meet and greet

[notafuckingnut]

RICHIE GECKO Seth, I'm telling you. The way he looked at us, you especially, I knew he knew. PERSONALITY YOU AREN'T SAFE UNDER THE EARTH, HIDING YOUR ACTIONS, COVERED IN DIRT LIKE A SNAKE SHEDDING ITS SKIN, IF YOU FESS UP YOU CAN START ALL OVER AGAIN Most people, upon meeting Richie, almost immediately know something isn't quite right. They can't always put their finger on what it is exactly, but something instinctively tells them he's just off. He seems harmless enough - he's practically blind without his glasses, after all, and when he's behaving himself completely he's very soft-spoken and rarely raises his voice - but there's just something, a glance that's a little too intense and goes on a few beats too long, a predatory glint in his eyes when he forgets himself, an occasional tendency to look through you as if there's something else there...Whatever it is, it's just not right. With good reason. Since the age of 15, Richie has spent his life trying to interpret the world through an increasingly inaccurate lens; things he sees, hears, and experiences aren't always the same as what's actually going on, and consequently he often has a difficult time separating reality from fantasy, recognizing that the come-ons or threats or what have you that he's convinced he hears are nothing more than misfiring neurons. It's why he clings so tightly to them when they're called into question, why he is constantly seeking reassurance from his brother that he believes him. His mind is a constantly shifting pattern of perception and interpretation, of cold reality and blatant fantasy where the borders between the two have blurred so much that it's all but impossible to find where one ends and the next begins. And so he fiercely insists that it's all true, and waits for Seth to tell him which parts happened and which ones didn't. While most people are reluctant to accept an alternative sequence of events as related to them when they've seen something first-hand, it's second nature to him; it's not unusual for an alternative to be presented to him that he then accepts unquestioningly despite the fact that it's completely contrary to what he himself remembers. His own eyes and ears aren't always the most reliable, after all, and while he hasn't really accepted this outright, it's creeped in enough here and there. The frequent splits in his mind have created a sort of dual personality; he's quiet and unassuming, hesitant in most social interactions because he quite frankly doesn't really understand what's expected of him. He approaches everything with a quiet certainty, sure of his own actions but less certain of those of the people around him, progressing in fits and starts; bold one moment, but halting in the next as he tries to figure out what their reactions might be. He can be very charming, in his own way, easy and calm and eager to please and so much like an overgrown puppy that it's very easy to miss the predator that hides underneath. But then, in a moment, from a word or a look or a sudden movement the flip can be switched and he changes from harmless to a raging psychopath, with a hairtrigger temper, acute paranoia, and very little in the way of a conscience. The entire world is allied against him in these moments, every face unfriendly and scheming, with his brother the only one he can really count on. In these moments he's bloodthirsty, vicious, utterly uncaring of who or what is in his way so long as the obstacle is removed. And then, like that, it's gone almost as soon as it came, and he's back to harmless, only angry and righteous because his version of events is doubted, and thoroughly contrite when his back's to the wall and he's forced to accept the wrong for what it is. Seth does his best to curb this, of course, lecturing him with some regularity on the fact that this kind of thing isn't acceptable and trying to nip it in the bud when he can or prevent it from happening at all, but that's not to say he's always successful. He has a marked tendency to become easily fixated to the point of obsession, doggedly pursuing an argument or mistaken belief to the exclusion of all else, regardless of the outcome it might lead to or consequences it might have. This can include topics, shows, beliefs (real or imagined), and people. Once this happens it's difficult to break until he either gets bored on his own or something happens to change his focus (usually through a "distraction" in the form of physical violence or he "breaks" it himself). Possibly the most worrying thing about Richie is that he doesn't realize that the lapses, the acting out, the rapes and murders that stretch past what is reasonable even for a common criminal, are wrong. He convinces himself that they are all justified, just an unfortunate but necessary conclusion; the clerk was going to call the cops, the hostage was trying to escape, the girl asked him to. None of it his his fault, it's all circumstance, and he can't help it if things went south because his hand was forced. His outlook in general is rather childish; he whines, he complains, he wheedles for what he wants and picks arguments at the worst possible times. His grasp on morality, on right and wrong, is tenuous at best, and he seems to rely more on what's best for him in the moment rather than the best course of action in general, or the most reasonable and rational. His brother is the biggest constant in his life, the only thing in the entire world he has any real loyalty to; unsurprising considering his brother raised him for the most part, which probably explains at least some of his moral lacking. He grew up amongst criminals, knowing little else other than a criminal lifestyle, and consequently he seems to live his life in terms of "Us vs Them", him and Seth against the world with little that truly matters so long as they both