Crack 'dat WIP~
Basics Name: Philippe Deladrier
Aliases: Phillip Delacroix, Phillip Dean, Paul Smith; not to mention a series of Bureau-issued identities and aliases to be used and adapted as the need arises. One particularly sarcastic (and now particularly broken-nose-ed) individual called him "Inspector Philippe Javert".
Sex: M
Age/Date of Birth (if known): 44 (b. 18 Mar 1914)
Species: Human; North African (Moroccan; b. Tangier)
Voice: (Sample) He speaks passable English, although when he speaks casually or when excited--without any need to disguise himself or the like--it is with a
very thick accent. When he actually settles down and enunciates, he can fake an American accent very well, and his slightly rough upper baritone (low tenor?) has proven to be quite pleasing to the ear, despite its inherent and slightly sandpaper-y grit.
Appearance Physical Description: Philippe is not an intimidatingly large man by any stretch of the imagination, standing at 5'8" tall and weighing in at an unassuming, but still somewhat large, 172 pounds solid, most of which is muscle weight (although a particularly brave soul might hazard the risk of making the statement that he's a little, er,
fluffy). He seems to be a bit poorly fit to his skin; almost like he was born in flesh a half-size too big for him; as such, he tends to be a little wrinkly and paunchy, his eyes tend to sag a little and he generally looks a little baggy. Nevertheless, said skin is thick and leathery, although not incredibly rough to the touch--like touching a sheaf of construction paper, almost, except more... Fleshy... And markedly darker than most Americans or Anglo-Saxons. His lined, worn face, is caressed by a (rapidly receding) shock of salt and pepper hair (albeit getting considerably saltier by the day), and his face is never without a scattering of gray stubble. His beak-like, almost hawkish nose is framed by two sunken eyes, so dark as to be almost colorless, and frequently bloodshot.
Distinguishing Marks: Not much, really, aside from his hands. His knuckles bear the tales of many scuffles and bar-room brawls won and lost; a criss-cross-y patchwork of broken teeth and splintered stools. He has a small scar on his right pectoral from a knife, but that isn't much of a story at all.
Mannerisms: He comes off, not as a coiled spring, but as a small thermonuclear device. He actually radiates malice and anger when he walks; his muscles tense, eyes squinted, balancing on the balls of his feet, ready to take a swing at whoever approaches. When angry or stressed, he wrings his hands and rubs his temples. When
really angry or stressed, the veins on his head pop out in relief against his head. He also descends further and further into a deep French accent when speaking under duress--which is bad, because people not understanding his speech, and making him go back and repeat himself, only pisses him off
more.
Wardrobe: Simple and dour. Hates suits, but has three simple two-piece charcoal gray affairs from Woolworth's with dark, neutral-colored ties to accompany them (solid black, solid brown, striped two-tone blue, in case you were wondering), along with a shapeless and somewhat tacky and outdated gray felt fedora that he irrationally loves and insists upon wearing whenever formality is required--and
don't insist he ditch it, ever. His day-to-day wardrobe consists of long-sleeved, light cotton shirts in checked patterns and semi-neutral colors over a-frame t-shirts. He prefers loose-fitted khakis or jeans and workman's boots or hiking boots for bottom wear, and he is never, ever, without his favorite A2 jacket.
Other: He broke his leg in a fall recently and although he's off the brace, he still has pins in and (occasionally) uses a cane. As such, he favors his right side.
Personality Moral Alignment: Type II Lawful Neutral,
Unfettered. Above all, uphold and obey the law and protect its representatives, and God save anyone who gets in the way of that.
Intelligence: Clever with applied knowledge, intuition and straightforward thought. Achieved a high school and college education, albeit with some difficulty (he isn't very handy with books, and he dismisses art as "keendergarden scrawleengs of small cheeldren"). He doesn't do philosophy, he doesn't do religious/secular debates--he studies law, he follows the law, he enforces the law. That's about it.
Demeanor: Angry and standoffish. He can count the number of people he tolerates daily without derision and death-threats on exactly one hand (three fingers, to be precise!) but otherwise everyone is treated with equal disdain. He is quiet but aggressive, grim but sarcastic, generally just an unpleasant curmudgeon. Nevertheless, he treats his superior officers with a grudging deference while on duty. His friends get the worst of it, although he honestly believes that it's all for the best and he only wants them to improve. To imply that Deladrier has a poor sense of humor misses the point entirely. It's not that Deladrier's sense of humor is bad; it's just that it
doesn't exist. He appreciates
schadenfreude and derives a bit too much happiness from otherwise inappropriate scenes, but other than that he has no appreciation for jokes, slapstick or anything of that sort. This can lead to several instances where a person will tell a joke and then
very slowly attempt to explain it to an unmoved Deladrier, wherein Philippe will spit something vitriolic and remove himself from the conversation.
--
Temperament: Choleric.
