Astaire Kingston

[Astaire Kingston]

Astaire Kingston

Full name: Astaire Robert Kingston, M.D.
Aliases: Frederick Alastair Mendelssohn, Frederick Fortier
Age: 37
Gender: Male
Race: Mutant
Alignment: Neutral
Birthplace: Cameron, Texas, USA
Current Location: New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
Occupation: Medical researcher
Celebrity Claim: Baker, Simon
Player's Cbox Name: Rayne7
Other Characters: Loki Laufeyson
Have You Read the Rules?: The Hulk giveth, and the Hulk smasheth away.

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Appearance:

At nearly six feet tall, Astaire has an imposing frame. His body is well-toned, as he keeps himself in shape. His skin has a natural tan to it, which could be considered odd for someone who spends much of his time working indoors. His face is kept clean-shaven, and his blond hair short. His face is composed of sharp lines, featuring blue eyes, a long and straight nose, and thin lips.

Most often, he can be seen wearing dress shirts and slacks, if not suits. Jeans are rare for him, as he only owns a few. He prefers to have a professional look whenever possible. These clothes are usually either light colors, such as white and khaki, or dark colors, like navy blue and black. There seems to be very little in-between for him.

Formerly, as Frederick, Astaire was a brunet and had a more slender body. He was shorter, at five foot nine, and occasionally grew out facial hair. However, he still had blue eyes, and his manner of dress was about the same as it is in the present.

Personality:

Determined and hard-working, Astaire is a difficult man to get to know. He appears to be very bland on the surface. Most of his acquaintances know him only as a workaholic. He spends little time being social, and when he does, he is quiet, preferring to listen and observe. He does have a sense of humor, but seldom laughs. When he does, though, his entire face lights up, finally showing a bit of personality. At all other times, even when he is sad, angry, or feeling any other emotion, his demeanor remains passive, perfectly unruffled.

What most others fail to realize is that "Astaire Kingston" is merely a façade, a mask created to shield his true self from the pain of living in this world. He has suffered deeply, and wishes not to do so again; therefore, he keeps others at two arms' lengths. The benefit of this is how difficult it becomes for anyone to hurt him, but it also prevents him from feeling more satisfying emotions, such as love. However, he has found - or so he tells himself - that the loss of those feelings is a cost well worth it.

In the past, the man now known as Astaire was unhappy, mean, and occasionally violent. After realizing how much damage he was doing to the people around him, he slowly forced himself into a cathartic state, for himself and for those he once cared about. He has become an expert at hiding his true feelings. Now he finds satisfaction in doing his job, and spends almost all of his time doing research of some sort. The work keeps his mind off the past and any present troubles he encounters.

Likes:

• Movie theatres- Astaire prefers the experience of seeing a movie at a theatre rather than watching it at home, even if they do charge too much for snacks.
  
• Sports and exercise- They are distracting, and when he is not working, there is nothing Astaire loves more than to be distracted.
  
• Gelato- A nice alternative to ice cream, he only recently discovered it while living in New Orleans.
  
• Music- Just about any music, as long as it is distracting and/or relaxing.
  
• Science- He has a general interest in all things scientific, even those that aren't directly related to his field, such as thermodynamics.
  

Dislikes:

• Coffee- It's too bitter for him.
  
• Alcoholic beverages- He avoids them because once he starts drinking, it's difficult for him to stop.
  
• Excessive spending- He prefers to save his money, rather than spending it on flashy cars and big houses.
  
• Romantic comedies- This is just about the only genre of movie Astaire does not enjoy.
  
• Traveling- While he used to enjoy seeing the world, he is now content with living out his days in any random place. He believes he's seen enough.
  

Strengths:

• Patient- He has developed far more patience over the years, and can now wait for as long a time as necessary if it means he's going to get what he wants.
  
• Empathic- He has also learned to understand others better.
  
• Ambitious- When faced with a task or goal, he will not stop until that task or goal is completed or met.
  
