Mason Oakes
THE BASICS
Name: Mason Oakes
Nickname: Lord Masonton (based on an unsuccessful fake ID he'd once created in an attempt to get them into an R-rated horror movie), Starboyd (both because of his birthmark and because she's faster than him and always "passing on the left"), Mason Jar (because you can totally see right through him when he's keeping something bottled up), Moe (because it's practically his initials). No one actually uses any of these though, except for Lord Masonton and he's the only one who uses that one and only when he's trying to be funny. In other words, feel free to make up your own.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION
Gender: Male
Age: 27
Hair: Blonde with the occasional dark roots (shh... don't tell anyone)Eyes: Bright Blue, which is statistically unusual since their parents both have green eyes, but Mabel's hazel eyes are practically impossible, which he occasionally tries to use as proof that she must have been adopted. He learned that in Biology 101 and insists it must therefore be true.
Distinguishing Marks: He has a star shaped birthmark on his left hand between his thumb and forefinger at the point where his life and head lines meet. This is supposed to indicate a decisive yet extremely flexible character, but he was Scully when they had their first palm reading, so he had to disagree with that finding.
General Appearance: Admittedly, he's a little vain. Not like, house full of mirrors vain, but he definitely spends a decent amount of time in front of one. This also includes working out in front of one, which he does regularly, and it shows. He also shows it off and is quick to find just about any excuse to shed his shirt. When filming, this has become something of a recurring thing and he goes out of his way to either get a tear (i.e. the Kirk variation) or just get so dirty he has to change it out (i.e. the Mechanic). It's kind of a signature move and he's in it for the views.
A dedicated vegetarian, he's got very little body fat, though muscle mass takes effort (see mirror, front of, above). His vegetarianism extends to his clothes and he doesn't wear leather or animal products. He is not however vegan because... ice cream. Seriously, anyone who doesn't love ice cream is a monster and he hunts monsters, he isn't one. He really hoped that sounded cool. It was supposed to sound super cool. He doesn't actually hunt monsters though, he just looks for them on occasion and dreams of catching one on video.
He's got a fair bit of height over his sister, just sneaking past the 6' mark and though he's really fit (see body fat, little, above), he's pretty lean. He dresses a lot nicer than Mabel, who sure, can sometimes pull off the whole Lois Lane, sexy librarian, girl next door thing, but really, come on, usually she has a terrible fashion sense. He's more "I'm not really trying, I just can't help it" sort of vibe. For the record, he is very much trying. His sister can confirm.
Personality: He'd never admit this to her face, but Mason is much more of a skeptic than his sister. Oh, he loves the idea that there's magic in the world, that crystals really can affect your mood, people do really have colors flowing around them, lizard people really do run the world (seriously, that would explain SOOOOOOOO much), but he doubts it. I mean, he'd purposefully lose at rock, paper, scissors and be a full time Scully if he didn't think it would hurt Dot's feelings.
Truth is though, he wants to believe, he really does. In fact, he's completely jealous that she saw a ghost before him (and though he's maybe seen a ghost since, he's not sure he's seen a ghost and being more of a skeptic than her he's not prepared to say one way or the other). So, he's not quite as sure as she is, except that he believes her, even though they were only 8, though he also knows that an 8 year old isn't exactly a reliable witness, so while he believes her, maybe she was imagining things. Point being, belief is complicated.
Fortunately, in the absence of certainty, he's just fine making it up. I mean, fine, he didn't really see bigfoot that one time up in Oregon, but he sure heard something moving and it sounded big and it might have been bigfoot. Prove that it wasn't, I dare you, he'd say, and you couldn't prove a negative any better than he could prove a positive. That's called the Demarcation Problem and they teach whole classes about it in philosophy school, which he didn't go to, but he audited, so mic drop!
Point being, while he doesn't believe quite as much as Dottie does, he wants to and he'd rather try and prove a positive than prove a negative, even if that positive was pissed off ghosts or Linda Blair demons or houses that eat people (this was his prevailing theory regarding The Cabin, but they'd yet to determine who was going to be Scully on that one so he might have to abandon it).
Very much an extrovert, he'll talk to anyone (though is quite liable to send his sister to help him with cute girls because she's an excellent wingwoman). And even though he sees more gray clouds than she does, he's good at spotting rainbows or searching for silver linings. However, when he gets the Scully role, he does tone it down quite a bit and gets fairly scientific and clinical, though he does still try encourage risky bets and wild ideas.
He'd like to think he's a good older brother (hey, three seconds is three seconds), but he knows he's dropped the ball a few times and he sometimes gets distracted by other girls or that handsome guy he sometimes sees in the mirror, but he's there if she needs him to pull her back down to Earth or push her back out into the world.
Sexual Preferences: Girls, girls, girls, not necessarily in that order.
