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PLAYER
Player name: Shannon
Contact: black_angel_ @ plurk
Characters currently in-game: Not a one!

CHARACTER
Character Name: Seth Gecko
Character Age: "Late 20s" is the best canon gives us
Canon: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Canon Point: 2x02 "In a Dark Time"

History:

Seth Gecko was one of two boys born to Ray Gecko and an unnamed mother. Mother left soon after both boys were born, leaving Seth and his brother in the not so capable hands of their father. ( It's not entirely clear why she left as there's conflicting ideas from both Seth and Ray, but in the end, it doesn't really matter. What matters is that she's not there. ) Seth and his brother Richie suffered abuse from their alcoholic father, Seth more so than Richie ( hell Seth didn't even so much as get his own bedroom. Just a mattress in Richie's room ). It was then that Seth and Richie started taking care of each other. Richie would think up ways to do things ranging from something as simple as getting around their father to watch cartoons, to keeping their father off of Seth.

But then there was a horrific fire, one that Seth, for about two decades, believed was caused by their father falling asleep with a lit cigarette. The whole place went up in flames, taking Ray with it. Seth was pulled out of the fire by Richie.

Eventually, the boys take a shining to a life of crime. Bank robbers. Professional thieves. It’s fairly safe to assume that it was a life style choice inspired by the late Ray Gecko, as he was supposed to have been a criminal as well. Thirty five jobs they managed to pull off and no one could touch them. The Gecko brothers were really a force to be reckoned with.

Until they weren’t. Job number thirty six didn’t go quite as well as the rest and ended with Seth going to prison. While there he told stories, listened to stories, got himself into fights until he was visited by a man with a proposition for him. A job that would net them thirty million dollars and a chance at paradise. A place called El Rey where not only would the Geckos not have to look over their shoulders constantly, but where Richie could get the help that he needed, because he was a little unwell. It would only cost ten million. After a little convincing, Seth accepted.

The job was planned while Seth was still in prison, with his ex-wife Vanessa ( he’d been married sometime before going to prison, but they divorced. They just weren’t good together ). He wasn’t much good to the job there though. Richie broke him out during a prison transfer.

The bank job was supposed to go just as smoothly as the rest of their jobs ( the one that landed Seth in prison aside ). But it didn’t. Richie ended up knocking out the one man who knew the combination to the safe, and it was just all downhill from there. They got their money but not without tripping an alarm and then killing four rangers and two cops who tried to stop them.

And taking a lady teller hostage.

Made them more wanted than even the prison break had previously.

A pit stop on their way to Mexico, where they were meeting with Carlos to give him his cut of the thirty million, turned bad. A stop at a liquor store for a bathroom and a few provisions ended with a dead cashier and ranger, and the liquor store up in flames. While Seth was making a phone call to Carlos, something happened with Richie and he had a gun pulled on two girls and the cashier when Seth was finished. And he shot a ranger. And the Geckos ended up having a shoot out with the ranger’s partner. Basically, everything that possibly could have gone wrong, did.

They make another stop, this time at a place called the Dew Drop Inn. Seth left the lady hostage in the capable hands of his brother and left to grab them some food. He was also meeting with his ex-wife. Their plans had been to cross the border into Mexico together. He couldn’t be with Vanessa. They’d tried it before and it just didn’t work. Besides, he wouldn’t abandon his brother. When he met with her, he gave her four million dollars to stay away from him. It was safer if she stayed away.

A sequence of events that happened once Seth returned to the inn lead to the Geckos taking a father, and his son and daughter hostage to get them across the border into Mexico. Seth had returned to find that Richie had murdered the bank teller and they really had to leave. It didn’t help that the police and Freddie Gonzalez ( the ranger partner from the liquor store ) had showed up.

With the help of the Fullers, the Geckos got into Mexico. They headed straight for the Titty Twister, a place where they would be meeting Carlos to finish the deal. The Fullers had been told that if they did everything they were told, they’d be free once the Geckos got to where they were going. Change of plans though. They were to stick around until Seth got to meet with Carlos, even though he didn’t like the feel of the place and would have preferred to leave, himself. But Richie wanted to stay so they stayed.

