Fillory APP

[freakenstein]

In Character

Character Name: Merton J. Dingle
Canon: Big Wolf on Campus
Point In Canon: End of the Second Season, after he was murdered by a gorgon.
Apparent/Actual Ages: 18
Zodiac Sign: Going with Libra
Species: Human
History:

(minor cw: references to child neglect/abuse)

A lot of Merton's childhood from before the events of the show are kept vague, with him only talking about it either in the context of dark humor or in the middle of a nervous ramble, with no intent on elaborating. He'll dismissively skip over explaining further into things like his parents doing nothing to find him when he was lost in the woods for three days, his mom forcing him to get rid of all his toys when he was eight, his alarming obsession with death that started as a little kid, or how he automatically associates military men like his father with unchecked violence. It's possible he exaggerated some things since he tends to do that, but even if he did, what little info he's dropped and his parent's general absence, to the point of him arguably being his little sister Becky's primary caregiver, hasn't painted the best picture.

What we know for sure is that, until Tommy Dawkins, he didn't have any real friends. He was the creepy, eccentric, hyperactive goth kid with an "overactive imagination", who spent his life dodging bullies and obsessing over the monsters he thought he saw everywhere. The two were locker neighbors since kindergarten, but sitting at opposite ends of the social hierarchy, they barely interacted. But when a newly bit Tommy started showing lycanthropy symptoms, Merton picks up on it almost immediately and excitedly pesters him about them. Warning him of what they meant, and insisting he could help him, much to Tommy's ire and disbelief. Merton turns out to be right, though, and with nowhere else to go, he goes to him.

Their friendship starts as a relationship of convenience for both of them, with Merton looking for a cure and helping him with his symptoms, while Tommy sticks up for him at school and helps him with girls. But it quickly develops into something genuine as they find themselves working together to fight off monsters that are trying to destroy the town or kill the local werewolf. And the two become practically inseparable. At least, until Lori comes along.

Poor Lori just wanted to hang out with the two boys who seemed to draw the supernatural to them like magnets, and have a fun time. What she got was shitty drama. Both boys develop a crush on the kickboxing tomboy and things get ugly, with Merton getting particularly nasty. Getting jealous of Tommy for going after one of the few girls he genuinely clicked with and for being the one she liked more and getting jealous of Lori for encroaching on their friendship. The early half of this new dynamic is a bit rough, with Merton occasionally acting like a catty jerk to the two as they get closer and he becomes more of a third-wheel.

He does mellow out eventually, and is accepting of the two ending up together, though a little privately morose. Eventually apologizing to Tommy for the way he was acting. But it takes longer for him to fully warm up to Lori. Despite showing that he genuinely does care about her, that jealousy isn't as quick to go away, with her presence continuing to push him to the sideline. And he can't quite bring himself to trust her. Spending several episodes trying to be her friend while occasionally still acting like a catty asshole. It gets to a point that they develop something of a shaky, tentative sort of friendship built on an undercurrent of mild but mutual hostility and distrust.

It's not until Tommy suddenly disappears one day that they're really forced to work together to try to find him. Unfortunately coming up with nothing until Tommy just comes back like nothing happened. The two agree something seems very off about him, but push the feeling to the side for the time, just glad that he's seemingly okay. Intending to figure the details out later, but they don't get that chance before things go sideways.

The first moment he's alone with Lori, Tommy suddenly attacks her. And shortly after, the same scene almost happens with Merton. But Merton gets just enough warning to put up a struggle and in the tussle Tommy gets knocked on the head, briefly bringing him back to his senses. And in that time the two are able to figure out what happened to him.

Throughout the show, we don't see much of other werewolves, and this is when we finally meet a whole pack of them. Unfortunately, they're basically card-carrying villains. As it turns out, Tommy is one of the few of their kind that can spread the lycanthropy virus. And they wanted him among their numbers one way or another. When he refused to join them willingly they kidnapped and brainwashed him. Sending him back out in the world specifically to go make more werewolves and bring them back to the pack. And now they had Lori.

Merton is able to break the brainwashing and puts together a plan to infiltrate the group and save Lori, which they should be able to do if they can give her wolfsbane before her first full transformation. Tommy brings Merton back to the pack, armed with liquid silver nitrate, and pretending he was bit and captured. The plan goes as intended with the boys quickly turning the tables on the pack and gaining the upper hand. But there's a hitch. Lori doesn't want to be saved.

Being turned was tapping into all her pent-up anger and frustration, and she was lost in it. Pissed at Tommy for both caring more about saving "his girlfriend" than really caring about her as a person, and for seemingly caring more about Merton than her (apparently Merton hadn't been the only one feeling like a third wheel in Tommy's life), and being pissed at Merton for being a weaselly two-faced jerk since they'd met.

