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Player: Crystal
Contact:
Age: 23
Current Characters: None!
Character: Howard Phillips Lovecraft (H.P. Lovecraft for short)
Age: 28 (?) - it's heavily implied he's much, MUCH older
Canon: Bungou Stray Dogs
Canon Point: When he gets run over by a truck (Chapter 24 (pt. 2)
Background:
A NOTICE THAT THIS SECTION IS OUTDATED AND MUST BE FIXED WITH THE DETAILS FROM THE TRANSLATED CHAPTERS please excuse any inconsistencies!
In the world of Bungou Stray Dogs, a variety of individuals are named after famous authors - however, these people are only related to said authors by their names and superhuman abilities, which are inspired directly by their works. (Sometimes, their lives and personalities also relate to the authors they are named after (for example, F. Scott Fitzgerald being married to a woman named Zelda), but mostly, they're as far from their inspirations as possible.) There is no explanation as to how and why they received their individual powers, so when it comes to the question of "why do the heck do they have superpowers" all I can say is "who the heck even knows".
Now, the story with Lovecraft technically starts with a very wealthy and influential American guy by the name of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald decided to form a group of American ability-users like himself, which he named The Guild. He wanted to use their abilities to help
You see, H.P. Lovecraft isn't a human being with superpowers, like the rest of The Guild. He's actually a monstrous creature in the form of a human being, a being whose true form looks like somebody went Photoshop crazy on Cthulhu.
So, yes, F. Scott Fitzgerald somehow, through circumstances that we may never know, found and contracted an incredibly powerful inhuman creature to work for him and do his bidding. We don't know the nature of the contract, and we don't know if Fitzgerald promised Lovecraft anything in return for his services (besides being allowed to return "home" after he's done, which is insinuated to be somewhere in the ocean because Cthulhu reference and all), but either way, Lovecraft seems to have worked for Fitzgerald for some time to fulfill his contract.
In the events of the story, Fitzgerald and the Guild arrive to Japan, interested in taking over the territory of the main local ability user group, the Armed Detective Agency. Before then, Fitzgerald had placed an enormous bounty on the head of a young man named Atsushi, who had the ability to change into a large, invincible tiger. This plan was foiled by the Agency, and so, Fitzgerald moved onto his next plan: trying to buy out the Director of the Agency with loads of money. This fails spectacularly. So, Fitzgerald pretty much shrugs and decides to take what he wants by sheer force.
The Port Mafia, another Japan-based ability group who has been fighting with the Agency for a long time, suddenly do "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" ploy, sending the Guild information of the location where two non-ability users of the Agency can be found. Lovecraft and a fellow Guild member by the name of John Steinbeck are sent by Fitzgerald to take these members hostage. As it turns out, the whole thing was a trap - the Port Mafia tells the Agency what the heck is going on, and the Agency sends two agents, Doppo Kunikida and Junichiro Tanizaki, to save the hides of these would-be hostages. Just as it looks like Lovecraft and Steinbeck have succeeded in their plan using Steinbeck's ability, Grapes of Wrath, the two agents show up to save the day. Kunikida shoots Lovecraft in the back, seemingly taking him down, and then tackles Steinbeck to the ground.
It all seems like a pretty easy victory for the Agency, but SURPRISE SURPRISE Lovecraft wasn't taken down at all. He had just fallen asleep. Really. He proceeds to use his really terrifying ability to slam the two agents into the side of a cliff, and lo and behold, the Guild has gained the upper hand!
Except Tanizaki has the ability to make illusions, and when a truck starts to drive past on the road, he makes it seem that the road looks normal, all while actually directing the truck driver towards Steinbeck and Lovecraft. The truck slams into the both of them, and then Lovecraft becomes roadkill.
...Except not really. But it's at this time that he gets nabbed into Empatheias, and will find himself having to deal with being a lot further from home than he expected...
Personality:
The first impression that one gets of Lovecraft is that he's weird.
