Marty Faraday

History
Martin Faraday, a third-generation Bostonian, was always interested in getting in touch with his Irish heritage. So, when he had the opportunity to spend a semester studying abroad in Dublin, he took it. There, he was lucky enough to meet Katherine Williams, originally of Sligo, a student of Trinity College's School of Drama, Film and Music. She was his first friend abroad, and after a few weeks, their relationship blossomed into something more. They dated until Martin's semester abroad was completed, enjoying a long-distance relationship for the next six months as both worked to complete their final semesters and graduate. After he walked for his diploma, Martin booked the first flight he could back to Ireland, where he and Katherine were reunited and married after another month. Paperwork was sorted, and the couple moved to Boston, where Martin got a low-level corporate job. Katherine got involved in the local theatre scene, and they had a grand old time as a young, fairly comfortable childless couple.

Vivacious and outgoing, there was always something magnetic about Katherine. When she was around, she seemed to fill up the whole room, command attention even when she wasn't saying anything at all. To some people, it seemed impossible to get her out of their head; there was this weird feeling, like she was with them even when they were dreaming. This was especially true in Martin's case, but to the couple, it was just an additional, unspoken layer to their relationship.

After a few years, they idly began trying for children. It wasn't a huge effort. They didn't track her ovulation or anything, just stopped using birth control. After a few months, Katherine found herself pregnant. She seemed to know before the pregnancy test confirmed it, and when the doctor eventually told her that she was carrying twins, it surprised only Martin.

In March of 1986, Martin Faraday, Jr. and Emma Faraday were brought, red-faced and shrieking, into the world. (Seven years after that, Sebastian was born, and he sucked.)

The Faraday family was quite comfortable, and despite Katherine's tendencies towards the unconventional, there wasn't really anything remarkable about their home life. Five years after the kids were born, Martin scored a major promotion-- one that would move the family from Boston down south to New Orleans. With a cheaper cost of living and a larger salary, the family was able to acquire a house in one of the nicer suburbs outside the city and arrange to send the kids to one of the many private schools in the area. The Faradays ran the household like a partnership, with chores and responsibilities pretty evenly divided between the parents (and later, the children, too); however, they made sure their kids wanted for nothing, spoiling them despite their best intentions.

As a child, Marty was close with his sister, but he tended to keep others at arms' length (even his little brother Sebastian, once Marty got over the novelty of a new baby). He had friends, but he never seemed to need them, and he liked to march to his own beat, which led to some issues at school. Although he was fairly intelligent and creative, he didn't follow directions very well, and he wasn't a team player. His parents didn't really think of this as a problem and, in their excitement to give their kids a better childhood than they had, they had a tendency to give Marty and Emma whatever they wanted, within reason. As long as he didn't act out, Marty had it made; he became accustomed to instant gratification and skating by with the bare minimum of effort to achieve it.

Loud and outgoing both, Marty and Emma were like miniature, unrefined copies of their mother, Emma moreso than her brother. In fact, as she got older, she began to pick up on a few odd habits of their mother. Emma had a way of occasionally remarking on things before they occurred, and she had strange, all-too-vivid dreams about others. She didn't talk about it with anybody but her brother, although there were a few slips here and there, which were generally ignored by others, regarded as a coincidence or a child's rambling.

Puberty hit, and that's when things began to change drastically. There became a greater emphasis on mother-daughter time, and Emma and Katherine would take regular weekend trips together. Girls' stuff, Martin Sr. figured, and he didn't think much of it. He'd take these weekends to spend more time tending to Sebastian, their youngest child, while Marty was left to his own devices. He was oddly popular with his peers, despite (or because of) his dismissive and borderline arrogant attitude, and he had a little posse of pals that he hung out with, committing minor acts of vandalism, shoplifting, bumming cigarettes from older teens-- fairly typical antics for bored suburbanite "rebels."

A few months after the mother-daughter retreats began, Emma finally confided in her brother about what the whole thing was really about. From his sister, he learned about the power that had been carried by the women of their family for generations, about the magic that wielded in secret, some more actively than others. Most of the men were clueless, although a few knew. For the most part, men in the Faraday line didn't have any power to speak of, although a few isolated relatives and ancestors had shown an aptitude for magic in the past. During their time together, Katherine was teaching Emma, training her to control her magic and keep it under wraps. To Katherine, maintaining the secret was of utmost importance. After all, society didn't react well to powerful women.

