Alfred Ashford (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
twinsanity) wrote2013-09-07 01:42 am
twinsanity) wrote2013-09-07 01:42 am
Entry tags:
App for Route 29
Player
Name: Dal
Personal Journal:dalicious
E-mail: daletchica[at]yahoo[dot]com
AIM/MSN: AIM: AsylumBred
Timezone: EDT (GMT -4:00)
Current Characters in Route:
Kiyotaka Ishimaru (ardent)
Solf J Kimblee (explosivecombat)
Reaver (istheindustry)
Character
Name: Alfred Ashford
Series: Resident Evil
Timeline: Pre-Code: Veronica - before the bombing of Rockfort Island, but well after "Alexia's" return.
Canon Resource Links: Alfred Ashford at the Resident Evil wiki.
Personality:
To one simply hearing about the Ashford family for the first time, they seem to have wandered straight out of some sort of fairy tale: it’s a story about a set of twins, a boy and a girl, raised in a faraway castle by their wealthy father. The "younger" sister, Alexia, was a genius, a prodigy; beautiful and intelligent, she was doted on by her family and her tutors alike. Her brother, Alfred, was not quite as naturally gifted; however, his family loved him no less, and in time he showed proficiency with weapons and skill in combat, and he vowed to protect his sister for the rest of their lives. They grew up surrounded by toys and music boxes, and a carousel of their very own; it was incredibly easy to forget the fact that their "castle" was actually concealed in a giant bioweapons lab built in a mineshaft in Antarctica, and they were raised with no human contact outside of their father, each other, and the scientists who were both studying them and teaching them how to conduct horrific human experimentation in their spare time.
...it's a bit of a twisted fairy tale, all right? Maybe the Brothers Grimm wrote it while under the influence.
Needless to say, the product of such an upbringing can't really be expected to be too stable, and Alfred certainly doesn't disappoint in that regard; the result of human cloning, biogenetically engineered with the intention of creating a child that would be superior to most normally conceived human beings, Alfred has several advantages that come with that territory - he was more or less a child prodigy. However, Alfred has never been mentally stable; just for starters, he’s always been aware that he’s the weaker, "inferior" twin when compared to his sister, Alexia (who possesses intelligence levels that make her literally clairvoyant, according to Word of God), and this knowledge manifests in the form of a massive inferiority complex – he simply "knows" that he'll never be as good as his sister, and when he speaks of the future, he never discusses anything he might want. Rather, everything is based around what others want of him; according to him, he wants to restore the Ashford family name to its former glory (despite showing literally no interest in the scientific fields that the Ashfords are known for in the first place, and seeming far more interested in weaponry and perhaps joining the military one day), and he wants to ensure his sister’s success and happiness (which he indicates he'll do by having no will of his own – he repeatedly explicitly refers to himself as Alexia’s "servant," not her brother, and he also repeatedly mentions how subservient he'll be to her and how he'll carry out her every whim, should she ask him to).
However, that isn't to say that he's a complete blank slate with no mind of his own – he certainly has opinions, and he’s not afraid to make them known. He isn't a very sociable person overall; even during the most civil of interactions, he's prone to expressions that are bordering on sneering, or at the very least making it very plain that he is, indeed, judging your lifestyle and everything about it – and from the look of it, he disapproves. His upper lip is often curled, giving him an air of general annoyance, and the look in his eyes often distant and preoccupied, as though he's thinking about something far more important than the person he's talking to. He's very blunt, and on good days, his tone is very authoritative and in-control, if a bit overly dramatic; on...less-than-good days, he's incredibly immature, prone to snapping out childish insults and generally flailing everywhere when he doesn't get his way. Either way, however, he'll tell people what he's thinking to their faces, with no fear of consequences – in fact, everything he does tends to have that air that only the truly privileged are capable of, the self-assured knowledge that everything he says and does will be met with nothing but praise (whether given genuinely or through fear of consequences otherwise), and the confidence that he can get away with literally anything.
One might be willing to dismiss all of that as bravado; after all, when faced with an actual opponent, Alfred doesn't often stay and fight – he prefers to attack from a distance, using a sniper rifle or small explosive devices from a safe location and running if he's spotted or his target gets too close. Hell, he uses a kick-killer on his shoulder, and the sniper rifle has a laser sight on it; at first glance, he really doesn't seem like he's that strong, and he's just using his family's influence to get what he wants. The general sense of fearlessness and confidence aren't entirely without merit, however; the Ashford family specializes in bioweaponry in the form of inhuman monsters known as B.O.W.s, and several lines of dialogue in both Code: Veronica and Darkside Chronicles imply that not only has Alfred trained some of these creatures to act as bodyguards and a security system of sorts, but he legitimately plays with the damn things in his spare time. These creatures are massive, and most of them can only be killed with rocket launchers or other large explosives - the sort of things that you can only "play with" or "train" by shooting them in the face repeatedly until they learn to listen and obey, and if they manage to get ahold of you before that, then...well, may God have mercy, because you aren't getting away otherwise. So whatever one may think of him, Alfred definitely isn't all talk.
