Rorschach (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
aprettybutterfly) wrote2012-10-02 07:25 pm
aprettybutterfly) wrote2012-10-02 07:25 pm
Entry tags:
Application for the RP Game ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
sirenspull
Player Information
Name: Amy
Age: 22 years old
AIM SN: liljewishgoy
email: aiua.thread@gmail.com
Have you played in an LJ based game before? Yes.
Currently Played Characters: Raul Creed (rapturescreed), Doctor Kenzo Tenma (surgicalshot), Tim Drake (theshortestbird), and Mr. Gold (faustianism).
Conditional: Activity Check Link: Here
Conditional: Official Reserve Link: Here
Character Information
General
Canon Source: Watchmen
Canon Format: Comic book series.
Character's Name: Rorschach also known as Walter Joseph Kovacs
Character's Age: 45 years old
Conditional: If your character is 13 years of age or under, please clarify how they will be played. N/A
What form will your character's NV take? Rorschach's journal is what his NV will be. There will be a series of buttons (ones that he won’t be pleased about) on the inner cover of the book, and when pressed with a pen, they can show video, voice, and text.
Abilities
Character's Canon Abilities: While there are “superheroes” in the world of Watchmen, only one of them, Doctor Manhattan, has actual “super powers”. Everyone else is just really good at fighting and taking a hit; out of all of them, Rorschach is the best. When it comes to fighting, he is utterly ruthless, and knows how to take advantage of his surroundings. It’s that which helps him be fast and strong, though he’s constantly perfecting what he does so he can become better. He calls himself an investigator, and others seem to agree with that statement; he might not be the best detective out there, but he notices things that others don’t. Rorschach is innovative, being able to use anything as a weapon and can improvise at the drop of a hat. He knows how to pick locks, even the more difficult ones out there. During the riots that took place when the Keene Act was enacted, Rorschach was able to hold down the entire Lower East Side by himself, which is, considering the size of it, very intimidating. He’s able to withstand cold temperatures, since he only wore his suit and trench coat in Antarctica, but this is most likely because he doesn’t care, not that he can’t feel it.
Rorschach is also a great writer, and when he was younger, he excelled in literature and religious education. He also took to amateur boxing and gymnastics, which probably explain his speed and strength. He’s a very good tactician, being called by his partner, Nite Owl, as one of the more “tactically brilliant” people he’s ever met. He’s also proficient at making clothes, seeing as he worked for a dressmaker for several years, and was the one to make his mask out of the material from a dress that wasn’t sold, even though it was made out of material that Doctor Manhattan had created, and thus was not able to be torn apart easily.
Conditional: If your character has no superhuman canon abilities, what dormant ability will you give them? Rorschach's dormant ability will be the ability to break into anyone building through whatever fridge happens to be in there. At first, he won’t be able to control it, and if he ever puts his hand into one to grab something from one of the shelves, that will cause his hand to suddenly appear in a random fridge. Since he does have a habit of hiding out in fridges, waiting for people to come home, he will also be transported to another fridge in another building. It starts out as random, but over time he’ll be able to learn how to control it, and can choose which fridge he wants to come out of, and in who’s place. The fridge doesn’t have to just be in someone’s residence; it can be in any building, like a community lunchroom, or a restaurant that has a fridge or a freezer. When Rorschach does learn how to control this power, he’ll only be able to go to a place he’s already been to before.
As an example, say Rorschach went through his fridge and ended up in Raul Creed’s apartment randomly. Later, if he wanted to, he could go through his fridge and choose to go to Raul Creed’s apartment, since he’a already been there once, but if he tried to choose to go to Doctor Tenma’s apartment, it wouldn’t work, because he hadn’t been there before. That goes with possibly ending up in a SERO or AGI building; he could go there randomly in the beginning, but if he wanted to go there on purpose, he could, later on. It would have to be that specific building; ending up in a SERO lunchroom in one of their main buildings means he could go back there, but since he’s never been to the SERO warehouse break room before, he couldn’t go there.
There will be a permission’s post for this, for people to make the choice of having Rorschach end up in their apartment randomly, or if they’d rather not have him be in their place. Also, if Rorschach happens to randomly end up in a SERO or AGI building, this will go through the mods and be carefully plotted out, so that permission can be given over where he could go or what he might find there.