get through everything in one piece in the end. HISTORY YOU'VE FORGOTTEN EVERYTHING BUT YOURSELVES, YOU DON'T EVEN MATTER TO EACH OTHER Richard Gecko was the second son born to a relatively unexceptional couple in Edgerton, Kansas. His childhood was similarly unexceptional, or at least he would have told you it was, but only because he didn't know much better; the Geckos weren't exactly high-flying society types, and the growing family took its toll on the elders. As the years stretched on the arguments on how they were going to support themselves became more frequent, more aggressive, and much more audible. But fortunately little Richie had an older brother to turn to, someone who seemed to always have a Plan when the arguments got to be too much, a solution. A fort on the bed, or a stack of comics to distract, or all kinds of adventures to pull attention away from the warzone in the next room. Seth looked after him when their parents were too wrapped up in everything else to bother with their kids, and so they managed. And then one night it stopped. The quiet was more worrying than the noise by this point, so Seth went to investigate, with Richie trailing after like a shadow. Neither could really make sense of it, all the blood and deafening silence and the rage and loathing in the eyes of the man they called Dad, but one thing was clear. They ran, and they've been running ever since. Seth got over it much quicker, his practical, rational outlook seeing it as an unfortunate tragedy, but it stuck with Richie longer, lingered in his mind after he fell asleep and lurked in the corners when he was awake, coloring his world more darkly, more harsh and dangerous. The hallucinations started three years later, after they'd been found and set up in a Home because the state decided it knew what was Best For Them. It started out small, flickers in the corner of his vision, a snatch of a phrase here and there, nothing tangible but there nonetheless. He ignored it at first, because Seth said it was nothing to worry about so what could he do? They stayed in the background for the most part, and if every now and again they spoke up a little too loudly and a house pet, a kitten or a fish or a rabbit, disappeared along with Richie and only one was ever found, well. He had nothing to do with it, and the incident was soon forgotten, even if he had to be reminded to wash his shirtsleeves afterwards. At eighteen they left to try the world, and promptly entered a life of crime when more legitimate avenues didn't pan out the way they'd hoped. But they didn't mind; it was them against the world, and they were determined to take it by storm however they could. They travelled the country making their way from bank to bank, heists when they could and simple robberies and burglaries when they couldn't, and aside from a few trip-ups in their early days they miraculously managed to evade the law. Well. Until a bank job didn't go quite as well as they'd hoped and they were caught in the act. Richie got away, but Seth ended up with 25 years with parole after 8. It was devastating. Richie had never once been without his brother for more than a couple days, and the prospect of 25 years was unthinkable. But he managed the best he could. Under the stress of being left on his own the voices got worse, piped up more loudly, bragged, wheedled, badgered until he stopped being able to tell the difference, and suddenly the world was a much more hostile place. People recognized him even if they'd never seen him before in their lives, plotted calls to the authorities even if they didn't have access to a phone, propositioned and begged for things when they'd never opened their mouths in the first place. Two years into Seth's sentence and Richie found himself behind bars for armed robbery, and then again a year after he got out for sexual assault. He wasn't sure how or why since he was certain it hadn't been his idea and he couldn't for the life of him figure out why the woman had objected so vehemently, but the courts disagreed. He was out two years later anyway. He was a loose cannon desperately in need of guidance. Eight years in and Seth was up for parole. Richie showed up at the courthouse to break him out, shooting up the place with his usual disregard for safety, and the pair were on the run again. It didn't take long for Seth to realize they needed a goal, a place to head to where they could be in the free and clear, for good. The plan was simple. Seth knew a guy who would guarantee their anonymity in Mexico, in a little town called El Rey. All they needed was a score, and they'd give the guy 30%. No more, no less. It took a week to get from the courthouse in Abilene to a little podunk town in Texas near the border, leaving a trail of destruction and mangled bodies in their wake. Cops, US Marshals, civilians, whoever got in their way was eliminated with barely a thought. They took a hostage, a teller from the bank they robbed, and brought her along as leverage, with the promise that they'd let her go when they were in the clear. It might have turned out that way too, if Seth hadn't gone to scout the area, leaving Richie alone with her. It might even have turned out alright after that if Seth hadn't been gone so long, long enough to make Richie nervous. Jumpy. More inclined to indulge the flights of fancy because there wasn't anyone around to tell him where reality ended. But he did, and he was, and when he got back the woman was nothing but an empty shell surrounded by a Jackson Pollock masterpiece of blood and tissue and torn clothes, red smears marking where she'd tried desperately to avoid her fate. She wasn't the first lost this way along their trip, but much as with the previous ones (a blonde, late teens, in the first motel room, and a second, a redhead in her late 20's abandoned in the back alley of a club of already ill