this is not mod approved yet lmao

[emulsify]

cw: this NPC is deceased in play.
contains mention of death, emotionally abusive childhood, and depression

GAVIN WALDINGER

inertia control & friction manipulation

DOB/SIGN: 9/28/1991 . ♎︎ ♉︎ ♌︎
DOD: 12/2022
DIVISION: Exploration

• appearance...

HEIGHT/BUILD: 6'2" . obnoxiously heroic

BASICS: overall kinda henry cavill-shaped (not claiming the PB necessarily as this is an NPC). dark brown eyes. dark brown hair, curly, attractively unkempt. regularly relying on Crysta dying his hair to hide grays. perpetually just the right amount of scruffy.

STYLE: always well-dressed in trending styles, but generally erred simple and not flashy. enjoyed fashion. liked shopping from small designer boutiques and stores. definitely had a tailor he visited semi-regularly.

A LITTLE MORE IN-DEPTH: carried himself with varsity jock confidence. tended to go for aspirational over approachable. perfected the fake smile; his real one was goofier.

VOICE: prominent and posh British accent that he briefly shed in his teens, but leaned into again starting in college. a tendency to pepper his speech with curses in casual settings. extremely crisp /k/ pronunciation, as in Enoch and Crysta.

• personality...

+ curious. charming. bright. level-headed. gallant. savvy. loyal. perceptive. responsible. good sense of humor about himself. imaginative. creative. well-spoken.

= ambitious. bold. competitive. skilled schmoozer. flirtatious. self-sufficient. sarcastic. private. introvert. controlled. dry, dark sense of humor. aspirational, not approachable. work hard, play hard.

- walled-off. jaded. cynical. taciturn. could be hot-and-cold with loved ones. vindictive. insecure. distrustful. quick to anger. older brother/leader complex; felt responsible for everyone around him. had difficulty expressing affection. some real ass attachment issues. a transcendent compartmentalizer.

Gavin wanted everyone to think he was a classic Golden Age Super Hero of a man, and in many ways he was -- successful, charming, smart, friendly, and ostensibly interested in doing the right thing. Beneath that gilded outer layer, though, was a great deal of mostly unpleasant turmoil. He was a boy who'd wrung himself out long, long ago trying to exceed expectations and be useful, an introvert who'd trained the tendency out of himself to better please his parents, a kid whose only options were be practical or be exceptional, an older brother who had grown up seeing love as something you held hostage -- though for what, he wasn't sure, a man who had to fight the urge to turn every interaction into conquest.

When he wasn't wearing that fake smile, he could be impossibly gruff, cutting, and cold. But he was also funny, thoughtful, and brilliantly, uniquely strange when left to his own devices.

• powers...

WHAT ANYONE COULD KNOW...

. Gavin possessed Inertia Control and Friction Manipulation abilities.

WHAT EXPLORERS WOULD KNOW...

. ludicrously skilled with his powers. able to exert fine control over them and use them in creative ways.

. friction manipulation predominantly served two purposes, though: (1) run very fast, (2) pranks.

. regularly took advantage of Parson's emulsification powers, and liked to experiment with others' abilities. could blend his and Parson's powers into an ability that could numb a living thing's ability to feel pain.

WHAT CLOSE FRIENDS WOULD KNOW...

. loved and romanticized being Liminal. really bought into the super hero mystique, and saw working with IRIS as fulfilling this hero dream of his.

. often used his abilities to play pranks on friends and family.

WHAT WALDINGERS & PARSON WOULD KNOW...

. developed powers at 19, kept them secret, and practically killed himself mastering them on his own. didn't tell anyone for a full year, and lied about it to everyone but his siblings.

. would sometimes use his powers to ruin his parents' plans and parties, usually after one of them had used his achievements to put down one of his siblings. always maintained that he just did it because things were "too boring."

• the details...

GENERAL CWs: emotionally abusive childhood, depression, violent death

ANYONE MIGHT KNOW...

. former IRIS agent and Explorer. joined up when Enodia first opened. died in the field, mid-December 2022.

. older brother of Enoch and Crysta Waldinger.

. professional reputation around Enodia was spotless. it was expected he'd go on to great things. romantic reputation was ....... lmao.

. born in London, UK. moved to Los Angeles at 14/15. overachiever. MIT Graduate, double major Political Science & Physics.

. involved in Enodia ops -- frequent attendee of meetings, town halls, etc. very much seemed like he was on the rise within IRIS. field agent to politics pipeline.