Weapons:
Rorschach doesn’t carry much with him, but everything he does always has a reason for it. He has a map of New York City, in case he ever gets lost (not that he ever would), and he also carries around a gas-powered grappling hook that his ex-partner, Nite Owl, had made for him when they were partners. Otherwise, Rorschach tends to make his own weapons with whatever is at hand, and prefers to use his fists above everything else. His mask is the most important thing to him, though it’s not a weapon.
History/Personality/Plans/etc.
Character History: The Watchmen Wiki. | The Comic Vine Entry.
Point in Canon: Rorschach will be taken as he and Nite Owl get ready to go to Antarctica, before he drops off his journal with The New Frontiersman.
Conditional: Brief summary of previous RP history: N/A
Character Personality:
When it comes to Rorschach, he is a character that never compromises who he is and what he stands for, despite any other idea thrown into his face. Despite what other people might tell him, what ideas are stated, or whatever action might take place, he is unwavering in his ideals and his decisions that he’s already made. This is what makes Rorschach Rorschach; despite his many flaws, he is still someone who won’t go with the crowd. This might not make him original, but it does make him something else that isn’t found every day in his world. There are a few small things, like sarcasm and lying, that everyone seems to have, but with Rorschach, his usual outer appearance is unreadable. So this solid, never changing outer-side is hiding the things he has inside.
Which, as stated before, are flaws. There are many flaws, and at times that can make it seem like all Rorschach is made up of are problems that people have with him, or issues he has with other people. Indeed, most of his writing in his journal states his problems with humanity at large, and his actions only seem to amplify them. In a world full of politics, at a time that everyone in the world was scared about nuclear war, Rorschach is very clearly defined as an extreme right-wing character. He believes in a world of black and white, never grey; everything and everyone evil must be punished, swiftly and harshly. If someone won’t do it, then Rorschach will; he prefers doing things himself, rather then leaving it up to other people. This is because he doesn’t trust other people. He’s paranoid about everything and everyone, like the government, the people who write the newspapers, police, the men who walk down the street with prostitutes on their arm. The fact that he doesn’t do well with the government or other military groups does not mean that Rorschach is an anarchist. If anything, he is the complete opposite of this. He believes in government, he believes in laws, and he believes in the United States. He just doesn’t like the way the current group is running the things he believes in.
There are other things about Rorschach that help describe who he is, though not his inner self. He’s someone who’s well read, and he’s a very good writer, using metaphors and references to other literature in his writing, which is all done well and with perfect grammar. He used to be an amateur boxer, and he is strong, and brave, going after anyone for anything. Some consider him a sociopath, but he has a paranoid personality disorder, as mentioned by the doctor who interviewed him while he was in prison. He lies, breaks into people’s homes when he shouldn’t, and doesn’t always bathe. He is very angry, at the world, at the “whore” living down the street, at those “Commies” over in Russia. But those outside problems, those little things that give him his ‘tics’, they don’t matter in the long run to Rorschach. They might matter to others, and they probably do, but Rorschach just does not care. That is what it comes down to. Rorschach does not care what someone thinks. He’s going to do what he thinks is right.
Rorschach is both a believer in moral objectivism and moral absolution. There are some slight differences, both meanings defined as:
It’s important for someone to understand both of these terms, because they are the core of what Rorschach believes in. It’s basically the good versus evil debate, with the person answering letting the others know that there is no common middle ground, despite what the context of an action might be. Rorschach does not care what your reasoning behind stealing from a store is. You could be stealing money to feed your starving family, or you could be stealing it for drugs; he doesn’t care. He’s going to come after you and make you pay for it no matter what.
So, how does a man like that form attachments with others? How does he hold down a job? And the bigger question, how did he get to be the person he is now? As with any good superhero story, Rorschach’s childhood was not an easy one. His mother worked as a prostitute, and his father had never been in the picture. Besides working as a prostitute, his mother was abusive to him, hitting him and telling him she should have had an abortion when she first learned she was pregnant with him. Needless to say, he hated his mother, and when she was found dead, killed by her pimp, Rorschach's only word on the subject was “Good”. Everything with his mother affected him in the worst way. Because of her, he has a very big problem with women; while there are those he will protect, even act chivalrous to, those are the ones that he sees as completely innocent. He hates female prostitutes. He also is very uncomfortable around women’s clothes, and if they are naked. He cannot stand the idea that women can be sexual beings, and he sees lust as a human weakness. In his mind, the heroes that he knows (Nite Owl II, Doctor Manhattan) all became soft and corrupted when they allowed the decadence of sex to come into their lives. More specifically, when a woman came into their life. Because of his mother’s abuse and her lifestyle, Rorschach is very erotophobic, having a fear of women’s nakedness, sex, and also homosexuals. He doesn’t like them, and even considers Adrien Veidt to be one, making a note to investigate that further.