He still does have vulnerabilities despite all that flagrant disregard for his own safety, however; as was mentioned above, he's always been extremely unstable. Outside of the abovementioned inferiority complex when it comes to people he likes, he has many, many severe psychological issues centering around themes of loss, abandonment and isolation. He’s a compulsive hoarder, for one thing; he keeps most of his childhood toys (and his sister's childhood toys) in a shared space above their bedrooms, he keeps the rest of their toys in their bedrooms, and he doesn't ever seem to throw anything out if it had half a shred of sentimental value. He also has blatantly refused to remodel anything, as their bedrooms have remained the exact same in design since they were children - and this is really just the tip of the iceberg, but before that, some explanation:
The source of the abandonment/loss issues can be traced back to when he was between the ages of ten and twelve, when he found out about the origins of both his sister and himself. Believing that they were only being used for personal gain by Alexander and feeling immensely betrayed at having been lied to by a man he had been raised to think of as his father, he assisted Alexia in subjecting him to physical torture and horrific scientific experimentation; a short time afterwards, he lost his sister when she decided to experiment further on her own body, requiring her to be put in cryogenic stasis for fifteen years to allow the viruses she was working with to mature slowly instead of immediately taking over her body. The family butler, who had also served as one of the twins' caretakers, tried to remain close to Alfred out of loyalty to the family, but soon found himself fearing for everyone involved due to Alfred's declining mental state; eventually, he left as well, something Alfred interpreted as yet another betrayal. Following these experiences, he became fearful of becoming close to others, as everyone he was close to either stabbed him in the back or had to "go away" for reasons that were beyond his control.
The crippling loneliness that followed the loss of his family broke him mentally; he became prone to severe hallucinations, believing that Alexia was still with him despite the fact that that couldn't possibly be the case. He often "saw" her nearby, or "heard" her in the other rooms; he also spoke to her frequently, addressing her and holding what amounted to lengthy conversations with the walls, fully believing she was there and answering him. Complicating the matter further, Alfred also tended to experience prolonged periods of dissociation; originally a defense mechanism that he adopted to help him cope with difficult situations, the dissociative periods became more and more pronounced over time, to the point where he had difficulty establishing whether he or "Alexia" was in control of his actions, because he didn't feel in control of either. He began playing both roles eventually, adopting Alexia as an alternate persona that he could retreat into whenever he needed confidence, bravery or skill that he didn't believe himself to possess; eventually, he took to purchasing dresses and corsets in styles that he thought she would like, donning makeup and wigs to make the illusion more complete, immersing himself utterly in the role to the point where he believed he was her if he was in a strong enough dissociative state.
As "Alexia," Alfred’s demeanor changes entirely. He consistently refers to himself as a female when the Alexia-persona is active; her personality itself is based on what he remembers of his sister – it's cold and calculating, as Alexia has always been, even as a child (though there's an obvious soft spot for her brother and her family); she doesn't tolerate failure, becoming snappish and cold when she feels disappointed or let down. She's often very distant toward people she doesn't like or trust, and she's very no-nonsense in how she conducts her business. She's less prone to fits of immaturity than Alfred is, and she generally doesn't laugh unless she's feeling as though she's won whatever fight she was engaged in (something that Alfred remembered just a bit inaccurately, if Code: Veronica is anything to judge by, as every third sound out of her mouth is a Noblewoman's Laugh). Alfred is also able to mimic a female voice very well and he passes as the opposite sex very easily, so he’s actually able to present as a different person entirely – in fact, in-game at least three characters don’t realize that Alfred and "Alexia" are the same person until they manage to dishevel him to the point that it upsets his delusion, and he gets incredibly upset at being forced out of the dissociative state instead of coming out of it naturally.
It’s also worth stating that when "Alexia" is active, Alfred is far calmer and much more confident, and he’s able to focus far better than he can normally. He becomes much bolder in flat-out attacking – he doesn't bother with the hiding-in-a-safe-location business, instead confronting challenges and adversaries straight-on. His aim is far more accurate with his weapons, and he no longer requires the kick-killer on his right shoulder.
Whichever personality is active at the moment, however, there’s one thing that’s very consistent between Alfred and "Alexia" – and that would be the sadism. Since Alfred assumed command of Rockfort Island, he’s created a special "training facility" where he pits human beings against various B.O.W.s; he tends to taunt people he's locked in there via loudspeaker, watching them from an undisclosed location and mocking them mercilessly, and expressing disappointment when they manage to not get themselves killed. "Alexia" is also very openly mocking, though she expresses direct pleasure at trying to kill the individuals in question herself rather than watching them die from a distance. In actuality, both siblings have been like this since they were children, maiming insects and animals just to watch them die and expressing no remorse over torturing their father and performing experiments on him that turned him into the B.O.W. known as Nosferatu.
At his current canon point, however, Alfred is mostly calm. A bit oversensitive to questions about exactly whom he’s speaking to when he's alone, and a bit too eager to lash out at anyone who thinks he needs help, but for the most part? He's content.
After all, he has his sister, if only in his mind. And together, they can continue living out their fucked-up fairytale for as long as he wants them to.