In secret, Emma would take the lessons of her mother and teach them to her brother. In exchange, Marty would find books, resources on the occult and pass them back to her, so that she could expand her knowledge, find out what worked and what didn't. It was easy enough to do in New Orleans, especially when you ran with an eclectic crowd like he did. The two of them would keep on with their private "study sessions" throughout adolescence. Everything he knew about magic, he learned from his sister. However, Marty’s laziness always held him back. He wanted power, and he was lucky enough to be one of the rare men in the family to have an aptitude for it, but he didn’t put forth the effort to live up to his potential. Marty wanted to use the magic in their bloodline for profit, and he thought that if he could harness any of it for himself, what was to stop him from becoming a fabulously wealthy celebrity who was famous simply because he was rich? Unfortunately for him, Marty’s slacker ways kept his progress was slow. His magic generally seemed to manifest in subtle ways, small alterations of probability and occasional manipulations of entropy.

Conventional education meant little to Marty, and he continued through high school to skate by on the bare minimum, cutting classes when he knew he could get away with it, sleeping or blatantly ignoring his teachers. Detention was a common afternoon activity for him. Marty would cheerfully and openly disobey rules, projecting an image of "I don't give a fuck," which kept him in a state of superficial popularity. People didn't really like Marty so much as they were drawn to the idea of him, this cool rebel without a cause. Mistakenly, his entourage of pals thought that there was something deeper to him, and Marty was good at pretending that there was...

But the truth was, he was a shallow, selfish person, and having his behavior rewarded by his peers reinforced his self centeredness. He was used to instant gratification, and even though his household ran with his mother as the most dominant figure, the outside world treated him like a fucking king. He was young, white, handsome, straight and male. Even though he was a complete fuck up, he wasn't treated like one the way boys who weren't so white or affluent were. He started to test how far he could push things, how much he could use people, or annoy them, or treat them like garbage before they either caught on or had enough. By 16, he was hitting the party lifestyle hard, New Orleans being a city that easily enabled his behavior. It had an impact on his already-mediocre grades, but somehow, he managed to get through school without too much incident.

At 18, Marty graduated from high school, skating by on the minimum as he always had. College wasn't an option that was on the table—he wasn't interested, and his parents couldn't convince him to give it a shot. Meanwhile, Emma was accepted into Boston University, and away she went. Once his sister was halfway across the country, Marty promptly packed his car and moved further into the city, cramming into a small shotgun house with some of his pals, and grew more involved in the local occult scene in an attempt to further his magical abilities, which he kept secret. It helped that the occult scene tended to heavily indulge in sex, drugs and alcohol, which made it perfect for him. He made money through odd jobs here and there, usually falling back on work as a barista, a waiter, and an extra in films when they would come into town.

Like his mother, he had a streak for performance, and he would get involved in some of the small stage productions around town, little shows held in bars, where everyone was too drunk to really notice that he wasn't that great of an actor. The highlight of his small stage career was the time he got to play Gwendolen in an all-male performance of some modern-day adaptation of The Importance of Being Earnest. Marty totally killed that role.

After living in the heart of New Orleans for a year, hanging out with occultists who were really into some Crowley dude, going to hipster voodoo ceremonies, Marty decided to start putting his magic to the test, first by seeing if he could manipulate the electronic gaming machines found in a lot of the local bars. Unfortunately, Marty always had a problem learning how to stop when he was ahead, so he would inevitably cause machines to short out, their insides sparking or melting or what-have-you just when things looked like they'd pan out for him.

Dice games were easier to cheat at-- all it took was a little charm cast on the dice-- but they were harder to find outside of casinos, and his fake ID could only get him so far. He could pass without much scrutiny with small victories, but if he was up thousands, even he knew he couldn't get away with it.

Most of the time, Marty would play with objects, cursing them or casting luck charms on them. They would work, but they weren't powerful. His "curses" tended to amount to an abundance of stubbed toes, losing one's wallet, inconveniences more than devastation. He'd settled into a mediocre groove with his magic, and, never particularly interested in the philosophy of magic, in the whole "lifestyle" of the local occult groups, drifted out of that scene.

At 20, Marty decided he was destined for bigger and better things. It didn't help that he'd been booted out of several houses by this time, since he had a tendency to shirk rent for as long as possible until his roommates would get annoyed and kick him out (his lackadaisical charm could only take him so far). New Orleans being a small city where everybody knew somebody who knew somebody else who'd warn about that Marty guy being a total bum... well. It was clear he'd overstayed his welcome. So he packed up his trusty car and all his worldly possessions (they really weren't much) and headed for Los Angeles to make it big in the entertainment industry. Shockingly, he wasn't successful.

