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keeping adverbs in business since 1987 (staircasewit) wrote,
@ 2010-10-10 17:39:00

Entry tags:

! profile sheet, character: joshua szabo, game: second coming, verse: biblical, verse: original

profile | joshua szabo

j o s h u a

b a s i c s

name: Joshua Elias Szabo
age / dob: Unknown; approximately 25
ethnicity: Caucasian

occupation: Night guard, repairman, and radical
role: Uriel - one of the primary archangels, known as "Fire of God". He is said to be the angel of the Earth, alternately described as ruthless and kind. He represents repentance, and is a patron of wisdom and the arts. By some accounts, he was the spirit who stood guard at the Garden of Eden with a fiery sword, to keep Man from reentering after he was cast out, and by others, he was the herald of the flood to Noah.

sexual orientation: Heterosexual
status: Married - Miriam Szabo
best friends: ---

a p p e a r a n c e

height: 5'10"
weight: 170 lbs.
eyes: Blue
hair: Brown

played-by: Noah Segan

p e r s o n a l i t y

your thoughts on the Populi?
Salt of the Earth, man. Salt's pretty important. Can't have your caviar without your salt, just sayin'.

your thoughts on Legion?
Too wrapped up in their frivolous lives to care about anybody else, that'd be them. It's a damn shame, the way they waste what they've got going for 'em, taking everything for granted. Y'know how youth is wasted on the young? Riches are wasted on the rich. Give 'em to somebody who'll appreciate not having to work in a smoggy factory just to feed their family for a day, or a kid who hasn't got anything or anybody in the world.

your thoughts on the Vox?
Revolution needs to happen, y'know. You can sit around and read books 'til you go blind and talk and argue and complain 'til your tongue falls out, but it won't grease your gears. Or throw a wrench in them, as it were. I'm pretty good with wrenches. It'd be great if we didn't have to do a lot of the things we've had to, really. I'd go the pacifist's route if I thought it'd work. But somebody's gotta have the smarts and the guts to do what has to be done, for everybody. Why not us?

why does your character support their faction?
Josh's decision to join the Vox is entirely due to his upbringing - if it had been in a less volatile environment, he would probably be more inclined to join the pacifist's camp. But Josh has had a hard life, and has learned through experience that you're never going to get ahead if you don't grab the bull by the horns.

what does your character expect to happen after they succeed / after the threat has passed?
Though he anticipates a vast improvement in the general quality of life, what Josh really looks forward to are the little things. Being able to support a healthy family, and still having free time to spend with them. A life without dirt and fear and worry, where he can pursue the education he's always wanted and his children can as well. And also notably, he expects that he himself will finally be at peace, having achieved retribution.

strongest belief: Josh has an intense faith in faith - if you believe something, hope for it, work for it, things will work out. That's not to say he never has his lapses in faith, moments of questioning or pessimism, but he feels that each of those are natural hurdles that must be overcome to reach the finish line.

general motivation: The polar opposites of love and anger. He is full of righteous indignation over how he and those he loves have been treated. He genuinely wants the world to be a better place, and will play whatever part he believes he has to in order to achieve that.

greatest fear: Losing his wife or his brother. They mean everything to him - he feels they represent all the good he has done and is capable of in this world, and really, they're all he has. In their own ways, they each give him hope that things will be better, and to not have either one in his life would devastate him.

b i o g r a p h y

Roughly a quarter of a century ago in a squalid workhouse, a middle-aged woman gave birth to twin boys. Nobody expected any of them to live through the difficult ordeal, without a proper doctor or midwife present. The woman's name was Jane, and she worked in the nearby factory, and sure enough, she died in childbirth at the age of thirty-seven. Her husband Brian (at least, everybody assumed he was her husband) was by her side, and took with him the two baby boys, who were astonishingly healthy. He named the elder Joshua Elias, and his brother - younger by thirteen minutes - Jeremy.

Their health didn't run in the family. After three hard years of single-parenthood, Brian died during an influenza outbreak, and the twins were turned over to...well, that was a point of controversy. No workhouses would take them, being too young to earn their keep. The boys learned early on that there was no such thing as a free meal. They were shunted into one of the few free facilities left - a Catholic orphanage. It was by no means a cushy setup, religion no longer being popular and therefore not recieving much funding, but they learned to read and write, and do simple arithmetic. Joshua gained an appreciation for learning there, and his love affair with art and the written word has been sustained throughout his life.

There wasn't much opportunity for him to pursue the arts, however. As soon as he was old enough, Josh began to work...and work, and work. Factories, mostly, then general repairs. There was no use for poetry and painting when there were parts to be assembled, but Joshua continued to teach himself what he could. He began to understand about society and economics, and it became painfully obvious to him that the system employed in New Jerusalem was very wrong. He didn't know what to do about it, and had few people to discuss it with, the majority of the Populi recieving an even rougher education than he had. Discontent with the life he led and frustrated with his inability to change his circumstances, a quiet bitterness began to blossom deep inside of him. Though he tries to keep light and keep faith, his anger has only grown, in the dark places of himself.

He turned to religion, in his hopelessness. The first things he read were Bible stories, and Joshua liked them. Science was well and good, but the idea of a God who could smite the wicked at will was an appealing one. Joshua needed God to be there, and so He was, but he was a quiet believer who clung more to faith than doctrine. Each time he prayed, it was a reassertion of his hope that things would be better, and one day, whether it was God or pure luck, his faith was rewarded. A man approached him in the run-down house of worship he frequented, and asked Joshua if he would like to work God's will. Joshua listened, and though he was skeptical of the whole 'God's will' part, the man's proposition would suit his own will just fine. He was describing a revolution that would overthrow Legion and raise the Populi out of the mud - and the best part was, nobody would even know who they were. They wouldn't lose their jobs, or face persecution for their actions, but there would be action.

Granted, the Vox wasn't all that Joshua imagined it would be - it was more. More work, more death, more waiting. Meanwhile, he carried on with his life. The harsh streets he'd grown up on seemed harsher with each failure. The feeble voices of the Disciples were almost laughable to him; though they spoke wisely, all they seemed to do was speak. What would mere words accomplish, when the Vox hadn't been able to accomplish the same through deeds? Though their voices have grown louder and more confident, Joshua is still hesitant to throw his lot in with their camp. He's not the demagogue type, anyway. Pretty words don't do a lot for you on the streets.

It's a dangerous vocation, radicalism, but Joshua likes to think that it's worth it. He and his brother (also a member of the Vox) tend to motivate each other in their work. As for the motivation for the rest of his life, he largely credits that to one person - Miriam. He met her in a church. It was the one affiliated with the orphanage in which he was raised, where he still tended to go to read, and also the one they would be married in two years later. He likes to joke that he knows she married him for love, because he certainly didn't have anything else to offer her. It's true; they don't live an easy life, both working two jobs and still living in a tiny apartment in a nasty neighborhood, with mismatched furniture and cluttered with random machinery that Joshua takes home to repair in exchange for less money than he should be paid. They have little free time to spend with each other, but they both try to make the most of what they do have. She is not a member of the Vox, and Joshua didn't push the issue, when he found out just how dangerous a life it was. They've had some interesting philosophical debates over their methods in the years since he joined the faction, but she supports him in his efforts, and has stuck by him through the difficulties of their situation.

m i s c e l l a n e o u s

birthplace: New Jerusalem

family:
Brian and Jane Szabo (deceased) - parents
Jeremy Szabo (Jeremiel) - twin brother
Miriam Szabo (Mary of Bethany) - wife

class: Populi
faction: Vox
role: Surveillance technician/soldier

l i n k s

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