Strengths/Weaknesses:
✔ High Intelligence - It's entirely true that Alfred isn't as intelligent as his sister Alexia; at the same time, that isn't really saying much when one takes into account that Alexia is literally godmode and pretty much has psychic powers due to all the genetic tampering going on. Alfred himself has highly enhanced memory/recall, talents for strategy, logic and mind games, and a fondness for designing and creating advanced and complicated structures - some of those structures actually serve a purpose, but a fair few seem to be there just to amuse him. (Granted, a lot of them are deathtraps, but at least they're creative deathtraps.)
✔ Fearlessness - As was mentioned above, Alfred has a penchant for training and playing with massive monsters designed to be used as biorganic weaponry. And not the comparatively less awful giant spiders and massive luna moths either, which are horrifying on their own but comparatively easy to kill. No, what he's doing is referring to a particularly hardcore Tyrant (a massive blue zombie that takes being dropped off a plane and blown up to destroy) as "[his] doll," and he’s calling a Gulp Worm (...picture a 50-foot earthworm with a lotus full of teeth for a face and you’re getting close to what we're looking at) a pet and talking about it over a loudspeaker in a tone that one usually reserves for baskets full of particularly cute kittens.
✔ Determination - Once he gets it in his head that it's important for him to do something, he will ensure that it gets done at just about any cost to himself or others. (I mean, all the better if it's to others and not him, but beggars can't be choosers when it comes to opportunities.) Canonly he manages to survive multiple head wounds, being shot at point-blank range with a pair of automatic machine guns and taking a good, lengthy drop down a mineshaft, and he still manages to force himself to get up and find Alexia's chamber to wake her up before he finally drops. So between the ridiculous amounts of physical fortitude and mental determination, if whatever just happened isn't immediately going to kill him he'll at least attempt to see whatever he was doing through.
✔ Loyalty - He's definitely strange about his interpersonal relationships, but once Alfred decides he likes someone he's more or less going to stay with them forever. (Unless they stab him in the back. At which point their ass is grass.) While this manifests as loyal-to-a-fault with his family members, it's a bit less so with friends; even so, he's very protective over those he deems important to him - basically, one doesn't mess with his things.
✔ Combat Skills - Alfred's primary skills are with weaponry, which won't exactly help him much in Johto, but at the same time he's not badly-off physically, either; he's capable of hand-to-hand combat, he's able to climb up into high places and use that to his advantage to get the drop on others (while bleeding from the head, no less), he's good at improvising weapons when he doesn't have any, he's very pragmatic in general and his aim is usually at least not terrible, and once in a while heightened depending on his mental state. And he's able to do all that while wearing a dress, a tightlaced corset and heels.
✔/✘ "Alexia" - Obviously, massive dissociative states are not good things to experience, and Alfred's are no exception to that; it's an incredibly unhealthy way to handle his problems, and canon does treat it as such (if a bit insensitively, because wow welcome to this reasonably terrible video game from over a decade ago). However, while he's taken on his sister's personality, he does have increased focus and his general level of competency seems to go up; it's not like he's tapping into any sort of enhanced ability he doesn't have normally, either - it's more a matter of disregarding mental blocks that he normally has in place. After all, Alexia is supposed to be the stronger, more competent one; it makes sense to him that she would be able to handle things that he can't.
✘ Inferiority Complex - A lot of Alfred's skills are greatly hindered by what he's "known" all his life - namely, that he's always going to be inferior to his sister. Despite his own talents, he's always very aware that he's weaker than she is, dumber than she is, less favored than she is. He doesn't resent her for it; instead, he's heard it so much that he believes it must be true. It's very internalized by now; he's taken the "You are" that he's been told from the beginning and translated it into "I am," and it's actively hindering what he thinks he's capable of doing. He's going to compare himself to Alexia for quite some time, even if she isn't present in Johto; furthermore, he tends to retreat into "her" personality if he needs strength that he doesn't think he has. He uses his dissociation as a defense mechanism, both from others and from his own sense of weakness and lack of self-worth, and it's going to take him a while to break free of that a little, if he ever manages it in the first place.
✘ Lack of Empathy - As the result of basically being raised in a science lab where the primary emphasis is on how best to kill people and that isn't opposed to using human test subjects, Alfred obviously doesn't place much value on human lives. People are disposable, as far as he's concerned, a commodity to be used up and then thrown away and replaced; he knows how badly it hurts him when he's been betrayed or people suddenly "go away," but he doesn't have the empathy required to feel guilty when he does it, believing that it's his right to do whatever he wants to people not in his family or that he doesn't particularly like. Speaking of...
✘ Sadism - ...oh, boy, does he enjoy doing whatever he wants to people not in his family or that he doesn't particularly like. He's fond of putting people into deathtraps, setting zombies on them, attacking them with monsters, shooting them, basically doing whatever he feels like. Obviously, he won't have the means by which to do that in Route (at least not for quite some time, and ICly the setting will throw him hard enough to get the point across that he can't just run around doing as he pleases) but he's going to have difficulties learning to not mess with the animals - he's used to being very rough with his "pets" to get them to listen, and he's been killing animals from a young age. However, he is capable of learning and he doesn't have his guns to protect him, so he'll at least have a valid reason to not try to harm his Pokémon too badly; he still won't be too kind to them and that will present problems, but he'll get the message that harming them himself is out of the question and should be avoided.