Although he was handsome-- when he tried-- Marty didn't have the acting chops to really land anything, even if he tried to up his chances with good luck charms and other magical meddling. He could get small roles, like "douchebag who dies first" in a horror film, but anything substantial was generally beyond his reach unless it was in a truly horrible low-budget movie, the type that always made people wonder "how does this get made?" Stuff like The Room. Thinking porn might be his ticket to a cushy, easy pay check, Marty even tried to make it big as a porn star, but he found that he didn't have the stamina or physical discipline of the actors. Also, his penis wasn't really that photogenic.

And so, most of the time, he fell back on waiting and odd jobs just like every other would-be actor in L.A. Once he was 21, Marty upgraded to bartender. Eventually, he started dating Darcy MacKenzie, aka Lady Mirage, a moderately successful stage magician who frequently performed at Cat O' Nine (once a cool industrial music bar in the 90s, now it was trying to find a new niche for itself), the bar he worked at. This would be Marty's one and only long-term relationship. Darcy was somebody who was even more dismissive than he was and, Marty-- not used to being denied outside of the frequent rejections of the film industry-- found himself jumping through hoops trying to impress her. Eventually, he got her attention by applying a little bit of entropic force to a drink as he passed it to her, setting it on fire like a Flaming Dr. Pepper. Lucky for him, she found spontaneous combustion sexy. They dated for a few years, Marty moving in within weeks, because it just so happened that he'd just been evicted from his apartment and was kind of sort of maybe living in his car (and sleeping in the bar when he could get away with it).

Eventually, Darcy began showing Marty the tricks of the magician trade so that he could be incorporated into her act as Lady Mirage's "assistant." Unfortunately, the two started to clash, as Marty would become more and more unreliable, as he was wont to do. After the honeymoon period, their relationship became tumultuous, filled with loud, frequent shouting matches, although they'd usually make up shortly after. Taking Darcy for granted, Marty would show up to performances drunk, and he started to show off, subtly applying his own real magic to supplement acts in the show. And he'd openly flirt with women right in front of her, which would usually result in Darcy leaving him behind and locking him out for the night.

Their relationship wasn't sustainable, and after a few years, they broke up in a vicious shouting match. Marty was booted out of Darcy's apartment, leaving him homeless, jobless and on the verge of debt from his irresponsible spending habits. He decided that, at 24, it was time to really make it big.

He was going to go to Las Vegas and live the life of a high roller, using magic to cheat the system.

This plan failed. Like everything. Every time Marty would get ahead, he'd lose it all one way or another. It might've happened before he cashed out, or it would take a few weeks, even a few comfortable months. Still, no matter what, he'd lose his fortunes. He sank himself into debt, and eventually, he had to fall back on something. So, Marty went back to bartending at seedy dive bars, and he used what little money he earned to buy equipment to start his own stage act. Darcy'd taught him enough over the years that he could pull it off himself, and he'd make the act better with his magic.

Once again, he wasn't really successful. It turned out that he wasn't the only performer by far trying to make it big in Vegas. Whoops. Marty found himself in a rut, only managing to land gigs in cruddy little bars and casinos. In order to compensate (and because he just kept plummeting into seediness), he turned to higher-stakes gambling, falling in with the wrong crowd and getting in too deep with a loan shark. It's fair to say he's been beaten up at least once or twice for his forays into the seedy underbelly of Vegas. Eventually, he pissed off the wrong person at the wrong time, and he realized it was time to pack it up and escape.

Family

 * Sebastian Faraday - Marty's younger brother.  Total weenie.  Marty thinks he sucks.
 * Emma Faraday - Marty's twin sister.  Totally awesome.  Marty adores her.
 * Katherine Faraday - Marty's mother.  Matriarch of the family.
 * Martin Faraday - Marty's father.  Usually busy with work.

Boomtown History
Marty arrived at New Dodge in March, 2013, where he immediately became the sheriff of the settlement. This was a terrible mistake, as Marty was terrible and ineffectual. During the cave-in at the mines, Marty failed to do much of anything but sit in the saloon and drink to his heart's content. Finally, he got bored with being the sheriff, so he put a curse on a bunch of people's rations cards, giving them bad luck. Once he was uncovered, he stepped down/was removed from the position of sheriff, and he's been a bartender ever since.

