Arthur [surname redacted] (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
aloadeddie) wrote2027-12-23 05:17 pm
aloadeddie) wrote2027-12-23 05:17 pm
Entry tags:
[Classified] Info
NAME/DOB: Born Arthur Middleton, circa 1980. In the business, he's known simply as "Arthur", though he has several reliable aliases.
AGE: Approximately 30, give or take a year.
PARENTS: Mother: Died of cancer when Arthur was 17. Father: Still living, retired, in the house in Chicago where Arthur grew up.
CHILDHOOD: Born in Chicago to working-class parents, Arthur had a relatively normal childhood, though they never had much money. He was basically a latchkey kid - when he wasn't in school he had to take care of himself, as his parents both worked multiple jobs throughout his childhood. He spent a lot of time in the local library, the local parks, places he could go that didn't cost anything and where he didn't need adult supervision. When he was in high school, his mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and died of the disease when he was seventeen. They were nearly bankrupt after all the treatments and end-of-life care, so the only viable option for Arthur to get a college degree was enlistment in the military. So, like many poor and working-class kids, that's just what he did.
EDUCATION: Arthur enlisted in the army right out of high school. They paid for him to go to college, where he got a degree in computer engineering. The training and travel provided him a way out of the working class neighborhood he grew up in.
CAREER: He rose quickly through the ranks, and was recruited into special ops. From there, he was tapped to help oversee a new, top-secret program: dreamsharing.
Arthur was trained in the operation and maintenance of the PASIV device, and became heavily involved in the development of the program for the army. That's how he met Cobb. (And Mal, and Eames?)
Dom and Mal Cobb had been contracted to help design training simulation environments for the dreamers, and Arthur was assigned to oversee the work that the Cobbs were doing. The three of them, despite disparate personalities, hit it off, and Dom and Mal started showing Arthur some of the things that could be done with the dreamsharing tech that no one in the army would ever consider. Arthur liked what he saw.
So, almost four years into his service, Arthur engineered an 'accident' - one which allowed him to receive an honorable discharge from the army. He immediately went to work in the employ of the Cobbs - mostly as a kind of research assistant, as they delved into the world of the human subconscious.
At that time, they often skirted the bounds of legality, and sometimes they even crossed them, taking on the occasional extraction job because they involved very large pay days, but for the most part what they were doing was 'pure creation' - creation for its own sake, or for the sake of furthering academic knowledge of the dreamsharing and what it could do.
When Mal fell ill, or so Dom said, Arthur had a tough time dealing with it. He spent more and more time away from them, doing extraction jobs on his own and building a list of contacts in the criminal dreamsharing underworld. Then, when Mal killed herself, Arthur, maybe feeling a little guilty for having been so absent the last months of her life, took it upon himself to help Dom get back to his kids and clear his name. Other extractors tried to woo him away from Cobb occasionally, but he never budged, acquiring a reputation as a perfectionist, someone who gets the job done and done well, and simultaneously as somewhat of a loyal dog, following along at Cobb's heels no matter how crazy his notions got.
OTHER RANDOM STUFF: - Served a full tour in Afghanistan. Saw active combat.
- Worked with Eames several times, especially when Mal was on her downward spiral.
- Bisexual, generally prefers women, but he's slept with a few men.
- He doesn't hate Eames - in fact he quite respects the guy's talents. He just finds him obnoxious and childish. (Also is annoyed by the fact that he still finds the guy attractive, despite the obvious pigtail-pulling.)
- Hasn't had anything like a real relationship since college. One-night stands are relatively frequent (especially after a successful job).
- He has this rather strict set of personal rules regarding if and/or when it's okay to sleep with colleagues. It's usually not, and the few times he's broken his own rules, he's usually regretted it.
- He was a little bit in love with Mal, but no one would ever be able to get him to admit that. (They were never more than friends.)
- If Dom sounded a little bitter when he thanked Ariadne for not asking him whether he killed Mal, it's probably because Arthur did ask that once. He never seriously considered it, but for a hot minute there it did cross his mind.
- His permanent, legal residence is a condo in Sacramento. He bought it when he was working with the Cobbs.
- Outside of work, Arthur deliberately keeps his life mundane. He enjoys gardening, cooking, tinkering with the rusted-out Mustang convertible he bought several years ago, and going to bars to watch football. He spends maybe six weeks a year living this ridiculously normal life. It helps keep him grounded in reality.
- Rarely carries weapons in the real world. Arthur considers them a liability rather than an asset in most situations, and prefers to save the violence and gun play for the dream - he's a white collar criminal, not an armed robber, and while dream sharing can be dangerous, he's not interested in exacerbating the risk to life and limb.
- in the dream, his handgun of choice is a Glock 17.
A Glock is kind of a weird gun and frankly Arthur is a bit of a showoff in using one - Glocks require quite a bit more force to actually pull the trigger than most other types of handguns, and Arthur can pull off a double-tap with one.
