Protect me from what I want

April

Closed log/Friday Night Wax Play
With Toreth (Gen - 4, Smut - 20)

Closed log/Tea and Telekinetics - COMPLETED
with Stephen (Gen - 43)

Test Drive Thread
with Crane (Gen 5)

Bacon Sandwiches
with The Iron Bull (Gen-7)

Alcoholism and PTSD
with Peter (Gen - 24)

Closed log/The Rules
with Toreth (Gen - 13, Smut - 9)

Shopping
with Stephen (Gen - 20)

Robotics
with Squalo (Gen - 4)
with Emily (Gen - 4)

April Into Party/ Beltane Party
with Venom (Gen - 15)
with Stephen (Gen - 25)
with Rumlow (Gen - 9)

Closed Log/Lending a Hand
with Squalo (Gen - 1)

March

Test Drive Thread
With Toreth
With Stephen

Introduction Party
With Toreth (Smut - 22,  Gen - 21) COMPLETED
With Stephen (Gen - 37) COMPLETED
With Snow (Gen - 7)
With Curtis (Gen - 6)

Open Log
With Toreth (Gen - 29) COMPLETED
With Venom (Gen - 20) COMPLETED

Movie Night/Murder Plot
With Solas (Gen - 14) COMPLETED

Warrick is described in the book upon first meeting as having "high cheekbones, too much nose, and the most beautiful mouth".  He has dark hair and dark eyes, pale skin typical of someone who spends far too much time indoors, average-to-slim body that's getting more defined every time Toreth successfully persuades him to go to the gym.  Average height as well.  He has a pleasantly rich voice and tends to over-articulate when he speaks, especially when he's lecturing.  His clothes are usually expensive but not ostentatious, classic lines and smart suits that he wears very casually.  Everything is always kept in impeccable condition.  He probably has the wrinkles ironed out of his underwear.   Warrick has somewhat of an unreadable face, his expression leaning to neutral unless one knows what to look for.  He's very good at controlling his expressions and modulating his tone, often able to speak calmly and clinically despite his emotions at the time.  At the beginning of the series, Warrick is 33 years old, and by the end of book 7 he is 38 years old.

Warrick's pb is Richard Armitage.

PLAYER INFORMATION
NAME: Blu
ARE YOU 18 OR OLDER?: Yes.
CONTACT:   PM this journal (simtech ) or on plurk @blutooth
CURRENT CHARACTERS: n/a

CHARACTER INFORMATION
NAME: Keir Warrick
CANON:   The Administration Series
CANON POINT: After Book 5 - Quis Custodiet and the additional short stories, but before the rebellion and I&I takeover in Book 6
CHARACTER AGE: 36
HISTORY: The Administration Series is a mix of crime/dystopian future/murder mystery/gay erotica genres.  The setting is futuristic in its technology and space advancements.  There is virtual reality technology that is vivid enough to be dangerously close to real life, there are people living and working on Mars, and the cars drive themselves around unless you really want to override the controls.  There is also the Administration, which is the presiding (and pretty totalitarian) government of Europe.  The story takes place in New London, where Warrick is the corporate directors of SimTech, a development firm that is creating a highly sophisticated virtual reality machine he refers to simply as "the sim". 

Warrick initially worked at the Human Science Research Centre, completing neuroscience studies for the Department of Security, but internal politics ended his research prematurely, labeling it a failure.  Seeing potential in the technology, Warrick and a few of his fellow researchers and childhood friends Lew Marcus and Asher Linton, refused reassignment to another project, bought the rights to the research from the government and started the process of remaking what they had into virtual reality software and hardware.  Thus, SimTech was created.

During this time Warrick was actually married to a woman named Melissa that he met at University.  They were married the year after Warrick graduated, however they divorced four years later, after Warrick quit his government research job to found Simtech, and after the Administration rejected their conception license application.  In his sister Dillian's opinion, Melissa left Warrick because of the lack of money and respectability in his career change, as the initial start of SimTech was run out of Asher's home and was not very lucrative.  The divorce was a nasty one, with Melissa gaining SimTech shares as part of the settlement and then, a few years later, demanding they be bought back during a time when SimTech had no income to spare.  The corporation survived only due to Warrick's sister signing an expensive two-year contract to do architectural work on an undersea installation and loaning him the money.

Of course nowadays Simtech is ridiculously successful, having numerous buyers invested in shares for the immersive VR technology, including the adult entertainment market, other leisure markets, and private sector businesses.  The Administration itself, or at least the Investigation and Interrogation sector is also very interested in the Sim, however Warrick has expressed reluctance to let the technology fall into government hands.  All of SimTech's founders, including Warrick, have been made fairly wealthy off its earnings, more than enough to fund its experimental research.  In fact, book 1 in the series is built around the premise that the deaths of certain Sim prototype users might be a form of corporate sabotage by rival businesses.  Warrick meets Val Toreth, his eventual 'partner' when I&I is sent to investigate these murders.  By the time the 5th book rolls around Warrick and Toreth have been seeing each other for over three years.  The relationship is never really put into defined terms save for Toreth's rather underwhelming description of them as each others' 'regular fuck', but despite that and the fact that neither of them are exactly monogamous (though Warrick's sexual encounters with people other than Toreth are usually only done inside the sim in the name of research), they both put a lot of effort into staying together.