repute the day before the bank heist) Seth had thought the whole matter finished after the lecture. Richie, in typical fashion, fell back on his usual excuses, the ones that were safe and that he knew from experience were supposed to work. It wasn't his fault, it was never his fault - she'd tried to escape, he'd had to act or she would have gotten away, and if it didn't explain her state of undress or the degree of thoroughness...well Seth had to believe him. He had to. There wasn't any other alternative, he'd seen what he'd seen. Seth forgave him, as he always inevitably did; his one weak point had always been his brother, and Richie saw fit to exploit the fact as often as necessary. The body was disposed of and a new plan was hatched; they needed transportation, a new hostage who could drive them across the border and into freedom. Or, as it turned out, a family of hostages in an RV. The trip into Mexico went off without a hitch. It got a little hairy in places, but the Fullers did their part, held up their half of the bargain, and before long they were headed towards the Titty Twister, a bar chosen at random, happenstance that in a million other chances would have ended well enough - maybe a hangover the next morning, maybe another dead girl in a bathroom (or a car, or by the back door) but at least with a chunk of cash and minimal notice by the law - in their case ended in blood and limbs and horrors the likes of which they'd never seen before. Because this bar, the bar selected completely at random for the isolation and hours, this bar was a vampire nest in disguise, hidden behind mostly naked women and leather and alcohol. Another chance circumstance, a gunshot wound to the hand inexpertly bandaged with duct tape, and an altercation with the bar's security, ended in Richie on the floor, bleeding out through a pair of holes in his neck, a pair of holes put there by one of the dancers in her...enthusiasm for his condition. Despite Seth's efforts, despite his pleas and denials, Richie died, cursing the vampire's name with his last breath. And then he woke up on the Barge. YOUR RICHIE AND YOU: A WARDEN'S GUIDE IT'S THE RUSH THAT YOU GET WHEN YOU KNOW YOU'VE DONE WRONG Richie is a very institutionalized individual, mostly because it's the only way he's managed to last this long without being locked up all the time. Despite his taste for chaos, he operates best with constants, regimens, routines, things that are predictable and regular, and anything that disrupts them tends to make him anxious, which most commonly results in spilled blood. It's only when he's allowed to come up with his own schedule that he acts out; as long as there's someone to keep him in line, someone strict enough and dominating enough for him to be willing to listen to, he'll behave himself. Which of course will make it difficult to tell if he's actually being rehabilitated or is only toeing the line to avoid the consequences; he's gotten quite adept at playing the innocent victim or harmless geek, at making excuses for his behavior and sticking to them even if they sound absurd, and at manipulating his brother in order to escape blame - it's not unusual for him to play the "they attacked me first" or the "they broke your rules" card after the fact to explain away some of the less savory things he does. It doesn't always work, of course, but it's his go-to excuse. He's entirely content to do what he's told provided he's got enough respect for the one laying down the ground rules though, and as long as he's not left to his own devices enough to get into trouble he usually won't make waves. The path to redemption is going to be a long and winding one either way, precisely BECAUSE he's able to, for short periods of time, act well-adjusted and contrite. There are going to be spectacular lapses along the way because you're dealing with someone who truly doesn't understand the difference between right and wrong and has so far equated it to cause and effect more than anything else; do bad things and you get yelled at...but only if the one doing the yelling finds out. Any warden who takes on Richie as a pet project is going to have a rough road ahead of him or her. He's going to be resistant at first because he won't think there's anything wrong; his brother's put up with his bullshit for 28 years, indulged him, unwittingly enabled him, put up with his strangeness and generally made his behavior acceptable. And even after he gets to the point where he starts willfully behaving consistently, it won't be for the right reasons, at least not at first, it will only be to avoid punishment. There are years of bad habits and ways of thinking that need to be broken for him to change his ways for the better and for self-improvement, and it won't be an easy job. However, his brother is the most likely point to lean on to make any real headway, the only constant in his life that he's ever remotely displayed remorse for or to. His brother has kept him out of major trouble for most of his life, and while his tactics maybe haven't been the most textbook friendly, they have nevertheless been effective. Richie has a steadfast loyalty to Seth, would do anything for him, and so the strongest point to work towards long-term redemption would most likely be through him. Seth raised him for the most part, sacrificed any hope at having a normal, well-adjusted life with a wife, a house, and two-point-five kids to keep him fed, clothed, and out of trouble. Seth is mother, father, nursemaid, teacher, just about any role you could think of that you would need to raise a kid, he filled. And to a lesser degree is still filling; the only time Richie ever actually wound up in jail was after Seth was incarcerated himself, barely two years into the sentence. It was hardly his first offence, but it was the first one that actually had enough evidence to go to