- Arthur values quality over sheer expense. Coming from a working class background, he knows that being poor can actually cost more money in the long run. For instance, a cheap pair of shoes bought at Wal-Mart might last you a few months before you have to purchase a new one. A nice, handmade, $600 pair of shoes, on the other hand, will last a lot longer before they need to be replaced.
AGE: Approximately 30, give or take a year.
PARENTS: Mother: Died of cancer when Arthur was 17. Father: Still living, retired, in the house in Chicago where Arthur grew up.
CHILDHOOD: Born in Chicago to working-class parents, Arthur had a relatively normal childhood, though they never had much money. He was basically a latchkey kid - when he wasn't in school he had to take care of himself, as his parents both worked multiple jobs throughout his childhood. He spent a lot of time in the local library, the local parks, places he could go that didn't cost anything and where he didn't need adult supervision. When he was in high school, his mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and died of the disease when he was seventeen. They were nearly bankrupt after all the treatments and end-of-life care, so the only viable option for Arthur to get a college degree was enlistment in the military. So, like many poor and working-class kids, that's just what he did.
EDUCATION: Arthur enlisted in the army right out of high school. They paid for him to go to college, where he got a degree in computer engineering. The training and travel provided him a way out of the working class neighborhood he grew up in.
CAREER: He rose quickly through the ranks, and was recruited into special ops. From there, he was tapped to help oversee a new, top-secret program: dreamsharing.
Arthur was trained in the operation and maintenance of the PASIV device, and became heavily involved in the development of the program for the army. That's how he met Cobb. (And Mal, and Eames?)
Dom and Mal Cobb had been contracted to help design training simulation environments for the dreamers, and Arthur was assigned to oversee the work that the Cobbs were doing. The three of them, despite disparate personalities, hit it off, and Dom and Mal started showing Arthur some of the things that could be done with the dreamsharing tech that no one in the army would ever consider. Arthur liked what he saw.
So, almost four years into his service, Arthur engineered an 'accident' - one which allowed him to receive an honorable discharge from the army. He immediately went to work in the employ of the Cobbs - mostly as a kind of research assistant, as they delved into the world of the human subconscious.
At that time, they often skirted the bounds of legality, and sometimes they even crossed them, taking on the occasional extraction job because they involved very large pay days, but for the most part what they were doing was 'pure creation' - creation for its own sake, or for the sake of furthering academic knowledge of the dreamsharing and what it could do.
When Mal fell ill, or so Dom said, Arthur had a tough time dealing with it. He spent more and more time away from them, doing extraction jobs on his own and building a list of contacts in the criminal dreamsharing underworld. Then, when Mal killed herself, Arthur, maybe feeling a little guilty for having been so absent the last months of her life, took it upon himself to help Dom get back to his kids and clear his name. Other extractors tried to woo him away from Cobb occasionally, but he never budged, acquiring a reputation as a perfectionist, someone who gets the job done and done well, and simultaneously as somewhat of a loyal dog, following along at Cobb's heels no matter how crazy his notions got.
OTHER RANDOM STUFF: - Served a full tour in Afghanistan. Saw active combat.
- Worked with Eames several times, especially when Mal was on her downward spiral.
- Bisexual, generally prefers women, but he's slept with a few men.
- He doesn't hate Eames - in fact he quite respects the guy's talents. He just finds him obnoxious and childish. (Also is annoyed by the fact that he still finds the guy attractive, despite the obvious pigtail-pulling.)
- Hasn't had anything like a real relationship since college. One-night stands are relatively frequent (especially after a successful job).
- He has this rather strict set of personal rules regarding if and/or when it's okay to sleep with colleagues. It's usually not, and the few times he's broken his own rules, he's usually regretted it.
- He was a little bit in love with Mal, but no one would ever be able to get him to admit that. (They were never more than friends.)
- If Dom sounded a little bitter when he thanked Ariadne for not asking him whether he killed Mal, it's probably because Arthur did ask that once. He never seriously considered it, but for a hot minute there it did cross his mind.
- His permanent, legal residence is a condo in Sacramento. He bought it when he was working with the Cobbs.
- Outside of work, Arthur deliberately keeps his life mundane. He enjoys gardening, cooking, tinkering with the rusted-out Mustang convertible he bought several years ago, and going to bars to watch football. He spends maybe six weeks a year living this ridiculously normal life. It helps keep him grounded in reality.
- Rarely carries weapons in the real world. Arthur considers them a liability rather than an asset in most situations, and prefers to save the violence and gun play for the dream - he's a white collar criminal, not an armed robber, and while dream sharing can be dangerous, he's not interested in exacerbating the risk to life and limb.
- in the dream, his handgun of choice is a Glock 17.
A Glock is kind of a weird gun and frankly Arthur is a bit of a showoff in using one - Glocks require quite a bit more force to actually pull the trigger than most other types of handguns, and Arthur can pull off a double-tap with one.
- Arthur values quality over sheer expense. Coming from a working class background, he knows that being poor can actually cost more money in the long run. For instance, a cheap pair of shoes bought at Wal-Mart might last you a few months before you have to purchase a new one. A nice, handmade, $600 pair of shoes, on the other hand, will last a lot longer before they need to be replaced.