Dr. Clement Varker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cameclosest) wrote2030-05-10 07:52 pm
cameclosest) wrote2030-05-10 07:52 pm
Entry tags:
TLV Application
CWs include: body horror, character death, unethical experimentation, medical torture, alcoholism, child/partner death, suicide/suicidal ideation, self-harm, kidnapping, body dysmorphia/forced transformation and murder.I am sorry if I missed any but you get the idea, I'm sure
User Name/Nick: Ian
User DW: N/A
E-mail/Plurk/Discord/PM to a character journal/alternate method of contact: plurk and BBitsaboi on Discord
Other Characters Currently In-Game: Abel(Ethan Lemaire) and Hanna Falk Cross
Character Name: Dr. Clement Varker
Series: Not Drunk Enough
Age: Early to mid-fifties. Exact number unspecified
From When?: Book 2 Page 41
[Quick character reference guide for people brought up more than once in this app:
Dr. Clement Varker: CEO of Varika Labs, is kind of an ass, but at least he's a charming one. Once he gets passed the shock is probably 5 seconds away from a break down.
Dr. Simon Birkov: Recently fired lead scientist at Varika Labs, Varker's best friend since college. Spent years losing his mind and decided to finally make it everyone's problem.
Dr. Steward Drohane: Vice-president at Varika Labs, Varker's other best friend and romantic partner since college. He really got the short end of the stick in this one.
Mackenzie Birkov: Simon's son who died in a fire while away at college. Recently resurrected, confused and very upset about it.
Dr. Lily Trevanau: Scientist at Varika Labs, Simon's assistant and accomplice in his extra-curricular illegal experiments. Admired Simon for his focus and determination before he went mad.
Logan Ibarra: A handyman who had the misfortune of being called to repair something at Varika Labs on the night of the fall. Was infected by Simon's mutation and is slowly forming a psychic connection with him.
Abrahm Lorhel: Logan's coworker and Simon's hired hand, is definitely a serial killer, brings in bodies rather than live test subjects.]
Inmate Justification: Varker’s main sin is one of inaction. Dr. Simon Birkov, his best friend and lead scientist, lost his son tragically and never recovered from the loss, divorcing his wife shortly after. Varker knew his friend was hurting, and he watched him fall apart while hiding what Simon was doing from his partner of 20+ years and Simon's other best friend, Dr. Steward Drohane. It might be fair enough to just leave it as ‘Varker is a terrible friend’ but the things he let Simon get away with knowingly were illegal and unethical experimentation on humans, embezzlement of company funds, and falling into madness while he watched It happen and did nothing but hide it from those who cared about him. He truly believed that letting Simon run rampant was helping when really he was enabling his friend to do terrible things and lose his connection with humanity. Following the events at Varika Technology Varker is unstable, incredibly guilty, traumatized, borderline suicidal and in desperate need of intervention.
Arrival: Against his will. Varker would have willingly died if he’d been able to at his pull point.
Abilities/Powers: Baseline, Varker used to be a regular human man with a genius level intellect who regularly goes to the gym and is healthy and fit for a man in his fifties. He has his PhD. In chemical engineering and is the CEO and one of three founders of Varika Technology Labs
Following the experiments that Simon did on him, he has a few additional abilities.
He has self healing, fast enough that a surgeon was not able to pull all of the rebar out of his body since his flesh knit itself together faster than they could work. This will be nerfed as the way it’s described can amount to being practically unkillable while still being able to experience and survive a normally fatal amount of pain.
His second mouth appears to be connected to him, but has a second sort of sentience. It is not intelligent enough to think or speak but reacts, usually violently, to Varker’s mood. He talks to himself/it because it does not shut up(constantly hissing or snarling) and irritates him. It has a supernatural sort of strength and can lift things he can't. The tongue can stretch unnaturally far, and he can use both his tongues to smell. His new teeth are capable of biting through metal, and his second mouth also has the ability to spit acid. This will also be nerfed as a very reactive inmate should not be able to spit acid, and he wouldn’t be complaining about the lack of anyways. That’s fucking gross.
When a dog whistle or similar high pitched sounds are played, the second sentience seems to take over his body and it craves violence. He is not able to remember what happens and the episodes tend to last around five to ten minutes, though he usually loses consciousness afterward for an extended amount of time before waking up.