Unfortunately.

It turned out that a lot of the people in that place weren’t people at all. They were some type of vampires. The people who were actually people? They were just there to serve as a meal. Richie was lead there by the voice in his head ( the voice belonging to Santanico Pandaemonium, some vampire goddess who was trapped there ), and Seth was, basically, manipulated into going there.

What appeared to be a strip club from the outside, was actually an ancient temple, and they were all trapped there. What was supposed to be a simple handing off of a large sum of money turned into spending the entire night fighting for their lives. Richie was shot and then dragged off by Santanico and Seth spent most of his time trying to find him, which happened to coincide with the Fullers trying to find their own missing brother.

Once Seth did find Richie ( the gun shot didn’t kill him. He was, however, turned into a vampire ) and what he thought was a way out, his actual presence in the temple finally became clear. It seemed that he was just as instrumental in freeing Santanico from her temple prison as Richie was. Along with Richie, he was to make his way through a labyrinth of his own memories to obtain something that would grant Santanico her freedom.

What the labyrinth chose was the job Seth failed, the one that landed him in prison. There were a few differences though. People he’d seen since then, that hadn’t been there originally. Of course there were vampires. Seth also encountered his father. He couldn’t leave until his father was satisfied with how quickly Seth assembled a handgun, something he’d apparently had to do quite a bit as a child.

It was there where he finally learned the truth about the fire that had killed his father. It was no accident. Richie had doused the man in lighter fluid. Seth didn’t want to believe it, but despite everything, their father had never been a liar.

Unlike the first time, and despite everything the labyrinth threw at him, Seth and Richie got what Santanico needed. It wasn’t enough though. Carlos wanted the money. All of it. And he took Richie to get it. Seth considered not giving it up. Because it was his money. He stole it. A little convincing from Santanico, though, got him to decide otherwise.

Besides, his brother was out there, even if Seth had seemingly given up on him. His brother was a monster.

Seth went to meet with Carlos, accompanied by a group of Santanico’s girls to get Richie back. Richie and Seth argue about about jobs they’d pulled in the past ( unbeknownst to those around them, they were discussing ways to get out of there ) before Richie attacked Seth, biting his neck. But they managed to get away and back to the Twister, without the money, unfortunately.

After witnessing a ritual between Santanico and Richie back at the Twister to allow Santanico her freedom, Seth turned his back on her brother, no longer wanting anything to do with him. Seth was finally done there. He may never actually be free of any of what happened there, but for the time being, he was free of the Titty Twister.

Kate Fuller, now just as alone in the world as he was, was standing out in the parking lot when he got outside. After a drawn out silence between them, Kate asked if he wanted any company. Accepting her offer, they both get into a car and leave the Titty Twister behind.

Fast forward three months. Seth and Kate have not yet parted ways and are living out of a grungy, non-descript motel in Mexico. Seth has gone back to his life of being a thief, though now he's a Gecko without a brother. He's pulling jobs mostly solo, which aren't going so well because Geckos weren't built to opreate alone. They haven't been complete failures but they haven't been successes either. Without his brother, he isn't exactly at the top of his game. Kate figures he could use a second set of eyes out there, but Seth respectively disagrees.

Annoyed, Kate helps Seth inject himself with heroin (because Seth has picked up some nasty habits since that night at the Titty Twister, like a bit of a drug dependency) and he falls into a drug induced stupor. When he comes to again, he's alone and there's a knock on the door. It's the night manager of the motel with towels because Miss Kate likes extra towels for her hair. But Seth doesn't trust him because he doesn't really trust anyone anymore. After some probing from Seth, the night manager reveals that he's a culebra, and gets staked for his troubles. Just in time for Kate to return with news of a new job!

Seth recruits a local tattoo artist not only to tattoo over the scars on his neck from where he was bitten by his brother, but also because it turns out that she's pretty good at forging documents. He needs passports for himself and Kate so they can finally get out of Mexico. It also happens that her shop shares a wall with the place Seth plans to rob (the job that Kate returned with news of). As plans are hashed out, Seth reluctantly agrees to allow Kate to help. She ends up being a big part of him getting at the safe that houses the money that he's going to steal.