. went to all the big parties, but usually didn't stay long.

EXPLORERS MIGHT KNOW...

. served as a Team Leader. specialty was disaster/urban riftland search and rescue.

. considered the Division among his closest friends.

. under immense pressure from his parents to move into a more prestigious (administrative) role at Enodia or within IRIS. desperately wanted to remain in the field, but still took half-hearted steps to move into desk work.

. had a pretty intense rivalry with his younger brother, Enoch.

. perceptive explorers would've noticed that Gavin and Parson were always a little flirtatious. while the looks got a little more soft and lingering as the years went on, they never outwardly appeared to be an item.

. Gavin's Inertia Control abilities were permanently passed to Parson Starling.

CLOSEST FRIENDS WOULD KNOW...

. at times, Public Facing Gavin and Private With Friends Gavin could feel like two completely different people.

. loved comic books, fantasy, escapism literature, but was deeply embarrassed by these interests.

. was incredibly creative, but didn't really have an outlet for it -- never really picked up any creative leisure hobbies, and seemed to have a lot of anxiety around trying them out.

. would never, ever say what he meant. almost physically incapable of being vulnerable.

. tended to assume the worst of others & their intentions. the friend you went to when you wanted to "bitch eating crackers" about someone without judgment.

. would only ever let Crysta cut his hair, and a consequence of this was that if he spent long stretches at Enodia without leaving, his hair would be a disaster.

. frequently spotted with a phrasebook of whatever language he'd last overheard Enoch using in correspondence with other researchers.

. liked to give gifts, help with chores, hang out, but really, really hated when it was acknowledged. could not take a compliment to save his life.

. terrible at accepting help.

. hated having to make decisions when he wasn't in ON mode. you could die of old age before he'd pick a restaurant.

GAVIN, CRYSTA, & PARSON KNOW...

. in his parents' eyes, Gavin's career choice was one of his few failings, but it was a grave one. disinheritance was a "jokingly" and over-frequently threatened tool to get him to seek out a career that "better reflected a man who would be head of a powerful family."

. bad about doing things and making decisions on his siblings' behalf without asking. thought he knew what was best for them. spoiler alert: he did not.

. the master of leaving things on read.

. there's a lot of stuff lmao

ONLY PARSON KNOWS...

. was plagued by guilt for failing to better protect Crysta and Enoch from their parents. allowed himself to fall into a stagnant, self-pitying rut over it for many years. it took Parson "ok, but why?"-ing him one too many times to get him to do something about it.

. had a few anonymous social media account he'd use to follow his siblings. would occasionally drop supportive comments on the things they posted.

. deeply depressed and spent years absolutely wallowing in it.

. was planning on staying with the Starlings that Christmas.

. the extent to which Gavin's memories, emotions, and personality have been flashed onto Parson's brain are as yet unclear, but it seems extensive.

. CW for next few paragraphs, details of Gavin's death:
during what should have been a routine mission in the field, Gavin and Parson were hunted and eventually ambushed by an pair of aggressive liminal entities.

when he realized they were about to be attacked, Parson leapt in to intercept a lunge meant for Gavin. his mastery of their shared powers was not great enough to overcome the first creature's strength, and when that became clear, Gavin made the decision to supplement Parson's efforts with his own abilities. this protected Parson from serious harm, but left Gavin vulnerable to an attack from a second creature, and ultimately led to his death.

the subsequent psychic shock of experiencing Gavin's death and having his personality, memories, and powers fused into his mind caused Parson to release an uncontrolled blast of their emulsified powers, which instantly killed the two creatures and left him in a week-long coma.

• love life...

. bisexual, mostly dated men.

. a well-known flirt and playboy around the station, though his antics slowed down in the last year or so.

. very bad case of "only want what I can't have," and was very hot-and-cold with his (mostly nsa) romantic pursuits. except...

. on-again off-again relationship with Spirit Moneypenny over a period of two years. conflict usually boiled down to Gavin's resistance to opening up and Spirit's indelicacy in handling that. ended it for the last time in late 2021.

. accidentally fell for Parson Starling and spent literal years trying to convince this feral cat that he was a friend. a longstanding FWB arrangement eventually became a situationship. by mid-2022, it had become obvious to their inner circles that something was up between them.

. it was Parson's fear of commitment and reluctance to let someone into his life so permanently that kept them from entering into an official relationship. while both of them had effectively stopped seeing other people by the start of 2022, they were only just starting to define what they actually were when Gavin died.