Inmate Information: Varker has always been the ringleader of his little trio of nerds, incredibly charismatic, dramatic and vain. Simon himself, who is far more snarky than all of them combined, admits that Varker is a genius, and has said so even back in college regardless of whether or not Clement’s ego needs it, which it doesn’t. Conducting secret experiments back in college, he was able to formulate a serum that brought a dead Venus flytrap back to life, giving ‘her’ sentience and immortality, a feat he has never once been able to recreate. Calling her Audrey, Clement had only shared her with his friends Simon Birkov and Steward Drohane for fear of her being absconded by the government even if this discovery alone could easily make him rich and famous. This is the first little sign, while a harmless one, of his fear of taking risks. It also is a good showcase of his selfishness as this kind of advancement in science could easily be used to cure cancer and change the world rather than be something he kept for himself.
Varker holds his fear close, even going so far as to keep his relationship with Steward from Simon due to the possibility of him reacting poorly despite the three of them being best friends for years. His ability to hide their relationship and convince Steward to do the same helps him later when he hides what Simon is doing from Steward even though he is the vice-president of Varika Labs. The amount of work that he would have had to do to keep Dr. Drohane out of the loop of the significant sum of company funds and equipment that Dr. Birkov was stealing is excessive just to avoid risk. Not to mention that the effort that he puts in for the sake of enabling Simon could have easily been put towards helping his friend in a more healthy and positive way rather than watching him slowly deteriorate.
But even as the possibility of what Birkov is doing creeps further and further down the path of unethical and illegal, he is kept still by the fear of confronting him and lies to himself that staying quiet and not trying to stop him is in his own best interest and Simon’s. Varker convinces himself that it might be nothing even when the evidence is stacked high enough to crush him and minds his own business. He keeps this up for six years, watching Dr. Birkov turn into someone unrecognizable despite them having been best friends for over two decades and his only attempt to change his course is to suggest therapy and leave him be again.
When Dr. Birkov steals Audrey from Varker he convinces himself that this is the last thing that he will ‘give’ Birkov, that if he had her, then he had everything he could possibly want from him and the experiments would be over. He would fire Simon, cut him off from Varika funds and owe him nothing, sure that Birkov was the only one in the wrong. Unfortunately for Clement this is not what happens, and he finds himself and Steward tied up in Simon’s basement lab. After torturing him in front of Dr. Drohane, Varker doesn’t quite remember what happened while in the basement, half forgetting that Steward was down there with him, but later recalls that he had run, thinking that he could come back for Drohane later and had left him in the basement. Being unaware that Abrahm was an accomplice, he finds out later that he was tortured and experimented on because Varker once again ran away with an excuse that he was doing the right thing while leaving the actionable thing alone.
When he makes it to Varika, it is clear to him that he can’t lie to himself any more. Simon is no longer sane, Varker purposefully sheltered a monster, and that doing anything differently over the last six years might have changed some part of this, but the blood on Simon’s hands is also on his. Their entire staff aside from a security guard and IT specialist, Maela and Bia have all been murdered, and even as they go through the building Varker is attempting to fix anything around him without exactly knowing how. Being forced to look at what his lack of action brought about attempts to do some heavy lifting as far as changing his behavior, but when he’s confronted by Dr. Drohane who blames him for what happened as much as Simon and himself for not seeing it, any change is pulled in the wrong direction. Dr. Drohane tells him they should drown together so that the nightmare can end and Varker doesn't even fight him when Steward uses his own transformed body to attempt to kill them both.
Steward Drohane is the only person Varker actually apologizes to out loud, all the others having gotten a half apology or the start of one before he cuts himself off even if he truly is sorry for what happened to them. This reads to me as Varker understanding what he should have done, and doing it for the person he tried to keep out of Simon's way but loses sight of the right course when he lets Steward convince him they should die together to keep Simon from burning everything down instead of trying to fix it. The loss of Drohane cuts rather deep, a piece that Varker had intentionally left to the side to keep safe, and knowing that he died resenting him after the years of being together is the rotten cherry on the top of Varker’s trauma from the massacre of Varika.
Outside of main plot points it is clear in his daily actions that Varker is avoidant of risks, copes with difficult things by avoiding them all together and drinking, and hides this by being a smug and charismatic asshole. After his transformation, his vanity is a hard pill to swallow, unable to recognize himself and feeling out of place in a body that he used to present with great pride. He expresses feelings of self-hatred, disgust and body dysmorphia, practically begging Logan to talk to him about it in later chapters past his pull point when the other man is also changed.
The sudden loss of his partner also deeply affects him, not even reacting to the crazy things that are continuing to happen around him while Steward lays on the floor in pieces, his body ripped in half, spine literally visible and the things that Abrahm did to him become incredibly clear to Varker. While he himself is in a great amount of pain, having been impaled by multiple sticks of rebar, he doesn't acknowledge it, just tries to talk to Stew in his final moments. Given this is essentially moments before his pull point, he is not okay and is not going to process this until he is made to.