✘ Trust/Abandonment Issues - He's at a bit of a weird place in terms of getting close to people, in that he doesn't want to be alone but he doesn't exactly trust people, either. He's been more or less by himself since he was twelve, with no family or close friends; he also sees his loss of them as being the result of betrayal (except in Alexia's case, that was a "necessity" and he is of the general thought that she does no wrong anyway), so he's going to be a bit resistant to Pokéland's focus on the power of friendship and love and trust for a while simply because he won't believe any of it is genuine.
✘ Immaturity/Poor Socialization - Again, the guy was raised in goddamn Antarctica with no human contact except his father, his sister, his butler and a bunch of scientists; he's also used to being told he's "special" (just never special enough because that was Alexia's job), never taking consequences or being disciplined, and generally being treated with fear and respect from a young age. Needless to say, he's not exactly a paragon of tact and social grace, and when he fails to get his way, he flat-out throws tantrums. Which would be understandable if he were a kid (or arguably even a teenager, given, y'know, Antarctica), but the guy's twenty-seven...
✘ Lack of Personal Ambition - Due to the whole inferiority complex thing, he doesn't have a lot of goals of his own; he's basically been raised to follow after his sister and obey her every whim, and he's pretty content with that at this point. Unfortunately, this pretty much came at the expense of his own sense of drive; if he were to be asked what he wants out of life, just from a personal standpoint, he likely would be unable to answer, or at least not well, without circling back around to BUT THE ASHFORD FAMILY HONOR THOUGH.
Pokémon Information
Affiliation: Team Rocket
Starter: Durant (+ Spinarak)
Password: Ginger Snaps
Samples
First Person Sample:
[And a good afternoon to you, too, Johto - and it does, surprisingly, seem to be a genuinely good afternoon, since contrary to how these things usually start, Alfred is actually managing to start this off without being a roiling mass of unpleasantness over the device. He's still eyerolling a little, maybe, and he's a bit too stiffly-postured, but at least he's calm and not. Y'know. Screechy. He's even got one of his Pokémon out, one of the little yellow electrospiders just kind of chilling on his shoulder, near his collar.
Unfortunately, displaying anything that might be halfway passing as patience usually means he wants something.]
So, about this evolution business...
[...yep, he definitely wants something. Excuse him while he shoots the most pointed of looks at the bittyspider before continuing.]
Because Prim won't hurry up and get on with it already and she's terribly useless to me like this - surely there must be some way to speed up the process? I know, I know, patience and all, but really. You would think that somebody would have found a more efficient way to do this by now...?
[Judging from the way his voice quirks upward a bit at the end of it, that was almost a not-backhanded request just now. Not quite. But almost.]
Although if anyone is looking into it and haven't quite hit on an answer yet, you can always say something about it - maybe I can take a crack at it myself. I do have a background in such things, you know.
[...Yeah, he's either really amiable today or really sick of this Joltik.]
Third Person Sample:
You know, lab work really wasn't that bad, when it came down to it.
Of course, it had never been anything Alfred had excelled in back home; that had always been Alexia's area of expertise, and while he'd definitely attended her experimentation sessions, that was mostly to provide support - not so much moral support as necessary support, in the form of a rifle aimed at Nosferatu's head and a massive amount of medical supplies lying at the ready somewhere. But here it was at least something he was capable of doing, and the Team encouraged creativity in ways he couldn't say he disliked; they were a little technologically backwards, maybe, but at least that rendered the whole thing workable.
And besides, it was better than field work. That was, in the end, what it came down to.
Once in a while he still required Alexia's help; it was always such a pleasant surprise when she was willing, but he supposed she didn't have much to do here, either. Of course, the skirt they'd given her to wear on the grounds here was disgracefully short, and they insisted that she keep her hair up in the most inelegant of ways, but she put up surprisingly little complaint about it; if she had, he would have raised a fuss, but as it stood she had always been so good at adapting to things.
It still came with its downsides, though, mostly in the forms of men who had no business looking at anyone the way they looked at her; it was often unpleasant, bringing with it the feeling that he often got at home - that feeling where he would suddenly become aware that he was very, very alone for some reason - and it usually resulted in Alexia leaving completely and Alfred dealing with the onlookers in ways that left his knuckles stinging after the immediate contact with their face, and he'd always spend way too long fussing with his skirt before he could let Alexia resume her work.
The cognitive dissonance was also getting a little annoying.
But that was neither here nor there; after all, who was he to complain when this place handed him live creatures to examine? His current favorite was the dragonfly, in terms of measuring sheer power - he'd managed to find that one just outside the town he'd shown up in, and the evolution was proving to be immensely entertaining. While he supposed he should be expecting some sort of karmic retribution from the six-foot insect supposedly capable of liquefying his insides with shockwaves from its wings, that honestly had yet to cross his mind - if anything, something exuding that much force naturally, or perhaps just on a whim, pleased him greatly.
