➠ ryan's gulch application.

[misanthropes]

☞ Player Information;
Name: Charlie.
Player Journal: unresolved.
Age: 23.
Contact:

plurk: charlieeee
gmail / gtalk: at thephoenixwright@gmail.com / allheartsarebroken@gmail.com
pm: this account (misanthropes) or my main (unresolved)

Other characters currently played at Ryan's Gulch:

Sherlock Holmes (au) | BBC's Sherlock / amat | logicals
Arthur Dent | H2G2 | bathrobe

☞ Character Information;
Character Name: Bernard Ludwig Black.
Canon: Black Books.
OU or AU?: OU.
Canon point: Post the third and last episode of the series, 'Party'.

Setting:

Black Books is set in modern London and it's mostly based on reality - however, as it's a sitcom, some very strange things have been known to happen (such as Bernard keeping a line of wasps inside a pizza box and books literally flying through the air). There are various things living in the flat Bernard shares with Manny (such as something they literally call The Thing living underneath Bernard's bed that has a penchant for bananas, as well as various undiscovered creatures that have begun taking over the house, both of which are running jokes at the terrible state of their flat). All in all, it really is mostly our reality with a few strange little quirks thrown in for good measure.

History:

Here.

Personality:

The show itself revolves around the main three, Bernard, Fran and Manny. They're all incredibly co-dependant on one another, which they've proved time and time again through being utterly incapable of functioning in society or indeed on their own. Black Books is really about how all of them fail repeatedly as they attempt to make their way through life with misguided judgement calls and downright ridiculous ideas, as well as hideous friendships and incredibly misanthropic attitudes - it honestly has to be stressed that all of them are failures in their own right, and it's because of that that they all end up working incredibly well together (despite being a dysfunctional friendship/family to the extreme).

Bernard's entire life has been various degrees of disappointing. He grew up in Ireland, likely as a poor child, though little is known about his home life other than the fact that he doesn't talk to his parents and has no idea what his mother's first or maiden names are (and it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to assume that he barely has any information on his father either - though due to his abusive streak towards Manny, the argument could be made that Bernard had been treated in much the same way as a child, hence his unique 'parenting techniques' he's picked up over the years). He left Ireland around in the early 1990s to find himself a new life in England (more specifically London) and it's around 1995 when his luck began to change (sort of). With the help of a friend, he soon found himself a liable business to enter into - he bought up an empty space and made it into a second hand bookshop called 'Black Books'. And that's honestly about as much as he's done with his life, other than meeting Fran Katzenjammer, the one friend that's stuck by him through thick and thin, likely because they both have a huge love of drinking and smoking (and of course, everybody knows that misery loves company).

The two are incredibly close and have been for years, though their relationship is much more like that of a brother's and sister's, despite the fact that it was once mentioned that they may have had sex several years ago. Bernard has been forcibly told by Fran that he's not allowed to remember the encounter at all, though Fran herself is free to recall it whenever she might want to - though it's very doubtful that she ever does. They really do carry on like siblings, though, from hitting each other to win various fights all the way down to the witty banter they often share (as well as the fact that Fran can and will manipulate Bernard into doing something good, honourable or helpful should the need arise).

Bernard is a miserable bastard, he's even said so himself several times over ( "She thinks I'm the Renaissance. She'll think I've lied! I've had to go along with all this "reclusive genius" stuff. She's going to be very upset when she finds out I'm just a reclusive wanker!" ) and he has been for the majority of his life, though the reason he's become so incredibly misanthropic and jaded is because he went through life believing that his fiance had died (whilst in reality she had faked her death in order to get away from him. He finds this out years later during an episode called 'Party', and his friendship with Fran is very nearly ruined over this information, as she'd known it for years without telling Bernard).

Even without that heartbreaking information he would later learn, Bernard is still a very hard person to deal with. His characteristics include constantly being drunk, always having a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, being ridiculously unhygienic and being pitilessly rude whenever a customer so much as steps foot into his shop. Being a second hand bookshop owner is a very depressing affair, and Bernard is honestly no exception - he hates buying books from customers (because pricing them and placing them onto the shelves is too much hard work) and he hates it when the customers have the gall to buy his books (because then he has to ask for more stock, and according to him, it's a long and painful process that involves talking to idiots and trying to figure out which books have gone and which haven't). This is why he decides, drunkenly, to take on an assistant. Now, Manny is professional and intelligent and he's very good with all of the customers.

You'd think that would be a positive thing, but Bernard hates it. He hates that Manny keeps trying to change everything about his shop, and he hates how he's just waltzed on into his life and turned everything upside down, and he hates that he has to deal with being nagged at all day and everyday. Bernard is very particular in the mess he creates, and Manny is very particular in cleaning that mess up - honestly, it's almost a match made in heaven if it weren't for the fact that Bernard has a talent for being incredibly cruel and abusive towards him. It doesn't help that Black's somehow managed to forge a very unhealthy bond with Manny, to such an extent that he both gets jealous and angry whenever Manny tries to spend time with anyone else - their relationship is somewhat like father and son, but it's also akin to a married couple which makes everything about their 'friendship' so unique.