Path to Redemption: Varker has some major healing to do before he gets into the nitty gritty of what should be changed. Given the incredibly traumatic events of Varika, the first step will be to accept that Steward is dead, and work through the grief and shock of it as well as accept his own responsibility in what happened to Steward, the staff at Varika, and what Simon became as a direct result of his inaction. Alongside this, he has to come to terms with what he is, pull himself back from self-hatred, become comfortable with his own body now that it’s changed, and get back on track with the thought that he needs to do something to move forward and not lay down and die for his sins.
Once he’s managed to figure all that bullshit out, then he can start looking at what he can do moving forward. Coming up with an actual plan, regardless of what it is with a vision for his own future, one that doesn’t have him running away from everything and drowning it in alcohol, is what will ultimately get him across that finish line.
Having just come from a hellscape of horrific monsters, the Barge itself should be easy peasy for him, but given his body dysmorphia and forced transformation trauma, breaches are going to be rough. With two bars on board and his own stash of alcohol in his cabin his alcoholism is going to get worse before it gets better as he deals with the issues as mentioned above. Wardening this man is not going to be easy as he avoids his problems but as a reminder, he is rather vain, and enjoys talking about himself which, if done properly, can pull some self reflection out of him. His approach to redemption will be ‘I don’t deserve it’ and convincing him he does will probably be a marathon of tough conversations that he will not want to have.
Gentle approaches paired with strategic hard hitting facts and logic will help bit by bit to push through his avoidance, but it will certainly be a slow process as he has a lot of bullshit to work through. Varker is incredibly smart, but also an ass and difficult even before his life fell apart. Someone with the ability to either be unaffected or mirror his casual insults would do well to get through to him. Lastly, since he has an intense feeling of being alone in what happened to him, sharing similar experiences or memory share/body swapping events might actually help in their own way even if they might be traumatic for both parties involved. He might not want other people to have gone through what he did, but he is also incredibly selfish and needs someone to know how he’s feeling in order to really, truly talk about it and feel safe doing so.
History: Before Varker graduated college he had already managed to conduct an experiment that changed his life. He created a serum that revived a plant from the dead, and when it revived, it was sentient, immortal and the cutest darn thing. He named her Audrey, showing her to his two best friends, Simon Birkov and Steward Drohane, who were, like him, all science majors with impressive careers ahead of them. Cut to a few years later, Varker is celebrating the opening of Varika labs as CEO, Drohane as the vice-president and Birkov as their lead scientist. The party is full of other hand picked scientists who are all celebrating in the success and excitement of their new, fully funded lab and cheer as Varker gives a rather charismatic speech about the future. As the party dwindles, Birkov teases Clement that he can’t stay because he’s not hopelessly single like he is with a wife and toddler at home. Awkwardly it becomes apparent that Varker and Drohane are actually seeing each other, and the two of them, embarrassed, shoo Birkov home to his wife even as he says he’s happy that Varker won’t be alone forever like he’s thought.
Twenty years later finds Varika still successful, but Birkov’s son has died suddenly in a fire while away at college. He isn’t handling it well at all, burying himself in his work and his two friends attempt to get him to take some time for himself. He admits that his wife has left him, claiming it’s a difference in dynamic as they both grieve very differently. Birkov asks to speak to Varker privately and tells him that he wants to try recreating the success with Audrey again and is very firmly shut down. Not only have they ever been able to get anything even close to the success of Audrey, which is plant life and not human, even attempting would be both illegal and unethical, which he refuses to approve. Varker tells him to get rest and stop the obsession of resurrecting his son as it is an impossible task and leaves after Birkov insults him.
For the next six years Simon uses and steals equipment in unauthorized experiments, embezzles company funds, hires a serial killer to find him test subjects, and recruits another scientist to help him in pursuit of resurrecting his son. Varker is immediately aware of this, hiding the information from Drohane as best he can, and simply ignores the problem. It isn’t until Simon steals Audrey from Varker that he finally decides that he can’t deal with it any more and fires Birkov, thinking that will end his guilt and involvement or lack thereof. When Abrahm, his serial killer assistant, brings Logan in after practically killing him, he's successfully resurrected and brought to the hospital the next morning, none the wiser that he was a test subject. It’s around this time that Birkov is able to resurrect his son, though the formula he uses has a flaw in it. Mackenzie needs to be fed with other test subjects, consumed by Dr. Trevanau and then fed to Mac in a rather gross, shadow monster vomit sort of exchange. Finally getting what he wanted, but needing to consume more people to keep his son alive, Birkov makes his move on Varika.