• Tolerant- Regardless of race, sexual preferences, disability, or religion, Astaire views everyone with exactly the same amount of disdain.
  
• Innovative- He can use any resources at his disposal to get out of - or into - different situations.
  

Weaknesses:

• Ruthless- Sometimes he takes his ambition too far, and innocent people get hurt.
  
• Unemotional- It is impossible to reach Astaire's emotions, as he has built up a nice thick wall around himself, keeping all others out.
  
• Stubborn- Astaire believes he knows what is best for himself, and will not listen to advice that contradicts his own.
  
• Aggressive- If he must, he will use blackmail, bribery, and violence to reach his goals.
  
• Capricious- At his worst, Astaire exercises no control over himself, and simply does whatever he deems is best at the moment, regardless of any plans he had made.
  

Skills:

• Intelligent- Astaire has a considerably high IQ, and is both "book smart" and "street smart," able to use both his learning and craftiness to help him.
  
• Fluency- Astaire is fluent in Japanese.
  
• Singing- The man can sing anything from opera to screamo.
  
• Self-defense- A former acquaintance taught him a bit of kickboxing and other random techniques. His self-defense skills are very unpolished, but they could get him out of trouble if necessary.
  

Flaws:

• Hypersomnia- Even when Astaire gets a full night's sleep, he still feels tired.
  
• Melancholic depression- He has been diagnosed with several different mental illnesses, the primary of which is major depressive disorder. In him, this disorder is cyclical, meaning he has good days and bad days.
  
• Fear of crowds- Astaire has a mild fear of crowded places, and prefers to avoid them.
  
• Addictive personality- He has a tendency to become addicted to things, and abused alcohol in the past.
  

Skills and Abilities:

Astaire's primary power gives him the ability to control and change objects and substances at the molecular level. This ability has a number of sub-uses, as detailed below.

Molecular Manipulation: Astaire can rearrange objects and turn them into something else by modifying the object's molecules. He can also create objects from thin air (by changing the air molecules). The ability is a psionic one, meaning he uses the power of thought to realize different effects. However, there are no energy abilities associated with this one. He cannot create energy blasts or the like. He can use his own energy to cause changes within molecules, but he cannot generate, control, or destroy energy.

When he changes objects, and especially when he creates them himself, he must be fully aware of the object's physical makeup. For example, he could not just decide to make a car; he would have to create the engine and the wheels and the valves and everything that makes a car work. The same goes for messing with living organisms.

Shapeshifting: Astaire is able to rearrange his own body to appear as someone or something else. He can change simple things like his eye and hair color, the shape of his body, and his skin tone. If he puts more thought into it, he can change himself fully into another animal. He cannot change his shape into that of an inanimate object, as he cannot survive without most of his organs.

He can also shift others into different shapes, the caveat being that he must be around to change them back. He must also be even more careful than when he shifts himself, as he needs to have an understanding of the layout of that person's body, in order not to mess it up. The same standards and limits go for shapeshifting other people as for shifting himself.

This ability is not something he can do on the fly. It takes concentration for him to even change his hair color. If he wanted to shapeshift into an animal, it would take him at least two minutes to prepare for, depending on the animal. Also, when he changes into a shape that is not humanoid, he loses his clothes, and must be careful of public decency laws when he shifts back.

Healing: He can heal himself and others by repairing damaged molecules. In the past, he has been able to undo damage done by an explosion that left all of his body burned. He cannot regrow limbs, but he can make himself a new limb and attach it, though this is dependent on the limb being compatible with the rest of his body. He cannot, however, grow a new head or heart. The loss of his heart would leave him comatose, and any damage done to his brain would fully kill him.

Phasing: This ability makes him able to speed up the molecules of his body to make them very temporarily intangible. When in this state, he can pass through walls. He also becomes less visible, but not invisible. Invisibility is not included as a facet of his abilities. He can use this to dodge attacks if he thinks fast enough.