trial and was bad enough to need to. Seth has never pointed out exactly how crucial he is to his brother's continued safety and freedom, never tried to use exactly how big a drain he is on Seth's own life against him, but it's still a crucial fact, and one which would likely bother Richie a great deal if he were made aware of it. ROUTE TO REDEMPTION - THINGS TO "FIX" - First and foremost, IMPULSE CONTROL. This is the key to everything else; once he's got the urge to punish every little imagined infraction or indulge every hallucinatory fantasy under control, the rest can fall into place, but as long as this one remains uncurbed he won't really make any lasting progress since it's his guiding motivation for most things. I'm not saying this one WILL be the first thing solved; in all honesty it's probably going to be the most constant set-back just by virtue of the fact that it revolves around recognizing that "reality" isn't always real. It is, however, the key to making sure everything else actually sticks. The most likely way to accomplish this, of course, is through some kind of medication. Since the source of the problem is delusions and hallucinations, eliminate them from the equation and the road's halfway paved already. The trick, of course, will be in ensuring he continues to take it - and there are GOING to be slips and battles over it - but there's ways to accomplish that (see above for motivational tl;dr). - Independent thought/self-reliance. Richie, for all his enterprising horrors, is a Beta at heart. He wants to please, wants to be liked by those he puts in the alpha position; he's never known anything else, has always been under Seth's thumb and while he bitches and moans about how Seth's always the one in charge and he never gets to make any of the calls, it's mostly lip-service. All bark, no bite; he trusts that Seth knows what's best just because it's Seth and he always has, he doesn't do well on his own. It's easy enough to say you could do things better if there's no chance of you ever ending up in that position. If he's going to redeem himself he needs to start thinking of himself as his own person and learn how to stand on his own two feet and operate in the world without constant supervision. - MORALS ARE GOOD. As mentioned above, Richie's concept of good/evil is a little sketchy at best. He operates on the principles of self-gratification and self-interest, and consequently that whole..."correct behavior" thing got scrapped along the way. He doesn't really understand why some behaviors are good and others aren't, he just acts according to what he feels like and doesn't give it much second thought. He "behaves" because doing otherwise results in unpleasant conversations and uncomfortableness, not because it's the right thing to do, so as a result he doesn't really know why things like, say...stabbing someone thirty times because he thought they were trying to escape or shooting a trooper and a clerk and burning the place down after going in for a road map isn't appropriate. Behaving like a well-adjusted person is all well and good, but it's not much use when you're not sure of the reasoning behind it. Ways to get in his Good Graces - Believe him. Or at least, claim to believe him, reassure that you're on the same side. Richie's weakest point is that he craves acceptance and being right. Going along with him on the little things that don't matter, or on the big ones long enough to get him to calm down is pretty much always a safe bet. - Don't treat him like a child. Even when he acts like one. ...Yes, I realize this will be occasionally unavoidable. I'm just saying. - Be female Ways to gain compliance/good behavior - Give him something to do. As long as he's got a goal or something to occupy him, he won't go looking for other things to do or try to start something. - Confrontation (as long as he accepts that you rate higher than him); get in his face, lecture him about what he's doing wrong, use violence if necessary. He operates on pack mentality half the time, so throw your weight around and prove you're the alpha and he'll roll over and listen. For a little while, anyway; it's how Seth's managed him for the most part, so it's pretty effective at keeping him in line (in the moment anyway), although it's not so much useful for actual growth. Once this kind of dynamic is established, however, he'll do pretty much whatever the alpha says with only the occasional whining about it. - Bargaining always works; "I'll give you/let you do x if you do y". Just like above, he operates much better when there's something he's actually working towards. He may need to be reminded a few times to keep him on track, but he'll keep himself to himself for the most part as long as he's actively working towards it. Ways to end up on his Shit List - While locking him in the brig may sound like a wonderful idea when he's at his worst, it won't do much good at teaching him to behave himself. All the worst things he's done have happened as a direct result of him being left to his own devices. Yes, he hates being by himself, so in shorter doses it's helpful (yes, he gets separation anxiety like WHOA, it's kind of amusing), but locking him in there for hours or days is only going to get him pissed and concocting paranoid schemes and more likely to act out when he's released. Probably on whatever Warden put him there, if not the reason for him getting locked in there in the first place. - Pointing out his crazy. He's kind of ultra-sensitive about it. Which will make the whole "YOU NEED TO BE ON DRUGS" discussion problematic, but I never said it would be an easy process. - Anything that might even remotely imply some kind of threat. He hates narcs (even perceived ones) and all other threats to himself or his freedoms (again, both real and imagined), and consequently doesn't take well to them. At all.