Shortly after this, Birkov kidnaps both Clement and Steward, bringing them down to his basement lab. He tortures and infects Varker with a similar serum, turning him into a monster, but unlike himself, Abrahm and Dr. Trevanau, he removes the surging feeling of power, keeping only the pain. Varker, who doesn’t remember anything until later about what happened to him, leaves the basement without Drohane, he doesn’t even remember that he was down there until much later and heads to Varika to try and stop Birkov, but by the time he gets there it’s too late. Birkov murders and consumes everyone in the building, the only survivors from Varika being Bia Hayes and Maela Durant.
Through a series of nightmarish encounters with monsters that both traumatize and disgust the main cast, Varker hears a high pitched sound that only he can hear and passes out, later waking up in a supply closet with Logan. He is slowly starting to remember what happened to him in Birkov’s basement when he hears the noise again and this time it causes him to lose control of himself, attacking Logan with an intent to kill before Logan locks him in and goes to find the girls who were searching for an exit, effectively splitting up the entire group. Logan runs into a monster with rebar, concrete and barbed wire holding his head and body together and is stabbed, though this monster introduces himself as Steward Drohane and asks Logan to show him to Varker. Logan refuses and escapes through an air duct that Drohane can’t fit through.
On the other side he finds Mackenzie, but where he was stabbed in his leg seems to be infected with something and before he can find out what, he passes out. When he wakes up Bia and Maela have found him and Mackenzie, trying to figure out what happened to Logan and why Varker was locked in a closet. Back in the closet, Varker waits to be let out when Dr. Trevanau appears, her hair made up of consumed, dead employees who she introduces as Varker’s friends, they all seem to writhe and scream in pain despite being unable to make sounds. Varker, horrified, attacks her and manages to get out of the closet, running off in search of the group and to try and get away from her.
Eventually the group meets up, Varker shocked to see Mackenzie alive, and tries to pull Logan aside to tell him why Mackenzie shouldn’t be there, but during, a eyeball plant, much like the ones that Simon has been using to spy on everyone, sprouts from Logan’s leg, the wound forming teeth and turning greenish grey and scaly much like Varker’s arms. Just as they try to cut the thing from Logan’s leg in the secure room they’d managed to find, the door unlocks. Having bragged that he was the only one with access to the room, Varker is visibly irritated by this and doesn’t recognize his partner when Dr. Drohane walks through the door. Logan banters with him a minute and reveals his name, causing all the memories of Birkov’s basement to come back to him, realizing that when he’d left, Drohane must still have been inside and was tortured and changed just as he was.
He begs Drohane to believe him that he wouldn’t have left if he knew, that he would have come back, and Drohane, now knowing all that Varker ignored and hid from him, tells him it doesn’t matter any more. Shocked and upset by Drohane’s appearance, Varker has to be shoved out of the way after Steward pulls a structural piece of rebar out of his throat and uses it to attack him. Mackenzie meanwhile starts to have a breakdown as his own memories start to flood back to him, remembering burning to death in a fire and starts to put two and two together that his father is behind the nightmares. While Mackenzie freaks out, Varker is still trying to apologize, letting Steward get close enough to him that he impales him with the rebar, pulling more pieces out of his own torso despite how much it hurts and pulls Varker into an embrace, asking him to die with him so that the nightmare can end and Birkov can both have what he wants and never get it. Mackenzie, worried about Varker, shoves Drohane off Varker and when he does, the rebar he’d impaled Varker with stays, his whole body ripping in half as the structures keeping him together have been removed, and he dies slowly in front of Varker, saying that it’s okay, because it’s what he deserved.
Varker, in shock and bleeding out, passes out shortly after.
Sample Network Entry: Network Thread
Sample RP: TDM sample
Special Notes: It is hinted at in canon that the mutation/infection that changed Varker is contagious as a different strain of the ‘infection’ spread to Logan through physical contact. Varker’s own strain of the serum as it is different on the grounds that Simon made sure his infection only brought pain, is not confirmed as infectious, but might be given the way everything Simon did seems to spread to everything it touches. I mention it as a possible player plot for funsies but don’t believe that he currently has a way to infect anyone unless he was literally consumed by another character.
