PLAYER: coffee

AGED 18+? yes

RESERVED? no

IN-GAME CHARACTERS: Eddie Thawne

NAME: Alfred Graves

CANON: X Company

CANON POINT: end of s1, while captured by the Nazis and awaiting interrogation (before he chewed up Aurora's photo)

ARRIVAL TYPE: rescued

IC USERNAME: a.graves

HISTORY: X Company is an almost-historically-accurate series portraying a spy cell based out of Camp X, a spy training school in Canada, during early World War II. Season 1 is set in spring/summer of 1942, in Nazi-occupied France, where the cell is trying to gather intel, sabotage Nazi plots, and gain numbers for the French Resistance.

Alfred is the newest member of the team, and the series' viewpoint character. A young man from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, he suffers from serious synaesthesia, a condition that causes his senses to be fused together. Paired with a high level of intelligence and a naturally excellent memory, this makes Alfred's ability basically eidetic memory through sensory association. With his ability to learn things on the fly, memorize data, and decode instantly, among other things, he is an obvious choice as a spy, with one drawback - Alfred's synaesthesia makes him prone to being easily overwhelmed, nervous, and with a tendency to freeze up when he's exposed to too much stimuli.

Alfred was born and raised in Toronto. His mother left at some point in his childhood or adolescence, and was raised from then on by his father, who told him to keep himself to himself, as no one likes an anomaly. Alfred's condition certainly left him an anomaly. Easily overwhelmed, Alfred struggles with day-to-day life and has become a loner who struggles to even work up the courage to go out for groceries. Despite this, he managed to support himself with a relatively successful "Master of Memory" show, performing memory tricks. Having believed up to a certain point that he suffered hallucinations, visual and auditory, he underwent a full workup by a psychologist, who diagnosed him with synaesthesia, high intelligence, heightened pattern recognition, and advanced mathematical skills - the perfect set of strengths for a code breaker.

When Canada joined in to World War II, Alfred signed up right away, but was unable to complete basic training and washed out due to a "mental defect" - his synaesthesia. With his nervous disposition, his tendency to freeze up at loud sounds, to get overwhelmed by excessive stimuli, he wasn't built to be a soldier. He was, however, built to be a code breaker and spy. He was approached by Sinclair, who is in charge of Camp X, a training camp for spies. After being shown around, Alfred quickly realizes what the purpose of the camp was, and uses this deduction to convince the British military, who bankrolls Camp X, to take him on for training. Sinclair convinces a reluctant Alfred to do one mission in the field with a spy cell to bring home information on German bombings.

After agreeing, undergoing some very basic training, and joining Aurora (the commanding officer and disguise expert), Tom (propaganda and seduction), Neil (combat and weaponry), and Harry (gadgets and tech) in the field. Despite some minor hiccups like being thrown physically out of the plane when he was too afraid to jump and having Tom injured while parachuting, Alfred ended up in the right place at the right time, and ready to memorize the codes. At the last minute, however, fireworks going off outside caught him off-guard and made him freeze, while the Nazi officer who worked in the office returned unexpectedly, Neil was forced to kill him. After managing to calm down a little and work through the overwhelming sensation to get the codes, and then help Neil make it look like the Nazi fell through the window and set the room back to rights. While the mission went off well enough, Alfred felt like a failure, having put himself and his teammate at risk, but when Aurora told him that 311 people had survived a bombing thanks to his codes, he reconsidered refusing to go on the field again.

After that first mission, Alfred took up regular participation in missions, training in hand to hand combat with Neil, picked up the idea of using earplugs in loud or overwhelming situations to avoid freezing up, and killed for the first time while getting intel from a Nazi base. It was done mostly by muscle memory, and he didn't seem terribly affected by it. The next mission involved rescuing a lost British bombardier, and getting him out of the country with the support of a collaborator who happened to be one of Alfred's favourite musicians. After the trumpeter from her band was arrested (along with Alfred and Aurora) and is at serious risk to break and expose them due to an addiction to heroin - eventually Alfred was forced to convince the trumpeter to commit suicide by overdose, as they could not get him out of prison at the same time as himself and Aurora, something he did with compassion and genuine empathy. After using the same compassion and empathy on the singer, she was willing to help them get the bombardier out, and the group moved on to the next mission.

This one happened in the most heavily Nazi-subdued city in all of France, run by a mayor who outwardly worked hand in hand with the Nazis and privately wanted to help the spies in order to rescue her niece, who had been put in a birth house. Alfred and Aurora infiltrated the building and helped many girls escape, though they were unable to save the mayor's niece. Alfred was deeply affected by this mission, breaking down in tears while recounting the stories he'd heard from the girls. After this, they were conducting sabotage on a factory, where they almost lost Harry, captured a German radio operator who asked to switch sides, but ended up having to kill him after a mistake that could have been a signal for help, and realized later that he had been telling the truth.