During the Lockdown event, Marty tried to wow the mercenaries with a magic trick. He was immediately punched in the face and locked in a cell for public intoxication, even though he was TOTALLY NOT THAT DRUNK!!

Personality
Marty is sort of like Failure personified. Most of the things he tries his hand at: he fails, usually for reasons of hisown doing. He's a man too attached to his vices, and as a result, they tend to sabotage him in many of his endeavors. He's also lazy and doesn't have much of a work ethic. This leads to him trying to find ways of getting rich quickly, rather than really focusing on something and building himself up through time and effort. So, as a result, he's a sort of "jack of few trades, master of none." He could be a good actor if he tried; but instead, he doesn't work hard, and he takes bit parts and extras roles to make money, all while major roles-- which take time, effort and investment to land-- tend to elude him. He's prone to self-destructive behaviors like binge drinking, unsafe sex and the occasional recreational drug use (usually limited to hallucinogens, which he insists help with his magic). That Marty hasn't found himself dead or seriously injured from his frequent intoxication is really due to luck and chance.

Marty's also deeply selfish, and he's something of a user, which impacts his ability to keep friends, allies, supporters, significant others, etc... Pretty much the only people he can rely on consistently are his family.

Marty likes to make up for his shortcomings by cutting corners. When in doubt: find a shorter, easier, faster route. This means he'll lie when it suits him, and he has absolutely no qualms about cheating. As a result, he can sometimes find himself in way over his head with no escape plan. He's a man who can make enemies easily, provided his superficial charm doesn't get him a free pass (and sometimes, that superficial charm is more of a hindrance than anything else. To those who don't react well to it, it tends to elicit deep feelings of I want to punch this guy.)

Just reiterating: Marty is a failure. He fails at nearly everything he sets his sights on, with such alarming consistency that it would get most people down. Marty, however, seems either indifferent or oblivious to his shortcomings, and the fact that he's basically a living train wreck doesn't seem to bother him. This is because he doesn't take life all that seriously. To Marty, it's something to be experienced on your own terms, however you want it. If you fail, then oh well, better luck next time. It may seem like this is some guiding philosophy of Marty's, an outlook he's cultivated over years of experiencing life, but it isn't. In Marty's case, he just sort of believes this by default, because he doesn't want to think too deeply about the world around him, and he sure as hell isn't planning ahead. Marty's got a completely short-sighted way of managing his life, one that flirts with self-destruction. Marty has a tendency to overindulge, particularly with sex and alcohol. The former wouldn't be a problem if he consistently applied safe sex practices, but he doesn't.

Marty's not a nice person. He's selfish, shallow and doesn't think about anybody but himself. The only people he really cares about are his family, and even then, with the exception of his twin sister, his relationship to them is fairly emotionally distant. He seems to forget about people if he's not around them, since he's a very "in the moment" guy, so his contact with his family is few and far between. With pretty much the rest of the world, Marty's focus is on himself. He comes first, and everybody else comes second, third, fourth and so on. This doesn't mean he's incapable of doing nice things-- he will, if he feels like it or if it benefits him, but he won't if it inconveniences him or if it doesn't cross his mind. He's the type of guy who usually won't bother with anniversaries or birthdays, let alone holidays.

Unlike a lot of fictional scoundrels, Marty doesn't have a heart of gold, and he's not hiding a tragic past or secret angst. The truth is: Marty is a privileged ass. He had nearly everything handed to him for the first, totally charmed 18 years of his life, and he's used to navigating the world as an upper middle class white dude. He may come from a family where women are generally the most influential figures, but as far as the rest of the world's concerned: he's simply more deserving of being listened to and treated with respect (well, so long as he cleans himself up). Although he's had bouts of homelessness and unemployment, Marty's doesn't care about poverty or class issues, and since he's still used to looking at the world through privileged lenses-- lenses that he's never tried removing or challenging-- he doesn't have much empathy or understanding of others.

To his credit, Marty's pretty open about what a terrible person he is. He puts himself out there as he is, with no masks. With the exception of a few guarded secrets (which is to say one: his magic), Marty's an open book. His brain-to-mouth filter doesn't seem to work, and he'll just say what's on his mind. This helps him to cultivate an image of a carefree, roguish rebel, which tends to be what initially draws others to him. And, even though he's not a nice or "good" person, it doesn't mean he's unpleasant to be around. He's not sadistic or mean-spirited unless he happens to have a grudge against somebody. Generally speaking, Marty enjoys being the center of attention, and he likes having a good time and, well, part of having a good time is cultivating a happy environment. He's also an exhibitionist, so a life of entertainment suits him well.