After all, if he was sure of anything anymore, it was that there was nothing quite like raising pets that would fight back in such a pointlessly destructive manner; he couldn't say he disapproved.
Name: Dal
Personal Journal:
daliciousE-mail: daletchica[at]yahoo[dot]com
AIM/MSN: AIM: AsylumBred
Timezone: EDT (GMT -4:00)
Current Characters in Route:
Kiyotaka Ishimaru (
ardent)Solf J Kimblee (
explosivecombat)Reaver (
istheindustry)Character
Name: Alfred Ashford
Series: Resident Evil
Timeline: Pre-Code: Veronica - before the bombing of Rockfort Island, but well after "Alexia's" return.
Canon Resource Links: Alfred Ashford at the Resident Evil wiki.
Personality:
To one simply hearing about the Ashford family for the first time, they seem to have wandered straight out of some sort of fairy tale: it’s a story about a set of twins, a boy and a girl, raised in a faraway castle by their wealthy father. The "younger" sister, Alexia, was a genius, a prodigy; beautiful and intelligent, she was doted on by her family and her tutors alike. Her brother, Alfred, was not quite as naturally gifted; however, his family loved him no less, and in time he showed proficiency with weapons and skill in combat, and he vowed to protect his sister for the rest of their lives. They grew up surrounded by toys and music boxes, and a carousel of their very own; it was incredibly easy to forget the fact that their "castle" was actually concealed in a giant bioweapons lab built in a mineshaft in Antarctica, and they were raised with no human contact outside of their father, each other, and the scientists who were both studying them and teaching them how to conduct horrific human experimentation in their spare time.
...it's a bit of a twisted fairy tale, all right? Maybe the Brothers Grimm wrote it while under the influence.
Needless to say, the product of such an upbringing can't really be expected to be too stable, and Alfred certainly doesn't disappoint in that regard; the result of human cloning, biogenetically engineered with the intention of creating a child that would be superior to most normally conceived human beings, Alfred has several advantages that come with that territory - he was more or less a child prodigy. However, Alfred has never been mentally stable; just for starters, he’s always been aware that he’s the weaker, "inferior" twin when compared to his sister, Alexia (who possesses intelligence levels that make her literally clairvoyant, according to Word of God), and this knowledge manifests in the form of a massive inferiority complex – he simply "knows" that he'll never be as good as his sister, and when he speaks of the future, he never discusses anything he might want. Rather, everything is based around what others want of him; according to him, he wants to restore the Ashford family name to its former glory (despite showing literally no interest in the scientific fields that the Ashfords are known for in the first place, and seeming far more interested in weaponry and perhaps joining the military one day), and he wants to ensure his sister’s success and happiness (which he indicates he'll do by having no will of his own – he repeatedly explicitly refers to himself as Alexia’s "servant," not her brother, and he also repeatedly mentions how subservient he'll be to her and how he'll carry out her every whim, should she ask him to).
However, that isn't to say that he's a complete blank slate with no mind of his own – he certainly has opinions, and he’s not afraid to make them known. He isn't a very sociable person overall; even during the most civil of interactions, he's prone to expressions that are bordering on sneering, or at the very least making it very plain that he is, indeed, judging your lifestyle and everything about it – and from the look of it, he disapproves. His upper lip is often curled, giving him an air of general annoyance, and the look in his eyes often distant and preoccupied, as though he's thinking about something far more important than the person he's talking to. He's very blunt, and on good days, his tone is very authoritative and in-control, if a bit overly dramatic; on...less-than-good days, he's incredibly immature, prone to snapping out childish insults and generally flailing everywhere when he doesn't get his way. Either way, however, he'll tell people what he's thinking to their faces, with no fear of consequences – in fact, everything he does tends to have that air that only the truly privileged are capable of, the self-assured knowledge that everything he says and does will be met with nothing but praise (whether given genuinely or through fear of consequences otherwise), and the confidence that he can get away with literally anything.
One might be willing to dismiss all of that as bravado; after all, when faced with an actual opponent, Alfred doesn't often stay and fight – he prefers to attack from a distance, using a sniper rifle or small explosive devices from a safe location and running if he's spotted or his target gets too close. Hell, he uses a kick-killer on his shoulder, and the sniper rifle has a laser sight on it; at first glance, he really doesn't seem like he's that strong, and he's just using his family's influence to get what he wants. The general sense of fearlessness and confidence aren't entirely without merit, however; the Ashford family specializes in bioweaponry in the form of inhuman monsters known as B.O.W.s, and several lines of dialogue in both Code: Veronica and Darkside Chronicles imply that not only has Alfred trained some of these creatures to act as bodyguards and a security system of sorts, but he legitimately plays with the damn things in his spare time. These creatures are massive, and most of them can only be killed with rocket launchers or other large explosives - the sort of things that you can only "play with" or "train" by shooting them in the face repeatedly until they learn to listen and obey, and if they manage to get ahold of you before that, then...well, may God have mercy, because you aren't getting away otherwise. So whatever one may think of him, Alfred definitely isn't all talk.