Employment: YouTube Sensation. He'll admit, he kind of likes the views. What's the reverse of a voyeur? Exhibitionist. Yeah, that's it, he's a professional exhibitionist, though he calls himself an Investigator of the Unexplained. He'd like to think that he and his sister are also educators.
About Your character:
Mason was born three seconds before his sister Mabel Oakes. It was the last time he was every faster than her.That might have been hyperbole, but it was often true. She was usually quicker to good ideas. For instance, she was the one who came up with rock, paper, scissors to solve absolutely everything. And really, everything. Or at least almost everything. They practically managed their entire lives through rock, paper, scissors and he still hadn't figured out how to predict what she'd throw (he wasn't sure if she'd figured out him).
Now, some of their choices didn't come down to the throw. It wasn't like they didn't share a fascination with the strange from the get go. Growing up moving around a lot, dragged to military town to military town, they learned to live in a weird combination of structure and uncertainty. The only certainty was that tomorrow was uncertain. Well, that and each other, and family.
Uncle Whitney was family. He was fun family, weird family, and ultimately he can be blamed for their fascination in the weird and wonderful. They didn't get to see him or talk to him much, but when they did they were quick to pry wild stories of him, about witches and wildmen, aliens and the Stillwater Serpent. Mason was pretty sure Uncle Whit had made that last one totally up those since he'd never sent any newspaper clippings and they couldn't find anything about it online, but that was OK, they were going to hunt for the Stillwater Serpent anyway.
Point was, he and his sister loved those stories and all the ones they read about online, in books, in the news. They had a whole library full of scrap books filled with crazy stories from all over the world and whenever they could they'd go Legend Tripping1, or stage mock investigations of haunted basements or try to prove that weird guy who lived across the street was actually a vampire. As they grew older, they started taking this more serious. He never asked for a gameboy or XBox, he ask for a 4-track digital recorder so they could capture EVP, or a thermal gun so they could hunt down cold spots.
It wasn't all fun and games though. Their parents appreciated their enthusiasm but were careful to curb it. Coming to a bargain (since their parents didn't believe rock, paper, scissors solved everything), they both agreed to get real degrees and real jobs. This was one of the few occasions they didn't compete. Mason took psychology, figuring it wouldn't take much to slap a para in front of it later. He made a few mistakes like that over time, like taking an Entomology course instead of Etymology like he'd wanted. It turned out, he wasn't always good about paying attention to the fine print.
The MBA that followed was sort of a fluke, but it paid off, netting him a job at a startup that sold big and well... paid off.
Truth is, he almost forgot about the other stuff in college, the fun stuff he and his sister used to pursue. And then after college, money and nice stuff was fun too. It just wasn't all that fulfilling and when they compared notes he realized he was almost as miserable as Mabel was.
Granted, failing to prove ghosts or aliens really did exist wasn't exactly fulfilling either, but proving it sure would be. Somewhere along the way, that's where Mason and Mabel's Guide to the Unexplained was born. They hope to hit a million subscribers soon. Right now they have like six hundred twenty one thousand and fourteen but who's counting (psst... he's counting).
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Things to think about
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1. What is your characters reason for coming to Stillwater? They've been hearing about Stillwater for years from Uncle Whitney. They loved their holiday visits from the crazy old kook and kept in touch, begging him to send them clipping from the Bulletin or keeping them up to date on the antics of all the crazy people who lived there. For his part, Mason expanded on the stories into epic legends, mad mountain folk breeding with hairy sasquatches and eating unwary hikers. And no, whoever said sasquatches were vegetarians clearly hasn't studied primates in the wild. Actually, Mason hadn't either, but that wasn't the point. The point was there was the blood-sucking old patriarch and the horribly disfigured witch (at least, that's what she became when he heard about the house full of mirrors) and some other witch in the woods, and some other one in some other woods and a ghost house, and a ghost bar and a ghost in the lake. OK, he maybe made one of two of those up himself, but the point was, there were so many amazing stories, at least one of them had to have a shred of truth. The question was, which one. Fortunately, they had a list, so at least they knew where to start.
2. What do you think they'll add to the town? A bit of levity, investigations into some of the lesser explored mysteries and a lot of general tom-foolery.
3. What do you see them doing in town? Once they get settled, they'll want to begin exploring several of the local legends. High on the list for Mason is The Cabin (though Dot has determined that they can't just move into it and have to approach cautiously) and Derry Manor. He's also promised they could look for the infamous Stillwater Serpent that's supposed to live in Lake Early Hope.
4. What are you looking to get out of this kind of RP? A good time and a chance to write some more with a cool and interesting people and their cool and interesting characters.
1. Legend Tripping: A nocturnal pilgrimage (usually furtive) made to a site which is alleged to have been the scene of some tragic, horrific, and possibly supernatural event or haunting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_tripping