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Clive Carlyle
The Actor
Clive Carlyle
The Actor
22
Male
Clive Montgomery Carlyle
Carlyle
Clive Lambert (birth name; he goes by Clive Carlyle for films since it's easier to say and more suave)
What Happened on Wols
Clive
Lives Near a High Cliff
Clive
Montgomery
Man Power
Mont-gom-er-ee
Carlyle (Lambert)
From the Walled City (Bright Land)
Car-ly-ul (Lam-bert)
Human
Slender build, lean figure
Average
Light
5'9"
Blonde
Brown
A bit long; falls in soft waves beside his face
- Walks with a cane due to a leg injury. He hides his limp well, and most people assume that the cane is solely an accessory.
- His time working in the mines of Yeley eventually catches up with him when he's diagnosed with Miner's Lung, a disease caused by inhalation of the toxic minerals of Yeley's caves and causes difficulty breathing, shortness of breath, coughing fits, and coughing up blood. Though he recovers, it leaves him bedridden for weeks and with lasting effects.
Winning smile. His hair--golden blonde and falling in waves beside his face--is also one of his trademarks.
Something that becomes very obvious once Hank Schriver learns of his leg injury is that in all of his films you never get a clear shot of his bare calves, effectively hiding his scar.
Clive is charming, but comes off as a flippant and dramatic stereotypical star. He's energetic and engaging, darting from conversation to conversation with ease, and has a relaxed personality that makes others feel comfortable. Despite this, he's still a bit of an enigma to the general public, who know of his rags-to-riches rise to fame but generally don't know anything about him besides what he lets them. He keeps two things as tightly-guarded secrets known to few: the first is that he's gay (something that could cost him his fame, his fortune, and his job) and the second is the bullet wound through the back of his calf and its resulting limp, which he goes to great lengths to conceal. The scar itself isn't the secret, though. The secret is that he's not the young farm boy from Wols that Bill Dressel managed to find, but instead the son of Yelan miners who dodged the draft in favor of fleeing to Wols with Dressel's help.
Part of the reason Clive leapt at the chance to move to the slightly more liberal Wols was the strict and rigid (and incredibly homophobic) culture of Yeley. Unfortunately, due to the film codes and his contracts, he's forced to stay in the closet, which is by far the worst part of the contract. Other things include Dressel (his agent) having near-unlimited control over what he can and can't do, including big things like smoking cigarettes and things as small as eating an apple without slicing it, since it might damage his teeth.
He finds himself growing more and more stressed and confined by his life as a star, especially once Wols officially calls a truce with Chora and ends the war, a move criticized by almost everyone that essentially made the fighting completely moot and does nothing to stop Chora's imperialism and near-fascist government, something that already took Yeley.
One would expect him to be fully self-centered, given his status as a star, but he's surprisingly easygoing, if still a bit vain. Clive is a man who thought that he wanted to be famous, but now knows that what he really wanted was to be loved, namely for who he really is instead of who he pretends to be, but fears that it could be an impossibility.
Catlike grace, ever-present smile, and has managed to very effectively hide his leg injury for years. Frequently smokes stage cigarettes with non-harmful, non-addictive substances in them since normal ones are banned by his contract.
Acting, singing. Passable dancer, though his leg injury impacted that.
To make a name for himself, and to get out from the smothering culture of Yeley.
Acting, rereading scripts, trying to dance a bit better.
Flippant, vain, overdramatic. Struggles to differentiate himself from the mask of Clive Carlyle the movie star. Feels a bit of gnawing regret at leaping for his acting job, since it turns out that the rules given to him by his agent and the film studios aren't much lighter than what he lived under at home.
Despite being Yelan by birth, he has an instant distrust of people from Yeley or Chora since he knows firsthand how oppressive and bigoted they can be.
Clive was born to poor coal miners on Yeley's surface (not the mountains; the mountains are where the wealthy lived). He started going into the mines as a lantern-carrier at around 8 or 9, and would spend his spare time entertaining the other children with elaborate plays and fantasies that he'd write. He was desperate to get off of Yeley and make something of himself; he knew that he could make it big as an actor on a more populated planet. He smuggled letters to Wolsian agents, offering to make them back any money they'd spend getting him off-planet within two years, and finally had someone accept his offer.
And then the war broke out, and the 17 year old was drafted to fight for Chora. Clive was enraged, both at the loss of opportunity and because he had no allegiance to Chora, and was, in fact, ideologically opposed to quite a few of their harsh laws. He decided to make a run for it, breaking past the guards and hitching a ride to Wols. He made it--barely--but not without being shot through the calf. He recovered, but the injury left him with a scar and a limp, both of which he hid to further his career. Wols wasn't the paradise he'd expected, but it was less strict and stifling than Yeley or Chora, and he became a well-known movie star, albeit a slightly manufactured one due to his agent's meddling on how he was to present himself. He soon befriended Dorothy Dixon, an up-and-coming poet, and occasionally spent time with Sybil Constantine, a club singer, among other Golden Iris guests.
The most impactful of these was Hank Schriver, a Wolsian soldier with a badly injured arm who's trying to find his place in the world. Although they initially don't get along due to Hank seeing Clive as a privileged, stuck-up star, they become closer after Hank helps him to patch up an injury sustained in an altercation with Dottie's lover, Niklos Holloron, as well as Grady O'Neill urging Hank to treat Clive with more dignity.
Not too high, but he was tutored once he arrived on Wols.
December 19th
Laurel and Steven Lambert
Art credit to the makowka character maker II Picrew by makowka
His cane, which has a shiny silver tip
Hank Schriver
Dorothy Dixon
Grady O'Neill
Sybil Constantine
Hank Schriver
Seagulls
A dagger
Actor
Silver
Apples. His agent doesn't want him to eat them, fearing he'll damage his teeth.