essentially the Murdoch family
• offensive subjects None!

• physical contact Yes.
• romance This is extremely complicated with Roman, but I'm willing. One night stands are a maybe. m/m and m/f are perfectly fine, but be aware Roman has a lot of psychosexual issues including but not limited to one hell of a humiliation kink, the fact that he's most likely extremely in the closet and has intimacy issues up the wazoo.
• fighting Verbally? Go for it. Physically? Ask, but it's probably going to be yeah.
• injuries or death Absolutely smack this guy, just with permission first.

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• Roman himself deals with child abuse (verbal and physical), child neglect and incredible amounts of trauma due to his father. In order to compensate, one of Roman's main personality traits and primary defense mechanisms is to joke about anything and everything and say the most inflammatory things possible in order to get a rise out of other people--it's the only way he really knows how to get attention. Some things he says are true and some are just to make people feel upset or uncomfortable. He has an uncanny knack for finding which jokes get right under the collar of the person he's talking to, too.

He has 'joked' about classism, misogyny, being a member of the alt right movement, homophobia, substance abuse, suicide, murder, rape, incest, being sexually abused as a child, and much more. Think of him as a chihuahua or purse dog--small, annoying, and definitely compensating for something. If there's anything you don't want Roman to talk about with your character, please let me know. I will always check your permissions page to check before I engage.

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this is what it looks like when you resolve all your issues

Wed, 12 Jan 2022 22:56:42 GMT

ROMULUS 'ROMAN' ROY
Succession

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