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PLAYER INFORMATION
NAME: Ronen
AGE: 32
CONTACT: Email: rorodiculous@gmail.com, or journal PM
CHARACTERS PLAYED: Proinsias Cassidy, Preacher
RESERVED? No
CHARACTER INFORMATION
NAME: Eliot Waugh
CANON: The Magicians
CANON POINT: mid-s2e13, We Have Brought You Little Cakes
AGE: Mid-late twenties
HISTORY: (All the wikis that exist are kind of balls, so here's a written history. This is largely tv-show canon, with some book canon mixed in where it does not contradict the show.)
Eliot was born in approximately the Middle of Nowhere, Indiana to a family of farmers. He knew that he was queer before he knew there was even a word for it, and he learned the word right around the same time as he learned the word 'faggot' and what it was like to be stuffed inside a locker. Being unable to properly defend himself physically, Eliot put up what defenses he could: escaping reality through various forms of media (including Christopher Plover's 'Fillory and Further' book series), slowly forging his facade of disaffected, lofty elitism, charging with full academic speed toward the day he could leave Indiana in the rear-view.
His magical talents also began manifesting before he received his invitation to Brakebills Academy, albeit in subtle ways. In his teens, he managed to telekinetically ram a bus into a boy who'd been bullying him, resulting in the boy's death. After Eliot realized that he'd been responsible for what happened, he started to develop his magical abilities in secret.
In his mid-twenties, he received a unique invitation. The invitation's form is different for all who are summoned, but the heart of it is the same: Eliot had been selected to take the entrance exam at Brakebills, an institution of higher education in upstate New York that was kept completely secret and hidden from the outside world, because the curriculum was magic. If Eliot had failed the entrance exam, he would have been sent home, his memory wiped of the experience... but he passed, and accepted his acceptance with no hesitation.
As he moved from under- to upperclassman, Eliot collected himself a rotating harem of sexual partners from among Brakebills' small student body. He also got himself some actual friends, a process which was part chemistry and part design. They were known as the Physical Kids, after the fact that all their specialized magical Disciplines had something to do with manipulating physical elements.
The episode guide ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magicians_(U.S._TV_series)#Episodes ) gives a good overall summary of events covered in the show through season 1. Eliot is shown to be in a very close platonic relationship with Margo, a fellow student in his year. His most significant personal plotline is his relationship with Mike, a Brakebills alumnus who turns out to be under the influence of the big bad (known only to our heroes as "The Beast"). When Mike, under the Beast's control, kills one person and threatens another, it is Eliot who comes across the scene first — and who subsequently strikes Mike down. The grief and guilt, in conflict with knowing he did what had to be done, sends Eliot into a downward spiral of depression and passive suicidality. His substance abuse amps up to dangerous levels, and at the end of the season, when the Physical Kids head to Fillory, Eliot goes with the assumption that he won't be coming back alive. Instead, through the divine dictates of Fillory's god, he finds himself being proclaimed High King. This disrupts, or at least delays, Eliot's death wish: it's a chance to put his energies toward something outside himself, something bigger.
For Eliot, season 2 focuses on the challenges of taking the reins on a dying world that doesn't want to be fixed. The source of Fillory's magic is in peril, and some natives are actively resistant to rule by the "children of Earth," despite what their god has decreed. On top of that, there are magical curses and foreign rivals to deal with, and the fact that he's been married off to Fen, a Fillorian woman, and magically forbidden from having sex with anyone else. Fen may be kind and intelligent, but she isn't quite the person Eliot would have chosen to spend his life with, and they have both struggled to deal with that reality.
PAST GAME MEMORIES: n/a
PERSONALITY: Most people meeting Eliot for the first time will be faced with an extraordinarily thick outer shell of Gives No Fucks. He carries himself with a general loftiness, as though he's operating on a level higher than other people. This persona is deliberate, carefully crafted as a way for Eliot to cut as many ties as possible with his life before Brakebills, and to keep himself generally distant and aloof. In fact, there is much of Eliot that is about appearances: luxury, ceremony, etiquette. He likes having rules about things, particularly himself and the way he acts. It's a way of claiming a sense of control in his life, and a sense of ownership over himself.
As much as he pokes fun at people like Quentin and Alice for being 'nerds,' there's more than enough evidence to suggest that Eliot isn't as un-nerdy as he'd like others to think. He knows enough about Harry Potter to make an 'Avada Kedavra' joke, for one example, and just before the gang goes to Fillory, he reveals that he remembers more about Plover's books than he's been letting on. There was a time Eliot would have liked to forget all about this part of himself — after all, his phase of escapism into fantasy worlds was wrapped up in his desire to get the hell out of Indiana. After spending several months in Fillory, growing into his responsibilities as king and becoming more secure in himself as a whole person, he's started to loosen up and let the nerd in him come out more often.