Also to note as I wasn't sure where to put it, it is brought up multiple times that both Dr. Drohane and Dr. Varker experience moments of uncontrollable rage leading to physical violence after they are changed. This is probably a side effect of what happened to them and other than the dog whistle trigger, is brought on fairly randomly and can effect their decision making skills in high stress situations. Varker was not a violent man before he was changed but now doesn't have much of a choice and it makes his reactivity dangerous.
User Name/Nick: Ian
User DW: N/A
E-mail/Plurk/Discord/PM to a character journal/alternate method of contact: plurk and BBitsaboi on Discord
Other Characters Currently In-Game: Abel(Ethan Lemaire) and Hanna Falk Cross
Character Name: Dr. Clement Varker
Series: Not Drunk Enough
Age: Early to mid-fifties. Exact number unspecified
From When?: Book 2 Page 41
[Quick character reference guide for people brought up more than once in this app:
Dr. Clement Varker: CEO of Varika Labs, is kind of an ass, but at least he's a charming one. Once he gets passed the shock is probably 5 seconds away from a break down.
Dr. Simon Birkov: Recently fired lead scientist at Varika Labs, Varker's best friend since college. Spent years losing his mind and decided to finally make it everyone's problem.
Dr. Steward Drohane: Vice-president at Varika Labs, Varker's other best friend and romantic partner since college. He really got the short end of the stick in this one.
Mackenzie Birkov: Simon's son who died in a fire while away at college. Recently resurrected, confused and very upset about it.
Dr. Lily Trevanau: Scientist at Varika Labs, Simon's assistant and accomplice in his extra-curricular illegal experiments. Admired Simon for his focus and determination before he went mad.
Logan Ibarra: A handyman who had the misfortune of being called to repair something at Varika Labs on the night of the fall. Was infected by Simon's mutation and is slowly forming a psychic connection with him.
Abrahm Lorhel: Logan's coworker and Simon's hired hand, is definitely a serial killer, brings in bodies rather than live test subjects.]
Inmate Justification: Varker’s main sin is one of inaction. Dr. Simon Birkov, his best friend and lead scientist, lost his son tragically and never recovered from the loss, divorcing his wife shortly after. Varker knew his friend was hurting, and he watched him fall apart while hiding what Simon was doing from his partner of 20+ years and Simon's other best friend, Dr. Steward Drohane. It might be fair enough to just leave it as ‘Varker is a terrible friend’ but the things he let Simon get away with knowingly were illegal and unethical experimentation on humans, embezzlement of company funds, and falling into madness while he watched It happen and did nothing but hide it from those who cared about him. He truly believed that letting Simon run rampant was helping when really he was enabling his friend to do terrible things and lose his connection with humanity. Following the events at Varika Technology Varker is unstable, incredibly guilty, traumatized, borderline suicidal and in desperate need of intervention.
Arrival: Against his will. Varker would have willingly died if he’d been able to at his pull point.
Abilities/Powers: Baseline, Varker used to be a regular human man with a genius level intellect who regularly goes to the gym and is healthy and fit for a man in his fifties. He has his PhD. In chemical engineering and is the CEO and one of three founders of Varika Technology Labs
Following the experiments that Simon did on him, he has a few additional abilities.
He has self healing, fast enough that a surgeon was not able to pull all of the rebar out of his body since his flesh knit itself together faster than they could work. This will be nerfed as the way it’s described can amount to being practically unkillable while still being able to experience and survive a normally fatal amount of pain.
His second mouth appears to be connected to him, but has a second sort of sentience. It is not intelligent enough to think or speak but reacts, usually violently, to Varker’s mood. He talks to himself/it because it does not shut up(constantly hissing or snarling) and irritates him. It has a supernatural sort of strength and can lift things he can't. The tongue can stretch unnaturally far, and he can use both his tongues to smell. His new teeth are capable of biting through metal, and his second mouth also has the ability to spit acid. This will also be nerfed as a very reactive inmate should not be able to spit acid, and he wouldn’t be complaining about the lack of anyways. That’s fucking gross.
When a dog whistle or similar high pitched sounds are played, the second sentience seems to take over his body and it craves violence. He is not able to remember what happens and the episodes tend to last around five to ten minutes, though he usually loses consciousness afterward for an extended amount of time before waking up.
Inmate Information: Varker has always been the ringleader of his little trio of nerds, incredibly charismatic, dramatic and vain. Simon himself, who is far more snarky than all of them combined, admits that Varker is a genius, and has said so even back in college regardless of whether or not Clement’s ego needs it, which it doesn’t. Conducting secret experiments back in college, he was able to formulate a serum that brought a dead Venus flytrap back to life, giving ‘her’ sentience and immortality, a feat he has never once been able to recreate. Calling her Audrey, Clement had only shared her with his friends Simon Birkov and Steward Drohane for fear of her being absconded by the government even if this discovery alone could easily make him rich and famous. This is the first little sign, while a harmless one, of his fear of taking risks. It also is a good showcase of his selfishness as this kind of advancement in science could easily be used to cure cancer and change the world rather than be something he kept for himself.