Attitudes: Just as angry inside as outside. He's not one of those fellows who casts up a shield around his heart to hide the fact that deep down he's really innocent and sad and hurt inside; if there's a wall around his heart it's just because it's holding back a well of even deeper anger and rage, and it's unfortunately
incredibly easy to breach that particular wall. He really dislikes himself, although to a significantly lesser degree than everyone around him.
Likes: His job, his son, scotch.
Dislikes: Juuuust about everything else.
Quirks: He picks his fingernails and rubs his temples. Fidgets with his cigarettes and keeps his desk almost obsessively clean and organized.
Flaws: Moderate-to-severe anger issues, violent, easily frustrated, poor at handling stress, borderline alcoholic, mildly hypertensive, no humor, poor self-restraint, can sometimes be impulse-driven, legendarily poor driver, nicotine addiction, and did I mention the moderate-to-severe anger issues?
Philosophy: "Fiat justitia ruat caelum." ("Let Justice be done, though the heavens fall.")--Latin proverb The law is absolute. No-one; not man, not demon,
no-one is above it.
Hangups: They all change from day to day, but the
absolute biggest pet peeve is to question his moral beliefs in law and order. Questioning his rock-solid beliefs has gotten at least one man chewed out to the point where he was crying. Other than that, finding his hangups is a matter of trial and error. Also rounding out his Top Five Hangups:
- Messing With Things On His Desk!
- Nicknames! (Esp. "Philly Phil". If you value your life, never call him "Philly Phil".)
- Whining!
- Leaving the Seat Up on the Toilet! (He broke his tailbone like this once)
Social Occupation: FBI-SOB; Special Agent, assigned to Philadelphia
Relationships: --
Sexual Preference: Heterosexual
--
Marital Status: Single (ladies). But before you go jumping his bones, keep in mind that he is a
widower. His wife of three years, Lauren, died recently during a botched surgery. This may or may not be related to Philippe's broken leg, good luck getting any information out of him there though.
--
Children: One. Kenneth, age two and change. It may not seem like it, but Philippe is deathly afraid of his child turning into the bitter, angry, violent man that he has, and as such goes out of his way to raise him in (what he believes) is the correct way for a parent, and loves him dearly.
--
Other Relationships: None. Cooperates with his bosses and tolerates his co-workers (for the most part), but doesn't do very well with the whole 'connecting with people' thing.
Economic Status: Middle class. Technically he has two homes at the moment. His first (and preferred) habitat is a happy little A-frame house just outside of Arlington, Virginia. This house is where most of his belongings live; the majority of his weapons, his few books, most of his clothes, and his son and (newly hired) live-in babysitter. The place, despite its unassuming appearance, is practically a fortress in terms of security; shortly after buying it, Monsieur Deladrier spared no expenses in upgrading the locks on every door and window and even installing a small safe room in the basement (because where demons and wizards are involved,
no precaution is an unreasonable precaution).
His second house, which he hopes will be as temporary as possible, is an apartment in Philadelphia that he managed to finagle into his budget. It's dirt-cheap and set in the gritty part of downtown, barely more than two rooms (if you count the bathroom as a second room), and Philippe hates it and refuses to let anyone see it unless absolutely necessary.
Opinions: Trust me when I say that you would not be able to get any out of him, and if you did you would immediately want to un-hear them. Buuut, here are a choice few excerpts from the few times someone has managed to get his opinions on something.
--
Women:"I haff known a great many women een my time. Not all of zem are shineeng examples of ze female race, but for ze most part I grant zem ze same respect zat I would grant anee man. Very precious leetle, een case you do not remember how I normally treat my workmates."--
Minorities and Racism:"I am a Frenchman who was born in northern Afreeca, leeved seven months in France, and zen moved to America to support my familee. I half known ze struggles of ze minorities in zis country because I am ze minority een zis country. Zey have some small degree of my seempathee."--
The PPD:"Zey are unnecessarily spiteful of ze Bureau and eets agents, as are all beat cops. Ees zere nature. Zat does not mean I respect zem for treating me like some... Pariah." He spits.--
The FBI:"My job ees my job, my bosses are my bosses, the other agents are ze other agents. Zere is nothing more or less to say about eet. Zey do zere job, and I will do my job. So long as zey avoid angering me, we are fine." --
Lauren:[color=#008080]
His eyes get dark, his brow furrows. This is his angry face. "You have gone too far, vache. Eef you do not step away from zis table, I will not hesitate to make a scene by breaking your arm off inside your own spheencter. Leave. NOW."
Combat and Abilities
Combat Prowess: Pretty much the [i]only thing Deladrier enjoys in life is a fistfight. He has a boxing background and years of bar-fights under his belt, not to mention the combat training the average FBI field agent receives before being released on the world. His size and (surprising) speed make for a formidable close-combat opponent, and he is an adept marksman with both handguns and long arms, of which he has many. However, he fails to see the point in bladed instruments, and as such fails at knife-fighting (unless, of course, he is unarmed).