Get to know him better, and you'll find that, well, Lovecraft is really, REALLY weird.
Thanks to the author and stories his character is inspired by, Lovecraft seems to be a combination of the "cosmic indifference" of the Elder Gods and the bizarre and bleak personality of the author himself. He mostly comes off as a nonchalant, yet incredibly melancholy man wallowing in constant misery. He complains about his lack of sleep, his hunger, and the fact that he wants to go home fairly frequently, and seems to worry over trivial things like suddenly feeling that somebody's watching him. "Happiness" doesn't even seem to be a part of his vocabulary - he never smiles, instead going around with an expression that just seems to say "I'm so exhausted by everything around me that I could care less about what happens, honestly". He also seems to have a bleak perspective on most things, naturally assuming that things may go wrong for him before they happen (as when he naturally assumes he and Steinbeck are walking into a trap long before they reach the place where they're going, for example).
Lovecraft is, notably, a creature of sloth. He moves slowly and reacts rather poorly to quick changes in the things happening around him. Even during battle, he doesn't seem to act with any sort of hurry or urgency - for example, when shot in the back by an Agency member, he quite literally falls asleep then and there. He feels very little fear about the fact he might get hurt (which makes sense, considering he literally can't), though rarely, he notes that he feels "scared" by a sudden change in the events around him. He's also incredibly passive. He'll follow the orders and cues of the people around him when he has no idea what to do on his own, and doesn't seem to want to make decisions without some input or confirmation from others. Honestly, he's just comfortable letting other people take the reins - if you point him where he needs to go, he'll go there without questioning it. Of course, he has to trust another enough to follow their orders in the first place, but sometimes he just won't know what to do, and will react with confusion and hesitation when prompted to do something.
He is not actively malicious, which may come as a surprise, but the key word here is "actively". He's not the type to murder people left and right, but at the same time, if he's told to by a person he is following the orders of, he will kill someone without hesitation. "Right" and "wrong" don't mean anything to him - taking another's life is just as normal a task as retrieving a parcel. After all, Lovecraft is an inhuman being who doesn't see people's lives as anything significant. If he harms someone, he harms someone. That's fine. He's never going to feel any kind of guilt or regret over it. He doesn't cherish humanity or regard it with disgust - he just sees it as...something that exists. He's incredibly indifferent to it, the same way a man would be indifferent to the individual lives of ants running around an anthill. Killing a few ants doesn't mean anything, in the long run.
That being said, it's notable that, on his own, without the input of others above him, Lovecraft doesn't seem to want to be a walking weapon - honestly, he seems to want people to either treat him normally or, better yet, leave him alone. He gets paranoid and anxious in the presence of large groups of people, saying that "the attention makes him itch", and seems to be comfortable only when he's with one person, or he has worked alongside and gotten to know a few people at a time. He's no leader, and does not want to deal with crowds of people if he can help it. In this way, he's almost like a hermit wandering out into a noisy loud city, feeling isolated and nervous in the presence of so many things and people. If he's left alone and unbothered, he'll be happy.
It is of note that very, VERY rarely, if pushed too far, he can snap and lash out at others, but this only happens in incredibly dire circumstances. He calms down very quickly, though, luckily for others who might be facing off against him. The majority of the time, he'll react with confusion or morose indifference towards people trying to rile him up, but the potential for him to suddenly become destructive is there. Don't poke the sleeping eldritch monstrosity, and you'll be alright.
As far as his understanding of human culture goes, Lovecraft is, surprisingly, not at all foreign to it. He's used to trains and cars and walking around, remarking on the weather and the state of buildings in a way that indicates that playing human is something he's done before. However, this doesn't mean his understanding is perfect - for example, when he meets a young character, he attempts to entertain him by remembering a balloon man making a dog out of a balloon for children...and then proceeds to make a "balloon" of his own out of his own tentacles. It doesn't go over that well. He also has a fair amount of strange quirks, like spending time to count the number of (natural) wood grains on the sides of buildings. Why does he do it? Who knows! He enjoys it in his own way, somehow. He's a weirdo eldritch monstrosity trying to human, he's doing his best.
