burlyheart | Recolle Info

REGAIN REGISTRY

POTEMKIN

memories

The sad case of the life of Zappa, a young man possessed by multiple ghosts.

'Knights' (The Holy Order of Sacred Knights) fighting monsters was actually a real thing.

So were dragons.

A winged woman and a pirate girl (who has the face of May Sfondi) walking away together, smiling.

Throwing a gigantic monster down a street with his own hands (Revelator).

His mission to find a "bed man".

The feeling that he shares a history with art with his past life

The tragic destruction of countless pencils by his own hands

The feeling of taking off his slave collar for the first time.

Politicking at some point on behalf of a country

Dizzy flying over the streets of Illyria during the battle near the end of Revelator, looking like an angel

The identity of Dizzy - the highest bounty in the world and someone who was his target at some point

A hint at the reasoning for his personal Retrospec color - red gloves and an enormous red collar.

THING

abilities

Incredible strength!

THING

items

A metal helmet with a foot long pickelhaube spike and bright orange tassel.

A full case set of unbreakable pencils

appearance

THING

THING

PLAYER
YOUR NAME: Myco
18+?: Yes
CONTACT:

animatedsmoke or

mycophobia
CHARACTERS IN GAME: None
RESERVATION LINK:

CHARACTER: CANON SECTION
NAME: Potemkin
AGE: Adult, otherwise unknown
CANON: Guilty Gear

CANON HISTORY: Here
CANON PERSONALITY:
I am not that skillful. Please dodge well.

The most intimidating and powerful aspect of Potemkin's presence, other than arms which are the size of motorbikes, is his seemingly unassailable pride, which is rooted in unmovable convictions which he would rather die than betray or deviate from. To Potemkin, conviction is everything, and anything without it is worthless.

Ironically for a rebellious slave and former resistance fighter, Potemkin is incredibly loyal. To those that are important to him, he will give everything he can (and then some - Potemkin has a self-sacrificing streak) for the rest of his life. Chief of these is his love for his country Zepp, whose fellow citizens are the most precious thing to him in the world. After its reform and Potemkin's resulting freedom, he decided to devote his entire life to serving it by enlisting in the military, and later becoming President Gabriel's direct aide. This love, which others call patriotism, is credited to be an enormous source of determination for him, and he calls upon it to protect his country's delicate future in the political stage or its people in the face of world-ending threats.

Potemkin's dedication to the president is its own thing beyond an extension of his loyalty to Zepp by serving its leader. Gabriel is the man who freed Potemkin, both in the larger picture sense by leading the coup which ended the old imperial regime and literally by being the one to deactivate his bomb collar. This, along with what he continues to provide for Zepp through his leadership, have earned him Potemkin's eternal loyalty and he is entirely happy to revolve around him. (For what it's worth, Gabriel seems to view Potemkin as a bit of a son-figure.)

Potemkin trusts him not just as a skilled commander, but to be a good person, and to have the best intentions at all times. He believes this so strongly he will ignore his own reservations to fulfill his orders (His win quote against Dizzy in X shows that he feels remorse for attacking a pacifistic non-aggressor, but Gabriel believed detaining her in Zepp would avoid war). Other characters hold Potemkin's appearance as synonymous with Gabriel's will. Without a second thought he would give up his life for him. He HAS given up his life for him, in noncanon endings. Though Gabriel is inexplicably nigh indestructible and hits even harder than Potemkin, so the thought is a little misplaced. Still.

Because it is the way through which he works toward his causes, Potemkin can also be said to be loyal to his job, to the point where he is a severe workaholic. Potemkin is harshest on himself most of all, and other characters sometimes point out that perhaps all this purposeful training should have an end sometimes. Although Potemkin is a man very much at peace with himself, he is just not the sort to ever be boisterously happy, at most getting more muted enjoyment and satisfaction from things such as creating art (which is one of his actual downtime hobbies).

Potemkin's borderline ascetic beliefs do not get in the way of having a very warm heart. The theme of "restraint" which otherwise runs throughout his entire character, mostly manifests in his interactions with other people in the form of constant politeness. Potemkin's dialogue is almost uniformly nice and formal. Most impressively, he is able to keep this up indefinitely with virtually infinite patience, even to those who seem least receptive to it (and Potemkin faces a challenging line-up of cantankerous fighters, rude ruffians, and people who are simply afraid of him due to his appearance). He never loses his temper, except for at himself.