He tends to veer towards being sarcastic as well as arrogant, pessimistic, sour, oftentimes neurotic and though he often resolves his problems by picking on Manny in a number of different ways (punching, kicking, screaming, name-calling, demanding and being a downright asshole towards him), it's shown throughout the show that without Manny, Bernard literally has a mental breakdown whenever left alone. It gets to the point that the shop would deterioriate to such an unhygienic condition that dead badgers would lie on the floor untouched and mounds of pizza boxes, books and jammy toast stuck to the ceiling would begin to overpower the entirety of his living space. It's genuinely the worst environment anyone could ever hope to live, and he becomes incredibly sick because of it, choosing to make terrible decisions in attempts of getting better (like eating slug pellets and oven cleaner, saying loudly 'if you can clean an oven, you can clean me!'). He ends up being so sick that he finds himself entirely defying gravity by standing on the walls, muttering nonsensical things such as 'I can feel my brain falling away, like bits of wet cake'.

Bernard is utterly dependant on Manny, and though he'd never actually admit it out loud, he does realise this once the second series is through (thanks to his depression taking him to an all time low). This forces him to ignore his pride for a short few seconds in order to demand Manny come back to living with him and maintaining the shop, though it doesn't take long for Bernard to go back to his old ways once Manny's found his way back.

He may have incredibly biting wit, but when it comes to talking to the fairer sex, Bernard loses all attempts at being charming and/or interesting, and instead goes for an incredibly awkward approach to win their affections (by saying things such as this, this and this whilst saying this: “Hello! I’ve come to serenade you. I can’t play guitar. I can’t play this, either, but I thought it’d be less obvious.” ). He also sends copious amounts of chocolate, flowers, chocolate flowers and flowered chocolate along with poetry he'd written himself ( "Think of a bee. You are its knees. You waft through me like a summer's breeze. Can I come round on Tuesday please? ").

He's also incredibly easy to intimidate - he may have a big mouth and he's certainly capable of talking big, but when it comes to being face to face with 'Danny', he quickly loses his attitude and instead does his best in order to help him learn how to read. Of course, it doesn't exactly work out the way they had all planned for it too, but he manages to escape a beating which is really the best outcome he could have ever hoped for.

All in all, Bernard could be described as a terrible person, both heartless and cynical in such a way that completely lacks charm, but it somehow makes sense when you consider that he's been suffering from a twenty-four hour hangover that's apparently lasted his entire life.

Abilities:

Bernard is utterly, hopelessly human. He suffers from various amounts of depression that leave him pessimistic, sarcastic and sometimes even cruel. He has the ability to devour copious amounts of wine, he smokes more than is humanly possible and he has a penchant for being basically the worst person in the world.

He's actually very intelligent, though - owning a bookshop means that he has plenty of time to read and the means to do so as well, so he's very well-read and incredibly good with the English language. He once wrote a one thousand and thirty page novel in the space of ten hours with a complex and exceedingly intricate storyline ( "It couldn't be simpler. You've got the academic who survived the Stalinist purges and is now having flashbacks to that time. There's his daughter whose long bitter marriage is falling apart around her and the journalist who's investigating the academic because he suspects he was never in Russia at the time and then he falls obsessively in love with the daughter and sacrifices his career to become a lense grinder in Omsk." ) with fantastical ideas and a detailed knowledge of most everything he had written about. It's incredibly impressive, though the fact that his manuscript was later rejected by a publishing agency meant that he's become even more jaded and cynical about the world around him.

He even wrote a succinct and witty reply to the publishing agency, which shows the level of intelligence he's capable of (as well as his obvious distaste for most everything, especially when it comes to being rejected).

Also, he's ticklish.

How did your character arrive in Rapture?

He was transfered here from his real world and as such he's both confused and livid all at the same time. Mostly because Manny's not here to do his washing for him, to be honest.

Network sample:

Test drive meme.

Log sample:

Bernard would like to know what, exactly, is going on here. Because he's fairly certain that he only went to sleep two hours ago, and those two hours have done nothing to sober him up, and apparently he's started hallucinating because he's standing in front of a whale, and that sort of thing just doesn't happen in London. Another thing that's slightly off putting is the fact that there's an overly cheerful Welcome Centre message just above his head, and it's all bright and blue and oh god where the fuck did he put his cigarettes? Because they're not in his pockets, and they're usually in his pockets along with various other things such as fruit pastilles and the death of a decent human being (that human being himself, in most cases).

He places one foot in front of another in an incredibly accurate representation of how one might walk after a night of wine, whiskey and wank of only the most heinous design including human communication and the continuation of his species.

There are several thoughts ruining his concentration all at once, and he can't help but wonder why his shoes are wet and why they squeak as he walks. Really, it's an invasion of privacy, an utter travesty - so the only thing that makes sense is to ditch the shoes and wander aimlessly through a city he's never seen before as he stares at people and asks himself questions such as where is the sky, how much did I drink and I wonder if there's any wine.

Of course, it would help if he could say the latter out loud - only the only thing Bernard can manage is a strange sort of high pitched whine that directly correlates the pressure of water leaning up against the glass he's currently looking out of. He'd be frightened if he could think that far ahead - as it stands, the only thing Bernard's wanting for is a packet of Marlboro and some cheap wine to chase the nicotine down. It doesn't occur to him that he won't be getting what he wants for some time, mostly because he's in an underwater city and his money is no good. And also, the money he had in his pocket had mysteriously disappeared some time ago in exchange for fruit pastilles, which may or may not have been the correct decision after all.