Loosing their upper hand in the struggle with her, the boys get captured, and Lori "joins the pack", only to quickly challenge and take down their leader throwing the pack into chaos. Then she turns her sights back on Tommy. The two fight, with Tommy trying to hold her still long enough for Merton to hit her with a wolfbane dart, and eventually succeeds.

After the wolfbane goes through her system, the rage falls away. With Lori mostly back to herself, the pack in shambles, and Tommy technically their new "leader" due to clumsy pack laws, the three make a break for it.

Lori claims she can't remember much from the experience. But an odd new tension hangs between her and Tommy, and for once Merton sort of takes her side in it, as much as he takes a side at all. She and Tommy keep fighting, and after one make-up make-out during a monster-hunt, almost gets Merton killed, Lori breaks off their relationship. Concluding that monster-hunting and teen hormones don't mix. And they go back to being just friends. That's when we finally see Merton start to put effort into being a better friend to her, and he and Lori even start hanging out independently of Tommy at times.

It's just when the three are really starting to gel with their new dynamic that things go to shit.

Merton develops a new crush, one that also likes Tommy better, though he turns her down. This time instead of getting nasty about it Merton falls into a self-pity spiral. One that Lori walks in on as he goes on about never finding love. She tells him that's ridiculous and admits that she thinks he's cute when he's not being a dink. They kiss, and instantly freak-out. The two decide to keep it from Tommy since they don't really have feelings for each other, at least none worth hurting Tommy over. But he finds out anyway and is predictably hurt, particularly by Merton, who knew Tommy still had feelings for her.

Merton tries to apologize, going so far as to confess that his friendship with Tommy means more to him than anything. But it does little good and when it turns out Merton's crush was a jealous gorgon who decided if she couldn't have Tommy no one could, their personal drama gets put on the back burner. The fight with her goes south, with Tommy getting trapped, and when she moves in for the kill, Merton uses himself as a human shield, taking the hit meant for Tommy and instantly turning to stone. The move manages to give Tommy and Lori the time they need to free Tommy and trick her into turning herself to stone, but killing her undoes nothing and Merton remains petrified.

CRAU or AU: N/A
Personality:

Altruistic - When he first noticed Tommy showing signs of being a werewolf he offered him help, despite having every reason to think Tommy might hurt him. Werewolves in their world are violent more often than not; plus, the football team Tommy is on put a target on Merton's back in middle school, and it never came off. True, Tommy himself had never hurt him up to that point, but it still would have been easy to just sit back, continue to avoid him, and let whatever might happen, happen. But he doesn't. And his trend of reaching out and trying to help people who could or have hurt him holds out throughout the series.

He's a pragmatic person, but not a pessimist: well aware of how cruel the world can be, but really does want to believe the best of people, or at the very least that they can be better. And when push comes to shove, he can't just sit back and let others get hurt without at least trying to do something about it.

Craven - Not a complete coward. He'll follow his friends into danger and even jump into it on his own when it's necessary. But he's stuck in the habit of looking out for himself first, because for the longest time, he was the only one looking out for him. And that's made him into a paranoid, weaselly little shit at times. He's prone to cowering, feigning joining the bad guys, or just flat out running away in a fight. Usually with the intent to stab their adversary in the back. But there've been times when that was questionable, particularly when it came to running away. He's not one to face adversity head-on unless he knows he has a solid upper hand, because he's likely to lose. Being notoriously fragile and the only one of his friends who can't fight, anytime his weapons get trashed or taken from him, or this or that spell doesn't work, he's kinda fucked.

He's also just a very anxious person in general. It's not something that's always obvious because he can often hide it under a chipper disposition, but anyone that's around him long enough will pick up on his hyper-vigilance. He's easily startled, quick to panic, and overanalyzes every hint of a threat.

Excitable - Merton is hyper. Quiet and awkward around most strangers, but once he's opened up he's all high energy, big expressive hand gestures, babbling about scientific theories, his favorite movies, gothic literature, and monsters. All with very little volume control. It's not an all-the-time state, he's usually pretty calm and collected, but it's easily triggered by curiosity, or whenever his favorite topics are brought up. And with his favorite people, he seems to forget that personal space is a thing people have.

Low Sense of Self-Worth - In his own words, "What meager self-esteem I've managed to cobble together is based on my intelligence," and, from all we see, that's unfortunately not an exaggeration. While he has a lot of pride in his intellect and his knowledge of the occult, and can be a bit of a git about it at times, years of relentless bullying, parental neglect, and possible outright abuse, have left their mark and grounded away at his self worth. It comes across in small ways, like how rarely he bothers to stand up for himself, or how, despite all the evidence to the contrary, some part of him still thinks that if he's not useful to Tommy he'll leave.