Overall, Lovecraft is not a person who feels any extreme amounts of emotion. He kind of comes off as incredibly indifferent to the world, more focused on his own petty sorrows and pessimistic attitude than anything else. He may change (more likely, he will not, he's been this way for god knows how long), but he'll do his best to just live life without having to deal with anything he'll waste extra effort on. For something that probably enjoyed a long sleep before being dragged out into the human world, it's only natural for him to go around like a miserable, exhausted man who doesn't want to do much at all.
honestly, he's pretty much this
Abilities: Oh boy. Where do I begin.
Lovecraft is probably one of the strongest characters in the entire story, mostly because there really isn't a way to defeat him, period. He bears a level of regeneration is far beyond anything any other character has - at one point, he literally gets blown to smithereens, only for the pieces of his body later coming together and reforming his body. He's been run over by a truck, smashed with a giant boulder, shot multiple times in the chest, and he recovers immediately from each and every thing that other people have to throw at him. His human body seems to not even have any bones to break - at several points, his head bends at odd angles without any harm to him. He doesn't even seem to able to bleed. Overall, he's pretty much like the common perception of the author Lovecraft's concept of the Elder Gods - he is an everlasting being who cannot be permanently damaged by anything humans throw at him.
Lovecraft also, notably, does not feel pain. He doesn't even wince when others are trying to deal him damage, and only seems to feel exhaustion over exerting any kind of effort. You could stab him with a knife and he'd just shrug and probably pay attention to something else.
His main ability is called The Great Old Ones, which basically allows him to change any part of his body into a mass of thrashing tentacles entirely under his control. He often uses them to trap enemies and throw them around at his will, and the tentacles can grow very, very long, up to around 30 feet. They can be destroyed, but Lovecraft does grow them back very quickly. This ability, of course, is only one part of what he really is: as linked before, he's a gigantic (and actually very heavy) eldritch monstrosity that, THANKFULLY, doesn't make people go mad at the sight of him. He's just gross-looking. Apparently his clothes, including his nice collared shirt and tie, are a part of him, since they regenerate along with him? I don't even know. Lovecraft is weird.
As if tentacles and regeneration wasn't enough, Lovecraft still continues to win the power lottery and has increased senses in terms of knowing what's going around - he can supposedly "detect breathing" and actually can feel when someone's looking at him that doesn't want to be seen. Too bad he's a practical sloth that doesn't really use these senses to help him react quickly to things.
Now that's all explained, I am VERY MUCH OKAY with giving him a power cap. The tentacles and lack of pain and weird senses will stay, but I'll probably limit the regeneration by a bit. He probably still will be able to regenerate, but it will be much, much slower. Like, a cut or two will heal over immediately, but if his arm is cut off, he may only be able to regenerate it within a few days. Therefore, he probably can be killed if wounded enough to the point where he can't regenerate things, like ripping him apart to pieces. Let me know if that's okay!
Alignment: Sosyne - I'd joke that this alignment fits because of the whole sea metaphor about a calm surface belying smoldering angry depths (because Lovecraft is a sea monster, and all), but that doesn't fit him at all. The alignment fits him because calm is just his general state of being. Of course, he occasionally gets anxious and paranoid and all, and as said before he can snap and lash out in a sudden spike of vicious anger, but 98% of the time, he surprisingly takes on any kind of event without allowing himself to get overly emotional about it. He's not necessarily apathetic - he feels emotions that focus all on himself - but he just can't waste emotions on the things happening around him if he can help it. Therefore, while others are losing their heads over something dire, he can just go forward and do something about it without allowing himself be afraid of the consequences.
Other: I should have put this for his background section, I am a fool.
Sample: Here and here!
Questions: None!