Through his relationship with Margo, we get to see how Eliot is with someone he considers a true friend. Behind his mask, Eliot is capable of caring deeply and expressing unwavering support: after all of them experience a harrowing vision of the potential future, Eliot's first instinct is to turn to Margo, bring her back down to Earth, and tell her how fabulous she is. He's also quite perceptive: his extensive experience with his own bullshit has given him a keen ability to sniff it out in others, as well as a sense of what's going on beneath someone's surface.
Often, Eliot will still act within the bounds of his persona with Margo, but there's the sense that it's fully understood for the facade it is. Both of them have a certain face that they prefer to present to the world. They make allowances so that they can both be that preferred self to each other.
In addition to being magically talented, Eliot has always been intelligent and fast on his metaphorical feet. He picks up on concepts and adjusts to new situations quickly. It isn't easy to make him look stupid or ill-prepared because even when he comes across something he doesn't understand, he either asks questions or decides it isn't worth his time. It's a side-effect of his conceit never to let himself look stupid.
That being said, he doesn't tend to seek out knowledge when there isn't a pressing reason to. Eliot has a trait commonly found in people who are both brilliant and lazy: he never had to work at being smart, so he doesn't. And Eliot is lazy. Given the opportunity, given nothing to pursue or learn (nothing he deems worthy, anyway), he could be perfectly content to lounge around day in and day out, doing little else but drinking and cavorting with his latest conquest. Being tasked with solving all of Fillory's problems has given him more of a general work ethic, and some resistance to falling back into old patterns, but it wasn't that long ago he was stuck in a self-destructive spiral. Those tendencies are still there under the surface.
POWERS/ABILITIES: Eliot was born with a talent for magic the way some people are born with a talent for music or math - he just gets it. While in the world of 'The Magicians' most people have to go through hours of back-breaking tedious study in order to learn any one spell, Eliot can pick them up in a fraction of the time. He may not be the most powerful, and he's not as good as he could be if he felt inclined to apply himself, but he's got aptitude on his side.
Magic in Eliot's world can do almost anything with few exceptions, but there are consequences for misuse. Spells can go wrong or get out of control, either because the magician isn't powerful or practiced enough or because the spell wasn't written properly. Using strong magic in a heightened emotional state is advised against, as it can lead to the user turning into a being of pure energy (and then dying).
It's also worth noting that Battle Magic (that is, spells which are made to be used in combat) takes an especially high level of focus. Eliot in particular has only been able to use it under two circumstances: first when confronting Mike (which would qualify as, as another character put it, a "baby-under-a-car" scenario), and again while under the influence of a spell that removed his emotions (thus allowing him to focus more easily).
SAMPLES:
TDM thread - Damon
Flirting in the middle of a war
ANYTHING ELSE? NOPE.
NAME: Ronen
AGE: 32
CONTACT: Email: rorodiculous@gmail.com, or journal PM
CHARACTERS PLAYED: Proinsias Cassidy, Preacher
RESERVED? No
CHARACTER INFORMATION
NAME: Eliot Waugh
CANON: The Magicians
CANON POINT: mid-s2e13, We Have Brought You Little Cakes
AGE: Mid-late twenties
HISTORY: (All the wikis that exist are kind of balls, so here's a written history. This is largely tv-show canon, with some book canon mixed in where it does not contradict the show.)
Eliot was born in approximately the Middle of Nowhere, Indiana to a family of farmers. He knew that he was queer before he knew there was even a word for it, and he learned the word right around the same time as he learned the word 'faggot' and what it was like to be stuffed inside a locker. Being unable to properly defend himself physically, Eliot put up what defenses he could: escaping reality through various forms of media (including Christopher Plover's 'Fillory and Further' book series), slowly forging his facade of disaffected, lofty elitism, charging with full academic speed toward the day he could leave Indiana in the rear-view.
His magical talents also began manifesting before he received his invitation to Brakebills Academy, albeit in subtle ways. In his teens, he managed to telekinetically ram a bus into a boy who'd been bullying him, resulting in the boy's death. After Eliot realized that he'd been responsible for what happened, he started to develop his magical abilities in secret.
In his mid-twenties, he received a unique invitation. The invitation's form is different for all who are summoned, but the heart of it is the same: Eliot had been selected to take the entrance exam at Brakebills, an institution of higher education in upstate New York that was kept completely secret and hidden from the outside world, because the curriculum was magic. If Eliot had failed the entrance exam, he would have been sent home, his memory wiped of the experience... but he passed, and accepted his acceptance with no hesitation.
As he moved from under- to upperclassman, Eliot collected himself a rotating harem of sexual partners from among Brakebills' small student body. He also got himself some actual friends, a process which was part chemistry and part design. They were known as the Physical Kids, after the fact that all their specialized magical Disciplines had something to do with manipulating physical elements.