Potemkin can back up his politeness, since the ultimate motivation to all his actions is honest kindness and concern about the wellbeing of everyone (like how he is patriotic by wanting to save the lives of his comrades). That is why, despite being naturally talented at fighting, the protection of those he is loyal to is the only reason he will accept to become violent. In fact, before being made aware of Gabriel's coup, he only made peaceful resistance to his own enslavement (though ineffectually, due to the bomb collar forcing his actions). This sets up a pattern; Potemkin is much much more reactive to the suffering of others than any harm that could be done on himself.

Potemkin's quiet nature goes hand-in-hand with an intellectual mindset. He has a voracious desire to learn and understand facts about the world, training his fighting skills, or technical knowledge about a strategic situation. The pursuit is constant, since due to his humility he believes there is always room to improve and learn more. This makes him a very useful field agent, since he can be trusted to methodically investigate down to the facts of a situation.

This does not exclude emotional intelligence; Potemkin is constantly empathetic to others, and always tries to understand other people first. He is a highly emotional person himself and is proud of the fact (since it shows how strongly he believes in his causes), so he rarely passes any judgement. However, because his morals are so strict, it is hard for him to feel anything but contempt for certain kinds of people, like criminals as evidenced by his interactions with the sky pirate Johnny (whose ship is actually a stolen Zeppian vessel, another way of getting on his shitlist). He also considers it a quiet shame when a person holds obvious talents but no real ambitions, like his attitude toward Jam (a bounty hunter who uses her martial arts talents for money). Of course, the people he considers the very lowest on Earth are people who use their powers for evil or to hurt those who are weaker than them. Potemkin only expresses a nonchalant comment that the inevitable has happened when he is witness to one ending path of GG:XX, when the sadistic I-No is destroyed by Dizzy, who she had been torturing.

On the flipside, Potemkin inherently respects strong passion in others (such as high goals, dreams, loyalties, or love/hate). Potemkin is always understanding of those who live true to their own beliefs, even if they are directly contradictory or antagonistic to his. When nonhuman antagonists such as Justice, Testament, and Ramlethal declare their intentions to destroy the world, his reaction is not arguing with them, but admittance that it is probably impossible for humanity to earn forgiveness for all its sins. Potemkin has experienced the worst cruelty humans can show and has long since had any naivete stamped out of him, but he remains an optimist and idealist through his belief in people.

SKILLS/ABILITIES:
Super Strength: Potemkin was born with a bizarre genetic condition that causes his strength to continuously grow over time. On top of whatever his physically gigantic body is able to do, Potemkin has an almost supernatural strength. In order to control him, his masters kept him constantly wearing power-sapping equipment. This had unintentionally beneficial effects for Potemkin in the long run because it trained him to be used to only having a fraction of his power at all times, and he deliberately continues fighting in this handicapped way long after the end of his slavery. Even when almost completely restrained by a fullbody limiter suit (as in Xrd), he's still strong enough to break stone or be dropped from thousands of feet in the air harmlessly. Potemkin's true strength is something that's only teased at in canon, but it's basically certain to be something completely anime and beyond anything human. He's the original one punch man, man.

Potemkin's ability to control his strength does not seem to be a serious problem outside of jokes (apparently he's quite the pencil breaker...), the reasoning for the limiters is mostly symbolic (both representing his past and mercy for his enemies).

More normally, Potemkin is very intelligent, is knowledgeable enough to speak easily about the science and magic of the Guilty Gear world, and as of Xrd has years of military experience that lends familiarity with working within orders and under high stakes. In pretty much every aspect he's the perfect field agent for his President.

CHARACTER: AU SECTION
AU NAME: Peter/Pyotr Hoboken
AU AGE: 26
PHYSICAL DIFFERENCES: Potemkin is much the same, except for everything from below the neck to above the ankles. As much as that seems like skipping over some very big details, it's pretty much true. Peter has the same hair and skin color and an identical face and demeanor, but without his unique strength, he stands at a mere 6'8" and isn't any more musclebound than a normal man who hits the gym a lot for his job.

Also, instead of his strange but never commented on stark white eyes that lack irises or pupils of any sort, Peter has a pair of very mundane brown eyes.