Warrick is fairly close to his mother (Kate), his sister (Dillian), and his half-brother (Tarin) and his aunt (Jen), seeing them as well as extended family and friends routinely at New Years and keeping in touch with his siblings, though things have been strained between him and Tarin since his half-brother started hanging around anti-Administration types and expressing those opinions out loud himself.

Most of the books follow Toreth and his adventures at I&I more than they follow Warrick, although quite a lot of the plot is devoted to the ins and outs of their relationship.  They are either the best suited for each other or the worst depending on how one looks at it. 

PERSONALITY:

Warrick is a highly ambitious and dedicated person with enough self-confidence and drive to give up a cushy government position, risking poverty and failure to do the kind of work he loves.  That he perseveres with SimTech (and convinces his friends to do the same) despite the rocky start and the fact that it costs him a wife and the possibility of a child with her, shows just how determined (or stubborn) he is when following through on something he believes in.  That stubborn personality is possibly part of the reason he is drawn back to Toreth again and again, seeing potential in him just as he saw potential in SimTech.  However, Warrick's confidence can be a flaw as much as a virtue, as he can appear to be arrogant or reckless--for example he refuses to listen to any suggestion that the sim might not be safe, despite others expressing their concerns and despite knowing that it has addictive qualities.  He is highly protective of his work, perhaps to the point of blindness, although he does eventually turn out to be correct in his assumption that the sim had nothing to do with the deaths I&I were investigating.  He's proud of his accomplishments and isn't going to bother downplaying his successes, but he also gives credit where it's due, supporting and lauding the talents of his employees and fellow Simtech directors just as much as his own.  He's generous with his wealth, often thinking nothing of splurging on expensive parties for his staff or gifts for his friends.  He treats his employees well, making sure they have everything they could possibly need in order to do their best work.  He's also not above using money to wiggle his way around certain restrictions, happy to throw his corporate status around if it will benefit him or someone he cares about. 

"No flaws at all?
Another silence before she replied, "If he has a flaw, I would say it was over-attachment to his own work.  But that's a failing we all suffer from, to some degree."
- Mindfuck

Warrick's described as being a bit of a control-freak in his daily life--carefully planning out his words and actions to have the exact effect he wants, keeping his flat obsessively tidy, constructing things just to his liking inside the sim, etc.  Some of this may be a side-effect of working with virtual reality, as Warrick thinks of the sim as a completely safe and controlled environment.  While working in the sim his mind is distanced from his body and it tends to make him overly analytical and distanced from others in the real world as well.  When Toreth offers him the chance to relinquish control and be overwhelmingly 'present' in his own body through BDSM games, Warrick quickly becomes addicted to the feeling.  He knows that Toreth is dangerous and that threat of violence and his lack of control (or at least the illusion of it, as they do use safe words and Toreth always respects their use) over the situation is what arouses him.  It arouses him so much that it disturbs him sometimes, to think that he's attracted to that kind of cruelty.  Toreth's job as a professional torturer disgusts Warrick but at the same time he gets off on those very same skills being used against him.  It's a hypocrisy that Warrick would rather not think too deeply on.

"It was the discomfort, undeniably actual, that tore away the last of the cocooning sense of unreality, twisting his nerves to a higher pitch of arousal.  He was really here, really alone with this dangerous, desirable man who knew how to hurt, how to kill, how to take whatever he wanted without hesitation or compassion.  Now he was wriggling more, wanting more, forgetting to fight."
- Mindfuck


While Warrick is essentially generous and considerate towards others, he is capable of doing terrible things out of pure self-interest.  He manipulated and humiliated Toreth inside the sim both to show off the sim's capabilities and to express his disgust at Toreth's profession.  He helped plan and carry out the murder of his employee Marian Tanit, though he justified to himself that it was the only way to save Toreth and Simtech.  He chooses not to inform his step-brother when he discovers that his mother is an Int-Sec spy using him to root out political protester cells.  These moral lapses sometimes weigh on Warrick's conscience but he is usually able to convince himself that they were necessary at the time.  When held up as a foil to his psychopathic boyfriend, Warrick looks like a reasonable, good, compassionate person...and he is, most of the time.   But Warrick is capable of being just as manipulative and selfish as Toreth is at times, just in a more controlled way.  He's also capable of distancing himself mentally from a situation by concentrating on individual details instead of the whole picture; something that also partly comes from working with the sim.