But beyond women, Rorschach has problems relating to other people in general. He reads a newspaper tabloid called “The New Frontiersman”, which is a right-wing conspiracy tabloid, something that he can relate to well. Everything for Rorschach is a conspiracy; Laurie leaving Doctor Manhattan, the Comedian dying because of a conspiracy against masked heroes, the government becoming weak because of the president. Some of Rorschach conspiracy theories do turn out to be true, but the fact remains that everyone seems to think he’s crazy because he has so many theories. He alienates himself from society, which doesn’t help the image, and the only people who can stand his company are former masked heroes. That’s where most of his relationships come from, his former colleagues, mostly Nite Owl, someone who he was fond of and very respectful to, even if he didn’t express it. He wasn’t upset just because Nite Owl “abandoned the cause” when he retired, but because it seemed like Daniel had abandoned him. He was his partner for years, and while Rorschach has always been alone, he was even more alone when Nite Owl was gone. Even though Daniel was not working with him anymore, though, Rorschach constantly kept up with him, keeping an eye on him and occasionally breaking into his apartment to talk to him. Daniel is the only one who can get through to him, too. When Daniel finally snaps and tells Rorschach off, Rorschach finally admits that he is difficult to deal with, and that he considers Daniel a good friend. Daniel might be the only one who can put up with him, and because of that, Rorschach trusts him, even though he doesn’t trust anyone.
Throughout this analysis, Rorschach's real name has never been used, and this is for good reason. In his mind, Walter Kovacs, his true name, is his mask, while the mask that he wears is what he considers his true face. The transition from Walter to Rorschach was an easy one for him to make, and there were events that happened that helped him achieve that. The mask that he wears is made from a material invented by Doctor Manhattan, and is constantly shifting. He had been tasked to make a dress of it for a woman who he could not remember the name of, and in the end who didn’t want the dress. It was set aside, until he read in the paper that a woman, Kitty Genovese, had been raped and killed while everyone stood by and ignored her screams for help. Something that Rorschach does is take people and has them become the symbol of an ideal in his mind. Kitty Genovese was probably not the one who had ordered the dress, but because of her, Rorschach took it and used it to hide his face away from the humanity that he despised. Walter Kovacs was still there, though. Rorschach was who he was at night, but during the day, he was Walter, a garment worker who lived in a rundown apartment and had no friends. When he took the case of Blair Roche, the six year old who was kidnapped because they thought she was the daughter of a wealthy family, he took it for personal reasons, knowing that her father was really a bus driver and she was from hard circumstances, just like him. Finding out she had been chopped into bits and fed to dogs was the end of Walter Joseph Kovacs; he killed the man, and Rorschach became the only one left.
That’s how Rorschach began, and it’s how he ended. After the entire group goes to Antarctica and confronts Adrien Veidt about the way he manipulated nuclear war to his own ends, and had a giant squid attack New York City, Veidt shows them how the world has become united during this difficult time. That he killed The Comedian, and had pushed Doctor Manhattan, and had even manipulated Rorschach into being set up and captured. This is where the two sides, black and white, began to bleed together for everyone. What Veidt had done was despicable, and it was evil; he’d killed millions of people. But in doing so, he’d helped the world become united, he made sure that there would not longer be fighting, and by doing all that, he had created what he thought of as a “Utopia”. True peace required sacrifice, and Veidt had given it to the cause. Nite Owl, Silk Spectre, and Doctor Manhattan finally agreed to keep Veidt’s secret. To keep the world safe by lying to it. Rorschach was the only one who did not agree with this. It went directly against his deep seated sense of justice, his core moral fiber; evil needed to be punished. Black and white never became grey. And in the end, that’s why Rorschach was killed, and even he knew that. Leaving in the snow, he screams at the group to kill him, to just do it, to get it over with. Maybe Rorschach knew, somewhere, that the idea could be the right one to make. But it clashed against his ideals too much for him to bear, and so he knew that dying was the only option for him. In the end, Rorschach asked for death, and was granted it.