AU HISTORY:
Peter was born in a solidly rooted in Recolle family. While his father left and became a nonentity in his life almost as soon as it started, his mother raised him in a modest home barely outside of the business areas of the city, and would turn to be pretty much the major person in his life. From then on he had an essentially normal childhood with no exceptionally traumatic events, but between not living in the friendliest environment and the limited budget and energy that come from a single parent Peter had it broken to him early on that the reality was that as a family, they were barely hanging on. From constantly seeing his dear parent tired and taxed out to raise him, Peter developed an extremely powerful desire to learn and be productive. Even with the very limited ability a young child has to affect the adult world around them, Peter started his efforts to protect and support others almost as soon as he could, even if he still couldn't pull it off. (And some bullies and uncooperative adults were less than interested at being willing to hear an argument from a young, strangely authoritative child.) Because of his childhood, Peter became used to the weight accepting responsibility for others, and very soon that included others who not family due to an easily made empathetic heart.

Following from this, Peter went hard into studying. In his precocious dreams his success as a student would someday give him a job that could make mother proud and and to reassure her to never doubt again. Although this straightfowardly lead to consistently stellar grades, Peter also showed creativity. Peter almost obsessively kept himself busy with school or work, but despite that he kept going to the artists he saw in his history textbooks and the occasional moment of beauty that can be witnessed in the city of Recolle. Almost secretly, Peter tried to emulate what captivated him, through painting in particular. From the visible creative efforts Peter made during elective classes, his creativity and skill started to be recognized around high school. Around the time Peter would have started considering colleges, it was proposed by his art teacher that he could consider an out of state art school, an idea which he considered. The massive initial costs of moving and tuition however, plus the final prospect of leaving the city he never did before, made him too anxious to go through.

Although Peter was never very competitive and didn't enter actual formal sports teams, exercise ended up becoming a longrunning part of his life. Initially Peter had the goal of becoming stronger to be able to do jobs beyond what a typical teenager would be considered for, but he worked out his body beyond that for the personal achievement and to blow off steam. Combined with his final height, Peter got the appearance of someone who looks like they clean you up with a fraction of the age. Ironically the small introspective kid grew into a young adult no bully would even want to cross. As he started to approach technical adulthood and graduation, he started to question at himself if his body could be put into more long-term use, like a tool to a purpose. A military scholarship was one possibility that could have been taken, but Peter ultimately decided against it for once again removing him from Recolle for the foreseeable years.

Soon after Peter enrolled in the police academy, a job which he considered stable for the future support of himself and his family. He only suspected it would be appropriate, but it turned out to be a perfect fit - the work ethic combined with the basis in immutable law molded with Peter's personality to a T, and even if Peter got less than heavy assignments in theory Peter felt he was finally working for the benefit of people and Recolle as a whole. Peter applied his old studiousness and devotion to memorizing the law and workplace decorum extra deep into his memory. Now a few years into his service, Peter thinks of his current lot in life as his place in the world, and tries to never consider what could have been. There is no point.
AU PERSONALITY: Due to not having the traumatic brutal backstory of his canon self, Peter is considerably less intense. That's not to say that Peter wouldn't claim to value the same things or want to protect people with just as much effort, but it's just that Peter has never had the experiences that would make his willingness to stand up for his morals under die-or-fight circumstances simply part of his life. Having a mundane life in the modern day, Peter can only really imagine a lot of things as an abstract or hypothetical. This is unlike Potemkin, who due to how he was born and the setting he's in has faced direct questions of slavery vs freedom, and like every other Guilty Gear character around the same age grew up with the backdrop of the recent history of Crusades which created a generation of death and war.

This lessened severity is in both a social and moral sense. Potemkin can be scary (not even taking into account his appearance) even when doing nothing more than talking in casual conversation. And when issues of importance are around, Potemkin will make the strongest yelling declarations and be one of the first to leap into action. Peter might have an intimidating stare game, but the average person would feel much less hesitation over approaching him with a quip, insult, or casual invitation for something after work.

In terms of principles, Potemkin will only argue them with others in the sincerest faith, so valuable and central are they to him that he wouldn't bother wasting someone's time by presenting a mocking version of them. If they turn out to be impossible to reconcile with another's, he will be certain opposing them violently if it comes to it. Peter is more inclined to just care less, and is much more open to being irreverent, maybe even crack a joke or be sarcastic if there's a special eclipse and alignment of the stars.

Peter is also lacking in any military background, let alone ever been in question of being a candidate for saving the world. Despite seriously considering it as a career at one point he's never seen any "action", and his track record as a cop is also lacking in dramatic cases.

Peter is still a man who alternates between a quiet sort of constant concentration and firery passion, and will always put others before himself.

SAMPLE
1
2