"Toreth looked at Warrick, busy with the control panel, speaking so calmly and matter-of-factly about interrogation.  At any other time, the subject disgusted him.  Now it had become an interesting technical problem and he was utterly caught up in it."
- Mindfuck

Despite his hypocrisy, Warrick does have strong beliefs about personal freedoms and many of his opinions match those of the Anti-Administration sect.  He hates that I&I exists at all, hates that innocent people can be picked up by government agents and tortured or killed with no repercussions, and he especially hates the idea of Simtech being used by the Administration to further oppress the people of New London.  However, Warrick is very careful about expressing these opinions, as he knows say such things to the wrong person would put himself and his friends and family in danger.  Part of the reason he resents Tarin so much is because the man doesn't seem to realize that his political views might put anyone else at risk.  Warrick would never put his own family in jeopardy just to support what he would considered a doomed attempt to change the system.  On the scale of things, his loved ones and Simtech all come before his ideals and morals.

"Warrick wondered, for the first time, how much of his hostility towards Tarin stemmed from fear.  The fear of putting himself and the people he loved in danger by getting too close to someone whose life span was dictated by his usefulness to Int-Sec.  Safer to stay back, as far from danger as was predictable, and cultivate a dislike based on anything he could find."
- First Against the Wall


ABILITIES:  Warrick has no supernatural abilities of any kind.  His main strengths are his intelligence and his management skills.  He's a meticulous planner and his attention to detail makes him extremely observant and able to act on these observations with success.  A background in structural engineering means that he's good with his hands and building things, seeing how they fit together.  He can program code to do amazing, miraculous things, and has a vivid imagination that he can put into practice inside the sim.  However, outside of it he's just an average strength man, with completely normal abilities. 
Like knowing how to cook.


SINS & VIRTUES:  Pride and Lust are probably the strongest sins for Warrick, with Diligence being his strongest virtue.

Pride
Warrick is incredibly proud of his work at SimTech and he enjoys showing off what the sim can do to anyone who shows an interest (or even those that don't).  He boasts about the abilities of the sim and takes great delight in seeing other people react to it for the first time, making sure to tell them all the technical ins and outs in excruciating detail.  He's also very assured of his own intelligence and can seem arrogant or condescending to others at times.  His pride in the sim keeps him from thinking about the possible repercussions of its use, and people do end up dying as a result.  Warrick stubbornly refuses to admit that there might be serious ethical concerns to the work he's doing, so he avoids thinking about it, distracts himself by labeling them technical problems that can be sorted out later, or dismisses them as necessary for the sake of progress.

"Marian, the world is full of things that are dangerous if people misuse them.  SimTech can't be held responsible for the irresponsibility of others.  If we avoided technology because some people might hurt themselves with it, then we'd still be in the caves, worrying about burning our fingers."
- Mindfuck

Lust
Toreth calls Warrick 'insatiable' and it's a pretty accurate description of him.  Once Warrick finds something he likes he pursues it with a kind of obsessive need.  With Toreth he lusts after that feeling of helplessness that the other man creates for him, eagerly agreeing to more and more extreme acts of submission in order to fulfill his fantasies.  At one point he has sex with Toreth directly after witnessing him torture and kill someone and even though it sickened him to see it, he still wanted what Toreth offered him enough to push that disgust aside.  'The game' as he calls it becomes highly addictive to Warrick and he almost gives himself permanent nerve damage from constant suspension play until Toreth forces him to stop.  Sex is the one aspect of his life where Warrick allows himself to be out of control, and so he often goes overboard with it, pushing past his own physical and moral boundaries.

"He'd managed to resist Toreth for all of twenty seconds.  Maybe even thirty.  Mm.  Something to be proud of there.  Then he'd let Toreth fuck him, against the desk, by the screen where he'd watched Marian die, and he'd enjoyed every moment of it.  The best sex they'd had, up until then - close and hot and urgent.  They'd come together, perfectly together, and he'd drawn blood biting his lip to keep quiet."
- Game, Set

Dilligence
Warrick is meticulous and thorough in his work life, and is very rarely idle.  He worked very hard to get where he is at SimTech, spending long hours toiling over code in the initial stages of the project, and even now he involves himself in nearly every part of the company, volunteering his time in trials and testings for the sim.  About the only time he allows himself to truly relax and give up responsibility is when he's playing 'the game' with Toreth.  Otherwise, he's always working on something.  Even his sexual encounters (apart from Toreth) are used as data for the sim and become more like work than leisure.  At one point Toreth finds his television remote and Warrick remarks that he hasn't seen it for weeks.  Even the activities Warrick does to relax are productive ones, like baking and cooking elaborate meals from scratch.

"If there was one person in the world Toreth ought to be able to trust to do this, or anything else, properly, it was control-freak, perfectionist Warrick, who probably couldn't force himself to do less than his best with a gun on him."
- Make It A Surprise

SAMPLES
Sample #1
Sample #2