He still does have vulnerabilities despite all that flagrant disregard for his own safety, however; as was mentioned above, he's always been extremely unstable. Outside of the abovementioned inferiority complex when it comes to people he likes, he has many, many severe psychological issues centering around themes of loss, abandonment and isolation. He’s a compulsive hoarder, for one thing; he keeps most of his childhood toys (and his sister's childhood toys) in a shared space above their bedrooms, he keeps the rest of their toys in their bedrooms, and he doesn't ever seem to throw anything out if it had half a shred of sentimental value. He also has blatantly refused to remodel anything, as their bedrooms have remained the exact same in design since they were children - and this is really just the tip of the iceberg, but before that, some explanation:
The source of the abandonment/loss issues can be traced back to when he was between the ages of ten and twelve, when he found out about the origins of both his sister and himself. Believing that they were only being used for personal gain by Alexander and feeling immensely betrayed at having been lied to by a man he had been raised to think of as his father, he assisted Alexia in subjecting him to physical torture and horrific scientific experimentation; a short time afterwards, he lost his sister when she decided to experiment further on her own body, requiring her to be put in cryogenic stasis for fifteen years to allow the viruses she was working with to mature slowly instead of immediately taking over her body. The family butler, who had also served as one of the twins' caretakers, tried to remain close to Alfred out of loyalty to the family, but soon found himself fearing for everyone involved due to Alfred's declining mental state; eventually, he left as well, something Alfred interpreted as yet another betrayal. Following these experiences, he became fearful of becoming close to others, as everyone he was close to either stabbed him in the back or had to "go away" for reasons that were beyond his control.
The crippling loneliness that followed the loss of his family broke him mentally; he became prone to severe hallucinations, believing that Alexia was still with him despite the fact that that couldn't possibly be the case. He often "saw" her nearby, or "heard" her in the other rooms; he also spoke to her frequently, addressing her and holding what amounted to lengthy conversations with the walls, fully believing she was there and answering him. Complicating the matter further, Alfred also tended to experience prolonged periods of dissociation; originally a defense mechanism that he adopted to help him cope with difficult situations, the dissociative periods became more and more pronounced over time, to the point where he had difficulty establishing whether he or "Alexia" was in control of his actions, because he didn't feel in control of either. He began playing both roles eventually, adopting Alexia as an alternate persona that he could retreat into whenever he needed confidence, bravery or skill that he didn't believe himself to possess; eventually, he took to purchasing dresses and corsets in styles that he thought she would like, donning makeup and wigs to make the illusion more complete, immersing himself utterly in the role to the point where he believed he was her if he was in a strong enough dissociative state.
As "Alexia," Alfred’s demeanor changes entirely. He consistently refers to himself as a female when the Alexia-persona is active; her personality itself is based on what he remembers of his sister – it's cold and calculating, as Alexia has always been, even as a child (though there's an obvious soft spot for her brother and her family); she doesn't tolerate failure, becoming snappish and cold when she feels disappointed or let down. She's often very distant toward people she doesn't like or trust, and she's very no-nonsense in how she conducts her business. She's less prone to fits of immaturity than Alfred is, and she generally doesn't laugh unless she's feeling as though she's won whatever fight she was engaged in (something that Alfred remembered just a bit inaccurately, if Code: Veronica is anything to judge by, as every third sound out of her mouth is a Noblewoman's Laugh). Alfred is also able to mimic a female voice very well and he passes as the opposite sex very easily, so he’s actually able to present as a different person entirely – in fact, in-game at least three characters don’t realize that Alfred and "Alexia" are the same person until they manage to dishevel him to the point that it upsets his delusion, and he gets incredibly upset at being forced out of the dissociative state instead of coming out of it naturally.
It’s also worth stating that when "Alexia" is active, Alfred is far calmer and much more confident, and he’s able to focus far better than he can normally. He becomes much bolder in flat-out attacking – he doesn't bother with the hiding-in-a-safe-location business, instead confronting challenges and adversaries straight-on. His aim is far more accurate with his weapons, and he no longer requires the kick-killer on his right shoulder.
Whichever personality is active at the moment, however, there’s one thing that’s very consistent between Alfred and "Alexia" – and that would be the sadism. Since Alfred assumed command of Rockfort Island, he’s created a special "training facility" where he pits human beings against various B.O.W.s; he tends to taunt people he's locked in there via loudspeaker, watching them from an undisclosed location and mocking them mercilessly, and expressing disappointment when they manage to not get themselves killed. "Alexia" is also very openly mocking, though she expresses direct pleasure at trying to kill the individuals in question herself rather than watching them die from a distance. In actuality, both siblings have been like this since they were children, maiming insects and animals just to watch them die and expressing no remorse over torturing their father and performing experiments on him that turned him into the B.O.W. known as Nosferatu.
At his current canon point, however, Alfred is mostly calm. A bit oversensitive to questions about exactly whom he’s speaking to when he's alone, and a bit too eager to lash out at anyone who thinks he needs help, but for the most part? He's content.
After all, he has his sister, if only in his mind. And together, they can continue living out their fucked-up fairytale for as long as he wants them to.