Unfortunately, the job doesn't exactly go as planned. Seth and Kate get away with the money but not before revealing that they were the ones who'd done the thieving and getting into a shoot out with a man who was looking for Richie and Santanico. They managed to make their escape down a dark, empty road but they didn't get terribly far. Seth and Kate got into an argument, mostly about Kate wanting to go back and help her brother. But according to Seth, she should simply think of her brother, as well as everyone else she ever loved, as dead. It wasn't something that went over well. She told him to stop the car and when he did, he kicked her out and drove off, leaving her on the side of the road.

He doesn't get far before he stops, reverses the car and gets out. Seth lets her take the car, and the money, taking only a small amount of the money back from her then heads off down the road on foot, alone.

Personality:

One of the things that really stands out about Seth Gecko is his nearly unwavering love and devotion to his family and some sort of need to protect them. This is shown most in his relationship with his brother Richie. They are both all the other has, and Seth truly takes that to heart. He looks out for Richie, takes care of him. When the series starts, we learn that Seth is trying to get himself and Richie to a place called ‘El Rey’, a place that’s supposed to be like paradise. It’s a place that’s supposed to save his brother, and that’s what truly matters. Richie is a little mentally unwell from what Seth can see, and getting to ‘El Rey’ is supposed to be able to help, so even though Seth is sceptical of the existence of paradise, he’s ready to do what he has to, to get Richie there.

That isn’t to say that he’s blindly loving or devoted though. For as much praise as he throws Richie’s way ( he often speaks with pride about Richie’s talents especially in regards to bank robberies, even going as far as regaling hostages with tales of past glories ), there’s an equal amount of not so kind words, though it’s rarely said with actual malice. Particularly heated moments tend to come with Seth slinging words like ‘crazy’ or ‘whack job’ in Richie’s direction ( he will readily defend Richie’s sanity should anyone else try to say the same, though. Only he can say anything negative about his brother ). He sometimes speaks to Richie in a somewhat condescending manner, cuts him off a lot when he’s trying to speak if he doesn’t like what Richie’s saying, and will sometimes talk to him like a child. But, as previously states, he’s the only one who gets to do things like that. He snapped at his ex-wife when he found out she had a friend “head shrink” him while Seth was in prison. He beats down a man nearly twice his size in prison for simply saying things about how Richie had supposedly gone soft, about how he couldn’t handle a knife like he used to be able to. All after taking a fairly bad beating himself.

This nearly unwavering love and devotion to his family extends beyond just Richie. Seth feels the same for his father ( perhaps not quite to the extent that he does for Richie, but the feelings are still there ), a man who has proven he isn’t even really worth Seth’s time. As a child, with the house burning down around him and Richie trying to drag him outside, he wants to save his father, a man who has done terrible things to him, who has apparently cut him down at every turn. Richie seems to only care about getting himself and Seth out, but Seth wants to save their father. It could be argued that Seth was just a child and a child wanting to save a parent, even a parent that has so often hurt him isn’t exactly unheard of. But that didn’t exactly change even as Seth grew up. According to Richie, Seth gave their father a pass, despite everything he did. Because he was blood. He was family and that was all that mattered to Seth, really.

This want to protect people doesn’t just include his family. He takes to protecting Kate quite quickly. First from his brother then from everything else. It’s probably something that started out as him simply keeping his word to her, that if she and her family did everything he said, they’d walk away unharmed. But it evolved from there. If he was just keeping his word to a hostage, he probably wouldn’t have risked his own life to protect the Fullers, leaving relative safety to put his own life on the line for Kate and Jacob. Something like that goes far beyond the confines of their original relationship and a deal between a criminal and his hostages. They were a close family who looked out for each other and protected each other and they were fighting for the same things he was. It was an odd sort of connection that was formed between them, but it was there.

