Name: Oswald Johannes Croll / Oz
Gender: Male
Age: ?? (claims to be in his mid-20's)
Birthday: December 11
Sexuality: Heterosexual
Special Characteristics:
Gender: Male
Age: ?? (claims to be in his mid-20's)
Birthday: December 11
Sexuality: Heterosexual
Special Characteristics:
◆Forget-Me-Not: Baring the mark of a frightful curse, Oz's soul is damned to incomplete reincarnation; where he is incapable of forgetting his past life cycles.
◆Mr. Encyclopedia: He'd spent the majority of his seven lives broadening his scope of knowledge to the best of his efforts that Oswald appears competent in a large number of skills and studies - though he can never truly master them all apart from a set few.
◆Skimming and Scanning: Mr. Croll's amassed knowledge would not be feasible had it not been for his impeccable memory, rumored to be photographic despite his claims otherwise.
◆Mr. Encyclopedia: He'd spent the majority of his seven lives broadening his scope of knowledge to the best of his efforts that Oswald appears competent in a large number of skills and studies - though he can never truly master them all apart from a set few.
◆Skimming and Scanning: Mr. Croll's amassed knowledge would not be feasible had it not been for his impeccable memory, rumored to be photographic despite his claims otherwise.
Personality: Tormented as his soul may well be, Oz chooses to remain true to the nature of his first youth: a weighted, however gentle soul, who's fragility lingers underneath a layer of mock pride and disdain. For a lack of a better word, Oswald is a fool, as he has known all these years that he'd been a man of great ambitions, an existence bound to the thrill of adventure, and more so a selfish man desiring more than what he'd already been given. He pardons others with compassion and kindness when need be, and treats scum with cruelty in the same fashion. He prods on an image of aloofness and keeps his distance under the scrutiny of the general public, but he craves affection just as greatly as he desires to give it - never mind the form or structure, for at his core, Oz is a charitable man towards the right people.
To him, his soul and everything that follows are contradictions given shape, and realizing that idea warrants dry laughter and a twisted sense of humor.
His strong feelings towards the concept of give and take of equal measure might not appeal to everyone, since it does not hold true for altruism which is still morally acceptable, though it doesn't at all discourage him from incorporating the idea into the way he handles things. Having associated with the law of equal exchange for seven generations has long shaped his worldview into that of a mirror, reflecting the actions of the people he engages with. Like begets like, as he were to say with conviction.
And yet far from the resentful sort, Mr. Croll still proves to be a difficult man when under the pretense of a pleasant conversation. Every first meeting is hushed and awkward as this alchemist is a cautious one still. It's a choice to earn to his trust, but it's not an easy route to follow, as proven by many a men before. Often those who couldn't handle his emotional baggage are those who've hurt him the most, and are the very reason why a hesitance exists in the social equation, isolating him to a handful of good friends. His transparency (alongside his sensitivity), in its purest essence only ever resurfaces when someone willingly tries to cross hell and high water for Oz's favor, which is an ordeal that very few have hoped to survive.
Likes:
◆Games of chance: Things bound to harsh facts are what commonly bore this odd man, hence his endearment for probability and luck, purely out of their unpredictability. He especially likes to dabble in small-time gambles such as Poker or those involving dice.
◆Tea and sweets: Oz has had practically enough of bitterness across seven lifetimes that he just gravitates to the kinder flavors, such as those found in hot tea and cinnamon buns.
◆Second-hand books: His appreciation for prose is an insurmountable one, but it had always been the books with flayed covers and yellowed pages and dust gathering between each fold that held far more sentiment than what a new one could represent. Oswald regularly took solace in their once-loved status...for reasons so obvious that it needn't be said.
◆Music and merriment: Across the millenniums, his passion for the musical arts stand untarnished by his fate. Oswald is as much as a listener as he is a performer, picking up some competencies in his favored string instruments and a few ballroom dances.
◆Rustic scenes: Once, he was the sort of man who craved for the world atop a castle. But no sooner did he taste the cruel reality of his aspirations with his (and his beloved's) happiness as the final price. Now, Oz could only yearn for the sights of gentle rolling hills or wheat fields swaying in the breezes or anything modest and simple and natural, really.
◆Frugality: Only twice across his seven iterations was he truly able to live the meager lifestyle. Once, where he overlooked its charm and lost everyone who mattered the most in the process, and twice, alone and yet content at the thought of savoring the moments in Her memory. Oswald's current cycle is more than a little well-off from sheer luck, though that doesn't imply that he now refuses to practice this sort of living every now and then.