Strengths/Weaknesses:
✔ High Intelligence - It's entirely true that Alfred isn't as intelligent as his sister Alexia; at the same time, that isn't really saying much when one takes into account that Alexia is literally godmode and pretty much has psychic powers due to all the genetic tampering going on. Alfred himself has highly enhanced memory/recall, talents for strategy, logic and mind games, and a fondness for designing and creating advanced and complicated structures - some of those structures actually serve a purpose, but a fair few seem to be there just to amuse him. (Granted, a lot of them are deathtraps, but at least they're creative deathtraps.)
✔ Fearlessness - As was mentioned above, Alfred has a penchant for training and playing with massive monsters designed to be used as biorganic weaponry. And not the comparatively less awful giant spiders and massive luna moths either, which are horrifying on their own but comparatively easy to kill. No, what he's doing is referring to a particularly hardcore Tyrant (a massive blue zombie that takes being dropped off a plane and blown up to destroy) as "[his] doll," and he’s calling a Gulp Worm (...picture a 50-foot earthworm with a lotus full of teeth for a face and you’re getting close to what we're looking at) a pet and talking about it over a loudspeaker in a tone that one usually reserves for baskets full of particularly cute kittens.
✔ Determination - Once he gets it in his head that it's important for him to do something, he will ensure that it gets done at just about any cost to himself or others. (I mean, all the better if it's to others and not him, but beggars can't be choosers when it comes to opportunities.) Canonly he manages to survive multiple head wounds, being shot at point-blank range with a pair of automatic machine guns and taking a good, lengthy drop down a mineshaft, and he still manages to force himself to get up and find Alexia's chamber to wake her up before he finally drops. So between the ridiculous amounts of physical fortitude and mental determination, if whatever just happened isn't immediately going to kill him he'll at least attempt to see whatever he was doing through.
✔ Loyalty - He's definitely strange about his interpersonal relationships, but once Alfred decides he likes someone he's more or less going to stay with them forever. (Unless they stab him in the back. At which point their ass is grass.) While this manifests as loyal-to-a-fault with his family members, it's a bit less so with friends; even so, he's very protective over those he deems important to him - basically, one doesn't mess with his things.
✔ Combat Skills - Alfred's primary skills are with weaponry, which won't exactly help him much in Johto, but at the same time he's not badly-off physically, either; he's capable of hand-to-hand combat, he's able to climb up into high places and use that to his advantage to get the drop on others (while bleeding from the head, no less), he's good at improvising weapons when he doesn't have any, he's very pragmatic in general and his aim is usually at least not terrible, and once in a while heightened depending on his mental state. And he's able to do all that while wearing a dress, a tightlaced corset and heels.
✔/✘ "Alexia" - Obviously, massive dissociative states are not good things to experience, and Alfred's are no exception to that; it's an incredibly unhealthy way to handle his problems, and canon does treat it as such (if a bit insensitively, because wow welcome to this reasonably terrible video game from over a decade ago). However, while he's taken on his sister's personality, he does have increased focus and his general level of competency seems to go up; it's not like he's tapping into any sort of enhanced ability he doesn't have normally, either - it's more a matter of disregarding mental blocks that he normally has in place. After all, Alexia is supposed to be the stronger, more competent one; it makes sense to him that she would be able to handle things that he can't.
✘ Inferiority Complex - A lot of Alfred's skills are greatly hindered by what he's "known" all his life - namely, that he's always going to be inferior to his sister. Despite his own talents, he's always very aware that he's weaker than she is, dumber than she is, less favored than she is. He doesn't resent her for it; instead, he's heard it so much that he believes it must be true. It's very internalized by now; he's taken the "You are" that he's been told from the beginning and translated it into "I am," and it's actively hindering what he thinks he's capable of doing. He's going to compare himself to Alexia for quite some time, even if she isn't present in Johto; furthermore, he tends to retreat into "her" personality if he needs strength that he doesn't think he has. He uses his dissociation as a defense mechanism, both from others and from his own sense of weakness and lack of self-worth, and it's going to take him a while to break free of that a little, if he ever manages it in the first place.
✘ Lack of Empathy - As the result of basically being raised in a science lab where the primary emphasis is on how best to kill people and that isn't opposed to using human test subjects, Alfred obviously doesn't place much value on human lives. People are disposable, as far as he's concerned, a commodity to be used up and then thrown away and replaced; he knows how badly it hurts him when he's been betrayed or people suddenly "go away," but he doesn't have the empathy required to feel guilty when he does it, believing that it's his right to do whatever he wants to people not in his family or that he doesn't particularly like. Speaking of...
✘ Sadism - ...oh, boy, does he enjoy doing whatever he wants to people not in his family or that he doesn't particularly like. He's fond of putting people into deathtraps, setting zombies on them, attacking them with monsters, shooting them, basically doing whatever he feels like. Obviously, he won't have the means by which to do that in Route (at least not for quite some time, and ICly the setting will throw him hard enough to get the point across that he can't just run around doing as he pleases) but he's going to have difficulties learning to not mess with the animals - he's used to being very rough with his "pets" to get them to listen, and he's been killing animals from a young age. However, he is capable of learning and he doesn't have his guns to protect him, so he'll at least have a valid reason to not try to harm his Pokémon too badly; he still won't be too kind to them and that will present problems, but he'll get the message that harming them himself is out of the question and should be avoided.