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History:

The beginnings of Astaire Kingston stem from the beginnings of a child named Frederick Alastair Mendelssohn. Born to the unwed couple Jessica Mendelssohn and Alastair Fortier, Frederick was a small baby, a few weeks premature. He grew healthier, though, and was soon well enough to be brought home, though not for long. With Alastair refusing to be a father and Jessica distraught over her financial situation, she left the baby with her parents, expecting them to give Frederick a better life than she could.

Frederick was raised in Cameron, Texas, a relatively poor area. His grandparents took somewhat good care of him, though at times they were neglectful. His childhood was uneventful. He did well in school, not because he wanted to or because he was encouraged to, since he didn't and wasn't. Learning simply came naturally to him. As he grew older, he became more curious about the world, but that curiosity was slapped down by his grandparents, who did not want to have to take care of him beyond feeding and clothing him. There was no room in their busy, travel-based lives for raising a child that was not theirs. So they refused his questions, leaving him to study various subjects himself.

Bitter, Frederick transferred his frustrations to his learning environment. At school, he got into fights often, and was called a "bully" by many of his teachers and peers. Once, when Frederick was eleven, a boy in his class began to mock him over his glasses, and was resoundingly beaten for his trouble. Following this incident, his grandparents were investigated, and he was required to begin psychological evaluations. During these, it was decided that Frederick suffered from a number of mental illnesses, including depression.

As if to make things worse, Frederick began to have strange hallucinations where things he touched would begin to change shape. An apple in his hands might become soft and malleable one moment, but when he looked closer, it was perfectly normal. He made the mistake of telling his psychiatrist about this, and was quickly put on more medication.

That medication appeared to make his hallucinations worse. They lasted longer, and sometimes he could not get out of them - the object would stay the weird shape it had turned into. As time passed, he began to realize that he was controlling the hallucinations; then he realized they were not hallucinations at all. He could turn objects into whatever he wanted, could make them turn into air, could make them vanish and reappear.

He began to hone this new skill. This time, he said nothing about it to his shrinks. As far as he knew, he was the only person in the world who could do something so extraordinary. He began to think it had something to do with bad genes. This became a topic of extreme interest, one he tried to study, but could find no materials on. So he decided to study the only resource available to him: himself.

In high school, he managed to make friends with a couple of the science teachers, despite still having something of a bad name as a bully. Violent or not, he was still one of the school's top students. That earned him unrestricted access to the school's labs, which were woefully understocked. He did discover that it was not his hands that controlled the power, but his mind. He did not have to touch objects in order to reshape them.

He also studied the makeup of molecules and how it all tied into genetics. The question became, what if he could manipulate more than just apples and tennis balls? Standing in front of a mirror one day, he tried to change his own face. He ended up looking like a swamp creature, but he was able to manipulate his own body. It was a serious revelation for him. And he was able to reset his face to normal afterward.

College had never seemed like a feasible idea to Frederick, since he was poor and his mother and grandparents refused to help him. But with the help of those science teachers, and on the merit of his own intelligence, he was accepted to a nearby university and got to study in some top-notch labs. He decided to earn a degree in medicine, and he did exactly that. Thanks to his natural ability to learn without needing to study, he was able to graduate near the top of his class with very little effort. Most of his college career involved drinking, bedding women (and occasionally men), drinking, and getting into fights with frat boys. He also drank often.

His life did not change drastically when he was hired as an intern at a medical research facility by a man named Eugene Weissman, himself a world-renowned researcher. Weissman Research only hired the best, and Frederick's academic record, minus the conduct reports, illustrated him as such. Weissman and his team were researching extraordinary phenomena, such as rare diseases and unique conditions.

In time, he was hired as a full employee, and when he was thirty, he was sent to Japan to study the case of a young woman named Kimi Wakahisa. The girl suffered from a rare, as-yet unnamed condition that made her unable to move. It was thought that she might be suffering from a nerve disorder or somesuch, but there was nothing wrong with her body as far as anyone could tell.