Seth also has a bit of a stubborn streak, for better or for worse. He can be a little hard headed. He gets an idea in his head of what he wants to do and it’s a little difficult to get him to change his mind. Because plans don’t change, that’s what he always says. Except over the course of the first season, plans do change from time to time. It’s usually his choice to change the plans though ( granted, sometimes his hand is forced, but regardless. Like with his ex-wife. The plan was for Seth and Richie to rob the bank, and Vanessa would cross with them. That was all part of her plan at least. But Seth gave her four million dollars to stay away. Crossing together was dangerous and he wouldn’t have it, which goes back to his propensity for protecting those he deems worth it ).

He also seems to prefer being in charge of whatever situation he finds himself in. That’s not to say that he won’t relinquish control of the situation should someone better suited for it present themselves, but for the most part, he’s in charge and he has no problem reminding people of that. It just seems that he feels better about things with a situation in capable hands, those hands usually being his own. One of the few times he does, in fact, relinquish control is just after the initial vampire attack. Scott has far more ideas about what they should be doing than anyone else. That means that Scott’s the right one to be handling things, right?

Seth also has a bit of a tendency to be a little smug, almost bordering on cocky sometimes. He can be shamelessly smug when things go his way, or how he expects them to go. Like the fact that the preacher’s daughter isn’t quite the pinnacle of innocence that one would expect her to be, or when Kate forgives him for the people he’s killed, who were trying to get between him and his freedom. ( He is no murderer, but he will kill if it’s deemed necessary. Honestly, he seems to prefer that no one gets hurt at all during the jobs he and his brother pull, but desperate times and all that )

He seems to believe in things that he can see and in his own experiences. He’s proven himself to be a bit of a skeptic from time to time. Like when Carlos comes to see him in prison and starts to tell him about ‘El Rey’, Seth tells him that it sounds like paradise, but he doesn’t believe in paradise. It’s not something that he’s ever seen or had the pleasure of experiencing. As Carlos says, paradise for men like Seth and Richie is not having to look over their shoulders, and as a professional thief, that’s something that Seth doesn’t really get to experience. Not looking over his shoulder, not being just a little paranoid could get him and his brother caught, after all. The same goes for the monsters in the temple. He doesn’t question their existence so much as he just accepts it. He’s seen them, touched them. He’s seen their fangs and that they tend to go for necks. It’s less about believing in the vampires, themselves, when he sees them and more about simply believing in his own eyes.


Since his time at the Titty Twister, however, Seth has become a little more paranoid, a little less trusting than before, which is something considering his life as a career criminal meant that he wasn't exactly overly trusting in the first place. When in doubt, he suspects culebras. When the night manager of the motel where he and Kate are staying comes by with extra towels for Kate, Seth is wary. Where most people would think that the night manager is simply being a nice, decent person, Seth sees a problem. He's suspicious, growing even more so when the night manager starts to say it's because Kate is a good person and because she believes in God. He accuses the night manager of being a culebra, and stakes him when it turns out to be true.

While Seth's suspicions of culebras are rarely unfounded, his assumptions that they're all untrustworthy are. Kate's friend Rafa is a culebra (who Seth, again, assumes is one because he sells items baring Santanico's image and his shop is close to a shrine where people worship her. But he allow himself to convinced otherwise. Rafa just happens to say the things that Seth wants to hear), but he helps Seth and Kate with their job. Rafa also is a big part in making sure that Kate and Seth make a getaway when The Regulator, who has tracked them down in order to find Richie and Santanico, come after them. Rafa actually sacrifices himself for them, burning up in the sun to slow down The Regulator. That's not really what matters though. What matters to Seth is that Rafa is a culebra. That Rafa is one of them.

Going almost hand in hand with that is the fact that Seth has started to really embrace the idea of keeping some people at arm's length. The last time he was close to someone, that person was taken from him and his whole world changed. Of course that particular person was his brother so the way he felt about it was a bit of a unique situation but the fact still remains that it seems he no longer feels it's worth it to let people get close. At least people he cares about, anyway. The first chance he gets, he pushes Kate away. They were together for three months after they escaped the Twister, but when the opportunity arose, he pushed her away. It was clear that she was no longer the innocent little girl that he had kidnapped, but that she could take care of herself. She didn't need him anymore so the best thing for her was to drive her away.