Conditional: Personality development in previous game: N/A
Character Plans: I’d really like to explore the fact that Rorschach is a pretty offensive guy, and just doesn’t care what other people think of him. He has some very strict ideas about right and wrong, and he doesn’t approve of a lot of things; one of the biggest being anything sexual, which would immediately put him at odds with AGI. He wouldn’t like AGI because it forces people, but he also wouldn’t like the fact that people work there and are affiliated with them anyway. I like the idea of him being able to pick up random CR, since he is a big fan of picking locks and breaking into places, regardless of who’s it actually is. While he’s used to fighting at night and being a man with a sign during the day, I’d like for him to think about finding some sort of job. It could be funny for him to get involved in a clothing business, because of his work in the past as a garment worker, even though he hates it, but he would also like to check out the fight clubs around the port. I’d also like for him to let people know what he thinks; he’s a very good writer, and a big conspiracy theorist, so I can see him starting to send in things to the news groups that talk about the government, the other Newcomers, the companies, everything he hates in this place. The fact that there are other masked heroes in the city will please him, but he won’t want to work with them. He prefers to work alone, and he’s never been a big fan of the whole “group” idea.
Appearance/PB: Rorschach and Walter Kovacs. Walter played by Jackie Earl Hayley and Walter from the comics.
Writing Samples
First Person Sample
The skyline is different. This city stinks with the same shame and filth of New York. The taste of their maple syrup is a lie, a conspiracy by the government to bring in more tourists. I passed by a club today, where three fat men in business suits talked while a naked woman danced on their table. There are monsters out in the night, they said. There are monsters out now. They should know.
They should ask. I won’t tell them. If they die because of their own disgusting habits? Good riddance.
Third Person Sample
It had been exactly one week since Rorschach had suddenly appeared in this city, right down to the minute. He’d arrived at 3:05 in the afternoon, and while he didn’t wear a watch, or even owned one, he knew what time it was. There was a big clock near the governmental building, the big one where he watched the men and women in suits go in and out of all day. They didn’t know who he was, though, even if some of them cast furtive glances at him every now and again. Rorschach wasn’t worried about them figuring out who he was; if no one wanted to talk to a man covered in dirt holding up a sign, then they wouldn’t be coming after him at night. In the one week he’d been here, there had only been a few noticeable incidents that he had to intervene with. The amount of crime and corruption in this city shouldn’t have been surprising to him, but the fact remained that most of the crime was legal.
Legal as in not breaking any laws of the city. But they all broke his laws. The men working in those office buildings were evil, and needed to be punished. Rorschach had been standing on his feet most of the day, and he took the lull in activity to take a seat, his face emotionless as he continued to hold up his sign. It never changed in its appearance or what it said, much like him. Maybe he should have changed a little since arriving in this place. He’d thought about that a lot; as much as he hated it here, he could appreciate the little things. There were people running around at night in masks, and even if most of them were kids, they were still out there. Still doing what they thought was right, catching criminals and showing the police how incompetent they really were. The citizens of the port hated the Newcomers, which, while he was a Newcomer himself, was something he appreciated.
The list of things he hated about this city was much longer than the things he liked. He hated the Newcomer groups, the so called “political party” in this city that cried out how much they wanted to integrate the new and the old. He despised their socialist ideas just as much as he despised the communism back home, and a few of the people here who supported it. The entire thing was a conspiracy to enslave the people who were here and couldn’t protect themselves, this political group that gave money to people who arrived and said they didn’t expect them to pay it back, but to give whatever they could when they could. That’s why he didn’t stay in those apartments they told him to stay in, and he didn’t take any of that money. He was used to filth, and he could survive in it, so long as he had his face.
The idea of becoming himself made him look at the clock again; the siren was going to go off soon, which meant the Darkness would arrive, and with it, the monsters. Rorschach liked the monsters at night more than the monsters during the day. Standing up, he frowned, looking up at the sky and hoisting his sign over one shoulder.
“Hrm,” He made a little sound of displeasure, watching as people went to the opposite side of the street, just to not be near him. They were afraid of him, and that was good. They should be afraid. He was a long way from the apartment he was squatting in, but that was fine. There were some things he needed to do, first, and the most important one was to get his things. First, his clothes and his face. Second, something to eat, most likely stolen from someone’s fridge. Then he could continue his investigation into the matter of the disappearance of a family of four.