Varker holds his fear close, even going so far as to keep his relationship with Steward from Simon due to the possibility of him reacting poorly despite the three of them being best friends for years. His ability to hide their relationship and convince Steward to do the same helps him later when he hides what Simon is doing from Steward even though he is the vice-president of Varika Labs. The amount of work that he would have had to do to keep Dr. Drohane out of the loop of the significant sum of company funds and equipment that Dr. Birkov was stealing is excessive just to avoid risk. Not to mention that the effort that he puts in for the sake of enabling Simon could have easily been put towards helping his friend in a more healthy and positive way rather than watching him slowly deteriorate.
But even as the possibility of what Birkov is doing creeps further and further down the path of unethical and illegal, he is kept still by the fear of confronting him and lies to himself that staying quiet and not trying to stop him is in his own best interest and Simon’s. Varker convinces himself that it might be nothing even when the evidence is stacked high enough to crush him and minds his own business. He keeps this up for six years, watching Dr. Birkov turn into someone unrecognizable despite them having been best friends for over two decades and his only attempt to change his course is to suggest therapy and leave him be again.
When Dr. Birkov steals Audrey from Varker he convinces himself that this is the last thing that he will ‘give’ Birkov, that if he had her, then he had everything he could possibly want from him and the experiments would be over. He would fire Simon, cut him off from Varika funds and owe him nothing, sure that Birkov was the only one in the wrong. Unfortunately for Clement this is not what happens, and he finds himself and Steward tied up in Simon’s basement lab. After torturing him in front of Dr. Drohane, Varker doesn’t quite remember what happened while in the basement, half forgetting that Steward was down there with him, but later recalls that he had run, thinking that he could come back for Drohane later and had left him in the basement. Being unaware that Abrahm was an accomplice, he finds out later that he was tortured and experimented on because Varker once again ran away with an excuse that he was doing the right thing while leaving the actionable thing alone.
When he makes it to Varika, it is clear to him that he can’t lie to himself any more. Simon is no longer sane, Varker purposefully sheltered a monster, and that doing anything differently over the last six years might have changed some part of this, but the blood on Simon’s hands is also on his. Their entire staff aside from a security guard and IT specialist, Maela and Bia have all been murdered, and even as they go through the building Varker is attempting to fix anything around him without exactly knowing how. Being forced to look at what his lack of action brought about attempts to do some heavy lifting as far as changing his behavior, but when he’s confronted by Dr. Drohane who blames him for what happened as much as Simon and himself for not seeing it, any change is pulled in the wrong direction. Dr. Drohane tells him they should drown together so that the nightmare can end and Varker doesn't even fight him when Steward uses his own transformed body to attempt to kill them both.
Steward Drohane is the only person Varker actually apologizes to out loud, all the others having gotten a half apology or the start of one before he cuts himself off even if he truly is sorry for what happened to them. This reads to me as Varker understanding what he should have done, and doing it for the person he tried to keep out of Simon's way but loses sight of the right course when he lets Steward convince him they should die together to keep Simon from burning everything down instead of trying to fix it. The loss of Drohane cuts rather deep, a piece that Varker had intentionally left to the side to keep safe, and knowing that he died resenting him after the years of being together is the rotten cherry on the top of Varker’s trauma from the massacre of Varika.
Outside of main plot points it is clear in his daily actions that Varker is avoidant of risks, copes with difficult things by avoiding them all together and drinking, and hides this by being a smug and charismatic asshole. After his transformation, his vanity is a hard pill to swallow, unable to recognize himself and feeling out of place in a body that he used to present with great pride. He expresses feelings of self-hatred, disgust and body dysmorphia, practically begging Logan to talk to him about it in later chapters past his pull point when the other man is also changed.
The sudden loss of his partner also deeply affects him, not even reacting to the crazy things that are continuing to happen around him while Steward lays on the floor in pieces, his body ripped in half, spine literally visible and the things that Abrahm did to him become incredibly clear to Varker. While he himself is in a great amount of pain, having been impaled by multiple sticks of rebar, he doesn't acknowledge it, just tries to talk to Stew in his final moments. Given this is essentially moments before his pull point, he is not okay and is not going to process this until he is made to.