◆The Art of Potion-brew: A more recent addition to his quirks were to be his fondness for alchemy and, more precisely, potions. His current (and seventh) life cycle bore him a world of occult practices and witchcraft, and magic so raw and untouched that it excited many. But all he ever appreciated from that era was the processes behind potion brew and chemistry in general. Oswald is aptly more skilled in this area of alchemy than anything else.
Dislikes:
◆Selfishness: Corrupted lords and egocentric townsfolk are all of the same ilk, he thinks, and he hates them all regardless.
◆Betrayal: Three out of seven cycles did he count this happening. To be perfectly frank, it's getting cumbersome to deal with across the times.
◆The meddlesome types: So much cannot be said about what he'd seen and what he's been through, that it'd prove futile to ask him how he is, or what happened to him. It's all tragic anyway, why bother?
◆Failure: It's not so much as he's obsessed with success, rather, he thinks he is mentally incapable of handling the failure properly. When you'd been capable to bring suffering to your beloved as a result of your own failure, there is little to be left untainted by distaste.
◆Death: As opposed to fear, Oz is inclined to regard death with frustration, because for him, it meant another reset, another timeline gone to futility without achieving what he wants. Climbing from bottom up, as his first life cycle proved to him so bitterly, is not an experience he can ever relish.
◆Bell towers: A past trauma that serves to be a source of depressing thoughts - and a reason why you will never see Mr. Croll inside a church.
Motivations:
◆His late beloved: Her. She. J ██ l █ e █ . A memory he remembers with love and affection and regret; an existence that he so foolishly chases regardless if the world (and She herself) has damned them to remain apart. Oz vowed to show her the world in his first life cycle and he still desires to do so, provided that he finds Her again.
◆Rest and repose: To earn her forgiveness is what it means to be free from his curse, and his plans reaching absolute fruition is what it'll take for Oz to reunite with her. Even if she wouldn't reciprocate his love, his soul need only a smile and her mercy to release him from his sorrows.
◆The distant future: Humanity as he'd seen from his seven lives hasn't completely reached a point of calm. If he were still to reincarnate for several more eons, then he hopes to grasp the distant future that he envisioned, a time where there are no lords to rule the lands and no slaves to sell off. The thought of watching man advance from his former savagery at least quells some of the turbulence in his old soul in regards to the next cycle.
Fears:
◆Megalomonia: There was a time where he was the sort to thirst for power much like any other mundane man. And yet, the first instance of Oswald attaining the power that he so desired would later lead him to write out the tragedy that he regrets in inhumane fashion. The sins and mistakes he'd done under the influence of rule and control are not things he would like to welcome another time, and he only hopes to avoid such a similar situation in the future.
◆Futility: Even with all the power in the world, Oz remained unable to stop Her from falling even further into insanity, couldn't stop Her from dying, couldn't stop Her from rejecting his pleas to reincarnate together when he confronted Her one final time. To this day, this odd man strives and pushes and continues, all to prove to Her and himself that there can be something done. That there's hope. To lose that hope is the worst possible outcome - and it only ever means letting Her go.
◆Impostor Syndrome: Seven lifetimes and he's managed to be a man of trained skill through toil and tear, and to be proven incompetent is a horrific thought that could potentially undo everything he worked so hard for.
◆His own madness: Oswald knows that there was nothing far scarier than his fickle sanity. It wasn't easy to suppress the first seeds of madness that he'd sown in his first life cycle, more so as they grew to suffocate him across each iteration of himself. More and more, Mr. Croll finds his sense of humanity slipping from...all of this, everything he'd undergone, and it becomes an even bigger burden to bear once he thinks of the things he's capable of after he'd fully succumb to it. He battles constantly with his own demons every now and then, and it becomes increasingly harder the longer his mission is delayed.
General Appearance
Height: 185 cm
Weight: 75 kg
Hair: White
Eyes: Scarlet/Gold (varies according to his mental state)
Skin Tone: Caucasian
Appearance: Oswald's wardrobe is, at its best, normally modest and clean. As a remnant of all the previous life cycles, he is the sort of man who only wears what is needed, choosing to limit his accessories to a few hats and a single bronze broach to fasten his cloaks. Even at the pretense of an occasion, Oz is more than likely to dress as he normally does, albeit with his hair less of a mop. It is to be noted that there are many who find his appearance relatively unnerving due to his height, only further accented by his dark clothes that warrant him more than just a small number of cautious eyes. One exception to his rule of "gent-ware" are the times when a glamour potion is necessary, where his appearance changes accordingly (although he favors a face reminiscent of his current lifetime's adolescent years).
Guild/Council
Guild: Fairy Tail
Tattoo: Right side of his neck, close to his collarbone - in this shade of yellow
Last edited by Oswald on 30th November 2018, 11:24 pm; edited 19 times in total