RICHIE hole up kid, there's a storm comin' down FULL NAME: Richard Gecko ALIAS: none NICKNAMES: Richie CURRENT AGE: 28 DATE OF BIRTH: 6/12/83 PLACE OF BIRTH: Edgerton, KS MARITAL STATUS: single SEXUALITY: straight OCCUPATION: career criminal LAST KNOWN RESIDENCE: Abilene, KS (semi-permanent) CURRENT RESIDENCE: the Barge; floor 7, room 9 PARENTS: Unknown SIBLINGS: Seth Gecko (brother) BARGE RELATIONSHIPS: TBD CANON POINT: Post death from exsanguination (courtesy of Satanico Pandemonium), but pre-Rising. Consequently he is COMPLETELY and totally human still, with a more than passing grudge against the whole vampire contingent. DESIGNATION: Inmate WARDEN: grahamcommawill GAME: lastvoyages Abilities/Powers: He's garden-variety human, his "abilities" are more along the lines of weapons-related rather than Super Special Super Powers. Although he does have an absurdly acute ability to take offense to non-issues. If that counts. More specifically (and seriously). He's capable with pretty much any firearm (in an "aim and pull the trigger" type of way - he's most familiar with handguns, but everything else he can muddle through alright), but he's more than happy to fall back on knives if guns aren't an option. Or if he's feeling particularly homicidal and personal. Basically it's in his Warden's (and everyone else's) best interests to check regularly to make sure he's not carrying because chances are he'll find something somewhere - he doesn't like being unarmed. He's not exactly a gym rat, but what he doesn't have in physical strength he more than makes up for in persistence and determination; it's not in his vocabulary to quit, so once he's entered into an altercation he will keep at it until he either wins or is incapacitated beyond the ability to fight back. And even then he'll still try, he'll just...fail. He has a hair-trigger which puts him at continuous odds with the world, since he's determined to get everyone else before they get him, so he's more of an "inadvertent" instigator than a reactionary. 'Verse Nuts 'N Bolts: • Product Placement: Red Apple cigarettes, G.O. Juice, Big Kahuna Burger (replace Marlboro, Minute Maid, and Burger King respectively). Throw-back cereals (Fruit Brute, Yummy Mummy, Boo Berry, and the like) are much more wide-spread, beating out the "newer" things we're familiar with like Kix, Pops, Apple Jacks, and Cookie Crisp. • Verse Compliance (within Tarantino-verse): Compliant with the Movie-Movie 'Verse (Desperado and Once Upon A Time In Mexico - they come afterwards, Natural Born Killers - occurs in the one week between the breakout and where the action picks up in FDTD, and the Kill Bill duo - come before). Not (directly) compliant with the Realer Than the Real World 'Verse (includes Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, True Romance, Death Proof, Inglourious Basterds, and Four Rooms) or the Elmore Leonard 'verse (Jackie Brown). • Important AU Deviations: Hitler was killed in 1944 during Operation Kino when the theater was blown up during the premiere of "Nation's Pride". Lee Donowitz, a film producer, is the son of Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz, one of the Basterds under Lt. Aldo Raine who was directly responsible for Hitler's death prior to the building blowing up. The world under this change is much more centered on the importance of popular culture and more desensitized to violence. RANDOM FACTS • Grinds his teeth when he's bored or nervous. Mostly when he's bored. • Isn't entirely remorseless; he does genuinely feel bad when he does things that clearly disgust Seth (it just doesn't tend to last very long, and he doesn't feel bad enough about it to actually stop) - he wouldn't try to cover it up afterwards if he didn't. • He knows there's something deeply, inherently, WRONG with him, and not just because Seth points it out with some frequency. He just can't figure out how to fix it and he's mostly forgotten what it's like to NOT be the way he is. • Has a HUGE preoccupation with feet. ...Yeeeeah. ✖ ✖ ✖ OOC NAME: KaOS AIM: orderfromka0s EMAIL: promotedtocondiments@gmail.com PB: Quentin Tarantino AVAILABILITY: try AIM first, if I'm not there shoot me an email; I try to be fairly easily reachable. CREDITS: layout to ~embodimentof at InsaneJournal, lyrics are from "One More Notch" by Murder By Death, quote at the top is from From Dusk 'Till Dawn