Path to Redemption: Varker has some major healing to do before he gets into the nitty gritty of what should be changed. Given the incredibly traumatic events of Varika, the first step will be to accept that Steward is dead, and work through the grief and shock of it as well as accept his own responsibility in what happened to Steward, the staff at Varika, and what Simon became as a direct result of his inaction. Alongside this, he has to come to terms with what he is, pull himself back from self-hatred, become comfortable with his own body now that it’s changed, and get back on track with the thought that he needs to do something to move forward and not lay down and die for his sins.
Once he’s managed to figure all that bullshit out, then he can start looking at what he can do moving forward. Coming up with an actual plan, regardless of what it is with a vision for his own future, one that doesn’t have him running away from everything and drowning it in alcohol, is what will ultimately get him across that finish line.
Having just come from a hellscape of horrific monsters, the Barge itself should be easy peasy for him, but given his body dysmorphia and forced transformation trauma, breaches are going to be rough. With two bars on board and his own stash of alcohol in his cabin his alcoholism is going to get worse before it gets better as he deals with the issues as mentioned above. Wardening this man is not going to be easy as he avoids his problems but as a reminder, he is rather vain, and enjoys talking about himself which, if done properly, can pull some self reflection out of him. His approach to redemption will be ‘I don’t deserve it’ and convincing him he does will probably be a marathon of tough conversations that he will not want to have.
Gentle approaches paired with strategic hard hitting facts and logic will help bit by bit to push through his avoidance, but it will certainly be a slow process as he has a lot of bullshit to work through. Varker is incredibly smart, but also an ass and difficult even before his life fell apart. Someone with the ability to either be unaffected or mirror his casual insults would do well to get through to him. Lastly, since he has an intense feeling of being alone in what happened to him, sharing similar experiences or memory share/body swapping events might actually help in their own way even if they might be traumatic for both parties involved. He might not want other people to have gone through what he did, but he is also incredibly selfish and needs someone to know how he’s feeling in order to really, truly talk about it and feel safe doing so.
History: Before Varker graduated college he had already managed to conduct an experiment that changed his life. He created a serum that revived a plant from the dead, and when it revived, it was sentient, immortal and the cutest darn thing. He named her Audrey, showing her to his two best friends, Simon Birkov and Steward Drohane, who were, like him, all science majors with impressive careers ahead of them. Cut to a few years later, Varker is celebrating the opening of Varika labs as CEO, Drohane as the vice-president and Birkov as their lead scientist. The party is full of other hand picked scientists who are all celebrating in the success and excitement of their new, fully funded lab and cheer as Varker gives a rather charismatic speech about the future. As the party dwindles, Birkov teases Clement that he can’t stay because he’s not hopelessly single like he is with a wife and toddler at home. Awkwardly it becomes apparent that Varker and Drohane are actually seeing each other, and the two of them, embarrassed, shoo Birkov home to his wife even as he says he’s happy that Varker won’t be alone forever like he’s thought.
Twenty years later finds Varika still successful, but Birkov’s son has died suddenly in a fire while away at college. He isn’t handling it well at all, burying himself in his work and his two friends attempt to get him to take some time for himself. He admits that his wife has left him, claiming it’s a difference in dynamic as they both grieve very differently. Birkov asks to speak to Varker privately and tells him that he wants to try recreating the success with Audrey again and is very firmly shut down. Not only have they ever been able to get anything even close to the success of Audrey, which is plant life and not human, even attempting would be both illegal and unethical, which he refuses to approve. Varker tells him to get rest and stop the obsession of resurrecting his son as it is an impossible task and leaves after Birkov insults him.
For the next six years Simon uses and steals equipment in unauthorized experiments, embezzles company funds, hires a serial killer to find him test subjects, and recruits another scientist to help him in pursuit of resurrecting his son. Varker is immediately aware of this, hiding the information from Drohane as best he can, and simply ignores the problem. It isn’t until Simon steals Audrey from Varker that he finally decides that he can’t deal with it any more and fires Birkov, thinking that will end his guilt and involvement or lack thereof. When Abrahm, his serial killer assistant, brings Logan in after practically killing him, he's successfully resurrected and brought to the hospital the next morning, none the wiser that he was a test subject. It’s around this time that Birkov is able to resurrect his son, though the formula he uses has a flaw in it. Mackenzie needs to be fed with other test subjects, consumed by Dr. Trevanau and then fed to Mac in a rather gross, shadow monster vomit sort of exchange. Finally getting what he wanted, but needing to consume more people to keep his son alive, Birkov makes his move on Varika.