Name: Amy
Age: 22 years old
AIM SN: liljewishgoy
email: aiua.thread@gmail.com
Have you played in an LJ based game before? Yes.
Currently Played Characters: Raul Creed (
rapturescreed), Doctor Kenzo Tenma (surgicalshot), Tim Drake (theshortestbird), and Mr. Gold (faustianism).Conditional: Activity Check Link: Here
Conditional: Official Reserve Link: Here
Character Information
General
Canon Source: Watchmen
Canon Format: Comic book series.
Character's Name: Rorschach also known as Walter Joseph Kovacs
Character's Age: 45 years old
Conditional: If your character is 13 years of age or under, please clarify how they will be played. N/A
What form will your character's NV take? Rorschach's journal is what his NV will be. There will be a series of buttons (ones that he won’t be pleased about) on the inner cover of the book, and when pressed with a pen, they can show video, voice, and text.
Abilities
Character's Canon Abilities: While there are “superheroes” in the world of Watchmen, only one of them, Doctor Manhattan, has actual “super powers”. Everyone else is just really good at fighting and taking a hit; out of all of them, Rorschach is the best. When it comes to fighting, he is utterly ruthless, and knows how to take advantage of his surroundings. It’s that which helps him be fast and strong, though he’s constantly perfecting what he does so he can become better. He calls himself an investigator, and others seem to agree with that statement; he might not be the best detective out there, but he notices things that others don’t. Rorschach is innovative, being able to use anything as a weapon and can improvise at the drop of a hat. He knows how to pick locks, even the more difficult ones out there. During the riots that took place when the Keene Act was enacted, Rorschach was able to hold down the entire Lower East Side by himself, which is, considering the size of it, very intimidating. He’s able to withstand cold temperatures, since he only wore his suit and trench coat in Antarctica, but this is most likely because he doesn’t care, not that he can’t feel it.
Rorschach is also a great writer, and when he was younger, he excelled in literature and religious education. He also took to amateur boxing and gymnastics, which probably explain his speed and strength. He’s a very good tactician, being called by his partner, Nite Owl, as one of the more “tactically brilliant” people he’s ever met. He’s also proficient at making clothes, seeing as he worked for a dressmaker for several years, and was the one to make his mask out of the material from a dress that wasn’t sold, even though it was made out of material that Doctor Manhattan had created, and thus was not able to be torn apart easily.
Conditional: If your character has no superhuman canon abilities, what dormant ability will you give them? Rorschach's dormant ability will be the ability to break into anyone building through whatever fridge happens to be in there. At first, he won’t be able to control it, and if he ever puts his hand into one to grab something from one of the shelves, that will cause his hand to suddenly appear in a random fridge. Since he does have a habit of hiding out in fridges, waiting for people to come home, he will also be transported to another fridge in another building. It starts out as random, but over time he’ll be able to learn how to control it, and can choose which fridge he wants to come out of, and in who’s place. The fridge doesn’t have to just be in someone’s residence; it can be in any building, like a community lunchroom, or a restaurant that has a fridge or a freezer. When Rorschach does learn how to control this power, he’ll only be able to go to a place he’s already been to before.
As an example, say Rorschach went through his fridge and ended up in Raul Creed’s apartment randomly. Later, if he wanted to, he could go through his fridge and choose to go to Raul Creed’s apartment, since he’a already been there once, but if he tried to choose to go to Doctor Tenma’s apartment, it wouldn’t work, because he hadn’t been there before. That goes with possibly ending up in a SERO or AGI building; he could go there randomly in the beginning, but if he wanted to go there on purpose, he could, later on. It would have to be that specific building; ending up in a SERO lunchroom in one of their main buildings means he could go back there, but since he’s never been to the SERO warehouse break room before, he couldn’t go there.
There will be a permission’s post for this, for people to make the choice of having Rorschach end up in their apartment randomly, or if they’d rather not have him be in their place. Also, if Rorschach happens to randomly end up in a SERO or AGI building, this will go through the mods and be carefully plotted out, so that permission can be given over where he could go or what he might find there.
Weapons:
Rorschach doesn’t carry much with him, but everything he does always has a reason for it. He has a map of New York City, in case he ever gets lost (not that he ever would), and he also carries around a gas-powered grappling hook that his ex-partner, Nite Owl, had made for him when they were partners. Otherwise, Rorschach tends to make his own weapons with whatever is at hand, and prefers to use his fists above everything else. His mask is the most important thing to him, though it’s not a weapon.