It was the best thing for him too. He already isn't exactly coping well with losing his brother, having turned to drugs and drinking, he couldn't lose someone else too. Well, he's trying to cope with that and the fact that his reality turned into something it was never supposed to be.

And because of losing his brother, Seth has become a little more careless than he used to be. His car was stolen (at one point, the idea of stealing from a Gecko likely would have been pretty laughable) not terribly long after he and Kate left the Titty Twister. Seth robbed a cheque cashing place, but it went south pretty quickly. He just couldn't pay attention to everything that was going on around him. Being a single pair of eyes is not something that works for him. It's been he and Richie all his life and now it's just him. He hasn't usually had to pay full attention to everything going on around him during a job.

Before the Titty Twister, Seth would not have walked out of the cheque cashing place with more cancelled cheques than cash.

Inventory:

(1) black suit, worn
(1) analog watch, worn
(1) Smith & Wesson Model 15 snub nose revolver
(1) forged American passport - "Seth Parker"
(1) cell phone

Abilities: Despite everything about this canon, Seth is still very much just a regular human with no supernatural abilities to speak of. One of the last few in the canon, actually. He knows the ins and outs of a gun, having grown up with one. Having had time to hone those skills, he's a quick and accurate shot. But when he can't use a gun for whatever reason, he's proven that he's rather proficient in an old-fashioned, physical fight. And he's learned how to take a beating over the years, so it takes a lot to keep him down. That's also sheer stubbornness though.

Having been born into it, Seth embraced a life of crime and became a professional thief. He's good at it too, having had a lot of time to perfect his craft. Planning and pulling off jobs. Pre-Titty Twister, he'd pulled thirty-five successful jobs before finally getting caught and going to prison. It's not like he did it all alone, because you don't have a Gecko as part of your crew and not utilize him. When it comes to the heists, themselves, he tends toward the role of crowd control. And he's good at it, keeping people as calm and they could be in such a situation, so no one tries to be the hero and get themselves hurt or killed. He's a thief, not a killer, thank you.

Flaws: Seth exists on the wrong side of the law. He was born into a life of crime and it seems that it didn't really occur to him to do anything else. He's a thief. He escaped from prison. Along with his brother, he's a very wanted man. Even more so ever since Richie started killing people. But Seth won't leave him. He's loyal to family to a fault. He's willing to look beyond the horrible things that Richard is doing, simply because he believes it's not Richie, that Richie can get past this. He's willing to do just about anything for his brother, which isn't necessarily a good thing, as it does lead to kidnapping the Fuller family and forcing them to help get the Geckos to Mexico.

Despite his love for his brother and his loyalty to family, once Richie is turned into a culebra, Seth turns on him. Just like when he finds out that Ray's death was on accident, like he thought since he was a kid, that it was caused by Richie. It doesn't matter that Richie did it to stop the abuse, to actually save Seth from further physical and emotional beat downs. Ray abused them, but Richie killed him and that was just a step too far. Basically, Seth can be a hypocrite.

But as far as when Richie was turned goes, Seth decided they were no longer brothers (months later, he even says as much to Uncle Eddie, that Richie is no longer family). He's one of the monster who spent the whole night either toying with him, using him for their own purposes, or trying to rip him apart. When it comes time for him to leave the Twister, whereas at one point the Geckos couldn't be separated, Seth leaves Richie behind. He didn't leave his brother behind, after all. He left a monster behind.

He becomes careless (his car was stolen and he was nearly caught robbing a cheque cashing place. Compared to bank heists, that place should have been a simple in and out) and paranoid. He suspects almost anyone with any sort of interest in him or Kate of being a culebra and is prone to being vaguely or even outright hostile toward them. He's also taken on a sort of defeatist attitude toward certain things, like Kate's personal quest to save her brother. It's not worth it. Everyone she ever loved in dead, including her brother. Even if he's not dead, he's dead.

Seth has also developed a dependency on heroin and, to a less extent, alcohol. It helps him to cope with his strange, new reality. The one where monsters are real and his brother was taken from him by those mosnters.

SAMPLES
Action Log Sample: One of Seth's 4th wall threads!