moralabsolutism | Folkmore App

★ Character Information ★

Character Name: Walter Kovacs "Rorschach"
Character Age: 45
Character Species: Human
Current Health: Some healing bruises and scrapes but otherwise in perfect health.
Outfit: A white undershirt, a white suit shirt, a pinstriped suit top and bottom, a leather trench coat, a fedora, and his black and white mask. (He's got layering skillz, yo.)

Character Canon:
Link to History: Rorschach on Wikipedia and his page on the Watchmen Wiki.
Canon Point: When he and Nite Owl fly to the Antarctic.
Canon Iteration: Original canon
Canon Iteration Explanation: N/A

★ Folkmore Roles & Attributes ★

Skills: - Excels in boxing, gymnastics, and judo, enough he was able to take on far too many cops and still beat the crap out of a number of them.
- Very observant, uses detective skills as often as he uses his fists, and is able to read people with surprising accuracy despite his own lack of personal social skills.
- Very good at improvising weapons. When push comes to shove, he'll start looking around for the nearest thing he can use to subdue someone with.
- Surprisingly tough for a normal man. He managed to walk through the freezing cold of the Antarctic in only the outfit described above.
Canon Abilities: None, he's a normal human being.
Role: Legend
Role Qualities/Attributes: He'll have the black and white wings of a black-and-white hawk-eagle. In addition, his feet will be able to morph into the yellow gripping talons of a bird of prey and back to more normal looking ones at will.
Role Reasoning: Despite Rorschach being a brutal and unforgiving vigilante who isn't quite sane any longer, he does at least try to be a good person. Granted, his definition of "good" tends to be a whole lot different than most people's but he sees the world as made up of innocent victims and evil that preys upon them, his rigid black-and-white thinking not allowing for any grey in his world. He's determined to try and save as many people from evil as he can. At first in Folkmore, he's going to see the categories as just further reflecting the hard, uncompromising black-and-white way he sees the world. But people aren't made up of just stark good and bad parts, so the more CR he gets and (is forced to) interact with people, it will help to challenge these notions.

★ Personality ★

Option 2.

OPTION 2 QUESTIONS (PICK 4-5) 100-300 WORD LIMIT EACH:

The below answers will contain the following CWs: brutal death of a child, human body dismembered, animals eating human remains, gory animal death, gory human death, child abuse both mental and physical, and mentions of sex work.

What was the most traumatic experience your character endured? How did this change them?

By far the most traumatic experience of Rorschach's life was the Blair Roche case. A young six year old girl was kidnapped by a man who mistakenly thought her family was wealthy. Rorschach took on the case for "personal reasons" and promised to return her home safe and sound. What he found instead when he tracked her down was a horrific scene. The man had murdered her, hacked her into bits, and fed her to his German Shepherds. While he'd always teetered on the edge of a full-blown psychotic breakdown, this was what finally set him over the edge. Whatever was left of Walter Kovacs, the man who still had humanity in his heart, died that night with the little girl. What was left was Rorschach, the vigilante who saw things only in black and white, no longer human but more of a symbol left in what he saw as a godforsaken world. When the kidnapper returned, Rorschach killed for the first time, hacking into his skull with the same cleaver he'd used to kill Blair with even after the man confessed and begged to be arrested. As he put it, "Men get arrested. Dogs get put down."

What is the most important and defining relationship(s) in your character's life and why?

The most defining relationship of Rorschach's life is definitely with his partner Dan Dreiberg, the second Nite Owl. They met shortly after they had both begun crime-fighting, and despite his usual social awkwardness, somehow he managed to get along with Dan quite well. He has a very big soft spot for Nite Owl. He's the first one he warns when he suspects there's someone killing costumed vigilantes. This is also evident when Dan finally has enough of Rorschach being an asshole and snaps at him. Anyone else would lose a few teeth for that or at the very least have Rorschach walk out on them for good, but Walter actually apologizes to him, says he's been a good friend, and even initiates physical contact for once as he shakes Dan's hand. He also is very concerned at times for Dan's well-being. When Dan completely loses it in a bar after the first Nite Owl and his mentor is killed, he begins beating a suspect literally to death. Rorschach, of all people, knows he's going too far and pulls him off, dragging him out before Dan does something they both know he'll regret.