History/Personality/Plans/etc.
Character History: The Watchmen Wiki. | The Comic Vine Entry.
Point in Canon: Rorschach will be taken as he and Nite Owl get ready to go to Antarctica, before he drops off his journal with The New Frontiersman.
Conditional: Brief summary of previous RP history: N/A
Character Personality:
When it comes to Rorschach, he is a character that never compromises who he is and what he stands for, despite any other idea thrown into his face. Despite what other people might tell him, what ideas are stated, or whatever action might take place, he is unwavering in his ideals and his decisions that he’s already made. This is what makes Rorschach Rorschach; despite his many flaws, he is still someone who won’t go with the crowd. This might not make him original, but it does make him something else that isn’t found every day in his world. There are a few small things, like sarcasm and lying, that everyone seems to have, but with Rorschach, his usual outer appearance is unreadable. So this solid, never changing outer-side is hiding the things he has inside.
Which, as stated before, are flaws. There are many flaws, and at times that can make it seem like all Rorschach is made up of are problems that people have with him, or issues he has with other people. Indeed, most of his writing in his journal states his problems with humanity at large, and his actions only seem to amplify them. In a world full of politics, at a time that everyone in the world was scared about nuclear war, Rorschach is very clearly defined as an extreme right-wing character. He believes in a world of black and white, never grey; everything and everyone evil must be punished, swiftly and harshly. If someone won’t do it, then Rorschach will; he prefers doing things himself, rather then leaving it up to other people. This is because he doesn’t trust other people. He’s paranoid about everything and everyone, like the government, the people who write the newspapers, police, the men who walk down the street with prostitutes on their arm. The fact that he doesn’t do well with the government or other military groups does not mean that Rorschach is an anarchist. If anything, he is the complete opposite of this. He believes in government, he believes in laws, and he believes in the United States. He just doesn’t like the way the current group is running the things he believes in.
There are other things about Rorschach that help describe who he is, though not his inner self. He’s someone who’s well read, and he’s a very good writer, using metaphors and references to other literature in his writing, which is all done well and with perfect grammar. He used to be an amateur boxer, and he is strong, and brave, going after anyone for anything. Some consider him a sociopath, but he has a paranoid personality disorder, as mentioned by the doctor who interviewed him while he was in prison. He lies, breaks into people’s homes when he shouldn’t, and doesn’t always bathe. He is very angry, at the world, at the “whore” living down the street, at those “Commies” over in Russia. But those outside problems, those little things that give him his ‘tics’, they don’t matter in the long run to Rorschach. They might matter to others, and they probably do, but Rorschach just does not care. That is what it comes down to. Rorschach does not care what someone thinks. He’s going to do what he thinks is right.
Rorschach is both a believer in moral objectivism and moral absolution. There are some slight differences, both meanings defined as:
Moral absolutism: There is at least one principle that ought never to be violated.
Moral objectivism: There is a fact of the matter as to whether any given action is morally permissible or impermissible: a fact of the matter that does not depend solely on social custom or individual acceptance
It’s important for someone to understand both of these terms, because they are the core of what Rorschach believes in. It’s basically the good versus evil debate, with the person answering letting the others know that there is no common middle ground, despite what the context of an action might be. Rorschach does not care what your reasoning behind stealing from a store is. You could be stealing money to feed your starving family, or you could be stealing it for drugs; he doesn’t care. He’s going to come after you and make you pay for it no matter what.
So, how does a man like that form attachments with others? How does he hold down a job? And the bigger question, how did he get to be the person he is now? As with any good superhero story, Rorschach’s childhood was not an easy one. His mother worked as a prostitute, and his father had never been in the picture. Besides working as a prostitute, his mother was abusive to him, hitting him and telling him she should have had an abortion when she first learned she was pregnant with him. Needless to say, he hated his mother, and when she was found dead, killed by her pimp, Rorschach's only word on the subject was “Good”. Everything with his mother affected him in the worst way. Because of her, he has a very big problem with women; while there are those he will protect, even act chivalrous to, those are the ones that he sees as completely innocent. He hates female prostitutes. He also is very uncomfortable around women’s clothes, and if they are naked. He cannot stand the idea that women can be sexual beings, and he sees lust as a human weakness. In his mind, the heroes that he knows (Nite Owl II, Doctor Manhattan) all became soft and corrupted when they allowed the decadence of sex to come into their lives. More specifically, when a woman came into their life. Because of his mother’s abuse and her lifestyle, Rorschach is very erotophobic, having a fear of women’s nakedness, sex, and also homosexuals. He doesn’t like them, and even considers Adrien Veidt to be one, making a note to investigate that further.