The episode guide ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magicians_(U.S._TV_series)#Episodes ) gives a good overall summary of events covered in the show through season 1. Eliot is shown to be in a very close platonic relationship with Margo, a fellow student in his year. His most significant personal plotline is his relationship with Mike, a Brakebills alumnus who turns out to be under the influence of the big bad (known only to our heroes as "The Beast"). When Mike, under the Beast's control, kills one person and threatens another, it is Eliot who comes across the scene first — and who subsequently strikes Mike down. The grief and guilt, in conflict with knowing he did what had to be done, sends Eliot into a downward spiral of depression and passive suicidality. His substance abuse amps up to dangerous levels, and at the end of the season, when the Physical Kids head to Fillory, Eliot goes with the assumption that he won't be coming back alive. Instead, through the divine dictates of Fillory's god, he finds himself being proclaimed High King. This disrupts, or at least delays, Eliot's death wish: it's a chance to put his energies toward something outside himself, something bigger.
For Eliot, season 2 focuses on the challenges of taking the reins on a dying world that doesn't want to be fixed. The source of Fillory's magic is in peril, and some natives are actively resistant to rule by the "children of Earth," despite what their god has decreed. On top of that, there are magical curses and foreign rivals to deal with, and the fact that he's been married off to Fen, a Fillorian woman, and magically forbidden from having sex with anyone else. Fen may be kind and intelligent, but she isn't quite the person Eliot would have chosen to spend his life with, and they have both struggled to deal with that reality.
PAST GAME MEMORIES: n/a
PERSONALITY: Most people meeting Eliot for the first time will be faced with an extraordinarily thick outer shell of Gives No Fucks. He carries himself with a general loftiness, as though he's operating on a level higher than other people. This persona is deliberate, carefully crafted as a way for Eliot to cut as many ties as possible with his life before Brakebills, and to keep himself generally distant and aloof. In fact, there is much of Eliot that is about appearances: luxury, ceremony, etiquette. He likes having rules about things, particularly himself and the way he acts. It's a way of claiming a sense of control in his life, and a sense of ownership over himself.
As much as he pokes fun at people like Quentin and Alice for being 'nerds,' there's more than enough evidence to suggest that Eliot isn't as un-nerdy as he'd like others to think. He knows enough about Harry Potter to make an 'Avada Kedavra' joke, for one example, and just before the gang goes to Fillory, he reveals that he remembers more about Plover's books than he's been letting on. There was a time Eliot would have liked to forget all about this part of himself — after all, his phase of escapism into fantasy worlds was wrapped up in his desire to get the hell out of Indiana. After spending several months in Fillory, growing into his responsibilities as king and becoming more secure in himself as a whole person, he's started to loosen up and let the nerd in him come out more often.
Through his relationship with Margo, we get to see how Eliot is with someone he considers a true friend. Behind his mask, Eliot is capable of caring deeply and expressing unwavering support: after all of them experience a harrowing vision of the potential future, Eliot's first instinct is to turn to Margo, bring her back down to Earth, and tell her how fabulous she is. He's also quite perceptive: his extensive experience with his own bullshit has given him a keen ability to sniff it out in others, as well as a sense of what's going on beneath someone's surface.
Often, Eliot will still act within the bounds of his persona with Margo, but there's the sense that it's fully understood for the facade it is. Both of them have a certain face that they prefer to present to the world. They make allowances so that they can both be that preferred self to each other.
In addition to being magically talented, Eliot has always been intelligent and fast on his metaphorical feet. He picks up on concepts and adjusts to new situations quickly. It isn't easy to make him look stupid or ill-prepared because even when he comes across something he doesn't understand, he either asks questions or decides it isn't worth his time. It's a side-effect of his conceit never to let himself look stupid.
That being said, he doesn't tend to seek out knowledge when there isn't a pressing reason to. Eliot has a trait commonly found in people who are both brilliant and lazy: he never had to work at being smart, so he doesn't. And Eliot is lazy. Given the opportunity, given nothing to pursue or learn (nothing he deems worthy, anyway), he could be perfectly content to lounge around day in and day out, doing little else but drinking and cavorting with his latest conquest. Being tasked with solving all of Fillory's problems has given him more of a general work ethic, and some resistance to falling back into old patterns, but it wasn't that long ago he was stuck in a self-destructive spiral. Those tendencies are still there under the surface.
POWERS/ABILITIES: Eliot was born with a talent for magic the way some people are born with a talent for music or math - he just gets it. While in the world of 'The Magicians' most people have to go through hours of back-breaking tedious study in order to learn any one spell, Eliot can pick them up in a fraction of the time. He may not be the most powerful, and he's not as good as he could be if he felt inclined to apply himself, but he's got aptitude on his side.
Magic in Eliot's world can do almost anything with few exceptions, but there are consequences for misuse. Spells can go wrong or get out of control, either because the magician isn't powerful or practiced enough or because the spell wasn't written properly. Using strong magic in a heightened emotional state is advised against, as it can lead to the user turning into a being of pure energy (and then dying).
It's also worth noting that Battle Magic (that is, spells which are made to be used in combat) takes an especially high level of focus. Eliot in particular has only been able to use it under two circumstances: first when confronting Mike (which would qualify as, as another character put it, a "baby-under-a-car" scenario), and again while under the influence of a spell that removed his emotions (thus allowing him to focus more easily).
SAMPLES:
TDM thread - Damon
Flirting in the middle of a war
ANYTHING ELSE? NOPE.