✘ Trust/Abandonment Issues - He's at a bit of a weird place in terms of getting close to people, in that he doesn't want to be alone but he doesn't exactly trust people, either. He's been more or less by himself since he was twelve, with no family or close friends; he also sees his loss of them as being the result of betrayal (except in Alexia's case, that was a "necessity" and he is of the general thought that she does no wrong anyway), so he's going to be a bit resistant to Pokéland's focus on the power of friendship and love and trust for a while simply because he won't believe any of it is genuine.
✘ Immaturity/Poor Socialization - Again, the guy was raised in goddamn Antarctica with no human contact except his father, his sister, his butler and a bunch of scientists; he's also used to being told he's "special" (just never special enough because that was Alexia's job), never taking consequences or being disciplined, and generally being treated with fear and respect from a young age. Needless to say, he's not exactly a paragon of tact and social grace, and when he fails to get his way, he flat-out throws tantrums. Which would be understandable if he were a kid (or arguably even a teenager, given, y'know, Antarctica), but the guy's twenty-seven...
✘ Lack of Personal Ambition - Due to the whole inferiority complex thing, he doesn't have a lot of goals of his own; he's basically been raised to follow after his sister and obey her every whim, and he's pretty content with that at this point. Unfortunately, this pretty much came at the expense of his own sense of drive; if he were to be asked what he wants out of life, just from a personal standpoint, he likely would be unable to answer, or at least not well, without circling back around to BUT THE ASHFORD FAMILY HONOR THOUGH.
Pokémon Information
Affiliation: Team Rocket
Starter: Durant (+ Spinarak)
Password: Ginger Snaps
Samples
First Person Sample:
[And a good afternoon to you, too, Johto - and it does, surprisingly, seem to be a genuinely good afternoon, since contrary to how these things usually start, Alfred is actually managing to start this off without being a roiling mass of unpleasantness over the device. He's still eyerolling a little, maybe, and he's a bit too stiffly-postured, but at least he's calm and not. Y'know. Screechy. He's even got one of his Pokémon out, one of the little yellow electrospiders just kind of chilling on his shoulder, near his collar.
Unfortunately, displaying anything that might be halfway passing as patience usually means he wants something.]
So, about this evolution business...
[...yep, he definitely wants something. Excuse him while he shoots the most pointed of looks at the bittyspider before continuing.]
Because Prim won't hurry up and get on with it already and she's terribly useless to me like this - surely there must be some way to speed up the process? I know, I know, patience and all, but really. You would think that somebody would have found a more efficient way to do this by now...?
[Judging from the way his voice quirks upward a bit at the end of it, that was almost a not-backhanded request just now. Not quite. But almost.]
Although if anyone is looking into it and haven't quite hit on an answer yet, you can always say something about it - maybe I can take a crack at it myself. I do have a background in such things, you know.
[...Yeah, he's either really amiable today or really sick of this Joltik.]
Third Person Sample:
You know, lab work really wasn't that bad, when it came down to it.
Of course, it had never been anything Alfred had excelled in back home; that had always been Alexia's area of expertise, and while he'd definitely attended her experimentation sessions, that was mostly to provide support - not so much moral support as necessary support, in the form of a rifle aimed at Nosferatu's head and a massive amount of medical supplies lying at the ready somewhere. But here it was at least something he was capable of doing, and the Team encouraged creativity in ways he couldn't say he disliked; they were a little technologically backwards, maybe, but at least that rendered the whole thing workable.
And besides, it was better than field work. That was, in the end, what it came down to.
Once in a while he still required Alexia's help; it was always such a pleasant surprise when she was willing, but he supposed she didn't have much to do here, either. Of course, the skirt they'd given her to wear on the grounds here was disgracefully short, and they insisted that she keep her hair up in the most inelegant of ways, but she put up surprisingly little complaint about it; if she had, he would have raised a fuss, but as it stood she had always been so good at adapting to things.
It still came with its downsides, though, mostly in the forms of men who had no business looking at anyone the way they looked at her; it was often unpleasant, bringing with it the feeling that he often got at home - that feeling where he would suddenly become aware that he was very, very alone for some reason - and it usually resulted in Alexia leaving completely and Alfred dealing with the onlookers in ways that left his knuckles stinging after the immediate contact with their face, and he'd always spend way too long fussing with his skirt before he could let Alexia resume her work.
The cognitive dissonance was also getting a little annoying.
But that was neither here nor there; after all, who was he to complain when this place handed him live creatures to examine? His current favorite was the dragonfly, in terms of measuring sheer power - he'd managed to find that one just outside the town he'd shown up in, and the evolution was proving to be immensely entertaining. While he supposed he should be expecting some sort of karmic retribution from the six-foot insect supposedly capable of liquefying his insides with shockwaves from its wings, that honestly had yet to cross his mind - if anything, something exuding that much force naturally, or perhaps just on a whim, pleased him greatly.
After all, if he was sure of anything anymore, it was that there was nothing quite like raising pets that would fight back in such a pointlessly destructive manner; he couldn't say he disapproved.