But beyond women, Rorschach has problems relating to other people in general. He reads a newspaper tabloid called “The New Frontiersman”, which is a right-wing conspiracy tabloid, something that he can relate to well. Everything for Rorschach is a conspiracy; Laurie leaving Doctor Manhattan, the Comedian dying because of a conspiracy against masked heroes, the government becoming weak because of the president. Some of Rorschach conspiracy theories do turn out to be true, but the fact remains that everyone seems to think he’s crazy because he has so many theories. He alienates himself from society, which doesn’t help the image, and the only people who can stand his company are former masked heroes. That’s where most of his relationships come from, his former colleagues, mostly Nite Owl, someone who he was fond of and very respectful to, even if he didn’t express it. He wasn’t upset just because Nite Owl “abandoned the cause” when he retired, but because it seemed like Daniel had abandoned him. He was his partner for years, and while Rorschach has always been alone, he was even more alone when Nite Owl was gone. Even though Daniel was not working with him anymore, though, Rorschach constantly kept up with him, keeping an eye on him and occasionally breaking into his apartment to talk to him. Daniel is the only one who can get through to him, too. When Daniel finally snaps and tells Rorschach off, Rorschach finally admits that he is difficult to deal with, and that he considers Daniel a good friend. Daniel might be the only one who can put up with him, and because of that, Rorschach trusts him, even though he doesn’t trust anyone.
Throughout this analysis, Rorschach's real name has never been used, and this is for good reason. In his mind, Walter Kovacs, his true name, is his mask, while the mask that he wears is what he considers his true face. The transition from Walter to Rorschach was an easy one for him to make, and there were events that happened that helped him achieve that. The mask that he wears is made from a material invented by Doctor Manhattan, and is constantly shifting. He had been tasked to make a dress of it for a woman who he could not remember the name of, and in the end who didn’t want the dress. It was set aside, until he read in the paper that a woman, Kitty Genovese, had been raped and killed while everyone stood by and ignored her screams for help. Something that Rorschach does is take people and has them become the symbol of an ideal in his mind. Kitty Genovese was probably not the one who had ordered the dress, but because of her, Rorschach took it and used it to hide his face away from the humanity that he despised. Walter Kovacs was still there, though. Rorschach was who he was at night, but during the day, he was Walter, a garment worker who lived in a rundown apartment and had no friends. When he took the case of Blair Roche, the six year old who was kidnapped because they thought she was the daughter of a wealthy family, he took it for personal reasons, knowing that her father was really a bus driver and she was from hard circumstances, just like him. Finding out she had been chopped into bits and fed to dogs was the end of Walter Joseph Kovacs; he killed the man, and Rorschach became the only one left.
That’s how Rorschach began, and it’s how he ended. After the entire group goes to Antarctica and confronts Adrien Veidt about the way he manipulated nuclear war to his own ends, and had a giant squid attack New York City, Veidt shows them how the world has become united during this difficult time. That he killed The Comedian, and had pushed Doctor Manhattan, and had even manipulated Rorschach into being set up and captured. This is where the two sides, black and white, began to bleed together for everyone. What Veidt had done was despicable, and it was evil; he’d killed millions of people. But in doing so, he’d helped the world become united, he made sure that there would not longer be fighting, and by doing all that, he had created what he thought of as a “Utopia”. True peace required sacrifice, and Veidt had given it to the cause. Nite Owl, Silk Spectre, and Doctor Manhattan finally agreed to keep Veidt’s secret. To keep the world safe by lying to it. Rorschach was the only one who did not agree with this. It went directly against his deep seated sense of justice, his core moral fiber; evil needed to be punished. Black and white never became grey. And in the end, that’s why Rorschach was killed, and even he knew that. Leaving in the snow, he screams at the group to kill him, to just do it, to get it over with. Maybe Rorschach knew, somewhere, that the idea could be the right one to make. But it clashed against his ideals too much for him to bear, and so he knew that dying was the only option for him. In the end, Rorschach asked for death, and was granted it.