Marty's a bottom feeder and a user. He takes from others, and he likes to position himself in their lives subtly, so that they may not realize what he's doing at first. It starts off with just crashing on the couch for a week, borrowing a few bucks because he really needs lunch, and usually ends with him getting kicked to the curb six months later. As such, Marty tends to burn through friendships, and he rarely, if ever, makes any lasting ones. He's good for superficial friendships, acquaintanceships, and little else. Although he acts like an idiot, he's actually got a fair bit of cleverness, which is how he's managed to survive on his own for so long despite being a total fuck up. It's just tempered by his laziness and thoughtlessness. Marty doesn't like utilizing what intelligence he has in any constructive way.

Marty can be superficially charming. It’s a sort of survival mechanism, something that helps him get by in the world. However, that veneer of charm is thin at best, and people who are particularly savvy can see right through it. Cocky and borderline arrogant, Marty thinks he’s a lot cooler and more likeable than he really is. He really wants to be a star-- he wants to be admired and at the center of attention-- but he lacks actual star quality. The best he can hope for is a cult following from his B-movies, which, to be honest, he wouldn’t be opposed to, if not for the fact that it doesn’t really pay all that much.

Appearance
Marty's the kind of guy who's got an "effortless" look to him, which is accurate because he really puts very little effort into his appearance. He's like a series of accidents that come together all right by some coincidence, which can be appealing at first glance-- until you actually get a closer look at him and realize that he hasn't washed his hair in a few days, and that stubble's more "sloppy" than "rakish" and that nice suit of his has been slept in for who knows how many days, and what is that stain...? He could be more attractive if he tried, but instead he scrapes by on the bare minimum, which really is reflective of a lot of things in his life.

At 26, Marty's of average height with a lean frame and a pretty unremarkable body. His hair tends to be on the tousled side. He's a pasty fucker with dark hair and blue eyes, and he tends to burn rather than tan. Clothing-wise, he's usually a step above casual, with loads of button-up shirts and once-nice trousers that have seen better days. Since he hasn't mastered the art of hanging or ironing, his clothes have a perpetually rumpled look to them. Sometimes, he can be spotted wearing half a tuxedo-- the pants paired with a t-shirt, or the jacket paired with ripped jeans. It's not an intentional fashion statement; it's more like he's forgotten to completely change out of one outfit before getting into the other.

Marty has a few tattoos: a couple of occult symbols from his days with the occultist crowd in New Orleans, an Ace of Spades on one wrist (ACE UP HIS SLEEVE, OH HO HO), and a Celtic knot or some other cliché over his heart. None of his tattoos are cool.

His PB is Robert Pattinson, which I know is a bit of an odd choice, given the popularity of Twilight and all, but the guy can look just as unwashed and lazy as Marty, so he’s pretty much perfect.

Filmography
Marty's "career," such as it is, is noteworthy for his tendency to die in nearly every single role he's cast in.
 * Where We Wait (2009) - Waiter
 * Glam Rock Vampires (2009) - David Bowie
 * Hammer IX (2008) - Biker Victim
 * Ultranormal Activity 2 (2008) - Young Jeff
 * Ending Points 3 (2008) - Rick
 * Open Graves (2007) - Axe Zombie
 * Turkey Day Terror (2007) - Chef
 * Whoops! Porn's Greatest Flops #14 (2007) - Himself (as Jack Steele)
 * Apocalypse When (2007) - Colonel Katz
 * Satan's Fairgrounds (2006) - Redneck
 * She-Devil of Suburbia (2006) - Pool Boy
 * Hail to the Chef (2006) - Street Racer #1
 * The Thing From Carlsbad Caverns (2006) - Dog Walker
 * Ending Points 2 (2005) - Extra
 * The Call From Inside the House (2005) - Pizza Boy
 * Wasp Women of the Wetlands (2005) - Boyfriend
 * Fat Tuesday (2005) - Jock #1
 * Mardi Gras Zombie (2004) - Bacchus Zombie #7
 * Vampire Sorority Slaughterhouse (2004) - Frat Boy #2
 * Disco Party Inferno 2: Burning Down the House (2004) - Eddie
 * Viet Cong Zombies (2004) - Pvt. Hammer
 * Cajun Alligator Massacre (2003) - Bill
 * Don't Open the Door!! 3: For Whom the Bell Tolls (2003) - Jock #4
 * Ending Points (2003) - Extra

Links

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