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the ooc
Name: Bex
Age: 29
Email: mommyfox@gmail.com
AIM: bextrannen
past experience: fairlytales and an embarrassing number of years of gaming prior.

the ic
Name: Wesley
Age/Birthdate: 51/October 10, 1956
Sexuality: Mostly straight with an occasional foray to the other side, but really isn't that interested in either.
Occupation: Computer programmer - works freelance from home developing software
Location: Ireland

Fairytale: Merlin from Arthurian Legends
Age of Realization: 19
Ability, if any:
Difining Character Traits: Merlin was not so much a fireball-tossing wizard as he was a prophet and an advisor. As such, Wes has very good instincts about where to find people and what their destiny is.
Status: Yes, though it feels a bit pompous to him.
Played-By: Jeremy Irons - http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/familyhistory/get_started/images/wdytya3_07_irons.jpg


History:
Wes was born to a scared teenage girl in Oklahoma in the fifties. She wouldn't say who the father was, and promptly gave up her baby boy for adoption. He was raised by a nice couple who, while they intended the best for him, were not at all prepared to raise the reincarnation of Merlin.

Wes was highly intelligent and quickly excelled in school, but fared poorly on the social level until his parents moved him to a private school in the hopes of curbing his increasingly bitter outlook on human life. Here he found his true people - fellow geeks. He was in chess club, debate team, spelling bees, Quiz Bowl type tournaments - anything his parents could get him into that would keep his mind busy, because left to his own devices he was a threat to household objects, especially electronics. His father's friends frequently brought over their small broken appliances to see what Wes could do with them.

He attended MIT in the 70s. Once exposed to computers he had found his one true love - machines he could direct to do whatever he wanted. While he has a fondness for robotics, their application is limited and software holds greater appeal for him.

Shortly after graduating from MIT in 1978, he decided he'd had quite enough of America. He emigrated to England. Part of his reason for leaving was that his girlfriend at the time told him she was pregnant, and it scared the crap out of him. He declared it wasn't his, that she had cheated on him, and left the country. He thought he was leaving a messed up situation for something better. However, once he set foot on British soil he realized something very important.

He used to live there.

Only the buildings weren't there, and everyone rode horses, and there was a king and a fruity-ass French knight and some really important cup - He nearly got back on the plane and went home. In the end his intense curiosity won out, and he stayed in England to try to figure out what was going on. Over the next year floods of memories came back to him - Arthurian stories, medieval castles, wars, plagues, families, hundreds of years. It threw him for a loop, and he spent the next couple of years in a mental facility, devastated that his mind had betrayed him.

Then he started to meet people. The more people he encountered who had the same type of reincarnation memories, to more he started to think he wasn't crazy after all. He was still a functional individual; he wasn't dangerous, he could still work, he acted rationally. So he checked himself out of the treatment facility (quite a trick in and of itself) and went about trying to contact as many people as possible who thought they remembered past lives. He had a new obsession, and one that would persist for the rest of his life.

The advent of the Internet was the greatest boon imaginable to this effort. He programmed a website dedicated to finding other Tales (I'm actually gonna build this thing, yo - at least a mock up) and bought a server to host a journal program so they could keep in touch with each other all over the globe. It was gleefully simple - he asked in a straightforward fashion for anyone who thought they remembered past lives and had a strong connection to a character from literature to contact him. Many people saw the site and dismissed it as Internet-crazy. Many contacted him who were not Tales but New Age type people who were convinced they remembered past lives (and perhaps they do, but they were not Tales.) And gradually, true Tales began to filter in. He even found a few people who remembered the same things he did because they had shared pasts together - the greatest evidence yet that he was quite sane, just very, very different.

His talents as Merlin were a great help in this endeavor. Merlin was less of a fireball-throwing wizard and more of an adviser and prophet. He identified and directed important people and events, but was never a key figure of action himself. Wes is the same; he is a sort of magical network administrator. When he found out about the Magic Mirrors, he moved to Dublin to be nearby. He has spent a great deal of time corresponding with other Tales, assuring them they aren't crazy and offering support.