But nothing quite shows how potentially dangerous it can get like the episode where he was given a watch that would let him wind back time for several minutes and let him undo any minor mistake, but at the cost of his wisdom. Even after he figures out what the watch is taking from him, he keeps using it. Letting it drain him of the one thing about himself he takes pride in, for just a shot at fixing his mistakes and making people like him. And in a similar situation, he stumbles on to creating an intelligence booster that made him into a super-genius but was quickly killing him. He keeps brushing off Lori and Tommy's concerns as his condition worsens, claiming he's more useful this way, to his friends and possibly to the world, and he can definitely figure out how to mitigate the symptoms if they just give him more time. Time that it quickly becomes apparent he doesn't have. In the end, his friends have to force him to take a cure to the intelligence booster itself to keep him from dying. Even after all that he still tries to recreate the concoction but fortunately can't.

Pragmatic - Being friends with Tommy and Lori can sometimes be like herding cats. Both of them are impulsive and headstrong, jumping into every situation with a kick-ass attitude and an unshakable optimism. Which, isn't a bad thing, and it's something he loves about both of them, but it also means having to be the Debbie Downer that drags them back down to reality.

Not that he doesn't make his own mistakes, he's more than made his fair share, but it's easier to see the forest through the trees when you're not the one standing in the woods. And between the three of them, he ends up in this position the most often up through the first two seasons. That pragmatism along with his proficiency with the occult, has also led to the role of strategist falling to him when they go toe to toe with the supernatural. Especially when it's a situation that requires being more tactical. And to a lesser extent, he's used to being the older brother/caretaker for his little sister and you can see that instinct bleed into his relationship with his friends somewhat, as he occasionally slips into "mom friend" territory.

Abilities/Powers/Strengths:

Intelligent - Speaks multiple languages (Fluent in English, German, and Latin, knows the basics of French, Japanese and Spanish, knows some broken Aramaic, and has some knowledge of how to read Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics), good at research/investigation, talented in general science, physics, astronomy, chemistry, biology, and alchemy. And is a major history buff, particularly when it comes to the more gruesome aspects of the past.

Well Versed in the Occult - Has an almost encyclopedic knowledge of monsters and supernatural beings, is particularly knowledgeable about werewolves (or at least the werewolves from his universe), knows the basics of his world's version of voodoo and an odd hodgepodge of spells and rituals, like a spell to raise the dead, and a ritual to exorcise the demons from a hell-hound and turn it into a regular dog. (NOTE: None of these involve innate magic, they all required very specific, usually hard to come by ingredients/objects, and knowing the right incantations to work. Unlike some characters in the show, he has no magical ability of his own.)

A Decent Shot - Particularly with crossbows, water pistols (they usually have them filled with holy water or silver nitrate), and blow darts.

Sneaky - Usually pretty good at sneaking around. Not a professional at it by any stretch, but better than your average person.

Manipulative - Can be pretty manipulative when he wants to be. Years of talking people down from hurting him, finding ways to avoid people, and sucking up to/doing favors for the right adults to carve out nooks of safety for himself, have given him a pretty good understanding of how people work. Not exactly a master manipulator, and he's not always a very convincing liar when he's scared, but he's very good at getting people to drop their guard, and the few times where he was the one to defeat an advisory it was usually by tricking them.

First Aid - Knows a good deal about first aid from patching up himself and his friends, as well as giving his werewolf friend regular physical and dental exams. Though most of what he knows of medical science was self-taught and based off medical textbooks that were made, at best, in the late '90s.

Domestic Talents - A good cook, can sew, and is good at making props and practical effects (a talent that sometimes goes into making traps). On the less practical end of things he's also a talented artist, singer, and writer (at least when it comes to poetry, songwriting, and essays/non-fiction work, his screenplays are questionable in quality at the best of times), plays piano and guitar, and is a major movie buff.

Inventory Upon Arrival: The clothes on his back and some stuff in his pockets; his wallet, the keys to his hearse, loose change, an Alka Seltzer, and a little plastic lizard.
Did You Assist In The Making Of This Game? No
Writing Samples:
Action Thread
Network Post

Out of Character

Player Name: Roach
Player Age: 34
Player Contact: skittering_roach
Other Characters In Game: N/A
What Plots Would You Like To See In Game: I love any plots that revolve around horror/fantasy.
Additional Information: Merton is allergic to cats and hell hounds.