Rorschach tends to be prickly even with Dan after knowing each other for so long but part of it is implied to be disappointment at seeing Dan fall so short of his potential, just becoming "a flabby failure" who sits in his basement when Rorschach knows he could be doing so much good in the world. He has a level of trust for his partner that few can ever access and it's reciprocated. Despite knowing Rorschach is a few sandwiches short of a picnic basket, Dan also knows he's not nearly as crazy as people think, and knows Rorschach often sees things others don't.

What is your character's moral code? Do they have one? Why or why not?

Rorschach, much like the mask he wears, thinks completely in black-and-white. There is good and evil. Good people and the bad ones who prey upon them. Innocents and guilty parties. This is a unbelievable and oftentimes unsustainable mindset for him but still he persists in trying to see the world this way. Still, personal bias oftentimes creeps into his thinking. Ironically, Rorschach himself doesn't fit his code very well at all. He's full of paradoxes and contradictions, in shades of grey despite his desire to see a world made of black and white. In that world of his, were it to actually exist, there would be no room for him at all. Even with his rigid thinking, there's room for unconscious bias. He's only human after all, despite his desires to be otherwise. The closer someone is to him, the more he's likely to make exceptions or excuses for their behavior. He may think of them as immoral or partially corrupt but he won't completely write them off despite their values or morals not completely aligning with his.

If your character could change one thing about their past, what would it be and why? Or why not?

If Rorschach could change one thing about his life, it would be who he was born to. Sylvia Kovacs was a prostitute and Mother of the Year she was not. She'd do things like have sex in front of her son, who innocently asked if her client was hurting her, and then slapped him when the man left without even paying her in disgust. She sneered at him she should have gotten an abortion instead of giving birth to him. It is implied this is the very least of what the woman did to Walter, cold and unloving, seeing her son as little more than an inconvenient nuisance. To say this childhood fucked up Rorschach immensely is an understatement. While Social Services did eventually get involved and removed him when he was ten years old, the damage was already done. When he was sixteen and found out his mother was dead, killed by her pimp who forced her to ingest cleaning fluid, he coldly said only one word: "Good." While he'll never admit it out loud, he knows if an actual caring mother had raised him instead of Sylvia, he would have turned out far differently.

What famous folklore, legend, or myth would you associate your character with? Are they literally inspired by Snow White? Do they have similar struggles or energy as Red Riding Hood?

Bearskin. The story tells of a former soldier who is poor. The Devil offers to make him rich beyond his wildest dreams if he'll live for seven years while fulfilling various conditions, including not bathing, cutting his hair, wear the skin of a bear, etc. If he fails, the Devil gets his soul. While almost everyone is repulsed by him, eventually one girl agrees to marry him after he helps out her father and his other two daughters turn him down, thinking him to be like some wild beast. When the seven years are up, he's able get clean, now looks very attractive, and is very wealthy to boot. His wife doesn't recognize him, and when he reveals who he is, her two sisters kill themselves out of shame, realizing they could have been rich beyond their wildest dreams had they not turned him down. The Devil gloats as he collects their souls, saying he got two for the price of the soldier's one.

Much like in the tale, people who meet Rorschach tend to initially be a bit repulsed by him or at the very least unnerved. It's to be expected. He's a strange man wearing a creepy mask, is obviously a lunatic of some sort, and generally looks (and smells like) he's probably homeless or one step away from it. But while he's not much to look at on the outside, Rorschach isn't all bad beneath the surface. He presents a tough front but it's often implied he does this because he has a lot of empathy for people. He sees the world and the suffering in it and it's too much to bear for him. So he develops a strong moral code and sticks to it. Otherwise, everything that goes on around him would have driven him to despair and hopelessness long ago. Much like the girl in the tale, those who see what lies under the surface will find there's a much more complex man that what he initially appears to be.

★ Player Information ★

Player Name: Shade
Pronouns: She/her
Are you over 18?: Yes
Contact(s):

Light_shade and Lightshade#4738 on Discord
Who Invited You?: Here!
Current Characters: N/A
Permissions: Here
Writing Samples: With Kyle and with Tony