In 2003, he also found his daughter, Heather. Or rather, she found him. Now 25 years old, she tracked down her wayward father and gave him the tongue-lashing of his life. He thoroughly deserved it, too. He was deeply ashamed that he had run out on them like he had - and even worse, he hadn't given them much thought after that. He was too immersed in his own world. Her mother brought a civil suit against him for eighteen years of child support, and they settled out of court, mostly to avoid a horribly complicated international lawsuit, but also because he really wanted to make good on a big mistake in his past whatever way he could. He's still paying on it, and will likely be paying on it for many years to come.

He offered to pay for Heather and her family to move to Ireland, which she took him up on. She was married to a firefighter and had two little kids, and a move to England sounded like a grand adventure. She also wanted to get to know her father. Of course, the newness wore off after a time and she and Wes didn't get along that well after all. Heather is pretty smart, but she's also kinda ghetto-fabulous and doesn't put much stock in "book smarts", which drives Wes nuts. But he likes his grandchildren, so he keeps the peace with her as best he can. His grandson, Brody, is very much like Wes in that he is highly intelligent and likes taking things apart. As of 2008 Heather is 30, Brody is 9 and the little girl, Wren, is 5. Wren is truly her grandfather's joy; she's smart like her brother, but her brains are more geared towards imagination and creativity. She's cute, even if she can be a real brat when the mood strikes her. Mostly when Brody takes her toys apart.

These days, Wes divides his time between freelance programming, writing computer articles, speaking at conferences, talking to Tales and occasionally babysitting Brody and/or Wren. He is a significant voice in the computer industry, with a keen insight to what is going to be the next big technological movement or development (again, part of being Merlin.)

Personality:
Wes's definitive trait is his obsessive intellect. He has a singularly focused mind, which has its good and bad points. Sometimes his obsessions can be unhealthy, to the point of neglecting other parts of his life, such as caring for his home and body. He would be monstrously fat if he hadn't discovered early on that he does his best abstract thinking while jogging.

He can come off as an intellectual snob, but he doesn't mean to - he just doesn't have patience for idiots. Culturally he's less literate than he ought to be, simply because he hasn't had time to get educated on things like art and literature; he's been too occupied with the intense study of more narrowed fields.

As might be expected from an unmarried man in his fifties, he has difficulty maintaining long-term relationships. He doesn't like to apologize and he likes his independence. He also gets fixated on his current obsession and doesn't stop to do the necessary work of maintaining relationships. The idea of sharing all kinds of decisions with another person, having to consult them before making plans, is stifling. He's more of a loner in that respect.

Most of the time he blocks out his past life memories, simply because they're too much to deal with. He doesn't like having baggage. He privately thinks being the reincarnation of Merlin is pretty cool, though it's a little embarrassing to admit. It sounds a lot like saying "I'm the reincarnation of Napoleon!" He'd prefer to have been something a little more low-key. Then again, he is grateful that his Tale is so well known that it is unlikely to die out. He feels sorry for those who are dying out, but wonders if it's not a matter of the times, of a changing of the guard. He doesn't say this out loud, though, since it's rude.

Hobbies include building little electronic gizmos, nitpicking science fiction stories and movies, and maintaining a saltwater fish tank. Because the player can't have one.

Potential Interaction:
Obviously new Tales who find the website will talk to him, and he hopes that new ones will continue to use him as a resource. He and the other Arthurians will hopefully have some fun interactions, including arguing with Morgana and ordering Arthur around. (All love and fun to whoever picks up Arthur.) While shipping is always fun, this one is more for other plots, since he puts such value on his independence and isn't interested in long-term serious relationships. That said, he probably has a slew of one-week-stands behind him. Or ahead of him.

I have a vague hope that someone might want to take up his daughter, if she suddenly were to come to the realization that 1) she's a Tale and 2) so is Dad. I'm not holding my breath though.

Wes' Fish Tank:
90 gallons
135 lbs of live rock
Dwarf fuzzy lionfish
A pair of maroon clownfish
Foxface
Hermit crabs
Fanworms
Tuxedo sea urchin
Massive cowrie

Friends (33):

Friend of (42):