Shortly after this, Birkov kidnaps both Clement and Steward, bringing them down to his basement lab. He tortures and infects Varker with a similar serum, turning him into a monster, but unlike himself, Abrahm and Dr. Trevanau, he removes the surging feeling of power, keeping only the pain. Varker, who doesn’t remember anything until later about what happened to him, leaves the basement without Drohane, he doesn’t even remember that he was down there until much later and heads to Varika to try and stop Birkov, but by the time he gets there it’s too late. Birkov murders and consumes everyone in the building, the only survivors from Varika being Bia Hayes and Maela Durant.
Through a series of nightmarish encounters with monsters that both traumatize and disgust the main cast, Varker hears a high pitched sound that only he can hear and passes out, later waking up in a supply closet with Logan. He is slowly starting to remember what happened to him in Birkov’s basement when he hears the noise again and this time it causes him to lose control of himself, attacking Logan with an intent to kill before Logan locks him in and goes to find the girls who were searching for an exit, effectively splitting up the entire group. Logan runs into a monster with rebar, concrete and barbed wire holding his head and body together and is stabbed, though this monster introduces himself as Steward Drohane and asks Logan to show him to Varker. Logan refuses and escapes through an air duct that Drohane can’t fit through.
On the other side he finds Mackenzie, but where he was stabbed in his leg seems to be infected with something and before he can find out what, he passes out. When he wakes up Bia and Maela have found him and Mackenzie, trying to figure out what happened to Logan and why Varker was locked in a closet. Back in the closet, Varker waits to be let out when Dr. Trevanau appears, her hair made up of consumed, dead employees who she introduces as Varker’s friends, they all seem to writhe and scream in pain despite being unable to make sounds. Varker, horrified, attacks her and manages to get out of the closet, running off in search of the group and to try and get away from her.
Eventually the group meets up, Varker shocked to see Mackenzie alive, and tries to pull Logan aside to tell him why Mackenzie shouldn’t be there, but during, a eyeball plant, much like the ones that Simon has been using to spy on everyone, sprouts from Logan’s leg, the wound forming teeth and turning greenish grey and scaly much like Varker’s arms. Just as they try to cut the thing from Logan’s leg in the secure room they’d managed to find, the door unlocks. Having bragged that he was the only one with access to the room, Varker is visibly irritated by this and doesn’t recognize his partner when Dr. Drohane walks through the door. Logan banters with him a minute and reveals his name, causing all the memories of Birkov’s basement to come back to him, realizing that when he’d left, Drohane must still have been inside and was tortured and changed just as he was.
He begs Drohane to believe him that he wouldn’t have left if he knew, that he would have come back, and Drohane, now knowing all that Varker ignored and hid from him, tells him it doesn’t matter any more. Shocked and upset by Drohane’s appearance, Varker has to be shoved out of the way after Steward pulls a structural piece of rebar out of his throat and uses it to attack him. Mackenzie meanwhile starts to have a breakdown as his own memories start to flood back to him, remembering burning to death in a fire and starts to put two and two together that his father is behind the nightmares. While Mackenzie freaks out, Varker is still trying to apologize, letting Steward get close enough to him that he impales him with the rebar, pulling more pieces out of his own torso despite how much it hurts and pulls Varker into an embrace, asking him to die with him so that the nightmare can end and Birkov can both have what he wants and never get it. Mackenzie, worried about Varker, shoves Drohane off Varker and when he does, the rebar he’d impaled Varker with stays, his whole body ripping in half as the structures keeping him together have been removed, and he dies slowly in front of Varker, saying that it’s okay, because it’s what he deserved.
Varker, in shock and bleeding out, passes out shortly after.
Sample Network Entry: Network Thread
Sample RP: TDM sample
Special Notes: It is hinted at in canon that the mutation/infection that changed Varker is contagious as a different strain of the ‘infection’ spread to Logan through physical contact. Varker’s own strain of the serum as it is different on the grounds that Simon made sure his infection only brought pain, is not confirmed as infectious, but might be given the way everything Simon did seems to spread to everything it touches. I mention it as a possible player plot for funsies but don’t believe that he currently has a way to infect anyone unless he was literally consumed by another character.
Also to note as I wasn't sure where to put it, it is brought up multiple times that both Dr. Drohane and Dr. Varker experience moments of uncontrollable rage leading to physical violence after they are changed. This is probably a side effect of what happened to them and other than the dog whistle trigger, is brought on fairly randomly and can effect their decision making skills in high stress situations. Varker was not a violent man before he was changed but now doesn't have much of a choice and it makes his reactivity dangerous.