The next mission was one of demoralization, an assassination on several French informants to the Nazis. Alfred accompanied Aurora as she killed the man who had previously betrayed her cell of the French Resistance to the Nazis, and comforted her afterward. Once they returned to the team, they discovered that Tom had encountered a Polish Jew who had some of the first intelligence on concentration camps - he looked over the man's drawings and notes about the place, committing them to memory so he could share them if they were to lose him. After an attempt to get the man out of France failed due to a fellow agent (not on his team) double crossing them, Alfred tried to help the Polish Jew escape only to be captured by the Nazis. Aurora, who had been instructed not to allow him to be taken alive, failed to pull the trigger when she should have, and the season ends with Alfred in a cell awaiting interrogation.

PERSONALITY: At first glance, and even after having known him for a while, Alfred seems to be an incredibly fragile young man. With his slightly hunched posture, his wide eyes and alert gaze, his halting way of speaking, how nervous and wary he always looks, he seems constantly on the edge of a nervous breakdown. Like he would fall apart with the slightest push, snap at the first hint of violence.

Until a few months ago, Alfred himself would have agreed with that assessment. It is true - he has a nervous temperament, he's very easily overwhelmed and freezes when overstimulated. Sounds, strong sensations, and other intense stimuli can leave him petrified, frozen in place, incapable of responding appropriately. He remembers every terrible thing he's seen or heard in brutal detail, the memories sit with him and hurt him. He is an emotional, sensitive man, empathetic and gentle in nature. He isn't suited to being a soldier.

But he is not weak.

However fearful or hesitant Alfred may be, he accepts challenges and moves forward. He does what he has to do to survive, to complete the mission, to protect his team. He is aware that what is right is not always what is easy. He is aware that what he is doing is necessary. Alfred is not naturally courageous - he has spent most of his life avoiding stressful or overwhelming situations, and only recently gained the courage and fortitude to stop hiding and do the right thing. Because what he can do is useful, has a purpose, and he feels that wasting that would be selfish and weak in a way he has no desire to be. His courage is driven by compassion.

Compassion is a major part of who Alfred is. Sensitive and empathetic, he sees everyone he meets as a human being, a creature with feelings and a story, whether friend or foe, and makes efforts to connect whenever he can, whenever it's appropriate. Alfred likes people, cares about them, and this unflinching humanity usually serves him well...even when he wishes it wouldn't. Alfred has done terrible things with this gift for empathy and connection, things he refuses to see as "good" even if they were advantageous. He has used his courage to connect with the girls in the birth house, to care about them so deeply he was willing to risk himself to get them out. He has also used it to connect with Marcus in the prison cell and convince him to kill himself in order to protect the secrets of his cell and Nightingale, another spy.

But someone capable of only empathy would quickly fail as a wartime spy, and Alfred is capable of dissociating the violence and killing in the line of duty that he has to do without falling apart. As the series goes on and Alfred learns how to minimize the effects of his synaesthesia by using earplugs, he's shown to be capable of killing without hesitation to save himself, his team, or to protect the innocent. when it's for the greater good, Alfred resets his priorities and calmly does what he needs to do. Considering the extent to which he uses muscle memory during fights, it's pretty safe to say he turns his mind off when he does this...but he's also not shown to grieve people he has not personally connected with. There's simply a level of disconnect he achieves when doing what needs to be done, even if it's contrary to his nature.

Alfred is a sombre man, subdued, and the burdens he carries are obvious in everything he does. He remembers everything terrible that has happened to him, the bad things he has done, the bad things he has seen. He can't forget, no matter how much he wants to, but he knows that if you remember, then you are responsible, and he feels the need to be responsible for what he knows. To correct the terrible things that he's seen, or at least to do what he can to fix it.

INVENTORY: the clothes on his back, a black and white passport photo of Aurora

CHANGES: n/a

ONE: PSL post
TWO: Carvaka TDM (I know there are only two comments but they're long so I hope they count!)
THREE: another PSL post
FOUR: (Just in case the second sample isn't long enough.)

The arrival is too abrupt.

It's sharp, it stings his senses, a bright hot cut across a blank grey existence, grey space and black bars. The hot, sulfur-smelling dread, razor-sharp at the edges, of when the only door out opens, and it won't be for his escape - it cuts away from him as if on a cue he'd been completely unaware of. Alfred had wanted out, wanted escape, wanted to be gone from this place, the oppressive grey of it, the fear thrumming and throbbing, dissonant notes scraping across his senses.

He exhales hard and sharp when he arrives, his hands extending, his fingers spread, arms straight out as if to grasp for support, something solid to lean on. He can't stop gasping, panting for breath, blue eyes flying wide, he can't help the tiny noise that escapes him. And then he catches his balance, scrabbles backward, glancing around him. The place is strange, everything a little overwhelming, but there's no immediate danger and his eyes slide shut, his shoulders hunching, head down and fists clenched for a moment before he spreads them, brings his arms up against his chest, holding himself before they go to his ears to try to shut out impossible sound, sound that isn't there. Panting for breath, he lowers his head, tries to center himself before lifting his chin, looking around.

Cautious. Careful.

An exhalation, and his breath is even, verging on blue, and there's a faint scent of grapes in the air. The sound has faded, and he can think again. That's the important part, the thinking. A slow exhalation, and he's ready to start figuring out what it is that's going on, now.