Frederic treated Kimi for a number of ailments. Nothing helped. Several months passed with no results. Meanwhile, as Frederick took up residency in Japan, he met two women - Reiko Tanaka and Kaida Watanabe. The first was a coworker; the second, a lover. Frederick and Kaida had a brief, passionate fling, purely physical on his part, but not on hers.

A breakthrough occurred by chance one day as Frederick did a daily checkup on Kimi. The young woman appeared to be deeply asleep, and Frederick took her hand to wake her up. Through his ability, he could feel something unusual happening within her body, a building up of pressure. And something told him that this was a very bad thing.

He called for Reiko, and tried to explain the situation without mentioning his ability. It only made her confused. They were running out of time, as the pressure in Kimi's body began to build. With no other options, Frederick attempted to release the pressure by activating her body's molecules enough to give off some of the pent-up energy.

The resulting explosion leveled everything within a five-block radius.

When he came to, Frederick was underneath a pile of rubble, his body burnt and disfigured. Search-and-rescue had long since given up on finding any survivors. He managed to walk away, using his ability to slowly repair his body once he returned to his apartment. As he recovered, alone, he learned that not only was he presumed dead, but Kimi and Reiko were as well, as was Kaida, who had been within range of the explosion.

He could not go back to his former life. Moreover, he did not want to. He had made a grave error, one that had cost the lives of not only hundreds of people, but everyone who had meant anything to him. Returning to the United States, he slowly built a new identity, using the name Astaire Kingston. He worked as an individual researcher, establishing an office in New Orleans, where he dedicated his time to figuring out just what had happened in Japan.

Sample RP:

The office building stood tall, one of the tallest in New Orleans. Its walls were sheets of glass, giving its occupants a stunning view of the city below. At the end of each day, Eileen Greer always found him standing at one of those glass walls, though what he was looking at, she couldn't say.

"Dr. Kingston," she called softly as she entered the darkened room. Only the glow of the setting sun offered any light. He turned to face her briefly, though the shadows that fell around his face made any expression on it unreadable.

There was no expression on it, Eileen knew. There never was. Astaire Kingston was a cold, hard man, too much so for his age. If she had described his personality to anyone, he would have been taken for at least sixty years old; anyone looking at him would know him to have not yet reached forty.

She enjoyed working as his secretary. The work was interesting, and he had never been unkind to her. Getting to work for someone who was easy on the eyes was a plus as well. If only his demeanor was as pleasant. She'd heard him laugh exactly once in the five or six years she had been working for him. She didn't know what angels' songs sounded like, but his laugh, she figured, must be comparable.

"That's all for today, Miss Greer." He had turned back to the window, his hands tucked into his pants pockets. He could see her reflection in the glass. She was disappointed by him, she knew. She wanted a livelier, more exciting boss. Had they met before Japan, she would have gotten just that, though probably not in the way she wanted. But since the incident, he had found comfort in a certain level of catatonia.

Her lips formed a smile. "Then I'll see you in the morning," she said, a shot at cheerfulness. Astaire decided to humor her. Turning fully, he mirrored her smile, though with a little less cheer. He saw the surprise on her face become something flattering before she got a hold of herself. She recovered well, he thought. "Good night, Doctor."

"Good night." He waited for her to shut the door behind her before striding over to his desk and instinctively pulling open the largest of its drawers. Some habits truly died hard. There was nothing in it but some files, though the place where the bottle and glass had been remained empty. He had removed those items some time ago, in an effort to resist temptation. It had helped, as he'd been in control of his drinking for the past couple of years.

Sometimes, though, he regretted it, as he did now, as the shadows of his past played on the walls around him. An alcoholic stupor would not be such a bad thing. Of course, he wasn't at home yet. He had to drive, which was part of the reason for the absence of the bottle. But he also had nothing at home. He could stop at the liquor store and remedy that, but that would be defeating the purpose, wouldn't it?

He let his body sag into the desk chair, then closed his eyes. It was just another day, one that was ending. Another attempt at sleep would put it behind him. After a few minutes, he left the office and headed home. Tomorrow he would return and do it all over again. What did one evening mean to him?