Conditional: Personality development in previous game: N/A
Character Plans: I’d really like to explore the fact that Rorschach is a pretty offensive guy, and just doesn’t care what other people think of him. He has some very strict ideas about right and wrong, and he doesn’t approve of a lot of things; one of the biggest being anything sexual, which would immediately put him at odds with AGI. He wouldn’t like AGI because it forces people, but he also wouldn’t like the fact that people work there and are affiliated with them anyway. I like the idea of him being able to pick up random CR, since he is a big fan of picking locks and breaking into places, regardless of who’s it actually is. While he’s used to fighting at night and being a man with a sign during the day, I’d like for him to think about finding some sort of job. It could be funny for him to get involved in a clothing business, because of his work in the past as a garment worker, even though he hates it, but he would also like to check out the fight clubs around the port. I’d also like for him to let people know what he thinks; he’s a very good writer, and a big conspiracy theorist, so I can see him starting to send in things to the news groups that talk about the government, the other Newcomers, the companies, everything he hates in this place. The fact that there are other masked heroes in the city will please him, but he won’t want to work with them. He prefers to work alone, and he’s never been a big fan of the whole “group” idea.
Appearance/PB: Rorschach and Walter Kovacs. Walter played by Jackie Earl Hayley and Walter from the comics.
Writing Samples
First Person Sample
The skyline is different. This city stinks with the same shame and filth of New York. The taste of their maple syrup is a lie, a conspiracy by the government to bring in more tourists. I passed by a club today, where three fat men in business suits talked while a naked woman danced on their table. There are monsters out in the night, they said. There are monsters out now. They should know.
They should ask. I won’t tell them. If they die because of their own disgusting habits? Good riddance.
Third Person Sample
It had been exactly one week since Rorschach had suddenly appeared in this city, right down to the minute. He’d arrived at 3:05 in the afternoon, and while he didn’t wear a watch, or even owned one, he knew what time it was. There was a big clock near the governmental building, the big one where he watched the men and women in suits go in and out of all day. They didn’t know who he was, though, even if some of them cast furtive glances at him every now and again. Rorschach wasn’t worried about them figuring out who he was; if no one wanted to talk to a man covered in dirt holding up a sign, then they wouldn’t be coming after him at night. In the one week he’d been here, there had only been a few noticeable incidents that he had to intervene with. The amount of crime and corruption in this city shouldn’t have been surprising to him, but the fact remained that most of the crime was legal.
Legal as in not breaking any laws of the city. But they all broke his laws. The men working in those office buildings were evil, and needed to be punished. Rorschach had been standing on his feet most of the day, and he took the lull in activity to take a seat, his face emotionless as he continued to hold up his sign. It never changed in its appearance or what it said, much like him. Maybe he should have changed a little since arriving in this place. He’d thought about that a lot; as much as he hated it here, he could appreciate the little things. There were people running around at night in masks, and even if most of them were kids, they were still out there. Still doing what they thought was right, catching criminals and showing the police how incompetent they really were. The citizens of the port hated the Newcomers, which, while he was a Newcomer himself, was something he appreciated.
The list of things he hated about this city was much longer than the things he liked. He hated the Newcomer groups, the so called “political party” in this city that cried out how much they wanted to integrate the new and the old. He despised their socialist ideas just as much as he despised the communism back home, and a few of the people here who supported it. The entire thing was a conspiracy to enslave the people who were here and couldn’t protect themselves, this political group that gave money to people who arrived and said they didn’t expect them to pay it back, but to give whatever they could when they could. That’s why he didn’t stay in those apartments they told him to stay in, and he didn’t take any of that money. He was used to filth, and he could survive in it, so long as he had his face.
The idea of becoming himself made him look at the clock again; the siren was going to go off soon, which meant the Darkness would arrive, and with it, the monsters. Rorschach liked the monsters at night more than the monsters during the day. Standing up, he frowned, looking up at the sky and hoisting his sign over one shoulder.
“Hrm,” He made a little sound of displeasure, watching as people went to the opposite side of the street, just to not be near him. They were afraid of him, and that was good. They should be afraid. He was a long way from the apartment he was squatting in, but that was fine. There were some things he needed to do, first, and the most important one was to get his things. First, his clothes and his face. Second, something to eat, most likely stolen from someone’s fridge. Then he could continue his investigation into the matter of the disappearance of a family of four.