Equipment On Hand: It's safe to say that Deladrier never leaves the house without his
badge and his
Police Positive Special, both tucked securely into a leather shoulder holster worn quite brazenly over his shirt (but under his jacket). Other than that, he has a travel flask in one pocket and an engraved Zippo lighter in the other, along with various pieces of change and receipts. His breast pocket always has a pack of Lucky Strikes in it. And there is always a wire-bound notebook and stub of pencil secreted away somewhere on his person. Not to mention more mundane things; his house-key, ID, Social Security card, pocket knife, et cetera.
Special Training/Aptitude: Basic FBI training. Although he has a certain aptitude for unarmed combat (as stated above) and interrogation/"sweating" of humans and (to some extent) demons.
General HistoryPhilippe was born in Tangier, Morocco, two years after it was partitioned between France and Spain. This duality in cultures led to Philippe's formative years being rather confusing--his family were French immigrants from Nice, moving to a country with a strong Arabic heritage, that had been partitioned between France and Spain. The language gap changed seemingly block to block, and as a result Philippe picked up fragments of the Spanish language and Darija (Moroccan Arabic) by the time most people were fully getting a grip on their first language. He did a fairly mediocre job in elementary school due to a lack of interest in the subject material, and was sometimes called slow by his classmates. Philippe took this as the insult it was meant to be; but unfortunately for his detractors, this backfired horribly. Philippe learned to throw a punch before he could do simple addition, and before he even made it to high school he was risking expulsion for a combination of almost hilariously low grades and a penchant for incredible acts of violence for someone whose testicles hadn't even descended yet.
Somehow, through several miracles, Philippe ascended to secondary school, where he continued to just skim by. He became a street wanderer at that point, spending the majority of his days bouncing from place to place and going truant, raising hell where-ever he saw fit (much to the chagrin of his parents). Eventually, he crossed the law, and spent several days in jail for assaulting a Spanish dockworker who just happened to dislike Moroccans, despite being in goddamn Tangier. Those several days were spent rubbing elbows with rapists, murderers and counterfeiters, and Philippe made a sudden decision then and there--he would turn his life around. He would no longer be Philippe the Truant Street Brawler; he would become Philippe Deladrier, Executor of the Law. He started attending classes again, joined a boxing club to vent his building violent tendencies, and eventually graduated from school, where he immediately applied to the police force.
Given his previous arrest record (one for aggravated assault), he was turned down.
Philippe was less than impressed. And that was how he came to briefly be a semi-professional boxer. Until he turned 26. And then Francoist Spain moved into Tangier.
Deladrier decided that the moment that a fascist was allowed to move into his country was the moment where someone had to go. And so, at 26, with no knowledge of the English language, the barest formal education and little more than the clothes on his back and a few hundred dirham he had saved up from various odd jobs, Philippe went to America.
He made landfall in late 1940, in New York City (as was only proper for an immigrant). Despite some hassle (having come from the newly Franco-fied--and therefore Fascist-friendly--Tangier), Philippe eventually became a legal resident of the United States of America. He acquired a job at a butcher's shop and spent a great many years chopping beef brisket and learning to speak English through night classes, all the while considering his becoming an officer of the NYPD.
Eventually, he got his chance.
Professional HistoryIn 1949, after having taken several law courses at a small college in addition to having picked up enough English to not look like an idiot and be considered passably fluent, Deladrier signed up for the NYPD and managed to bumble his way through initial training and pick up a beat. Deladrier quickly built up a reputation as a brutally efficient police officer with an arrest record several miles long despite the handicap of having English as a second language and not being particularly intelligent. He spent another year in the NYPD before being recommended to the FBI. Despite his disadvantages in terms of education, Philippe managed to land a job as a Special Agent.
He took to the job like a duck to water, and spent the next several years climbing slowly up the pecking order of the FBI, one bloody rung at a time. But, as always, there is one job that makes or breaks you.
For Philippe Deladrier, this case came in December, 1956. He was on assignment in Chicago, IL, investigating a string of brutal murders that were all supposedly the result of the "Butterfly Killer". The name "Butterfly Killer" was not because of a supposed physical characteristic, or because he left butterflies, or because he made butterfly puns in his threat letters--no, the Butterfly Killer gained his moniker by, after killing his victims, slitting open their backs, removing several ribs and drawing their lungs out through their backs. The first responding officer described the sight as looking "like the most disgusting goddamn butterfly he'd ever seen". Philippe, disturbed and disgusted by the murders, started down the trail.
Days passed, then weeks, with no leads. A victim would disappear, then pop back up dead some time later, and the killer would always disappear--like
magic. Philippe was doggedly determined though, and eventually his determination paid off. On December 28th, 1956, three days before the New Year, Philippe happened across the Butterfly Killer--an old Raker in the middle of maiming his latest victim.
Philippe didn't even wait. He emptied his service revolver into the thing and then chased it through the city, despite being burned with Infernal magic and slashed across the chest with its claws, eventually managing to trap and kill it in the projects by bringing half of a building down on it.
His determination in the pursuit despite the difficulty of the chase and ensuing fight netted Philippe a promotion to the SOB, and the rest, as they say, is history.